Blocker features in KSP2 -- what would stop you from playing it?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:

There isn't much that will keep me from buying KSP2, but if you have to right click a part and click some variation of "do the science with this part" I will be VERY unhappy. If you have to manually trigger science at all I'll be fairly unhappy.

I missed my first Eeloo flyby because I was too busy clicking on parts. Please don't make anybody else go through that.

Nobody needs to go through that, unless they've already occupied all 10 action groups with other things, which is honestly very unlikely on a flyby probe.

Edited August 31, 2019 by Guest

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, Master39 said:

That exactly what I was thinking about, it seems to be the "you have to set up a extremely well developed colony to produce the thing here" kind of engine.

Yes, however you saw they launched an orion from the Mun, that is an pretty hard craft to build, some order of magnitudes harder than starship.
You need to build an large numbers of nuclear bombs for one. 
You might need an colony the size of an small town rater than an base to do this. 
perfectly you have tires: 1 isru at least for common fuels, 2 food production,  your life system is closed and you can export food to ships and smaller colonies. 
3 you can build stuff to expand you colonies. 4 you can build ships. 
3 and 4 might have sub tires like you can build habitats, tanks and greenhouses but not isru or labs. 
and you can not build all ship parts, say not probe cores, nuclear engines or science stuff. 

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Yes, however you saw they launched an orion from the Mun, that is an pretty hard craft to build, some order of magnitudes harder than starship.
You need to build an large numbers of nuclear bombs for one. 
You might need an colony the size of an small town rater than an base to do this. 
perfectly you have tires: 1 isru at least for common fuels, 2 food production,  your life system is closed and you can export food to ships and smaller colonies. 
3 you can build stuff to expand you colonies. 4 you can build ships. 
3 and 4 might have sub tires like you can build habitats, tanks and greenhouses but not isru or labs. 
and you can not build all ship parts, say not probe cores, nuclear engines or science stuff. 

I wouldn't read too much in that Orion taking off from Mun, probably it was just a way to show off the extraplanetary VAB and anyway we don't know how complex that base is anyway

[Francois424]

4 hours ago, Snark said:

Making it harder.  That would make the game more attractive to some, and less so to others.  Not everyone wants the same thing.

Case in point.  At PAX West, I went into the KSP2 presentation room, and got to sit and watch while ~20 people (for whom all this stuff was new) sat through and watched it.

At the beginning of the presentation, the guy with the mic asked everyone for a show of hands:

• "Who here has played KSP?"  ->  everyone
• "Who here has gotten to orbit?"  -> about 90% of everyone
• "Who's landed on the Mun?"  -> about 25% of everyone
• "Who's gone beyond the Mun to visit other planets?"  ->  one single hand out of ~20 people

So let's remember that different people want very different things-- and best not to be dismissive of what other folks want just because it's not the same as oneself. 

Beyond the Mün 1 out of 20?  Honestly ?  * Mindblown *
I guess I am the 5%... "Smithers, release the hounds !"

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Rocket Witch said:

Nobody needs to go through that, unless they've already occupied all 10 action groups with other things, which is honestly very unlikely on a flyby probe.

Thanks for reminding me. Action Groups (assuming either they're still in the game, or there is some analog to them in the game) should be editable in flight.

5 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Hey no offence but, you seem kinda lazy to not want these features, they would make the game immersive and a lot harder

No offense but, I don't want my video games to be less enjoyable than my job.

10 minutes ago, Francois424 said:

Beyond the Mün 1 out of 20?  Honestly ?  * Mindblown *
I guess I am the 5%... "Smithers, release the hounds !"

Yeah 1 out of 20 people who are SO INTO THE GAME THAT THEY WENT TO A PRESENTATION ABOUT ITS SEQUEL have not left what is basically the tutorial area.

That says more to me than any Steam stats. Which are generally even worse

[hieywiey]

9 hours ago, DStaal said:

Blocker features: Not being released to Mac.    There's probably some others, but that's the big one.

macOS and Linux support are the first item that comes to mind. Second would probably be if I can't run it, though that's really more of me not being able to play it, rather than not wanting to.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Master39 said:

I wouldn't read too much in that Orion taking off from Mun, probably it was just a way to show off the extraplanetary VAB and anyway we don't know how complex that base is anyway

Yes, it might be simply promo video, the LV-N first stage point to this, anybody sane would used something SRB or an high trust chemical engine. 
Still i doubth it will be too complex but probably layered as is indicated strongly  

[DStaal]

9 hours ago, Snark said:

I specifically asked at the interview about Mac and Linux support. The response was a carefully worded one, to the effect that "we want as many people as possible to be able to play the game, but beyond that it's no comment for now".  So it was encouraging but slightly noncommittal.  My read of that is that they likely strongly want Mac support but maybe they might have to delay that in some way depending on how their schedule works out, something like that.  TL;DR:  A valid area of concern, my guess is you'll be okay.

That's been my read since the initial announcement and FAQ replies.

[Atlessa]

I would probably get the game anyway, but I will be VERY sad if there won't be any planes/spaceplanes/SSTOs in KSP2.

[Xd the great]

31 minutes ago, Atlessa said:

I would probably get the game anyway, but I will be VERY sad if there won't be any planes/spaceplanes/SSTOs in KSP2.

There will be wings, and landing gears. There will also be orion drive for blowing up the KSC with your SSTO bomber.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Hey no offence but, you seem kinda lazy to not want these features, they would make the game immersive and a lot harder

I am, and I’m not offended.

I’m just not interested in playing a realistic space sim. It would be too frustrating and involve too much busywork. KSP as it is is just about perfect for me - it has some legit hard challenges in it if I want them (I’m pretty proud of my 100% recoverable crewed Tylo lander for example) but at the same time there’s a lot of room for creativity.

Moreover, because it’s so moddable, hardcore sim enthusiasts can get what they want too - just not in stock.

[Atlessa]

12 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

There will be wings, and landing gears. There will also be orion drive for blowing up the KSC with your SSTO bomber.

Oh I am in no way worried about this. I definitely recognized some Mk2 shape parts in the cinematic trailer, and I am confident they will be in the game.  But in the spirit of the thread's question, that is the first thing that sprang to mind.

[Scarecrow]

I'd be happy if they just fixed the floppy noodle rocket syndrome so that you don't have to worry about what or where your struts are attached to.

[Thomot512]

To be honest I think I'll buy it day one whatever happens, but I would be really disappointed if they did not improve the aerodynamic to a level near the one of Ferram Aerospace. The vanilla aerodynamic is extremely counter-intuitive. It would be a big bummer to have to wait for someone to create a mode for this when it clearly should be vanilla.

[Snark]

15 hours ago, Francois424 said:

Beyond the Mün 1 out of 20?  Honestly ?  * Mindblown *

Yes.  Really.  And only about 1/4 of them got as far as the Mun.

Here's an oldie-but-goodie thread that was a real eye-opener for me, a few years ago; worth a read:

Moral of the story:  When you're looking at some aspect of game design that seems "wrong" to you... always bear in mind that other players have very different needs and expectations.  Be careful about assuming that one's own experiences are "typical". 

6 hours ago, Scarecrow said:

I'd be happy if they just fixed the floppy noodle rocket syndrome so that you don't have to worry about what or where your struts are attached to.

It's clear that they want to enable very large ships with much larger part counts, so I'm assuming that they'll have some reasonable story around that.  Clearly, "structural strength" is still a thing that players have to address in some fashion, but I don't think it'll be too big a problem in general.

[KerikBalm]

17 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Yeah 1 out of 20 people who are SO INTO THE GAME THAT THEY WENT TO A PRESENTATION ABOUT ITS SEQUEL have not left what is basically the tutorial area.

This is just unfathomable to me, yet, it seems to be true.

Anyway, provided everything that can be done with mods in KSP 1 can be done in KSP 2, I anticipate no "blocker features".

Poor optimization may be a "blocker", but that's not a feature. A lack of a modding community would be another "blocker", but that's also not a feature.

Although I am highly skeptical of some of the direction that they seem to be going with tech and planets, I am hoping that KSP 2 provides an excellent platform, and mods will fix any deficiencies.

[Guest]

KSP as it is, is a very hard game. Nobody who's ever completed any interplanetary return mission qualifies as "casual" in any sense of the word.

It's just easy to forget just how hard it is once you're at the point where you can slap together an SSTO in about five minutes.

[magnemoe]

22 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

There isn't much that will keep me from buying KSP2, but if you have to right click a part and click some variation of "do the science with this part" I will be VERY unhappy. If you have to manually trigger science at all I'll be fairly unhappy.

I missed my first Eeloo flyby because I was too busy clicking on parts. Please don't make anybody else go through that.

Then you are in orbit you have all the time in the world doing science. 
But automating it an bit would make a lot of sense. 

Now if you don't plan to getting into orbit things can be a bit stressful. 

Gilly was worse as speed was higher and the SoI is kind of small so no screenshots. 
Named it the Duna and Eve ASAP program. 

[Guest]

For me, lack of a significant early access/prepurchase discount. In my current situation, I can't afford sixty dollars, where I live that's a lot (equivalent of about 240$). I'm unlikely to get it unless it's available someplace which both accepts my currency and prices it more fairly than Steam's "highway robbery" policy for my country, in which we get EU prices, despite our money having a quarter of Euro's purchasing power.

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, Snark said:

Yes.  Really.  And only about 1/4 of them got as far as the Mun.

Here's an oldie-but-goodie thread that was a real eye-opener for me, a few years ago; worth a read:

Moral of the story:  When you're looking at some aspect of game design that seems "wrong" to you... always bear in mind that other players have very different needs and expectations.  Be careful about assuming that one's own experiences are "typical". 

It's clear that they want to enable very large ships with much larger part counts, so I'm assuming that they'll have some reasonable story around that.  Clearly, "structural strength" is still a thing that players have to address in some fashion, but I don't think it'll be too big a problem in general.

This is common in all games, look at achievements in Skyrim who is not an hard game and have an difficulty slider who make you pretty much invincible at lowest setting.
But still remember the probe I took down into low orbit of Mun, Eve exit, grand tour was routine. 

Difficulty is an extremely subjective issue, some complain questing in an MMO is to hard, other say new veteran trials are to easy.

[KerikBalm]

On 8/31/2019 at 5:11 PM, Brikoleur said:

Realistic (n-body) orbital mechanics with no magic fudges. I do not want to deal with unstable orbits, orbital adjustments, or resupplying satellites so they can maintain their orbits. If n-body physics are in, then I expect satellites will have magic automation that allows them to maintain orbits with no resource expenditure, as easily as they do with patched conics.

When testing my Rald and inner planet modification for stability in Principia, I timewarped for 20 years to make sure everything seemed fine. A craft I put into orbit hadn't changed its AP or PE by more than 500 meters in 20 years (this was in 3x rescale, so its more like 167m in standard KSP). Its really not any worse than trying to keep a comnet constellation aligned to give constant coverage.

It would only be higher orbits that get somewhat close to Mun or minmus that would pose a bit or a problem. On top of that you've got stable L4 and L5 points which need no station keeping and are excellent for comnets, which would actually simplify things

9 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

For me, lack of a significant early access/prepurchase discount. In my current situation, I can't afford sixty dollars, where I live that's a lot (equivalent of about 240$). I'm unlikely to get it unless it's available someplace which both accepts my currency and prices it more fairly than Steam's "highway robbery" policy for my country, in which we get EU prices, despite our money having a quarter of Euro's purchasing power.

I'm curious what country that is, and how old you are. I also don't know how $60 becomes equivalent to $240, is this pased on a purchasing power Parity of the US to your country? of the EU?

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, KerikBalm said:

I'm curious what country that is, and how old you are. I also don't know how $60 becomes equivalent to $240, is this pased on a purchasing power Parity of the US to your country? of the EU?

It's based on PPP, but adjusted for other factors to better reflect how it "feels" for someone in my situation to spend that much (so it actually ends up with a bigger disparity). Exchange rate versus the Euro is about 4.3 (that fluctuates, but not much. Dollar is at about 3.9), while nominal prices of food and the like are more like 1:1 compared to France or Germany. This is consistent with experience of other people who have travel abroad a lot, but I'm not doing a rigorous economic analysis. What matter that you could eat for two weeks for actual $60, if you managed not to get too screwed over at the exchange. I'm a student, so not much disposable (or any other) income on my end. 

And yes, games, high-end electronics, scientific equipment and many other useful things are priced without taking the above into account. The result is that a "cheap upgrade" for Americans ends up a significant investment over here (yes, that means I can't afford my own PC. It's mostly parents' hand-me-downs). You need need to hunt around for every discount you can get if you want most games, just to get it into reasonable price range.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Guest

[Shadowmage]

Things that will make me not want to buy/play a KSP2:

• Noodle-rockets / Unity Joints -- this is a no-go.  Floppy rockets are not realistic; not only unrealistic, but terrible for performance.
• Part-Count contributing to CPU load.  If part-count is the limiting factor for performance, that manifests as a CPU bottleneck, that's a no-buy from me. (this goes hand-in-hand with the first point re: Unity Joints)
• Arbitrary limitations on wheels/wheelcolliders (this is more of a Unity thing).  Must be able to design tank-track like parts; e.g. KerbalFoundries parts.  That means no more arbitrary z+ axis orientation limit on WheelColliders, and the ability to re-orient a wheel-collider relative to the rigidbody on which it operates.
• GC-based stutter still being present.

Basically... not much directly gameplay related, and its all engine-level issues that would stop me from buying the sequel.  I would buy a KSP2 for the technical advances; if those have not been done, there is no reason for KSP2 to exist in my opinion.

I can get over some of the 'gamey' stuff that they've announced (e.g. magic-tech), as mostly you could simply not use it / play by house-rules; but if the game-engine itself isn't capable, not much can be done about that post-release.

[DStaal]

8 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Part-Count contributing to CPU load.  If part-count is the limiting factor for performance, that manifests as a CPU bottleneck, that's a no-buy from me. (this goes hand-in-hand with the first point re: Unity Joints)

I don't think that's something that can be eliminated from KSP's design - at least not without changing some very fundamental things about what a rocket is in KSP, which would have *lots* of other effects.

That said, I'm sure it can be optimized quite a bit over what KSP1 has so that practical limits are quite a bit higher than they are.

[Talavar]

Considering there is nothing comparable to KSP anywhere on the market,  I'm pretty sure that we're all aware that "I won't buy this" is almost forced into being an empty threat if you're like the rest of us, and need to scratch that "simulation itch".  There are some things that I prefer "not" to have, but considering there will be enhanced modding support, I really don't think it's going to be an issue. For instance, fixing a food/oxygen requirement is as easy as modding a tiny weightless part into the game that has infinite resources and slapping it on the side of your ship. I wouldn't worry too much about things like that. There's always someone who mods who thinks similar to the way you do... I wouldn't worry too much about N-body either. The game is going to have to be railed, otherwise it would be a calculation nightmare once you got tons of debris and ships into space.

30 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Things that will make me not want to buy/play a KSP2:

• Noodle-rockets / Unity Joints -- this is a no-go.  Floppy rockets are not realistic; not only unrealistic, but terrible for performance.
• Part-Count contributing to CPU load.  If part-count is the limiting factor for performance, that manifests as a CPU bottleneck, that's a no-buy from me. (this goes hand-in-hand with the first point re: Unity Joints)
• Arbitrary limitations on wheels/wheelcolliders (this is more of a Unity thing).  Must be able to design tank-track like parts; e.g. KerbalFoundries parts.  That means no more arbitrary z+ axis orientation limit on WheelColliders, and the ability to re-orient a wheel-collider relative to the rigidbody on which it operates.
• GC-based stutter still being present.

Basically... not much directly gameplay related, and its all engine-level issues that would stop me from buying the sequel.  I would buy a KSP2 for the technical advances; if those have not been done, there is no reason for KSP2 to exist in my opinion.

I can get over some of the 'gamey' stuff that they've announced (e.g. magic-tech), as mostly you could simply not use it / play by house-rules; but if the game-engine itself isn't capable, not much can be done about that post-release.

 THIS! ^^  These 4 are also my major complaints! I hope they are fixed this time around.... However they've already shown some gameplay with floppy rockets.The top of the ship literally folds 90 degrees and straightens out again. I don't know why they keep insisting that joints be this weak. It's ridiculous, and a nightmare once you get an orbital station built, which shakes itself apart because of physics overcalc due to weak joints. This effectively puts an artificial limit on how big you can build an orbital station, because the physics go wonky since everything is weakly connected. (yeah yeah I know.. `KerbalJointReinforcment/autostruts, but wouldn't be nice to have a game that actually functions as intended, instead of having to fix the original programming work with a mod?)

Edited September 3, 2019 by Talavar