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.

Aren't you then describing a mere heat resistance value? KSP1 used to have those values. Every part had it. Not sure about KSP2 since there's currently no heat system in place, is there?* Different parts had different heat tolerances/resistances. The purpose of a heat shield was purposely designed as an ablative surface, similar to real life heat shields on space shuttles Apollo, Mars Pathfinder, etc. Or what would be the point or difference of your suggestion of non-ablative heat shields compared to existing heat tolerance values already in the parts - and then added (again?) to parts? Basically a way to increase the permanent heat tolerance by use special coating? I am not criticizing. I'm just trying to understand what you are suggesting. /edit: keep in mind, even the heat shields in KSP1 had a normal heat tolerance (3,000?) and once the ablator was gone, they could overheat as well. Are you suggesting to be able to increase a parts heat tolerance to let's say 6000 via a slider (e.g. "applying a special coating" as real life explanation/justification)? *I cannot check anymore since I refunded my game. ;-)

I'm actually hoping for one of the new engines to be named "Kulture* Kandela". Sounds like a fitting name for a torch drive. *I know it's culcha candela and not culture candela...

This feature plus procedural tanks and procedural wings with fuel and the part count of a rocket would/could (probably) drop by a factor of 5! I love the idea of toggleable heat shields on parts (not all parts, of course). I'm surprised I haven't seen a mod for this for KSP1 yet. (Though I haven't looked for over a year...)

Well, it seems that PD seems to support PDCWolf on these two points: Source: https://store.privatedivision.com/game/kerbal-space-program-2 They are actively asking for feedback on the current state of development. As for QA teams: It is much cheaper to have 100 times the people play the game and discover bugs and have a few paid QA team employees sift through these reports - especially if they have a proper interface to collect, categorize, and further investigate the bugs. You need fewer people to accomplish the same thing. Admittedly, the focus of the work shifts a little bit and it requires more report management. But discovering, reproducing, and analysing the bug in the first place is no small deed either. Plus you get to have your product tested on different environments rather than just your standard issue QA-tester PC. I think you're underestimating what a huge variety impact that has.

It also allows for vessel refueling, I've heard! How would I know where, when, how often, and by how much I have to refuel my rocket/spaceship when I cannot make a proper flight plan? I find that idea particularly short-sighted when you consider that colonies are planned! What are they for if not for refueling? And I might not always want to completely refuel my rocket, just enough to get to the next stage or point. Yet another example of a seemingly narrow-minded development which thrives on disimprovements of the original game and where it seems like the current devs had a very special way of playing KSP and want to force it onto everyone. :-( I miss so much basic features in KSP2. This is just another one in a long list. Is there a way to "abort and return to VAB" for the development of KSP2? o.O Just port KSP1 to the latest unity engine and make improvements and rework the design without loosing functionality?

Well, the way DarkMultiPlayer (DMP) handled mods was okay for me and didn't feel awkward at all. In essence, the server just handled the current position, time and assets of the clients (the things in the save file) while the game was running on the clients (that's oversimplifying it, but for the sake of explaining it, it might suffice - also, i'm a noob in such matters ;-) ). The server allowed white and black lists for mods. So if you had a certain mod like HyperEdit and if it were blacklisted, you weren't able to connect to the server. If you didn't have a certain part pack like OPT when it was white listed (i.e. necessary), you couldn't connect either. The server itself didn't need the mods, though. It's just a name in a save file for the server. But yeah, I do agree with you one the timewarp and awkwardness. But I have stated that before, I think.

I've actually played KSP with Dark Multiplayer (DMP) with some friends years ago. It was somewhat fun with one of them. But the others, oh well, let's just say they didn't increase the gameplay experience. (Even if I enjoyed playing other games with them.) For me, KSP is mainly a single player game. I also fear that since KSP2 hasn't been developed as a multiplayer game in the first place, it's gonna run into serious trouble when "converting" to multiplayer later on (or rather: trying to convert and probably fail). It will probably just be some limited functions similar to DMP. I mean seriously, how could you make it a real multiplayer when you have timewarp? Either it needs to timewarp the other players as well. That's gonna create problems. Or you're just gonna have to "resync" the game after the timewarp. But that means that one player can still alter the past of the other player. There will be issues! I doubt it'll ever feel like a real multiplayer. The only real multiplayer aspect I see is supplying and building bases and stations together. But who wants to be a resource mule for somebody else? Especially if there are appropriate mods for resupply missions? That's why I personally don't care much about the multiplayer aspect.

This argument can easily be reversed: Keeping the current player base and fans happy and not alienating them is also EXTREMELY* important for the funding and longevity (especially if they are the ones doing free advertisement on the internet and among friends - even if gamers having friends might be an unconfirmed rumor ). If a game looses its existing fan base because core functionality is missing** or the game is not enjoyed anymore, then it doesn't bode well for building a new fan base, does it? I mean who is supposed to enjoy it if the people that enjoyed KSP1 don't even enjoy it? Building a franchise is comparatively easier than creating a new game out of nothing. You have a working and well-advertised product to begin with. You have a hype and a fan base that will probably fund you for a while no matter what. You have tons of feedbacks about the base game - admittedly, there doesn't have to be a consensus on that. The feedback and expectations might go into different directions. Still, you already have a pretty good basis to begin with. I don't think that reinventing the wheel as a triangle is the way to go. There is already soooo much inspiration on that forum here alone to draw from. Especially considering all the mods that offered small and big improvements. Why would it be wise to ignore most of it and go into a completely different direction which only few people enjoy? *is there a reason EXTREMELY had to be SHOUTED? Do we have to SHOUT at each other to make our arguments? Caps Lock is generally considered as shouting or yelling and considered impolite. There are better (/friendlier) ways of emphasizing one's point. **I consider myself a fan of the franchise that is alienated by the current direction of development. I have refunded my game on Steam. Seeing the latest patch notes unfortunately only confirm and reinforce the fears I had about the current development. And I hate that. I was really looking forward to KSP2 and I still hope that they will turn it around. Even if I'm extremely doubtful.

What am I? A QA tester? Don't they have a QA department for that? Isn't bug feedback primarily intended for rare or hard to track bugs instead of common and rather obvious bugs? I will consider it when they start paying me to find bugs. But if they demand 50€ from me to do their work for them (to find and analyze bugs), that's a hard pass for me! I think they or possibly you got something backwards here. Since when is the customer supposed to improve the product to a usable state? I'm not talking about suggestions or feedback, but about basic gameplay bugs and basic functionality. For a game that costs 10 or 15€ I might do it, like we did for KSP1. But for this price? NO! I'm not paying money to be their unpaid employee or lackey. That's just silly. If they want to sell something to me, it needs to be for a fair price/performance ratio and it needs to be in a working condition. Btw, I remember times when players were compensated in one form or another for such QA work. Even if it was just "worthless" ingame cosmetics. But at least there was some form of appreciation. This however just feels like plain exploitation. "Pay us and then help us." Maybe even extortion ("we need your help to finish the game..." xD )

I'm not gonna get into the whole "... but it's early access!!!!!oneeleven (and i think early access stands for [XYZ]...)"-thingy here. This isn't the first EA I've purchased, played, and waited out. And it's not even the worst EA I've experienced. But it is the worst EA of a game series. But to share my opinion here in a hopefully neutral way: First, I don't care about FPS and performance, not in this stage of the game. I understand that it is a big issue for some people though. However, aside from the graphics which have really been improved, I actually haven't seen any improvement to the game itself. Only disimprovements. So many functionalities that were present in KSP1 are suddenly missing. So many things changed to a state which I consider worse. It feels like the current devs have had a different playstyle than most of the other players. Maybe they just liked crashing rockets and playing with cheats on - I don't know. For me what's so disappointing is not that announced features aren't there yet. I can wait. It's that the gameplay feels worse than in KSP 0.23 (when I started with KSP1). That combined with the long development time and the high price makes me highly suspicious. It looks and feels like a disimproved cash grab with minimal effort. Like the trailers received more love than the actual development of the game. I've already commented on other occasions (this forum, steam forum, steam review for the game) about what in particular I didn't like or felt that was missing, so I'm not gonna repeat it here. This is the first game ever that I returned (via Steam). I'm very disappointed in which (disimproving) direction the current devs took the game and I'm not very hopeful. If you remain hopeful because "it's EA" (and that means it excuses anything and everything...), that's your right and for your sake and the game's sake, I hope that they'll turn it around. But the current price for this piece of work is in my opinion an audacity. And EA does not excuse anything and everything. If they had improved anything else but the graphic alone, or if they at least would not have removed core functionalities from the game, I might still be optimistic. But the way it is going, it's just so disappointing and not what I was looking for. Luckily, there is still KSP1. With the right mods, you get better visuals and performance with more functionality. So I don't see a reason to purchase KSP2 (again). Let's hope KSP2 makes it to a release - and I don't just mean a "okay, we're not gonna invest any more time or effort into the game, so the current state is now considered release"-release. I mean an actual 1.0 release-worthy release with all goals achieved that were planned when the game was announced.