Two

There is a very simple answer to this: The devs actually don't know how to do it properly. If you compare KSP to other Unity games (and all the bugs), it clearly shows that actual coding is not the primary strength of this company.

Welcome to the year 2003, where we finally now have 64-bit processors. No more memory limits, and games can use the 64-bit throughput to a full extend to speed up their code! The question should be: who the hell releases a 32-bit game 13 years after 32-bit was outdated?

As soon as the game crashes on PS4 for the first time, reviews will kill it. PC users are usually much more forgiving when it comes to bugs, because they can simply patch it or add mods, PS4 players are not. They expect a finished and polished game or rip it apart. As happy as the devs might be right now, I am pretty sure that will boomerang back. The sales will - sophisticated guess - barely cover the cost, and during the development time too many bugs have been ignored to make anyone else happy. I just recommended the game to a friend, and after playing the demo he summarized it as: "Fun game, but with all the bugs not worth 40 bucks". Scale that, then take a guess how many customers Squad lost by focusing on PS4 instead of PC.

Sounds like the Motion Blur effect, which can usually be disabled. For some reason this pointless and annoying effect has been hyped through the roof, so every developer totally wants this extremely pronounced in their game.

I never said you couldn't. But you can't do a grand tour with 3200 dV without an ISRU. That is actually a brilliant idea... That'll be my next goal.

I just made the grand tour Mun, Minimus, Ike, Duna (then Ike again for refuel) and back to Kerbin. This was possibly only because my rather small craft with only 3200 dV had an ISRU. Now the good thing about the ISRU is that it actually makes such things possible, the bad thing is that you could basically just remove fuel usage from all engines, because that is about the same effect. Now the only challenge left is Eve.

My guess: KSC is now highlighted from space, so you know where to land.

If it involves a service bay, it is usually a clipping issue. If even a single pixel intersects with the bay, many fun things will happen.

I like the fact that KSP is a good game that doesn't require conflict and war to archive that, and I'd like it to stay that way.

The point of this thread: state your KSP success or failure in one line. Bonus points if it is funny. Example: Jebadiah sadly figured out, that gravity also works on high mountain cliffs. or The Mun mission was a complete success! The next mission will then rescue the people from the previous mission. Feel free to be creative. =)

Gratz! I remember my first Mun-landing... it was that moment where I realized that no game had ever made me so happy about a success like KSP did. About your rocket, first rule of everything: if it works, it works. After that it is optimization in details. For your future designs you should keep in mind that there is a sweet spot at which weight, thrust and fuel just match perfectly. Beyond that point you begin to add fuel just to lift the fuel you added. Sometimes less is more. As an example of a definitely not perfect but also working design (which I guess weights a lot less, but is definitely not as beautiful as yours): this is my latest Munlander:

I understand the point that fixing certain bugs, that won't be in the game anymore after the Unity 5 update anyways, isn't a good way of spending time. However considering a game in this state, especially with such a huge and massive update on the horizon, "released" is questionable. There are times where I wish certain games would be open source, so at least the community can fix the bugs in the meantime.

From the changelog: #464 (20.05.2015 23:23:47) Work around for #591 (node burn problem) since I pulled a unfinished KER branch So it seems like this is a bug in the current version and already fixed in a not yet released update.

It's kind of funny that mods can do properly, what KSP can't. As far as I was told, the MJ prograde hold works fine and without the shaking as well.

So I started a new game a few days ago on hard mode: no saving, no revert flight, you fail: you suffer. It turned out to be actually way more fun than normal difficulty, or at least it would be, if it weren't for the bugs. Yesterday I did my first moon-landing, after fighting with the editor first, who would constantly switch between radial and mirror mounting, even milliseconds before placing, threw out Bob from the pilot seat and put in Val like every time I launch a rocket, just to learn that it wouldn't leave the launchpad despite enough TWR. After an hour someone on the forum was so kind to tell me that this is a launchpad bug, where the rocket gets stuck in the pad. Now my rocket is using all 30/30 parts and I don't have the money to upgrade the lab yet, so I was screwed. Eventually I managed to shake the rocket enough on the launchpad to get it to fly (highly unstable, but fly), and managed to make my Mun-landing and return. Today I tried to get to Minimus. Same issues with Editor, throw out Bob, shake on the launchpad to get up. SAS prograde fails to work properly, because I changed something about the rocket, and now it wobbles like they are partying hard in the command pod. SAS stabilize and manual flight: smooth like a feather. So I have to steer manually for now. Get the rocket to Orbit and towards Minimus... can't click on the flight-path anymore, because it shakes like the rocket did before, so manual warping till Minimus. Add the maneuver to enter orbit, warp to it... rocket doesn't stop and flies by. Good thing I have some extra dV, so I break manually and land the rocket, do the usual science stuff, put Bob on Eva, he fails to grab the ladder on exit for some reason, RCS doesn't turn on, because he somehow got knocked unconscious, he falls through the ground, everything vanishes (including all planets and KSC), and after a reload the lander is gone and all my Kerbals are dead. And of course no quick saves because of hard mode, so I guess I start from scratch again. This game would be so much better if it weren't for all those annoying bugs.

Those items are not physicless, so if they overlap with each other or the service bay, the physics goes havoc and tends to tear rockets apart or eventually explosively empty itself. They actually do. I once had a probe in Jool atmosphere and opening the bay significantly slowed it down.

I did, but still it is tons of grinding, and I just know better ways to spent my time. Some people love grinding, I don't. So not my style of playing the game.

SAS is definitely broken, but not only in aero. I just landed a rocket retrograde, and even while still in space SAS constantly flickered and wasted huge amounts of electricity for unnecessary auto-corrections. As this rocket (pod + 180L fuel tank + terrier) is unable to wobble for physics reasons (and SAS steady doesn't wobble at all), it just has to be the SAS. There are however rocket designs that cause wobbling effects, usually caused by decouplers, because those are actually physic joints and not stiff attachments. Those can however usually be fixed with struts.

I consider 40€ way too expensive for this game. It is definitely extremely fun to play, but it certainly lacks quality (bugs, crashes). IF the game would be a lot more stable and bug-free, then yes maybe that price would be ok, but not for the beta version this game still is. Luckily there are places on the Internet where you can get it for as low as 16€.

That probably was it, thanks. I added landing stabilizers to push it up a little and it flew like expected.

I just stumbled upon something I think is a bug, but don't know what or why. I build a simple moon-orbiter, which launched fine the last few times, but now after an upgrade it no longer wants to leave the launchpad, like it is super-glued to it (despite enough TWR). But after some seconds of burning it seems to hit a magical number and suddenly skyrockets upwards (literally). The first stage launches only the T30 engines. The problem seems to be related to the total weight. If I remove some parts to make it lighter (even fuel) it launches below a certain weight (22,7t total, launches at about 22,5). This is technically a modded game, but this rocket only has stock parts. Mod I use: KIS, KER, MechJeb2, Simple Science Fix, Stage Recovery

Absolutely. Just that currently the only option for science is to grind it.

I once had to abort a mission because I forgot to add lights. Now that sounds like a minor issue, but try to land your vehicle on the edge of a cliff in the Mun mountain polar region within a margin of error of less than 3m of the not-so-well-chosen landing zone of my lab, while it is pitch-black dark, and just won't get any better, because it is the polar region.

I think stock 1.0.2 is very buggy, but then I am a software developer, so my opinion on this topic is biased. The game usually crashes once every 2-3 hours, depending on what I do. Temperature gauges usually crash the game very fast, the FAT wings also tend to cause a lot of crashes. And then there are those other bugs which are not crashes but are annoying as hell, like you plan a maneuver, say "Warp to maneuver" and it just flies by like it doesn't care. Then you can't click on certain flight lines to add maneuvers in the first place, or the line wobbles like crazy, or items placed around Rockomax tanks are not mirrored, while they are around other tanks, or the editor suddenly locks up, small items causing physic havoc and shake your rocket to death.... The list is endless. And the annoyance piles to a point where the urge raises to say: "Yeah if you could ship a version without major bugs at least once, that would be great."

As far as I can tell (from the answers here and personal experience) the problem boils down to two issues: 1. Biome-based science is tedious and breaks the immersion. 2. The alternative - the MPL - is a bad solution for the problem, because it requires nothing but to wait 3-5y to complete the tech tree. Thinking about it, what I would like to see is something like a more exploration-based science, probably involving contracts. So instead of walking to the KSC water tower to invent new rockets, you need to fulfill contracts to unlock new science parts. So for example at first you get contracts like "Test the Terrier engine in flight over Kerbin", and doing that adds science points towards unlocking "Advanced Rocketry". Later you receive contracts like "Atmospheric test on Mun polar biome", which then adds points to unlock various mid-level technologies. And for the later techs you would need to process those data samples in a mobile lab, like "Obtain surface samples from Ike, then process them in a MPL in orbit around Minimus." witch will then add points to unlock for example "Field Science" over time. This would solve several issues in the career mode, especially the tediousness of biome-scanning, and give the MPL a useful meaning, without making it and endless source of science. In addition it would encourage exploration AND returning, would be immersive and give the player a reason to actually venture out into space, beside the usual "because I can!".