Jacke

To the best of my recollection, I did feel some concern when TTI bought KSP and Squad the gaming studio. More concern over the Star Theory to Intercept Games mess. Maybe I posted then, can't remember for sure. Sure was a lot being commented at that time. Also didn't like that there was an end to improving KSP. Fast forward to just before the release. I heard what happened at the KSP Content Maker Event a few weeks before the launch, how the game barely ran on much more powerful hardware than my old machine. I decided there was no point me buying KSP 2 at release. Independent of me running KSP 2, I was concerned about what appeared to be a very poor product at a vital event right before release. I can't remember when Early Access was announced, but that too increased my concern. Then what was released was just as bad as the event version (which put paid to comments about there must be a better version coming for release). And the reviews and feedback were not good at all. Then not having a stake at the time in KSP 2 and not playing KSP at the time, I drifted away. Didn't think about it. Completely missed FS. Then the bottom dropped out at the end of April. And I've been following here more closely since. But more the mess and not KSP and its mods. I don't think that's a good thing. I want to start back with KSP. But there's RL in the way. And I worry the other shoe's going to drop.

A big issue here is uncertainty. We don't know whether or not there's a continuing future for KSP that would extend to see these forums continued. Because with these forums, a replacement isn't needed. But if these forums are shut down in short order where we can't react before the end.... I think there's already a security stopgap solution to this problem. There's already a number of KSP-oriented Discords out there. Set up by the KSP video makers, streamers, and modders. I would strongly suggest we all join these KSP-oriented Discords ASAP, as many of them as possible. I'm already on several of them. If these forums disappear overnight, there will be discussion of that on those Discords. And then a community replacement could then take form. I also strongly suggest if there are vital things on these forums you don't want to lose, you should find a way to save them. For me, I would worry about connecting with the members here. The KSP-oriented Discords should solve that issue. For mods, I have many saved links to these forums. While those links wouldn't work without these forums, there's the names of the mods in the links' text as well as my arrangement of the links. That alone I could use to reconnect with needed mods for KSP.

I find Discord more useful for smaller groups of people. It started as a just-works way to get voice comms in any game. Works well for my gaming guild Repeat Offenders, but we also have our own forums. A better example is the Homecoming Testers and Devs have a Discord for a lot of the communication on Closed Alpha and Closed Beta development before it goes to Open Beta. @K^2 is right, forums need security and moderation and that only grows with the player base. (Discords need security and moderation too.) But forums allow a number of people in a game's community to interact and have persistent documents. I have fond memories of Early Access playing Subnautica and participating and getting info on the Unknown Worlds forums. I don't think it would have worked as well just as a Discord. It's also the example of a gaming company shutting down its forums (likely as an economy measure) that I learned how so much was lost. @Superfluous J is right. I remember communities I was part of over the years, most all gone now. Outside of my Regimental Association and a local professional group, Repeat Offenders and City of Heroes is my oldest community and that's from 2005 and on. Others I joined later have now gone. @Lisias is also right. There's a whole lot of KSP history here (though there was that major forum incident in which the 20 top mod threads were all lost, which to me means the Better Than Starting Manned topic with all that subcommunity is now just as much dust in the wind). Without these forums, I can't see the modding of KSP continuing as it is. I hope we don't lose this.

EDIT: Below, I've thought of a preparatory safety measure: join existing KSP-oriented Discords, set up by KSP video makers, streamers, and modders. There's several I'm already a member of. If these forums get shut down in short order, the discussion would start on them of what to do to do about it. https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/224662-alternate-forum-for-ksp1/?do=findComment&comment=4395839 I was thinking about starting this sort of topic. Because I want to start playing KSP again. But I fear with the uncertainty we face, this forum could disappear overnight. The organizing hub of our community, discussions, modding, and stories, gone. Many existing game companies have shut down forums and replaced them with Discords. Discord is good for many things, but for being the hub of a community of the nature of KSP's I think forums are far better. I've gone through this loss of community before, with City of Heroes. 2012 August 31st the shutdown was announced. 2012 November 30th I and many other City fans played like we'd never get another chance to play the game we love again. Because that's what we thought would happen. But a miracle happened and now there's a stable community-run City of Heroes. I do not expect that to happen again. If these forums were closed but KSP was still available on Steam, maybe something could be done to preserve this community. I think if we don't have a good backup home for KSP before this one goes away, especially if it's loss is rapid, I don't know what will survive, if anything. I'm calling on a few KSP players to see what they think. My apologies for tagging you all, but I think this is a clear and present issue that should have some discussion now. Hopefully more will join the discussion and something good will come of it. @HebaruSan, @JAFO, @JoeSchmuckatelli, @K^2, @kurgut, @linuxgurugamer, @Lisias, @ManEatingApe, @mikegarrison, @RayneCloud, @Superfluous J

It's not wasted propellants. The time to hold the rocket is based upon making sure the engines ignited correctly and are now burning properly and stably. If there's an issue detected, the control system on the rocket automatically shuts down the engines.

I compared Avatar (2009) to a much darker precedent: The Birth of a Nation (1915). Technically amazing, horrendous story. Birth was much worse. But Avatar was creative drivel and except for James Cameron's name attached to it and its technical features would be complete forgettable. No way I'd waste 3 more minutes on a sequel.

The whole reason there's so much telemetry transmitted from rockets is so as much as possible is learned from every test, even if the rocket ends up destroyed in one way or another. Much can be learned from failures. However, there are reasonable and unreasonable failures. It's important to be sure things are not just setting up unreasonable failures. In both cases are the WW2 Allied Seaborne Raids/Invasions. It's important that a test flight that is an unreasonable failure isn't being excused as a reasonable failure.

@Lisias, yes I am. Hope you're better soon. I had a cold that took away about half of May. @Superfluous J, are you at home?

Why not blame both? Yes, TTI / PD set a lot of conditions that launched KSP 2 into a coffin-corner of the performance graft. Like a lot of corporate leadership, they seem to be rather clueless about what they should be doing even just to make sure they're not poisoning the chances to get a good ROI. Nate was put in charge. The vast majorities of failures have as their root causes failures in leadership. It's harsh (and can be career limiting), but it was up to Nate to respectfully push back to TTI / PD if conditions were setting KSP 2 to fail Within those constraints, Nate has to see he had the staff so he was properly advised as well as could take the project to completion. It comes down to the 3 parts of Project Management: Specification Schedule Budget and from the Budget the unmentioned 4th part: Skilled Staff Those 4 parts have to not contradict each other. It's also vital to know many of the painful lessons learned over the years (cf The Mythical Man-Month and similar sources), like throwing extra staff and overtime hours at a schedule rarely works (because some components have fundamental requirements and adding staff can slow matters down, etc.). When things were going into areas that starting increasing the risk of failure, it was up to Nate to respectfully push back at TTI / PD that changes in the restrictions were needed. A critical lack was no one on the original teams was sufficiently familiar with even playing KSP, certainly not modding it or developing it. That there was a forced separation of IG from Squad was setting things up to recreate the same problems KSP went through. Nate seems to have a history of not doing that sort of respectful pushback on the projects he's helmed. He may not be sufficiently secure to be able to do that. In that case, I have some sympathy for him. But Nate needs to face up to the fact he's been telling lots of porkie-pies to the KSP community. And the KSP community is rather miffed at him and rightly so. The feelings about the corporate apparatchiks at TTI / PD are likely far worse.

I seriously think purchasers of KSP 2 are upset that they were effectively tricked into spending money for a boondoggle that was almost guaranteed to fail.

Welp.... I understand your position and why and I support that. So many forum users purchased, put effort into, had hope for KSP 2. And now it's very obvious that due to various faults of those in charge, KSP 2 was doomed from the start. All those forum users feel deeply wronged now. I didn't have sufficient hardware to even have a hope of doing anything with KSP 2, so I didn't buy it. But for that, I would have likely bought it too. And instead of my current feelings of disappointment and sense of injustice due to the faults of those in charge, I would have been very cross about them taking my money for what was a non-functional boondoggle. Those responsible, none of them are active anymore on these forums. They're not saying anything. There's no way to voice our displeasure with our being cheated to them directly. So many forum users are getting into what's not much better than bun-fights about who said what when and shades of grey. It's almost, well, like arguing about the arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic after it struck the iceberg. But forum users are upset. They want to vent. They want to know what's happening. And emotions are high. And trying to be so Zen about all this is rather hard. I understand your pleading for the fighting to stop. It will, eventually. But things won't really be better after that. The wrongs, the injustices of KSP 2 will still be there. Where my worry right now is that these forums will be shut down as an "economy measure" at some time in the future. That any community of KSP users will be lost permanently. Not a lot I can do about that either.

Out of reactions for today. I completely agree!

If everyone is crew in the same spacecraft, then multiplayer could make sense. But as one player is going to have control of the spacecraft, one player is going to have control of the Time Warp. Having all the players as equivalent to the single player in KSP with all the functions of designing, building, launching, and flying spacecraft is far more complex even just to figure out functionally. To implement in the context where Time Warp is wanted means there has to be a way to Time Warp the multiplayer game. Which may lead to design features some consider...unnatural.

NTR rockets with a solid core that are reusable also need to cool down the reactor after a burn. which means they need to use propellant to cool down the engine. This ends up providing some extra low-value thrust at the end of a burn, making exacting burns more complex.

This was posted on Monday, when things were a bit more uncertain. But even then, there was enough certainty. And today, after @ShadowZone's Friday video, it's painfully clear. Those who haven't watched it should do so. Intercept Games is not being quiet and unproductive. There is no one left at Intercept Games. The previous IG staff remaining employed are now all likely transferred to Private Division. There isn't enough staff to do much more than check the recent KSP 2 work and push out updates to Steam. Everyone else has been sent home because they are now laid out, just technically employed until the end of June, but all now looking for new employment. What has been horrible communication is now no real communication. Also from @ShadowZone's video, the consensus of people who know the industry and software development, looking at what is now known about what went on with KSP 2, is that the KSP 2 code was wrongly created and developed. There is little worth salvaging besides some of the art assets. If Take-Two ever starts development again on KSP 2, the new studio (who should have proper staff with the needed skills) should start from scratch with a proper specification. They will waste less time. What's more likely is that Take-Two at some time in the future will have someone develop another simpler game using the Kerbals to start recouping the losses that Take-Two has had up to now. KSP 2 is effectively a dead project.

As has been mentioned many times before, that is likely some of the staff moved to Private Division pushing out previously created changes to Steam.

At some point, when there's obvious other competencies in the execs at PD/Take Two, the stupidity must also be considered malicious. I've watched the ShadowZone video completely. Someone higher up at Take Two should use this opportunity to clear house of the incompetents who made those very stupid decisions for KSP 2, just to get rid of them and reduce cost. For all of it: By Grabthar's Hammer, what a savings. >:(

Welp, if ShadowZone's investigation is accurate, KSP 2 was doomed from the start.

Okay. I'll play. Hmmm, just not in the mood to think up new ones, so I'll look at everyone else's lists. Oppenheimer - Sure, I know the story. Haven't seen it so far. Will likely watch it once. Avatar: The Last Airbender - If I'm going to watch it, I'll watch the animé. Schindler's List - Saw it. Don't need to ever see it again. This is a case where if you know the story (or not), it's just best not to see it. One thing to know there's evil in the world. Watching it reported or recreated makes you realise Nietzsche was right about that staring into the Abyss.... Trainspotting - "If it was actually about spotting trains maybe." Exactly. Knowing a bit about what's it about means I'll pass on this one. Good Will Hunting - Saw it. Kind of interesting. Would maybe watch it again. But there's a lot of other films I'd put before it. The Social Network - I know a bit about what's it about. I have no desire to see any film about hothouse billionaire techbros. I've heard a bit about it. I have no desire to tackle it at all. I don't want to try to understand it. I've seen them all (it was a train-wreck I had to see to the end). The only one that came close to being worth it was "Rogue One". For the telly shows, "Andor" is bloody amazing. The rest (besides some of the animated ones), no better than meh.

Welp, may not have shut them down. But they've been gutted of staff, with just a few transferred to PD. I would imagine both are hollow corporate entities waiting for such a time to be used again. Maybe. It appears that Take-Two does not want to make a specific comment on the status of these things, including KSP 2. This may mean the worse case scenario of these forums being shut down may not happen. Because having said one thing, doesn't want to say or indicate another. Not a guarantee, but a hope, at least for the forums and our KSP community. KSP 2...who knows.

"Yes, we know the schedule's slipped again. But we think we'll have it out complete before Star Citizen."

Not something to "Like" but we only have one reaction. I hope you're as safe as can be.

It's @linuxgurugamer. He supports his mods to the current version of KSP. It should work. If you have issues, report them with recreation details and logs and he will work to resolve them.

There's likely NDAs involved. The people who were laid off are still under severance until the end of June. And they know the least. Those still working have even more reasons to not speak out of turn. The first we'll likely hear is information from that earnings call on May 16th, then maybe a bit more just after. Even afterwards, expect most things to still be as clear as mud. This, like the change from Star Theory to Intercept Games, will always be somewhat shrouded in uncertainty and lack of details.

I think this is a brilliant plan! The only problem there is that I think Take-Two will never sell the Kerbal IP to any buyer for fear of that buyer making a success of it and making the whole Take-Two project--including selling off the IP--look like a complete failure, especially selling the IP. The way that a Take-Two KSP could be restarted also sounds very plausible. Maybe they should get another for-hire studio working on that Kerbal Kart idea too. Hey, if the Kerbals go crazy for rocketry and space exploration, imagine how they'll handle high-speed auto design and operation.