Snark

I'm local. Enjoyed the visit anyway, had never been to PAX before, and of course it was awesome meeting the Star Theory folks. Holy smokes, that's a whole lotta nerds. Thanks, and yes. Yes it was. Yesterday @5thHorseman observed that I was posting when it wasn't even 3AM here yet, and I was thinking "dude, suppose they told you that you get to have a whole half hour, all to yourself, to quiz the creative director for KSP2 with anything you want... and then you ask the community for input and they basically hug you to death... would you be able to sleep?!"' I would guess almost certainly not. They've made it pretty clear that they really don't want to discombobulate new users and people who are used to KSP 1, so they want the overall control feeling of ships to feel pretty much the same. Saturating reaction wheels (or making them more realistic and not so overpowered) would be a pretty major change to controlling rockets (not to mention making them significantly harder). Yah, me too. It means they're seriously re-thinking and re-designing "career", but their lips are completely sealed for the time being about the details. From the various hints they've dropped, though, it's clear that whatever it is, in broad outlines it's gonna be "you explore more to get more rewards so you can explore more", so in that regard it will be not unlike KSP 1. Well, yes, there's still a reason to pump fuel (or whatever) around. I just like that the "connecting things together on the surface" problem is finally being addressed in stock. That always felt like a "hole" to me. Even in the pre-alpha state it's at now, it's frickin' gorgeous. Lots more detail, really nice scatters (that are denser and collidable, so "Neil Armstrong hunting around for a safe spot to land" is a thing), enough procedural variety so that landing in two different spots feels different. We weren't allowed to take pictures or record videos while we were at their studio, but they showed us a lot of this and it's really impressive. Be careful not to read too much into this. Remember, I wasn't interviewing the whole company, nor was I interviewing someone who had tons of time to prepare for it. I was interviewing one guy, who's undoubtedly frazzled out of his mind right now because they're taking the frantically busy schedule of a game-company-in-dev-mode and adding on the turbulent maelstrom that is PAX, who's been in back-to-back interviews and things for days-- since they finally just announced KSP 2 so recently, and all the media has been hammering on his door, and yesterday he had back-to-back interviews not just with me but with other streamers like Das Valdez and such. (Try googling "nate simpson kerbal" and see how many hits come up with interviews and things, bearing in mind that this is all just in the last couple of weeks.) Just because he didn't have something right off the top of his head doesn't say (to me) "this is concerning that 'they' don't know X". I'm inclined to cut him just a little bit of slack, there. He did indeed. But look, guys, they've got a lot on their plate, and they're human. It's easy to miss a spot here and there. For myself, I don't worry about the fact that not everyone is a walking encyclopedia-- I mean, heck, I learned quite a bit just hanging around Scott, and I'm not exactly uninformed myself. Rather, I'm stoked that they're clearly highly motivated to get it right, and when told something they didn't know, they don't blow it off: they eagerly ask questions and write stuff down. They're receptive and motivated. These are the right sort of folks to be working on this project, as far as I'm concerned.

Kerbals in general get a lot more fun and "relevant" when they're in IVA. They're more "engaged" with the actual situation they're in. Three specific ways I've seen Star Theory improving on this: Cockpit control interaction. When you throttle up, Jeb grabs the throttle lever and adjusts it, that sort of thing. They look a lot more like they're actually flying the ship, now. G-force interactions. When you make hard lateral turns, the kerbals get thrown sideways in their seats. When the G forces pile on, they get kinda squashed. More depth to emotes. More emotes, and the emotes feel more relevant to the situation. For example, when things are going badly, they've got like three levels of escalating panic (from a dismayed "uh oh" face, to a frantic "okay okay I can still fix this" while they desperately start mashing buttons, to full-fledged freak-out (eyes bug out, arms flailing around, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"). When they pass out, they don't just cut-to-static, you actually see them "relate" (eyes roll up, cheeks bulge out momentarily like they're gonna barf, then they conk out and head keels over). It's adorable without being annoying (to me, anyway). They really put a lot of love into this.

I don't think such pictures have been released publicly, but we got to see some sample pictures during the demos at Star Theory on Wednesday, and they're all gorgeous. They showed us LV-N, Reliant, Swivel, Terrier, Poodle. Everything is being created from scratch. All new models for everything. And they're beautiful.

Moving to Add-on Discussions.,since this isn't about the stock game.

Okay, gang, here's the scoop! My interview was with Nate Simpson, creative director for Kerbal Space program 2 and major KSP nerd (apparently he was notorious around the Star Theory office for being bonkers about KSP, long before KSP2 was even a thing; there's a story around that, but I digress). @linuxgurugamer tagged along. I managed to get through all the questions listed in the OP, in the time allotted-- just barely squeaked by. Questions and answers below. Note: For a few of them, the answer is listed at "don't know" or "not sure". That has a very specific meaning in this context-- it means that Nate, himself, didn't happen to know the answer off the top of his head (for example, he's not an engineer, so technical questions about specific implementation details are often outside of his knowledge, you'd need to talk to an engineer for that.) So when I report an answer as "don't know" or "not sure", that's what it means. In cases where Star Theory hasn't come to closure on something, then I'll describe that as "TBD" instead. What appears below is a combination of my memory and the notes that I typed during the conversation, so Nate's answers aren't necessarily verbatim quotes, but they're as close as I could make 'em. Please remember that I'm a total noob at interviewing people (I'm not a streamer, this is the first time I've ever done anything like this, it's not like I actually know what I'm doing), so it's possible I could have garbled things a bit here and there. Hopefully not too much. I've highlighted the bits that I found particularly eye-opening and/or exciting. Q: Will single-player still have all the same familiar game modes, i.e. sandbox, science, career? A: No. There will be sandbox (pretty much same as now), and then there will be another mode called "progression" which is sort of a combination of science and career modes, aiming for the best of both. Q: Will science and R&D still work pretty much the same way? A: Yes. Q: What's the tech tree like? Is it still "kerbals first, probe cores later"? A: Still TBD. Q: Will there still be the same sorts of science experiments? New ones? A: It's changed in a few ways, but not at liberty to say more than that at the moment. Q: Still biome-focused? Are they still called "biomes"? A: Not sure. Q: Will any KSP 1 features be dropped, and if so, which? For example: ISRU, CommNet, asteroids, heating, etc. A: That's a bit complicated to answer if you ask "any", since there are tons of features in KSP 1 and not all of them are going to work exactly the same way in KSP 2. But for the ones specifically mentioned here: yes, ISRU will still be a thing, with a way to detect from orbit. There are still asteroids. There's still CommNet, and it still needs LOS. Heating's a thing, though the dynamics may change a bit and can't talk about those details right now. Q: How customizable will the UI be? (navball position, etc.) A: They want to make it very flexible. They're trying to make the UI more easily moddable than before. As for player-customizability, details are still TBD. They're aware that players can be very particular about how UI elements are arranged, and want to make people happy. Q: When will Star Theory people start engaging with players in the KSP forums (e.g. to answer questions, get feedback, etc.)? A: Don't know an exact date, but Soon™. Q: What's the plan for Mac and Linux support? A: We want KSP to be available to as many players as possible at launch, but can't say more specifically than that right now. Q: Will KSP work on a locked-down PC? As in, can be installed by an admin user, then run by non-admin users? A: Don't know, would need an engineer for that. Q: Will we be getting KSP 2 merchandise? When? A: There will definitely be merch, don't know when though. Q: Will we have the ability to refuel or transfer resources to craft on a planet/moon surface without the need to dock to them? A: <knowing nod, he gets why this is important> Absolutely yes. No comment on the details, though. Q: Will we see parts inspired from existing real-world spacecraft that have yet to be featured in KSP 1? Such as the Orion capsule, etc. A: No plans for Making-History-style replicas, but definitely "inspired by" types of craft. Q: Will the Making History parts be included? A: Currently no plans to bring those in, in particular. There are some parts that appear to have become so indispensable that they may bring them in, though. Q: What about part sizes? Will new sizes be available? A: Two new sizes. No comment on how big. Q: Will any new parts be based on cancelled concepts like NASA's Constellation program or un-built proposals like Lockheed Martin's Mars Base Camp? A: There are echoes of Constellation. We use this stuff as our reference materials, so there's a lot of "inspired by" stuff. Q: Will there be periodic equipment failures / maintenance? A: No. <grinning> I expect modders will jump right on that, though. Q: Will there be specific hazards to exploration (e.g. sand traps for rovers)? A: Definitely yes (to hazards that is, not necessarily to sand traps). No comment on details. By the way, there are lava planets, wink wink nudge nudge. Q: Will there be camera tools to make it easier for people to put together their own cinematics? (flyby, etc.) A: Putting in lots of work on the camera system, but can't be more detailed than that right now. Q: Will we have any form of automation? For example, if I were to launch my Daedalus and then swap over to some other craft, would the Daedalus continue accelerating? A: <big grin> Absolutely yes. That's a really important feature and is a big deal to have. Continuing to accelerate while switching control elsewhere is a thing. Q: Will it be possible to fly multiple ships in atmosphere at the same time? For example, to emulate a SpaceX booster recovery? A: Would really like to enable that and are trying to do that. Still working on it. Q: Underwater exploration: what can you find? A: You should go explore and find out! <grin, wink wink, nudge nudge> Exploring will have rewards, hint hint. There are going to be many bodies of liquid. Q: What about jet engines and airplanes? A: Stock parts are mostly still there. No comment about new airplane parts. Q: What about the aero model? Will it be like KSP 1, or something more like FAR? A: We don't want to confuse players who are used to flying in KSP 1, so it'll have a very similar aero model. Q: Will part damage work like in KSP 1? A: No comment. Q: Will it be possible to start a new career on a planet other than Kerbin? A: No. Q: Will it be possible to start a new career at a further tier in the tech tree? i.e. start a career at 1970s-equivalent rather than 1950s-equivalent A: No. Q: Will the "anomalies" of KSP 1 still exist? Will there be new alien artifacts on new planets? A: Get out there and find out! <grin, wink wink, nudge nudge> Q: Is there life more than trees and cactus and Kerbals in KSP2? Can the Kerbals find something out there? A: Get out there and find out! <grin, wink wink, nudge nudge> Q: Will we get something like air augmented rockets for use on worlds without oxygen in the atmosphere? A: Interesting idea. No current plans to do so, will look into that. Q: Will there be flags and decals? A: Planning to, yes. Q: Will kerbals get more stuff that they can do while EVA? A: No comment. Q: Will we get KAS/KIS functionality in the stock game? A: None currently planned. Q: Will there be Ansel support? A: Don't know. Q: Will it be possible to build a colony on Kerbin, e.g. so the player can make their own alternate launch sites? A: Absolutely yes! Q: Will there be mods for console, e.g. some sort of modhub? A: Don't know. Q: Will we see more variety of biomes / geology? e.g. volcanism, very dense atmospheres, completely liquid planets, etc. A: Absolutely yes. Q: Will the kerbals get more vocalizations, to go along with the new emotes? A: No talking. Lots of screaming, though. [Snark note: I heard a demo of this the other day. It was hysterical.] Q: Are vessels still a tree structure? Can there be multi-path / loops? A: Don't have a detailed answer for that. Things are still in development. Q: Will there be a playable demo? A: Don't know. Q: Will we be able to mod new science "situations"? e.g. if we wanted to have experiments for low / middle / upper atmosphere. In KSP 1 it's an enum and therefore unmoddable. A: Not specifically aware of any obstacles to that, but I'm not the authority on that. Q: Will there be bigger asteroids? A: Possibly. Q: Will you use Unity ECS? A: Don't know. Q: Will there be tools for porting KSP 1 part mods to KSP 2? A: Not planning to. Q: Will something like PartTools be a thing? A: There will be a replacement for PartTools, designed to be easier to use. Q: Are you using PBR shaders? Will you be providing any tools to help people convert existing mod textures to PBR? A: Heavy use of PBR, yes. No conversion tools. Q: Will you include FleX support for GPGPU acceleration? A: Don't know. Q: Will there be tools to aid interplanetary missions? i.e. transfer window planner, something better than guessing angles A: Yes, absolutely. No comment about specific details, though. Q: Will there be persistent rotation? A: Yes. Q: Will sound be muffled as you gain altitude? A: Yes. Q: Will rocket plumes change with gaining altitude (i.e. pressure-dependent) A: Yes.

Okay, an update. After writing the above, I actually bumped into a Star Theory lead engineer who was hanging out near their booth, so I had a chance to quiz him a bit about the Lua thing so I could get it straight from the horse's mouth. What I wrote above is not far off, but it's not quite spot on. Here's some clarification / correction / additional info: They've written the game so that it does, in fact, have a Lua interface, built into the game. Pretty much anything you can do with a C# mod, there's Lua access as well. He explicitly stated that there is nothing you can do in Lua that you couldn't do with C# code, which means you never actually have to write Lua if you don't want to-- it's not any sort of gatekeeper. So the debugging tool I saw them using wasn't making the choice of Lua there-- what it was, was a handy tool for streaming Lua into KSP's Lua interface. The game (currently) supports Lua in config files. That doesn't necessarily mean that "all config is Lua now"-- they're not saying yet what their standard config format will be. But it supports it, so you can do stuff there. What makes Lua cool as a config language is that you can put logic and callbacks and stuff into it. He gave, as an example, a case where he wanted to add a special right-click menu item for a particular part in order to try something out, but didn't want to have to build a full-fledged mod around it by writing in C#, compiling, the whole nine yards. So he could just slip some Lua logic into the config and accomplish some very mod-like behaviors right there with no additional tools needed. The other reason why they're motivated to enable that is dynamic loading. C# is a compiled language, which means if you want to change anything (e.g. iterating during debugging), you have to recompile the code, exit the game, restart the game, try it out. Whereas Lua's interpreted, and they (currently) have some hooks in place that allow dynamically loading Lua while the game's already up and running so that they can tweak and tinker and rapidly iterate without having to go through a bazillion cycles of restarting the game. The actual game code's all in C#, but often they need to rapidly iterate to try stuff out, and that is something this allows. The engineer was careful to stipulate that this is all still a work in progress, and that he was describing to me what they have now, during development, specifically to support development. It's not clear how much of this will be left in place when they ship. For example, the hot loader that lets Lua get swapped out dynamically at run time, or the ability to have Lua callbacks in config, that stuff-- it may or may not stay, or may change around radically. So don't take this to the bank yet, there's still a long road until release. Anyway, hopefully this clarifies things. TL;DR: Lua may (or may not) be present and available to do super cool things with, at release time. Lua isn't (and won't be) mandatory in any way, and you can always write mods in C# same as you've always done. That's a definite.

Based on what I've seen thus far, you don't have to worry. This isn't a thing. No, mods aren't "going to be LUA now". Unless someone else has a source of information that I don't-- which I suppose is possible, but seems unlikely to me and I'd really like to see a citation for where all this is coming from-- then this is all a misunderstanding. My guess as to what has happened is that someone took some small comment out of context somewhere and then extrapolated from that. It's not that they're allowed, it's that mods aren't Lua and I believe there are no plans to make them so. The whole Lua thing is something else entirely. Explanation below, but the TL;DR is that no, it's not what you'll use to write plugins (that's still C#), and no, I don't believe it's what you'd do with configs and stuff for parts and the like, either. So what is it? [EDIT] Correction. What I originally wrote here was close, but not quite spot on. I've since had a chance to chat with a Star Theory engineer to clear up exactly how, why, and for what they're using any Lua, and it's much clearer now. See my post below for details. However, the gist-- which is "you won't need Lua to write mods"-- is still correct. What I originally wrote here is preserved for posterity, in spoiler. If anyone does have some other source that this speculation is stemming from-- which I'm guessing is not the case, but hey, I could be wrong-- please provide a citation because if I'm wrong, I'd like to know.

Okay gang, interview done. Went great, actually managed to get through all the questions listed in the OP. More details later when I have time and am not pecking at my phone in a crowded conference center. Thanks for your patience!

I never did either, before Wednesday. Just ran into @Avera9eJoe in the line by the Private Division booth. Nice meeting you

Okay, here I am, queued up waiting to get in. Holy smokes, this is a long line. Well, if any of you guys are at PAX West, and you see a tall, skinny, pale, bespectacled guy with shorts, backpack, and slate-blue KSP T-shirt, go introduce yourself with your forum handle and you'll find out if he's me.

I've already done that, and sent them a link to this thread as a heads-up. However, I haven't had a response yet, and my impression is that they're ridiculously busy at the moment (were already super busy just working on the game, and now they've got this whole PAX circus to manage as well), so I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't actually had a chance to see it yet. We'll manage one way or another, shall see what develops. Am heading out to PAX now to nose around for a while before interview time, so responses to anyone here will likely be delayed-to-nonexistent for a while. Got my hands full. Wish me luck, folks, and I'll post results when I can. Very likely won't be today, since I'll be 1. busy, followed by 2. exhausted. I know folks will be eagerly awaiting answers, I'll provide info absolutely as soon as possible convenient. Believe me, I'm cognizant of folks' impatience, I'm with ya on that one.

Pretty much what I was planning on doing. Really, I'll just be winging it. I'm not one of those "streamer" folks-- I have zero experience with this kind of real-time, in-person, face-to-face interview. I'm usually more of a writing-stuff-down kinda person. ("Well, duh", I can imagine as the reaction from anyone who's been around me on the forums lo these many years...) So I'll just muddle through, one way or another. Note that I'm not the only person interviewing them-- the other folks here (i.e. well-known streamers that got invited) will be doing their own interviews, which I assume they'll be recording and/or livestreaming, so folks will get to see the results of those, too. Since I'm just a newbie who's play-acting at being an "interviewer", I figured I'd mostly give my own time slot over to asking questions from you fine folks. Not a bad idea, but I just don't have the bandwidth to keep up with that. I'm totally frazzled just trying to record and collate the questions, let alone trying to administer a vote and try to rank them like that. So I'll just wing it as I'm there. It's not perfect, but it's the most I have time and energy to do.

I think these are covered by questions asked earlier in thread. I don't think this sort of thing is announced yet. Depends what you mean by "procedurally generated". If you mean systems, the answer's no-- looks like they're going to continue the KSP tradition of carefully hand-crafting planets for their gameplay attributes, appearance, story, etc. If you just mean the nuts-and-bolts of small-scale detail (e.g. surface scatters and small-scale topography), then yes, there's a lot of procedural generation there-- obviously they're not going to have an artist hand-place every tree across millions of square kilometers on Kerbin. They demoed their "materials editing" system for planetary surfaces for us, and it's wicked slick: a really nice blend of human-specifiable artwork and templates, with procedurally-generated ways of combining stuff. Net result is surfaces that look gorgeous, are highly customizable by the artist, but are different everywhere so that no two landing sites are quite the same. Already covered earlier in thread.

Okay, sanity check time. I've finally caught up to this thread (at least up to this point-- I'm sure a new flood of posts will come in as soon as I post this). I believe I've now noted or responded in some fashion to pretty much everything up to this point (if I've managed to miss you, my apologies-- I'm frazzled here and there's only one of me and a lot of you guys). If I'm counting right... I now have 49 questions documented in the OP of this thread. With 30 minutes for the interview, that gives me an average of just under 37 seconds per question, if I want to ask them all. So... as I kind of expected, it's gonna be tight. I'll try to ask as many of them as I can, but I can't guarantee that I'll get to everything. (If I've answered you with "will ask" above, what that really means is "will try to ask, time permitting, but I can't guarantee.") Since I'll pretty much have to try to blaze through them as fast as possible, that also means I'm not going to have a lot of time to drill down into the answers I get back, so unsure how much detail will be there. If I ask a question like "Will it have X?", and the answer is "yes" or "no" or "no comment" or whatever, I'm mostly just going to have to jot that down and won't have time for follow-on questions. Anything anyone asks after this point... probably a good chance I won't have time to look at it or add it to my list. Quite aside from running out of time to ask all the questions I already have (49!), I'm also gonna be running out of my time to read / respond / collate here. Thank you to everyone who's submitted questions thus far, lots of good ones in there! And if I can't get to your question, I'm sorry about that. There's only one of me, folks.

Not sure what you mean by this, exactly, but they want this to be wide open. You'll be able to mod the stuff you can currently mod, plus they're opening some exciting new possibilities with scripting.. My impression is that it'll be pretty much like now, i.e. to install a mod, you just copy it somewhere into the game folder tree. See what I said already. Ah. Yeah, that's kinda covered by the other questions I'll be asking, specifically "will we have the same game modes as now" and "will there be any specific KSP 1 features that won't be kept".

Already asked, earlier in the thread-- it's on the list.

Don't have a specific answer for you. But in general they're bending over backwards and putting lots of effort into making the game as moddable as possible, so "they're doing their best" is about all I can tell you. My impression is that it pretty much isn't. Don't have an exact answer, but based on what they did demo for us, I'd say the answer is strongly likely to be yes. They're putting a lot of love into the usability and feature set of the vehicle editor, and allowing people to make subcomponents and attach them together was one of the specific things they were touting. Will ask. This is going to be pretty much "no comment"-- essentially what you're asking is "what are the major new features", and any of those that they're ready to announce at this time, they've already announced. Good one, will ask. That one sounds like a longer answer, and I've got a whole bunch of questions in a short time. Probably won't be able to get to this. They haven't released tons of details on exactly how the colonies will work, but they have been pretty up-front about their design philosophy and motivation. First, they want colonies to serve as a springboard for exploration-- essentially a form of alternate KSC that players can use to build & launch from. Second, they were very definite that they want to keep the focus of the game on building and flying rockets; that's what the game is "about", and they don't want to build "Kerbal Cities: Skylines". So my take on that is that the colony mechanic won't be a super deep one, i.e. they're not going to want to sink lots of complexity into that because they don't want to take the player's focus away too much from building and flying rockets. Good one, will ask. I think these are in the "too early to say" category. Ah, okay. Well, this is a sensible question... but 1. they're not releasing lots of details yet about all the various technologies they plan to put in, and 2. in any case this sounds like a lengthy discussion, and I've got way more than 30 questions for only 30 minutes, so probably won't have time to get into this one. Not a bad question, but I don't think they're going into that level of detail yet. That's more of a T2 / Private Division thing, not a Star Theory thing. In any case, I'd be astonished if that changed. Mods gotta have licenses, and (speaking as the moderator who has the most jurisdiction over modding stuff) my job would be pretty much impossible without that requirement. Yes. They're allowing you to pick color schemes; practically every part will have "primary color" and "secondary/trim color" as selectable things. So you'll be able to repaint your ship as you like. My impression is no. Good one, will ask. I don't have a detailed answer for you, but in general the smoke and flame f/x are way better than KSP 1. They've put a fair amount of effort into this. My impression is no. Good one, will ask. I think this one falls under the aegis of "what major KSP 1 features won't be there, if any?", which I'll be asking. I believe they're carrying over pretty much all the stock parts, so yes, there should be jet planes. Specifics of aerodynamics haven't been announced. Fair 'nuff, I've got a question about that from a bit up the thread, will try to ask this.

Good one, will ask. Good one, will ask. Basically yes. The kerbal's home solar system will keep all the same planets at the same scales and positions (though with a major cosmetic facelift). Not per se... however, they're aware of some of the bugs that people have run into when trying to run mods that scale things up a lot, and there were some hints that some of the new celestial bodies in other solar systems will be big, so the game should have better (i.e. less buggy) support for that. Good question, but would probably require lengthy discussion, and I've already got way more than 30 questions for a 30-minute interview, so probably not practical to get down into the weeds on this one, even if they're prepared to discuss it in detail. I don't think so, they didn't give any hints about anything like this. Good one, will ask. Based on what I saw about the current state of development, though, I'd guess that they haven't nailed that down yet. Already asked above in thread, will ask. I'm guessing it's pretty much like KSP 1, though. Good one, will ask. Already covered earlier in thread. I get the impression that they're planning to handle binaries by doing some custom special-case to the usual patched-conic behavior. As to exactly how it'll work (e.g. how it'll interact with ships), I get the impression they're still working that one out. No caves or overhangs. It does get a lot more detailed, though-- the surface looks a lot more "real" and is just gorgeous and varied. Much nicer surface scatters, densely placed, with colliders. Much more detailed procedural small-scale features; they want it to be so that "no two landing sites feel the same", unlike the current "you've seen one bit of the planet, you've seen it all" feel. So, lots of love being given to planetary surfaces. I asked this, it was mostly "no comment". I kinda got the impression that there might be some sort of moveable part, but they wouldn't commit and it didn't sound to me like it'll have the full suite of Breaking Ground robotics. Looks like they'll have at least some atmospheric scattering, and there appear to be clouds in "scaled space" (i.e. the view of the planet when you're up at orbital height). I haven't seen any volumetric clouds in any of the stuff they've shown (either publicly, or privately to us at the demo). We asked them specifically about volumetric clouds, and it was "no comment". My personal guess is that they'd like to have those but don't know whether they'd be able to pull it off by launch time-- they're super busy. You mean from Making History? I haven't seen anything about that, I don't get the impression that they're including that in the game. Don't know. And if they haven't announced it publicly already, then they wouldn't tell me if I asked. Good questions, but they're the kind that would require a lengthy discussion to answer, and I've already got way more than 30 questions to try to ask in only 30 minutes. So probably no time to discuss this, sorry. We asked about file structures, and it was mostly "no comment". Sounds like they're still working that one out. We asked them that (it's a biggie!), and there was a fair amount of discussion about that. They wouldn't specifically say "yes, it's multithreaded" or "no, it's not multithreaded" because aside from there being some ambiguity about what a person actually means when they say "multithreaded", the fact is that multithreaded per se isn't the goal. Having good performance in the game is the the goal. When people get crappy framerates due to large part counts, the performance bottlenecks are complex and need detailed analysis to properly optimize, and it's not just about CPU cores. Apparently, even for one core, the original KSP isn't doing things in optimally efficient manner. So they really, really want to make the physics performance much better-- not just to improve the existing type of gameplay with the sorts of ships KSP players are currently building, but also because they want to enable building much larger ships with much higher part counts, and they know that not everyone has a top-end gaming rig. So I don't have a specific answer to your specific question, but the answer to the general question "will the physics performance get a lot better?" is "yes, they're plowing tons of effort into that." No specific answer, but "a lot more than now" is what they're shooting for. See above. They're giving performance an overhaul, expect things to get better in general but no specifics at this time. Regarding the GC memory stutter, I notice that Squad just announced some improvements for this in KSP 1.8, so given that KSP 2 is doing everything from the ground up, I think it's safe to say that they'll address this in some fashion. I suspect the answer is yes. When we were talking about whether the game would have DRM, the answer was "no" (at least not in single player), and that you'll be able to copy the game tree like you can now, and we mentioned "so that you can have different mod installs on different folders" and they were just sort of nodding along in agreement. So I don't know the exact specifics, but it sounds like mod installation will be pretty much like it is today, i.e. it'll just be in your game's folder tree somewhere. I think that's a question that would have a lengthy answer, and would be just about impossible to answer in general because it would depend on the mod anyway. My default assumption, just based on my background in software engineering, is that any mod would have to be rewritten from scratch, from the ground up. I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised if that guess turns out to be wrong, but that's my guess. I think code mods (i.e. plugins) will still be good ol' C#, same as they are now. As for config-based mods (i.e. part mods and the like), no word on what the format of the files would be like. Will ask, time permitting. That would fall into the category of "various futuristic tech", which in general they're not releasing a lot of details about yet. Other than the fact that interstellar travel is a thing, they haven't been releasing details about the "interstellar geography" yet beyond a few small teasers. I get the impression that it's a standalone game with its own timeline. Already asked, see notes earlier in thread. Short answer is that they like the idea of some sort of early access but don't yet know if it would be possible and it's way too early to say. About community engagement in the forums, will be asking about that. I think that's still in the "too early to say" category. In general they're giving a lot of love to IVA. For example, when you adjust the throttle... your kerbal's hand will move a throttle lever, that sort of thing. As for what specific controls there will be, I don't think they're saying, but they're definitely giving the area some attention. Good one, will ask. I specifically asked them that. It was a "no comment", but I got the impression that it may have been more of the "I know the answer but can't tell you yet" variety, rather than "we have no idea yet". So call this one a "maybe". They didn't say yes, but they didn't exactly say no, either. In any case, they're aware of the ask. I don't have any specifics for you. But I did get the overall impression that they want things to be genuinely new experiences to excite and engage the KSP player, so I doubt it'll just be "another Ike and Duna". Good questions, will try to ask (time permitting)-- but some of these sound like they'd have long answers, and I've got a lot of folks' questions and only so much time, so not sure if I'll be able to get to these.

Good ones, will ask. The kerbals certainly get more expressive-- they've showed us a lot of new emotes (both IVA and EVA) that had us helplessly giggling. (The "OMG OMG OMG everything's going awful WHAT DO I DO" panic reaction in the cockpit is just priceless. At least one of the samples they showed us had sound with it (kinda screaming during the freak-out session), though I'm not sure whether that's actually going in or was proof-of-concept. I can ask about vocalizing, though. Noodly rockets are definitely still a thing, but they also want people to be able to make very large rockets with really high part counts, so my impression is "they're on it". However, they're not giving out details about the specifics of ship physics yet, I get the impression it's still being worked on. I kinda get the impression that "yes, still a tree", but this is a good one, will ask. They're definitely having some functionality like engine plates, though it's not clear if it'll work exactly the same way. They've said they'd like to de-emphasize multi-nozzle engines like the Mammoth, in favor of letting people just cluster smaller engines as they want "like the engine plates". So I think that yes, stack decouplers are still a thing, but they're also going to allow engine clustering. They want the build experience to be familiar to KSP 1 players so that people won't have too much trouble with the transition. They've announced one or two of the propulsive technologies, but aren't giving much detail yet about what all of them are. Not sure exactly what you mean by that? I get the impression that they're just planning on doing SRBs pretty much like they are in KSP 1. We did raise the question of giving them some gimbal (since IRL ones have that), which they hadn't realized and got their attention, so they might be adding that (no promises, we'll see). But other than that, they'll probably be pretty much the same.

Pretty sure the answer is "no comment". They're keeping the specific designs of other solar systems fairly close to the vest, thus far. Yep, will ask. Asked earlier in the thread, I've added this to the list. I think it's safe to assume that the specifics of rendering / shading and exactly what shows up when is still under development and "in flux"-- i.e. this isn't a bad question but is probably premature. What you've seen is pre-alpha gameplay. The stock parts from KSP 1 will generally still be around and the same sizes and characteristics (but with a total re-skin, they're gorgeous now). New parts will be in various sizes, but they're not giving specifics. Will say, though, that interstellar ships are big. So I expect some of the new parts are fairly large. They're extensively overhauling how things are done, performance-wise. It's a total rewrite. The specific details generally aren't being discussed at this time. About all we have is "it'll go faster". They're aware that not everyone has a top-end gaming rig with a bajillion gigabytes of RAM, so I think it's safe to assume that they'll do something reasonable. Good ones, will ask. Pretty much answered your own question there. It's alpha, there's a long road ahead. They've stated pretty clearly that they're aiming for good performance and are seriously improving how KSP handles various things internally, but they're not handing out specific details right now. Good one, will ask. Other folks previously asked in thread, I've added it to the list. For the same reason that Kerbin shows up way too large on the Mun's horizon in the same trailer: because it's put together from an artist for dramatic effect. (When they were showing this to us at the studio on Wednesday, as the scene was coming up they were all "yes, we know it's the wrong way 'round" with sheepish grins. The trailer uses art assets from the game-- but it's not actual in-game footage, it's a cinematic put together by an artist. I asked them both of these questions. Answer was encouraging-but-noncommital, basically that they like the sound of the idea but that they don't know whether they'll actually be able to and it's way too early to say. No dynamic weather, no. Not a thing. Good question, will ask. I suspect the answer is "yes", though, since from their description, colonies are actual physical objects located at specific spots that the player chooses, so it sounds to me like the only reason it wouldn't be possible would be if they specifically disallowed it for some reason. But yah, good one, will ask! Good one, will ask.

Good one, will ask. Good ones, will ask. They're not really doing procedural parts. My impression is that they're keeping pretty much all the existing stock parts at current sizes, and there will be a bunch of new parts added. No word on the sizes of those new parts-- we didn't ask, but basically any really specific design question we asked was mostly "it's being worked on, no answer write now". Already asked earlier in this thread. There are going to be a bunch of futuristic ones. In this particular image, I can't see it quite well enough to be able to tell whether it's one of the metallic hydrogen drives they showed us. Yes. They know this is a thing that's needed for modding, and they're not going to take that away. FWIW, I asked "pretty please could we have something like ModuleManager as part of stock, so that every mod in the universe doesn't have to keep bundling it?", and the answer was encouraging. They didn't exactly say yes... but they didn't say no and they sounded kind of upbeat. So I'd say maybe we get what amounts to ModuleManager-in-stock, but even if it turns out that we don't, it's definite that someone could write a KSP2 MM. Already covered in a question earlier in the thread, thanks. Good ones, will ask. See earlier discussion of this a few posts above. TL;DR is that they're a thing, but that they shouldn't be a problem because the game's designed to allow really giant ships with lots of parts. It's basically gonna be patched conics like KSP1, with likely some special dispensation to deal with binaries. It will definitely not be N-body. Given that it's not N-body and will still be patched conics, I think it's safe to say no Lagrange points. Good one, will ask. I think the answer is pretty safely "yes"-- they give the impression that there are a variety of engine types to be had, of which we've seen only a few. Good one, will ask. Yes. Looks like just about everything has the ability to select a primary & a secondary color, to establish its look. Good one, will ask.

We didn't ask about this, but they've shown some stunningly large vehicles (interstellar craft are big), plus they've also said that they're working on the physics performance because they want to enable much higher part counts in rockets. Plus, the new VAB is big, like more than twice as big as the current one. Clearly intended for much bigger ships. And when one of us ask "but what if I want to build even bigger than that", their answer was "well, that's what orbital colonies are for"-- the construction dock there is essentially just open space, therefore no size limit. So they're clearly putting a lot of effort into enabling much bigger and more complex ships, so I think we don't need to worry about wobbly joints making a ship like that not work. Good question, will ask. Good question, will ask. I already asked that specific question. Basically, "Can you please make it so that Kopernicus isn't necessary? And, if possible, something like ModuleManager, too? And make config files for planets accessible?" There was a fair bit of "no comment" territory in there, but while they couldn't give me something definite, they did indicate that they are very aware of these issues and want to do something about them. So I'd say that planets are likely to be as moddable as parts are, this time around. And that Kopernicus has a decent shot at not being necessary anymore. And that we might even get some ModuleManager-like functionality, out of the box. I'm pretty sure that plug-ins will still be just good ol' C#, same as they've always been. The only reference to Lua that I saw was as an input to a cool scripting tool that they'd built, which not only allowed them to automate the game in interesting ways (e.g. for repro cases and such)... but the mere fact that this tool was running outside the game, and talking to the game through some interface, and that they'd put a lot of refactoring work into the game to make it support that interface, and that anyone else could write a tool to talk to that interface... told me that they really take modding seriously. TL;DR: I'm pretty sure that all the ways modders currently mod will continue to mod pretty much the same way. But there may be some additional new goodies that let us do stuff we couldn't easily do, before. There may or may not be some Lua involved in that stuff. Yes, that's a thing. No details on exactly how it will work, though. My impression is that the stock parts from KSP 1 will continue to work pretty much the same in KSP 2. They specifically mentioned wanting not to discombobulate existing KSP 1 players, some of whom may be non-experts, so they'd like the basic ways things work to stay pretty much the same. KSP 2 has a lot of new stuff in it, and they don't want to intimidate players right off the bat. We didn't discuss this specifically, but we did touch on the idea sort of tangentially, and it sounds like the answer is "not a lot". Specifically, they said they want this game mainly to be about building and flying rockets-- the phrase they used was "We're not trying to build Kerbal Cities: Skylines". They don't want to take emphasis away from that and make the player worry too much about logistics. I believe the answer is basically "yes". My understanding is that you build colonies out of colony parts, pretty much like you build rockets out of rocket parts. And they have an editor for doing that, sort of an analog of the VAB but for colonies. And they want their colonies to be cool and unique per player, so they're going to have plenty of different parts for building things. I don't have the details about exactly how that will progress with career, or which parts will become available when or under what conditions, but that's the general idea. You'll be able to make really cool bases. And yes, terrain matters-- e.g. if you're building one hanging over a crater lip, you'd better have something to hold up the overhang

No. The home solar system will be exactly the same as it is today. Same planets, same moons; they're all the same size with the same gravity in the same locations. Kerbin even has the same overall geography and same coastlines. They're totally made over and look frickin' gorgeous, but they're still basically the same. The team did that because they wanted existing players who were used to the home system to feel "at home" and not too intimidated by all the new stuff. So what they're doing for all the "lotsa new worlds" thing is to put those into the other solar systems to explore. Good one, will ask. It's basically "under player control". They don't grow and expand on their own, "autonomously". However, they do get some sort of development added (e.g. more kerbals) when the player achieves/discovers things in the game. Good ones, will ask. We didn't specifically discuss this, but given the context from other discussions and what they've showed us, I think the answer is no. It's like KSP: the planets are the planets, in their positions and sizes, and that's not something that game settings will change. Good one, will ask.

Good ones, will try to ask. This is pretty much already answered, and hopefully it should work better. When they showed us all this stupefyingly gorgeous, detailed scenery and parts and stuff, I immediately wondered "is that going to require a high-end gaming rig? what about someone running on a potato?" So I asked them. Answer: They're putting a lot of work into trying to optimize performance, allowing working with higher part count, etc. They want people to be able to run the game, and they know not everyone has a tricked-out gamer rig. Plus, they plan to release for console, too-- and this time around, console is planned to be much more of a first-class citizen than last time (not necessarily perfect parity, but they're seriously planning for it and it's not an afterthought). And consoles have much less CPU horsepower than PCs. As one person put it, "Knowing that it needs to run on a console helps keep us honest." So I would anticipate a robust set of quality options to address graphics quality, and the CPU-intensive parts ought to be actually better on your potato than KSP 1. We asked them that. The response was a single word, "Multiple", delivered humorously deadpan. So I read that as meaning that there will be at least two besides the home system... but they're deliberately keeping mum for now on just how many. I kinda get the impression that we've got a lot of goodies waiting for us, though.

That's a good one, will try to ask. FWIW, they did specifically say that they're looking to solve the "Very Long Burn Problem" (e.g. you've got an ion drive and have to sit there twiddling your thumbs for half an hour while staring at the screen). Not a lot of specifics, but the idea's definitely there about being able to plot and execute maneuvers that have very long burn times and accelerate under warp, something like that. We'll see when they come out, but I'd assume yes. This is a totally new game, built from scratch from the ground up, on a newer version of Unity and using different physics stuff under the hood in order to boost performance. It's unlikely they'd match this bug-for-bug, especially since they know about the issue in KSP 1. Nope. Anything at all about multiplayer is pretty solidly in the "no comment yet" category. They wouldn't go into any detail, but said they'd likely do some sort of special-case thing to allow binaries. Wasn't asked. On another topic, though, when we were asking a question on a tangentially related topic, they made it clear: "this game is a rocket game, about designing and flying rockets, and everything else is secondary to that." So I assume the answer's gonna be that they're not putting much time into underwater stuff because they're super busy and other stuff is taking higher priority than that. Doesn't hurt to ask, though-- I'll try to ask. The rings definitely have rocks in them (when you get in amongst them, you see them all, it looks friggin' gorgeous, like a scene from The Expanse). But when asked "can we collide with those" it was "no comment". So no idea if they're collidable, or if they're just eye candy. I asked. Answer was a hemming-and-hawing sort of "no comment", which I read as meaning there may be something but there's little word on exactly what or how. If I had to guess, it would be something related to colony mechanics, of which they haven't released a lot of info yet. That's kind of a broad question. Got anything more specific? The same stock parts will still be there, pretty much (just made color-customizable and a lot more gorgeous). No word on what and whether they'll add more stuff to that, though they did emphasize that their primary focus is on rockets right now. We raised the issue, they didn't give a solid answer but my take is "probably not". I asked this. Answer wasn't definite. My impression is that they might have something movable, but likely won't have a full suite of robotics like Breaking Ground. Like all the bodies in the system, it got a total makeover and is gorgeous now. As for specifics, nothing on how they made it interesting. But they did make it clear that they're aware that Dres has a reputation of being a boring place that nobody ever visits, so they're going to give people a reason to go there. They showed us this stuff. They won't have part deformation, but 'splosions in general are way better. Yes, the flame and smoke f/x are a lot prettier, but not just that-- I mean, they've made the 'splosions of individual parts make a lot more sense, there's more animation when they come apart, and there's better "boom fidelity" (e.g. things that you'd expect to go KABOOM-- like a big fuel tank full of fuel-- will indeed explode much more impressively than smaller and more innocuous bits. Crashes are pretty. As for "damage" in the sense of broken parts that an engineer can fix, etc., we didn't happen to ask about that. Good one, I'll try to ask. I don't think so-- my impression is that it's basically KSC (and likely a few easter eggs like the island airstrip), then players can make colonies (which is another type of build system, parallel to building ships). That one's already on my own list of questions to answer. It's not a thing, that's not quite how it works. When you launch a ship, it just launches to the pad, no crawling involved. There are crawlers, but they're for the launch towers, not for the rockets you build, and they're part of KSC that you don't control. Reason they're there: They wanted to have launch towers for the "look"... but the original KSC had problems with the towers because they'd get in the way of bigger rockets and so forth. So for this one, they put the launch towers on crawlers that will automatically reposition themselves based on how big the rocket you're launching is. So they're mainly just eye candy, not really a gameplay element (though they're fully realized models and your kerbals can go clamber all over them, if you like, including taking the stairs all the way to the top of the launch towers, if so inclined). Kind of a broad question. There are certainly going to be user settings for some things, just as KSP 1 allows setting some things. Did you have something specific in mind?