Chilkoot

This sounds a lot like the Kerbal Research and Development mod.

@Brikoleur I really like your list, and luckily it appears you're going to be safe come release day based on the interviews and dev responses we've seen so far. To be honest I always play with USI-LS and more realistic ISRU modded in, but I don't believe they should be part of the core game in KSP 2. They frankly limit exploration (significantly - esp. life support) and force a lot of micromanagement that would be a real drag for most players. Those of us looking for more 'sim-level' realism can always mod that in without being a killjoy to the playerbase at large.

Been thinking about this element of the cinematic quite a bit. Many of the more recent KSP cinematics have turned me off due to the way they portray Kerbals as blundering, happenstance explorers, where in the game they are a relentless, intrepid race constantly pushing their boundaries with "just one more booster", frequently at the expense of reasonable judgement - but the mission goes on. I think this video captures both sides of Kerbal mentality, without over-blowing the failure aspects too much. Any gripping cinematic needs *some* element of comic relief for emotional contrast, and the director leveraged some decidedly Kerbal moments to do just that - the crashes are kind of on double duty as both a narrative mechanic and lending 'Kerbalesque' familiarity at the same time.

Yes I've watched Esau's vid, and to try and be delicate, they are really not much alike at all other than the soundtrack and some atmospheric elements carried forward. I don't think its fair at all to the director, DP, artists and animators of this trailer to call Esau's work anything other than an inspiration. Not trying to diminish the 2013 vid, but the two works really are lightyears apart.

Even if you hate KSP, it's fair to say that the announcement cinematic is one of the best teaser-length game cinematics we've seen in a number of years and is literally worthy of study by film and animation students. It's handily on par with some of Blizzard's earlier works as a cinematic effort. Direction and pacing is spot on. Every sequence is tied perfectly together and to the soundtrack to give us that glimpse of a story and the emotional roller-coaster that goes with it. Cinematography is *superb*. Angles, framing, camera pan and cuts are all planned and executed brilliantly. Better Call Saul, look out! The cinematic piques interest, is true not only to the Kerbal mentality but also to the in-game mechanics and parts as confirmed by the developer. This is not BS - we're going to be playing what we see (at lower fidelity obviously). We've been so tied up in the excitement of the announcement, we've not taken a moment to recognize the real accomplishment of this short cinematic. Hell, I'm reminded of some of the old high-budget Star Trek movie teasers of yesteryear. The upshot here is that the cinematic is not only 100% Kerbal, it's 100% quality. If this was produced under the auspices of the new publisher/developer, it's a strong indicator that the game is in very good hands, indeed.

A happy counter-example is Bard's Tale 4. Linux support promised at release, never happened then landed in a free upgrade almost a year later - last week, actually. I'm not suggesting Linux gaming is a big enough market to support other than for marketing bullets, but it does happen.

Actually, dual-boot is going to give you better "bare metal" play. If you run in a VM you need to worry about graphics hardware passthrough which can lead to problems on the host machine if you're still running a GUI of any kind. I have a USB3-connected m.2 external drive for dual-boot and runs like a top. Still far faster than an internal magnetic HDD. I can hibernate my machine and be running a different OS in like 30 seconds (literally).

In one of the interviews the devs said you can build colonies on "any planet you can land on". I assume that means moons, as well, but not things like gas giants or stars. They also noted that each body would have it's own set of challenges related to colonization - though they only mentioned gravity as one of the per-body variables. I assume atmosphere and/or wind is another.

No disdain for MechJeb here, just don't think it should be part of core gameplay, unless it's an optional component for lower difficulty or learning modes. If you read the whole thread, you'll see I actually suggest that adding MechJeb-level automation would help make the game more accessible to a broader range of players.

Yes, this was a very carefully crafted half-answer. While promising, it leaves the door open to WoW-like paid cosmetics and other in-game boosts using real currency. If they go down this road, it also means they may block some types of mods that compete with their offerings, as we've seen with other games. Remember, no matter how much they love the original, Star Theory are just hired guns who must - ultimately - do what Take-Two tells them to. Not grabbing the pitchfork yet, as we don't know what they have planned, but that answer really does set off the old radar.

Couldn't agree more. KSP laid some great groundwork, but there's tons - tons - of room for improvement in the core mechanics and esp. in the gameplay elements. From what's been revealed so far, Star Theory appears to be doing a superb job of keeping what's important and adding what's needed. Can't wait for liftoff!

Let's just wait and see what they come up with rather than extrapolating doom-and-gloom from tiny, scrubbed snippets. The truth of the matter is that we can't accurately predict anything based on what we've been shown so far, so while it's natural to be concerned, you have no inside knowledge to predict or decree that the company needs more development time to deliver on what they're promising.

In the recent German interview, Star Theory seemed to hint that some physics may be offloaded to the GPU (assuming compatibility). Could have been a translation blip, not sure, but it looked promising. It's way, way to early to start judging this game based on some in-development footage. Be skeptical and wait for reviews of the release? Sure - that's being cautious. Stamping your feet over a title that's at least 6 months from release? That's being childish.

We're definitely talking about 2 different things here... Not suggesting anything extreme, in fact quite the opposite (and FYI KOS is not universe wide - only the vessel in focus). The feature I'd like to see is the ability to - at least partially - "programmify" common activities on bulk-use vessels such as launch tugs. So you design a ship, then design an initial (programmed) flight pattern specifically for that ship that looks something like: After launch, at altitude x, set throttle to y. At surface speed y, set heading to z This is a simple, trigger-based launch sequence that's very rewarding when it works, and just as catastrophic when it doesn't. It's every bit as challenging as holding D and moving your fingers when numbers on the screen change, and it forces you to *really* think ahead about delta-V, stages, air resistance, "Max Q", etc. It's very useful early in the launch, then quickly becomes less useful as the flight progresses and your mission diverts from previous ones. It's a conceptually consistent feature, as well - and manually piloting every flight is *not* conceptually consistent. In the game, I learn, plan and apply knowledge of things like gravity, air resistance, orbital mechanics, delta-V, etc. I use this knowledge to design rockets, but I don't have to know about the manual assembly/welding. It would be consistent with the other game mechanics to take knowledge and apply that to a pre-programmed launch sequence of events for a ship I've designed, rather than have to manually execute maneuvers which are themselves an abstraction of real rocket control. Now that it's come up, a MechJeb assist for a super-easy learning mode wouldn't be so bad. But again, mods will likely arise for that in short order. It opens the game to people like small children and very casual players who otherwise may become frustrated just trying to make orbit.

Well, hard disagree then from here, I'm afraid. Repeatedly manually piloting the same vessel configuration dozens of times as part of a multi-vessel mission is tedious and demotivating. I consider it a very weak aspect of gameplay, esp in the current career mode. If I can save ships and sub assemblies so I don't have to start from scratch each time, it makes sense I can do the same with flight paths and not have to reinvent the wheel each launch. Manually piloting every second of each and every launch when you have a space program with 200+ ships (many of which are similar lifters) is not engaging gameplay.

Two completely different beasts - I'm in no way advocating for MechJeb functionality to be part of KSP 2 core features.

The strategic depth and general realism of ScanSAT makes me hope we see something similar built into KSP 2. Such a great dimension of actual gameplay that it adds. Likewise, a programmable flight computer (like KOs) seems curiously absent in KSP - it's been a staple of space flight since the 60's. We have nuclear rockets but no flight computers /shrug Has anyone heard word if either of these gameplay elements will be included in KSP 2?

If you already have access to fusion-level tech, wouldn't it be possible to fabricate He3 and not need to mine it? Mining may be cheaper for volume production of course...

The celestial canopy is actually much brighter and more vivid once there's no atmosphere in the way absorbing light from above and reflecting light from below. What you're asking for is pretty much the opposite of real life, but that doesn't make it an invalid ask. What you want is the ability to dim or get rid of the normal stellar background and just see the game-relevant elements present in your active solar (Kerbolar) system. In KSP 1 this would be a pretty trivial mod, but we don't know how the celestial background is rendered in KSP 2 now that other star systems are a thing and may be baked into the canopy. Remains to be seen, I guess.

I expect for huge interstellar ships, we'll be harvesting raw materials from mineral-rich low-gravity rock/iron bodies like Minmus, then launching proper from orbital fueling stations that harvest from Jool.

Naw - KSP2 is almost exactly what I've been wanting for years - bring it on: Meaningful off-world bases that can be used to extended Kerbalkind's footprint off-world VABs (surface and orbital) with in-situ resource harvesting and production Next-gen tech that can be researched/earned You could do all this with mods, but it was clunky, slow and buggy with even medium-sized vessels/bases. I still want to see something like ScanSAT as core function. Whether KIS/KAS features would be useful remains to be seen.

Based on one of the interviews, I don't think we're going to see life support like with USI. Producer guy mentioned we'd be able to build bases, and then just leave them and not be 'punished' for just forgetting about them. I'll try to find the clip. E: From Creative Director Nate Simpson (emphasis added): "And as that population increases, the colony's abilities increase as well. But not it's not the sort of situation where if you don't tend to the colony, it collapses or something bad happens." This is what leads me to believe life support will be a minimal aspect of the game as far as active management goes.

Thanks - I was confusing the MKS converters for the stock ones (duh). Guess I need to farm up some science!

Dumb Question: What's the preferred method for producing LH2/Ox in-situ? The only converter I'm aware of for this fuel was in the Karbonite mod which is pretty badly broken right now. Are there any converters included with this mod, or patches to the in-game converters to produce LH2/Ox? Also, huge thanks to the mod author, as this fuel type and the tanks/engines really do add a fun dimension and some tough decisions to Career mode!

Found a possible bug in the Elecktron module. It appears to have the Hydrogen and Oxygen levels reversed. The PEM and Alkaline cell modules seem to have the correct ratios.