How does Starfield compare to KSP2 (ship & base building, environment, IVA, HUD)?

[Vl3d]

Just now, The Aziz said:

27 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Where's the weather?

Where's the weather in Starfield? Since we're in this thread we should be comparing both, right? Right?

Yes sir, all Bethesda games have weather. This is how their most modern system looks like. Specifically look at the radstorms to know what you could expect for alien planet weather.

PS: Wind as a physical gameplay feature is a separate discussion. I'm only taking about visuals now.

[Pthigrivi]

Sure, but KSP isn’t an RPG. Its a space flight game where clearly seeing your rocket or plane as it passes through the atmosphere is more critical than anything else. Even clouds might require an overlay so you can see what you’re doing. Not to say dynamic weather patterns couldn’t happen, but they kinda work against gameplay rather than for it the way it does in an RPG, so I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if they skip it. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Vl3d]

I'm not arguing. I'm just saying alien planets with atmosphere have weather. It's am intrinsic part of the planets and of the feel of the environment. Snow, clouds and atmospheric light scattering are just the most basic additions that have been confirmed for KSP2.

And there's a big chance Starfield will implement something amazing looking like Fallout 76 did.

PS: I would actually say KSP has significant RPG elements.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Vl3d

[Pthigrivi]

Totally, and I don’t mean to rain on your parade (har-har) because it may even happen. Im just saying there are mission-critical features like well-oiled colony building and prospecting mechanics and UI tools for interstellar encounters and managing supply routes that are necessary for the game to function, and then there are nice eye-candy add-ons that aren’t. If time is pressing I fully expect them to prioritize the former. I fully expect everything we need to be in the game, while many of the things we want might not be. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Sesshaku]

I know I probably will be dissapointed, but there's one aspect of Starfield that I thin kwould be cool in KSP2, and that is this idea of RPG survival-build base mechanic.

Let me be more specific. KSP2 will have multiplayer and interstellar ships. Those two things mean: we'll have massive ships, we'll have friends playing with us on the game.

From that perspective, it would be cool if there was more emphasis giving to controlling a kerbal from a first or third person perspective. Having some sort of building base experience similar to minecraft or vallheim. And having some sort of stuff to customize and interact with inside the ship, that is, having more detailed IVA that are actually interactive, and not just a static camera.

I think such a perspective would make multiplayer much more fun (there would be common goals and task to do once on the planet or during transit) than just "a friend flew by my side", "we both landed on our own rockets and awkwardly interacted on a barren desert" kind of gameplay that I would imagine if KSP2 is just KSP1 with multiplayer.

Because building and flying a rocket with the KSP1 system is not that interactive or attractive from a cooperative perspective, there has to be SOMETHING there to entice buyers to try multiplayer.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Sesshaku

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Sesshaku said:

I know I probably will be dissapointed, but there's one aspect of Starfield that I thin kwould be cool in KSP2, and that is this idea of RPG survival-build base mechanic.

Let me be more specific. KSP2 will have multiplayer and interstellar ships. Those two things mean: we'll have massive ships, we'll have friends playing with us on the game.

From that perspective, it would be cool if there was more emphasis giving to controlling a kerbal from a first or third person perspective. Having some sort of building base experience similar to minecraft or vallheim. And having some sort of stuff to customize and interact with inside the ship, that is, having more detailed IVA that are actually interactive, and not just a static camera.

I think such a perspective would make multiplayer much more fun (there would be common goals and task to do once on the planet or during transit) than just "a friend flew by my side", "we both landed on our own rockets and awkwardly interacted on a barren desert" kind of gameplay that I would imagine if KSP2 is just KSP1 with multiplayer.

Because building and flying a rocket with the KSP1 system is not that interactive or attractive from a cooperative perspective, there has to be SOMETHING there to entice buyers to try multiplayer.

You're asking for GTA-like gameplay in Cities: Skylines, for Halo-like gameplay in Stellaris.

I play KSP to build and fly spacecrafts and manage a space program of epic proportions, I love messing around with my friends while trying to collectively drive a wonky craft, but to do that we play Sea of Thieves (and Guns of Icarus before that).

[Alexoff]

On 6/26/2022 at 9:00 PM, Master39 said:

We've already seen many planet sneak peaks and we know they're going to be way better than KSP1.

Well, it may look prettier, but it does not affect the gameplay in any way. The terrain is more rugged on other planets, but on Kerbin as a whole as usual.

On 6/26/2022 at 9:00 PM, Master39 said:

Same goes for resource gathering and producing fuel and stuff, 1 "ore" and 1  irsu module is a s basic as you can get, and we already know KSP2 will expand on that.

It certainly sounds great that it will not be more boring than before. We don’t know what will happen to the resources, but you know from somewhere that this is no worse than cities and other things.

On 6/26/2022 at 9:00 PM, Master39 said:

KSP2 on the other hand is going to focus hard on the building the craft and traveling phases.

We know that this is exactly what KSP1 would not have been without. It's like shooting in the doom, no one will buy the game without it. The question is how well it will be done, and the other question is what else will be, which we would not see in a game with a bunch of mods.

On 6/26/2022 at 9:00 PM, Master39 said:

With a whole lot of RPG elements more.

Compared to Cyberpunk no GTA game has a story or a combat system worth mentioning.

But when compared with other RPGs, there are few such elements. Compared to VTMB, cyberpunk is not an RPG at all. GTA was never going to become an RPG, but the creators of cyberpunk for some reason decided to compare themselves with GTA, no one forced them to do this.

On 6/26/2022 at 9:00 PM, Master39 said:

Because of the lack of guns, cars and urban environments.

No, because attention was absorbed by other things, we simply did not have time to be distracted by the inhabitants, we were constantly in worries. The witcher had crossbows, swords, roaches and cities, which is almost the same as guns, cars and cities in terms of mechanics.

On 6/26/2022 at 9:00 PM, Master39 said:

It's true, but it's meaningless, if you keep in mind that in Cyberpunk you have hundreds of people on screen at the same time while in Skyrim the whole population of the capital is a few dozen people, guards included.

With the latest patches in cyberpunk, there are significantly fewer people and cars. But, of course, that's not the point. It has more to do with whether the player is willing to put up with the issues in the game. If there is something cool in the game, then something is forgiven, if something is done very well, then we will not pay attention to many imperfections. But these problems can be seen if you discard emotions after some time after the game. The plot in the Witcher is good, the plot in cyberpunk is good too (the issues of the plot in both cases are similar, towards the end of the game some kind of stupid nonsense began), the plot in GTA is so-so. The graphics are pretty good everywhere. So you can compare KSP2 with something in some areas. We have almost a year ahead of us! Everything must be discussed! And so it's all meaningless, of course. In the end, we will sit in front of monitors and move our fingers on the keyboard to change the color of the pixels. There are no kerbals in nature and no one will fly to Dres, it all happens in our imagination.

[Pthigrivi]

3 hours ago, Sesshaku said:

I know I probably will be dissapointed, but there's one aspect of Starfield that I thin kwould be cool in KSP2, and that is this idea of RPG survival-build base mechanic.

Let me be more specific. KSP2 will have multiplayer and interstellar ships. Those two things mean: we'll have massive ships, we'll have friends playing with us on the game.

From that perspective, it would be cool if there was more emphasis giving to controlling a kerbal from a first or third person perspective. Having some sort of building base experience similar to minecraft or vallheim. And having some sort of stuff to customize and interact with inside the ship, that is, having more detailed IVA that are actually interactive, and not just a static camera.

I think such a perspective would make multiplayer much more fun (there would be common goals and task to do once on the planet or during transit) than just "a friend flew by my side", "we both landed on our own rockets and awkwardly interacted on a barren desert" kind of gameplay that I would imagine if KSP2 is just KSP1 with multiplayer.

Because building and flying a rocket with the KSP1 system is not that interactive or attractive from a cooperative perspective, there has to be SOMETHING there to entice buyers to try multiplayer.

Yeah I mean it would be neat but proobbbabblyy beyond scope. Much of it could be possible in terms of contiguous IVA spaces that you could navigate but the level of adjustability and part clipping in KSP poses some pretty serious problems for making that work in a satisfying way. And even if you could fix that or force people to connect parts in prescribed ways and not clip what would be the payoff? In a big colony or station it seems like a lot of fairly tedious crawling through crew tubes and modules in order to activate or deactivate finicky switches that you could just solve by right-clicking parts, and honestly for most players there's far too much right-clicking to begin with. The emphasis really should be on streamlining tedious micromanagement and this seems in the opposite direction. 

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Alexoff said:

The terrain is more rugged on other planets, but on Kerbin as a whole as usual.

We've barely seen kerbin and those views were from very early into the development process, but even if that was the final asset ([almost] no point in making placeholder assets for other systems planets and moons but you need to have at least Kerbin and mun very early if you want to do any testing whatsoever) I'd argue that most palyer are not going to spend much time landing on Kerbin.

Yes, you can play the game however you want, but it's a space game about building rockets to go to other planets (and colonize them), I personally wouldn't put the focus on making Kerbin intresting. 

At the same time being the first destinations and probably the biggest target of repeated missions from player I would put more effort on Mun and Minmus (and maybe Duna as well).

 

10 hours ago, Alexoff said:

We know that this is exactly what KSP1 would not have been without. It's like shooting in the doom, no one will buy the game without it. The question is how well it will be done, and the other question is what else will be, which we would not see in a game with a bunch of mods.

My point is about focusing the effort where the players will spend their time. Players are going to spend more time in the VAB alone in KSP2 than they will spend in both the shipbuilding interface and flying combined in Starfield, and, at the same time, they will spend less time walking around in KSP2 than they will flying around in space in Starfield.

It's obvious the focus is going to be different.

80% of Starfield gameplay is going to be walking around and fighting things, and it's developed by a studio that has decades of experience in refining a specific type of gameplay and in making intresting maps to cover on foot, in a sci-fi setting that allows for aliens, space pirates, warring factions and all sort of things you can spread around on planets to make them more interesting. 

In Starfield the veichles are the exotic feature, in Kerbal on foot EVAs are.

Making comparisons is just purposefully setting ourself up to be disappointed of both games.

 

10 hours ago, Alexoff said:

But when compared with other RPGs, there are few such elements. Compared to VTMB, cyberpunk is not an RPG at all.

Not going to enter the minefield that defining what even is an RPG is.

The definition is solely based on how much the angry gamer crowd hates a particular game.

There are RPGs with no character creation, RPGs with no choices in how the story goes, RPGs with only a fixed weapon, RPGs without an open world map. Whatever your parameter for defining an RPG is there will be one or ten examples of beloved "RPGs" that don't meet those parameters.

10 hours ago, Alexoff said:

The witcher

Is considered an RPG only because of its fantasy setting, put it into an urban environment, even add all of those core RPG gameplay features that it doesn't have and... Well... Cyberpunk is not considered an RPG.

 

10 hours ago, Alexoff said:

KSP2 with something in some areas. We have almost a year ahead of us! Everything must be discussed! And so it's all meaningless, of course.

Discussion is not meaningless, comparing secondary features of a game with a game solely focusing on a similar feature is.

We can stay here all day saying that GTA flying mechanics are worse than the last flight simulator 2020 ones, but stating the obvious is objectively meaningless.

Even worse, nonsensical comparisons shift the discussion toward equally nonsensical requests, in KSP2 case we've already seen the effects in how popular the idea of a procedural galaxy is. A procedural galaxy, in a game in which it takes hours to go to the nearest moon if you already know what you're doing and weeks of playing to learn how to go interplanetary.

And that only because other "space games" (another very loosely defined genre) have done it, completely disregarding KSP scope and gameplay style.

[Vl3d]

1 hour ago, Master39 said:

I'd argue that most palyer are not going to spend much time landing on Kerbin

I don't understand. You land on Kerbin every time you return from a mission.

1 hour ago, Master39 said:

I personally wouldn't put the focus on making Kerbin intresting. 

I don't understand. Kerbin will have the most advanced Space Center, the most resources.. it's the home planet.

[The Aziz]

28 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

You land on Kerbin every time you return from a mission.

In KSP 1. Because in no other place you can recover your craft to get a refund for parts, receive science points and unload your crew to have them available for next mission. In KSP2 however... I have a feeling that at some point I'm not going to visit the "home planet" for years. If I can get the same thing - landing, recovery, crew roster, resources, VAB etc - on Gurdamma, why go back?

I'm playing Astroneer right now, and while my biggest, most developed base is on the home planet, I'm only few steps from abandoning it altogether because I already have small to medium sized bases on two other worlds.

Edited June 28, 2022 by The Aziz

[Vl3d]

It's a long way to another star. The main orbital assembly space station will be in Kerbin orbit, probably fueled via Minmus or asteroids. Kerbonauts will train on Kerbin. Then you go to Duna for the resources as an intermediate ground colony for the hop to Jool to get interstellar engine fuel. Then you might build a little base on some planet in another system, but it will take a lot of time to build the whole thing again (OAB, resources colony, interstellar refueling station etc.) Kerbin will still be the main base of operations for the most advanced missions.

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

It's a long way to another star. The main orbital assembly space station will be in Kerbin orbit, probably fueled via Minmus or asteroids. Kerbonauts will train on Kerbin. Then you go to Duna for the resources as an intermediate ground colony for the hop to Jool to get interstellar engine fuel. Then you might build a little base on some planet in another system, but it will take a lot of time to build the whole thing again (OAB, resources colony, interstellar refueling station etc.) Kerbin will still be the main base of operations for the most advanced missions.

Or on a mun colony, or from a Laythe orbital city, or from a outpost and shipyard near Eloo.

And, even if all of those weren't an option how many players spend more time doing EVAs on Kerbin compared to other planets?

Even if every mission leave from Kerbin you don't usually walk to the rocket.

[Vl3d]

2 hours ago, Master39 said:

Even if every mission leave from Kerbin you don't usually walk to the rocket.

Because there's not much to explore. Personally I love using my MK2 plane with cargo doors and a very small rover to explore anomalies on Kerbin. I hope it's gonna be packed full of content and stuff to find.

Besides, this is the work of the creative team. It does not impact systems development.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Because there's not much to explore.

No, because it's a space game focused on exploring other worlds.

 

2 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Personally I love

I love planes too, but still, KSP is a game about going to space, overall you'll always have more people walking around the moon than you have walking around Kerbin, so the focus of interesting activities to do while exploring on foot is going to be put on those far away places to explore, not on the starting planet.

[Vl3d]

1 minute ago, Master39 said:

the focus of interesting activities to do while exploring on foot is going to be put on those far away places to explore, not on the starting planet

Can't agree. https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/List_of_easter_eggs

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Can't agree. https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/List_of_easter_eggs

Kerbin should have cities and nations capable of supporting a space program, and instead is populated by a bunch of old buildings, and few other Easter eggs.

The focus of development is already away from Kerbin in KSP1.

That doesn't mean at all that the Devs should ignore Kerbin, just that working on it has a smaller impact than spending the same amount of time working on a destination planet or moon.

An hour spent by an artist manually editing the cliff of a crater on Mun or Duna to make it more interesting or challenging to explore is likely going to be more inpactuful than several hours spent on making the grass on Kerbin follow the wind or making a wet terrain texture for when it rains.

We saw a small decorative shower of sparks when connecting parts in the VAB, spending time in making that small cosmetic detail follow the gravity of the planet the VAB you're using is sitting on is going to have a bigger impact than realistic grass, waves or explorable details on Kerbin.

 

But this is a tangent of a tangent of a tangent, back in topic and to the original argument, the point is not "they should ignore Kerbin" but "they are going to focus their attention where the gameplay is".

For KSP that means managing an entire space program and spacefaring civilization later by building and flying around ships, and occasionally do so e EVAs. For Starfield it means following the personal story of a single character you create and his quests, and fights, which occasionally involves flying or building ships. 

Both a car and a house have doors and windows, but the difference between the two objects makes any direct comparison kinda pointless.

The fact that my house keys doesn't make the house make a sound to find it in case i misplaced it like my car key fob does it's kinda obvious and quite useless as a comparison.

[Bej Kerman]

1 hour ago, Master39 said:

The fact that my house keys doesn't make the house make a sound to find it in case i misplaced it like my car key fob does it's kinda obvious and quite useless as a comparison.

No-one will come up with a better analogy than this, even if the human race outlives the Sun.

[Vl3d]

Can you compare this VTOL to something built in KSP? Would you want KSP to look this good?

 

[t_v]

4 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Can you compare this VTOL to something built in KSP? Would you want KSP to look this good?

 

Sure, I want graphics to be “this good” but that doesn’t change the chances of them getting in
 

Honestly, I’m pretty sure that someone has built this in KSP 1 (mk. 1 inline cockpit with a short nose cone on the front, some mk.2 fuselages, the slanted intakes, etc) and with recoloring and procedural wings, it should be easy to make that. 
 

and as for the atmosphere system, from the top MSFS looks pretty much like KSP 2. So, this screenshot could be reasonably recreated in KSP 2 just from what we have seen. 
 

As for your questions of “want,” those invite logical fallacies, so I would avoid those. The closest fallacy I could find is the red herring fallacy, where a tangential point is introduced which can be mistaken for the central argument.

In this specific context, asking people whether they want the graphics presented in MSFS would usually get a “yes” response because all else held equal, better graphics and better aesthetics are better. However, whether we want better graphics is not what should determine how good the graphics are, the performance limitations and gameplay consequences should.

Because things are not held equal, abstracting the argument to a preference question is next to meaningless. If you want to fully separate the arguments of performance and preference, that would fix this false comparison between the two, and it would help to indicate that you are not making an argument for including good graphics by asking us whether we want them. 

If you want to continue to advocate for better graphics instead of creating a “yes” box, a better way to frame the clips that you post would be to explain (preferably more specifically) what you would like to see in KSP 2 and ask people what they think would be the pros and cons of that feature, or just leave your request and allow people to reply to it as they want. 

[t_v]

I just wanted to add, I apologize if this came across as being negative about your post itself. I truly appreciate your efforts to bring optimism and awe to the KSP community with your visions of great experiences and features. I also respect you for your persistence even after many of your ideas have been strongly opposed. That specific post was likely another look at a great graphics system to draw inspiration from, it is just that it created a dangerous ambiguity. Keep posting the things KSP will probably never be, to give us ideas of areas of the game that we hadn’t even considered. 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Can you compare this VTOL to something built in KSP? Would you want KSP to look this good?

 

I tried FS2020 on the gamepass, 3 days of download for 30 minutes of play, then I got back to VTOL VR, I choose gameplay over pretty graphics.

So nope, I wouldn't want that graphics or that plane in KSP, not if it stand in the way of good gameplay.

FS has only one planet to deal with, if I just wanted a plane simulator I wouldn't choose KSP2 for that. Once again you're making a comparison between a game that has a few fixed models of planes and a single planet to fly them in with a game that gives you hundreds of parts to put together in whatever combination you want, to build your own planes and fly them wherever you want in a map that has several solar systems in it and more than a few different atmosphere/gravity combinations to build planes for.

[Vl3d]

My posts are not argumentative. I was replying to the comparison between a house and a car. That makes no sense - you can compare the actual keys. I was saying that we can always judge by common features. Not games as a whole.

But beyond that, sometimes I like to show you guys and girls nice videos so we can all dream about what KSP2 can and will be. I believe KSP2 will be everything KSP1 wanted to be. The best game ever made! With cool graphics too. And weather. And ...

25 minutes ago, t_v said:

another look at a great graphics system to draw inspiration from, it is just that it created a dangerous ambiguity. Keep posting the things KSP will probably never be, to give us ideas of areas of the game that we hadn’t even considered. 

Yes, I am maximal in my imagination. I like to post ideas about what is possible, about the best features in the best games with the best mechanics. I'm comparing it to the best of the best - per individual feature. I want it so but I don't know what the game will actually be like. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

It's like hoping for another good Mass Effect game.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Vl3d

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

I was saying that we can always judge by common features. Not games as a whole.

If you don't consider the game as a whole when making those comparisons you only end up setting yourself up for disappointment.

No matter how good of a game it will be, the flight model in Starfield won't be as good as any of the simulators or other piloting dedicated games out there, and there's no problem with that.

When you pick up FS2020, a game that used its entire budget on making the planet and atmosphere look as realistic as possible (a budget backed by one of the biggest tech companies, Microsoft), and set that as what you expect or want from KSP2 you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

[Bej Kerman]

4 hours ago, Master39 said:

4 hours ago, Vl3d said:

I was saying that we can always judge by common features. Not games as a whole.

If you don't consider the game as a whole when making those comparisons you only end up setting yourself up for disappointment.

No matter how good of a game it will be, the flight model in Starfield won't be as good as any of the simulators or other piloting dedicated games out there, and there's no problem with that.

When you pick up FS2020, a game that used its entire budget on making the planet and atmosphere look as realistic as possible (a budget backed by one of the biggest tech companies, Microsoft), and set that as what you expect or want from KSP2 you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

[snip] these kinds of posts [snip] It's like rallying people to raise their expectations for KSP 2 to unrealistic levels. Even if that's not the intent, it's still the result of making all these pointless comparisons.

If people could actually talk about KSP 2 instead of anything but KSP 2, that would be nice.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Vanamonde