caipi

This is all the advertisement and endorsement any mod ever needed! I love that you put that in the title. Thank you for sharing. I will give it a try the next time I decide to fire up KSP again. =)

I just wanted to chime in to say how awesome your new parts look. I always loved your designs and parts (not just yours, of course, there are many other great and skilled modders out there - just saying). If I look at the new release, it makes me want to install KSP again. It's awesome that you still add new and exciting content after all these years. I love those wrapper parts in particular. =)

@Minmus Taster Is that your video or did you just link it? Because I'm definitely not gonna watch it. Too much clickbait attributes in the title and the thumbnail. I'm not rewarding such behavior. It's too superficial for my taste.

The poll is closed after only two days*? Too bad. :-/ *original post 08/25, Poll closed on 08/27/2023

I can only speak for myself here. I played a bit of KSP1 again before the KSP2 EA release. I (tried to, I should say) played KSP2 for about 3 or 4 weeks, then decided to return the game on Steam for various reasons, not just the bugs. Just didn't like so many things about KSP2 (wrong place to get into here). For me, KSP2 will likely be a stillbirth. I tried to return to KSP1, but it's just too tragic for me at this point, even with all the super awesome mods out there (and there are quite a few planet packs I'm super hyped about and haven't tried yet even though I desperately want to). But playing KSP1 just reminds me of all the hopes I had for KSP2, of the wasted potential and the tragic state it is in. I just cannot play KSP1 at the moment without thinking of KSP2. And that makes me sad. But for what it's worth, I'm not reflected in the steamdb user stats. Not just because I used to start KSP directly, but also because I bought KSP via the Squad website (back in 2013 or 14?) and not via Steam.

I'm still waiting for a modder to add a H2IK drive or feature.

Welcome Lar-E. I also need a science mode (or something similar). I don't find Sandbox overwhelming. It just feels boring and a tad cheaty, since I immediately have access to the "best" parts. I'm not forced to use the smaller and worse parts. Less of a challenge, less structure. Too easy for me. So I fully get your sentiment. Oh, but there never was a KSP 0.4. It jumped 0.25 (basically "alpha" state) to 0.90 (essentially "beta"). ;-) https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Version_history @Vanamonde What's the old saying: those who can, do. Those who can't, teach moderate? (I hope you don't take that comment too serious and that you have a sense of humor about it ;-) If not, feel free to erase that last part.)

Then why create a bug reports subforum in the first place? Or ask for a specific way to report bugs? To quote the first post in this thread: "The more information we have and the more we know people hit it, the less time it will take to turn-around a meaningful fix. We watch the forums… " As for the development branches, I've mentioned the Star Citizen bug tracker before. It includes a current game version and bugs can be automatically archived when a new version is out. It even manages to differentiate between life and test versions. I think it would even make it easier than looking at the forum where there's no version provided in the title and people have to look into the thread to find out if this is a current or obsolete bug. I think 1) seems unreasonable given with what there is and what has been said and asked of us. Or maybe they really are ignoring bug reports, like you say, and are just saying this and that to distract and keep users busy and engaged. Surely, that might be an explanation as well. Though I also find it unlikely. #2: I would think that the QA team and their leader already serves as such a public figure for bug tracking, even if it is not explicitly stated. The job description pretty much includes it. Besides, for proper QA, somebody has to collect the information from 10 different sources right now anyway as they publicly state again and again that user reports are helping them. #3: seems unlikely to me, considering how "well-funded" they currently are (based on their own statements). Besides, they most be using some form of internal bug tracker. It cannot be chaos internally, can it? Because that would be the alternative to #3 if they really cannot afford a public bug tracker.

First of all, great post, ShadowZone! I generally agree with it! As for the quote above: It might not even be a decision on the corporate level. The lead developer(s)/Nate might also have an interest to hide the amount of current bugs - not just from us customers, but maybe from corporate as well or in particular. After all, over the past few years we've heard repeatedly how far along KSP2 supposedly is and how awesome it already is. Even going so far as to publicly stating that the devs are playing it so much that it cuts into their productivity (I've heard). Now I'm not saying that this is definitely what happened. This is pure speculation. But so is suspecting that this is a corporate level decision (which you did of course indicate by using the word "suspicion"; so I'm not trying to accuse you of anything; I'm just trying to point out that there's another reasonable possibility as well). And Darrin's comment about them having a discussion about it seems to indicate to me that this is rather a decision made by the developers or the team itself than by corporate. As for bugtrackers and long term projects, another great point you made. I just want to mention that Star Citizen (yeah, I know that it is a controversial game and developing process and lots of people feel disappointed there too, though I do not share that sentiment personally) has a bugtracker which I feel is quite good. It probably has everything you need, including the option to contribute to existing bugs ("can reproduce", "cannot reproduce", you can add further information, screenshots, and comments), the option to refer to other bugs directly, classify the severity of the bug (e.g. game breaking, cosmetic, etc.), the devs can acknowledge bugs and change the state, etc. It's of course not perfect either. But I think you (KSP2 dev team) should really look into creating something similar. Because as ShadowZone pointed out, having all these places to report bugs just eats up your own resources to collect and cataloging them. And since it doesn't seem like the game will come out within the next few weeks, proper resource management is essential. Though it is of course your prerogative on how you want to spend or waste your resources. And if you are afraid of corporate finding out the real state of the game through the bug tracker: Well, it probably won't be worse than continously alienating your customers/the community/the player base. Corporate will probably make harsher decisions if they feel that the franchise has lost its potential because the community is mostly gone or at least not on board with the current project. And that's where I feel and fear you are headed right now. And FWIW, I haven't reported a single bug in KSP2. Mostly because I think that many bugs I encountered have already been properly reported or QA has noticed and investigated them - but also because I refunded my copy about a month ago. And by the time I figure out why they happened, like being unable to EVA due to Kerbals being considered debris and having had persistent debris to 0, it was already all over the forums. I believe I even heard about it on steam first, believe it or not. I did however frequently contribute to the KSP1 bug tracker and still occasionally contribute to the Star Citizen bug tracker. Even if it's just a "I can(not) reproduce"/"not a bug".

So if that's the case, which was kind of obvious before, but if that's the case, why isn't there a public bug tracker like we had with KSP1 for some time? So that people can see what is already known and does not need reporting. Why should we now invest time and effort -especially if you already asked us to pay for it and after you told us it doesn't help you most of the time- for something that might not help you at all because you are already aware of it? Don't you think that this is either wasting users time and energy, or off-putting for others to even begin searching for a needle in a haystack that we don't even know about? If it were me, I wouldn't deliberately ask my customers to investigate everything and have them file a detailed report just to tell me mostly things I already know. I would even feel guilty if I didn't support them in anyway, e.g. by sharing what I already know what I don't need. And telling them, "well, honestly, you're work you've been doing for us is rather pointless. we already knew most of it."

I know that there is still a lawsuit going on in Germany about cheat software. Commonly known as Sony vs. Datel. Sony sued because a cheat software was altering their intellectual property/video game (or so they claimed). The first ruling was in 2012 (in favor of Sony, ruling that cheat software violates IP rights), it was overturned in 2021 (still by a German court). So it recently went to the highest German Court, BGH/Federal Court of Justice. In February this year, it turned to the European Court of Justice and asked it two questions regarding this case. There is no ETA for an answer yet. Admittedly, this is about cheat software, not mods. They operate rather on a runtime level. But depending on how it goes, it might have implications for the entire EU and for mods as well. The court might even make a statement differentiating between mods and cheat software. In case anybody is interested: [1] [2] (just two recent articles I found when quickly binging/duckduckgoing it)

Again? Well, just a few from the top of my head: Missing part windows (yes, I see the point of a part manager or resource manager, but they should be in addition, not a complete replacement) Fuel Transfer and the way it works in the resource manager essentially removal of asparagus staging by: (a) not being able to separate symmetry parts from each other (remember, no part window) and (b) not being able to separate symmetry added parts in the stage manager (right side, try separating two decouplers that were added at once into two stages - unless they fixed that and it wasn't a design choice. I refunded my copy and haven't played the latest patch) removal of being able to set fuel flow priority the entire UI (so many little things, but also big things, like the size of the UI and it not being adjustable - for now, admittedly, but that's just the size). restricting maneuver planning to current dV no money planned for career mode Part manager being a nightmare and becoming very confusing with large part counts Those are just from the top of my head, a few things I noticed when I was testing KSP2. Which was like what, 2 months ago? This list is by no means complete. If you want further examples, I'm sure there are a lot of them all over this forum - not just in this thread. As Dantheollie said: Everything that can be said, has been said.

Wait, are you saying users aren't fit to say what they like and dislike? That the removal of the part window is a bad idea? Are you saying that the users aren't fit to know what they want? Wait, I've heard that before. Where was it...? So, stubborness is your argument here? Seriously, how often have we in KSP dismissed an entire concept and recreated something entirely new? And ended up with better results? Surely, this concept cannot be lost on the devs, can it? I mean sometimes you just develop something into a direction that leads nowhere (except of course into a collossal implosion, which ironically this game is all about and where they are heading. So Mission achieved? xD). A: He was quoting me. B: You are taking this statement, which he agreed on, out of context. Which was that this game has more severe issues than just bugs. To quote myself: Because - and I said that before on various occasions - the game doesn't just have a performance and content problem, which might be expected in an alpha/EA. More to the point, it has a disimprovement problem. So many things are worse than in KSP1 and instead of acknowledging anything, all we see are their "everything is fine, these are not the droids you are looking for"-PR statements* Thanks for trying to control the narrative of negative feedback/criticism. Thanks, next. *ignored in the future*

Too bad the devs or their PR/Community Managers aren't really engaging in a conversation on how to improve the game. Because - and I said that before on various occasions - the game doesn't just have a performance and content problem, which might be expected in an alpha/EA. More to the point, it has a disimprovement problem. So many things are worse than in KSP1 and instead of acknowledging anything, all we see are their "everything is fine, these are not the droids you are looking for"-PR statements* and new disimprovements (like that maneuver planning thingy which is restricted to current dV). This game - and by that I mean KSP1 - has always had such a great community. Why not use it and listen to it? Why ignore them completely and develop a game with a narrow-minded intention to just fit the playstyle of the developers? This game was always about being a very flexible sandbox, which could easily be shaped for everybody's joy and taste. Why limit it the way they are doing it right now? I still think they should scrap the current game, use KSP1 as base (they have the rights to use it, don't they?), port it to the latest unity engine, make changes to the graphics, physics engine, etc. pp. to improve the performance and style of the game. Add various popular mods (or at least their function) to the base game to make the game even more versatile. Add colonies and other solar systems/interstellar travel, and scrap multiplayer. It's a niche aspect that will cause more headache than its worth - unless they implement it right from the beginning. And then put a KSP2 sticker on that. That would be commercially more successful than whatever mess they are trying to create right now, in my humble opinion. /edit: *Trying to control the narrative, not engaging in conversations, and trying to make everyone believe something by just simply repeating a story over and over seems to be quite popular these days, unfortunately. But unfortunately, also successful way too often. :-/ I'm sure the devs (or somebody else) will find a scapegoat to blame for the bad reviews/sales numbers after the KSP2 Release...

It's available for quite some time on a popular-steam-key-selling-platform for around 36€ (~US$40). And this chart shows that the price isn't universal on steam. In some countries, it's a lot cheaper. So 6-7 Million sounds like a generous estimate to me.