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Unity 2021 LTS brings KSP2 closer to release


Vl3d

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I think the KSP2 team was waiting for the 2021 LTS release for Unity so they can lock features into a stable product.

Now we can expect some very cool features in the game related to environments and like it was designed with KSP in mind (I wonder if there was some collab between Intercept and Unity):

"HDRP performance upgrades and features like NVIDIA DLSS for desktop, Volumetric Clouds, and Static Shadow Caster."

I've seen some pre-LTS environment videos, everything looks absolutely amazing.

Some of them even show storms with wind, rain, lightning and snow.

There's also Expanse with some impressive demos, I don't know if the KSP2 uses this or their own tools.

Wonder if we'll also have Ray Tracing..

Edited by Vl3d
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That is... Wow. Then again these are demos and are purpose-made and don't entirely reflect what we'll see in a live game.

It's possible they may already use it. If not then perhaps an update later down the line. Rewriting what they have so far will delay it further and it seems like they're fairly intent on releasing later this year.

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LTS release means that these features are ready for production. I'm sure they were already using them in prototyping.

That image in the Expanse video with volumetric cloud layers and dynamic shadows seen from above is.. amazing.

Edited by Vl3d
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Looks great. Is there any indication they are using this? The clouds and atmospheric scattering posts from the dev team both credited a named individual or team of people for the work, but made no mention of tools used.

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1 hour ago, TLTay said:

Looks great. Is there any indication they are using this? The clouds and atmospheric scattering posts from the dev team both credited a named individual or team of people for the work, but made no mention of tools used.

That’s rub.     I haven’t noticed either way.  
 

To be honest though, I’d rather see the dev team stay with whatever version of unity or tool they are currently using.  
 

There’s a precedent here, any time over the past decade the KSP tram has decided to update to a new version of Unity, it has introduced new bugs that basically set the game back a version as we waited for them to be fixed.   Some of them really never got fixed, just worked around.  
 

This close to release, it’d be ridiculous to change engine versions just because it’s shiny.    Imagine the uproar if they said they had to delay another year cause they changed engines and everything broke.  

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Most games have to be build from the ground up to enjoy the most benefits of a major engine update. If they planned some of these features in advance because of private discussions with Unity, then ya they could take advantage of some of them. If they didn't, then they likely won't take advantage of any of them unless it solves a problem they have that is large enough that an engine upgrade is easier and less time consuming than solving the original problem a different way.

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37 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

There’s a precedent here, any time over the past decade the KSP tram has decided to update to a new version of Unity, it has introduced new bugs that basically set the game back a version as we waited for them to be fixed.   Some of them really never got fixed, just worked around.

On the other hand, deciding to move to a new engine version mid-dev could explain what some are seeing as too much slip in delivery date.  Though I think that the ownership transfer and the pandemic can explain that well enough, it is tantalizing to consider that the engine might be better also.  But yeah, whatever delivers stability soonest is a good thing at this point

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It's actually not a new engine, it's the LTS (Long Term Support) of the 2021 version, which has been available for a year but was not ready for production.

So the team had ample time to integrate these features.

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8 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

It's actually not a new engine, it's the LTS (Long Term Support) of the 2021 version, which has been available for a year but was not ready for production.

So the team had ample time to integrate these features.

That of course is assuming they didn’t already finish the design and even implementation of some of those things before then. The game has been in production for years, and potentially pointless upgrades are a waste of money. 

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16 hours ago, Gargamel said:

That’s rub.     I haven’t noticed either way.  
 

To be honest though, I’d rather see the dev team stay with whatever version of unity or tool they are currently using.  
 

There’s a precedent here, any time over the past decade the KSP tram has decided to update to a new version of Unity, it has introduced new bugs that basically set the game back a version as we waited for them to be fixed.   Some of them really never got fixed, just worked around.  
 

This close to release, it’d be ridiculous to change engine versions just because it’s shiny.    Imagine the uproar if they said they had to delay another year cause they changed engines and everything broke.  

Yeah, with Subnautica they did that.  They released it on an older version of Unity, then rebuilt it on a newer version and had to rebuild the world from nothing.  It took them 2 years to do.

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2 hours ago, Catto said:

I'm shaking. This is good news.

The game's going to look so realistic, and release sooner.

The thing with these engine updates is that they actually delay a game while the devs work to incorporate the update. So, devs usually do not use updates after they start developing. And, we haven’t received any indication that the devs are using this update. 

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1 minute ago, Vl3d said:

Again, it's an LTS release. It has no new features. It's just for production stability. It's meant to be easy to integrate in a finished product.

Do you think they switched engines in 2021? That could work, but LTS or not, there will be some changes to the engine to work around. 

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I don't see Kerbal looking like this any time soon. Also I kind of don't want them, since with this whole GPU-stock-price crisis I am planning on playing KSP2 with my current old GPU, I am not paying the list price of a 3070 to get a 3060, and that is if you find stock.

KSP is a game that many play with potato computers. To make it a high end GPU game would be like making a League of Legends GTX 3080 edition, you would loose a lot of players.

Edited by Sesshaku
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11 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Play it in low settings with whatever potato you want. I'm looking to kick it up to ultra with DLSS.

I'm still curious where you got the idea LTS is correlated to the release date. "Unity 2021 LTS brings KSP2 closer to release" just sounds like clickbait.

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Probably porting KSP2 to this (didn't this unity edition just release this month?) would take another delay. Not super interested in another delay just to port it over, much less to redo all the effects they've already done with the new stuff. If they don't call something good enough at some point, they will eternally be upgrading an unfinished and unreleased game.

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4 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

I still call clickbait.

Clickbait for what? I posted 6 cool videos related to Unity graphics that can be used for KSP and useful information about what environment features we can expect to be in the game. Are you not entertained?

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