Kerbal Space Program 2 Release into Early Access Feb 24th

[RealKerbal3x]

16 minutes ago, TLTay said:

My point is, we've seen ALL they had to show on it or they'd have put new stuff in the delay announcement video instead of... paint. 

Fans have a valid reason to be upset after being basically told "no" to EA for literally years of delays, that the game would come out when it was done. Then  we were given a launch window in a Nate video, then they tease us with Jeb plushy ticktoks... just to tell us: "LOL LMAO guys, it's full price for EA and none of the stuff we promised will be in there yet, but soon! We're just not sure we can say when."

Look, if you want to go down to the dealership for a %10 off sale to buy a new car with no doors, windows, or seats just for them to be installed later... enjoy! 

I'll let the youtubers buy it (or get it free from the marketing budget)  and when it's done enough to call it game, I'll think about it.

This would've just been very bad news if the price was 20 bucks, but at 50 it's pretty insulting.

In the end, it all comes down to how you value the game personally.

I paid £17 (~$19) for KSP1, and if you consider that my play time is probably north of 1500 hours by this point, that's a little under 2 pence per hour - making it without a doubt the best value purchase I've ever made. If KSP2 was originally announced as nothing more than a more optimised, better looking version of the original game (which seems to be what we're getting with the first early access release anyway), I would probably still have paid full price for it, because if the replayability factor is anything like KSP1, chances are I would have gotten at least 1500 hours out of it, too. Being more expensive, the value for money wouldn't technically be quite as good, but I've played and enjoyed games with far worse value.

The prospect of colonies, interstellar travel and multiplayer is just a bonus - a pretty big one to be fair, one that would probably elevate KSP2 to best value purchase ever - but if we don't get them, it won't be a huge deal. Agree to disagree, I suppose, in any case I'm interested to see what the next year or two holds.

[determinationmaster]

18 minutes ago, LHACK4142 said:

It's really exciting to have a release date, but this is basically another delay.

No, it's not. The last delay said it would be available in early 2023. i think February counts as early 2023, and early access or not, can't you just be happy that the release date is finally on the horizon, without whinging about it not being "The Game That Was Promised"^TM?

[Xelo]

I feel the layout strengths of the new UI should be combined with the clean style of the old one. (forgive my rushed photoshoping). I didn't do a great job in this example but hopefully the concept is conveyed.
Even though I'm a fan and artist of pixel art, information-dense UI doesn't seem like a good place to put it? Especially pixel art with dithering shading and varying sizes of pixels, it just makes the UI less approachable from my perspective.
There's also things like the orbital info showing with no obvious way to minimize it to reduce clutter when its not needed, the new atmosphere bar being vague about how dense the atmosphere is and where the rocket indicator is.
That's just my two cents :c
 

[regex]

Quote

Colonies: Brand new to Kerbal Space Program 2 are colonies.  Colonies not only pose their own physics challenges, but also require resource gathering to build structures, space stations, habitations, and unique fuel types. Eventually, these colonies become advanced enough for vehicle construction, propelling deep space exploration and beyond. 

So it looks like building colonies is going to be required in order to go interstellar. That's a big disappointment.

"pose their own physics challenges" sounds really sketchy, is this going to be a case of KSP1 noodle meta? "aDd mOaR sTrUtS"?

The whole mining thing in KSP1 was a snooze-fest, it was literally more fun to ship fuel where I needed it. Please no more of that.

Hopefully this sort of thing is "set it and forget it" because the last thing I want to do in a game about spaceflight is micromanage colonies, especially if they randomly explode in order to be wacky like in the early trailer. I should be able to create a colony, tell them what to build and what to produce, and then have it automatically shipped back to Kerbin where I can use it (whether on-planet or for orbital construction).

Edited October 22, 2022 by regex

[mcpattyp]

I really am excited for this game but the price has me scratching my head since every new flagship feature is missing

[The Aziz]

11 hours ago, Nate Simpson said:

Given that large portions of the interstellar progression are functionally impossible to reach without on-orbit vehicle construction, and considering that resource collection WITHOUT colonies to process them would have low utility, we determined that colonies before resources was the way to go.  

I needed a moment to process this and my mind is still overheating. I'm not the one to search for implications, but in the first post here there's "Colonies not only pose their own physics challenges, but also require resource gathering to build structures, space stations, habitations, and unique fuel types. [...] Next-gen tech, colonies, and systematic resource gathering all lead to a whole new level of exploration: interstellar travel."

Now I assume it's about the final version of the game, as it's supposed to look after Early Access period. So that makes sense, obviously. However, returning to the quoted sentence, while all of that also makes sense, I'm not sure if Interstellar travel before resources is the way to go. As in that case, we would just start building our new settlements not only in the Kerbol system like before, but on Gurdamma as well, out of thin air? May as well send the cheapest version of the interstellar vessel since I don't have to bring anything aside from a lander.

I see that the stages are nicely separated so no more than two big features are added in each one, and I can't think of better arrangement, but I'm still not sold that particular idea. Idk, just my two (more) cents, there's probably more important things to do like the UI.

[MechBFP]

18 minutes ago, determinationmaster said:

No, it's not. The last delay said it would be available in early 2023. i think February counts as early 2023, and early access or not, can't you just be happy that the release date is finally on the horizon, without whinging about it not being "The Game That Was Promised"^TM?

The last delay was under the understanding that it would be a feature complete game once it was released. This clearly isn’t, so it is a delay plain and simple. There is no way to avoid that fact.  It’s better than a cancellation of the project for sure so I’ll accept it. 

The main issue is that the reasons why this direction is being taken, had to be taken, etc is not being communicated and is likely never going to be communicated. 
It is entirely possible the dev team DID want to go early access for years already but kept getting denied until reality finally hit the executives square in the nose that they should have listened.

Its possible they had tons of turn over for whatever reason, it’s possible it was nigh impossible to find experienced staff, there are tons of reasons why the project is where it is at. Without an actual explanation people are left to speculate, and speculate they will indeed.

Now don’t misunderstand, I get why they can’t and won’t explain these things. Some people will take it as an opportunity to pull on all those loose strings at the detriment of everyone involved. That unfortunate reality doesn’t appease the annoyance many people feel about the situation. 

Most people will calm down after awhile though once they vent that frustration. 

[RealKerbal3x]

2 minutes ago, regex said:

So it looks like building colonies is going to be required in order to go interstellar. That's a big disappointment.

Technically there shouldn't be anything to prevent you from just firing a probe out there with a giant booster, but any significant interstellar exploration is going to require a big ship, which means orbital construction, and necessarily colonies. 

7 minutes ago, regex said:

"pose their own physics challenges" sounds really sketchy, is this going to be a case of KSP1 noodle meta? "aDd mOaR sTrUtS"?

As far as I know this just means that colonies will be built in a similar method to regular ships (using an editor) and that they'll be subject to physics when you hit whatever the equivalent of the 'launch' button is. Hopefully noodle physics doesn't follow us from KSP1 given that these structures are going to be really large.

10 minutes ago, regex said:

Hopefully this sort of thing is "set it and forget it" because the last thing I want to do in a game about spaceflight is micromanage colonies, especially if they randomly explode in order to be wacky like in the early trailer. I should be able to create a colony, tell them what to build and what to produce, and then have it automatically shipped back to Kerbin where I can use it (whether on-planet or for orbital construction).

There's a lot of different interviews and dev diaries that I'm not going to trawl through right now, but I do remember it being specifically being said (can't remember if it was Nate or someone else) that they want the focus to be on flying spacecraft and exploring new worlds rather than micromanagement of colonies. Unfortunately we don't really know very much about how involved the colony system is actually going to be, so 'micromanagement' may end up being a relative term here.

[poopslayer78]

8 minutes ago, regex said:

especially if they randomly explode

This is one thing I'm also worried about.  I don't see much value in simulating colonies as rigid body arrays.  I can see colonies spontaneously exploding or excessive landing-leg-skating when trying to land a rocket on a landing pad if the physics model isn't extremely robust.  Not to mention all the CPU intensive computations for simulating all of this...

In my mind it would have been better to impose some sort of approximate static building constraints in a base assembly editor and as long as your base was within those constraints, you could build it and it would behave like the KSC... infinitely rigid but still destructible.  But whatever... having physically simulated bases could work just fine, it just seems like a lot of extra effort and risk for not a lot fun added.

I'm also hoping that automated resource routes and mining operations are on rails as much as possible, at least if you're not in immediate proximity to those operations.  Keep the background stuff abstract, reliable, low-CPU, and multi-threaded.  Save the heavy physics for what the player's eyes are focused on.

[Nazalassa]

I just hope they aren't still using simple-precision floats...

[TLTay]

15 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

Its possible they had tons of turn over for whatever reason, it’s possible it was nigh impossible to find experienced staff...

I'm betting it's almost certainly this.

Why work on really challenging and exhausting physics problems when you can go work on some copy/paste survival or shooter game.

[Pthigrivi]

49 minutes ago, regex said:

The whole mining thing in KSP1 was a snooze-fest, it was literally more fun to ship fuel where I needed it. Please no more of that.

See I feel exactly the opposite. Manually moving fuel around was one of the biggest time-sucks in the game, especially when you’re focused on reusability and Im so happy they’re talking about automated supply routes to make that less time consuming. To be able to live off the land locally around Jool sounds way, way easier than shipping all that stuff from Kerbin. 
 

As for interstellar my sense is it’s mostly a practical problem in that you can’t fit many of the interstellar rated drives in the VAB. At the least you’re going to need to build an orbital construction station above Kerbin, but probably if you don’t care about resources you can play sandbox where all parts are essentially free, just as they will be for most of early access. 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[razark]

So we've gone from "Release day will be when all the new features are included" to "Release day will be whenever all the new features are included".

[regex]

9 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

As for interstellar my sense is it’s mostly a practical problem in that you can’t fit many of the interstellar rated drives in the VAB.

That's kind of silly, how are you going to design the craft in the first place?

9 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

but probably if you don’t care about resources you can play sandbox where all parts are essentially free, just as they will be for most of early access. 

I would like progression from the game as well. What I don't want is fiddley little stations that I have to manage and jump between, or optimize and plan correctly in order to avoid them exploding or failing. I'm here for the spacecraft, not the infrastructure. If it's required I should be able to slap any old thing together and just forget it exists.

40 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

There's a lot of different interviews and dev diaries that I'm not going to trawl through right now, but I do remember it being specifically being said (can't remember if it was Nate or someone else) that they want the focus to be on flying spacecraft and exploring new worlds rather than micromanagement of colonies. Unfortunately we don't really know very much about how involved the colony system is actually going to be, so 'micromanagement' may end up being a relative term here.

That's a good sign, but I'll remain skeptical. I can't stand sim management games.

Edited October 22, 2022 by regex

[RealKerbal3x]

2 minutes ago, regex said:

That's kind of silly, how are you going to design the craft in the first place?

There's an orbital version of the VAB that doesn't have any walls, it comes into play once you've got a sufficiently large and well-developed colony to support ship construction.

[Pthigrivi]

30 minutes ago, regex said:

That's kind of silly, how are you going to design the craft in the first place?

As we understand it you’ll design these the same way you do in the VAB, except there will be no practical size limit and the backdrop will be the planet below, which sounds pretty awesome to me. 
 

33 minutes ago, regex said:

I would like progression from the game as well. What I don't want is fiddley little stations that I have to manage and jump between, or optimize and plan correctly in order to avoid them exploding or failing. I'm here for the spacecraft, not the infrastructure. If it's required I should be able to slap any old thing together and just forget it exists.

Well given that science is being phased in before resources you should have the option to use one but not the other. In our discussions on sandbox over the last few months it sounds more common that players want resources but not progression, but I think an opt-in sandbox menu would keep both groups happy. 

[Kerbart]

21 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Well given that science is being phased in before resources you should have the option to use one but not the other. In our discussions on sandbox over the last few months it sounds more common that players want resources but not progression, but I think an opt-in sandbox menu would keep both groups happy. 

And let's not forget that as of now we have no clue how "science" and "resources" are implemented in the game. It might be the same way, or something wildly different.

[Greenfire32]

This is great, but I'm a little concerned.

As the game was initially scheduled to release in 2020, it will be 3 years late. According to the roadmap, a lot of the features that KSP2 was planned to bring just aren't going to be ready by then. I know a lot of nonsense has happened with COVID and then studio shakeups, but nonetheless, the lack of "sequel features" that are going to be available 3 years after the initial release date is a little worrying.

I'm still gonna be there on day one, but I won't lie. I'm a little...whelmed.

[Alexoff]

3 hours ago, LHACK4142 said:

It's really exciting to have a release date, but this is basically another delay. When will we get the KSP2 promised in 2020? My guess is starting to become "never".

Perhaps modders will make KSP3 from KSP1 by that time. And we can always use our imagination!

[Nazalassa]

1 minute ago, Alexoff said:

Perhaps modders will make KSP3 from KSP1 by that time. And we can always use our imagination!

Perhaps the community will code a KSP-like game before KSP2 is released... Something that would e to KSP what Minetest is to Minecraft.

[Xelo]

8 minutes ago, Nazalassa said:

Perhaps the community will code a KSP-like game before KSP2 is released... Something that would e to KSP what Minetest is to Minecraft.

That's got to be one of the funniest "Fine we'll do it ourselves" middle fingers raised to devs if it ever materializes. Though I would be down for an open source KSP of sorts ngl, at least then the direction would truly be dictated, maintained and supported by the community.

[Nazalassa]

11 minutes ago, Xelo said:

maintained and supported by the community.

So that we can finally get what the community wants!

I think if ten people who know coding participate, with the help of other members who know physics, and CS, then it would work.

[Xelo]

41 minutes ago, Nazalassa said:

So that we can finally get what the community wants!

I think if ten people who know coding participate, with the help of other members who know physics, and CS, then it would work.

Mmm, its one thing to have the skills, another to have the free time equivalent and coordination of a game dev studio.. Realistically any effort will span half a decade to a decade, competing with ksp2 in under a year is a very fantastical feat and hence unquestionably the biggest one-upmanship in software development history if it did happen. But hey the process cannot get more transparent, the code is just right there, you can playtest at anytime, submit bugs directly to be ironed out, contribute features, heck fork the entire game to make your own version. You'd also need artists (2d, 3d, and technical),  sound designers, people who know how to design UI, people who specialise in networking, modding support,  etc. Many moving parts, and many different visions for what the game should be... Itd be a sight for sure and a drama for the ages. 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Xelo

[Nazalassa]

7 minutes ago, Xelo said:

Mmm, its one thing to have the skills, another to have the free time equivalent and coordination of a game dev studio.. Realistically any effort will span half a decade to a decade, competing with ksp2 in under a year is a very fantastical feat and hence unquestionably the biggest one-upmanship in software development history if it did happen. But hey the process cannot get more transparent, the code is just right there, you can playtest at anytime, submit bugs directly to be ironed out, contribute features, heck fork the entire game to make your own version. You'd also need artists (2d, 3d, and technical),  sound designers, people who know how to design UI, people who specialise in networking, modding support,  etc. Many moving parts, and many different visions for what the game should be... Itd be a sight for sure and a drama for the ages. 

If it takes five years, it's not an issue :)

I made some sketches...

[regex]

46 minutes ago, Nazalassa said:

I think if ten people who know coding participate, with the help of other members who know physics, and CS, then it would work.

That's ... a laughable prospect. Especially to put out a piece of software that is relatively free of bugs, quite polished, and has all the features already shown and announced at this time. But, you know, don't let me stop you. I'm looking forward to your finished game in ... oh, let's be generous and give you five years.