hansen

Yes, I remember the Winamp-skins very well (miss those times) In fact, I don't find the comparison with Winamp-skins too far off. KSP 2 to me seemed to sport the same engine even reproducing quite a number of well known bugs from KSP 1, in some cases making problems even worse. KSP 2 did not offer any substantial additional features or functions compared to KSP 1. So I don't see, to be honest, were there was anything but a reskin of KSP 1, with KSP 2 looking primarily graphically better (and in regards just different) with no major changes to the engine.

Interesting point. Can you elaborate?

Wow, it has been months since I checked out KSP 2 and now I see the whole thing has folded which I don't find surprising at all seeing how shady the whole story went, selling more or less a KSP1-reskin that is broken and provides less features than the original. I am still in shock though about what happened in this forum here where a number of die-hard-fans (or marketing bots?) attacked any sane user voicing reasonable scepticism and critique, defending the scam until it was officially cancelled. This community was such a nice place 10 years ago, but that was obviously 10 years ago. One of my favourite posts here pinpointing the issue, what is that even in hindsight and why was something like this borderlining 'fake news' even tolerated here?:

I find your stance very understandable. It just comes across shady and disrespectful if you promise an amazing product and sell it for full price, when people get it in their hands it is not even decent but rather horrible, and then you go quite with barely any info about how the product that was just sold using far fetched marketing promises will come together in the near future. NMS was an exception in the software world I'd say, many games are just dropped if failing at launch.

Yes, the game is fundamentally broken due to massive bugs and glitches of all flavours. The problem is not no your side, it is the game. You'd have much more fun with KSP 1 which runs quite well and offers more features when using mods.

I think you are missing the point I made in the OP. KSP 2 breaks my heart because I think there won't be what I would regard a true successor solving the major problems of KSP 1. Yet, because the same engine was used with the same limitations, instead of starting anew with a different foundation, the same, at least similar problems arise. I am well aware an engine switch or the building of a custom engine is extremely unlikely and would take a lot of time (as you say). The wasted opportunity is what makes me sad.

I was adressing the Unity engine being used for KSP 2, so it is the same engine and I remember it was announced somewhere around 2019 that Unity would be used again, and caused some scepticism among kerbonauts in my surrounding. In my oppinion, the better path would have been to either choose an engine better suited for the task (regarding physics calculations, precision, multithreading etc.) or develop a custom engine for KSP. They are already years in development, so I assume its unlikely there will be an engine switch. Just read this post here and it sums up my thinking, yet from a perspective with actual knowledge about programming: https://old.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/11cofvd/outlook_from_a_developer_long btw, don't get me wrong, I would love to see KSP 2 succeed. Its just with the foundation they choose to use and the current state of the game that I highly doubt it will happen in the near or even far future.

I know what is planned and on the roadmap. Yet, I'd say that there has been no major change regarding the game engine used and it already shows the characteristic problems that could be seen in KSP 1. The technical foundation for a true KSP 2, in my view, seems to not be there. And regarding the past communication of the developer/publisher not sure how trustworthy the promises are, to be honest.

KSP 1 is by far my favourite game. It actually motivated me to truly understand orbital physics, benefitted my understanding of the solar system, raised my interest for astronomy and the history of spaceflight, and helped me to better understand spaceflight, atmospheric flight and mechanics in general. In fact, because of KSP 1 I travelled to quite a number of sights connected to the history of spaceflight, visited museums connected to the topic, read countless books and articles (taking away precious time from my actual profession in the social sciences, but promoting my interest in what is called science and technology studies), and raising my interest in paragliding. Put short, KSP1 had an amazing educative impact on my life and I am thankful I had the opportunity to witness its development since about 0.16 (I just checked, my first post here was 2014, wow, time flies). What KSP 1 was lacking was to go beyond the rather basic physics-gameplay, which already allowed extensive creativity in designing crafts and vehicles. Yet, in KSP 1 there was never a real purpose to do anything (although this is maybe an interesting comment on real-life spaceflight ;D). You can land on planetary bodies or put stuff in orbit, but there is almost nothing to explore, there is no purpose in bringing stuff and kerbals there. And in addition, building more complex crafts and objects made the engine ache, it has quite strict limits when coming to the part count, physics calculations etc.. A true successor for KSP 1 would, in my view, offer more particulary regarding - actual things to explore and learn when visiting moons, planets and asteroids - allowing construction of complex crafts, vehicles and buildings (ideally with tens or hundreds of thousands of parts) I was hoping KSP 2 would offer that and would introduce the most important foundation for extending KSP 1, a new game engine. Yet, we got a KSP 2 that to me looks like a visual mod that does not introduce any new gameplay opportunities. To the contrary, currently it allows even less gameplay possibilities than the original and reproduces bugs that are well known to probably all ambitious KSP 1 players. For me this means that a true successor is further away than ever as there seems to have been no development on the foundation of the game (at least none, that lead to a true improvement of the issues of KSP 1) and there probably won't be any true successor for many years to come after this, so far, lost opportunity.

KSP is a great game and was rewarded with very pleasing reviews the last days. Although I have the impression, the release of 1.0 was rushed somehow and they should have released another beta before, I think the main reasons of disappointment some people express are an inevitable consequence of every early access game. In the beginning there will be a lot of (visible) progress when core-gameplay-mechanics are added. And a lot of hope, because the final product is still in the sphere of imagination of its (future) consumers. Basically, this is similar to the hype when expectations are raised. This gets rather obvious with "hype trains" and such, pushing expectations to unreachable heights by the consumers themselves (supported by developers as well as a marketing tool). The further the game is in development and the more time early access players already spent in the game, less and less innovations are being experienced by these players. So as 1.0 definitely honed the game mechanics successfully (blinding out aerodynamics) there are not enough new game elements and mechanics to please experienced ksp players. To be honest, I was looking forward to 1.0 a lot, but realized, that I have seen probably everything the game can offer (at least in stock, I played every version since 0.18, I think I have understood orbit mechanics and rocket physics which is great). But that is not a problem of the game, like every game it get olds after while. It is the inevitable pity of early access: to have already seen the whole potential of a game when it is released letting seem every small improvement a negligible addition. The worst consequence of this is, in my opinion, when people start blaming the developers for not working hard enough or not thinking deep enough about development decisisions, confusing felt disappointment with a problem of the game itself. It think this is something one should keep in mind when taking a look at the rather negative atmosphere in the forum and on reddit the past days.

I finally managed to build two spaceplanes for heavy payloads. The first one is a drone capable of delivering an orange tank into a 100km orbit. The second plane can safely bring 36 kerbals into a 100km orbit.

Beyond the technical capabilities making it possible to travel through space the ideas about the outcome of manned interplanetary missions seem too far fetched for me. Well, I am a social anthropologist and historian interested in science and technology studies. Please forgive me identifying the discourse on space exploration with religious practices. Shooting humans in the sky and sacrifice them for intellectual and scientific outcomes that nobody can pinpoint reminds me of belief and not scientific rationality (if this even exists). Even if there might be insights about certain illnesses, the question why you are not simulating these conditions in a lab accompanied by similar ethical dilemmas persists. How I said, KSP shows exactly this. Land on a planet and what do you do then? How should a satisfying way of life can be possible in space? How do even well trained and psychical strong humans deal with tiny habitats surrounded by deadly conditions? What happens if they go crazy? "Interstellar" did adress this social aspect of manned space exploration way deeper than ksp probably ever will. a good read btw.: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/the-holy-cosmos-the-new-religion-of-space-exploration/255136/

Well, it is exactly this technological and engineering focus that ksp teaches to its players. But why should someone decide to go to Mars, what is the purpose of such an endeavour? Spend the rest of your life in tiny habitable modules surrounded by a hostile environment? To travel a few steps in the solar system is one thing. To make something reasonable out of it is the problem. So far I don't see any realisic ideas about colonization that go beyond "lets bring a bunch of people to the surface of a another celestial body and see what happens". Terraforming and such are way beyond technological capabilities and even if it were possible this would need too much time to make a impact (and significance for present societies).

As moonfrog and caelib I think manned space exploration has no future. I mean KSP visualizes this very well: travelling over years to finally land on barren rocks to do what? Human space exploration was a propaganda tool in the first place so far. We are stuck on this planet, at least we are able look a little farther beyond

KSP only provides a limited view on space exploration by focussing engineering and orbital physics. It kind of visualizes the technological processes lacking any deeper explanation of the reasons for space exploration. In this sense I would say ksp nurtures the technological fetish rooted in the space race and an interested for rocket engineering (in both civil and military contexts as can be seen in the forum). But it does not give any deeper insights about the scientific engagement in space nor about the exploration of space with other tools than spacecrafts.