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The direct answer to the question. Something to show you the aero forces and stability in the VAB for the different parts of the flight regime would be very handy. For the extra discussion. I wouldn't be opposed to a FAR like aero model.

What incentive is there for a veteran KSP player to prove that they know how to do an orbital maneuver, a proper gravity turn, an orbital rendezvous, docking before they can automate it? There is none. So the question stands, Why punish the veteran KSP player by forcing them prove their skills and understanding of the game mechanics before you can automate them? Everyone seems to be under the impression that to enjoy the game, you must know how to do the necessary skills. Or put another way; I had to learn these skills, so must you or prove that you know them before you can have an autopilot. That's kind of dictating how to play KSP. My point is "I don't care if you want an easy or hard way to play, as long as you're playing and enjoying KSP, that's all that matters." A new player will have to learn a ton of new things. Why force them to master the flight skills the veteran players had to master before you can use an autopilot. It seems to me that everyone's thinking is to enable the easier play modes, you have to beat a game using the hardest game mode. What about the player you just wants to go though the story and casually do what is needed to beat the game?

Ahh... planet Mike... really curious if the land mass is a giant floating island or a pangaea style continent that is starting to drift apart.

I think in flight automation should be available from the very beginning of the game. It's a case of they're there if you want to use them, you can ignore them if you don't. Just like in real life. (On a side note, I have to ask this. I don't know why everyone wants to punish the experienced players in the early game who don't want to execute their planned maneuvers anymore?) Rover automation is a must. There's other things that can be done instead of driving from point A to point B. Especially when driving at safe speeds and you have to cover a long distance on an established route. Background automation for resource logistics is going to happen no matter what. Why give a reason and plans for it. The let the devs figure it out. Idle automation could be fun or frustrating to see. Just seeing the Kerbals wondering around because they're bored would be cool.

It would make sense, but they have shown parts that are larger than 7m already. The interstellar ship used for the Jool shipyard is showing structural parts that are 10m in diameter and the fuel tanks are 40 to 100 meters in diameter. The fusion drive shown I'm guessing is 30-50 meters in diameter. My guess would be; X Small = < 1m Small = 1m-2m Medium = 2m-4m Large = 4m-10m X Large = 10m-15m or 10m-20m 2X Large = 15m-20m or 20m-40m 3X Large = 20m and greater or 40m & greater.

The fourth group looks to be the subassembly positioning and control group. Very reminiscent of 3d modeling software controls for groups.

If 1.25m engines and motors are considered small, than what would be considered large? 3x large? Imagine how large the structural and fuel tanks would be.

I asked about colony construction when the fuel factories were previewed. Nate's response gave me the impression that after the module is placed, you can greeble to your hearts content. The colony modules will have the ability to surface attach along with stack attach. If parts like piping, catwalks, antenna, window decals, lights, etc. are being added into the game, you can personalize your colonies how you want.

I've been playing since KSP was released on Steam. There is still a challenge to the game even though I understand and can do everything but land. Yes Squad has added things to help make it easier, but there is still a challenge to it. The biggest frustration I had in the beginning was there are no one place in the game to help. I had to look at outside sources to help me. Scott Manley's videos and this very forum helped me understand what was happening and showed me better ways to build craft and be more efficient with my maneuvers. That kept me playing for so long. Without these resources, I would have quit a long time ago. There's a lot of people who never got to that point because they were to frustrated to continue.

I'm going to be the one to say it. It will be released when they are ready or when PD tells them to release it.

I doubt it would be a part count. It's way too high. My best guesstimate is that KSP2 will release with about 300 parts with the parts ported from KSP1 and the new parts for KSP2

One design choice I was hoping to see. I hope that the implementation isn't as clunky as other games and mods they appear in.

Awesome video, I was wondering when the next dev story video would be coming out.

Yep, that's the ultimate goal of the last two. I would personally like to see a blend of the research mechanics of Surviving Mars and the goal based research availability you'll see in RTS and 3-4x based games.

I didn't offer a solution to the balance of the labs because there are many ways to balance the amount of research you can do. As you said, one method is the amount of available resources and time. Or you could do so is by time only with each step taking longer than the previous step with labs decreasing the time taken with limits to the number of labs you can have or by using diminishing returns for a each lab. Or research will stop and not continue until the player does a mission to perform an experiment related to the research being conducted. Or what research you can do is tied to where the player is in the progression with certain game world goals and milestones reached before they even unlock. I'm sure there are more solutions than I gave examples for, but these are the types I've ran into most often in different games.

Lol, that's the first thing I did when MKS added resources to be collected.

That would be easier said than done. Since Apple is moving their product range to their new processor. The software will have to be ported to match their new hardware at some point in the future. They won't keep their Rosetta translation layer updated and active forever.

Since I play KSP in sandbox, the only real science stuff I do is ScanSat related. The reason being is to find good landing areas and to find the highest resource concentrations. Outside of that, I only care about atmosphere density (if one is present) and the bodies gravity. I would love to have a reason to do the other science available, but there really isn't any outside of curiosity to see the text related to the experiments. To answer your poll directly; there should be research points you can collect. How are they used? To help unlock new items and star systems. Unlocking new parts require research in a specific field, the funds to pay for the research, and time to complete the research. The points themselves are split into different groups depending on the experiment ran. (Eg. Astronomy, geology, material science, etc.) That way you have to do science related to what you want to unlock. Science points are not lost when they are applied. You have to accumulate more to procede to the next level. Science should also have more practical side effects. (Like how ScanSat reveals the detailed geography of a planet.) Labs would be the places where the research takes place. The more you have, the faster you can research. (This can become a balancing issue, but there are ways to fix it.)

I typically use CKAN for keeping my mods up to date. I prefer to keep a local copy of the mod on my computer incase it breaks or I don't have internet access.

I've always found it useful to know which mods I actually need to download and update. But to answer your questions specifically, 1) no, 2) yes, 3) sometimes (Only after KSP updates.)

They are necessary for a real life feeling to the game. The only thing I don't think as necessary is the delay associated with the transmissions.

Too many years playing games with low poly worlds. So the planets in KSP looks fine to me. (If a little sparse with the fauna on Kerbin.) But in some cases, you can really see the inexperience of the designer in some places. Biodome hopping was fun at first. But once you realized that there are only a few per planet, it got boring really fast and there was no need to travel beyond a few areas. I do have to thank the mod makers for forcing you to explore with searching for resources and resource gathering. But you do bring up a good point. KSP does need a few good canned responses for doing science on modded planets.

I agree with this with one small exception. There was plenty to explore, but no reason to do so outside of personal curiosity.

It seems like that's the plan. They will only show what was on the list shown during the first dev video. You wouldn't want to show the whole game off before you release it, would you?

@Master39 There's a third option. The sandbox mode is more like a simulator mode in their progression mode. You can test to you hearts content but what's available to use is directly influenced by how far you made it through the progression. No achievements or unlocks can happen while in this mode, but any craft made can be directly transferred to your progression game and used immediately.