Brofessional

Well I wouldn't upgrade JUST for KSP2 at this stage, but going from a 1660Super to a 6800XT is going to be a big enough upgrade for all games that it's worth the expense. We should be seeing new low and mid range GPUs from both brands soon though, so waiting doesn't hurt either.

That really depends on the smoothness of the surface and the type of paint used. We've also seen from the preview event videos that there is a paint opacity slider alongside the color chooser that lets you go all the way down to shiny bare metal, so it might just be a matter of fiddling with the sliders to get the desired look.

You would need FTL for it to be remotely practical, at which point everything else becomes irrelevant. You'd basically just be going through a hidden loading screen to get there and the only difference would be a different skybox texture.

The relatively low CPU specs next to the high GPU specs makes me wonder if they aren't doing some of the physics calculation on the GPU this time around. If that's not the case then the physics performance on the CPU must considerably better. If it is purely visual effects putting so much demand on the GPU then you will be able to run the game on lesser hardware just by turning things off. We know min reqs are for 1080p low, but there is a big difference between low and off for computationally expensive effects.

Interesting that the engine shows CH4 rather than generic "liquid fuel."

I'm less concerned about the graphics and more concerned about the framerate. Hopefully it's just old builds or the way they're recording, but it's not super encouraging to see all the promo videos running at like 20fps with low part-count ships.

I agree but ideally it should be an optional setting, which hopefully is the case already. Worst case scenario mods will take care of it as in KSP1.

The beta screenshots don't even have anti-aliasing turned on so I wouldn't worry about them missing graphical features.

Obviously related to the little teaser thing at the end of the latest dev diary, it shows a ship crashing into one of the arches.

Yes but you'll still have to work your way through the Kerbol system with current/near-future tech before you unlock the interstellar tech. Once you get there, travel inside other star systems will be easier to some degree since you'll have a lot of tech unlocked by that point, but the planets in those systems will also present some challenges that don't exist in the Kerbol system. Also, no disrespect for playing the game at whatever pace you like, but vanilla KSP1 isn't THAT difficult to master. Realism/difficulty mods will exist for KSP2 as well.

In my day we eyeballed the landing and hiked fifteen kilometers to the target and back without maps, uphill, both ways. AND WE LIKED IT.

Sysreqs are probably a little hard to pin down on an early access game under heavy development. Especially one like KSP where the performance is hugely dependent on what the player does. Even if you are certain you will upgrade for KSP2, it's unwise to upgrade in anticipation of any game that isn't yet released. Wait and see what the real world performance is like and you will be able to make a more informed purchase without setting your expectations too high and getting disappointed.

No but in that case I would like the development to focus on completing the ocean first.

Underwater environments would be nice but they are the kind of thing best left for expansion or post-release content.

I like the idea of kerbals only have a single "happiness" stat that is then affected by a multitude of other stats, each with their own penalties and bonuses. Like for example instead of running out of oxygen completely the ship/colony could have an "air quality" stat. 0% air quality wouldn't kill/incapacitate the kerbals but it would give a large penalty to happiness, and if happiness gets low enough they refuse to work or whatever. Maybe your colony has poor air quality or high gravity or something that's incurring a happiness penalty, but you're negating that penalty by having luxury snacks or an entertainment facility. You can of course adjust the difficulty to be more or less punishing, but that kind of system offers a lot of flexibility and gives you incentive to build things that may not be strictly necessary, like entertainment facilities. It may not be totally realistic but I think it fits the Kerbal theme. I'm sure by this point the devs already have a pretty good idea of what they want to do, so really we'll just have to wait and give feedback when the game is released. I won't be surprised if life support is absent/barebones at release, and then expanded in the future.

Gamescom is where they first announced the game in 2019. Of course they don't necessarily need to appear at any expo to announce a date or other info.

They were filming a new video just a week or two ago, so I'm sure we'll be seeing that soon enough.

I've always preferred the idea of having a monthly or annual funding based on your reputation, with some contracts giving you bonus money. To prevent players from just timewarping to get money you could have your reputation decay over time. I do like the idea of ditching money altogether and using material resources instead though, since that plays into colonies very nicely.

There's no reason they have to die of old age, they could just stop reproducing when the colony reaches capacity.

If it were releasing in April there would be a marketing push already.

From what I've seen personally most players probably never make it to the Mun, much less Duna or Eve. I wouldn't be surprised if more than half never even make it into orbit. That's just how it goes for most games though. Even if you look at a really popular AAA game with a shallow learning curve like Doom Eternal only 35% of players have finished the game, and only 81% have even finished the first level.

I don't expect more than a handful of star systems, but the framework should allow more to be added in the future. Either in official DLC or by mods.

For travel within a star system chemical rockets like methalox engines should still be useful, but for traveling between star systems you need something with higher efficiency and thrust if you want to do it within a reasonable timespan.

It's just envious of Kerbin.