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Rock3tman_

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So about that reusability... I think the approach used in resource management, aka automation could be used here as well. Once you've done a successful manual recovery, you could set up an automatic landing if the returning part of the rocket has the capability of doing it safely.

Speaking of colonies, I want to know how a pinpoint landing - like on a landing pad somewhere on Laythe - will be made easier to perform. We can't just eyeball it if we take limited fuel, aerodynamics and all that stuff into account.

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19 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Speaking of colonies, I want to know how a pinpoint landing - like on a landing pad somewhere on Laythe - will be made easier to perform. We can't just eyeball it if we take limited fuel, aerodynamics and all that stuff into account.

Nate did mention that KSP2 will give you the tools you need to do more than just the basic maneuvers and basic info. He did say that DV and TWR are low hanging fruit and there will be more. So a suicide burn timer and trajectories could be in included stock. Hopefully something like real life ILS would be included too.

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20 minutes ago, KerbalChiefEngineer said:

 

Agreed, a great way to spend a Saturday morning. Thanks for having us!

Thanks for doing interviews! We love hearing from the KSP 2 team

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1 hour ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Did Paul (@KerbalChiefEngineer) say that they're trying to make game updates no longer break mods? 

 

I get that that can't be a promise, sounds like a tall order but that would make playing so much nicer over time.

And yes, while that would be nice, I don't think it's a practical goal.   They can try to make updates that don't break most mods, but if it comes down to not breaking mods, or making the base game work correctly and breaking 80% of the mods out there because a change is required, I know where I will be happiest. 

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13 hours ago, Master39 said:

I was thinking more about something on the line of:

"This thing hasn't moved 1 m in over 15 seconds, now it's considered 'still' its speed compared to the ground is 0 and we stop checking if the ground is there 20 times a second until the player moves it or a collision happens"

 

I read wobble, sliding and vibrations as a proof that Kerbal continues to check physics even for static objects that aren't doing anything, linking them to the ground, soldering parts and keeping things above ground are just workarounds to the fact that Kerbal treats everything as a moving veichles at all times, isn't that a huge possible source of optimization?

 

Even with building acting as "rigid bodies arrays", that doesn't mean they have to be constantly checked to see if they're stable, you just do the math once when building (to check if you're overextending, overloading or putting the building out of balance) and then consider it a static object until the next build phase or collision.

Which still contains the possibility of it ending up precariously phased into the terrain at some portion, just waiting for the unsuspecting user to unleash the kraken.

Anything that would move the object, causes the code to loop through the array if I'm not mistaken. But the performance of that isn't degraded by "Wobbling" as it's just an artifact of having many Rigid-Body parts connected; each with their own joints and each with the ability to flex along them. More parts introduces the possibility to wobble, and more parts causes the looping to become exponentially more taxing on the CPU regardless. That's why KSP2 is looking at a "PhysicsLOD/Dynamic Welding" solution; as reducing the # of array elements would exponentially reduce the number of calculations needed, exponentially decreasing the number of CPU cycles taken, etc.

Now where i could very much be wrong here, is if those "Wobbling" joints have to have their own calculations done. If that's the case, then you could be looking at another increase of the time complexity by likely the square of those joints. Which if the time complexity of the original calculations were linear (Looping thru an array takes about the same amount of time as # of elements), then you'd be looking at going from O(N) to O(N)^2 or even worse. But that's a big assumption, since i don't know the exact time complexity of KSP's physics code. And from my previous discussions with K^2 and others it seems it's hardly Linear due to lack of optimization, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

But while welding is a way to get around this; i was trying to say that in this specific case it's more of a workaround for the fact that with a single layer for terrain it's very difficult to get anything still at all. But you're correct that it is a source of performance improvement, as it's the entire rationale behind their Physics LOD which can accomplish the same if the structure is on stilts without risking it being partially phased in the ground.

You're correct, but the most important part is that you need to ensure that no matter what they aren't below terrain. That's the big, big point of using stilts and why they're likely going to use PhysicsLOD to reduce the # of calculations needed instead of just assuming it can be still after a certain threshold. It accomplishes the same, and no Colonists have to take an unexpected FTL jump after being tributed to the almighty point singularity in the center of every Celestial.

And if anyone else wishes to chime in and tell me about any errors, then feel free to do so.

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11 hours ago, Gargamel said:

And yes, while that would be nice, I don't think it's a practical goal.   They can try to make updates that don't break most mods, but if it comes down to not breaking mods, or making the base game work correctly and breaking 80% of the mods out there because a change is required, I know where I will be happiest. 

I think it would be a practical goal. You can define and version the data structures and the APIs. KSP1 is kind of "accidentally moddable" -- modders can get into absolutely everything, including internal structures which are subject to change without notice. KSP2 could be designed as moddable. Having more discipline around internal APIs would have the additional beneficial effect of making the game easier to maintain.

I don't think it would be impossible to have a game that's structured so that patch-level updates almost never break anything, minor version updates extremely rarely break anything, and major updates only break things in clearly defined, documented, and easy-to-upgrade ways. It's a far cry from perfect but it would be nine-tenths of the way there, and that's good enough for almost everybody.

(Source: me, I've been designing business software like that for years.)

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On 10/16/2020 at 2:19 AM, Master39 said:

Not going to spoil anything more for the next few days, go listen to the podcast the words mean more than it may seem at first.

Ok, "few days passed" and now it's time for me to unveil my biggest takeaway from this whole interview, the one I teased with:

On 10/16/2020 at 2:19 AM, Master39 said:
  • Location

 

At 47:10 the interviewer asks:

Quote

You've already talked about how you're going to need to build bases to make resources and facilitate interplanetary trade. Can you expand a little bit on how bases are going to work?

Nate's reply is long and articulated (really, go listen that podcast, it's a goldmine) but the biggest reveal for me in there is when at 48:07 he talks about power generations saying:

Quote

They have their own unique power generation capabilities and needs and that leverages unique aspects of their locations.

Does that "leverages unique aspects of their locations" means just "you can't use solar panels on Laythe, go for a reactor" or more a "colonies have different requirements/opportunities based on where you build them (Mun opposed to Eve, for example)"? The way it's said makes me think of something more than the first .

 

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1 minute ago, Master39 said:

Does that "leverages unique aspects of their locations" means just "you can't use solar panels on Laythe, go for a reactor" or more a "colonies have different requirements/opportunities based on where you build them (Mun opposed to Eve, for example)"? The way it's said makes me think of something more than the first .

Solar panel usefulness is a given. I think Nate is hinting at other energy sources like nuclear reactors. Finding out where reactor fuel can be mined will probably govern colony location ( as well as other useful resources).

But this brings me to a new question....

Will it be possible to use up resources? As in can you mine all the Uranium or other material from a planet?

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2 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Solar panel usefulness is a given. I think Nate is hinting at other energy sources like nuclear reactors. Finding out where reactor fuel can be mined will probably govern colony location ( as well as other useful resources).

But this brings me to a new question....

Will it be possible to use up resources? As in can you mine all the Uranium or other material from a planet?

It could be, but I'd imagine they'd go a bit of a different route. They already have biomes, or something similar more than likely. And certain resources can be tied to certain biomes, some biomes can only exist on a certain "Kind" of planet (Kerbin-like, Eve-like, Barren etc.) And once you have that, then it wouldn't be too far of a jump to tie extraction to a logarithmic function and a resource "Seed".

This "Seed" would basically be similar to KSP's "Ore Concentration", and would reflect how pure the biome's resource-bearing ores are. It could be procedurally generated, and rolled pseudo-randomly for each game with weights assigned to make certain biomes on certain worlds much, much more valuable.

And what it would also do is once you began extracting, then this "Concentration" would determine the quantity of "Work" needed to get the same amount of material. As you continue working the ore, the concentrated ores get exhausted fairly quickly, with the more moderate ones sticking around longer, and eventually you're basically left with a concentration similar to normal rock. So you'd see your extraction rates gradually taper and approach 0, but always be able to get something.

You could also boost the extraction rate with upgraded colonies, skilled colonist engineering staff, or perhaps even better technologies and even events that give a permanent buff to these things. This would make growing an existing colony vs hopping to another planet an actual decision, encouraging the usage of survey probes and scouting missions equipped with scanning technologies. Something that unfortunately is sadly lacking in KSP.

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2 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

It could be, but I'd imagine they'd go a bit of a different route. They already have biomes, or something similar more than likely. And certain resources can be tied to certain biomes, some biomes can only exist on a certain "Kind" of planet (Kerbin-like, Eve-like, Barren etc.) And once you have that, then it wouldn't be too far of a jump to tie extraction to a logarithmic function and a resource "Seed".

This "Seed" would basically be similar to KSP's "Ore Concentration", and would reflect how pure the biome's resource-bearing ores are. It could be procedurally generated, and rolled pseudo-randomly for each game with weights assigned to make certain biomes on certain worlds much, much more valuable.

And what it would also do is once you began extracting, then this "Concentration" would determine the quantity of "Work" needed to get the same amount of material. As you continue working the ore, the concentrated ores get exhausted fairly quickly, with the more moderate ones sticking around longer, and eventually you're basically left with a concentration similar to normal rock. So you'd see your extraction rates gradually taper and approach 0, but always be able to get something.

You could also boost the extraction rate with upgraded colonies, skilled colonist engineering staff, or perhaps even better technologies and even events that give a permanent buff to these things. This would make growing an existing colony vs hopping to another planet an actual decision, encouraging the usage of survey probes and scouting missions equipped with scanning technologies. Something that unfortunately is sadly lacking in KSP.

Sounds like KSP x Factorio

Which honestly sounds beautiful but would be a game requiring multiplayer and lots of people building the ground infrastructure. I know theres a mod that works back and forth between the 2 games but I've never seen anyone make progress in it :P

https://github.com/Rahjital/KerbalSpaceFactorio

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2 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Sounds like KSP x Factorio

Which honestly sounds beautiful but would be a game requiring multiplayer and lots of people building the ground infrastructure. I know theres a mod that works back and forth between the 2 games but I've never seen anyone make progress in it :P

https://github.com/Rahjital/KerbalSpaceFactorio

Hmmmmm

HMMMMM

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

It's almost like....

KSP2 announced multiplayer support for a reason!

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7 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

Hmmmmm

HMMMMM

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

It's almost like....

KSP2 announced multiplayer support for a reason!

seriously, this has been a hope of mine for a while, which is why I am so confused why the community isn't more hyped multiplayer. This game takes a long time to make progress abut with 4 people advancement would go way futher not to mention people could take on jobs/roles

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30 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I think Nate is hinting at other energy sources like nuclear reactors. Finding out where reactor fuel can be mined will probably govern colony location ( as well as other useful resources).

That's something I'm almost giving for granted, but that "unique aspects" could even hint at something more even if I can't think of useful examples other than "geothermal power plants".

 

30 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Will it be possible to use up resources? As in can you mine all the Uranium or other material from a planet?

I doubt from an entire planet, but from a single location? Maybe, it depends on how deep they want to make the mining gameplay.

Colonies are built to remain there, to be fixed structures, they made a point in making us know that you won't need to babysit them and you won't find them dead if you forget about them for some in-game time. At this point I give for granted that their life support/power needs system is linked to their functionality, not to their existence (you want your fancy spaceport-city on Mun to work? Give them food, otherwise it won't die but it won't launch any of your fancy rockets either).

From this assumption i think we can derive that resource depletion from a single deposit depends on how direct a mining operation is, if you have a "drill" building directly attached to the colony and that's it we can be sure that that deposit will be infinite on the other hand if the game has means to "distribute" mining operations around the base with smaller "mining outposts" spread around the main colony base and automated (user built) vehicles going back and forth between the depot and colony than a depletion mechanic could be introduced without killing a colony and while keeping an interesting gameplay.

22 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

seriously, this has been a hope of mine for a while, which is why I am so confused why the community isn't more hyped multiplayer. This game takes a long time to make progress abut with 4 people advancement would go way futher not to mention people could take on jobs/roles

I don't think most of us still understood how much bigger this game is going to be compared to KSP1.

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While i respect that alot of players want and are excited for multiplayer, i still am severely reserved about it at best. Its old ground I have covered a bunch. I am less than thrilled KSP2 will have multiplayer*. I have always seen KSP as a single player game. KSP2 strikes me as a an extension of that philosophy. 
 

*why? Micro list: time warp, part counts, mod compatibility (not a full list, and just my opinion ofc)

070810182020

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4 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

While i respect that alot of players want and are excited for multiplayer, i still am severely reserved about it at best. Its old ground I have covered a bunch. I am less than thrilled KSP2 will have multiplayer*. I have always seen KSP as a single player game. KSP2 strikes me as a an extension of that philosophy. 
 

*why? Micro list: time warp, part counts, mod compatibility (not a full list, and just my opinion ofc)

070810182020

It was more about the game being huge than about everyone having to like multiplayer at all costs. I really think most people on this forum are underestimating the size of the game and the infrastructure they need to build from ground up to be able to do those huge interstellar ships we've seen in the trailer when talking about things like multiplayer, funds, missions/contracts being there or not or having things to do after you "mastered" the game.

Just being able to build a new space center everywhere at the very least multiplies the size of KSP1 by the number of celestial bodies.

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9 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

While i respect that alot of players want and are excited for multiplayer, i still am severely reserved about it at best. Its old ground I have covered a bunch. I am less than thrilled KSP2 will have multiplayer*. I have always seen KSP as a single player game. KSP2 strikes me as a an extension of that philosophy. 
 

*why? Micro list: time warp, part counts, mod compatibility (not a full list, and just my opinion ofc)

070810182020

To each their own, I know I've been waiting for multiplayer for a while just to see what happens... Also space race with a friend would be fun.

Also:

1 minute ago, Master39 said:

It was more about the game being huge than about everyone having to like multiplayer at all costs. I really think most people on this forum are underestimating the size of the game and the infrastructure they need to build from ground up to be able to do those huge interstellar ships we've seen in the trailer when talking about things like multiplayer, funds, missions/contracts being there or not or having things to do after you "mastered" the game.

Just being able to build a new space center everywhere at the very least multiplies the size of KSP1 by the number of celestial bodies.

I too think it will bee necessary to extend throughout this games full scope. Even cosmonaut crash is still filling out the RSS after like 1000 eps of his lets play

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@Master39 it makes no difference to me how big ksp2 will be. Ive seen many ksp videos out there like The beardy penguin’s series beyond kerbol for example. Fairly massive variant with interstellar travel done single player. So for me that renders the debate on size moot. But, again, I am only stating my views. Like I said, if you as an example get a kick outta multiplayer KSP then, truly I am thrilled for you! I just, again, for me, foresee zero use for multiplayer. 
 

@mcwaffles2003 you make an interesting point, but, I would, just to balance a fair debate, say multiplayer is strictly not an absolute requirement for a space race. Once again I point a spotlight at The Beardy Penguin and add in N9 Gaming who are doing a realism overhaul space race called For All Kerbal Kind. Its 3 episodes deep thus far and an absolute blast to watch. If one player sends up a satellite they copy out the section of the save and send it to the other player to be pasted into their save. Such as that is, is...tedious but workable if one is adept at altering the persistent save (im good at fixing kerbal statuses but adding ships is above my lvl of skill lol).

But again, for those who want it, im thrilled yall will get it, and truly wish happy adventures, its just not my cup of rocket fuel for this type of game is all. 
 

073510182020

073610182020

Edited by AlamoVampire
Added a few words for clarity
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4 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

 it makes no difference to me how big ksp2 will be. Ive seen many ksp videos out there like The beardy penguin’s series beyond kerbol for example. Fairly massive variant with interstellar travel done single player. So for me that renders the debate on size moot. But, again, I am only stating my views. Like I said, if you as an example get a kick outta multiplayer KSP then, truly I am thrilled for you! I just, again, for me, foresee zero use for multiplayer. 

I'm not trying to convince you to like multiplayer, that was just the context in which we were talking about it. That's why I didn't even try to address your list, to each their own.

 

 

Since we're going OT I'll put the next part in a spoiler.

Spoiler


7 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

just to balance a fair debate, say multiplayer is strictly not an absolute requirement for a space race. Once again I point a spotlight at The Beardy Penguin and add in N9 Gaming who are doing a realism overhaul space race called For All Kerbal Kind. Its 3 episodes deep and an absolute blast to watch. If one player sends up a satellite they copy out the section of the save and send it to the other player to be pasted into their save. Such as that is, is...tedious but workable

That's just manual turn-based multiplayer, the simplest ways to go around the warp problem it's something in between an automated version of that and the FRMS mod.

 

 

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@Master39 its not about trying to convince a person to adopt one stance or another. Fwiw i enjoy multiplayer when it makes sense to have it. Examples: FFXIV:ARR, Elite Dangerous (as just 2 examples) but it is more about how are things like time warp or mod compatibilities or parts count being handled? Nate as far as I know has not addressed this. Nor as far as I know has anyone else on his team. Issues like performance around part counts or mods do need addressing.

As far as multiplayer goes, I do not consider the example I gave as a true multiplayer. They may be playing a shared narrative but they are not technically linked beyond save file manipulation. For me, for multiplayer to be true multiplayer 2 or more players needs must be able to be in a shared connection. Either via online methods such as two example games above or via the same physical platform (think the old days of say golden eye on the n64). Save file manipulation by the player does not count imho. 
 

163410182020

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2 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

@Master39but it is more about how are things like time warp or mod compatibilities or parts count being handled? Nate as far as I know has not addressed this. Nor as far as I know has anyone else on his team. Issues like performance around part counts or mods do need addressing.

Well we don't know if things like part count will be a problem like it is in KSP 1 and Im guessing using KSP 1 as a yardstick for performance in KSP 2 isn't gunna be very helpful. As far as mod compatibilities goes, I see no concern here, plenty of heavily modded games have multiplayer. As for time warp let's see what they have in store. I'm sure they're aware of time warp issues and nate seems pretty happy with what they've got so far, he was even remarking at announcement about how he had never laughed so hard. 

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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@mcwaffles2003 modded by itself is not my concern. Lets say you use parts pack X and I dont. Can i play with you? Maybe. Lets say I can. Lets say you have a station in orbit and I need to dock with it. Oh wait, I do not use parts pack X, does the game even let me see the station? I know for a fact KSP refused in the past to let me use ships with parts from mods that I no longer used and it broke the craft. That is the compatibility I keep talking about. 
 

193910182020

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33 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

@mcwaffles2003 modded by itself is not my concern. Lets say you use parts pack X and I dont. Can i play with you? Maybe. Lets say I can. Lets say you have a station in orbit and I need to dock with it. Oh wait, I do not use parts pack X, does the game even let me see the station? I know for a fact KSP refused in the past to let me use ships with parts from mods that I no longer used and it broke the craft. That is the compatibility I keep talking about. 

I've never played a multiplayer where people with different mod packs occupy the same lobby, I see no reason to think this will be any different. 

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