RealKerbal3x

This same craft shows up near Gilly later in the trailer: Looks like it has a bunch of xenon tanks and a frankly ridiculous number of ion engines, which probably explains that dV figure.

Considering they seem to have entirely shifted the paradigm from individual craft to workspaces containing multiple subassemblies, I'd be surprised if there was even a trace of compatibility with KSP1 craft.

Also noticed that the large collection of craft in the VAB is named 'Main Menu Fleet': In a now-deleted tweet from the ESA KSP Insiders event, we did get a sneak peek at the main menu, showing multiple variations with different craft, so I'm willing to bet that these are the craft we'll be seeing when we boot up the game for the first time next week!

Now that I've somewhat regained my composure, I noticed this at the top left of the VAB interface: Obviously we already knew about colony VABs, but it's nice to see that the groundwork for that may already be here.

*struggles to contain excitement*

Late last year, while part-way through planning a Jool 5 mission, I realised I could reuse a lot of the designs to finally tick off the last worlds I've never visited with Kerbals. Just this evening, that culminated in this: This is the United Kerbin Ship Wolfie, intended to conduct a mission to Eve, Gilly, Moho and Dres. With the Eve descent/ascent vehicle docked to its forward port, the vehicle is more than 60m long, carrying a crew of six as well as a smaller vacuum lander and compact ISRU unit in its aft cargo bays. Propulsion is via a pair of large nuclear tugs, equipped with inflatable heatshields to enable aerobraking in planetary atmospheres. The ship is more than 400 parts and doesn't agree with my potato at all - my new PC can't come soon enough! However, Wolfie is not the first ship in its class. Already on its way to Jool is the UKS Farlander, a vessel of near-identical design carrying a spaceplane for Laythe on its forward port. Its cargo bays contain a Tylo lander and a reusable vehicle to be used for Vall, Bop and Pol. The ship is depicted during its final departure burn from Kerbin. I got so deep into planning these missions that I even came up with a patch for what became known as Last Worlds or Bust: With a little over a week until KSP2 releases, I'm not sure I'll be able to get both missions complete in time, but whenever I do I believe it will make a fitting sendoff for my time spent in this game. (If you can tell me what my inspiration for the mission and ship names was, you get an imaginary gold star)

It is worth noting here that KSP1's visual effect rule of 'above ~1000m/s = plasma' isn't technically correct. The plasma you get during re-entry of IRL spacecraft is a result of compression heating, essentially the air in front of the vehicle being unable to move out of the way fast enough and so heating up and ionising through various thermodynamic processes. During launch a vehicle moves out of the lower atmosphere rather quickly, so by the time it's moving fast enough for serious heating to occur, it's high enough that there's practically no air. Launch vehicles do get some heating, but it's all direct frictional heating between the air and the vehicle's skin, so no plasma is produced. In contrast, a re-entry vehicle continues to accelerate as it falls toward the planet, meaning that by the time the air is dense enough to cause compression heating, it's moving extremely fast. Thanks for coming to my TED talk Really though, we get our hands on KSP2 in under 2 weeks now and if they don't show us anything before then, there'll be nothing stopping you from discovering it for yourself on launch day, as Aziz has already said.

Same height as a regular vehicle as far as I know, I suspect it's the lack of flaps that makes it look taller.

It is worth noting that there don't seem to be any actual rotor parts here, just a spinning craft with some long and skinny procedural wings radially attached.

Superheavy has the same arrangement as Starship (CH4 on top). The first booster they built, BN1, had the opposite, but that was little more than a steel tube that never even left the high bay.

I think the clouds look great, they fit the art style very well.

No idea how I completely forgot about the FL-A10

Looks like an RC-001S to me, but yeah it seems to have some sort of adapter above it. Incidentally, the adapter does remind me of the conical service bay from Making History, but no way to know whether it's actually hollow or just a structural adapter.

If you're basing your excitement for the game on a feature that you yourself thought up and has never been officially discussed or confirmed, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Not to say it's a bad idea - I think it could be pretty neat if implemented right - but it's unlikely we're getting something like this from the beginning given how significant of a feature it would be. Maybe a little off-topic, but does the idea of KSP3 even make sense? The scope increase of interstellar travel was a logical next step for KSP2, but beyond that I don't see where you could take the franchise without leaning into fantasy/soft sci-fi elements that aren't really what KSP is about.

Ok it's happening, everyone stay calm

If that's the case, I wonder if any of the interplanetary 'torch drive' engines will be included at EA launch? They're not enough for interstellar travel, and we know we're getting the non-impulsive maneuver planner out of the box, but given that some of them do use rather exotic propellants (particularly the metallic hydrogen engine), I wouldn't be surprised if they'll have to wait until resource management arrives.

Not only that, comparing their size to the spaceplanes' Mk2 parts, they appear to be 3.75m docking ports (!)

Anyone notice this subtle flameout effect just before the engines shut down?

I don't know how steam broadcasts work, so I have no idea if it'll be archived or anything. If it isn't I'll be unreasonably sad.

It's just a livestream of the KSC with music on steam: https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561199327521033

It's already been said, but unless the same thing happens on the KSP website, I don't see much cause for concern here.

You're telling me you stopped vaporising them in KSP1? Unacceptable. (obligatory /s because this is the internet)

They completed the environmental assessment for Starbase some months ago, but are still waiting on the launch license which would represent full regulatory approval to launch. Booster 4 and Ship 20 were put out to pasture early this year and we're currently looking at Booster 7 and Ship 24 for the orbital launch. Both vehicles seem to be progressing into their final tests before launch, but any launch date prediction beyond SoonTM probably won't age well.