MarcAbaddon

People being ok with Y being unrealistic does not logically follow by them being happy with X being unrealistic. There are plenty people who want life support (though this does not include me). Are you going to tell them they are wrong to want that as long as your Kerbals don't die from old age, since that would be realistic too?

I think the burden of proof lies with people who claim interstellar distances are possible with technology that is at least somewhat close to what we have. Also interested to know what this is based on exactly: Because I don't really remember any details on that.

It's worth mentioning that our real-world speed of light is nothing magical in the KSP universe. Given that it is non-relativistic nothing like time dilation happens when you approach it and the in-game light (and radio transmission) are instantaneous instead of travelling at (our) speed of light. The gap between the current realistic and unmodded max delta-v you achieve in KSP 1 and 10% or even 1% or even 0.1% of (our) speed of light is a lot larger than between 10% of speed of light and full speed of light. That means it is a reasonable expectation that the 'average' player is able to build a vessel that can achieve 10% of light speed, then the more experienced players would likely be able to exceed it, baring game engine troubles if you move that fast. Which is not a problem for in game universe consistency (as it is non-relativistic), but will probably lead to a lot of somewhat silly complaints by people who prefer to have some artificial limit that matches our light of speed even if that makes the KSP universe physics inconsistent.

Yes, and whether you feel it is a good addition or not (regardless of the reasons) is completely fine. But the question of whether KSP 2 is a significant shift from established science to speculation is a subtopic that will inform the feelings of some people, i.e., in the form "I dislike interstellar, since it is not as grounded in science" is a valid contribution, stating your feeling on interstellar and the reason for your feeling. That doesn't mean the "not as grounded in science" can't be objectively true or wrong - the feeling part is more whether this has an effect on whether you like or dislike interstellar. I don't completely disagree, but still think your second category isn't cleanly separated from the third reason, and to know which technology falls into which category we'd need to be more advanced than we are. For example, room temperature superconductors could still well violate the laws of physics. They aren't forbidden by our current theories, but we don't know whether we don't understand how to create one or whether we don't understand yet why it is impossible. One of the two is true, but we do not know which. A lot of the technologies you list in item 3 would suddenly be possible if we found a completely-made up materials that just happened to have negative mass. Of course, even KSP 2 is still fairly hard science fiction in that the technologies are at least plausible, and I am not saying it has suddenly become Star Trek or Star Wars. It's probably most similar to the Expanse before the introduction of the proto molecule - but that still means it is speculative while the older engine technology actually exists. It's a valid feeling to want KSP 2 to stick closer to established technology, even though I don't mind personally.

I don't think this is a matter of "the way I see it" - in KSP 1 for virtually all technology depicted we at least have advanced proof of concept (nuclear engines and RAPIER) or it is based on existing technology. The only part that feels Sci-Fi is the ISRU. The fact that spaceflight in KSP 1 is easier comes down to the lack of food and life support requirements for Kerbals and the reduced scale of the solar system. If we were living in the Kerbol system we could do all those missions at the very least using computer controlled craft. On the other we don't know how to make interplanetary colonization work or how to travel interstellar distances. So interstellar travel and colonization definitely moves the game more into the realm of science-fiction than was the case in KSP 1, which was closer to reality. I don't think this is a matter of subjective opinions. Personally, I don't mind that shift - you have all the science part still at the part and the interstellar part gives you something to do later in the game. And adds a few very interesting places to the game world. But that does not mean the shift doesn't exist.

But KSP 1 was stable. It had bugs, including serious and annoying ones e.g. with landings legs, wheels plus Kraken attacks under specific circumstances, but the game itself was stable - it didn't crash and there is no serious (beyond single vessel) savegame corruption. And unless you threw a lot of mods on it, it was even pretty stable gameplay wise for a long time. In 300+ hours savegame runs I can usually count the number of bugs I encountered on one hand - of course, part of that is knowing what to avoid. More generally & I have said that a long, I don't get putting all the blame on the publisher. According to Nate himself the game should have been ready for full release over a year before we even got EA. How much additional time should Take Two give them? I know some delays are common and should be tolerated for the quality, but KSP 2 was getting pretty bad there even compared to the industry standards. If anything, it probably the EA probably helped the release in the long term since it forced them to focus on bugs in basic systems for a bit, before adding more features on top. I also have less faith in the vision and the roadmap because it is very unspecific - sure, there are going to be colonies, interstellar and multiplayer, which is all great, but there was very little specifics how those systems will work. Ask anyone who played KSP 1 for a bit, and they would probably come up with the same features. Making them fun is the challenge, and here the proof is still outstanding. I remain hopeful and am trying to keep open-minded (otherwise I would no longer be on the forums), but at the same time I am a fair bit more pessimistic than some other people on these boards - I think there is a significant chance the game will never get in a decent shape.

I still don't think fuel scarcity is the answer - the issue is that you require so much less for it if you stay in the system, that you can really avoid making it more efficient to first use it in system to scale up production dramatically, before leaving the system. Unless, you can't scale up production beyond a hard cap, which would suck for other reasons, like having a negative impact on multiplayer or artificially restricting large scale missions. What I definitely agree with is that it is relatively easy to stop making them useful for certain mission types. Even in KSP 1 ion drives don't make for good landers on almost all bodies. So not using them for landers is straightforward enough. It's interplanetary transfers where I think the newer engines will (and probably should) phase out old technology. E.g. I think a ship that is built to carry e.g. a sizable amounts of colonists each trip would use the new engines and then transfer the colonists to lander type vessel at the destination. I am bit leery about how very low TWR would work out in KSP 2, since there would be a lot of problems with the current burn-on-rails solution. We can burn in time-warp now, but not keep heading or switch to other vessels/the KSP. So at the moment if you had a vessel that took 3 months to de-accelerate it could cause timing issues. If it is your only mission you are fine, but if you'd need those burns at the same time on different vessels it would be a problem.

I am not really playing at the moment. I tried each new patch, played for a bit and decided it's still not fun for me. I want to at least have re-entry heating, some basic progression mechanics like science and a reduced chance of losing a mission due to bugs, before I jump back into the game. At the moment KSP 1 just seems superior in almost every aspect, excluding sound, music and loading times.

While I also appreciated the more specific discussion about known bugs and their relative prioritization, I also agree with people saying that feature-wise there was little of substance. There are some new parts, which is welcome, but where Intercept is still very opaque is in regards with anything to do with gameplay systems. We still know very little about how science, colonies or multiplayer (specifically with time warp) will work. A lot of the time (not always to be sure) devs like to share the basic idea behind the new features and systems. That's especially the case when we have a successor where one of the main draw is adding new gameplay mechanics. Compare any MMO or one of my favorite games: Civ 4. Or even board games like Spirit Island. They were happy to communicate the basic design for new features like great people and religions would work. It's a slightly pessimistic take but with Intercept I often have the impression they are just adding systems as they go along, sometimes even creating the parts first. Speaking for myself, I was definitely not happy that the science post from a few weeks ago just showed off a part, instead of even talking a little bit about how the gameplay systems would work. I've mentioned elsewhere that with one of the new gameplay features we have - burning while in time warp - I was disappointed that the implementation was very minimal and is currently not sufficient to support the kind of gameplay I would have liked to get out of that feature. It would help me set expectations on the future of KSP 2 if I had the feeling they were on track with e.g. the science system, but there's simply no real info there. In contrast, Likewise, it would be good to get an update on reentry heating. It sounded like it was supposed to be a very temporary omission, but it has been dragging on since release now.

I think only the third point is really a solution. I think it is really hard to make fuel so scarce that you won't use it, especially since the dV requirements in Kerbol are so small compared to what you need to travel interstellar distances in good time. A 1000-5000k m/s DV ship will basically last you forever in Kerbol. Unless you limit the total amount of material fuel and not just the production rate there's really no way that this is not worthwhile. Large vessels aren't an issue either, if you use it as sort of a carrier type vessel. If you have to move significant amounts of material or tug a large space station, then it's still useful.

I haven't played in a month or so (waiting for next patch) and while I am not that miffed about it not being super realistic (would be better if it was obviously) I remember what I disliked what the interaction between air vortices at high speed and the rocket plumes, with the air vortices basically overriding the rocket plumes. Not sure if this has been fixed since, need to check once of these days.

Two points: 1) your topic has little to do with what you write about. 2) pretty bad advice. Sure, KSP 2 might be a bit more expensive when it gets full release, but there's also inflation to consider and investment to consider. 50$ now are probably worth more than 60$ in 2 years. Factor in that there is no guarantee that the final game will be what you hope it will be. If you think the game is already worth playing buy it now. But if your focus is to save money then waiting until it is actually good and then wait for a post-release sale will be a better bet.

I really doubt that - not the part where the publisher told them they had to release, that is very likely. What I doubt is that this is that's the reason the game is in the state it is. The most likely reason the publisher told them to finally release something is also the most likely reason for the game being the way it was: constantly being behind schedule and making much slower progress than expected based on the communication of the studio. Let's not forget that in Summer 2021 the game was (according to Nate) in the final stretch with them only sewing together all the large parts of the game. Based on that I doubt it was have released in better shape if it had been released 3 months later.

I think it is hard to get around them having been not completely honest. Look at the quotes in Because the development continuity and being almost done in 2021 (after the studio switch) was also communicated by them.

That's not convincing to me, as it mixes the why and the how. Even if we ultimately wanted to go to the moon by developing better rockets, testing and flying previous rockets in new conditions was an important step on the road map. Likewise, if we want to go to the Mars it makes a lot of sense to land on the moon again as an intermediate step. Getting science for getting to new things is fine for me as a gameplay loop. And while in real spaceflights it is more about learning how parts, rockets designs and astronaut perform in those conditions than in getting insights from the Moon itself, I think having to do a number of experiments gives the player something active to do, which is a nice thing. If that's still not convincing just replace science points with inspiration points in your head - then it can be seen more as Kerbal scientist being inspired by success. This being said, the implementation is KSP 1 was not very satisfying, with biome hopping being the most effective way to collect science and simply having to click your instruments once to get results. That's where I hoped we would see improvements, but I feel they have revealed very little about any of the not implemented gameplay loops yet: how colonies work, how science works and timewarp in multiplayer are still not talked about it. Looking at burning while in time warp as one of the few examples of already existing new systems, it seems likely that the systems are going to be pretty basic.

I agree with those concerns - there is some history that isn't super promising. Additionally, we got 2 dev diaries since release from the people responsible for graphics programming and QA - both very central parts of the games and both parts which the game had severe issues which on release (and still has). Both of those diaries were written by people who had just joined the team. That's just strange. Either there is huge turn-around in staff (not a good sign) or there was shuffling due to the EA issues (not good either). As for Take Two's role, that is very hard to tell. They invested quite heavily in the game, it stands to reason that they are not happy with endless delays and want to see something happen. It doesn't even need to do with the Fiscal Year as people speculate and might be more about testing if it worth investing further into the team, after them missing timeline after timeline.

Honestly speaking, from the current version of the game I did not think they thought too much about the details (or decided to ignore them, which could be a pragmatic choice). Right now I think the main issue that really limits the usability of this feature is that you get locked into your current heading. When navigating close to a celestial body you usually want to keep burning pro-grade/retro-grade/whatever and a slow burn with locked direction will just not go what you want. Getting out of Kerbin orbit with low thrust engines will still be painful. It's more usable in high orbits or when orbiting Kerbin, because then your heading is relatively stable relative to pro-grade. Another issue that won't come up in normal play as much is that burning on rails ignores assymetric thrust configurations and simply behaves as if your thrust vector is in-line with your center of mass. One scenario where it might come up is if you have another vessel docked, shifting your center of mass. It only working for active vessels might be another issue once you have a lot of things going up at once. But since we have no alarm clock features yet either, I think the game is just not ready for complex simultaneous missions and it might get implemented later. Given that those issues are not addressed, I am a bit skeptical about the implementation being very robust under other circumstances as well. I wouldn't be surprised if they used time warp dependent updates even when not strictly required.

This is just not true as a general rule. It can be true if you install random FTL and distant solar system mods, but personally speaking I stick to normal parts mods (mainly some rover stuff, near and far future), ScanSat plus some graphics enhancements and my game is just as stable as unmodded, even on long playthroughs. The only real difference is that the startup time of the game becomes annoyingly long.

But wouldn't remember last instruction be potentially harmful? Imagine a huge ship undocking from your space station and then immediately rotating to smash into the space station - could easily happen depending on the orientation of your control point. SAS set to stability assist or being turned off would be the safest option on separation. So without a good non-military showcase I'd prefer the current behaviour. Maybe there could be an advanced tweakable to change the behaviour for a specific pod, but I wouldn't see it as priority myself.

Some things seem to have improved, especially maneuvering nodes, but my experience was pretty buggy as well: Launch button in VAB did not work Struts were not placeable in VAB (it didn't show allow me to place the 2nd connection point) Rocket (balanced) suddenly spinning to the left at 50 km height (not flipping over and well in the very thing part of the atmosphere). Even once I was outside of the atmosphere neither SAS nor engine gimbal worked to counteract Possibly linked to item 1: once launching my rocket directly from a launchpad instead, the revert flight button was inoperative But really not happy about the state after the announced focus on making sure the patch does not introduce new issues and needs to be tested thoroughly. Will try a bit more on the weekend, all the 4 bugs above happened to me on a single flight today.

The fix doesn't really need to be in the first patch, but I'll feel more confident about the state of the game when they fix the bug with orbits changing due to the floating origin issue. It feels like a very fundamental system, that needs to be rock-solid early.

I disagree. Important information about the state of the game needs to be on the store page and the web page for the game. You should not be required to follow influencers or Twitter to learn about it. Allowing people to play the game and talk about it, is a good measure on top of their own documentation, but it in no way should replace it.

For what's it worth I think pointing to the insider videos (I watched them) and saying people should have been aware of the bugs isn't fair. But for knowing how buggy it was you had to watch 3rd party content in video format, so not only is a significant time investment but you also risk spoiling yourself. I think that's not reasonable. Even if as I stated I did watch them myself. The devs themselves did not give a statement about the game being buggy at the moment. If they had wanted to this item on the KSP 2 EA page would have been a good place to have it: What is the current state of the Early Access version? It's not on there. Nor do I feel it was communicated very clearly. Now, I am sure I will have people tell me it should simply be expected for an Early Access game and I don't feel like arguing this point. But I'll argue that the devs did not in fact communicate the bugs in advance - instead, they left it up to 3rd parties in video format. In contrast, the roadmap was very public, including on the store page, so I agree that it wouldn't be fair to complain about those features not being in the game at the moment.

If we are going to speculate my guess would be that they didn't have a graphics expert for some time before Mortoc, either because they never had one or (probably more likely) due to turnover. If they had someone that person would be more senior and would probably take the lead on it since both render pipelines and terrain rendering are very central to the game.

I think it's a good move, at the same time as I feel it's a bit late for such changes. Switching render pipelines usually takes a few months to get everything running again. So really hope the Take Two people are really patient. The game deserves it, but they have to wonder a bit about the many pivots going on.