t_v

On top of these, we saw two new command modules in the latest feature video.

I just cited a lot of the evidence I used to make my opinion. I formed it from that evidence, not from another forum member (by the way, which people would that be? I genuinely don’t know what other people you are suggesting that voiced my opinion before me). It is my opinion, and that opinion was incidentally reached by other people, at the same time or after I formed mine.

The reason it is a topic is because right now, gender is part of the game, in the code and in the distribution of features in kerbal. There are clear parallels between kerbal and human sexes, and people want the game to not include specific genders. If you are in support of imagining kerbals to be any gender rather than the suggested ones, then it would be best to remove the distinctions and make that player-driven identification easier. Everyone wants to play their space game as a space game without gender getting in the way, so removing the two-gender system will make it one step closer to that space game experience.

For the first part of incentives to have multiple kerbals, I think it can be both. Having more kerbals helps keep them happy, and having the different classes helps the different operations go smoothly. As for kerbals being able to complete the same tasks, I have a few ideas. First, I’m hoping that KSP 2 has more activities that distinguish the classes so there can be more overlap. Sure, a pilot can transfer a surface sample and rivet a tank onto a girder, but can they properly operate a spectrogram and rewrite an antenna? This makes basic missions less class-dependent while introducing another design element to more specialized missions: if your craft only has two seats, will you give up repairing the advanced parts so that you can plan a baristochrone trajectory properly? Second, have kerbals be able to fill multiple classes. This doesn’t merit its own thread but I’m happy to put it in this one. The idea is that as a kerbal pilots, repairs, or does more advanced science, they gain experience in that class. Ideally this would involve raising the maximum class level, allowing very, very experienced kerbals to be five stars in all three classes, or super-experienced in one class. This allows for even more specialized tasks to be created, giving a sense of accomplishment when you get a full crew of 7-star scientists to staff the first dark matter chemistry lab. However, this second solution really requires a way to train kerbals in bulk before they go out on missions so that they aren’t incapable on their first mission in the far future. Having colony modules capable of training kerbals over time would be a good solution to this. The maximum level that can be trained before the kerbals go out would increase as the player progresses, and you can set up a system where you specify a percentage of the colony population and how many levels you would like in each class (up to the maximum) and they will begin training. That way, you can start with a Pilot 5/ Scientist 1 kerbal, ready to gain valuable experience through real missions. This is definitely not going to be in the game, just another thing that I hope I can make happen through modding.

So, if I’m understanding correctly, you are asking for a limited number of part variants on a limited number of parts. I personally don’t see the need to exactly balance power input and consumption since it fluctuates anyways and the only additional gameplay you gain is moving a slider. As such, I’m fine with a few solar panel options going up to a very large size. But the question arises- what if someone wants a panel of 7000 units by 1 unit? And if the developers make that model, what about 7000 units by 5 units? It would be better for complete customization to make it procedural; there’s a limit that a lot of people reach when working with a set selection of sizes and shapes.

This repositoryshows that these systems have been in the works for years now. There is nothing (at least in there) supporting the claim that any systems are done. We can make estimates on how complete they are (for example, engine exhaust looks at least almost done) but we can’t say they are fully complete for sure. When vendors sell a taxed product, they can still maximize profit by looking at how many units they can sell at those higher prices versus how much money they receive per unit. This happens for any tax or subsidy amount. I’m not too concerned about profits since they mostly go to T2 anyways and funding will be based on sales and not profits

the comment above is a joke. I also highly recommend RSS, but it is more like a final boss. If you managed to get to orbit, then congratulations! I’d recommend getting comfortable with how orbits and maneuvers work before going to the Mun. Even if you miss, you’ll land, somewhere, eventually.

This is it. The discussion was started as a broad request and facial features is the focus right now. I’m pretty sure that no one in support of the idea brought up genitalia as a concern, kerbals probably don’t share the same sex structure anyways, they are plants or something similar. Your last point about the parallels is prevalent: even if in-game there isn’t a label on gender, the parallels are there and so the systems matter. Just allowing for full randomization will represent people when looking at that parallel, and will distance kerbals from human gender norms, allowing that parallel to be less recognizable. That way, people have an easier time making the kerbals whatever they want them to be without the underlying parallel to humans.

What hard facts are you talking about? The ones that led me to think the game would fully release on time are that the assets for colonies, interstellar ships, and resource gathering were all shown off at least a year ago, the visual effects looked pretty complete, there are several accounts of people playing multiplayer and people hired to develop it, and backend systems that indicate capabilities for other systems were shown. Not that someone else said these things, otherwise there would be a chance of you convincing me just by repeating yourself enough, which hasn’t worked. What hard facts make you think that the devs don’t have any of these systems started and they are only starting work on them now, or will only start them in early access?

The thing with this line of reasoning is that it doesn’t really affect anything, for a few reasons. First, kerbals do indeed represent male and female individuals, and that representation is pretty concrete. As another example of an alien that is oftentimes put into human gender: Clark Kent. While he may not actually be male, he essentially is one through his names , appearance, diction, etc. If I claimed that Superman was meant to represent women as well as men, in the literal sense and not because of heroism, then I would have received a failing grade on my essay. Kerbals are less distinguished, but still are assigned gender through their facial features and names. It is easier to not assign gender to kerbals than to Clark, but the fact remains that the kerbals are explicitly put in two two boxes by the code, which are mapped to the two human sexes by the audience. Secondly, even if kerbals were not explicitly gendered and representative of humans, (you remember when they added Valentina and female kerbals) what is the point in not expanding the range of options? Currently the kerbals are put into two categories, why not erase those categories and have a singular group of “kerbals” with traits that can resemble male and female as they do now, but also everything in between and beyond? this is exactly the point: why put more categories in place, why even keep the two categories that are currently there, when just having one “kerbal” population would work better? Humans can’t simply be put into two boxes, and adding more boxes is futile, since categorizing people won’t be able to capture the complexity of a human or the diversity of humankind. Constricting kerbals in that way is constricting the kerbal worldview, and is giving up the opportunity for kerbals to have the diversity that has given humankind so much.

Not much, a few ideas around the different time warp ideas, collaborative control of craft and editor, and then since the announcement, some speculation on how far/how much multiplayer is implemented, and a question on cross play.

This topic comes along periodically, but why not do it again so that more people can join in! 1. I'm going to emulate some sort of progression, starting at Kerbin and doing a few orbital missions (hopefully landing in cool spots), then moving out to the other planets. I'm not going to look at any of them in map view until I'm planning my mission there. 2. After landing on each body once, I'll do the same goal that I have in my current saves - make it so that any ship, stranded anywhere, can be brought in full to any other location. 3. In case I manage to finish this before new content is added, I'll work on my ship architecture using the new parts - I suspect that a lot of janky spaceplane designs are going to become a lot better through procedural wings.

Unspoken Rule 1 of sandbox, no credits. No story. There are some good sandbox games that have challenges (like KSP) and play some sort of end scene after an appropriately hard and late-game challenge has been completed. I wouldn't mind seeing an end card with something similar to "Congratulations! You recovered Jeb's long lost sandwich!" and a photo of that, and then the game returns to normal. Developer credits could play, although they would be accessible from the main menu like in other sandbox games and KSP 1. Overall, 0.05 - 2 minutes of credits after probably 50 hours of gameplay is an acceptable amount of credits for a sandbox game. So, why no credits? You've already made your position clear that just because every industry professional designs their systems a certain way, that doesn't make it good.

flight stick functionality was hinted at in Episode 4: Celestial Architecting, I think (or maybe Ep. 5?) So I think that there will be better support there. Also, for discussions that aren't directly asking for a feature to be in the game (or even if you are discussing a potential feature), the forum for you is the KSP 2 Discussion forum.

I think this is true, but I don’t think it will slow development. If anything, this gives free play testing to many alternatives of a system rather than just the one the devs put out to the public. We know that multiplayer is supported by the code. I think that roughly three different models of multiplayer will be active by the time science and progression comes out, since there are no more workarounds and mod devs just have to enable what is already there in the code (plus more or less additional logic). When Intercept releases their version of multiplayer and gets it tested, they not only have feedback on their design but also that of the mods before it. At that point, intellectual property and fair compensation comes into play, but I don’t think that mods will stunt development, I think they will accelerate it.

I was about to point out how ludicrously far even 0.4 ly is, and then I re-read this, and maybe we do need a real-scale reminder of how long a light year is.

Wait, are these just fairings or do they have fuel in them?

I think that the tick marks that we have in KSP 1 are actually a sweet spot, where the cardinal directions have tick marks (not all labeled either) while the 45 degree directions are just simple lines. I could always tell what pitch angle I was at even along the 45 degree directions by looking over at the 90 degree directions. I've been thinking about why I got the impression that the nav ball was too cluttered, and I now think that a big part of it was all of the tick marks that were blurring the main lines at certain angles.

Just fyi, you can disable re-entry heating, and there are ways to remove the need for engines (“set orbit” comes to mind). I don’t think that the at was the important part though, the OP is essentially saying that part failures are just as deserving of developer time as other key aspects of space flight, like heat management. What I have to say about it: first, part failure is already in the game to an extent. Wings shear off, wheels break, engines overheat, and rockets oftentimes blow up getting to orbit. These failures can be amplified by mods such as FAR and FFT, but the concept is there in the base game. However, these don’t feel like failures because the stress tolerances of parts are constant, the amount of heat produced by engines is predictable (usually), and when a rocket blows up on launch, chances are it is because of the design and not chance. Another thing that dampens these failures is quick loading; when you are on a mission to Eve and your mothership explodes its engine on a long burn, it gives the same sense of being stranded as when that engine fails randomly. Essentially, these deterministic (except for the kraken) failures are better than random, even mitigatible random, failures, and there are definitely opportunities where they can happen more often, as anyone who has played with large ships and larger engines can state.

The poster image for the release date announcement looked pretty good, and the early access title looks appropriately futuristic, so I’d say the marketing artist is already putting out great work. As people have said above, I think that the actual marketing campaign may already be ramping up, especially with the twitter posts, social medias, and new videos.

If you want Ap and Pe in KSP 1, the orbital information is in the bottom left corner. There are a few tabs, one of them has what you need.

I just realized, we are 4 months away from release today! Hype!

this is not the case. at 11:01 in the video, Shana Markham says that early access is useful because the development can be focused and not spread out and unpolished. I take this to mean that pretty much everything was mostly complete but not fully, and wouldn’t be fully complete at a satisfactory pace, so the studio decided to put their full focus on parts of the game to get them complete. Very likely, the entire studio will shift to polishing the science and tech system around the time of the initial release. So these updates are probably not finalized, but they are also probably in late stages: We know that they do in fact have the backend for these systems at least nearly finished, as Nate says at 3:34 that upon early access launch, the systems and technologies will be there. Optimistically, because multiplayer is something that is supported by the code, we’ll have five multiplayer mods out by the time the first stage is over. I think that the early access period will last just enough time for the devs to polish each feature, not code them from scratch The developers aren’t going to outright state any development problems, at least outside of a postmortem. But outside and in between lines of promotional statements, there are truths. Nate talking about all the things that will be built on the systems present upon release means that there are systems on release. Shana talking about normal development spreading developers thin gives an indication of what is happening which is more informed than a worst or best case scenario. Lately, a lot of people have been disregarding solid evidence in favor of opinions, and it is unfortunate to see.

Well, when you calibrate the pusher plate properly, Orion drive ships experience a smooth acceleration. The piston plate should be exerting force on the ship the whole time, and just before it reaches the end of the piston and snaps back, the new bomb pushes it. If you don't detonate a new bomb by that time, the piston reaches the end of its extension and the front of the ship is jerked backwards a few m/s.

Some people have personally interviewed the developers and we have a confirmation that these features are not being developed from scratch, so I don’t think it will take a year or 6 months between updates. I’m optimistic for a one or two month cycle, but to be on the safe side, I’d expect around 4 months per major update. It is just a question of whether they are mostly testing and tweaking versus hammering out entire sections of the game that haven’t been tested yet. I similarly don’t know the answer to the second question, but if there is orbital launches, it’ll likely be just a launch location set in space, not an orbital VAB that you build yourself.