caipi

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.

I've actually tried Asparagus Staging and right now, due to technical issues with fuel flow, it is not worth it. But even if fuel flow would be working correctly, it is much harder to do due to VAB disimprovements. But let me explain in detail. I used a simple rocket with an upper stage (including an upper stage tank and engine, let's call them UST for upper stage tank and USE for engine respectively), a main stage tank (MST) and engine (MSE), and 6 attached tanks and engines (outer stage tanks/engine A, B, C - OST/OSE A, OST/OSE B, and C - A dropped first, C dropped last, fuel pumps from A > B > C > MST). The MSE was more for a low pressure environment, so it was supposed to fire when I dropped the first tanks and engines, OST/OSE A. So, first stage, ignite engines OSE A-C, which should be fed from tank OST A. I started watching the tanks empty. OST A and B were emptying, A emptied twice as fast as B. So What I assume that happened is that OSE A and B were correctly fed from OST A, but OSE C was fed from OST B (because the fuel pump was going from OST B to OST C) - it looked like the fuel pumps do not daisy-chain correctly. Second stage, I dropped OSE and OST A and ignited MSE. OST B and C were emptying (C at a slower rate). I temporarily disabled the MSE to check, and OST C wasn't been drained anymore. So same problem as above, there is a fuel pump from OST C to MST, but the MSE did not recognize the daisy chain from OST B to C. OSE C was correctly fed by OST B. Everything clear so far? Okay, now comes the weird part. When I eventually dropped OST C (the last outer stage), suddenly the upper stage tank and the main stage tank were drained by the main stage engine even though there was a separator between them and cross fuel flow was disabled. But this appears to be a known bug. Not all parts have the "cross fuel flow = false" parameter. That leads to an issue. If it is not present in a part, the system seems to think that cross fuel flow = true for some weird reason (at least that's what I read on steamcommunity). So some parts like a parachute, landing legs, and/or an antanna, which does not have cross fuel flow in its part parameters seems to have falsely activated that for the entire stage... Those were the current technical issues/bugs. Now let's come to the design issues. Fuel Flow Priority has been removed and cannot be set manually anymore - I considered this a vital piece of KSP1. Don't ask me why it has been removed. I think it might even fix the issue the incorrect cross fuel flow. If you add parts in a symmetry, you cannot separate them in staging by clicking on them anymore, like we did in KSP1. So adding 6 decouplers and separating them into 3 stages is not possible. They can only be put and triggered into one stage. But the Action Group manager still allows you to decouple them in pairs. So I put the two Decouplers for OST A on button 1, for OST B on 2, and OST C on 3. That's a workaround for a "small" and simple rocket design. But as soon as you have more than 10 asparagus stages or want to use the action manager for other stuff, you're gonna run out of options. So you'll have to pause the game and manually decouple stuff. Yay! -_-' Not being able to "remove part from symmetry" also makes it harder to place fuel pumps, as you cannot do so in symmetry mode anymore. You have to place each one on its own. That, again, might still be fun for a small design, but as soon as you hit a big part count, that's gonna be a real nightmare. Finally, if you think that you can just circumvent the current issues with fuel transfer: The new interface is just a nightmare (it can still be done, but is now under resource manager) and the fuel transfer stops once the tank was full for a split second. There is no continuous fuel transfer into a tank. Yet another disimprovement. I hope it helped and that you could follow my explanation. If anything was unclear, let me know.

I left a negative review because I think -from experience with other EA games- that this game is in an (pre-?) Alpha state, worse than KSP 1 at 0.23 (when I first bought KSP1), not worth the money, and has been disimproved a lot! I don't care about performance and "promised features" in an EA. Bug fixing and performance are something for a Closed or Open Beta. So Fuel Flow is currently completely broken (even without landing legs etc.), so what? Easy fix. Kerbals count as Debris and cannot EVA if persistent debris is set to 0. Well, that sounds like an easy fix as well. And all the other tiny and large bugs. What I do care about is that it feels like the devs barely played the original game and made lots of changes which are worse than the original. To name just a few: The entire interface is way too big, takes up too much screen space (I think a modder in this community once said that screen space is very valuable real estate and should not be wasted - was it LGG? I don't remember), and centralizes a lot of things which makes it hard to compare or access multiple stuff simultaneously. Individual Part Windows are gone. They have been split among Resource Manager, Part Manager, etc. I can't just click on a part and see its fuel content and click on another part and see its content. In general, the idea of a Resource Manager is good. But why not make it an addition to the individual part window? Same for Part Manager. Why do I always have to open such a big, chunky Manager just to do something tiny? And having to hover over 20 tanks (so that it gets visually highlighted) by the same name just to find the one I'm looking for is just such a bother. Asparagus Staging is apparently not as easy as in KSP1 anymore because you cannot separate parts in staging anymore (e.g. if decouplers have been added in symmetry mode). Why? It is also a bother having to add all fuel lines one by one. Previously you could just symmetry add them and remove the last two. /edit: I completely forgot that fuel flow priority has been completely removed for no apparent reason. Yet another disimprovement over KSP1 - why? /editend Most annoying: If you, the developers, want people to test your product so that they help you in developing a bug free product, don't make them pay for it like a AA game. I remember the time when players were invited and paid (in one form or another, even if it were only cosmetic ingame goodies worth 0) to help developers. Now I have to pay for it an absurd amount of money (for the given broken state of a ported game based on its predecessor)? Thanks but no thanks. I finally refunded the game and don't know if I'll buy it again. It looks too much like a cheap cash grab right now and KSP1 offers much more user friendly content which hasn't been disimproved by a single-minded developer vision of a narrow and centralized gameplay. I fear that with the current direction of the development, KSP2 will miss out on the great diversity that KSP1 offered and which made it so successful. KSP1 had so much possibilities for mods. KSP2 seems to close the door on many cases already.

Which begs the question what the plan was or is. Cash in on a hype with low effort and maximum gain or provide a new and innovative game and game experience. Sorry, that was the cynic in my.

So, I'm gonna play a space rocket game that starts with having to explore and mine the home world before I can start exploring the Müns and other planets?! That might be fun for the first playthrough, maybe the second as well. But I think it'll get in the way of restarting the game pretty quick! I don't know how many career modes I've started in KSP 1, but I know that the digits on my hands and fingers weren't enough to count them anymore. Mods made this game so enjoyable and so diverse. I already hated the first few slow steps in KSP1, having done them so many times. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the first unmanned flights and even researching and testing planes the first few times - once or maybe twice. But this isn't what kept pulling me back to this game over and over and over (etc.) again. As for your last statement: It depends on how it'll be implemented. We'll see. Unfortunately, right now I'm not very optimistic because many of the things I'm seeing so far feel like the devs haven't played too much KSP1 as there are too many disimprovements and missing crucial basic feature - even for an EA. It feels like they have a vision of what the game should be - with only a single story mission and single playthrough in mind. It doesn't feel like they are experienced die-hard fans who really enjoyed all aspects and the rich diversity of the game and what it can be. But now I start to digress. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Though for now, I'm still on the verge of refunding my EA. Let's see what the next or next two updates bring and where things are heading.

ROFL! It helped. That is... nope, no further comment. xD

I can't even go on EVA. I first discovered it when I landed with the MK1-3 Pod on the Mün. I then tried it in space, still nothing. Then I tried almost every pod on the VAB, including the rover EAS seat. Nope. I read that a few other people had the same issue. Not sure what causes this though.

I don't know how reliable those steam played hours are for KSP2. I'm starting the game by launching the KSP2 exe directly. When I do that, my play time is not updated in Steam. Just saying. Steam says 36 minutes. I've actually spent a few hours and landed on the Mün, where my Kerbals won't come out of their Mk1-3 Gumball pod. Don't ask me why. I guess they are afraid of small steps for Kerbals. I left a negative review though because of too many bugs, missing basic features that were present in KSP, even more bugs, the disimproved UI, did I mention bugs yet, and the high price. I'm so disappointed right now and find the game in its current state unplayable. Even for an Early Access, the current state is just bad. I have a number of EA games that I love. I also only paid half the price for KSP 0.23 and was amazed and blown away back then. Now? ... :-( I'm still considering refunding the game, which would be the first one ever. Luckily Steam doesn't count the minutes correctly.

I've read in another thread that you are also using JNSQ. Are you trying to change the Skybox with TR? JNSQ comes with its own internal TR-skybox already which takes precedency. It's in "\GameData\JNSQ\JNSQ_Skybox\DarkSpace". You have to replace the skybox in there. I ran into the same issue ;-) /edit: Never mind me. I should've completely read your post. The last sentence says that you are trying to replace the heads... Still. It mgiht be connected. Who knows. Have you tried it without JNSQ?

Did you just suggest to give Jebediah, Bill and Bob a blow-up Kerbal * for their long, lonely journey in space? *Seriously, who created that smiley and for what purpose?

Does this mod/thread get an anthem if it becomes thread of the month? If so, might I suggest Destiny's Child's song "SurReviva"? *starting to sing* "I'm a surrevivor (what), I'm not gon' give up (what) I'm not gon' stop (what), I'm gon' work harder (what) I'm a surrevivor (what), I'm gonna make it (what) I will surrevive (what), keep on surrevivin' (what)"

@ble210 You are not using KSP Community Fixes (KSPCF, for short), are you? The bug you described is fairly common and happens with many mods. It seems to be a stock bug. KSPCF fixes that. So I highly suggest you use it. It has also been discussed every now and then in various different mod threads (the posts are usually hard to find, though - so I'm not trying to scold you here!). So yeah, others have definitely run into this.

Have you looked at the dV chart yet that DeadJohn mentioned? The "Ascent: 880" tells you that you need 880 dV to ascend from the surface into an orbit - or vice versa. And you need essentially around the "capture" amount to return from Mün to Kerbin. YMMV

@G'th I just did a fresh install of Ad Astra and had a quick look at the planets. First of all, it looks beautiful! I love it! Great job! On Lindor I noticed an issue with the ring again, which I haven't had yesterday (with my personal edits). See image below. I don't see it in your images. But could you still double check that this isn't a general issue? It might also have to do with me having messed around in JNSQ's planetlist.cfg and restoring it might solve it. I will definitely give it a try later today. Also, when I switched from Lindor in the tracking center back to the KSP center, I got a scatterer NRE spam (wouldn't stop until scene change) which I never got before. A fresh Ad Astra install was all that I did. I might have messed up something or it might be my scatterer settings, and I will probably investigate it further, but would you mind taking a peek at the message? /Edit: Ok, I've restored the original JNSQ planetlist and a fresh-out-of-the-box clean install of Ad Astra 1.7.1 in my normal game and the Lindor ring issue was still there. It seems to be more prominent looking at it from one side than the other. Also, that visual glitch in the ring is moving around in a stable orbit, so it might just be in the shadow in your screenshot. If you investigate, warp a little bit ahead and see if you get it too. As for the NRE-spam: I didn't get it the second time. Might have been a one time issue... I don't know.