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Who Would Like a Real Scale, Real Solar System, Realism Overhaul, RP-1 Inspired Standalone Game Leveraging KSP 2 Tech?


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5 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

...the RSS/RO community appears to be a fairly small subset of the KSP community. It would be very cool, no doubt, but I’m not sure it would pay the bills.

On the other hand, there’s Microsoft Flight Simulator which is mega hardcore. Perhaps there’s a public there that would be ready to jump into this.

The usage of RSS/RO is low because of the minimum number of mods needed to keep up with changes to KSP.  They're always running behind the current release of KSP.  And having something require mods, especially complex mods, always reduces the audience.

With changes to the team supporting Kopernicus, it appears that RSS/RO can be run on 1.11.1 as some players are doing just that.  Hopefully that will spread to the rest of RSS/RO.

If true planetary system scale was stock, then more players could try it and see it's not harder nor really take that much longer than playing at 1/10 scale.   Most of the in-game time is spent warping to the next event.  There's even a lot of time warp in putting payloads in orbit.

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Those most vocal here seem to be against having a more detailed and realistic space game - why would you be against that? Moar detailed space games is moar better! 

And for anyone that is against this, which of you have actually set up and played an RSS/ RO RP-0 or RP-1 playthrough? I know at least some of you have not, which is fine. It isn't for everyone, just as KSP itself or GTA V isn't for everyone. But just because it's not for you, doesn't mean you have to go against, why would you?
 

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1 hour ago, Rocketology said:

Those most vocal here seem to be against having a more detailed and realistic space game - why would you be against that? Moar detailed space games is moar better! 

And for anyone that is against this, which of you have actually set up and played an RSS/ RO RP-0 or RP-1 playthrough? I know at least some of you have not, which is fine. It isn't for everyone, just as KSP itself or GTA V isn't for everyone. But just because it's not for you, doesn't mean you have to go against, why would you?
 

I don't think stock should be RSS/RO. I have RO, stock, and modded stock installs sitting next to eachother in the center of my desktop. All have been played considerably. I've been playing KSP since before you could buy it, way back before steam. 

Nobody wants less realism and detail. That's not what this is about. KSP takes all of the good stuff about space engineering and tosses some of the more tedious, stress-inducing, and exhausting aspects. Lots of people don't want to make a second career out of KSP. Let's be real here: RO is much more in-depth and difficult, even for an experienced KSP player. I think the biggest turnoffs are some of the things that make it more realistic like limited throttle, limited ignitions, random failures, construction time, etc. RSS/RO definitely has its place, and I enjoy it for what it is. But I think having KSP be too realistic from development would turn challenge into frustration, and mission planning into a nightmare. Some people want that and some don't. It would scare away new and casual players that the studio needs to buy the game. There are things about stock KSP that could use more realism, but that's a fine line to walk. 

You're not wrong about wanting/needing RSS/RO for KSP2. I want it too. I just think that Human Space Program isn't the game they are currently developing, and might not sell as well.

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2 hours ago, Rocketology said:

Those most vocal here seem to be against having a more detailed and realistic space game - why would you be against that? Moar detailed space games is moar better! 

And for anyone that is against this, which of you have actually set up and played an RSS/ RO RP-0 or RP-1 playthrough? I know at least some of you have not, which is fine. It isn't for everyone, just as KSP itself or GTA V isn't for everyone. But just because it's not for you, doesn't mean you have to go against, why would you?

I'm not a fan of "I don't want feature X because it would take away time from the things I like more" but here you're talking about a second entire game, with at least all the planets redesigned and with all the parts and gameplay mechanics modified, redone or rebalanced. A project like that would definitely cannibalize part of the market, but also part of the time, the budget and the resources poured into KSP2.

Even if starting from KSP2 assets would reduce the amount of work we're still talking about a sequel worth of additional work to do. 

 

That said, my personal opinion on RO is that the correlation between realism and the difficulty/complexity of the gameplay is nowhere near linear. Maybe KSP doesn't struck the perfect balance, but not far past what stock KSP offers adding more realism features start to affect the gameplay negatively by just adding more and more tedium.

I prefer the route Intercept is following by adding bigger challenges and new and more complex gameplay loops on top of KSP1 stock balance and difficulty.

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3 hours ago, Rocketology said:

And for anyone that is against this, which of you have actually set up and played an RSS/ RO RP-0 or RP-1 playthrough? I know at least some of you have not, which is fine.

I have intended to get back to my RSS save, after struggling to land on the Moon, but never have gotten beyond that point.   Everything takes much longer.  Acceleration to orbital velocity with tolerable g-forces takes 3× as long as stock KSP.  In theory I can time-accelerate, but in practice I do not, probably because everything is more difficult so I have to fly more carefully.

I'm not saying I'm against this, though.  I am not completely sure what your suggestion is.

On 3/4/2021 at 8:04 PM, Rocketology said:

PD please leverage the tech for KSP 2 into a stand alone Real Scale, Real Solar System simulator!

leverage (as verb, chiefly US, slang, business) To use; to exploit; to manipulate in order to take full advantage (of something).

The modders who made RSS/RO did take full advantage of the modifiability of KSP1.   RSS/RO also includes a lot of significant additions--- such as engines for a real-scale system as opposed to Kerbal scale.  

Players of KSP1 have been suggesting to incorporate the configurability provided by Kopernicus, some of the physics-based aerodynamics of FAR, etc., into KSP2.  I've even suggested to remove reaction wheels.  These suggestions would give more tech to 'leverage' for a real-scale version.

But, if you mean 'leverage' in the business sense, the smaller number of potential customers will need to offer a few hundred $US per copy to make the business case. 

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On 3/4/2021 at 9:04 PM, Rocketology said:

a Real Scale, Real Solar System, RP-1 inspired stand alone simulator

I'm all for it. As soon as they have the finished, polished, and reasonably bug-free GAME out, I'll vote for them to work full steam on the SIMULATOR.

Not before.

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13 hours ago, Rocketology said:

Those most vocal here seem to be against having a more detailed and realistic space game - why would you be against that? Moar detailed space games is moar better! 

And for anyone that is against this, which of you have actually set up and played an RSS/ RO RP-0 or RP-1 playthrough? I know at least some of you have not, which is fine. It isn't for everyone, just as KSP itself or GTA V isn't for everyone. But just because it's not for you, doesn't mean you have to go against, why would you?
 

You literally had someone offer you a custom engine solution/semi-custom for this hypothetical game, conditional on getting a team of experienced individuals willing to develop it.

Why does Private Division have to make it? Have you seen how much money people have been throwing at Star Citizen? If you truly believe there's a demand for such a game, then instead of asking a existing series of studios with their own obligations/deadlines and funding conditions/milestones maybe instead you should be looking at what it would take to develop a proof of concept. A minimum viable product, the people required, and then throw out a kickstarter or w/e after enough progress has been made to demonstrate the features.

Or just make a bunch of pretty screenshots and promises and get the money anyway, because it's legitimately hilarious how easy it is to legally scam people out of their money because it's considered a "Donation". (Pls don't do this)

Either you realize along the way there's a pretty good reason this hypothetical game hasn't been developed, or you secure a niche in a already niche market of games and become a very wealthy individual if everything works out.

Because i don't see these people being against the concept, they're against saturating a studio already burdened with having to push out a project and support it with yet another more complex one. That likely won't have the same interest, and likely could be easily approached in it's scope and capabilities with mods in KSP2. Plus, many seem to think you're asking for these features in KSP2. Which from your post it was fairly clear to me you wanted a separate game, but by the same development team. But maybe some clarification in the title would help smooth over that, idk.

I find it highly unlikely they'd give two flips about another independent studio making a similar game to what you've described. Since it wouldn't affect the amount of resources available to KSP2, nor KSP2's features itself.

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To clarify, it doesn't have to be Intercept Games (which isn't an independent studio as Squad is - they have the full backing of Private Division and Take-Two, and access to their deep pockets) or take away resources from KSP 2. It can be any other studio under PD/ T2 - and why them? Because the core tech that is already being paid for KSP 2 could be leveraged into another game with minimal cost and time. This is what most studios do, and charge the full new game amount each iteration, i.e. every sports game franchise, just about every Bethesda game, etc. It's smart business, especially if targeting a narrower market, think Oblivion>Fallout 3> Skyrim>Fallout 4>Fallout 76 (same core tech, no overburdened studio, no sacrificing resources for one over another, just leverage). 
For those unfamiliar with how software (games) are developed, it's a combination of different teams and expertise - the team doing the core game programming are not creating the art. Generally speaking, once the core is laid out - that team usually moves onto another project as their part is 90% done - with maybe some residual bug fixing/ tweaking, so again, wouldn't over burden or take away resources.
 

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3 hours ago, Rocketology said:

think Oblivion>Fallout 3> Skyrim>Fallout 4>Fallout 76 (same core tech, no overburdened studio, no sacrificing resources for one over another, just leverage). 

Bethesda bought Battlecry Studios and put them to work on a multiplayer DLC for Fallout 4 while the rest of the studios worked on Starfield.

At the end the project got bigger they decided to make it into a mainline separated game.

I've somewhat enjoyed F76, I'm in the right niche, I have a group of 2-5 friends who love Beth RPGs like me and wanted something multiplayer with the same logic, but I see the point of people saying that the same resources could have been used for another full single player title, being it a sequel or a spin-off like 76 or New Vegas.

 

Working with a big publisher doesn't mean that you have infinite resources and budget.

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It's certainly something I would be interested in trying.  Either as a dedicated 'KSP2 RSS edition' or a DLC pack.

I don't want to have to fiddle about with a complex suite of dependent mods, but as a 'pre packaged' whole I would be willing to give it a go.

I did try the 'HalfRSS' mod briefly in KSP1, and it seemed to work ok with stock parts as they are, so that may be a more practical DLC solution.

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Maybe this isn't that obvious anymore but the game's name is Kerbal Space Program. The kerbal part denotes that the game takes place in the kerbin system like it always has. Even though the devs are adding more systems these will be Kerbal inspired systems with similar sizes and difficulties, So yeah real solar system won't be a thing, I will even put money on that.

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If this “KSP2 real edition” is built out of KSP2 but by a different team, thus not taking anything away from KSP2 itself, I’d be happy enough with that; having to pay double for it, not so much. I still think that RO2/RP-2 etc. will be mods built by the KSP community, but with KSP2 being built from the start to support modding making it much easier than the clunky hodge-podge of mods that exists now.

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21 hours ago, Rocketology said:

To clarify, it doesn't have to be Intercept Games (which isn't an independent studio as Squad is - they have the full backing of Private Division and Take-Two, and access to their deep pockets) or take away resources from KSP 2. It can be any other studio under PD/ T2 - and why them? Because the core tech that is already being paid for KSP 2 could be leveraged into another game with minimal cost and time. This is what most studios do, and charge the full new game amount each iteration, i.e. every sports game franchise, just about every Bethesda game, etc. It's smart business, especially if targeting a narrower market, think Oblivion>Fallout 3> Skyrim>Fallout 4>Fallout 76 (same core tech, no overburdened studio, no sacrificing resources for one over another, just leverage). 
For those unfamiliar with how software (games) are developed, it's a combination of different teams and expertise - the team doing the core game programming are not creating the art. Generally speaking, once the core is laid out - that team usually moves onto another project as their part is 90% done - with maybe some residual bug fixing/ tweaking, so again, wouldn't over burden or take away resources.
 

You're making the assumption that they have the people ready and waiting to build a full N-body physics system from scratch, make it perform well and they wouldn't run into any issues while doing so.

That's a very, very dangerous assumption to make. Especially in software.

Bethesda wasn't even able to use the same engine with "minimal time and resources" as you claim. The construction kit for FO3 while outwardly similar to the one for Oblivion is massively different under the hood.

Ditto for skyrim vs special edition, and they even admitted that the work required to bring it up to modern standards for TES VI was exponentially more than they anticipated.

This is why bethesda has 6 year development cycles, because of the sheer amount of work and labor required to keep the underlying engine current.

Also FO4 was practically sacrificed at the altar for what eventually became F076. Much of the lack of direction story wise, and the lack of even franchise staples such as skill points (lmfao) came from them having to scramble to get it into a shippable state in around a year after separating it from the multiplayer component.

All of this isn't an airtight case against the idea, but it should serve as a very stern warning about assuming how easy or what resources wouldn't be affected by a project. 

 

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On 3/7/2021 at 6:41 AM, SpaceFace545 said:

Maybe this isn't that obvious anymore but the game's name is Kerbal Space Program. The kerbal part denotes that the game takes place in the kerbin system like it always has. Even though the devs are adding more systems these will be Kerbal inspired systems with similar sizes and difficulties, So yeah real solar system won't be a thing, I will even put money on that.

You clearly didn't read the OP. It would be a separate game built on a similar platform - just as Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 are different games, but built on more or less the same platform.

15 hours ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

You're making the assumption that they have the people ready and waiting to build a full N-body physics system from scratch, make it perform well and they wouldn't run into any issues while doing so.

That's a very, very dangerous assumption to make. Especially in software.

Bethesda wasn't even able to use the same engine with "minimal time and resources" as you claim. The construction kit for FO3 while outwardly similar to the one for Oblivion is massively different under the hood.

Ditto for skyrim vs special edition, and they even admitted that the work required to bring it up to modern standards for TES VI was exponentially more than they anticipated.

This is why bethesda has 6 year development cycles, because of the sheer amount of work and labor required to keep the underlying engine current.

Also FO4 was practically sacrificed at the altar for what eventually became F076. Much of the lack of direction story wise, and the lack of even franchise staples such as skill points (lmfao) came from them having to scramble to get it into a shippable state in around a year after separating it from the multiplayer component.

All of this isn't an airtight case against the idea, but it should serve as a very stern warning about assuming how easy or what resources wouldn't be affected by a project. 

 

Skyrim to Skyrim Special Edition was a massive engine upgrade because it went from 32 to 64 bit. And arguably, they would have to done it to the base platform sooner or later anyway - and that base platform goes back to Morrowind.

My point is that it just makes sense to leverage the core work into other platforms. Using the example above, GTA V cost an estimated $265 million to develop, but leveraging most of that platform into Red Dead Redemption 2 only cost an est. $80-100 million. That's a pretty radical reduction in dev cost for what is to most people an entirely different game. Admittedly, this is an extreme example, but it gets the point across. And it wouldn't dilute or take away from KSP 2 in any way - even if developed by the same teams, just as RD2 didn't hinder GTA V.

 

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1 hour ago, Rocketology said:

My point is that it just makes sense to leverage the core work into other platforms.

Yeah, but a lot of the work that's done for KSP is faking it for KSP. Like, all of the optimization of patched conics only makes sense with SOI system. If you want a cohesive Sol with all the minor planets and shenanigans of Janus and Epimetheus playing tag, you have to throw all of that patched conics work away. If you want more realistic rockets, you have to throw away the floppy KSP physics and replace it with a proper rigid body sim that takes stresses into account, but limits flex. This potentially involves oversampling the ship sim, which I'm not sure Unity can even do. You are going to have to completely replace the rendering setup, writing new and custom shaders, and possibly throw away a lot of optimization that made sense for Kerbal-sized planets, because everything is bigger now. A lot of procedural stuff would have to go away - we have actual maps. But then a lot of new procedural stuff has to be added to account for real world features of real world planets that you simply can't fit on disk.

If all you're doing is make everything bigger, and just tuning parameters in KSP2, it might as well be a mod. If you are REALLY trying to build a space sim based on Sol system, KSP2 is going to be a very bad starting spot. You're throwing away almost everything that had to be built on top of Unity, and you're back to bare Unity to build up a realistic sim. And Unity is a really, really bad engine to try and do that in.

Seriously, if you want a good Sol sim, you want it to be built from scratch on a different engine.

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18 hours ago, Rocketology said:

You clearly didn't read the OP. It would be a separate game built on a similar platform - just as Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 are different games, but built on more or less the same platform.

Skyrim to Skyrim Special Edition was a massive engine upgrade because it went from 32 to 64 bit. And arguably, they would have to done it to the base platform sooner or later anyway - and that base platform goes back to Morrowind.

My point is that it just makes sense to leverage the core work into other platforms. Using the example above, GTA V cost an estimated $265 million to develop, but leveraging most of that platform into Red Dead Redemption 2 only cost an est. $80-100 million. That's a pretty radical reduction in dev cost for what is to most people an entirely different game. Admittedly, this is an extreme example, but it gets the point across. And it wouldn't dilute or take away from KSP 2 in any way - even if developed by the same teams, just as RD2 didn't hinder GTA V.

 

And I did though, look at my previous post where I literally said that I believed you wanted a separate game.

But you missed the overall point, which was that even assuming that the changes are minor ( let's say making FO:NV from Fallout 3.)

There's absolutely no way to actually know the results will actually be a savings of time and money in the end. And you cannot just handwave the possibility it becomes an absolute boondoggle instead of a success.

Because first, and I can't believe I'm saying this. KSP 2 isn't even out yet, this technology you're thinking of leveraging isn't even complete let alone finalized and stable. 

And second, well K^2s above post summarized it pretty well. Your proposal is something that is easy to say, but the moment you actually get into the weeds of the implementation it rapidly becomes anything but.

 

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No matter what you say on the internet there's always a handful of self-important "experts" that show up to argue with you for no good reason.  Game developers don't need you to imagine a bunch of reasons why they shouldn't do something like this.  They are the only ones in the position to actually know how complicated it would or would not be and they have all kinds of business and money types to help predict if it would be profitable or not.  

The type of comment that would actually be useful in this thread is if you would be willing to pay for a separate game or dlc or some such offering.  That would be useful information for someone considering taking on such a project.  

As for me ... I would definitely be willing to pay for such a game (or DLC.)

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43 minutes ago, CalicoJackRackam said:

No matter what you say on the internet there's always a handful of self-important "experts" that show up to argue with you for no good reason.  Game developers don't need you to imagine a bunch of reasons why they shouldn't do something like this.  They are the only ones in the position to actually know how complicated it would or would not be and they have all kinds of business and money types to help predict if it would be profitable or not.  

The type of comment that would actually be useful in this thread is if you would be willing to pay for a separate game or dlc or some such offering.  That would be useful information for someone considering taking on such a project.  

As for me ... I would definitely be willing to pay for such a game (or DLC.)

It doesn't take an expert to understand that splitting in 2 the resources to make KSP2 and it's slightly more realistic clone would only end up costing more only to have each game cannibalize the other target audience.

Even as a DLC would be one of the biggest ones (basically a total conversion of the game) while also have one of the smallest possible target audiences.

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On 3/9/2021 at 7:58 AM, Master39 said:

It doesn't take an expert to understand that splitting in 2 the resources to make KSP2 and it's slightly more realistic clone would only end up costing more only to have each game cannibalize the other target audience.

Even as a DLC would be one of the biggest ones (basically a total conversion of the game) while also have one of the smallest possible target audiences.

Not sure why leveraging (in this case, meaning; taking maximum advantage) of something that you have already paid for and developed would take resources away from KSP 2? To leverage something, it must already exist - therefore KSP 2 would already be complete. 
And the audience for a Real Scale Real Solar System game only partially overlaps KSP, and that audience would be considerably larger if you didn't have to go through the mod installation process. Once again, given how much enthusiasm and public interest there is what is happening IRL, and this interest will continue to grow (it's the same reason KSP 1 *still* continues to sell, what do you think keeps paying for the free updates?) with everything that will be happening over the next several years. 
This is also one of the main reasons PD is investing so heavily in the development of KSP 2, the market is ripe for it (in their words, it will be a AAA title) - again, it makes sense to take that investment and leverage into other products, that don't compete, but compliment each other. (If you think they compete, then you need to give RSS/ RO RP-1 a go as it delivers an entirely different experience than vanilla KSP.) 

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15 minutes ago, Rocketology said:

And the audience for a Real Scale Real Solar System game only partially overlaps KSP, and that audience would be considerably larger if you didn't have to go through the mod installation process.

So large to be as big as KSP2 to justify publishing a completely new game just for it?

You're basically saying that basically every KSP player would play RO if it weren't for the complex installation process.

RO isn't going to magically multiplying its numbers by just being easier to install or a paid standalone game, and it's not going to do well without KSP as a first experience before it.

How many KSP players started playing directly RO without even trying stock before? And of those few who did it how many continued playing compared to similarly inexperienced players starting with KSP instead?

Even as a DLC would be a niche one (while also being probably one of the most difficult to implent, since it requires a total conversion of the game).

At the moment the only competition to KSP2 is KSP1, there's no reason to internally create even more, no way that it would be more profitable than just letting people buying KSP2 and mod it if the niche is big enough to grant a mod.

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