Draslin

Unless they are making the game open source, no I'm not. Its a development road map which would, by definition, be a roadmap for the developers. Obviously? To be fair, it's hard to make the sarcastic inflection obvious in the written word. No, I don't think it would be easier. Not if they are planning to maintain the illusion of orbital mechanics based on Newtonian physics. The distances involved would require huge numbers that I suspect would severely strain the engine without some kind of abstraction layer. Where harvesting is concerned, they can make up the rules that govern it and tie it to whatever visuals work best for that. Where as inter stellar travel has to emulate the real thing and can be judged accordingly. The stakes are much higher because the universe literally sets the bar on what it should look like and how it should behave. They can't simplify interstellar travel for ease of development or dumb it down to increase the player base without sacrificing the very thing that brought people to the game in the first place. Fair. No. It doesn't really add any game mechanics if these things don't add game mechanics. Your talking about visuals. After all, whats the difference between a rocket in space and a colony on the ground? One moves. Sure, there are some mechanics in terms of making sure the colony doesn't move and snaps to the ground properly. But what gameplay does that add for the player? That may be true, and if so I can't argue with it if that's the direction they want to go. My point is, that's not a game mechanic, it's just a kind of lego set. A glorified cosmetic. I didn't buy KSP2 to build pretty things. I bought it to play a space agency sim game with real physics. Ok, this has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. There is a difference between overly simplified game play, and clarifying the knobs and dials necessary to play the game effectively. Those tools didn't make the game simpler to play, it made it less frustrating and more fun by minimizing the guess work and uncertainty in the equation. It allowed you to plan, evaluate and understand what you were doing. Well call me crazy or unreasonable, but yes. It seems entirely reasonable to expect a sequel to a game to improve upon and add to what made the original successful. But also no, I'm not comparing KSP1 final to KSP2 as is. I'm comparing KSP1 science to KSP2 science, and while I was at it, calling it out the problems with the KSP1 science as they compare to KSP2 science. KSP1 science mechanics were better, though the progression of science goals were not. KSP2 science might as well not be there at all since it doesn't seem like I need to do anything to get or manage science beyond build a rocket and go somewhere. But its not a single lone game loop. A single hamster wheel sounds like a complete waste of time. KSP1 consisted of at least a few. Run missions to make money so you could pay for rockets and unlock parts. Build rockets so you could go out and get the science to unlock research. Arguably a communications network was another game loop though an optional one, also seemingly present in KSP2. Likewise building a refueling infrastructure in KSP1. So KSP2 has at least one game loop right now. Build rockets to get science, and the point is it might as well not be there. If instead I simply unlocked parts for visiting planets and moons, would it be materially different somehow? Just call it crew reports instead. Science right now doesn't feel like a game loop much less like actual science, its feels more like steam achievements. In any event. If the objective is to make a simpler, easier, dumber game, then they aren't really making KSP2. There making a new game in a KSP2 skin. At least for me. I've never played a sequel to a game for long when that sequel stripped away complexity from the first. Its one thing to make a game simpler to play, and another thing to make a game simpler. If that distinction isn't obvious, then I think I'm wasting my time trying to explain. Which is probably true regardless.

I appreciate that it's not immediately obvious that I have some experience with games in early access or even KSP itself, but I've got about 1000 hours in KSP1 starting all the way back when the only thing to visit was the mun, and you had to eyeball it. I've read what little there is to read aboutKSP2 in the road map, and I've read more than a few articles, and watched more than a few videos about KSP2, before actually playing it for a day or so myself. What I haven't seen or heard about, is anything remotely like what I described. Excepting what sounds like a likely diluted resource gathering. The point I was making, is that what I have seen in the actual game right now seems pitifully simple, and by extension suggests any future systems will be similarly simple. But while we are on the topic of the road map, doesn't it seem weird that something as basic as resource gathering doesn't show up until nearly the end of the road map? If those resources are used to build or research things, shouldn't that show up in the road map before those things are part of the game? Or isn't it weird that the resource gathering doesn't show up until after we crack interstellar travel? Is coming up with a convincing mining operation somehow more complicated or less important (or both) than working out interstellar travel? Seriously? I mean, this segues into one of the problems with KSP1, there was little to no reason to push out beyond the Kerbin SOI. Nothing is materially gained. It boils down to, I went because I could. So we'll be able to build colonies, great, but why? There is no economy and no resource gathering yet, so what's the motivation? Now lets take that question and make it interstellar. It just seems nutty to make something that should feel impactful into just another cog in a machine that's dull and grindy. But that's really just a long-winded way of saying, no, it doesn't seem like any of the problems I mention will be meaningfully resolved by future milestones on the road map.

I checked in and learned there had been a science update and figure maybe now it would be worth buying. It seemed so at first. No performance issues, or at least not the crazy performance problems I'd heard about, but then again I've barely gone to orbit. And I don't think I'll be playing it again any time soon. For a franchise that ostensibly made a name for itself through making something as complex and bewildering as aeronautical engineering and orbital mechanics fun, it boggles my mind how everything else about the game seems so irredeemably simplified and dull. Science wasn't amazing in KSP1 but at least I knew how and where and why it was earned. In KSP2 it just seems to pop up. I'm mostly notified after the fact with very little notion that anything at all had happened. Its like a very slow game of Sonic the hedge hog. Complete with the loss of all my rings if I hit the ground too hard. There is no economic incentive either to make a rocket more efficient in terms of resources. The sky is the limit so long as it fits in the VAB. Which impacts the use of the free science points as well. There is no reason to research lesser parts except as a stepping stone to the bigger more powerful and more useful parts. Its all the same once unlocked. When I first heard of KSP2 I was convinced it would be amazing. Missions and Science could be rebuilt and improved. But no, both are far simpler, and far less motivating. My biggest beef with KSP1 and science, was that you could complete all the science in the Kerbin SOI. It would be trivial to envision a a system of resources that would force the player further out into the system while tying that progress directly to their efforts. We could make science depend on access to rare-kerbin elements on Kerbin for tier 1. Science becomes a resource specific to a planet and the elements available on it. Parts should have a monetary cost as well as a resource cost. Those resources are the same elements science experiments are focused on. Properly researched, you mine those resources and use them and money to build rockets. Research must be unlocked per part, or group of parts, and paid for with Science associated with the materials those parts require. Bam. Now, I'm going to build a rocket with parts that require Rare-Kerbin elements which is just enough to get me to Dres or Eve. Now I start doing science at one of those to understand their Rare elements and how to use them, then how to mine them, shipping them back to KSP or building a colony to mine and refine locally, now I can unlock Tier 2 propulsion research on one planet, and Tier 2 structural research on the other. Then from those planets to the next adjacent orbits. Working my way closer to the sun or deeper into outer reaches of the Kerbol system. And it keeps going, the first interplanetary ship barely gets us to the next system. But after a while there the research makes it easier to travel and communicate between. All the while you have definable goals and objectives, purpose and a sense of accomplishment beyond just getting there. But instead, its not much more complex than rocket goes up, science comes down. It's literally not rocket science. I haven't been this disappointed in a game since Spore.

Don't assume that. Remember the aero dynamics have changed since mech jeb was designed originally. By turning your rocket you are increasing drag which in turn limits how fast the rocket can move, also know as terminal velocity. I not sure it's a bug in mech jeb, I just think its something you can't really utilize anymore with the improve aerodynamics. Drag was more or less constant before the update from what I've been able to figure out. Test it out. Turn on sas and don't change direction while you have limit terminal velocity on. Then turn the rocket a bit, you should see the throttle drop. I've seen it bottom out entirely when I've turned too much spreading drag across the long axis of the rocket.

That appears to work. Definitely not what I was used to. Thanks.

Has anyone else got a problem with RCS thrusters since the 1.0 release? I'm trying to dock a ship to my station, but no matter which mode I'm in staging or docking the controls are identical and behave as though my only option is staging. So I can't thrust forward, back, left, right, up or down from my station. I can only rotate the ship.

Anyone else having weird problems with mechjeb post .9 and 2.4.2? The Kraken is eating ships left right and center, 25 in one go even. Screen goes black regularly when I switch ships or go to the space center. Advanced Planet transfer is throwing up awful paths and numbers half the time it tries to make a bee line for the planet and the other half schedules the manuever for centuries into the future, if it will project a manuever at all.