m4inbrain

Good reminder that you can refund a game well above those 2 hours and 2 weeks. Good reminder that "game sucks" is guaranteed to result in a denial. You have to have a good reason - be it technical issues (not random ones, but visibly and widespread ones), or scummy behaviour by a developer (bait and switch etc). I'm reasonably certain that nothing here is news to anyone including you, so i'm not sure what the point of that argument is supposed to be. Your personal annecdote of people with 20+ hours getting a refund for being disappointed? I believe it when i see it. The actual refund, not some guy claiming it. Until then, no. Under normal circumstances, you can NOT refund the game after 20+ hours.

I'm not arguing that constructive feedback/criticism is the vastly preferable process, but this sentence is simply patently false. And there's plenty of examples out there, both gaming industry (No Mans Sky) and movies (Sonic). Any criticism is valuable. Just because someone doesn't make the effort to sugarcoat it, doesn't mean the underlying point is invalid. The only thing that isn't making anything better is pure insults, that's it. Everything else is a developer not being able to handle criticism.

Would be one way, yeah. Though, while certainly not perfect (even partially annoying), i do think the KSP1 approach makes more sense. Not currently, but as soon as resources are a thing. Spending "resources" to upgrade the Launch Pad from basically a dirt mound to (over X amount of stages) to a full Saturn 5 Launch Tower feels better to me. "Knowledge" doesn't build a building, concrete does. If that makes sense. Not that this approach is perfect, i did (and still do) think that it was obnoxious to have certain things like EVA etc locked behind certain building upgrades, so my preferred approach would be resource based, and only for the Launch Pad and Runway (and maybe the new Boat thing, haven't even tried that yet). Would then also give the incentive to do more "local" stuff like starting resource collection on Kerbin. That's just for now though, haven't really thought anything through (since it only became apparent yesterday). You're not going to launch a Colony from a dirt mound/un-upgraded Launch Pad. Your entire argument doesn't really make sense, you're acting like KSP1 doesn't exist and people ran into that problem. They quite obviously didn't. And even if they were, which again, they didn't, that's simply an adjustment of numbers. But, again, they didn't. Because by the time you reach colony stuff, you already have an upgraded Launch Pad, especially if it's paid through resources (which you have to collect plenty of to build the colony stuff in the first place anyway). The same way people in KSP1 didn't have part limits by the time they reached nuclear propulsion.

I noticed that as well, there currently isn't any requirement to "streamline" your rocket, you can just brute force it by adding 12 boosters and a few main sails straight from the get go. Didn't notice how "important" the restrictions in the VAB were (KSP1), but turns out that a lot of challenge goes away if you can just strap more boom to your rocket. Now.. Whether or not that's a bad thing is in the eye of the beholder - i do think it's bad, but on the other hand, i'll still streamline my rockets either way. I just think that there's a missed opportunity to add challenge in a different way (bit like a puzzle game, which parts can i take, where do i have to make concessions etc), other than just "adding Delta V until sufficient". I understand that this potentially get at least interfered with once resources become a thing, but i don't know.. I personally liked it better with constraints. In other news, played a bit further now. I'm not up to date on bug reports etc, so i don't know if the kind of awful (comparatively) performance on the map screen is "normal" or fresh with this patch - but after playing some more now (5 hours i think), .. yeah, the UI will not grow on me, i think it's awful with basically no redeeming features. Unconcise, unwieldy, clumsy, and i hope for either a mod to bring back something concise/compact/lean, or a complete overhaul. All aspects, including the Navball. And no, not the position.

I'm very happy, i played more today than i did in total since the EA release. It's fun, but it's not perfect, and most of my gripes revolve around the UI. It's awful, imo. I've never been a big fan of the new (console focused?) UI, but the science window takes the cake. I'm now at the first moon mission, and i still don't 100% feel like i understand what's going on in the science window. It also took me a few tries to figure out how the collection actually worked, and i still don't understand it fully i don't think. Can i do unlimited experiments with one Science Jr without resetting, just spam the button? Do i need to press something after pressing the corresponding "collect science" button (like crew report), or does it instantly collect it even if it's worthless (due to having done it prior)? It's not just that it doesn't get explained anywhere, which is already not great - it's also not self-explanatory. It feels bloated to the point where i wonder why someone thought that it's necessary to add this much pointless "fluff information". We're playing a game where precision is rewarded (and required), why is the UI so unconcise? Really hoping that the devs/designers get a grip on that. The good thing is that after todays update, i get the impression that they actually might. The only other thing i dislike is the re-entry effect, i actually thought my game crashed for a second when i saw it first due to being basically non-animated at the core, it just looks like a glowing outline around the bottom of the heated part. There's a little animation where it flames out (the top bit), but basically nothing around the pod. The good thing with that is, that's relatively easy to fix, as well as low priority. Doesn't break anything, just looks naff.

Doesn't say "excempt from opinions" on my screen, is yours broken? I like how you disregard someone elses opinion and immediately argue that somehow the guy HAS TO BE some kind of KSP1 shill. I'm not. And i also thinks it looks like the splash screen for a cheap mobile/flash game. At best. In case this isn't quite obvious, now is exactly the right time to state an opinion. You know, being early access and stuff, while things are still work in progress. And in case something else isn't obvious: you don't get to disregard anything. His opinion is as valid and valuable as yours. No need to turn this into an 11 page argument either, save it. He doesn' like it, sucks to be someone who does and vice versa. That's it.

I think your problem is that you don't seem to understand/accept that some people do not want to do that kind of planning. And it really isn't that hard a concept to understand. I've tried a few life support mods in KSP1, it's not fun to me. Regardless of the tools you give me, unless it's a tool that automates literally everything and doesn't require a single click of intervention by me, at which point it's pretty pointless. Your argument is that "doing the dishes" is gonna be great fun if you supply a deluxe drying rack and extra soft sponge. It's not. It's "doing the dishes" that is the chore, not the manner you're doing them. That includes a dishwasher, btw, which reduces the time spent to do the chore, but still is a chore. It's cool if someone wants to add chores to their gameplay, quite obviously i'd have no problem if you'd do that for yourself. The problem arises when these chores now also get forced on me. In other words, if it's toggleable, as with all things, have at it. If it's "mandatory", absolutely not. And this points out the entirety of the problem here. It's not. It might be to you, absolutely, but it isn't inherently. People have fun collecting stamps. Hell, people have fun playing golf. That's cool. That doesn't actually "make" these things fun, it's a rather subjective matter. I personally think that Golf is one of the most boring and pretentious sports humankind invented. I also think that collecting stamps is the equivalent of beige. And i also don't think of forced rescue missions to be fun, just to be able to "park a kerbal in orbit". But, to point out the obvious flaw here.. Look what you wrote in that same posting. Now look again at the sentence i quoted prior. See the problem?

I don't know, maybe because it's an early access game and not a Kickstarter or GoFundMe? That's some odd logic there. I haven't burnt out playing Factorio, neither was the case for KSP1 - that's a "you" problem, not a general one. The Steamworks Documentation deliberately and literally says that Early Access is not a way of crowdfunding a game, which is what you're suggesting. It also says it's a tool to get your game in front of users for feedback. For that, people need to play the game. If you don't see how it could be an issue that no one is playing (and subsequently talking or selling) your game anymore - a game with a diehard community at that - then i can't really help you. I can however tell you that PD and T2 will see that very differently. This is just nonsense. KSP as well as KSP2 are primarily PC games, since you're so limited in controls on a gamepad. In fact, we know it's nonsense, since KSP1 has a console version too, and it's awful. And some of the stuff that makes it awful you can't work around (controls mainly), unless you're willing to basically entirely re-design the game. The very fact remains that simulation type games, regardless of sub-genre, do vastly better on PC than on console. Be it vehicular simulations of any kind (Bus Simulator, Snow Runner etc), racing simulations (i-Racing), flight simulators (DCS, MSFS) or weird stuff (Powerwash Sim, Gas Station Sim and all those). And it shows with KSP, since, again, KSP1 does exist on console. On paper, anyway. I did like SR1, though i wouldn't have thought of it as renowned. I did check SR2 and you're indeed correct about the player numbers, although the trend mostly mirrors that of SR1. What's more important though is that i had a quick gander into the steam forums for the game, biggest thread on the first page is named "Is the game abandoned?", with illustrious posts like "Were there improvements to Slime Rancher 2? I played through it and it just felt like Slime Rancher 1. With less content.". Which sounds horribly familiar, except that SR2 doesn't appear to have released into EA as a barely functional, minimum viable product (though this is speculation on my part), which explains the reviews to an extent. I haven't followed the game though, so i can't really say anything else. edit: but you're right, this is supposed to be about rocket wobble, so i'll bow out here. I don't really have anything to add in regards to wobble that hasn't been said before. For me personally, it's not as big a deal as it seems to be for others, but i'd very much prefer to have stiffer vehicles too if i had a choice.

You had me in the first half, not going to lie. Of course these games are widely considered as absolute failures, expedited by the fact that they were also vastly overhyped. Does sound familiar. Because it's an indicator whether or not a game incentivises you to play. I'm not quite sure how one could argue that player count doesn't matter, considering the trade-offs. No one playing means no one is testing (as we by now know). No one is "advertising", or even talking about the game. Which means no further sales. Which, you guessed it, means ultimately no further development. It's not rocket science, it happened time and time again that games released out of early access basically half way done because no one but a minority even cared about it. Now, you can argue that "well other successful games don't have many players either", like some people tried to do, which of course is a rather asinine argument. Successful by definition means accomplishing a desired aim. Having less than hundred players interact with your "successful" work that you've spent potentially tens of thousands of man-hours on, i mean.. Yeah, nah. That's just a dumb argument. Of course success is measured in player count. Low player count = low success. Here's how the rest of this argument is going to play out. I'll say: Baldur's Gate 3. Someone else will say "Yeah but triple A title, doesn't count". I'll say okay, what about Factorio then? and that person will say "well that's a different genre duh, what about Juno?" to which i probably would point out that it really isn't as great a deal for a game with the Kerbal Space Program nametag to (barely) beat a game with no marketing that many people never even heard of as some might think. Fact of the matter is that there's an easy comparison. KSP1, and KSP2. At their respective early access releases, they had: 3068 peak players (KSP1), and 4361 peak players (KSP2). Not surprising so far, KSP2 of course had an established player base with KSP1, people were excited for a continuation of their (and my) favourite game. From there, KSP1 rose to 8330 peak players in four months. KSP2 in the same timeframe? 601. That's the difference. Here's the numbers for you to check yourself. https://steamcharts.com/app/954850 https://steamcharts.com/app/220200 By this time in the early access program, which is around what, 7ish months, KSP1 had 10245 peak players. From 3068. In the same timeframe, KSP2 managed to get from 4361 to 283. You don't see how that is an issue? Just out of curiosity, is the "success on day 1" qualifier a sly attempt of creating an escape route? I'd like to see that game, the only one i could think of fits most of your statement, except the part where it has a very low player count - Sons of The Forest. Which is an open world early access sandbox, a sequel of a renowned game from 2018, and has been a huge success on Day 1. The only "problem" is that it has three times the amount of players currently than the predecessor The Forest, so i guess that's not what we're talking about. Which highly successful successor does have barely any players?

I do like how you, clearly just "coincidentally", go by "stage of development" rather than the more interesting measure, "development time". I'm not fluent in KSP1 Update history, if you'd do the honours and point out the differences between KSP1 and KSP2 after around 4-5 years of development time? Lets ignore for a second the fact that the KSP2 team is bigger by an order of magnitude for that comparison. Or, in a similar fashion.. Lets recall how long KSP1 was in development by the time they reached "this stage of development" - and where KSP2 would be, given the same. To be rather frank, KSP2 has nothing to write home about. They have a team more than ten times the size of the original development team, they have big money behind them, and they had 4-5 times the amount of time KSP1 had at "this stage of development". This isn't as great an argument or achievement as you might think it is. Even ignoring all the other issues like performance etc - purely the scope of what we have in terms of content/features after now 5 years of development is laughable. And i'm reasonably suspicious that you know this, too. That's why you chose the measure of "development stage" - which, again, is a nonsensical measure to take. A good example as to why that is would be Star Citizen. You know, the "game" that is a pre-alpha tech demo. 12 years into development.

It doesn't get more "speaking for myself" than starting a sentence with "i". Now, for what KSP is supposed to be, that's a fairly obvious assessment of what Squad actually released. As we know, "hardcore realism" was added through mods, but never implemented in the core game. Your ideal is basically what KSP is and always has been. An accessible (HarvesteR called it "light hearted" multiple times in interviews) game, not a hardcore simulator. And that's great, i've played with plenty of mods (be it FAR, life support mods and similar things) - but those always have been optional, as you stated, through mods. As for vitriol, like it or not, it's usually coming from people who think that KSP isn't realistic/"hardcore" enough. Quite similarly to Diablo 2 players and their vitriol when Diablo 3 and subsequently Diablo 4 released. In this case, if you're into "hardcore realism" and played KSP for years and hundreds (or thousands) of hours with the corresponding mods, it's hard to accept that the "base game" they're playing isn't actually what KSP was "intended to be". That's where sentences like "KSP2 should be based on KSP1 with hardcore mods, realistic rockets with real engines in the real world" come from. No, it absolutely shouldn't be, and never has been. It's ignorant to suggest that developers where just too stupid to implement "hardcore realism", it was quite clearly a conscious choice to not do so, and leave it to modders for the niche crowd that wants it. Based on this, the assumption that KSP (the base game) wasn't intended as a hardcore simulator is very accurate. They wanted a semi-realistic, accessible game, and they stated so throughout the development multiple times. KSP2 absolutely should stay true to this, the "system" in KSP1 with an accessible, semi-realistic base and hardcore mods worked well - it wouldn't work the other way around. As to "how semi does semi-realistic needs to be", that certainly can be argued either way. In this case, the post was in regards to the new heat system, and the somewhat simplistic scope of it (even compared to KSP1). I do agree that, on the surface, the new "idea" seems to swing too far into the "simplistic" field - it remains to be seen if they can make it interesting. On the flipside, one of the "pro" arguments is performance - which, after a few thousand hours in KSP (and, well, maybe two in KSP2) is an argument that i personally wouldn't want to dismiss easily either.

Speak for yourself please, and not like it's an actual fact. I don't want procedural tanks (or too many procedural parts in general - see Juno for that) - and i also very much don't want a fully realistic sim with "real stuff". That quite literally is the opposite of what KSP is supposed to be. Now we can argue about the level of sillyness that's desirable, but not about the actual fact that KSP at the core is lighthearted and accessible. And i very much hope it stays that way.

Rightfully so. Sadly, that has yet to be delivered on. .. unless you consider "There will be a patch, at some point. It'll have stuff. Not gonna tell you what kind of stuff, but it'll have some. It'll come out at some point." transparency. I call it trying to string people along, because the numbers like player retention etc are not just visible to us. It really grinds my gears seeing someone (especially a staffer) trying to blame things on the community rather than where it belongs, the developers. Start with explaining why people keep demanding transparency. I know, community bad, entitled (who'd expect more than a barely a minimum viable product at that price point and the announcements that the game only required polish, i know) - but reality is rather different. Acting like "demanding" transparency is somehow outrageous is asinine. At best.

As much as it sucks, that's me out. Waited on reviewing the game until now, but with the announcement that the "development schedule" is slowing down now because apparently, they were going breakneck speeds prior.. Nah. Uninstalled today, will stew a bit in my own juices being annoyed at my own stupidity for buying the game despite knowing better, and then it goes to the void where hundreds of my other steam games disappear to. PS: a comparable team in size would be Icarus Studio. While there's no argument from me that Icarus isn't an award winning game (to put nicely), fact of the matter is that they managed a high cadence of patches until they literally switched to weekly updates (be it bugfixes, balance changes or content updates). Thankfully we can make a reasonably apt comparison since they've released end of february (2021) too. From 18th of february to first of may, they've released 11 patches. Now, they of course weren't always huge updates, but the ones that weren't, usually were fixes for single game breaking issues, of which KSP2 has plenty. I gave it a go, got burned, then gave the team a chance to show that they didn't bite off more than they can chew with this franchise - got burned again. Fool me once and stuff.

Bit torn on this one, i'll be honest. On one hand, of course any information is appreciated, the launch as we know didn't go very well - so as much as anyone else, i want to soak up information as to when and how the game becomes what it's supposed to be. So in that regard, yay Nate, cheers for that. But there's a second side to that medal: very clearly it has been stated that the patch takes so long due to vigorous testing. Something i actually very much doubt after the statements that KSP2 was delayed for over a year for "polish" to then release as something that can reasonably called "quite a mess". More importantly though, if this patch finally arrives and it breaks things in a quite obvious way or for systems that are fundamental to the game, i'm not quite sure where "we" go from there. As an example, orbits. As we know, orbits are a bit in an odd place right now - and there really isn't an excuse to miss that. It's fundamental to the gameplay - if you play KSP2, you have to do orbital stuff eventually. So missing the decaying orbits (or as another example, docking ports creating drag behind a nose cone etc) in a game that was delayed for polish, or QA tested, i don't know Jim. Sure, if the game breaks after some obscure krakenhunting, as in trying to intentionally break the physics etc - eh. It's what it is, i don't expect Devs to spend as much time on trying to break the game as Stratzenblitz does - but if it's fundamental stuff, .. yeah, i can see how this can become a "make or break" moment for the game, and Nates post basically puts a gun on his chest. Personally i'm fine with where the game's at - i played for a whopping hour, and then continued Hogwarts/Roguetech for the last week or two. Yeah it sucks that it got released this way, but i'm not going to lose sleep over it. What is important to me though is how they move from here, and how they present themselves. Nates post does raise hope - but actions are louder than words. If the next patch is a good addition, great, worth waiting for - if it's yet another mess, it's going to be pretty hard to explain/justify that away.

Indeed, didn't know the versions differ between the download sources. I can't tell you why AVC didn't shout at me, i only know that CKAN didn't either (tried installing both mods via CKAN because i thought it'd sort out whatever conflict there is). Works now, cheers for that. I thought github would be the "most recent" version, that's why i generally download from there if it's an option. Thank you.

Okay, not sure what i'm doing wrong, but same thing. I uninstalled/deleted everything KSP (incl. leftover files etc), reinstalled it clean. Threw MKS in there, including the AT_Utils folder, then TCA without its AT_Utils. Ingame, i have all the MKS Icons on the toolbar, no TCA. Then tried copying the TCA AT_Utils folder over, but without overwriting anything. Exact same thing, MKS buttons on the toolbar are there, TCA button isn't. Then lastly, tried copying over AT_Utils of TCA entirely including overwriting files - now TCA shows up in the toolbar, but the MKS buttons are not anymore? Nothing else installed. I can't be that dumb, can i?

Actually, both MKS (0.50.17) and TCA (3.3.3) come with an AT_Utils folder, which overwrite whichever comes first. Downloaded AVC, didn't update anything, so i guess that's fine. Downloading KSP for the third time now, will try to install MKS, then TCA. Question is, do i use the AT_Utils of MKS, or do i use the one out of TCA? I'm asking because they are different in size, so something seems to be different there. On the old installation, whichever AT_Utils i used, made the corresponding mod work, but "disabled" the other. Weird. edit: sorry, misunderstood. Well there's no dublicate folders except the AT_Utils, which in the MKS zip has some more stuff in it (things like "001_AnisotropicPartResizer.dll) - but both have a 000_AT_Utils.dll - different sizes though.

Hey, got a question, how do you guys get TCA to work with other mods like MKS? I don't use CKAN, installed all my mods manually, but if i install both TCA and MKS, one of them will not work properly. If i install TCA first, and then MKS after, TCA doesn't even show up at all? Maybe i'm too stupid to figure out the toolbar, but there's no way to get the TCA UI to show up. On the other hand, if i install MKS first, then TCA, i do have a TCA button in the toolbar - but the MKS ground stuff button is gone. I reinstalled the game (and mods) twice now - i'd really like to play with both. Is there a (very simple) way (i'm old) to modify/edit the toolbar? I tried installing the toolbar mod, but i can't get the TCA button to show up there either. Halp, please.

Then explain to me please how certain things simply made it through. We're talking things that actually make one of the new additions (re-entry heating, feature) completely obsolete. It's not just an issue, the parachutes simply remove the need for re-entry precautions. I actually don't get it then, how can "an issue" that's basically removing one of the new big features be okay to go live? Since i feel the need yet again, it's not meant as an offense - i'm actually interested in that process. No. That's simply not the case. Even if there's some idiots attacking testers, there's no reason to assume all of them are. By that logic, earlier in this thread one of the QA guys said this release he was lazy - should i imprint that on all of you guys as well? I assume we agree there that blanketstatements like that are not helping either your nor my case. The "i don't mean to offend" btw gets added by me because you come off defensive to me. I never said anything insulting or offending in the first place - apart from if you see "critique" as offense, which it seems to. I never commented on how you "should" do things, apart from less rushing. It's actually not my job. I can only "judge" the endresult of all of that. As a sidenote: thank you for giving me some insight into the QA(!) process, it's actually quite interesting. Now a question that you don't need to answer (well you don't need to answer to anything anyway, you know what i mean) - as a QA guy, do you think this release was rushed for "shrouded reasons"? Or do you think (objectively) that this was enough time to "get it done"? edit: man i'm bad at quoting apparently

That helped my girlfriend, and she managed to get into orbit/mun, still gave up on the game. Maybe it helps you too.

You misunderstood what i said. I didn't say "you should've changed stuff instead of dicking around", i said it's important to prioritize bugs that touch the core of the game instead of bugs that you only can reproduce by doing "weird things". I will never launch a surfboard from a flying plane, but reentry etc will happen for me quite often. And that goes for alot of players (not all, obviously, but alot). Take that as a friendly tip, nobody is out "to get you", i said already that i don't want to offend the QA (point taken on that one) team, so there's no reason to get defensive and read stuff into things.

Which still leaves the issue that the only hard thing in the career mode is the start, the more you progress through the tiers, the easier the game gets. It's actually completely inversed to what it should be, right now i lose interest in the career after mun/minmus, since from there on you got enough stuff unlocked to make everything else a non-challenge. Up to that point though, it is. After that point, you will never have fund-problems again, nor be creative to get somewhere/do something. To me, that's not fun, really. At least not past that point.

Just to make that clear.

While your post is informative and all, there's one simple problem (and that's a fact). Bugfinding and fixing was not even done by the time the 48h stream was going, see the bug scott manley ran into live on stream when he lost aerodynamics on his surfboard, when he closed the cargo bays on the launching vehicle again. That's something that i would've absolutely understood if overseen. Yet, that was actually fixed, so apparently that was more important than other issues. Now one can categorize bugs (and of course, you guys do that too) - one hand has the "i'm dicking around with stupid things, somethings not working there" bug, and the other has glaring issues with the core of the game, namely reentry/parachutes/aerodynamics. See the problem? Apart from that, the whole time, people are trying to sell the Q&A team as an entity completely unrelated to the development, that is just plain wrong. Of course the Q&A is part of the development, one of the most important actually. I know quite a few games that got their releases delayed because of a Q&A team that said it isn't ready (one will release in a bit less than 10 days, finally TT), and that's what should've happened here too - but by the looks and sound, the "rushed feel" of things in the game might have to do with the fact that the release was indeed rushed for some reason.