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TheOrbitalMechanic

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    KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

    in KSP2 Discussion

    Posted

    4 hours ago, TwoCalories said:

    3. KSP1 was like this on its own EA, maybe even in a lesser state.

    In KSP1's beta, there were no orbital mechanics, no Mun, no map view, no struts, no time-warp, and Kraken attacks still did happen. KSP2 has beautiful graphics, the whole revamped Kerbolar System, loads of parts, and time zoom. I'm not saying that KSP1 is bad, but KSP2 definitely has a head start. So why is everyone so much madder?

    KSP 1 started as one guy's side project that he worked on in his free time because he was genuinely passionate about it.
    KSP 2 started as a sequel to a known IP, published by a massive publisher, with an established studio full of actual developers working on it, with specific goals for the game established right from the start. After 5 years of development time, you'd think they'd be a bit further along.

    Additionally, KSP 2 was, for 90% of the time prior to its release, advertised as including all of its promised features at launch, and the first anybody heard of a feature-limited early access period was four months prior to its release, AFTER (should we forget) the game was delayed by three years.

    Yes, it's technically true that both are early access games. But when viewed in a wider context, it becomes blatantly obvious that one is an actual early access release, while the other reeks of a studio frantically shoving out whatever unfinished code they had with a sticker on it saying "it'll get better, trust us!" in an attempt to make money.

    HarvesteR shares his thoughts on KSP2

    in KSP2 Discussion

    Posted

    On 7/24/2023 at 7:20 PM, RocketRockington said:

    I absolutely love how he then moves on to talk about how there's no wobbliness in his current game, because even he knows that was jank to be learned from and moved past.

    Noooo, it's part of the game's iDeNtiTy!
    If you don't have to spend 3 hours trying to figure out how to make a perfectly reasonably designed rocket take off without folding in half for no reason, is it even KSP at that point? /s

    What were the heights of the atmospheres of Duna, Laythe, Jool, and Eve in the pre-release/older versions of KSP?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    From the Kerbal Space Program wiki pages for each planet, although there could be details elsewhere I missed:

    Moho used to have a superheated atmosphere, which was removed in 0.18. No other detail is given that I could see.
    Eve has no listed atmospheric changes.
    Kerbin's atmosphere used to end at 34,500m, before being extended to 70,000 in 0.10.1.
    Duna is listed as having "changed atmosphere characteristics" in update 1.0.5. No other detail is given that I could see.
    Jool's atmosphere used to end at 138km, but was changed to 200km in 1.0.
    Laythe has no listed atmospheric changes.

    Hotfix Summer

    in KSP2 Dev Updates

    Posted

    13 hours ago, Yakuzi said:

    So at the time of the EA launch KSP2 had been in development well over 5 years, even if work on KSP2 started on the 31st of December 2017.

    EDIT: If work started a couple of months after Take Two acquired the KSP intellectual property in May 2017, then today we're looking at ~6 years since KSP2 development started.

    So if work continues at a similar pace, then we can probably expect to see what was initially promised for a full release in 2020 around 2040 or so. That's only two decades behind schedule!

    Parts and Circumstance

    in KSP2 Dev Updates

    Posted

    Honestly, I've been pretty pessimistic so far regarding the state of the game and future development, but this is incredibly reassuring to hear. Although I (like many others) am still unhappy with the state of the initial launch, I am now also cautiously optimistic for the future, and I truly hope you guys keep up the good work and can make this game into something great.

    Actual quotes for substantiated arguments thread

    in KSP2 Discussion

    Posted

    QUOTE:
    Here's some from this Dev Diary: 

    Quote: "...I have two jobs. First, make sure all the code that makes up Kerbal Space Program 2 does what we expect it to do, delivers amazingly fun features, is highly performant and stable, and ships on time.
    I don't think this requires much explanation: obviously, KSP 2 is neither "highly performant and stable", nor did it ship on time.

    Quote: "But we’re also working with people behind some of the biggest Unity features and plugins so that we can offer incredibly detailed stellar body surfaces from approach, through orbit, right down to surface landing, all while maintaining a smooth frame rate for our brave green astronauts."
    The game's performance and frame rate have been widely panned thus far. Also, the graphics quality is debatable.

    Quote: "With interstellar travel being so important for Kerbal 2, we’ve solved this by implementing a Spacial Scene Graph at Interstellar Scales, which allows us to arbitrarily “break off” sections of space and simulate them with a high degree of precision while still fully understanding their physical and positional relationship to the stars and planets around them, and all while not sacrificing compute performance that might slow down frame rates or lead to spaceships that are more wobbly than our Kerbal Engineers intended!"
    Where to begin? Obviously, interstellar travel just straight up isn't in the game (yet, early access, yadda yadda), but we also get another mention of the frame rates they claim to have worked so hard to keep at a decent level, as well as wobbly rockets, which are most definitely still in the game.

    There was a whole paragraph in here about Rask and Rusk and their associated programming details. As the coding details described affect only Rask and Rusk, and those planets could plausibly still be added at a later date, I won't say this is an outright lie, but as of right now, this bit is completely irrelevant to the current state of the game.

    There's another bit here I did not take any specific quotes from about multiplayer, which I will withhold judgement on as we haven't actually seen multiplayer in action yet. No verifiable lies here (unless you count the implication that multiplayer would be included on initial release).

    Quote: "Of course, delivering all of this in a stable, high performing manner, across multiple platforms, takes time. At launch, we want to ensure that the only crashes we experience are the onscreen “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly” of our Kerbal-commanded ships."
    I mean... do I really have to elaborate? Obviously, the game has suffered from both performance issues and crashes, meaning somebody dropped the ball here.

     

     

    Help with rendezvousing in high orbits

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    If you've docked before, you should be good to go. There's no real difference in rendezvous procedure based on orbital altitude.

    Just in case, though, here are the steps I would follow to rendezvous as simply as possible:

    Spoiler

    1. Launch into an orbit either significantly lower or higher than your target's orbit.

    2. Click on your destination spacecraft and set it as your target. This adds some new navball markers, showing you where the target is relative to you.

    3. Make sure your inclination doesn't differ significantly from your target's; if it does, fire normal/antinormal at the ascending/descending node. An inclination difference of 0 degrees is ideal, but you could probably make it work with up to 0.5 degrees of difference.

    4. Make a maneuver node raising or lowering your apoapsis to your target's orbital altitude. Some new markers should pop up showing your closest approach to the target. Fiddle with the positioning of the maneuver until your closest approach is as close as possible--ideally, within 5 kilometers. Once you're satisfied, execute the maneuver.

    5. As you approach your target, your navball should automatically switch to Target mode, which will show your velocity relative to the target itself. If it doesn't for some reason, click on the velocity indicator to switch the mode yourself. As you reach your closest approach, fire retrograde to cancel out all of your relative velocity. Note again that this is your velocity relative to the target, and not your orbit--you won't knock yourself out of orbit doing this (unless your navball isn't in Target mode).

    6. Now that you aren't moving relative to the target, and are reasonably close to it (hopefully within 5-10 kilometers), point yourself directly at the target and fire your engines. Don't go too fast--maybe 20 m/s max? You don't want to miss your target and have to approach again, or worse, crash into it. Make sure your prograde vector is directly in line with the target marker on your navball. It will drift to one side as you approach, so use RCS or angled engine burns to keep it in line. Do this until you reach your target. Be sure to keep your speed at a manageable level, especially as you get closer.

    7. Once you're within 100 meters (or really, as close as you like), cancel out all your velocity again, switch to RCS, and dock. The actual act of docking is far less complicated than the rendezvous, so I won't go into detail--you mentioned you've docked before anyway.

    This isn't the *most* efficient way to rendezvous; there are certain things you can do to minimize time spent approaching and fuel used, but these are the basics.

    Developer Insights #17 - Engines Archetypes

    in Dev Diaries

    Posted

    17 minutes ago, Yellowburn10 said:

    Wait, I just thought of something. Since liquid fuel is now considered methalox, what does that mean for the oceans of Eve? It's basically considered common knowledge that it's oceans are considered to be full of rocket fuel. However, it's density make it more consistent with something like keralox. Methalox is not dense enough to match whatever Eve's oceans are made of, so... now what?

    Maybe the oceans, instead of being pure liquid methane (because that wouldn't make any sense), are made of some methane-rich, easily-refinable substance. Or maybe they drop the whole idea, like with Minmus now being glassy instead of icy.

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