Truebadour

I went to see Dres rings! They are non collidable yet (read on the Discord that it will be added during EA) and they look a bit weird (with zero inclination and a perfectly circular orbit the particles still move really fast compared to my ship, while they shouldn't) but they exist and aren't just a flat texture!

In my opinion, 16 players is more than enough. Imagine the strain on the game if 16 players collaborating meet at the same place and burn together towards DebDeb with interstellar class Daedalus ships.

Watching the video, it just looks like a glitch to me. We can expect some. Matt Lowne's SSTO video shows a glitchy texture on his vessel a few seconds before touching down.

It's less about hoping/wanting and more about what is to be expected, and I personally don't expect stuff that wasn't shown on the roadmap or talked about in dev diaries and official videos/interviews... I expect a more ambitious scale and more gameplay loops because that's what was announced. I also expect better visuals than stock KSP1, nothing more. If enough people ask for weather effects, maybe they'll consider it, but I don't think this is really high on the list of stuff they want to add.

I think you can choose to limit autoplay in your browser's preferences. Alternative method: post enough messages to get to a new page!

I don't really expect anything. I remember when there was no telecommunications and we still had antennas that only served as some cosmetic parts. I hope we'll have a system similar to KSP1, but I've not seen anything in the footage that hinted at the presence of such gameplay. Might have missed it though. Hadn't thought about this. I sure hope the saving system has been improved.

That's quite the vague answer. What kind of features? What "big questions?" The only thing I've not seen talked about is the presence or absence of telecommunications in the sequel. Most of the other stuff is on the roadmap. My personal theory about the sneak peek we have almost daily is content taken from recent builds of the game (we can see some features present on some screenshots that are absent the next, and vice-versa). If you think the content you see on Discord is the dev sandbagging us, then I think you are about to be disappointed on the 24th. I personaly expect less features than in KSP1 in the launch version, because that's what was announced.

How are screenshots from a beta build trolling us?

Yeah, it's not really a secret when the community managers post a screenshot/gif/video every working day. As for knowing if the content shown is recent or from months ago, there is no real way to know. There are still 18 days to go before the release. I guess we'll get a trailer and videos from youtubers during the last week before launch. Being bombarded with info now won't make the game come out earlier.

Yeah I'm a bit disappointed, visiting the new Dres rings was the first thing on my to-do list.

Like building a rocket with not enough fuel, forgiving solar panels or a heatshield is a design flaw on the vessel most basic functions. I understand the rest of your points and as a player with thousands of hours behind me I'll be happy either way if the devs decide to implement life support or not. I even play like you just described, by using big ships with a small number of kerbals to "simulate" a living space. However I still think it would be a risky move for a game that wants to attract new players. In the end it's just a matter of personal opinion and where we draw the line of how many fuel we want: rocket fuel, monoprop fuel, electric fuel, snack fuel, oxygen fuel, living space fuel. I just think it would be a missed opportunity to just have LS as another type of expandable resource that can end a 3 hours mission. Again, from a beginner's perspective.

Lacking fuel results from a direct action: bad planning, throttle using, overcorrecting, bad design, etc..., while punitive life support is and will always be just a ticking time bomb. I understand the appeal of having another layer of difficulty as an experienced player myself, but we've got to remember two things : 1- There will be newcomers, and imagine having to learn the game from scratch with a timer based difficulty on top of that. Most people will give up. 2- We will have other layers of difficulty added to the game: interstellar travel, colonies, resources extraction and transport. Adding a time based difficulty on top of that seems a bit much. In my opinion, forcing punitive life support on players is just not a good way to do things. I've said it before, but for me the only option to integrate a form of life support is to have passive bonuses associated with it. Make it a positive gameplay element, not the final nail in the coffin that ends a new player's mission to the Mun because they forgot one part.

I think they will be in the base game, it seems to me the footage we've seen of vessels falling in Jool's and Eve's atmosphere were just spawned here from the editor, so there is no deceleration from reentry. Could also explain why the heatshield looks brand new (I personally hope we'll get to see them getting crispy).

There is even one rock that looks like it's floating above ground. I guess it's not final! I really like the parachute animation, and the fact that Eve is covered in a thick cloud layer.

The first game was "influential" and did not have clouds. I assume a lot of people didn't install mods and enjoyed it anyway. Saying that the clouds are "not good enough" in a peremptory way does not mean anything. They are not a central gameplay element, they were not presented as a major feature of the game like a flying simulation à la MFS2020, they are just eye candy. When you say that the standards most players expect are not good enough, does that mean I'm not a true KSP fan if I like the style they are going for? Not everyone wants to have a photorealistic looking game. Simplified does not mean it's bad. What you expect from a dream game won't always align with what the developer is going for, and it's not always feasible. If you are this disappointed and vocal about such a minor feature, you are setting yourself up for disappointment in the coming months.