Kerbal Space Program 2: Master Post

[dave1904]

I don't know if it was asked or answered but will axial tilt be a thing in ksp2? 

[GoldForest]

Just now, dave1904 said:

I don't know if it was asked or answered but will axial tilt be a thing in ksp2? 

We don't know. 

[Quoniam Kerman]

9 hours ago, tater said:

?

 

Sorry, had added "terrain" word at the wrong place.  

Terrain features colliders can be activated in the game options so you don't necessarily go through rocks and trees. As for Breaking Ground DLC terrain features, there must be some colliders in those since I I saw kerbals jumping into cryo volcanos and so on. They even need colliders for the scanning arm to work properly since it has a drill and laser chams.

[dave1904]

2 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

We don't know. 

That's why I'm asking. I know I don't know. 

[GoldForest]

Just now, dave1904 said:

That's why I'm asking. I know I don't know. 

I mean they haven't answered. In fact, they seem to be tight lipped about everything, as usual. We'll have to wait for the KSP Loading releases to learn anything. 

 

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, mystik said:

60 USD for a rehashed version of KSP? That's the price of AAA games. This is definitely not it.

That's fair. I disagree with you but if a new KSP version is not worth that to you then it seems the correct course of action for you to not buy it.

[KerikBalm]

So the kerbal system remains broadly the same? at least the bodies will look similar from orbit (ideally with much better detail up close)? The "new" bodies would be reachable by interstellar travel? 

I'm really really really hoping that there's going to be something to get around the very poor performance when part count goes up (improved multithreading? something like the part welding mods? some other optimization method?)

I guess the Dev story trailer with its pre-alpha screenshots are most representative of the details we can expect (not the pre-rendered trailer cutscenes)

[GoldForest]

Just now, KerikBalm said:

So the kerbal system remains broadly the same? at least the bodies will look similar from orbit (ideally with much better detail up close)? The "new" bodies would be reachable by interstellar travel? 

I'm really really really hoping that there's going to be something to get around the very poor performance when part count goes up (improved multithreading? something like the part welding mods? some other optimization method?)

I guess the Dev story trailer with its pre-alpha screenshots are most representative of the details we can expect (not the pre-rendered trailer cutscenes)

Well, they're using unity. Which can handle a lot. It's the Graphics API we should all be worried about. 

I hope Star Theory is using DX11/12/11+12 or at least Vulken, and not DX9 which isn't even supported by Mircosoft anymore iirc. 

[KerikBalm]

So watching the dev blog, if the advisor was being asked about a methane lake existing at X distance from a star, that probably means that they're considering something like a titan analogue/ lakes that aren't water

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, KerikBalm said:

So watching the dev blog, if the advisor was being asked about a methane lake existing at X distance from a star, that probably means that they're considering something like a titan analogue/ lakes that aren't water

My first thought when I heard them talk about methane lake was resource gathering for new engines, kind of like Space X's Raptor engine.  Then I got a thought of maybe they're adding a survival mode where we need oxygen, water, food, pods for waste, etc. 

[jrodriguez]

22 minutes ago, madindehead said:

That's a very cynical way of looking at it. It is part of Take-Two, but that doesn't mean that Private Division will force Star Theory to make KSP2 an Epic Store exclusive. KSP2 and Outer Worlds have different target markets and therefore need different release strategies. Whatever people may think about Take-Two/Private Division, they will know and understand that alienating the KSP community will be the death of KSP2. Also: stop kidding yourselves here. If KSP2 is an Epic store exclusive for 6 months or a year, you will end up buying it when you see how amazing (I'm sure it will be!) it is. Don't be a dick and punish Star Theory/Squad for could ultimately be a publisher decision. 

To the people going "OMG why is it still on Unity lolz failz" etc - go apply that logic to the Unreal Engine. It's a constantly evolving engine so don't judge it based on current KSP and Unity. Like others have said - no one expected KSP to become as big as it has. Most of the performance issues (at least the ones I experience) stem from having a lot of mods, lots of parts in craft and having lots of those craft active in various orbits and doing lots of things. Since KSP2 is a rebuild from the ground up, they probably at least considered other engines and decided that Unity was still the best engine for the game. There is a better awareness of the type of mods that the community will add - that also helps to optimise the game. 

All of that aside, I am super hyped for this  I didn't expect this to happen at all! It sounds amazing, the trailer and dev videos look great and I'm glad that KSP (or KSP1 as we call it now?) will still be supported. 

I mean...that's a screenshot from an early alpha version of the game - most likely. Bit too early to say "It will NOT have clouds" like you've just said 

 

Just answering to the Unity thing. As a modder and software developer, it is not only good but also necessary to do KSP 2 using Unity.

If they want to release KSP 2 in one year they are going to need to reuse a lot of things from KSP 1. Specially, models , animations, shaders, etc.

They will spent a lot of time looking at the current KSP 1 code to port, reverse engineer and refactor. 

And last but least, it will make porting mods "doable" ! Whether If you go to Unreal Engine....sorry but I believe instead of doable it will be  extreme difficult or even impossible to redo a mod like BDArmory.

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by jrodriguez

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, jrodriguez said:

Just answering to the Unity thing. As a modder and software developer, it is not only good but also necessary to do KSP 2 using Unity.

If they want to release KSP 2 in one year they are going to need to reuse a lot of things from KSP 1. Specially, models , animations, shaders, etc.

They will spent a lot of time looking at the current KSP 1 code to port, reverse engineer and refactor. 

And last but least, it will make porting mods "doable" ! Whether If you go to Unreal Engine....sorry but I believe instead of doable it will be from extreme difficult to impossible to redo a mod like BDArmory.

 

Well, we don't know how long they've been making the game. And they have said they rebuilt KSP from the ground up. So I doubt they're using old assets. 

[madindehead]

5 minutes ago, jrodriguez said:

Just answering to the Unity thing. As a modder and software developer, it is not only good but also necessary to do KSP 2 using Unity.

If they want to release KSP 2 in one year they are going to need to reuse a lot of things from KSP 1. Specially, models , animations, shaders, etc.

They will spent a lot of time looking at the current KSP 1 code to port, reverse engineer and refactor. 

And last but least, it will make porting mods "doable" ! Whether If you go to Unreal Engine....sorry but I believe instead of doable it will be  extreme difficult or even impossible to redo a mod like BDArmory.

 

That is definitely a huge factor yes! I'm glad it comes from someone who is involved in developing mods because I cannot code or mod to save myself  but I do use a lot of mods and I appreciate what modders do for the game. If the support for modding wasn't there then the community and the game would definitely be worse off. 

[dave1904]

2 hours ago, mystik said:

They're not? Then why are they promoting a competing game development studio? You think Squad isn't raking in the cash for the sale of the idea to another studio?

It's so lazy too. Using the same boring ass Unity engine. Wanna bet that the same developers will be working on KSP2? Because I think if that was not the case you'd have some proper developers working on something more modern, like Unreal, which seems that is something even amateur developers can work with but not the developers of KSP, no matter which studio it is. There are some gems made in Unreal engine. But KSP remains to the old and outdated Unity.

You know what, I broke my promise and replied again, I promise to be the last one here because I really don't like the new KSP idea at 60 USD after paying that amount already on the original game and DLC only to be asked the same price just for the initial game, not counting the future releases of DLC. No thank you, either offer proper discounts for veterans or it's sailing the high seas for this one as far as I'm concerned. So the devs have to decide whether they want to make some money or no money from my side. I'm willing to pay for my games, but I'm not willing to be insulted or taken for a fool that can't tell the difference between a deal and ripoff.

Can you explain to me in detail why unreal would be better for KSP than unity? I'm curious. If amateurs can do it you should get started right away and make some competition for KSP.  So far there is none and competition is always great. 

[madindehead]

2 hours ago, mystik said:

They're not? Then why are they promoting a competing game development studio? You think Squad isn't raking in the cash for the sale of the idea to another studio?

It's so lazy too. . Wanna bet that the same developers will be working on KSP2? Because I think if that was not the case you'd have some proper developers working on something more modern, like Unreal, which seems that is something even amateur developers can work with but not the developers of KSP, no matter which studio it is. There are some gems made in Unreal engine. But KSP remains to the old and outdated Unity.

You know what, I broke my promise and replied again, I promise to be the last one here because I really don't like the new KSP idea at 60 USD after paying that amount already on the original game and DLC only to be asked the same price just for the initial game, not counting the future releases of DLC. No thank you, either offer proper discounts for veterans or it's sailing the high seas for this one as far as I'm concerned. So the devs have to decide whether they want to make some money or no money from my side. I'm willing to pay for my games, but I'm not willing to be insulted or taken for a fool that can't tell the difference between a deal and ripoff.

Do you know anything about the Unity engine? Or do you just think it's a bad engine because the performance of current KSP with a lot of mods isn't where you think it should be? "There are some gems made in Unreal engine. But KSP remains to the old and outdated Unity." Have you looked at the list of games made in the Unity engine? Let me help you out: https://unity3d.com/games-made-with-unity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unity_games It's not an old engine 

"Using the same boring ass Unity engine" - why is it boring? I'd love to hear your reasons. 

About the price: You think game development is cheap? Developers need to be paid for their time you know. Yes - a lot of people working in game development do it because they love it. But just their passion for the game doesn't pay the bills. Why is $60 such an unreasonable amount of money? Some people spend that on a single day/night out!

 

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by madindehead

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, madindehead said:

Do you know anything about the Unity engine? Or do you just think it's a bad engine because the performance of current KSP with a lot of mods isn't where you think it should be? 

"Using the same boring ass Unity engine" - why is it boring? I'd love to hear your reasons. 

I think people forget what amazing stuff you can do with Unity. Just look at the Unity project movie. 

As for performance, I've seen games squeeze a lot of performance out of Unity, but I think it comes down to the graphics API. DX9 is old and doesn't really do well on older machines without some work arounds. DX11 or 12, or even the new DX11 with 12 upgrades would boost performance greatly. Heck, even Vulken would be a massive upgrade. 

[Noir]

35 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Also, 2K? Wrong company. 2K is EA's company.  Squad is owned by PD who are Take-Two.

Miss type. A few to many many twos to keep count of. Both have had similar issues in the past.

[T-Bouw]

Wow, this good news totally blindsided me! And I didn't hear any rumors about it too.

I'm excited about this new version, but I'm also curious as to the PC requirements.

[Just Jim]

9 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

...so you're saying you had to sign NDAs?

I'm sorry... any information about signing NDA's is also NDA... lmao....

8 hours ago, Lo Var Lachland said:

@Just Jim

Does this mean that the sequel to Emiko Station will be in KSP 2?

IDK... I honestly haven't thought that far ahead... maybe???

Edited August 20, 2019 by Just Jim

[JAFO]

3 hours ago, mystik said:

60 USD for a rehashed version of KSP? That's the price of AAA games.

Been a long time since you bought a AAA game, hasn't it? Try doubling that price.. that's a AAA price.  $60 is just the price for a good game.

1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

They said sometime in 2020, so I can only assume they have 3 launch dates to shoot for. 
The original release date of KSP: June 11th.
The summer time release date for games: April something or May something (When kids are getting out of school)
Or the holiday release date: November something.

No.. they've said "spring 2020" meaning Northern Hemisphere spring, of course..

https://www.pcgamer.com/kerbal-space-program-2-interview/

[GoldForest]

12 minutes ago, JAFO said:

Been a long time since you bought a AAA game, hasn't it? Try doubling that price.. that's a AAA price.  $60 is just the price for a good game.

No.. they've said "spring 2020" meaning Northern Hemisphere spring, of course..

https://www.pcgamer.com/kerbal-space-program-2-interview/

So April or May, which are spring, don't know why I said summer. 

Edited August 20, 2019 by GoldForest

[Wolframmington]

I've played KSP on and off since 13, and it's one of my favorite games, even though I'm utter excrements at it. I'm so excited for the sequel I don't even know what to do with myself. Cruel to release the announcement so far in advance;_;

[JAFO]

9 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

So April or May, which are spring, don't know why I said summer. 

Well, technically, March is also in springtime..

[madindehead]

1 hour ago, Noir said:

I know this community hates anybody who doesn’t follow the hype train blindly, but when I first saw the announcement, I honestly thought it an out of season April fool’s joke. Because that’s what KSP2 has always been.

1 hour ago, Noir said:

And the blind hype for it is terrifying.

Welcome to any game/film/product launch in 2019. People will hype it. You need to remove yourself from it.

1 hour ago, Noir said:

It just looks horrible.

What about it looks horrible? Curious to see why you think it "looks horrible" beyond an initial reaction.

1 hour ago, Noir said:

I know they have said the Current-Squad is still working on KSP1. In many ways I don’t consider KSP to be out of Beta yet. To some extent I wouldn’t be surprised to see the release of 1.9 just before KSP2's release, which would be a great thing if it helps wrap the game up into a true “1.0”. With that said, I fully expect Take Two to squeeze another thoughtless DLC out of KSP1 right before KSP2’s release.

I know people love to bash on publishers and think that they are the devils whilst game developers are angels, but often it's the developers who decide on DLC release. There's a balance between releasing everything for free (community loves you) vs releasing paid DLC (some people hate it, but developers need to be paid too!).

1 hour ago, Noir said:

Over those 7 years I’ve been waiting for the performance to get better. And it hasn’t. If anything, it’s become worse. I know there is only so much Current-Squad can do with 7-year-old code. You can’t fully expect them to rebuild the game from the ground up for free. At least, you can’t expect Take Two to let them. KSP2 may have significantly better performance. And good performance is a basic feature of every game. But to finally have this basic expectation met, I am expected to hand over $80-100AUD.

There comes a point when developers know they need to rebuild a game to add additional features and improve performance. There's only so long you can keep adding updates to something old before it does start to break itself. And again, this isn't just Take-Two/Private Division going "we need a game from you". As for the price: Are we still making a big deal out of the cost of games? Yes, I get it, it's not fun paying $80-100AUD - probably around £60 for me - on a new game. But games cost a lot of money to make. Compared to other forms of entertainment it can work it pretty cheap. Your initial $26AUD investment in KSP has given you 1600+ hours of entertainment - at a price per hour of $0.01625AUD. Try getting that somewhere else! Plus, we know it's a 2020 release so there's time to save up. 

1 hour ago, Noir said:

This isn’t helped with the lack of gameplay shown. I’m sure more details, including gameplay, will come soon.

It's an alpha game, come on. Even the dev video had big "alpha" tags in it. Give it time. 

1 hour ago, Noir said:

But where things stand currently, beyond performance, there is nothing persuading me to buy the game. I’m not asking for a discount or anything. Besides, the hype train would get mad if I did. It would be nice if they did try to persuade me though. But I have no idea what they are offering for $80-100AUD.

I would hope that performance is one of the reasons for the rebuild. If the base game of KSP2 is current KSP (maybe even without DLC) but with more possibilities for system expansion, better modding capabilities and improved performance, I think that alone is a driver to buy it? No? 

Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion on the matter. You seem to be quite negative about it, others seem very hyped for it. I try and refrain from getting overly hyped about a game before it comes out, but this looks promising. No one expected KSP to be as popular as it is now, with all of the features that the community had added via mods or requested. That is one source of the performance issues - adding stuff will make it worse. 

Overall, it's a wait and see. Star Theory, Squad and Private Division will understand (yes they really will) what makes this game so popular and what people want and don't want to see. They won't make money if they ruin it - especially not with a game that relies to heavily on its community for modding and continuous improvements. Have some faith that they won't ruin it. And buy it when it comes out if the reviews are good. 

[GoldForest]

4 minutes ago, Wolframmington said:

I've played KSP on and off since 13, and it's one of my favorite games, even though I'm utter excrements at it. I'm so excited for the sequel I don't even know what to do with myself. Cruel to release the announcement so far in advance;_;

Squad has been getting into the habit of telling people later and later. I think it's to combat all the requests for information, as when they announce something, nowadays they usually give out information within a week or two which calms people down. 

Just now, JAFO said:

Well, technically, March is also in springtime..

Mmmm, March isn't a good time to release in 2020. 
Final Fantasy VII remake
Watch Dogs 3
and Animal crossing all release in March. 

I'd say go for April or May. Probably May, that way you only have to combat with Marvel's Avenger game. Cyberpunk 2077 is release in April, might be tough releasing along side that one.