JoeSchmuckatelli

Thus Closed Beta. The 'million unqualified players' provide lots of data... and really random things that can be picked up in bug reports and game logs, thus EA.

I don't know what the naval equivalent of a NOTAM is... but presuming SX is going to practice propulsive landing with the water-ditched Booster and SS - will they be able to have ships inside the perimeter to video the attempts? I'm assuming they can get a waiver since they'll be requesting the exclusion of the air and sea-space... but what are the chances we'd get to see those attempts live or with a reasonable delay?

The writing on the back of the milk carton my son left on the counter states that Sandbox will be about 3 months, Science a bit longer, with Colonies coming out in Early 2024. MP will happen never soon maybe someday. 1.0 should happen between now and 3024.

Those are docks at the shoreline under the wing, right? (Certainly NOT sub-pens... but docks?)

I'm having difficulty with this - because my 'new' graphic interpretation doesn't mesh with the FAQ text: The FAQ suggests my first impressions were correct

Um. Steam's graphic for EA looks different to me. Kerbal Space Program 2 on Steam (steampowered.com) Like... they're calling EA only one step on the roadmap; the first step. Science (which I thought would be a stage in EA) now looks like it's own thing... ala once 'Science' drops, EA has ended. My first impression from the announcement was: Now the graphic looks (to me) like it describes the rollout of the game thusly: 1. Early Access 2. Science 3. Colonies 4. Interstellar Under this interpretation - EA is a stage, distinct from Science. Like, Science and Colonies and etc. are not features of EA but distinct rollouts. So EA ends when Science begins. Anyone else see what I mean? Was it always this way - or did the graphic change? I compared it to the official page - and again; it looks like Early Access is only Sandbox Kerbal Space Program 2 on Steam (steampowered.com) EDIT - Okay; I went and looked at videos from back then, and it looks like the graphic is the same - but I've been reading it wrong. Science comes after EA, rather than being a part of EA. (Or at least that's how I decypher the graphic) If I'm correct, this could impact the EA 'discount period'; meaning EA gets the discount but when Science rolls, the retail pricing may be in effect.

I told someone I was playtesting "Cake is A Lie 3" and folks went nuts.

Thanks! Human stories are fun - and sometimes 'friendly arguments' help relieve stress! People will be people!

If not manipulated - then my 'weight of the milk left in the carton' guess was solid.

Tell us about the year of the Rabbit then? Few have the context

Happy Chinese New Year to you, as well! Rabbit?

I'm not sure I'm seeing what you are. If I understand you - I would expect to see the uphill legs flex more than the downhill to try and get the nose over the COM (craft more vertical) Instead, after the landing it looks like the legs are all at the same general level of flex and the craft is perpendicular to the surface the legs touch.

Also the blackbody emissions between the landing and landed state - nice attention to detail! You can actually watch the bells cool to black during the stabilization

Sounds were great, too. I like the 'grunting machine whirr' thing as it finished the landing!

Airboat ride!

Beta.

Billions of celestial objects captured by new survey of the Milky Way The survey, which marks the second data release from the program since 2017, is the largest catalog of Milky Way objects to date. The Dark Energy Camera, located on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at the National Science Foundation’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, captured the data for the survey. The telescopes there sit at an altitude of about 7,200 feet (2,200 meters) and can observe the southern sky in great detail across visible and near-infrared wavelengths of light. The two data releases from the Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey cover 6.5% of the night sky. Astronomers will be able to use the data release to better map the 3D structure of the galaxy’s dust and stars. Billions of celestial objects caught by Milky Way survey | CNN

Like I wrote - I've seen them myself during the streams and seen other videos. At first - because I kept seeing them along the coast - I thought they were a something there that was intentional and flashing. But then I began to see green and purple flashes in random places. Further, the 'primary color' aspect (all one color) reminds me of some glitches I've seen in other places. Flash artifacts

You know - the thing you highlight is interesting... this has a whole different 'feel' to my past experiences with EA titles. We are seeing Beta Content - when we know the game is coming out on EA in a month. We can assume it's a Closed Beta - as they did not invite the forums (captive audience of willing, interested players). Vast majority of previous stuff was all labeled "Pre Alpha" - so we can likely assume incomplete builds; but Beta suggests a largely functional game. (Heck, it used to imply the game was feature complete - but likely had bugs that needed playtesting to identify.) So I'm guessing that Beta in this case is just that; a bunch of experienced enthusiasts with a broader array of PCs and bug hunting that they can protect with NDAs (and try to clear up) before feeding the PC community the EA... which is likely to be in a Release Candidate state - with some qualifications. That being the Roadmap. This kind of activity suggests - mind you, speculation again - that it will be in a pretty polished state during the first part of EA. ... The background to all of this is the later things on the Roadmap. There is decidedly a tension between a community that has been chomping at the bit for access since 2020ish and their wanting to put out the game they've advertised... when some of the parts are not yet ready for release. I have confidence in Sandbox and Science. Those roads are well traveled. EA access to those two features buys them time. Major monetization likely won't happen until Console release anyway - so getting the game into PC player's hands now quiets the community (hopefully) while they work on the functionality of the 'complete' game and the Console port.

I've seen several posts about the purple and green flashes. They don't always appear along the coast like that one shown in the image you provide - so I'm thinking they are artifacts of some sort.

My pure speculation is that they've invited folks like Scott Manley and a few others with notable followings and KSP experience to be Beta testers. I base this purely on the weight of the milk my 15 year old left in the carton when he failed to put it back in the fridge, so you know this is solid and reliable. That way they get input from people who both know the game and who are invested in its success (as they shill for views while freely promoting the game). Likelihood is that if there is a whole host of Day Zero or Day One content dumped on the interwebs... I'm right.

Timely: For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century, due in large part to falling global fertility rates, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new data from the United Nations. By 2100, the world’s population is projected to reach approximately 10.9 billion, with annual growth of less than 0.1% – a steep decline from the current rate. Between 1950 and today, the world’s population grew between 1% and 2% each year, with the number of people rising from 2.5 billion to more than 7.7 billion. World population growth is expected to nearly stop by 2100 | Pew Research Center

The core of the HH 24 complex is a dense cloud of gas and dust that hosts at least seven known objects. These objects are small, hot, and dense but not yet have not yet reached the stage where they can fuse hydrogen in their cores and become true stars. However, one does seem to be right on the edge of that limit and will become a star essentially any day now. ...Because of their masses and orbits, they are bound to violently interact with each other. In fact, the astronomers have caught one such ejection in the act. The ejected object is an incredibly small protostar, almost small enough to count as a brown dwarf instead. It is currently moving away from the core of the protostellar system at about 25 km/s, which means it was orphaned about 5,800 years ago. In the next few thousand years, it will likely be joined by at least some of its siblings. Astronomers spot an orphaned protostar (phys.org)

In archaic usage: the phrase satellite planet was used for a few centuries after the Galilean and other moons were discovered, before the word "moon" was extended in use from Earth's moon to the satellites of other planets. At the time, all bodies of the Solar system beside the Sun were called "planets", and the phrase satellite or secondary planet was used to distinguish satellites from the primary planets they orbited. In modern usage, the term is used by astronomers who define a planet strictly by its physical characteristics. There are 19 at least satellite planets (planetary-mass moons) in the Solar system, including: the Earth's Moon, the four Galilean moons, Titan and the half dozen medium-sized moons of Saturn, the five medium-sized moons of Uranus, Triton, and Charon. satellite planet - Wiktionary Okay, fine

ahem. Planet satellites may be known as moons. But a satellite planet typically implies the parent is a star, n'est cie pas? Rask & Rusk... I'd call them both planets - but neither a moon.