Cpt Kerbalkrunch

Two years is pretty much exactly what I was thinking as well. By then I'm guessing some kind of career/science progression, the colony stuff, and hopefully interstellar. As for the guys waiting on multi-player? God knows. Might be a long wait. As an aside, I keep wondering how they're gonna do it. SOI based, I would imagine. Still presents a lot of problems, though. And looking at the game now, tough to see.

Taking a deep breath. I want to be careful here. I am not a natural nay-sayer. I am a long-time fan, even super-fan of KSP. But this game is not ready for prime time. I thought it was bad from the moment I tried it. But I would read a few positive comments on the forum saying "no no no, this game is great, you're expecting too much, it's EA, blah blah blah), and I would try again. And the result was always the same. I just felt like I was wasting time and pretending it was enjoyable. But the truth was I was not enjoying it. I was bored. This game can be summed up as follows: Take KSP1, remove atmospheric heating, add bugs, remove working features, add bugs, remove Career and Science mode, add bugs, make the rockets more pretty, add bugs, make rockets sound awesome, add bugs, make sure to keep all the same planets and moons from KSP1, then charge 50 dollars. Also make iffy changes to the UI (some better, some worse), to help encourage infighting among longtime fans so that you can split them into 2 groups. Those who love the new stuff (and will defend it no matter what), and those who love the old stuff (and will defend it no matter what). Almost like they watched a lot of political shows and found the best way to sew discord among their followers. I honestly feel bad writing this. I sincerely love KSP. It is one of my favorite games of all time, and one of the best (and still most unique) games ever made. But as it stands, this is not worth it. That being said, I did not refund it. i feel as though I did my part. I gave them 50 dollars, but did not give them the bad review the game absolutely deserves. I'm in it for the the long haul. Because I think when it's finally done, this game is gonna be fantastic. But unless you're a diehard Kerbanaut, or you just wanna follow the progress through each patch/version until the final product, I would say skip it. And about the price going up later? I ain't buyin' that either. It sounds like a car salesman saying "come in and get these great deals before they're gone". Sure, buddy. I'll wait 'til it's been on your lot for 8 months and you drop 2 grand off the price. Thanks.

Sadly, I feel that this is a very astute assessment.

This is an excellent point. I hadn't really thought about it, but I definitely got the feeling that the game was geared more toward new players (especially the cartoonish tutorials). Not necessarily a bad thing, I guess, but I suspect that they were also worried about a pitchfork mob showing up if they tried to change the Kerbol system. Probably a legitimate concern. Picard2, I found myself nodding along with your entire post. I think we're pretty much on the same page. But this really stood out: This is exactly how I feel as well. I've been avoiding spoilers, and even most screenshots, cuz I don't wanna spoil any secrets. Exploring and finding new things in a sandbox style setting doesn't really appeal to me. I'd like to experience all these things in a proper playthrough. I intend to do the same as you; keep checking in with each update and wait 'til things get better (which I believe they will eventually).

This is pretty funny, cuz I actually did the same thing. With all the talk about performance, I decided to load up KSP1 with a bunch of visual mods to for a comparison. When I started the game I realized I actually wanted to play. You're right about novelty and challenge as well. Just 3 days in, I've got missions coming back from Jool and Dres that will unlock the rest of the tech tree. That's the point at which I usually start to grow listless. Hoping the first patch stabilizes things a bit. Maybe I'll mess around with planes or something (which I'm terrible at). Uhhh, no. Wasn't thinking that.

The first quote was meant for Regex (about planes/spaceplanes), but I find it interesting that you're enjoying the game as is more than the original. I'm gonna wait 'til the first patch to try again, but I'm definitely not giving up. I'm confident it'll get there. I just don't think it's there yet.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like you've been building planes (or the like). If that's the case, I get it. From the screenshots I've seen, planes look extremely cool. I think we disagree on the UI, though. Perhaps in time I'll get into it but, at the moment, I prefer the original. As I said, though, key mapping will at least help with that. Hope I'm not misinterpreting, but it sounds like you're saying "sights and sounds". I freely admit those are far superior in KSP2. I just, at this point, believe that everything else is superior in KSP1. By that I mean gameplay itself. Are you actually enjoying the gameplay more in KSP2, or just the look/sound?

Agreed. The numbers always seem a bit distorted. I've often wondered, is it because KSP is just unique? Or just because the fan base is so loyal? Probably a bit of both. I find this interesting. It's the kind of the response I was looking for on the pro KSP2 side. I know you've always despised the stock game (I saw enough of your posts years ago), so I'm curious what you think is so much better about the stock game (as it is now) of KSP2 that you think is superior? I've already freely conceded that the graphics of the sequel is better than the original. To that, I would also say that the effects in the new Star Wars trilogy is superior to that of the original Star Wars trilogy (yes I realize 35 years is not 12 years, but you get my meaning). When you consider the advances between the releases (not to mention the money spent), than they absolutely should look superior. But that doesn't make them necessarily better. I'm not saying that this game won't surpass the original. I absolutely believe it will, eventually. But I'm wondering what you think is better right now. Again, it could be that I just don't see it from simple bias, but I also think that those who do should at least consider some bias on their own part as well.

I've seen this as well. But I'm actually not represented in those numbers. After almost 3,000 hours of playing bone-stock (seriously, I loved it that much), I got into the habit of keeping multiple copies of KSP with different visual mods and planet packs. So even now I always play offline. I suspect a lot of others do as well. Which means the numbers of KSP1 vs 2 is likely even more skewed than we know. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I simply had to. Hello to all. Been gone a long time but, as they say with smokers, nobody quits forever. It's been nice to see so many familiar screen names still here; and just as nice to see so many new players as well. For myself, after 4,000 hours or so, I finally moved on from KSP and decided to tackle the dozens of games I have and never even tried (a lot of them I never even downloaded). Some of them were really good, but KSP is the ex you just can't stop thinking about. And ever since KSP2 was announced, the rocket launching bug was in my brain and just wouldn't let go. So I violated my own, long-standing, personal rule to never, under any circumstances, buy an early access game. The moment it was announced I said I would do so, and even the bad word of mouth on the forum didn't stop me. Though I didn't buy KSP until the official 1.0 release, I bought Making History the moment it was released (which I thought was worth it). I did the same with Breaking Ground (which was excellent). This is to say that I'm a long-time fan, and I don't mind spending money to support my rocket habit; as well as the people who make that habit possible. So I bought this game. And, honestly, I don't regret it. I don't even regret the crazy, spur of the moment, decision to finally leave laptop gaming behind and take MicroCenter up on their 3 years no interest for new PC's. I wanted to experience this game (and others) in glorious 4k. I spent more than I would've liked, but I definitely got my money's worth (and only 32 more payments ). As for the game? I'm running at 4k, all settings on high, so everything looks really good. And, as everyone seems to agree, the sound is great. The bugs? I don't think there's any way to sugarcoat it; they're bad. You can work around a lot of it, though. And patches can take care of those eventually. But the actual game play? That was what did it for me. I'm not a plane or spaceplane guy, and I've never played anything but career mode, so I find that there's surprisingly little to do. I can go to any one of the planets or moons I've been to literally hundreds of times to see their new face-lifts, but that doesn't really excite me as much as it probably should. Without any progression or incentive, I found myself completely listless. Since Jool is the easiest planet to eyeball a transfer, I decided to send a lander to Bop. Couldn't tell you what the surface looked like, cuz I flew right through it. Ended up at negative 5km when I killed the mission and started over. Kept it simple and went to Minmus (my favorite refueling station in my early days). There, I can at least tell you what the surface looked like. Absolutely beautiful. Icy was my first thought. But there was no real feeling. Very anticlimactic. And there was more of that to come. I set off for home and hit Kerbin's atmosphere and... nothing. I knew that reentry heating was not enabled yet, but it was still a serious disappointment. I think we all get that feeling after a successful or really difficult mission, when you hit Kerbin and see your ship cooking on the way in. Wondering what's going to burn off and blow up or whether you're gonna survive reentry at all (my personal record is just over 8km/s; nail-biting). Though it seems a bit strange, I can get used to the new UI (especially with key mapping). The look and feel of the game is surely going to change over time. I'm looking forward to Thursday's patch as much as the next guy, but I've played enough now to know that the next patch isn't gonna help me. I need the next version. One in which they add some of the missing features. A mode other than sandbox (some kind of progression), reentry heating (a must), and preferably colonies and additional solar systems. For now, I've got the itch again. So I went online, found a bunch of visual mods, and loaded up KSP1. Just the music on the title screen (which I've literally heard 1,000 times) put me in a good mood. Started a new career, launched my first tiny rocket from the burnt patch of ground that you start with, and I was having fun again. I honestly think I would've paid 50 bucks for a KSP1 remaster with all the glitzy new graphics. My feeling is that, when enough bugs have been squashed and features have been added, player count will start to rise. My plan is to check in on each new update to see what's what, then probably had back to KSP1 til it's been surpassed. Which finally brings me back to the point. Did you revert back to KSP1 also? If so, what was the deal-breaker? The performance? The bugs? Missing features? All of the above? Or something else entirely? And if you're still on KSP2, what keeps you going? Other than sights and sounds, what do you feel is better than the original? I'm having a hard time seeing anything, but maybe I'm just missing. Lemme know what you guys think. And sorry for the long post. Been reading everyone else's posts and trying to think what I wanted to say. Took me a while to put it together. Thanks for reading.

I always had this "problem" as well. KAC is my only mod; and I wouldn't wanna do without it. However, it really can slow your progress if you let it. I learned to put a stop to it with a pretty simple cutoff switch; money. Once I have an unGodly amount of cash, I start warping more. This also coincides with Reputation. Once your Rep is high enough, it doesn't hurt you to warp for long periods. This also has the added bonus of letting you cherry pick through the available contracts. If you keep getting the same ones, you can let 'em go and wait for something better. I've also found, once you start heading further out and warping for longer periods, you will reach points where there is an exciting blur of activity all at once. You'll have ships arriving at Moho and Duna while you're in the middle of a few missions around Jool. And now your ship at Eve has a window home, while the next launch window to Eeloo just opened. I really love it when you get to that point. Sometimes I jump to an alarm and can barely remember building a certain ship or what it was meant to do. It's a lot of fun. So if you've got the cash, act like a fat-cat. Thumb your nose at those piddly contracts and move on to bigger and better things. It's more exciting.

And that people no longer "like" your posts, but "react" to them. Did Facebook trademark the term "like"? And is that real pizza? Or the crap everyone outside of Chicago eats?

Hey, @TriggerAu. Looks like you guys added the Advanced Tutorial to the Mission Builder. Much appreciated good sir. Sincere thanks.

Is there anything more exhilarating than booting up Steam and seeing that KSP is updating? Of course there is. But it's tough to think of them while KSP is updating.

Squad has consistently, and publicly, stated that they will not negotiate with terrorists. All the same, though. Couldn't hurt.

These review-bombs are infuriating. It's not only dishonest, but downright despicable. It undermines the entire review system. I don't trust a game developer to tell me how awesome their game is. I trust you, my fellow gamer, because I assume we're honest with one another. This is the same crap that happened the last time KSP had a negative review spike. Then, it was Chinese players angry about changing that "you must be a real man to get to the Mun" thing in the 1.3 version. This, I think, is even worse. A lot of those players had just bought the game for the localization of 1.3 in Chinese. This time, these are actual players. One guy has over 600 hours. If you actually play this game and give it a negative review, you are a liar. This is not an opinion. It is a fact. Someone can say this game is not for them, and that cannot be argued, but you cannot say it is a crappy game. I don't play GTA5 because it's not for me, but I've seen it played enough to know that is obviously a good game. These reviews matter. It was Steam's bombardment of ads that showed me KSP when 1.0 was released, but it was the reviews that sold me. I watched the first video on the store page like I always do, then scrolled down to the reviews. I always read a few good reviews and a few bad ones. There were no bad reviews near the top at that time. By the second review I knew I would buy the game. It simply said "I think I have a problem". I didn't get it at first. Then I looked at his hours played. It was well over 1,000. That seemed to me to be absurd at the time. I now have over 3,000 myself. These reviews matter. Giving a negative review to an obviously great game is an outright lie. You are stomping your feet to show how angry you are; and disparaging an obviously great game in the process. And you could also possibly be depriving would-be Kerbonauts from ever experiencing what amounts to a life-altering game if it really gets ahold of you (and God help you if it does). In short, if you wanna do something that matters, get off your couch. Make a sign and go stand outside Take2 headquarters and shout at their executives as they come and go. This might actually accomplish something, but it would also require you to actually do something. At this point, I have zero respect for you. Now get the hell away from my game. And good riddance to ya.

The expansion is still "stock", since it was released by Squad, and I consider it such. However, the Wolfhound is not now, and never will be stock to me unless its performance is lowered to somewhere in the "normal" range. If I wanted a modded engine, I'd install a mod. On the other hand, I'm really enjoying the Cheetah. And all the 1.875m parts really. I think they were a great addition to the game. The Mk2 Command Pod was much needed as well, and I've been using it quite a bit (though I'm not too fond of the color). I was left a bit disappointed that there's no good landing engine for that size to mimic the Terrier/Poodle. I generally have radial tanks and engines anyway, but It's something I'd like to see in the future. As for the giant Stayputnik-looking Vostok pods; not really sure yet. I can see them as cool escape pods for space stations, but I haven't used them too much yet, though I did send one to Eve in my "Top Secret Mission to Gilly" in the Missions forum of the Making History section. Mostly just to see if it could "survive the dive". It did.

Sorry for the late response. Got killed at work today. The difficulty thing is more of a "label" than a "setting". It's a little slider that you can slide back and forth so that the mission is labeled anywhere from "beginner" to "expert". This lets other players know how difficult the mission is going to be. It's in the "Mission Briefing" menu.

Kerbal personal parachutes we're included in the 1.4 update. So they're stock now.

See the "Export" button below? It's in the Mission Briefing menu (hit the little icon at the upper right to open it). A pop-up will show you what the filename is going to be (you can change it if you want, obviously). Then, in your KSP folder, open the "Missions" folder. Inside will be one called "_Exports". Inside that folder will be your mission. When you open it, choose "Extract All" to unzip it. Then copy it, go to Drive.Google.Com and paste it there. Then, copy the link and post it here on the forum (generally down in the "Missions" subsection of the "Making History" section). It sounds quite a bit more complicated than it really is. You'll get the hang of it pretty quick.

When you have your mission settings window open, hit "export". This will zip the file, and it'll be ready to export to whichever file-hosting site you want to use. I used Google Drive because it's free and I already had it on my computer.

It's a space station.

@Sirad, I'd like to apologize now if my comment above was a bit harsh. I don't mean to knock the way you play. We all play differently, and one way is as good as any other. If you learned via Mechjeb, then so be it. There's no way to say something is right or wrong in this game; just whether it's fun or not. If you're enjoying the game, that's all that really matters. I just get a bit heated when I hear that the stock game is not playable or fun. Has nothing to do with you personally. Plus I work 12 hour days, so maybe I'm just tired. Anyway, time to pass out. Hope all goes well, happy landings and whatnot.

I would say this is why you think these things are difficult. Instead of learning to do them, you put the game on autopilot and watched. This is why I always respond in these threads. I've seen many new players ask for advice in the Gameplay Questions forum, and the first thing they're told is "install Mechjeb or KER, the game is unplayable without them". It is dead wrong and, in my opinion, detrimental to the player's development. Maybe at least try the game first? Are you of the believe that games should be easy? Or do you think it should take some time to learn the skills necessary to become good at it? If you are comparing your video game experiences to NASA, that might be where things began to go wrong for you.

My "typing" comment was somewhat in response to your "playing without a monitor" comment, but also somewhat serious. It's an example of memory (though a bit extreme, I'll admit, just for kicks). Let me ask you; have you ever performed an orbital rendezvous? I'll assume you have. Did you use a mod or calculator of some kind? Or did you just eyeball it and play around with a maneuver node until you got it right? Transfers are the same thing. They are simply on a much larger scale. I did not say this was easy (I myself admitted it can be tedious). I did not say this is how I play now. I said this is how I played my entire first year. Some comments and even entire posts were deleted from this thread, so I don't know if you read them all. I have many posts in many different threads where I talk about KAC being my one and only mod. I installed it about a month after I began playing, and have had it ever since. I was playing for about a year when I discovered this forum, and someone casually mentioned in a thread about transfers that KAC could plot them for you. I had no idea. I thought it was just for keeping track of SOI changes and maneuver nodes. I had it all that time and never explored its functionality at all (how's that for stupid?). I played that way for all that time because I thought that's how you were supposed to play. And I can still do it now, if need be. The experience taught me an awful lot. Here in this thread, I was originally responding to comments saying it is impossible to play that way. It is obviously not. There were also comments saying it wasn't any fun. I disagree with this as well. We all decide for ourselves what's fun and what's not, so I can't speak for anyone else, but I had an absolute blast playing that way. And I never felt limited in any way. I learned a ton, and traveled to and landed on every body that can be landed on (I don't remember if I had done my first Eve ascent yet or not; it was right around that same time). I was also responding to specific examples that were given. I said that they were bad examples and I stand by it. The 2 examples were Jool and Moho. I said that Jool is the one planet I can hit on the first try every time without a transfer tool. I stand by this as well, and I'm not sure why anyone would find this hard to believe. Any experienced player knows that Jool is by far the easiest planet to hit, because of its huge SOI. When I was still eyeballing transfers, Jool was my favorite planet to travel to. Not just because of all the moons and how cool it looks, but because it was so easy. I could certainly be wrong, but I believe anyone who says they can't do this has probably never really tried. The other example given was Moho. I said this was a bad example and, again, I stand by it. Of all the planets, Moho is the only one I have never used an alarm for. I thought there were 2 agreed upon "best" ways to go to Moho. Either the bi-elliptical transfer, or the flyby of Eve. I set an alarm for Eve on occasion, but I usually don't bother because I don't wanna wait for a year for Eve to swing around. So I simply burn for the sun, then lower my orbit. At that point, it is very much like a rendezvous. If you've been to Moho, you know it is moving extremely fast. It only takes an orbit or 2 before you can get a good encounter. This as well, I can't see how anyone would label "difficult" or "impossible". None of this, however, should be interpreted as me saying that eyeballing transfers is as easy or efficient as using a transfer tool. I am simply saying that it is entirely possible to play that way; even for a new player. Now, about the Delta V stuff. You're comment about building a ship 5 times larger than it needs to be is a clear indication that you have no idea what the trial & error method entails. It is not about over-engineering. It is (mostly) about guesswork based on experience. You build a ship you think will be about right, based on everything you've learned. You launch and see how well it performs. Did you have too much or not enough? Was the lander under or overpowered? How was your transfer stage and your lifter? You make the necessary adjustments and launch again. It is extremely satisfying when it now performs much better. And when you nail it on the first try, it leaves you with a true feeling of accomplishment. I am certainly not the only one who plays this way. So when people say it's "too hard" or "impossible" to play without info mods, and they should therefore be stock (which I am not opposed to), I always feel the need to say that it is entirely possible, and a lot of fun besides. But we certainly don't need to agree on the point. We can simply go our separate ways, play the way we play, and leave it at that. Apologies for the incredibly late reply. Had most of this typed out hours ago, but work got crazy.