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I am considering buying Kerbal Space Program 2, but I already have the first game. Should I get the second for 50$? I heard they changed some mechanics that the community didn't like and the reviews are very mixed about it on Steam. Should I get it? Is it worth the money?

Is there going to be an option to buy a "family pack" (pack of 4 or another number of game downloads) for the game? I have two other family members who will want to play it with me when the multiplayer feature comes out. And on that note, how will multiplayer work regarding accounts? Will it use a private division account, a steam account, no account, a discord account or something else? @Nate Simpson @Intercept Games

So today i stumbled upon recent PC Gamer article about KSP 2. I recommend to watch the videos, reviewing this article, before reading this post(or you can check out transcript somewhere on this forum). Videos can be found on ShadowZone and Matt Lowne YT channels. https://www.pcgamer.com/space-odyssey-our-first-big-look-at-kerbal-space-program-2/ I'm not gonna talk about the whole article, but rather about the part, that states, that KSP 2 will have what is called "Adventure Mode". From my understanding of this article, there is planned to be no funds/contract system in the game, because dev team considers, that it was too grindy in the original game. I disagree with this position. In fact the Career Mode is my favorite game mode for a very long time now. The only time i'm not playing it, is when i feel an urge to tinker and have fun with airplanes in sandbox, which is one of my hobbies (BTW this is why i really expect KSP 2 to improve in this area as well, but that's the story for another time), but when it comes to playing a campaign of my own Space Program - Career Mode is my only choice. I've never been an active user on this forum, or on any forum tbh, but the threat of not having this, EXTREMELY important feature, in the sequel, made me sit and write this post anyway. I really hope, that sharing my thoughts here, will make players give it a seconds chance and KSP 2 devs reconsider their position about adding it to the game, because it really deserves it. And here is why. Firstly let's talk about why the Career Mode was called "too grindy" in the first place. The contract system in the original game pretty much consist of the list of the simple objectives and rewards with some RNG integrated, and feels like it was done in a hurry by someone, who had little idea about how to realize the feature in the first place and took completely wrong approach. As a result of that most of the contracts were about pressing certain button at certain speed/altitude for a minor payout. I'm not arguing, with the fact, that it was indeed very boring. It was. But it is important to note, that is an issue NOT with career mode itself, but rather with the way contracts were implemented, so it shouldn't be used as a reason to not include the career mode into the sequel. The thing that is also worth noting, is that a lot of people, who've tried career mode, abandoned it almost instantly, without investigating the game mode further. Because of that they've had no chance of understanding good and important concepts, that this mode introduced to the game, so the community opinion about career mode being garbage was born. But i am not one of those people. I am one of the few, that gave the Career Mode a chance to prove itself. And spoiler alert - i wasn't disappointed. The importance of the "Funds" concept. KSP is a game about building rockets from parts and launching them into space. Some parts are better, some are worse, and some might come in handy in a specific situation, while being completely useless in the other. A good half of the fun in this game comes from designing a unique vessel, that serves specific purpose and taking some trade-offs in the process. In the game like this, it is VERY important to keep the parts balanced, otherwise your're gonna end up with a same design being an answer to every question, which is obviously not good and will for a fact make the game boring. There is of course a lot of ways to balance parts, such as mass and size for all parts, and some unique parameters for a certain part category, like range and throughput for antennas, lift and drag coefficients for wing parts and thrust and ISP for engines, when sometimes you sacrifice some thrust, in order to squeeze more dV out of your vessel, that is to reaching your destination destination, and other times you don't get a luxury of having good ISP, because you need a lot of thrust to push your massive 1000t craft out of the atmosphere. And in Career Mode there is also a cost. Why is it so important you might ask? Answer is going to be complicated. Let's talk about RTG's. RTG's are great! They have almost no mass, they take almost no space and they generate electricity absolutely for free, regardless of any conditions. The only downside of them is the fact, that they generate electricity at really low speed, which can be countered with just using more of them. You can see where i'm going with this. Why would i ever use solar panels and huge batteries(not even mentioning the fuel cells), when i have RTG's unlocked? If i'm playing Science or Sandbox i can just put 20 RTG's on my craft without any trade-offs and completely forget about the electricity as a game concept. Not good. But in career mode i have a clear reason to not do so - COST. For the same money, it costs to put 2 RTG's on my vessel i can launch a rocket to the Mun that will land there and return safely to Kerbin with crew onboard. A bit more ridiculous example: Why wouldn't you use a Daedalus engine to propel your 500kg probe into the LKO? Same answer. COST. And that is where the Career mode absolutely shines. Not only it introduces a necessary balancing factor into the game, that prevents player from thoughtlessly spamming parts, that are OP in other game modes, but on top of that it also FUNDAMENTALLY changes the way you approach designing your spaceship, by introducing unique trade-offs, that are present in no other game mode. For example: * You want to launch a communication satellite to the LKO. Which command probe will you chose? Sandbox/Science: "The best one obviously!" Career: "Well since it is a just communication sat, that is not indented to dock with anything, intercept something or land at specific location there is no point in having expensive SAS so i might just use the cheap one and save some money for future missions." * You want to launch a communication satellite to the LKO. Which engines will you chose for the rocket? Sandbox: "Vectors." Science: "Look at that new and shiny Mainsail i just unlocked!" Career: "It's only LKO i'm going to and my payload is not that big. I might easily get away with Swivel." * You want to launch science mission to the Mun's surface. Where will you put science equipment? Sandbox: "What's science?" Science: "Descend stage obviously. I can just take all the data from them and not take extra weight back with me." Career: "Damn these GRAVMAX and Double-C Seismic Accelerometer are so expensive! I think it's worth trying to recover them! Let's see...I can try snapping all the science on top of the crew module right near the parachute and hope, that it won't overhear on reentry... OR... I can put my science module in the service bay between the heat shield and crew module! But is it really worth paying extra for the service bay? Hmm..." The Career Mode adds new and, most importantly, interesting challenges(or puzzles how the Devs are calling them) of getting to space, in the game that is ALL ABOUT the challenge of getting to space. I don't know about you guys, but for me it is VERY exciting and makes me enjoy the game SO MUCH MORE. But wait! There is more! Have you ever heard about the guy called Elon Musk? He once said “Six million dollars is falling through the sky. Would we try to catch it?” Well would we? No. Because guess what! There is no such thing as "dollars" in the game! You might still do it for fun or challenge, but the whole concept of making reusable rockets or even SSTO's becomes pretty much pointless! In conclusion: Pros of Career Mode: * Balance for the expensive late-game parts * More challenges for the player * Encouragement for a player to reuse rockets Cons of Career Mode: * Was too grindy in the original game (which, as i explained earlier, is not even an issue with Career Mode itself) I think it is clear now, that Career Mode brings so much to the gameplay. It makes the game even more in-depth and realistic (you have to remember, that rocket science IRL is not just about getting to space, but rather getting to space with the cheapest and easiest way possible, which is often forgotten by KSP community), it introduces A LOT of new opportunities and challenges to the player, that NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and every other rocket company IRL faces and has to deal with. And i not just absolutely love that. For me it is ESSENTIAL in the game like KSP. And taking all this good stuff out of the game, just because original game had not enough good ways to farm the money? It's just unacceptable in my opinion. So we have an essential, for this game, mechanics - money and a fact of grinding said money was boring in the original game. What do we do in the sequel? I would answer - instead of removing money from the sequel entirely, it is better to rethink the way player earns this money. And i have some ideas on how to do so, that i'd like to share. * Not all contracts in the original game were boring. Most of them yes, but not all of them. Tourism for example. Riding couple VIPs to the Mun and back is nowhere near a bad gameplay. It had it's issues of its own, like the required destinations would be a complete mess (for example land on Minmus+complete suborbital flight on dune on the same flight, which complicates the mission by a lot) if you visited a lot of celestial bodies, but that could be manipulated by the player. My strategy about it was: if you land on the Mun to unlock Mun contracts, but then won't go to Minmus or any other place, so the game gives you contracts, associated with only Kerbin (suborbital+orbit) and Mun(fly by+orbit+suborbital+land), and all of these objectives could be completed within nice and simple Mun landing mission. If you want to learn more about this method of farming you can check out thingy in the Steam Workshop, that i've posted a while ago. TL;DR: rocket with 16 VIP seats could make profit over 2 millions per flight if you get lucky with contracts. Again for a relatively simple Mun landing mission that will take 30-60 minutes that is not "too grindy" at all. My suggestion here - leave VIP contracts in the game, but limit the objectives in the way, so there will be one single destination for the whole contract, that is shared by all the VIPs in it. And maybe some multiplier for flying a lot of VIPs at the same time (single VIP - 50k, x2 - 55k each, x3 - 60k each and etc.), to reward player for taking time and effort in designing big and capacious spaceships. * Another example of good contracts are Rescue contracts. You get free Kerbal in your Space Program(just a reminder that in Career Mode you have to purchase Kerbonauts for those who haven't played it) and you also get paid for it on top of that. Pretty good stuff. * Contracts for putting 3rd party satellites on the required orbit are welcome as well. Also in my opinion it would be better if the game had some pre-build sub-assemblies instead of telling player to build the satellite himself(ex. "Hey here is my satellite. Put it in LKO with 350km apogee, 400km perigee and 10deg inclination." Player accepts the contract and gets a sub-assembly of this satellite and only required to send it to the desired orbit) * Contracts for resupplying satellites/space stations. Player accepts the contract, pre-made craft spawns in orbit, and player has to dock with it and transfer certain amount of resource to complete the contract. * Pretty much advanced and combined previous 2. Client gives contract to get sub-assembly to orbit, some time after player completes it the same client gives another contract to send new sub-assembly to the old one and dock them together. Repeat until the whole space station will be finished. Some time time after that player will start to get resupply contracts from same client. All these contracts will NOT be "boring" just by their nature, but can become boring IF the pay is bad, so the player has to focus on them too much. On the other hand, if player would get paid well for completing them, they WILL be VERY much welcome in the game. I would happily complete as many of them as needed, to fund my Space Program, considering again, that the paycheck is reasonable. * Concept of funding researches with money would never hurt * Idea of KSP 2 is to explore new horizons and find a new home for Kerbal kind. But that's a long term goal. To achieve that goal player has to get through a number of simpler objectives. And that Way could be similar to something like this, if the Career Mode will make it to the sequel: All starts with a cheap prototype rocket launch, continues with couple of commercial satellites being put in orbit and some tourists being send suborbital, to fund the research and construction of new and better rockets. With new tech comes the Mun landing, that unlocks Mun tourism and funds more research. After that player starts thinking about building colonies, to expand his reach, so the great exploration begins. From Duna to Eve, to Jool and Laythe and anywhere within the Kerbol System, until the Great Interstellar Ship has been constructed, while ALL of that being funded by commercial flights i described above. Colonies start to become independent and will use on-the-spot resources to build rockets. So at this point the money will start to lose its value for exploration and after Kerbals arrive to new star system they will have no use for it there at all. All that of course while on Kerbin player can still continue to expand the commercial side of his Space Program. And one more important thing to note here, that the "Cost" concept should still be present for colonies, that mine resources, in order to build a rocket. This can be implemented through a lot of multiple ways, i'm sure everyone can think of one. Here is the first thing, that came to my mind first(don't take this one too seriously): * Add to the game basic resources like Copper and Iron, that will be good for most of the stuff and can be found almost everywhere and some rare ones, like Uranium or Titanium, that will be required for high-tech stuff. Each part in the game will it's cost in the resources. When player attempts to launch build a craft in the colony game calculates total cost of the craft in resources and checks, if the colony has enough of these resources in its storage. Simple. Should work perfectly. This process can also be complicated by adding more different resources/making some resources to not be mineable directly, but rather craftable from other resources (like plastic from oil, or microschemes from copper and iron, etc.)(Factorio vibes yes ). This "cost in resources" thingy can also be applied to Kerbin, so that instead of paying for the rocket directly, player will pay for the resources, necessary for the rocket. * The thing above can easily be a limiting factor for why player can't build a Daedalus engine on Kerbin. It would simply cost to much. So instead of buying it player will be forced to go and get resources, necessary to construct it. * And if that seems too complicated it is still a solution to make VAB's on colonies require funds for rockets, just like the VAB on Kerbin, in order to simplify things. (although i'm not a fan of this approach) * Also great addition to this would be an ability to disassemble landed vessels into resources, for the sake of reusability. I've been typing this for couple hours already, so i'm tired and starting to lose track of my thoughts. This is it for now, but i might add something later. In the end i want to say: Fellow Kerbals, give another chance to the Career Mode. It really deserves it. And, of course, please help me with spreading this word to the devs. KSP 2 devs, i hope that this post makes you re-think your position about Career Mode in KSP 2 and helps you make the sequel as good as possible! And of course feel free to share any ideas on this topic! -------------------------------------------------------------------- EDIT 25.06.2020 A new video on KSP YT channel came out(link) I want to draw your attention on a short glimpse of VAB UI at 4:28. As you can see Protective Rocket Nose Cone Mk7 has a cost of 111 Ore and 11.1 Uranium, which confirms that "cost in resources" i suggested earlier is in fact implemented in KSP 2. Now i can live in peace. Huge thanks to devs! <3

If anyone playing Career mode has ever gone bankrupt - or even gotten close to it - feel free to share your stories. If you haven't and still want to post on this thread, when did you spend a good chunk of your space program's money within (let's say) a 24-real-world-hour period? DISCLAIMER: This thread does not apply to Sandbox or Science mode players, since money isn't an issue. I'll start us off here. I had just made a 20-person docking-capable self-refueling SSTO, but the downside was that it could not land safely at some places due to a poor TWR there. Since I planned to use this as the new standard tourist transport craft, I had to launch ore transports and more landers so that I could complete landing contracts and refuel the plane in orbit without worrying about crashing on the surface due to poor thrust. I soon sent several spacecraft to multiple locations in preparation for this new change; I also had to send a space station to Eve to complete a contract. Here are the expenses I incurred that day EXPENSES Quantity Item Destination Price Total 1 Hera-class Space Station Eve Orbit 1111771.0 1111771.0 1 (STANDBY) Gilly Lander Gilly 157399.4 157399.4 1 35-person Surface Outpost Ike 747688.3 747688.3 1 19-person Self-mining Lander Vall (SB) 639425.0 639425.0 2 Station Expansion Module Duna Orbit Gilly Orbit 235702.2 471404.4 4 Mass Ore Transport Ike Vall Dres Eeloo (SB) 552223.0 2208892.0 2 Mass Ore Transport (LITE) Mun Minmus 255799.0 511598.0 TOTAL Items Price 12 5,848,178.1 Expenses calculated with Excel Some of the items in the picture are not mentioned in the expenses chart, since they were standing by for their exit burns for weeks IRL. I also have some of the items in the expenses chart on standby (and two on the Mun and Minmus), so they won't show up on this picture. What about you?

I finally got around to playing in Career mode, with USI life support (not colonization) and having to purchase parts to unlock them. The thing is, I have enough money that I can ignore it when building crafts, but not enough so the building upgrades are a concern. I could decrease the cash multiplier but that would make the building upgrades too much of a grind. Overall, I feel money needs rebalancing. So here is my suggestion: Make the cost of building ships (and unlocking parts in my case) be more similar to building upgrades, so either raise the part costs or lower the building costs Or, add in more cash drains, like say, a monthly upkeep, or having to hire more mission teams to fly more missions at the same time.

Hey guys, I've been playing for a couple months now (stock 1.3, no mods), and lately I have decided to tackle the hard mode (or at least the beginning thereof)... Obviously, the biggest issue with this mode (default difficulty settings) lays in the "200% fundings" modifier that makes buildings evolution extremely costly, when you get just 60% of the rewards from your contracts. I got quite inspired by Virgin Galactic and spaceX plans to fly lay people to space for a few (million) bucks, and decided to try and milk the VIP/Tourists suborbital contract till I get enough to upgrade a few buildings (Mission control, VAB, tracking station and launchpad). Interestingly enough it turned quite well and our witty engineers came up with a design that allows me to get 40,000 every 2 minutes (from launchpad to recovery), with minimal intervention (only the first 30 seconds of the 2 minutes, almost a fire & forget! ). Introducing... the Vomit Comet (ta-daaaablurglupblooaaarg!) Basically, all you need is: - To enable physics warp *4 if not already done (allows you to complete the mission in under 2 minutes by warping to *4 just after launching) - Do the 2 first contracts and get enough science and money for the parts and to upgrade the mission control - Take but DO NOT DO THE ORBIT MISSION - Then just build the rocket and get all dem juicy suborbital contracts!!! (just warp to next day if you don't have any left; they will respawn as long as the first orbit hasn't been achieved) Now ,for the fun part: - Get your most stupid pilot in the ship (only takes him activating 2 stages) - Slam 4 tourists in the caske - the first class - Go to the launchpad, max throttle, sas on.... - Launch and immediately warp to *4 DO NOT TOUCH THE CONTROLS - After less than 30 seconds, your SRB should run out of fuel; activate the 2nd stage (sometimes results in a magnificent SRB explosion) - Go do some stuff for 1:30 min, or get all sweaty seeing the Vomit Rocket getting on a lithobraking trajectory - Recover - ??? - Profit! (40k funds and quite some rep) - repeat Once you get used to it, you should be able to milk 10k a minute, including the time spent to check contracts and warp to the next day... The trick of this design is to return the whole second stage, the first stage being only a SRB and a decoupler ... Allows for a 4.5k refund on the < 6k spent on the rocket; more than 75% refund! (can't get closer to an SSTO). But wait there's more to it! The swivel engine balances the rocket and acts as a heatshield during aerobraking, allowing for a nearly automated functionning (launch and press space for stage 2). Almost SSTO, almost automated, high fundings return for a smooth ealy hard game... Enjoy guys! (and feel free to comment and post better designs) -- Zorz

I watched a great movie called MOON (which i heartly recomend you) So the mission is simple : You build your moon base and find the very good place to mine ore. you're supposed to collect ore with a rover (How?-Just use MechJeb set up coordinates and let youre rover(s) move .when finally obtain a 9 large cannisters of ore the real challenge begins!You're supposed to take all of the ore and return it back to kerbin but not converted.Dont use cheats but youre still alowed to use mods instead. If you manage to obtain more ore and make video /footage of it send it somewhere...i dont know ...just leave a link to your mission And i will appreciate that (meme intended)