MechBFP

You might find this hard to believe, but they don't publish information based on what you want to hear about. Wild, huh?

Exactly. Things like this and the writing is what adds *soul* to the game. Otherwise you end up with something like Simple Rockets which despite some of its technical achievements feels more like a tech demo than a game. Perhaps that is what some people want, and that is all good, but I am very happy that is not the direction they are going here.

Well heat engines to be precise as a result of the Carnot limit. Engines based on things like chemical conversion to electricity don’t have that issue.

Spam HYPE! of course. ;)

For me it was definitely the lack of information before they added the dV calculator. I could get as far as Duna without it, and then I had to download a mod to show me that information in order to figure out what I was doing more accurately.

Strange it hasn't been reposted today. I figured it was just taken down because of a mistake or small leak or something.

Yup, it's real. Perhaps was is the better tense to use though.

Well dev diary #15"Writing for KSP2" was mentioned on Facebook and then pulled for some reason. So I expect we will see that shortly lol.

If I was to develop it, I would link the mods to the save file, and then you can switch between them at will and it will activate/deactivate the mods as needed. If you wish to add/remove mods to a save, that would be done in a dedicated mod menu.

Nowadays, yes. Games don't have to be installed on 10 floppy disks anymore, so there is no longer a need to keep relevant information in a separate medium.

Indeed, although it should do a better job than Minecraft of actually explaining what each of the options means. To a brand new player to Minecraft that screen is almost entirely meaningless jargon, and that is exactly the kind of trap you don't want to fall in when developing a game.

This is a very good point. To any reader of this post, you can likely think of numerous games that make you click back and forth between menus to figure out how exactly you want to setup the game, and those that present the options to you in a linear way at the start or through an introduction. The prior method is certainly more common in older games, but it really is not designed with the human factor in mind.

Ya career mode absolutely provides challenge, at least until about mid game. Having to design a ship with limited parts provides multiple challenges and GREATLY educates you on what is good to do and what is bad to do with designs. Contracts provide ideas on doing things I wouldn’t have even tried in sandbox and those can provide a lot of challenge to when limited to specific parts. Helps to identify what new parts you might need to solve a problem. Prevents being overwhelmed with too many parts at the being and allows you to better understand the nuances between tiers. I really don’t have many issues with career mode other than the money aspect doesn’t serve much value. Could have been replaced with rep or something as a better driver for players to take on missions and to upgrade buildings.

I don't see any reason not to keep an open mind and try every mode and rate them on the basis of their own merits. Seems like the reasonable thing to do to me. *shrug*

You forgot infinite fuel and unkillable Kerbals.

The game will at a minimum keep the same complexity that KSP 1 does, because as you mentioned the game needs good reviews and backlash from “dumbing it down” would be significant enough to be a cause for concern. Otherwise I agree that anything new will likely be limited such that it won’t liquid off the more casual players.

The fact that KSP 2 exists seems to be a direct counter to your assumption.

On one hand a LS system without significant consequences is a bit of an oxymoron in a way (not exactly supporting life if it isn’t needed.) On the other hand if they did stuff like have the Kerbals start chewing on their ship controls and other comedic things like that when those resources run out that would at least add some value back. I am aware that the “No Fun Allowed” group wouldn’t appreciate that, but oh well.

I think you will be very surprised at what the core elements of KSP 2 will be.

The funny thing is that this exact discussion has almost guaranteed to have already taken place at PD months upon months ago and is already completely fleshed out.

The word you are looking for is barrier.

As Pthigrivi referred to already in the original post, its not designed properly then if it is a "pointless leash". Whatever a "pointless leash" means lol. A lot of players use cheats in KSP1 to get infinite fuel when playing sandbox because they think that is a "pointless leash" as well.

How is Sandbox mode with extra steps any different than starting a new game in KSP 1 and customizing your gameplay options before you start? Literally the same thing, but okay.

They probably felt like it.

One of the primary design goals is to allow the player to time warp as they want to allow them to do what they want without having to babysit anything or come back and see all their work destroyed/lost. Of course there will have to be some limits to that (like you probably shouldn't time warp on some far off planet while you are in the middle of landing a craft somewhere, etc.) As such whatever implementation of life support they may implement will be inline with that goal, so any penalties they have will probably be minor and easily reversible.