About patience and ambition (thank you Paul Furio!)

[Vl3d]

The information below is just my guess about what happened during the development of the game from a conceptual and software engineering point of view. I talk about some of the major challenges that had to be tackled by the dev team - which caused the delays and are the main reason for the current state of the game at EA release. Please be tolerant of my many suppositions.

TLDR: cut the development team some slack.. they've worked a lot during the past years and we don't see most of the work yet. It will all be clear as we step through the roadmap and the game will speak for itself and for the team.
 

Prototyping, refactoring, rewriting

Based on things mentioned during interviews, I believe that KSP1 with mods was initially used for prototyping, then there was a major refactoring of the game after which the Star Theory drama happened.. which I think forced the devs to do a major / complete rewrite of the game. As you can imagine, after announcing delays, the developers probably wanted to do something more ambitious than just an improved version of KSP1. So...
 

Interstellar - "simulating a multi-light-year spanning 3D volume at a sub-millimeter level of resolution"

The "problem" with KSP is that it's played by very smart people that know and love science and technology. It's meant to be a realistic simulation of space travel and a lot of other things. This is kind of a trap for game design because it means avoiding instancing and other tricks. Blame Descartes for making us think about space as it's own thing (Cartesian system) instead of relationships between object. If spaceships were teleported from one star system to another we wouldn't have all the issues people complain about. But...

"...we're enabling players to travel from planet A orbiting star B to planet C orbiting star D, continuously, without any loading screens, pauses, faked out transitions, "warp drives", or other trickery. We're simulating a multi-light-year spanning 3D volume at a sub-millimeter level of resolution, and enabling players to travel to any point in that space if they can build a ship capable of making the journey. Unprecedented in gaming." - Paul Furio, the Senior Engineering Manager / Technical Director at Intercept / Private Division, April 2022

This is why I wouldn't be quick to judge the work of Paul and the developers. They tackled something that is generally only done using supercomputers. We're talking about distances that are just incomprehensibly large for the human mind. It's a HARD problem and solving it is groundbreaking for gaming. Add the need for a trajectory solver that takes acceleration into account and it all gets very complicated.
 

Multiplayer - solving the time-warp problem and delivery routes

As many of you know, I've written about my wishes, dreams and theories related to multiplayer. I might be wrong, I might be right. After thinking about it .. a lot .. I have come to the conclusion that asynchronous multiplayer that allows time-warp in space (and other features like delivery routes) requires an innovative and complex system of recording events and placing them on a common timeline. If the devs chose this route, it is/was very hard to implement and I'm sure it took a lot of time. Actually, because it's built on top of the previously mentioned simulation system.. it's even more complicated.
 

Early Access - stripping down the game for EA

IMO this was done in a hurry and has generated the most bugs because you have to work around a lot of issues caused by the way fundamental systems interact in the game. Why was it done in a hurry? Your guess is as good as mine. But certainly the game would have benefited from another 2 months of testing and debugging. Is this reason enough to be disappointed or hostile? Of course not, bugs will be fixed.
 

And then we also have:

• Creating the teams, processes and development pipeline
• Creating the new PQS system for celestial bodies (the textures and details are there in the internal builds, but there's not enough performance budget to use them for now)
• Parts mechanics for vehicles and colonies
• Physics (aero, liquid etc.)
• Creating / iterating the user interface (which seems to have been left to the last moment - which has generated bugs)
• Performance optimizations (this is usually done at the end of development and I don't think is the biggest issue for now)
   

The scale of the project is GIGANTIC from a software development point of view. It's innovative work. So please cut the development team some slack and support them.

Thank you, Paul Furio, for all your work! It will not go unnoticed and unappreciated by the community, I assure you.

Have a listen to this older KSP2 related podcast with Nate and Paul: http://forum.purdueseds.space/pspodcast/episode2/

For specific dates please check out this great timeline created by @DrCHIVES.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Vl3d

[Kerbart]

9 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

TLDR: cut the development team some slack.. they've worked a lot during the past years and we don't see most of the work yet. It will all be clear as we step through the roadmap and the game will speak for itself and for the team.

Did you don your flame-resistant suit? We all know how this thread is going to look like.

[TomKerbal]

Nice article so far, thank you.

"The "problem" with KSP is that it's played by very smart people that know and love science and technology. It's meant to be a realistic simulation of space travel and a lot of other things. "

Yes and, well. Physics is, let's say, stretched. The Kerbol planet system is impossible to exist with the elements (I mean elemantary particles) we already know and there is little hope that they could exist somewhere in the universe. And what I have read about the "Principia" mod there a simplifications made in the trajectory calculations. But you are right, it's not using "Heisenberg compensators" and fantastic dark forces (so far). So from my side: Why not using stargates ? It's not more unrealistic than super nuclear drives fully neglecting relativistic effects. No problem for me as well, but stargates are o.k. for me, too.

 

[twich22]

While all your points are valid, it doesn't excuse the fact that they released this game in this state at full price or nearly full price. There are two possible scenarios that I can think of: 

1. They knew what a poor state the game was in and decided to release it at near full price anyways in an 'early access' status. Now, why they would do this is a bit more complicated and unknown. Pushing the game out forces the development of the game to go from pre-release to post-release, and forces any hidden issues into the light of day. KSP 1 was pretty much entirely developed post-release once the core of the game was stable (pre-1.0 build), so it makes sense that KSP 2 could be done the same way. It provides free game testers and all important feedback to fix their problems. However, there is also the possibility of financial issues and a money grab. KSP has a niche but devoted user base. They knew that we would buy the game regardless of the state of it. So its possible that they chose to exploit the user base for some cash. Why they needed that cash so bad I dont know. But as you said, this game took much longer than it was supposed to, for many different reasons, which all means that it cost much more than they expected to make it. 

2. They DIDNT know that a poor state the game was in. I cant decided if this scenario would be better or worse. On the one hand, now that they are aware, they could divert their resources to fixing all the problems that they were somehow unaware of. However it would also indicate extreme ignorance and point to serious flaws in the company that might or might not be easily or quickly fixed. I cant really imagine that this is the case. Which means they must have known what they were releasing to the world. But maybe they just didnt. 

[Kerbart]

3 minutes ago, TomKerbal said:

[...] And what I have read about the "Principia" mod there a simplifications made in the trajectory calculations.

Patched conics are a simplified model but still very accurate (except for Mercury) and NASA still uses it for the majority of interplanetary planning, switching over to n-body physics only in the final stages. "Good enough for practical purposes"

3 minutes ago, TomKerbal said:

But you are right, it's not using "Heisenberg compensators" and fantastic dark forces (so far). So from my side: Why not using stargates ? It's not more unrealistic than super nuclear drives fully neglecting relativistic effects. No problem for me as well, but stargates are o.k. for me, too.

Super efficient nuclear drives are conceivable with modern day technology. We might not be able to construct them, but we know how they work. Same for hybernation, in-situ resource utilization and even taken-for-granted thinks like docking ports (KSP style).

Star gates, on the other hand... there's a lot of hand waving, smoke and mirrors going on with that. We can't even fathom what they involve. Do they require energy? How much? Are their environmental effects (radiation?) We simply don't know. There's a lot less uncertainty and "yeah, right! snort" about nuclear drives ("suspension of disbelieve" as it's called), even if the technology depicted is fiction as well.

Rumors have it that the Mun arches are star gates though.

[Chilkoot]

29 minutes ago, TomKerbal said:

The Kerbol planet system is impossible to exist with the elements (I mean elemantary particles) we already know and there is little hope that they could exist somewhere in the universe.

I always kind of scratched my head why the original team chose to keep gravity at ~9.8m/s², but then scaled down the size of everything.  Was it a time warp thing at that point in development?  Was it just too ... tedious to sit through an orbital burn up to 8km/s, or maybe the jaunt to Jool was just too much to sit through?

On another topic -   I could be wrong here, but I seem to recall that time dilation at relativistic speeds *will* be accounted for in KSP 2.  That was a statement a loooong time ago from Star Theory (remember them?), so it may have been dropped along the way.

[Bej Kerman]

1 minute ago, Chilkoot said:

45 minutes ago, TomKerbal said:

The Kerbol planet system is impossible to exist with the elements (I mean elemantary particles) we already know and there is little hope that they could exist somewhere in the universe.

I always kind of scratched my head why the original team chose to keep gravity at ~9.8m/s², but then scaled down the size of everything.  Was it a time warp thing at that point in development?  Was it just too ... tedious to sit through an orbital burn up to 8km/s, or maybe the jaunt to Jool was just too much to sit through?

Less tedious and less floating point error. Don't forget that Kerbal engines are also terribly inefficient so it's not very far off from how it works in real scale - real scale only introduces tedium for most.

3 minutes ago, Chilkoot said:

I could be wrong here, but I seem to recall that time dilation at relativistic speeds *will* be accounted for in KSP 2

There were plenty of arguments about it but Intercept never said anything about it themselves.

[Gotmachine]

As of now, we have zero evidence that any of the specific technical challenges of a game like KSP have been solved :
- Rigidbody physics are still the good old PhysX joints, with the same limitations as in KSP 1
- Aerodynamics are still the good old dKSP 1 drag cubes system, with all its limitations.
- Keplerian orbits are extremely unstable and buggy, and we haven't seen any demonstration of the 3-body solver.
- The background processing / thrust under warp / while unloaded system has bugs and massive performance issues that will be a significant bottleneck unless they do a radical refactor.
- Thermodynamics and resource chain handling are the difficult things to get right at massive timewarp speeds, and those aren't implemented yet.

1 hour ago, Vl3d said:

Creating the new PQS system for celestial bodies

Funnily enough, that system was put together by an external contractor, Jason Booth : https://medium.com/@jasonbooth_86226/my-approach-to-optimization-bfcafc1f8768

[TomKerbal]

3 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Patched conics are a simplified model but still very accurate (except for Mercury) and NASA still uses it for the majority of interplanetary planning, switching over to n-body physics only in the final stages. "Good enough for practical purposes"

Super efficient nuclear drives are conceivable with modern day technology. We might not be able to construct them, but we know how they work. Same for hybernation, in-situ resource utilization and even taken-for-granted thinks like docking ports (KSP style).

Star gates, on the other hand... there's a lot of hand waving, smoke and mirrors going on with that. We can't even fathom what they involve. Do they require energy? How much? Are their environmental effects (radiation?) We simply don't know. There's a lot less uncertainty and "yeah, right! snort" about nuclear drives ("suspension of disbelieve" as it's called), even if the technology depicted is fiction as well.

Rumors have it that the Mun arches are star gates though.

Patched conics: interesting !  Thank's for that information, very good.

But what is with this axis tilt problem the moon has in RSS e.g. ? I often sit in the Shackleton crater (southpole, it's GREAT!) in full sunlight what it fully impossible... That was one problem I hoped they will improve in KSP2. I do not know, if they did, but I am still hoping.

To interstellar traveling: I like your optimism but I don's share it. I do not believe that it is possible with currenct technology (NERVA, Timberwind ?) to send a spaceship to Alpha Centauri in our livetime, no way. The Voyagers needed decades for traveling about 17 Lh (approx.), and there was a perfect planet constellation for them when they started. 17Lh. Alpha Centauri: 4Ly. That's a factor of 2000 between. And these a probes, not vehicles for human beeings. It's not as impossible as, let's say, a space lift, but nearly. Sending robot ships with human DNA for hundreds of years, really? I know there are serious considerations in that direction, but for me that's science fiction. But really good, I like it, too. But then we can use Stargates as well, that's what I wanted to say. I think for a simulation it is much easier to implement than interstellar travel with some über rocket engines which really hurts my physical stomach anyway.... but I will like them too of course. The most important thing is that they continue KSP2 because it's great.

 

[Kerbart]

4 minutes ago, TomKerbal said:

But what is with this axis tilt problem the moon has in RSS e.g. ? I often sit in the Shackleton crater (southpole, it's GREAT!) in full sunlight what it fully impossible... That was one problem I hoped they will improve in KSP2. I do not know, if they did, but I am still hoping.

Axial tilt is not a limitation in Patched conics, merely in how KSP1 implements its universe.

The history of astromechanics is a fascinating subject that I can highly recommend to do some reading on. A lot of what we learn in school is simply not true and people knew a lot better how the universe worked -- or at least made a choice in what theories they accepted on better grounds than merely stubborn beliefs --  than we tend to think today.

[Kerbart]

41 minutes ago, TomKerbal said:

To interstellar traveling: I like your optimism but I don's share it. I do not believe that it is possible with currenct technology (NERVA, Timberwind ?) to send a spaceship to Alpha Centauri in our livetime, no way.

Maybe not with propellant based rocket engines, but there are other sources of propulsion like the Bussard Ramjet (theory swings back anf forth and is currently at a "no" but it has the attractiveness that at least it sounds plausible) and laser powered solar sails. Those kind of solutions can get us -- theoretically -- to reasonable fractions of c.

The biggest hurdle in the game is indeed travel time, and maybe you're right, that a star gate will offer a less cringe-worthy way of overcoming that obstacle than engines with a I_sp of 5 billion s.

[VlonaldKerman]

8 hours ago, twich22 said:

While all your points are valid, it doesn't excuse the fact that they released this game in this state at full price or nearly full price.  (emphasis added)

This is my problem. I have no issue playing an early access game. I don't mind dealing with bugs, and I like to play games as they mature and grow, especially one as near and dear to my heart as KSP 2. However, as has already been played out countless times on this forum, there is simply no framing that makes it okay to charge $50 for the game in its current state. I suppose I wouldn't be complaining if the game was, say, $30. It's certainly not worth $50 now, and even if they intend to release for $70, $50 is too much for what is effectively an alpha build.

I would say the current build is worth MAYBE $15-20 in CURRENT VALUE- that means the pricing is mostly speculative. Considering how technologically ambitious KSP 2 is as a project, and the other circumstances around the game... this simply doesn't make sense. The game should be priced according to its current value, plus at MOST a small markup (50%???) for the fact that one day in the future it may get finished. In fact, as was pointed out on another thread long ago, the Steam early access rules specifically state: "Do not ask your customers to bet on the future of your game. Customers should be buying your game based on its current state, not on promises of a future that may or may not be realized." (https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/earlyaccess). I'm not suggesting that we should petition Steam to get KSP 2 kicked off of the platform, as many (most?) early access titles on Steam don't truly live up to this rule. However, most are cheaper than $50, and KSP 2 seems to be committing a particularly egregious foul here.

 

8 hours ago, Vl3d said:

TLDR: cut the development team some slack.. they've worked a lot during the past years and we don't see most of the work yet. It will all be clear as we step through the roadmap and the game will speak for itself and for the team.

I think you're probably right, and I definitely hope you are.

 

8 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Did you don your flame-resistant suit? We all know how this thread is going to look like.

Regardless of whether or not you disagree with me about whether or not the price is worth it, surely you would acknowledge that, in a vacuum (get it? ), $50 is a lot for an early access game, and an early one at that, and that it is therefore understandable for people to be frustrated or upset, especially when the game concerned is part of such a thoroughly beloved franchise? $50 is a lot of money, and a new graphics card is even more. If we're cutting the dev team some slack for the product they've released at the price at which they've released it, surely it's appropriate to cut the people who are understandably upset about the current state of affairs some slack, too?

Edited March 9, 2023 by VlonaldKerman

[Kerbart]

3 hours ago, VlonaldKerman said:

Regardless of whether or not you disagree with me about whether or not the price is worth it, surely you would acknowledge that, in a vacuum (get it? ), $50 is a lot for an early access game [...] If we're cutting the dev team some slack for the product they've released at the price at which they've released it, surely it's appropriate to cut the people who are understandably upset about the current state of affairs some slack, too?

I'm actually fine with the complaint that the current price is $50, as well as many other fair and well-thought out complaints. The ones that irk me and that sadly seem to have a majority are:

• It's insane that this game doesn't work with my Intel HD crad/GTX645
• The game is unplayable because it's only 50 FPS (these are the same people that after every KSP1 update would declare that the game was COMPLETELY broken)
• The game is unplayable because my 450part rocket that in reality would collapse on the launching pad is noodling
• I've not written a single line of code in my life but as an expert on software development I claim that this could have been written by two coders in three months

There is potentially some hyperbole here but you get the point. So no, the whiners with baseless critique don't get slack from me. The well-voiced complaints, yes, but we both know that my comment isn't for them.

[WatchClarkBand]

On 3/8/2023 at 10:24 AM, Vl3d said:

Thank you, Paul Furio, for all your work!

You're welcome.

Keep playing KSP2 and trust the rest of the Intercept team. They're on your side. Things can only get better!