EngineeringWaffle

I haven't played Skylines 2, but I like almost all their other games. Very sad if they are the bad guys now.

The sad thing IMO is that I would have totally paid $50 for KSP1, but it has multiplayer, upgraded textures, and it's semi-stable. Cuz the KSP1 multiplayer mod is a huge pain in the ass to get working, and having a better starting point for textures and models is always nice. At this point, I think the best bet is hoping Paradox will pull a City Skylines and release "Nerdal Space Project" that is legally distinct form KSP, while doing everything KSP does better in a modern game engine. Other than that, it's been a hell of a ride boys. Wish all of you the best in your future space adventures. And for the love of god do not back any "revive KSP2" kickstarters.

Also having this issue, the JSON fix worked. Had a big mission to Jool and have had to do a lot of save file editing to make it work. Between trajectories disappearing and docking ports locking up I've had to keep the saves folder open next to KSP because I'm in there so much fixing stuff. To be clear about what I was doing, I have a descent stage and a transit stage and was visiting all the moons of Jool. My descent stage would undock, go down to the moon surface, run experiments, take off, and then redock to the same docking port. I had this bug every time. One time both docking ports were bugged, the other time just one docking port was bugged. But the dock never worked without editing the save file.

Weirdly, I've noticed that you actually can set a maneuver node if you enter an SOI within the first SOI. So if you chart a course directly to Laythe (From interplanetary space), you will be unable to create any maneuver nodes around Jool, but you will be able to create maneuver nodes around Laythe.

A lot of the objections being raised seem to be of the format: "if non-fungible science rewards were added in an terrible and tedious way, the result would be terrible and tedious." Obviously adding non-fungible rewards would not be something you would just do completely randomly with no thought, it would need to be just as carefully thought out and carefully constructed as any other system.

So I want to be clear that I am not advocate for KSP devs to take my half thought through idea and implement it verbatim. I totally agree that if you had to unlock all parts by going to different destinations it would kill the games openness. At the same time, the only difference between Duna highlands and Duna midlands is that one is called the highlands and the other is called the midlands. And 3 missions to duna is the same as one mission to a more difficult destination. What I'm advocating for is some variation in reward and some kind of non-fungible rewards for select missions. Some examples: Perhaps most missions give you science that gives you the basic parts. But if you analyze all the different atmospheres on Duna, you get a special methalox hybrid jet engine that can work in low-oxygen atmospheres. Perhaps on Eve you could discover new explosive bolts you can use for very powerful decouplers. Maybe the arch on Minimus could unlock spiked rover wheels that keep rovers more firmly on the ground. Or if you make it to the pole of dres, you unlock a harpoon you can fire at really small bodies to reel yourself in and anchor yourself to the ground. Almost have the unlocks be like enchanted items. Not necessary for progression, but interesting to create cool and different builds. Another more surface level example is skins. I know, I know, but if completing a difficult challenge unlocks a cool paint job for your boosters, that could be a fun flex to unlock. Or, you could even do it where you can "skip" the tech tree and discover single parts early by visiting certain destinations. So if you survey the atmosphere of Duna before unlocking plane stuff, you unlock a couple of the plane parts. If you make it to Juno you can unlock the big hydrogen engines, but you don't get the big tanks until you unlock the tech tree node. There are a million ways, but the key thing is just that having science be only a currency is, IMO, very shallow. And what you are saying about wanting to play the game differently every time, I totally agree. I think the biggest barrier to that is probably that most stuff is mostly the same. Big tanks, little tanks, medium tanks. They are all just tanks. Big engines, medium engines, little engines. They are all just engines. Helium vs methanox vs ion is actually interesting. But there are few things like that in the game. I think putting powerful and weird parts that have tradeoffs behind different and difficult objectives could add a lot of spice. And then depending on what kind of play through you wanted to do, you might choose to visit different planets first. Honestly, a lot of people on here justify why their thing should be in the game with it being realistic. This is not a realistic game. But even then, they kinda did. Science conducted on the moon taught us what we would need to build, for example, a moon base. And doing those unmanned missions in the beginning taught us what the space environment was like and what you would need to survive it. It was only by launching and experimenting with the Saturn IV that we learned enough to make the Saturn V. The data gathered in space certainly comes back to earth where we actually develop the tech, but it certainly informs *how* it gets developed. The thing I do think they nailed with KSP 2 is just not providing any science for doing the same experiment twice. And not really rewarding the Mun enough to be worth grinding it. I hadn't really noticed tbh, I kinda forgot until you mentioned it just how much time I did spend grinding out science on the Mun, but you are totally right. At the end of the day, I just want to see more depth and personality in the science system. I think they could do so much more than they currently do with it.

Let me put it this way: The KSP1 implementation gets a 3/10 on challenge, a 2/10 on increasing depth of spacecraft design, and an 7/10 on adding personality. The current KSP2 system gets a 1/10 on challenge, a 1/10 on increasing depth of spacecraft design, and a 2/10 on adding personality. I think that one can do way way better than the KSP1 system. I think it could be made way way deeper. I think it could be given much more personality. Just a couple of examples We could have experiments that we actually do. Rather than just running a machine, we could have an experiment that is "Crash the inertial sensor into the surface of a celestial body and then collect the black box recording." Or "collect a sample of a dark rock that is scattered around the munar highlands" and then you have to build a rover to actually find one of the rocks. Or "determine the effect of prolonged exposure to a rocket engine on the Duna Icecaps." Let's actually do some stuff! We could have experiments that are actually heavy or big or otherwise impact vessel design. Like an atmospheric sensor that completes faster the more air you get into it. Like an air intake on a jet. Or a seismic sensor that is delicate, but also needs to rest directly on the ground, so you need to pull off a super smooth landing. Or a radiation sensor that is absolutely huge and consumes tons of power, but not very heavy. Just awkward to build a ship around and actually launch. I'm not sure how to add more personality, but more voice lines, animations, and experiment results would definitely be a start. I don't hate QOL. And I actually get that the KSP1 system wasn't the best itteration of a science system. But with KSP1 I could see the vision for the process to be deeper. I could see how every aspect oozed personality and begged for more tailored interaction. But also that it was limited by the dev hours required to pull off something more ambitious. I see KSP2 as giving up, just making it a button that increases your points.

I mean, I think one thing that is key is that KSP1 is not necessarily the gold standard. I think KSP1 did a better job of gamifying it and adding personality. But I also think you could do a lot better. I mean, yeah. And if they made minecraft diamonds 100x more common, you could just manually throw out 99/100 diamonds. And if KSP had a heat shield that weighed nothing and fully protected your craft you could just not use it. The logic "you could always just play the game as if X mechanic weren't an option" can be used to justify all kinds of terrible decisions. And the reason why I think going through and doing experiments manually is interesting is that it adds some challenge to timing, it adds something to ship design (you can't bury your science modules deep in your ship), and it adds personality in the form of the messages you get. If these same elements of timing challenge, design challenge, and personality can be added to the science system by some other means I would welcome that change, I'm not married to the KSP1 system. I just think that attention needs to be paid to their removal and not every QOL feature is actually beneficial to the gameplay experience.

I just wanna chime in and say I think there are key things OP got and is getting right that seem to be going over a lot of people's heads. 1) Running experiments was gameplay in KSP1. Perhaps you found it tedious, but mining for diamonds in Minecraft is also tedious. If you want to make the game less tedious you could just automate the whole thing. One button and you win the whole game! It was somewhat tedious, but it also IMO was somewhat challenging to get all the experiments to trigger as you passed over a tiny patch of lowlands. Or getting a kerbal to jump out of the ship to quickly "record his thoughts" while screaming through the upper atmosphere at 3,000 m/s. 2) Currencies in this game are super boring and tasks don't relate to rewards The fun quest rewards in Skyrim aren't the ones that give you $6,000 gold, they are the ones that give you a special item. That you do specifically because it's the way you get a particular bow for a build you wanna do. One of the things I think is missing from KSP is any quest rewards beyond currency (and science is a currency). Go to Duna to discover how to make helium engines, go to the mun to find a new type of rock to make bigger and better landing struts. Go to minmus to unlock some tiny engines. Now, how do you actually implement this? I don't know. There are a million ways. But it's pretty much just a fact that the science tree they gave us is pretty much the most boring way to do a tech tree, it's basically just a shop. At least in KSP1 there were interesting decisions about which branch you wanted to invest your points in. Here you can just invest in the main branch and then unlock whatever you need. 3) The personality that was present for science is honestly, completely gone. "You take a sample of water, it appears to dramatically increase the surface humidity of anything it touches." "You start say something dramatic and poignant about the plight of Kerbal-kind in this grand universe, only to be cut off by random radio chatter that the situation is normal" "Yep, it's dirt" This is what we got every time we shook up a mystery goo canister, or extended our magnetic boom, or examined our totally-not-store-bought thermometer. Now we get a report pop up with text in it too small for anyone to read, but a UI that's so large it obscures your whole screen and about 10 notifications saying we have already done that experiment because I happen to have backups of my science equipment. 4) Science gathering is no longer strategic and has no relevance to ship design In KSP1 you actually had to plan your trip and what science you were going to do. you could bring one science junior and a lab and run the experiment tons of times, or you could bring just the one science junior but you'd have to make it count. And if you wanted to do multiple mystery goo readings you had to bring multiple canisters. And so your first ship to the mun would just have one mystery goo canister, but the next trip you'd bring a few and a science junior and then the next trip you'd bring a processing lab and set it up on wheels with one science junior and try to get a bunch of biomes. It meant you changed your ship design depending on what you were doing. KSP2 you put one of every sciency thing you have on your ship and launch it. Now, if you don't like the science gathering aspect of the game, or if you just want to explore the sandbox while unlocking parts slowly, maybe none of this matters to you. And that's okay But still, I think we can admit that KSP2 science doesn't exactly have the same amount of personality it used to, and it doesn't create terribly interesting gameplay decisions. How that problem could be solved is an open question, and it's probably going to take more than 5 minutes to solve, so anything that is proposed here will probably have at least one major flaw or drawback. But just because there isn't an obvious solution doesn't invalidate the criticism. Also, while writing this I've realized: I have not seen a single silly kerbal thing the whole time I've played KSP2 . I haven't read any science reports, I haven't seen any particularly funny part descriptions. Really nothing. Which is kinda sad.

Something to note about this that makes severity higher is that if your delta V is zero, you can't plan maneuvers. So whenever anything causes KSP to not correctly understand your vessel or where it's getting fuel from or where it's thrust is coming from or whatever, you completely lose the ability to plan manuvers at all. I think that it makes sense to alert people when their maneuvers exceed their delta V budget, but still allow them to be charted. Especially given the delta V calculations seem buggy right now.

Yes, it seems to explode directly when physics are loaded. Sometimes when approaching the ship I will hear a bang and then everything is smashed. I obviously can't know exactly how far away I am from the craft at that time, but on laythe particularly I noticed that the craft would initially load floating in the air without any physics. As soon as physics loaded, the craft would fall and explode. I've also noticed similar things with large ships in orbit. I wanted to dock with my large craft and as soon as my smaller craft got close enough for physics to load on the larger vessel, it exploded into a debris field. The bug report you linked is interesting, but I haven't had issues with the craft sinking. I remember that bug from the release where I would leave my mun lander and come back and the mun lander would just be gone, sinking into the mun forever. This bug is much more explodey than the sinking into the ground bug. Let me know if going back to my save and taking screenshots/videos would be useful. If you feel it would be beneficial then I'll do it, it's just a real pain because it means screwing around on EVA for like 20 minutes trying to swim close enough to be in viewing range but not in physics range. I can also supply the save file, though I'll warn you that it isn't super consistent.

Autosaving on launch is something present in KSP 1, don't know why a similar system wouldn't be present in KSP2

Reported Version: v0.2.1 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes OS: Windows 10 | CPU: AMD 5600X | GPU: Nvidia 3070 FE | RAM: 32 Not sure what is happening, but if I am burning prograde with my vessel at the peripasis, then my apopasis goes up. Which is expected. However I have a very heavy ship with the hydrogen powered engines, so I time warped at 4x speed. Then my apoapsis started going down. Back to 1x time warp, and my apoapsis starts going up again. It's like switching to 4x speed puts the engines in reverse. I do have engines on both sides of my ship (it's actually 2 ships docked together) but the engines facing retrograde are de-activated. I have the same number of engines on both sides of the ship. It's also a ship with a large number of parts that is somewhat laggy, so maybe that has something to do with it? I have a save file I can provide, but it is just over 20Kb, let me know if I can submit it another way. Also I don't have a craft file because of it being 2 ships docked together. Included Attachments: KerbalSpaceProgram22024-02-2419-58-26.mp4

VRAM is fine. It's high, but it's fine. I am not using any experimental or strange drivers and my resolution is 1080p. But setting my resolution to like 480p only gave me like 1 extra FPS. Now the ship itself is large. Quite large. It's a bunch of ships I docked together to go to Jool and visit all the moons AFAIK the part count is just too high for KSP2 to handle. I don't know if it's possible to see part count in the flight mode, but that's not really the point. The point is I pushed the game to the limit, but the game didn't push my hardware to the limit. Obviously it's possible to build something that will slow down your game. Anyone can open cyberpunk and crank the max raytracing reflections to 100 and tank their performance, whether they have a 4090 TI or a 2060 super. But when you do that and open task manager you see your GPU get maxed out and heat up. What I find strange is that the bottleneck doesn't seem like it's hardware. It seems like my CPU and GPU are totally fine and able to handle more, but the game just won't push them. For me, this is reminiscent of a problem I used to have with Minecraft on an old laptop where it would default to my intel graphics instead of my discrete graphics because Nvidia didn't recognize a generic Java app as being something it should enable itself for. So I'd be getting single digit FPS, but task manager would show no activity on my GPU. This is obviously not the problem, since the computer I'm currently using has no onboard graphics. I've also checked I'm not in power saving mode, that the game is recognized as a game, etc. but it just has the same kind of feel, like something is just not using the right system and bottle necking on something totally random. Maybe it's an Nvidia driver issue. But IDK, no other game behaves like this for me. And my card has been out for a long while now. But I don't even know how to tell if it's a CPU problem or a GPU problem.

Reported Version: v0.2.1 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes OS: Windows 10 | CPU: AMD 5600X | GPU: Nvidia 3070 FE | RAM: 32 If you get far enough away from a landed ship obviously the ship unloads and stops having physics applied to it. Which is fine. But then if you walk back to the ship (especially if you are using time warp on EVA) then the ship will often just randomly explode. I had this happen a couple times on Duna, where the ship seemed to explode "in place." Often landing gear would get damaged and then the craft would tip over. I then landed in the water on Laythe and had a similar thing happen but this time the ship seemed to fall out of the sky from approximately 100m above the surface of the ocean, destroying it. On subsequent reloads I was able to position the camera to view the craft before physics was applied to it and noted that it was perfectly upright (not the orientation it was left in) and hovering about 100m above the ocean. When I got close enough it started having physics applied and fell. I unfortunately did not take screenshots, but I do have game save files I will upload as soon as I can. Included Attachments:

Has anyone established a relationship between specs and performance? I know this sounds silly, but when running the game with a big ship I was getting 2 FPS. I checked task manager etc. and nothing was being pushed. No CPU core was over like 30% or 40%, no GPU temperature spike and no part of my GPU was anywhere close to maxed out. Obviously potato PCs will have issues, but has anyone established if upgrading CPU or GPU will actually make an appreciable difference? It seems like it must be some kind of crazy bottle neck. For reference, I have a 3070 and a 5600X

No I mean a physical physical notebook. That you buy. In real life.

IDK where to put this, but I would absolutely adore a physical KSP mission log to write all that stuff you need to jot down somewhere. Something official that had templates pages where you could write the mission name, key numbers, designs, etc. Staging notes to remember, descent logs, notes on how to improve the ship for the next mission. Perhaps a cheat sheet on the inside cover with optimal transfer windows and dV calculations. Feel like it would be an awesome merch idea that would actually be useful.

So I saw this post and I think OP there has a point, but I have my own take on it and at this point, I think it's worth making a new topic. So KSP1 and 2 both have exploration in the sense that they have a great big sandbox for you to travel around in, but I think an "exploration game" is a game where exploration is 1) interesting and 2) challenging. And neither KSP1 nor KSP2 had interesting or challenging exploration. Now, don't get me wrong, both games are challenging. That's a fact. But exploration isn't. Go to Map view and you can see everything in as much detail as you realistically ever will. Yeah, you can't see every rock on the Mun, but it's not like you can do anything with those rocks. And yes you can't see every hill and valley, but none of those hills or valleys are dramatic enough to matter to picking a landing site and you don't get science for exploring deeper-than-average valleys or higher-than-average hills. If you've ever played Minecraft and finally found an ice spikes biome after searching for days and mapping every ocean in a 1K block radius, you know what the joy of exploration is. It's the joy of searching, scanning the horizon, hoping to see what your looking for. Rationing food, creating outposts, running out of resources and having to return home only to go out again to search more. That's exploration. I've never felt that playing KSP, not even close. Because I've always known exactly where I was going, and pretty much exactly what I was gonna find. Now, there is no actual need to have exploration be a major feature in KSP. But I do think it's something that could raise KSP2 to the next level and create a kind of joy and challenge that we have so far not been able to experience. Below I've listed some general ways that I think it would be possible for KSP to incorporate exploration in a more meaningful way. I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about it. 1) Reward variety Minecraft actually provides a reason to go to a desert or a jungle. Different resources, different structures, different locales to build bases. It's not just that deserts have more loot than jungles, it's that they provide different value. You can't get pandas from deserts and you can't get cactus from jungles. KSP1 and 2 both suffer from all biomes being essentially the same. At best you might get slightly more science from the poles or from a monument, but that's not an exciting difference. If, instead, you could make a munar discovery that allowed you to build a special new type of engine by gathering a sample in a specific region, that could be an actual reason to explore. It's a reason to be excited that you finally found a munar valley so you can finally build that probe exactly the way you want to. Even something as simple as unlocking certain paint styles by visiting certain celestial bodies would give you some reason to go to some of the less visited bodies. Rewards that are just science or money become stale when you have lots of both. Rewards that are non-fungible, that are actually unique, those can be really inspiring. ideas for adding this: Samples from certain biomes give you non-tech tree discoveries, e.g. a new compound found on the mun unlocks a special side-mounted engine or a smaller more powerful satellite dish. Samples from Certain biomes unlock special paint jobs for rocket parts Samples from Certain biomes allow you to upgrade certain parts. e.g. the Reliant engine gets an ISP boost because of asteroid debris found in a munar crater. Samples from Certain biomes advance the kerbals understanding of the universe, allowing you unique abilities. e.g. you can now use all maneuver capabilities without a pilot (I know it isn't in KSP2 yet, whatever). Please keep in mind that while it may sound dull to have to go to a specific munar biome to unlock a particular paint job, some of my subsequent ideas might help with that. 2) Variety in Challenges Right now there is an element of tedium to going to each biome on the mun. You can see them all from orbit so you just have to do 5 identical missions landing in different spots. They are all essentially the exact same mission, and that is pretty tedious. Something that could spice things up is providing different challenges for different biomes. Ideas: Certain parts of Duna have major windstorms that blow you to and fro Other parts are very rocky and therefore difficult to land flat in. On the mun you could have basins in the bottom of caves that can't be flown to but require a speedy rover. You could have munar sand beds that are spongy and therefore easier to land on. Certain areas on the Mun could have a ground covering that messes with the ranging meaning you can only use sea-level altitude and not height from ground, making landing more challenging. Even features as simple as steep mountains mean you need to either execute a high-precision landing right on the peak, or make a craft that won't slide down the steep face. These kinds of unique challenges are a nice compliment to unique rewards. If you want a special engine, you have to design a special craft to overcome a unique challenge. It also means that landers cannot be as frequently re-used. You actually need to re-tool your ship for each new destination. 3) "Randomness" in environment Something else that is difficult is that you can see the whole mun in stunning quality immediately. You always know exactly where you are going to land from the start. Having some kind of fog-of-war where you can't see the landing site in detail (perhaps it's all pixelated) until you either scan it with a satellite or get close enough would mean you would need to be prepared for the unexpected. Combined with the variety above, it could mean that you need to build really adaptable ships, or do preliminary scouting, both of which would be exciting and rewarding missions. Another thing that could be done is adding features that simply do not appear on the map view until they are discovered. So perhaps you can see a crater, but you can't see if there is a meteor remnant in the middle, so you need to do an expedition to find out. And then if there is one, you can unlock a unique part or a science reward or whatever. This would encourage people to build a lander with a rover that can go explore. More detail on this kind of stuff below. I should note here I don't think a random or procedurally generated map would be a good idea. Rather everyone should have the same Mun, but you just can't see details of it in the map view until you actually map it. 4) Rules and science connecting environments and informing randomness Something that takes exploration to the next level for me is when you know that there are rules governing your exploration. For example, a Minecraft Savanna will always border a desert. And Ice spikes are often found near cold oceans. So when you are looking for a desert and you find a savanna, you can go around the perimeter, and when you are looking for ice spikes, you can get excited when you see a cold ocean because you know you might be close to your quarry. Being much more science based, KSP2 has an even greater opportunity to do this. On the Mun, give some mares asteroid debris fields on their borders that can be scanned for a chance to recover pieces of a meteor. On Duna have mountains form ranges where some mountains will, on close inspection, turn out to be volcanoes that can be used as a source of geothermal energy. This is the reason you might build a serious all-terrain rover, one that can challenge Duna's mountains to efficiently scavenge them for Volcanoes. Or perhaps it may justify you building a Duna plane with high-res cameras and sensors so you can fly over the mountain ranges hoping to pick up heat signatures. These kinds of connections mean players can get excited at finding a large thing that they can explore, searching for a small thing. And that is the sort of exploration people can really get invested in. It's a problem that is possible to solve with brute force, spending 1000 hours in EVA, but encourages creative problem solving. Creating mega-rovers and spy planes that can automate the tedius tasks. I think that these sort of additions could make KSP2 a true exploration game that rewards and encourages the development of a huge variety of vehicles to overcome equally varied challenges across the galaxy. I don't purport to know exactly how such features would specifically fit, but I hope this is a direction the devs give consideration to.

I think that automating science collection is sort of like automating the victory screen in a more typical game. It's the final action required to win the points you traveled so far for. I get a lot of satisfaction out of doing my experiments. This feels like mod territory, it's something that many hardcore players might want, but which somewhat hampers the core dopamine loop.

@BrooklynDaMoth I wouldn't worry about needing to toggle it on in a menu. I am positive that the reason it isn't implemented yet is gonna be that it hasn't been made yet. I'm sure that the second the feature works and is stable (or stable enough) it will be added.

I am trying to adjust my inclination to intercept minimus, and I have the following unremovable elements on my screen: a tooltip showing me where the KSC is, the velocity of it (for some reason) and it's altitude A tooltip showing my ship, it's velociy and it's altitude a tooltip showing Minmus A tooltip showing the mun A tooltip showing my periapsis A tooltip showing that I will be leaving mun orbit soon About 12 different debris icons This is literally impossible. I can't see what I'm doing at all and when I do get it adjusted right so that I can see what I'm doing, the normal and anti-normal maneuver node buttons are unclickable because they are behind all the tooltips. I've looked everywhere, none of these can be disabled, and UI scaling doesn't affect them, so I gave up going to minmus. I genuinely don't know what to do because without being able to see my orbital plane I don't know how to line it up.

If they want to keep it, they need to make it like a 100x more usable. Because when you have a list of 20 fuel tanks in alphabetical order, each with an accordion header so big that you can only fit 5 on the screen at once, and you have to constantly scroll around to different ones... it is a nightmare. The old system might not be the gold standard, but at least you could pick what you wanted to clutter your screen with and how to lay it out.

hold middle mouse and drag. It's awkward and shift scroll would be way better, but it does work. Someone else on here told me about it this afternoon PS: Thanks to Skorj for telling me about it.

Less slippery landing legs would be a huge plus. It's very annoying to see your whole ship slowing migrating down a 0.05 degree incline until it falls off a cliff.