Scarecrow71

I am playing it. And enjoying it. My point about bringing it up is to show that a dedicated person with a small team and almost no external funding is doing better than a professional team with the backing of a large corporation. Why can't TT/PD/IG do what Felipe is doing?

-1 9i

Not being Bruce Campbell is cheating.

Madagascar

Ban ban.

N 0

I'm not trying to argue with you. My mind can't keep straight where PD and IG fit into this, so my bad. Let me start over. TT is in fact failing on this project. Years of unfilled promises, endless delays, a buggy mess that barely qualifies as an alpha release, radio silence, and now the announcement of layoffs and project cancelations. The article literally called out that PD is going to be impacted, so regardless of what we are told about funding and work being done, the plain truth is that stuff is happening at PD. It took 10 months to get the first roadmap update, and now we can't even get updates on what they are working on. Bug reports are a joke, the bug subforum is hot garbage at best, and they are still researching bugs that have been present since launch. All while being told they will communicate more but give only silence. I love KSP1. I am in the middle of a career save in that right now, and I'm doing stuff I've never tried before. KSP2 actually got me to finally go to Jool, which is freaking awesome. There are so many things about this game that I want to like, but the performance issues, bugs, and lack of progression beyond the story have made me shelve it. The game is failing to keep a large section of the community engaged; this thread is proof of that. Again, I'm not trying to argue. You have your point of view on this, and I have mine.

I'm just saying a team of 5, led by the OG of KSP himself, is kicking butt while we all watch PD fail. Regardless of the complexity, you can't ignore the progress.

Kithack has controller support, multiplayer, and a mission/scenario editor. Not to mention KSP2 is backed by a major organization, while Kithack is a team of 5. And if that isn't enough, Felipe is actively engaged with the community to squash bugs and give/get feedback. I will agree that orbital mechanics trumps the complexity. But somehow a team of 5 has managed to incorporate what PD has stated is the most difficult aspect (multiplayer) during their own EA.

Not to harsh or anything, but HarvesteR just released Kithack with a team of 5...and it is far more polished than KSP2.

Rounded up, and not including the current period, thats an average of 49 days between patches.

Keep in mind that it took 8 months to get the first 5 patches, which is more than 2 months between them. Then another 2 months to get 0.2, then another month to get 0.2.1. Already been 3 months since 0.2.1, and no communication on when to expect 0.2.2 (only that it is coming soonTM). If we are looking at 10 months since 0.2, that puts colonies (0.3) at October(ish)...which is after they told us it wouldn't be that long.

Agreed. If only we had some kind of bug tracking spreadsheet so we could see all of the reported bugs at once. I think we even asked the developers for that at one point. On a separate but related note, I wish we had the ability to sort the bug report subforum by number of votes.

Semantics aside, those are the same things. A patch includes bug fixes.

So I'm sitting here thinking about something I wrote just a few minutes ago about being able to go interplanetary, and the thought about colonization of other solar systems came to mind. Made me happy for about a second, and then I asked myself "How many Kerbals is it going to take to actually colonize another planet". And that led me to the ask myself "Is there a difference between the types of Kerbals needed to colonize another planet". And then I started down this whole rabbit hole of "Used to have pilots and engineers and such, and now we just have generalists". Which then leads to this thread and the burning question on my mind in the last 2 seconds: Will we see a return of Kerbal careers, to include having colony-specific careers that are needed to launch and sustain a new colony? I remember that this was discussed a long time ago, but I can't find the actual thread on it for the life of me. For all I know, it could have been discussed in multiple threads, and Discord, and in AMAs. But I'm blind and my search-fu is terrible today, so I'm here to present YAKSPTOATYPDWTD (yet another KSP thread on a topic you probably don't want to discuss). So what do people think? Do you think we will see a return to KSP's career types for our lovable space frogs? Do you want to see this? Do you think it's important enough to warrant the developers even thinking about it? For me, personally, I liked the career types in KSP1. It made me have to think about who was going on what missions, and would I need to hire new Kerbals to satisfy the requirements? I couldn't send Jeb up to fix a broken satellite; I couldn't restore the Science Jr. after running it with Val. I could send Bob up by himself, but there would be no SAS control unless I also put a probe core on the rocket. And in KSP2, at least with For Science!, developers and CM's alike have all stated that the goal of the gadgets now was to think about how to craft your rockets and planes instead of just slapping them on somewhere convenient, which I think plays into having to think about who to send up into space. Can a pilot found a colony? How many engineers do you need to build at a location? Do you need a scientist to do surveys of the planet to find the best location? Is there a generalist Colonist like we had in Civilization (as an example)? What does everyone think?

Yeah. A net loss of ~$200 million in cancelled projects and severance packages. An approximate 5% reduction in the overall workforce. But a reduction in overall operating costs by ~$165 million annually. What really gets me about the article is that they are touting GTA VI as being the next big game, and it's expected to be the top-selling game of the decade. I know that Rockstar and Private Division are two entirely separate subsidiaries of TT...but one has to wonder how much management is shifting overall corporate focus to GTA, and how much that shift is impacting other titles such as KSP. I'm not saying it is, and I'm not saying it will happen. I'm just curious, is all.

And that's another issue with the developers using the up-vote process as a way to determine what bugs should get priority. As an example, docking is a critical component to the game; without it, you (not you personally, but you in a general sense of players) might not be able to go interplanetary, and will certainly not be able to go interstellar. But if nobody sees the bug, and therefore they don't up-vote it, the developers think "Well, this isn't all that bad" and they ignore it in favor of something else that's actually not important at all. Like in your example, the mission to get 35 science for landing 200+ tons on Minmus. That developers are relying on this system instead of using some common sense with bugs is mind-boggling. If they want to use the up-vote system to determine what non-critical bugs the community cares about should get fixed next, then fine. But don't prioritize something small over something integral to the game simply because a lot of people want more science rewards instead of being able to dock.

I was not aware that we got a third game. Guess I just didn't pay attention after the first two were so bad. (And yes, good/bad is very subjective).

I remember having to wait for like 5 years for Watch_Dogs to finally drop. I followed the news and tidbits and read articles on websites I never went to for anything before just to see if and/or when the game was going to drop. And when it did finally hit shelves, I bought it. Spent $60 on that title because of all the promises of what it was going to be. And it BOMBED. HARD. The game was absolute hot garbage from the moment it fired up on my 360. None of the actual mechanics we kept reading about at Kotaku or Penny Arcade were there. The hacking mechanism was basically a match-3 mini-game to keep people occupied and forgetting about what a mess the combat system was. Reviews on this game were so bad that people refunded it almost as fast as people were refunding KSP2 after EA launch. And Ubisoft took such a hit from this one that the sequel got zero attention and sold so few copies that the property was dropped and won't ever get the proper treatment it deserves. Being a patient gamer doesn't always work out.

I think the primary issue is that the bug report subforum is simply a hot mess, coupled with the search function not working entirely properly. It's hard to up-vote an issue you're having when you can't find it, then have to report it, and then hope that the Spicat's and Space Peacock's of the world merge your report into an existing one. And then, if they do so and tag you, you have to go into that bug report and up-vote it...and then hope it doesn't just fall into the archive without explanation. I get where you are coming from, and I love the initiative people are starting to take to gather up feedback to present to the company. I'm just not sure the deaf ears all of our words have fallen on are going to actually open up any time soon.

The issue - at least, from what I can see - is that they continue to promise more communication, but then eventually scale it back. It's a constant cycle of not being told anything, then complaining about it, then them telling us they'll do better, then them actually doing worse. Take the KERBs, for example. Those started as a way to let the community know what is going on with bug fixes, which is a great idea. Supposed to be every 2 weeks, and I agree with your next statement that there isn't much to say about stuff every 2 weeks. But instead of giving us anything appreciable, they not only leave some bug fixes in the same status for months (Researching is my favorite because, you know, what exactly are you looking at/for over the course of several months on the same issue), but they then decide to remove things from the KERBs under the guise of "If nothing is changing and we are aware of it, there's no point in bringing it up any longer". Almost as if they are hoping we forget about those things, or we'll forget that they were supposed to be working on them. So then FS! drops, and we get a patch in January to fix some bugs. Some bugs that have been around for months are still present, but we get a couple of KERBs with the same stand-by statuses (Researching, Need Additional Information, Fix Being Tested, et al). Then radio silence as we wait for a few weeks to see if we'll get one, only to be told a bit after the last one drops that they are now going to be doled out monthly. Ok, so that's cool, we should still get one every month. Oh, but wait, we didn't mean every 30 days; we meant sometime during the course of a month. Oh, ok, so that's ok then, we should still get one every month, right? Well, not so fast, because Mike still needs to get the internal calendar cleaned up before they can even start thinking about when the next KERB will be dropped. So, just to make sure I grasp that concept: after multiple periods of employees being off on vacation (and don't harsh on me for that, I do believe everyone should get time off, I'm just using that as a starting point here), and after being told that you wanted to drop FS! and make sure nothing was wrong, you still can't get us the communication we asked for and that you promised us until the guy who was off on paternity leave fixes some mystical internal calendar that apparently holds the key to timing on communication? Sounds like yet another excuse as to why we aren't being told anything, if you want my honest opinion. Or whether you don't want my honest opinion; I'm giving it to you regardless. Now throw on top of all of this that there are layoffs coming to TT, IG, and PD. I know Nate said that the game was funded, and several months ago he told us that there was no danger of PD having cutbacks in staff. I'm sorry, but to me it really does sound like they aren't communicating intentionally because something major is about to happen. To the studio, the IP, or to both. And they are radio silent because of it. Can you see and understand why we are frustrated? We get told "We'll give you more" and then we actually get less. And this isn't some new situation; it's been like this for at least as long as early access has been going for this game. All those promises that were made just haven't been honored, and it's left a lot of us a bit jaded.

So, I've got a few questions as it relates to communication and development. Can you share with us where you are at with updating your internal calendar as it relates to when we can expect the next KERB? I know you just got back and all, but we are jonesing for info here. As far as the KERB goes, are there any plans to be more verbose in the status of the bugs being worked on? For example, "Researching" doesn't tell us what you are doing with a bug, especially when some bugs have been around and in this status for months. What is being researched, and what about it is so complicated? Same thing for "Need Additional Information". What info do you need? Something from the community? The original reporter? Who and what? It has now been 3 months since the last patch, and there has been zero talk about the next one. Nor has there been any talk about colonies other than to show the same station orbiting Jool a few times. Can you give us any information on where the team is at with the next patch, or with colonies, or when 0.3 might drop? And why the complete silence on all of this? It is early access, but we put our faith in you guys and we haven't had that faith rewarded much (if at all). Can we talk about procedural parts again? We have been told that procedural tanks are too complex, but Juno has them. And ill have to look again to make sure, but I think HarvesteR's latest project Kit Hack has them. What is so complex about them as it relates to KSP2? Finally, we need to discuss maneuver nodes and dV calculation. Has the development team shared anything with you that you can share with us as to how these are being worked on, and what potential solutions we may see? Both of these are critical to the game.

I tend to do this myself. Although, I have been known to try launching behemoths for hours before stepping back and doing this. I don't think this is optional. We need the ability to cleanly dock in orbit and then go about our constructing business. The fact that KSP1 has EVA construction but KSP2 does not is mind-boggling. I mean, forget orbital colonies - KSP1 has the ability to bring parts with you in storage containers, and then open the EVA construction mode to attach those parts.

Granted. The thread is locked and deleted before anyone can even read it. I wish for a thread dedicated to the awesomeness of Bruce Campbell.