SolarAdmiral

Alright. So I went for 3 hours (7.5 hours in game) 8:25 am to 11:25 am. And I made it to the southern tip of the mountain range. Apart from maybe 10min at the start getting out of the ksc and around the bay, it drove itself with me only making occasional corrections. I could drive up and around the mountains to get to the actual point but I just don't feel like going any further. And this is like, one of the closer points.

So I decided to take my own challenge to see how it goes. Headed from ksc to the closest white question mark not directly in that group, north to the mountains. I'm currently over 1 hour in, driving stably at x3 time acceleration so 3 hours mission time in game, maybe 1/3 of the way there. After rounding the bay north of the ksc, I set myself up in the right direction and used a weight and a dice to hold down the w and left. I later remembered trim and set the trim to full down (forward) so it drives itself without weighing down the w key. Free me up to leave and do other stuff only occasionally checking in on it. I maybe check in once every ten minutes. So far so good. I'd argue anything that requires the player to set and forget, leave the game running and go off to entertain themselves elsewhere, isn't great game design. Maybe the devs could designate "red" and "green" areas on planets. Red areas with challenges and obstacles. Cliffs and mountains, tight passes, crater rims, thick forest, rocky plains. Where driving is difficult enough to be a challenge and interesting. And green areas where the ground is flat enough the rover can drive itself enough you can leave and do other things. Then, allow the player to fast travel warp their vehicles anywhere in adjoining green zones. Forcing them to drive manually across only the red zones. Or maybe as part of the repeatable transport system, rovers could automatically drive any path you've already driven. So you could set up almost highways, where you drive up to it, then click on the map where on the route you want to drive auto to, so at least you never have to repeat paths. (Approaching an hour and a half in now that I finish writing.)

Most games aren't really the scale of ksp though. I love exploration games. Besides ksp some of my favorite games are the Outer Wilds, and Subnautica. But their maps are a tiny fraction the size of ksp. The outer wilds whole solar system can fit inside the planet kerbin. Subnauticas map would hardly stretch from the mountains west of the ksc to the island airfield. And agreed, I'd love some underwater stuff and submarines in ksp. I really hope they include that. Ksp planers are just so much larger. If we want to encourage exploration like that and not have everyone give up for being bored, there needs to be some way to cover ground faster. Skip the boring, get to the challenge. Without some way of doing that it's like flying in space without time warp, just staring at the screen and waiting for the mun encounter in ten hours. Just, I'm warning you the map is massive. Do my challenge to you based on that map of yours. Fly to the island in the far southwest and drive to the white question mark in the mountains north of the ksc.

I don't disagree. Having stuff to go and see and do would be great. But have you ever driven a long distance in KSP? There is no challenge to driving except your own patience. It's an exercise in fighting boredom. Flying long distances is only slightly better, with a huge danger of crashing when attempting to land. So the best way to do it is build a plane that looks silly landing with parachutes. Or flying a rocket to space just to land somewhere else on the planet and get out to take photos like a tourist which is just a huge waste of resourses so its not really something you'd want to waste your materials on once they're in the game. The safest is sailing, which you can usually put something on the keyboard and walk away. I'm just wondering if you have ever traveled a long distance over ground. Just as a test, drive to the white question mark on your map in the mountains north of the KSC. See if you have the time and patience to make it there. Fly to the little island in the very southwest of the map. I'd love there to be places of interest. But I don't want to have to fly or drive for literal hours to get to them with no challenge or skill needed. Either there would need to also be some way of crossing the distance quicker, or driving would have to pose some difficulty other than just wasting your time, but I don't really see how either could be easily done. But if somehow KSP could be crossed with Snowrunner, even a little bit, I'd love it. Maybe if there were special places to get to scattered over the map, with difficult passes or hard to traverse terrain hand built around them for a small ways, like a mini snowrunner map. And you were able to auto fast travel to the edge of this difficult area. Then there'd be a bit of challenge, and you wouldn't have to drive or fly for hours with no danger or challenge to get there.

Man. As much as I do want things to go and see, that map of kerbin looks absolutely exhausting to me. Do you have any idea how long it would take to visit even a fraction of those places? The longest flight on kerbin I ever did with a plane was from woomerang to the edge of the north ice cap. And even at x4 speed the whole way that was by far more flying than I ever wanted to repeat. The longest rover drive I ever did was from near tylo's equator to the ridge of a big crater just to the south for a Jool 5 mission, and that took hours upon hours and that was at x4 too, with several autosaves and loads for rolling and crashing trying to drive at full warp. Most SSTO launches get into space just around that little peninsula ditectly east of the KSC across the sea, a tiny fraction of the way around kerbin, maybe less than 1/10, and those flights to orbit are long and boring enough. I'm thinking if KSP2 wants us to drive long distances, it might need a fast travel system. Like maybe an airplane autopilot, or a click and go here function for rovers and ships (spending some fuel and just warping them to the destination, only making you drive if theres a cliff or some other obstacle). Because I would rather break my monitor open with my own face than drive to all of those markers in real time. Edit And just to make it clear, I definitely also don't want something implemented that makes driving completely trivial. But I don't want to spend hours driving or flying. Because there was very little challenge or skill for driving or sailing in KSP it was more just a test of patience. With the only hard part of flying being landing, which isn't much better, having to endure a long boring flight, to risk everything on a possible crash at the end and need to redo it. It might be hard to balance. Unless driving in KSP2 is as interesting as Snowrunner, I don't want to have to drive for hours.

What kind of cloud are you going to make first when it comes out? I'm thinking cumulonimbus. But I might be tempted by some nice Cirrus. It was kind of a controversial choice for them to add rockets and planes and stuff for the sequel. But idk maybe it will be fun to fly them around our clouds at least a couple times until they get boring. I can't help thinking maybe it would have been better for them to just focus on the clouds.

I love financing. I'm also happy to see this change. The cost is just now in resources instead of cash. There's still an incentive to keep things small, using less of your resources.

Yes there's a difference between what a camera sees and what the human eye sees. And there's all the stuff with shutter speeds and exposures and aperture sizes. I love your example, as it's something everyone can see themselves. A full moon doesn't mean you can't see any stars. You can even see bright planets out during the day. But, having not been in space myself, I'm not sure when and where you can and cannot see stars. Maybe a system that fades the skybox to black around bright objects could work? (Around as in visually around not physically around. I'm aware you'd still see stars even if near the sun as long as you were facing away from the sun.) Maybe it's all more complicated than it's worth.

No, that aft part is a whole size larger than the science lab, some new part we're getting. So all the main parts we see here are all new. The only old parts are the cupola, the very rear fuel tank behind the cargo bay (same size as a making history XXL tank) and the xl solar panels. Further confirmation, when the camera reverses you can see a docking port sr on the back of it, large size and much smaller than the diameter.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. But I just don't think that's the direction they're going to go. They were pretty clear in the engines post that the Reliant is a booster, the swivel is a sustainer. That being said though, the vector was also listed as a sustainer. So I could see it working out and I'm interested to see how they balance it all.

I don't mind the Reliant's name, it fairly portrays something older, more established. But I agree something needs to be done with it. I've almost never used it. From the engines update it seemed like the Swivel is being moved into the sustainer category while the reliant is a booster. Maybe we will see a greater difference in their stats, better vacuum performance on the swivel and better thrust on the reliant. (I'm thinking we might even see the unthinkable, gimballing on the reliant. As it is now intended as the main small size booster engine.)

But they can't post any ksp2 gameplay yet. Farewell ksp1 videos are great right now to keep the views up and train the algorithm ahead of the ksp2 release. For any content creators they'd be smart videos to make priming them to succeed once they can make ksp2 videos.

Agreed. Today is the day, you can bust out the advent calendar you bought on clearance after Christmas and use it to count down the days to KSP2's launch!

I mean struts work alright for KSP1. All I'm suggesting is something that behaves physically to the game just like the current strut system but is shown to the player a little differently. I still think they should add something like an invisible strut for welding two parts together. Because as we move into the much larger ships, it will be even more necessary. Unless we want all our interstellar ships to be a single long truss with stuff stuck to it, more ways of joining parts would be great to be able to build in different geometries.

Graphics argument aside. I'm definitely buying day one. And will be looking forward to playing KSP2 all the way right through adding science to multiplayer. I started playing KSP before there was career or science, and although I loved playing career, I've since completely tired of it. I'm too excited looking forward to building an interplanetary resource gathering and transport network to want to go back to KSP1 contracts. Until Science, Resources, Interstellar and Colonies are added, I will content myself building and perfecting my ships so they're all ready to be used, or tweaked, once those new additions come around.

So we have this argument. You say KSP2's graphics don't look good. That the game will be significantly negatively impacted because its graphics have not lived up to some bar. As a counter argument, I have listed a dozen games, single player ones, ones that fit a similar niche as KSP, building and constructive, ones without wowing fantastic graphics, that none the less are still in the top 100 most played and most purchased games on steam. My argument, graphics don't matter all that much. Good graphics would be nice, but are not critical. On the other hand, I haven't been able to find any games on that list, anywhere in the top 100 or 200, that are single player where a major focus is building, that look better or even as good as KSP2. Maybe Subnautica, maybe Fallout 4 if you wanted to count that as "building". But for both of them, again we arrive at the point that they are small handmade maps, not a game that needs to have entire planets, and several different planets. Do we have any evidence that a game like KSP2 will suffer if it has less than amazing graphics? Because I can find lots of games with much more reserved graphics that were none the less successful, and very successful, in the top 100 on the most used PC game platform.

Except that doesn't really apply to the single player games here. Stardew, Cities Skylines, Civilization, Stellaris, Truck Simulator, Oxygen Not Included, Factorio, Satisfactory, Terraria. These are building games. Games people sink thousands of hours into. Games kind of just like KSP. I'd contend this list makes my argument even stronger. Let me amend it to this, all these super long lived single player games, creative building and sim games not unlike KSP, their simple graphics didn't prevent them from staying in the top 100 most played and top 100 best recent sales on steam even years, nearly a decade for some since their release.

So old graphics don't hurt multiplayer games but do hurt singleplayer ones? Alright, lets go with solely, or mainly single player games only. Or at least games that a significant number of people play even single player. I see, Elden Ring, Stardew Valley, Civ VI, Project Zomboid, Sims 4, Terraria, Path of Exile, 7 Days to Die, Rimworld, HOI 4, Dead Space, Fallout 4, Cities Skylines, Witcher 3, Total War Warhammer 3, Age of Empires 2, Satisfactory, Civ V, Stellaris, EU 4, Farming Sim 22, Factorio, Euro Truck 2, Crusader Kings 3, Cookie Clicker, BeamNG.Drive, Oxygen Not Included, American Truck Sim. Taking out the multiplayer centered games, I think that reduced the percent that look better than KSP2. Oh how will KSP2 compete with the likes of Terraria, Cities Skylines, and Stellaris if it doesn't have the greatest graphics ever seen. Woe is me. KSP2 is doomed because the clouds don't look as good as Avatar 2 the Way of Water. Check out top sellers, https://store.steampowered.com/charts/topselling/US. Funny enough the list is almost the same and still includes a bunch of those same games.

Games pitched as photorealistic are also the first ones to age poorly. Windwaker is still talked about as looking great. Unreal was once held up as the cutting edge in graphics. Just as a fun aside, take a glance through the top 100 most played games on steam right now. Figure a percentage of how many look better/worse than KSP2. https://steamdb.info/charts/ I count maybe 10 out of 100 that are better than KSP2.

I'd still ask is there any reason it couldn't be handled the same way struts are? We already have struts and they work fine. Just make the struts invisible if the parts are touching.

Are there just some people who have never played a graphically modest game and had fun? Why insist every single game devote all the time and money to look better than any possible peer? I've said it before and I'll say it again. Bad graphics aren't enough to make a game bad. Good graphics aren't enough to make a game good. Good gaphics didn't save Anthem. Bad graphics didn't kill KSP1. Am I the only one who remembers the days of games that sunk everything into their graphics while providing nothing else worthwhile, like Beyond Two Souls and the Order 1886? Which subsequently became massive jokes for flopping in gameplay despite looking so fantastic for the time. Frankly, I don't think most people who get hung up on absolutely needing everything they play to have cutting edge triple A graphics are really in KSPs target demographic anyway. KSP is a building and space sim without combat. Anyone lured in to play the game solely on graphics will leave disappointed. Anyone who likes building and sim games is already used to looking passed the graphics. I've got Cyberpunk, and I've barely played it. Meanwhile I've sunk thousands of hours into Stellaris, Factorio, Cities Skylines, Kerbal Space Program, Prison Architect, FTL: Faster than Light, Railroad Empire, Children of a Dead Earth, Dyson Sphere Program, Gear City, Hearts of Iron, Oxygen not Included. Compare KSP2 to some other games in the same field. Compare to other games with as large of an area as KSP. KSP2 is already looking better than Elite Dangerous. I'd even say KSP2 is already almost looking almost as good as Starfield (specifically for terrain and clouds), despite Starfield using small maps and skyboxes. I just don't understand all the complaining because when folks hold up all the photos I'm supposed to think look bad, I just think looks great, because it already looks way better than anything I listed above that I've already put hundreds of hours into.

This is definitely what's behind this. These farewell ksp1 videos aren't being made because people are sad to see it go and are worried about ksp2. It's because people are excited for ksp2 and are searching for more ksp content. But there's only so much new news about ksp2 to talk about and all the content creators don't have access to ksp2 yet. So, they can make a goodbye ksp1 grand farewell video to get all those views.

Actually, this has further convinced me a rogue planet would be great. They've specifically said they were looking to add new landing challenges with the planets beyond kerbol. Here could be the planet that challenges you to land nearly blind. And no solar power. Pack a lot of lights and use your radar altimeter. Play into it and make the planet dark like slate or obsidian. It would be KSPs equivalent of the deepest dark void in subnautica. Or other solutions could found to all the issues. What about a planet with a thick cloud layer and volcanic activity, super dimly lit by the glow off the clouds. Maybe the super dark example above could be it's moon. I'd definitely like to see at least one rogue planet, because they're out there, and ksp should give a little slice of everything the universe has to offer. And just being out of the way and hard to get to didn't stop ksp1 from having Dres and Eeloo.

I agree. I'm sad to see the size go. After MH, I used a titan replica with the cheetah and bobcat to launch all my unmanned missions, and all my non landing manned missions.

Actually, I don't think it would be all that bad. Ksp already has struts in it which basically do the same thing, link together two parts not directly connected by the tree. I think the only problem is how to present it in the VAB. What about a "weld" button, that works exactly like a strut, except without showing the strut part and the two parts being connected need to be touching, slightly clipped into one another, or very close together.