intelliCom

Especially if you have "one time" functions like solar panel extension after being deployed. It'd also be interesting to have certain parts be stageable multiple times, like science equipment. I'm starting to think that stages need to have labels instead of dumb numbers counting down to 0. Also; with numbers as a default, start from 1 and count up, not count down!

In terms of mods I'd like to see: Surface-to-space laser propulsion, as a method of early-game interstellar travel. Kilometer-long magnetic "railgun" mass drivers, as a cheap method of interplanetary travel (after the extreme cost of building the mass driver itself, interplanetary launches can happen with very little debris left behind). Orbital colonies, akin to those found in The High Frontier by Gerard O'Neill. Underwater colonies, like concepts for colonies on Europa. (Would also require subnautical ship and colony parts to be implemented.) Surface 'gravity rings', which spin to generate 1g with the net force of a planet or moon's own gravity (this requires a specialised diagonal surface, whose tilt will differ depending on the parent body's gravity).

That's why players should be able to modify any part of the path they want. Maybe give them an overview, then they can scroll through the path and find all the parts where things went wrong. Alternatively, flying a spacecraft in a straight line over the area that needs a rail.

I think I know what you're referring to. Just pointing and clicking one to the other doesn't create a proper sense of achievement. I recall there being mention of automated milk runs, so perhaps what the player does instead of clicking one to the other is to drive a vehicle from point a to b, drawing out the entire path necessary. Also forces the player to explore their environment more, perhaps find a really cool mountain or valley that they could put a base in. Once the drive is finished, the player will be able to generate rails based on that path, where the game can now construct the rail (production rates and materials also limit how fast this goes.) Once automated, the player could even go to where the rail is being constructed, and watch it being built.

It may not be like KSP's "Brick by Brick" feel, but if we're talking planetary scales, something like that wouldn't matter. When I said "elevated by the player's choice", I should've said that chunks of rail can be modified individually beyond just elevation, allowing the player to do what they want at any point on the track, still fulfilling that "brick by brick" feel you mentioned for rails.

Gotcha. I meant to say "If the body has no axial tilt". If you make your ship's inclination the same as a celestial body's, such a celestial body would be really easy to land on if there's no axial tilt. In KSP1, Minmus is in a case where if you get your inclination to match, your rotation ends up skewed relative to its axial tilt. What I propose is cutting off Minmus' axial tilt entirely so it's easier to land on in KSP 2.

I'd actually say ground should contribute to terrain; meaning research into wheels and landing gear. Mind you, KSC's ground would only provide the least interesting wheels. Also, don't make the KSC seperate biomes.

It can easily be elevated procedurally, then elevated at certain points by the player's choice. Again, this is where procedural generation comes in handy. Have a map view allowing you to see the entire planet in an equirectangular format, then click and drag directly between two locations. If they're closer together, just zoom in. Rails will take some time to generate due to having to check all the terrain from point A to point B, but it shouldn't take too long with some approximation. Since the rails are above ground anyway, rails going under terrain should be unlikely.

Although, with KSP2 obviously running in a very up-to-date version of Unity, mods could provide procedural functionality. No one thought KSP1 could achieve stuff like the video below, but it did. Thinking ambitiously about the possibilities is what gave KSP1 its longevity. That being said, I don't think procedural worlds are going to be a stock feature, and they shouldn't be unless it can be built very well. Gas giants around the outside, rocky planets on the inside, and having the solar system generator taking actual physics into account (e.g., no ice worlds being close to stars unless it's a really weak star, spheres of influence not intersecting unless it's a proper orbital resonance, suitable colours for what planets are made of, etc.)

What do you mean by "Opacity"? If a colour is put at 0% opacity, what's the result? What about 100% opacity? I can't help but think about recreating Wonder Woman's invisible jet by setting all the paint colours to 0% opacity, LOL.

Not so sure about difficulty options. In KSP1, those can be changed mid-gameplay, and god knows what kind of loveery could be achieved by altering the tilts of planets on-the-fly. Make something like axial tilt a difficulty option, what else could be? Atmospheric max height? SOI radii? Nah. Planet-specific properties should remain static across any difficulty. Kerbin remains facing straight up, allowing the Mun to be perfect for "baby's first hohmann transfer". Minmus should tilt to match its orbit, both to introduce axial tilt, and to make it easier for players to land if they match Minmus' orbital inclination before performing a hohmann transfer. Agree on these, actually. Eve's always been that sort of "hell planet" in the Kerbol system; strong gravity, extreme atmospheric pressure, and higher heat due to being closer to Kerbol. Having a retrograde rotation would be very characteristic of Eve, though easy account for in an interplanetary transfer. (Also obvious reference to Venus' rotation, duh)

Actually, in some cases, if the axial tilt matches the orbital inclination, things can actually be easier, as if you set up your spacecraft to match the orbital inclination of a highly inclined celestial body, capturing into orbit around that celestial body would already line it up with the body's surface rotation. I still think Kerbin and Mun should be facing directly up, then Minmus has an axial tilt to match its orbital inclination. Smaller bodies like Gilly, Bop and Pol should have pretty wacky axial tilts.

I'm not thinking about completely flipping planets or moons on their sides or anything. Very slight tilts to be more realistic. Beyond Kerbol, we can get Uranus-like tilts of literal 90 degree angles.

This is what I was mainly referring to, heat through conduction, like what would most likely happen on Io. But heat through atmosphere is also pretty interesting to deal with. Both would be interesting.

True, then again Io barely has an atmosphere to speak of. Come to think of it, trying to deal with a truly Venus-like planet would be really interesting. Hellish heat, and ridiculously high atmospheric pressures.

Oh I'm sure they'll be doing ice giants. They have the ringed Glumo, and the super-heavy Ovin. They'll do an ice giant at least once. I've been looking forward to a truly volcanic celestial body like Io. Hot enough for temperature guages to show up all over your craft just by landing there, perhaps destroying parts if you land somewhere that's just a bit too hot. Maybe Rask and Rusk might have this, given the glowing rocky parts from their mutual gravitational pulls.

I don't think any of us have to worry; assuming they have experience in game development, and are definitely targetting an early 2023 release, then they'd know how to organise their development and not introduce things that are too big. If anything, they're likely using this forum to get much smaller suggestions right now, then use it in the future for more suggestions once the game has released and people can make suggestions directly related to the game's current content. As an example, let's say rotation is still cut off in time warp. Someone could present their case for why it should be in, citing examples like Juno and other space probes. I believe they implemented some simple rotation without applying physics to parts, but maybe they didn't. We'd have to see. As another example, I recently made a post on axial tilts in KSP 2. Axial tilts are a very important part of planets and space. Uranus is entirely tilted on its side because of this, instead of facing "directly up", as all the other planets are in KSP 1.

I suspect they might be going with an Eris reference here, since that was discovered way beyond Pluto's orbit. Since Eeloo is the Pluto analog in KSP, Eris getting an analog seems likely.

In KSP 1, all planets were perfectly aligned, such that their rotation never changed angle; all were facing straight "up" in the game's sense. To get around this, RSS had to alter the entire solar system so Earth would have an appropriate axial tilt relative to everything else. If KSP 2's planets should have axial tilt, should the axial tilt of already existing planets and moons be changed? (e.g., Gilly being given a tilt to match its tilted elliptical orbit around Eve?) I don't think it would add too much challenge to the game, and would add an additional factor to take into account when launching vehicles off a planet's or moon's surface.

In map view, the planets should appear quite blurry, how they would if they were only modelled from Kerbin Telescopes. Duna would have approximate detail, Jool would just be a green sphere, and Eeloo's orbit isn't visible at all until the tracking station is upgraded. Once these places are visited at an appropriate distance, (not just skimming the SOI) they appear in the map view as normal.

I think the word PCDWolf should've used is bland or uninteresting. For it to not be "barren" by Wolf's definition, it needs actual geological landscapes instead of a bunch of smooth hills, which KSP2 has already shown.

Think more sylistically than in sheer amount. Take the navballs on the LEM, for example. They have white tops and black bottoms. The small switches could be put next to "SAS" and "RCS". It would only carry over individual elements of the control panel being copied.

Either the skybox doesn't change at all from different star systems, or, to allow for parallax, the starfield only updates when it is no longer visible (i.e., within a planet's atmosphere, on the daylight side of a planet, etc.) The players would barely notice. Means you only need one skybox for each star system. Although, each star system is obviously going to have its own parallax anyways, so I don't think we need to worry about all of the other "background" stars. Thinking about this, I suspect we're going to be within a "local group" of star systems, hopefully around 5 or 6 (systems, not stars, binary star systems count as one).

Be nice to get animations of Kerbals actually leaving their capsules. Should only take about 2 second to play such animations, wouldn't want to spend too much time on them. Perhaps such animations can be turned off in settings in favour of kerbals instantly being outside. To take this even further, perhaps IVA animations depicting Kerbals getting bored over time. Trans-Munar travel results in mild boredness, Interplanetary travel is extreme boredness/insanity, and interstellar travel is just... this, basically. Broken, blank, dead-eyed. Alternatively, perhaps they always remain entertained through stranger and stranger means. I remember an old sci-fi space film that actually demonstrates exactly this.

Well, we're certifiably going to get our standard LF + LOX, Xenon, and MonoProp. Metallic Hydrogen fuel is also required, nuclear fuel is necessary for the "orion-type" engines, fusion fuel for the "Daedalus-type" engines, and potentially antimatter for the torch drives. I think we have all bases covered, except for three standard rocket fuels, and two standard nuclear fuels. I don't think it's that complex if you understand how the fuels work. Maybe organising them differently might help?