moeggz

@Carraux We as the community have given them a lot of time to right the ship. I believed them at launch, and was even a pretty happy customer until they put it on sale before making any progress. Actions speak louder than words, there’s no reason to believe what they say when they haven’t delivered anything yet.

It’s like they picked the worst of both worlds. Talking a lot at times but only about insubstantial stuff (amas with softball questions, dev insights into features that were supposed to come a brief window after launch) And then trying to change to a “under promise over deliver strategy” without acknowledging or wrapping up the loose ends of everything they’ve already discussed (reentry heat video was supposedly supposed to come out 11 days ago, has since then not been even acknowledged) all the while not actually delivering everything. It’s like they keep flip flopping on how much to talk thinking that’s the reason the player base is grumpy when, if the game was making progress, they could talk a lot or not at all and many would be happier. Because the communication style isn’t the reason for the backlash, the state of the game is the reason.

I think I agree with @chefsbrianthat we need a paradigm shifting update (ie science) to move the community forward. What you see as spamming I see as meticulous detail gathering. There were a few posts where I wasn’t inclined to post transcripts or all the details of a link (again, infant and also not wanting to be accused as a liar if I slightly misquoted something) and @PDCWolf put the time and effort into actually laying out all the details. These detailed lists were appreciated not just by me but by other commenters. I don’t mean to pick on your shared disagreement with each other, I just want to say that it’s very easy (I’ve done it myself plenty) to put people in boxes and I do believe that both of you are genuine and want the best for both KSP, and the community. @Periple good catch! I tried to find stuff he posted here but he didn’t use his username here much and as that was under intercept games it didn’t come up. Still just all guess work, so I’m not trying to lay blame at any individual’s feet, but the contrast of those very confident statements and what we actually got is a core source of much of the distrust. That was a check they couldn’t cash, but hopefully science is for the sake of the game, and I think it’d lighten the mood here a little bit. Also, the phrase “trade resources” with other players is one I had forgotten about. That would imply a space race type multiplayer version that still would involve some cooperation. I’d love for there to be a straightforward “versus” and “coop” mode where multiple players are working together on one space agency but trade implies a third type of distinct but cooperative space agencies.

Absolutely! And I appreciate your even temperedness and desire to mend rifts. I agree @PDCWolfand @Pthigrivi are both genuine and both want the same thing, a good KSP2. I’ve had productive conversations with both of them, and I hope they’d say the same of me. And absolutely, we’re all human. I’m typing out most of my responses with one hand while my infant sleeps, id rather not be held to every thing I’ve ever said and I want to extend the same kindness to others. My point that you quoted me on was just that this is why the debates are so circular. What some see as intentionally antagonistic behavior I don’t, some keep repeating their comments because similar questions keep getting asked. The fact that the response is negative about KSP2 is a reflection of their genuinely held opinions about KSP2, and not from a desire to derail every thread or spread misery, at least how I see it.

I feel it is relevant to point out that the latest disagreements on this thread happened when someone disagreed with me that KSP2 is less playable with less features than KSP1, an opinion I don’t think many will disagree with. The debate then went, ”no it’s not fair to compare it as it is now to KSP1” which, why? As a consumer it absolutely is. Doesn’t matter how much work went into the 2024 Honda civic, if it’s worse in many ways than the 2023 you can’t fault the customer for sticking with the old model. ”you must compare the games at their same point in development.” ok, KSP1 wins here easily as it was finished in the timeframe ksp2 had before launch. ”no silly, you have to compare them from the exact time in launching in ea” ok, in 6 months ksp1 made major feature progress and KSP2 has stalled. ”no no no that’s not how it works software development is measured by effort not time” Which I guess means work smarter not harder, but this is where I lost the desire to keep this particular discussion going. When a commenter continually moves the goalposts and disregards your valid points is when you get people like @PDCWolf commenting a lot about “the same old topics” because someone is, to us, straight up ignoring what we are saying because it’s inconvenient and moving the goal posts. [Snip]

@Periple agreed but again all of his comments were clearly defending and positive about the devs. And even being shocked that science isn’t out isn’t necessarily negative “they’re so good I really thought they’d have it by now” type of way. Im not as interested in the specific percentage of blame between parties, we will never really know. My gripes are with publishong decisions as a whole, not trying to make anything personal. But if it’s at least an accurate statement, that science was internally expected within 6 months, what has gone wrong since launch? (also I tried to give you a thumbs up but I guess I’ve added too many today lol)

@MechBFP totally possible, but then very odd to even come close to breaching NDA if you left on bad terms.

@PDCWolfyou forgot to mention them seeming to forget that they promised a reentry heating video 10 days ago.

I think there’s still some on both sides, who while they have strong opinions, try and voice them constructively. Both sides seem to get more agitated when the other side claims that they are arguing in bad faith or just commenting to shut the other side up. People want to share their opinions, positive and negative alike. As long as the opposing side doesn’t try and run you off the forums the discussions can still be productive.

Ok here goes… An account on Reddit claiming to be Paul Furio has said that he is shocked that science hasn’t come out yet. I’m also confident it’s him as the Reddit username is the name of the band he is in and is three years old, so a little hard to fake. His first post in Kerbal space program is a link to open jobs the same week as the launch of the game, he talks about floating point origins in video games with large spaces, everything likes up. So again, the account is openly claiming to be Paul Furio, I didn’t try to unmask an anonymous account I read the self claim (as in the account said “I am Paul Furio” and I actually first saw this on the discord) then tried to see if I could verify. And it seems pretty solid that it’s him, and he is ok with it being known that it’s him, so I’m sure he’s only saying what he’s allowed to with a presumed NDA. All his comments in r/Kerbal space program are very positive to the devs, and being shocked that science isn’t out yet isn’t necessarily a negative thing to say. But that would be our first confirmation that the update cycle is behind even internal expectations, specifically internal expectations after the state of the game at EA launch. If even the ex technical director is shocked at how long things are taking after knowing the state of the code at launch what exactly is happening?

question, if a dev posts on a personal Reddit account, “hey it’s me the dev x” and then says something else in another comment is that ok to share here? Im not trying to unmask a private account, this account openly claims to be a dev, would that comment be on to share?

Not much. Devs took the under promise and over deliver strategy but have yet to deliver… anything really. Hard to discuss the future features without knowing what science will even be like.

I hear you but “the reentry video will launch alongside/day after/ whatever/ the patch” would be a bit better to me. To be clear, I think their best strategy from this point is to go near radio silent until science. But that’s after you tie up what’s already been announced.

0.1.4 now moved from “early this week” to “this week” Also the reentry video that was going to come out 10 days ago remains completely unacknowledged.

Agreed, I want it to stay a sandbox a la survival Minecraft - build whatever you want, as long as you have gathered enough resources. The desire to build more things naturally leads you to deep mines and the nether and what not without a list of quests. So ultimately I would prefer just LS. There’s nothing in the game preventing you from time warping 1 million, but your Kerbals will die/go dormant so the player is naturally led to not time warp too much while they are still in the “gathering resources” phase. When enough resources are gathered for interstellar this changes a bit with the massive time frames required. As far as the “different play styles exist and therefore we can’t punish one style” angle, I agree with this too but this is where I think the comparison to the introduction of reentry heat is most applicable. Some peoples play styles was to slam into the atmosphere of jool and pull a 50 g acceleration to be captured. Introducing reentry heat did take away that, but it added a (to me) very enjoyable whole other level to gameplay that made it worth adding. Same with life support. The “time warp all the time sequential missions only, I don’t have to consider transfer windows” playstyle will be hampered, but the game will get a whole new level of depth that is worth it I think. No one complains about having reentry heat anymore, rather it’s absence is felt by how much simpler the sequel is without it. I think a similar story could happen with life support.

An idea i have is that colonies may occasionally need random missions. Say the Kerbal demand a certain “object” (in universe, idk more snacks, new carbon filter whatever) and sometimes these are small enough for a small cargo container, sometimes medium, and sometimes big and unwieldy that don’t fit in any container. These pop up from time to Tim wand all work at a colony stops until it is delivered. This would prevent the time warp exploits and reward players for 1stage reusable interplanetary spacecraft.

Adding life support would solve the “time warp 1 million for infinite resources.” Adding life support now is like when they added reentry heat the first time. A lot of protest but after we got used to it impossible to go back. It’s a necessary step to bring ksp to the new levels offered by the sequel.

That’s just work smarter and not harder, and unexpected delays happen. That’s true of every industry.

Define effort in a way that doesn’t include the concept of time.

Yes KSP2 has a broader scope. But they already know (or should’ve orbital decay still exists) how to program orbital mechanics. As far as your second point, sure. Maybe that’s the industry standard and everything takes a decade more I don’t see. That doesn’t excuse the marketing and or releasing the game in this state. If it’s really important to you that the devs are not at fault at all we can go that route. The game should have never been released in this state, and the marketing side lied to the community for years. Still a bad product.

As others have said, by development time. I agree they didn’t just copy and paste the code, but KSP1 did exist, there’s no need to interview scientists about orbital mechanics you have a much more narrow definition of the scope of the game because you know way more clearly where you are headed then the devs of KSP1 did. But let’s stop with all of this. Apples to apples KSP1 to KSP2 over the course of 6 months after release Ksp2: bug fixes. A few parts. KSP1: numerous parts and features added. Any one of the (several) updates included several more bug fixes than have been done to ksp2 over its lifetime. You’ll notice, that even with the rather broken game at launch most people were still optimistic. It wasn’t until nothing changed for months that people started to become pessimistic. I highly doubt this is industry standard. “Time” is what dictates cost and profit, if management cares about something the workers care, hopefully in a non toxic way. But if I got to measure my work in effort and delivered unfinished projects way behind schedule constantly I wouldn’t have a job for long.

Colonies were, but I don’t believe the sim city level of detail of laying electrical wires, building farms and housing, laying out roads, and such was promised. Promised colonies seem to be “build a rocket with a hab module. Land it somewhere and build a VAB, connect it to resources from other colones and build more ships.” Which sounds fun, but I would love a whole space program sim with a colony sim with a rocket sandbox sim in it.

@Stephensan I salute your passion and persistence.

This is by no means anything that was ever suggested by the devs, so I’m hoping for DLC or some mods but I would love for colonies to grow to the point of a mini city simulation per colony. Laying down infrastructure lines, adding landing pads, habitation, work and entertainment buildings while managing habitat with breathable air and farming buildings for food and such would be awesome. Nothing promised, so nothing expected, but I would love for Kerbal Space Program to be more “space program” than it is now. I still want the rockets, but building a meta game on top of that would be my dream.

Genuine question, how often did you have to start new saves? I couldn’t keep a save going with more than a handful of vessels. It would be difficult for me to put that much time into a game where little I did persisted and I had to keep restarting.