Strawberry

I think theres a lot of potiental for science parts that tie into colonies/heating and i hope we get more when those systems begin coming more online.

Minor clarification, we have seen at minimum 9 science parts in the VAB. This does not neccisarily mean there will be 9 science parts as well as the build we saw it from was wip. For additional context, stock ksp1 only had 9 parts capable of generating science, if we only get 9 parts thats still equal to ksp1’s in terms of science generation (assuming all the parts for ksp2 are for generation of course).

Once again my blindful hopeposting proves to be prophetic visions delivered psychically from Nate Simpson

Well as far as we know, the science nodes are just for the science parts. Theres nothing that suggests this will contain boat parts.

Commnet is too cool of a feature to render redundant. Not to mention, small cores for interstellar missions are pointless because your vehicles themselves cant be tiny if you want to get there in a decent amount of time. Personally what Id like to see is a large sized ~ 20 EC AI core that can control any vehicle connected to its commnet to encourage the use of a commnet mothership for interstellar missions (Ie leave the mothership in orbit while you separate a lander from it), that's unlocked like right before you go to deb deb. Later on you get a medium sized one, still large enough to where it makes you reluctant to design a lander with it, but small enough to where you can use it for a lander if you want to.

The they here is nertea? How dare nertea gives nertea homework!

The mun landing tab doesnt seem to have anything special going on for it, and the description makes it sound like its for landing on the mun instead of something you get by landing on the mun. Im pretty sure its just named that to try and go "Hey new players you should land on the mun now"

Most of the stuff listed here has either 1. Literally no effect on graphics (such as not processing non visible nodes or the terrain memory optimization.) 2. A non noticable impact on graphics (like the ksp2 water looks the same, no one was complaining wow the water looks worse now). If you cleanup a texture, technically it may lose some detail, but like youre not gonna notice that lost detail so who cares. 3. Completely optional as you can just turn the settings up, or 4. Visual upgrades (the lens flare for example was shown off in an “upnate”.) Its very much not a new trend for the game to look and perform better. Im not saying blackrack hasnt done amazing work when it comes to visuals, because he has made the atmospheres look far better and i think its fair to credit him for that considering thats his thing. But performance wise the improvement this patch is pretty comparable to other patches, which makes me feel like while blackrack probably helped with the performance optimizations, he wasnt the primary dictator of them.

tbh this just isnt really true. There were a few stuff disabled 1.1/1.2 for , but stuff like parts manager, resource manager and terrain optimization is like, proper optimization. Like, you cant really make the parts manager run better and still have all its functionality by just brute forcing delete stuff. Also clouds were never that laggy (relatively of course), the bulk of the lag has always been from the terrain system/shaders.

Im pretty sure mun landing is just a generic node to unlock landing tech. We saw the mun landing thing selected in the presentation and there didnt seem to be any special description or anything like that.

[Snip] Oh gene kranz is a pretty good guy, did a lot of good, no real like, super problematic stuff there. Probably just replaced because its a new game with new people.

I can confirm this bug happens on non kerbin planets While landed on Jool with clouds set to low, the sun also leaves behind a trail of black pixels https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1039965578754007060/1166868621071495249/image.png?ex=654c0e16&is=65399916&hm=72ce38cf9d40101eded92d65bcf8901e71642b32fe459efd7766ef4e8b8f0d62&

Getting this bug too OS: Windows 10 home 64 bit | CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-core processor | GPU: Radeon RX 580 | RAM: 16 GB

Personally i think having calculating physics constantly take up space in the kerb as investigating/some fixes isnt really that meaningful of communication and im not really riffed about it being gone. As long as they provide meaningful updates in kerbs when changes to these long term issues happen im fine

I think interstellar will have the shortest gap as thats one of the easiest to implement, colonies and exploration will probably be equally tied as they both involve implementing new and complex game systems. That being said, I cant really put a timeframe on these things because 1. I dont have a full understanding of the codes scope and 2. I dont know the productivity of the team.

So for my thoughts on what of science we have seen in general, in short I think some of it is incredibly promising, some of it is more mediocre. The presentation shows that youll need to unlock the top right node to move on to the next tier, which seems interesting, I like how that changes how you move through the tech tree. Also xenon is unlocked way earlier in the tech tree which is good. The science parts seem like a mixed bag, to define what I think makes a good science part, using it must actively change your flight profile. The ones earlier on the tech tree can be simple as their point can be there just to introduce concepts to people, the latter ones should be more complex. To start off with what I think is by far the best science part we have seen, its the diving bell. Having to send a crewed diving bell to the bottom of Eve's oceans then return it sounds like an incredibly interesting and difficult challenge, especially if we get ballasts to go alongside it. Since the diving bell probably has to be crewed, if you want to save your kerbals this leads to interesting engineering challenges (such as returning the crew in the diving bell to your rocket) that sound really fun to plan around. More science parts like this that promote you to do novel, interesting, and challenging missions would be very fun. For what I think is the worst part, its the large purple one thats likely unlocked by orbital report (Science Sr). The craft we see the Science Sr on doesnt seem to have any power generation, likely its only thing is just it needs to be in orbit and generates over time. For the last science part we unlock, that is incredibly simple and boring. I'd be fine with a single part that is just like this that way it forces you to stay in orbit for crafts instead of just flybys, but having multiple parts whose only thing is that just seems unneeded and boring. Science Sr. seems to need a crew requirement as well, but with no life support that isnt really all that interesting of a challenge, its only in orbit so its not particularly hard to return those crew. I think an easy way to make Science Sr. more interesting would be to give it large amounts of EC consumption, making you have to put like two nuclear reactors or lots of solar panels on your craft actively changes how you design your craft and makes putting it on more interesting. I think there's definitely ways to add more parts that are more similar to the diving bell, and I hope they do. I think the grand slam passive seismometer from ksp1 was honestly pretty well designed, and something like that in ksp2 would be great. If I were to suggest how to make that part better for ksp2, have it generate science passively over time to promote landers, but generate spikes of science upon impacts with the planets with diminishing returns (bonus points if crashing into different biomes would reward you differently for the seismometer). it would have interesting synergy with the sounding rocket nose cone for planets with an atmosphere as well. Also a Solar Science part that makes you do a parker solar probe esc mission by rewarding you for getting close to the sun would be cool as well. Bonus points if you get extra science points for going over the suns poles.

Id support telescopes for in solar system operation too yeah. You can design it to where it has interesting behavior for interstellar probe flybys (only capturing a few planets in high detail or something like that) to have it carry utility later on in the game

Oh huh yeah good catch. Its important to note in general for this stuff is that all of this is still wip. Stuff will get changed, added, and maybe removed. Tbh main reason i posted this is because i realized one of the parts was likely a diving bell and having to make kerbals dive underwater to get science seems incredibly sick. Re: telescopes, telescopes have been confirmed that they will be in the game eventually. That being said, its possible that they wont be in game until interstellar/we get asteroids as we wont exactly have things to telescope until then. The large science part with the purple thing attached to it we have seen in the past. But the old model for it had a jwst telescope while the new one has a purple greenhouse in its place. This either means that theyve decided no telescopes in general (unlikely), decided to isolate telescopes to their own parts that way it can be introduced when they fit the game, or a secret third thing that i cant think of.

Additional context from Nertea regarding UI

UI only suggests one general type of science so probably no, past statements also suggest that.

Okay if you just want to see decently high quality images of the tech tree and the VAB here you go: Tech tree: VAB: If you want to see my analysis of these images, just like read the next part of this duh. Obvious disclaimer, I am just a guy, I could be wrong about some, none, or all of this. This is also a wip build we are seeing, stuff may and likely will easily change. Through the VAB, we see 9 science parts, I am pretty sure that these are all the science parts as of semi current build. The reason why I believe this is we see 7 nodes on the tech tree with the science icon, which presumably unlock a science part. One of the nodes has a rover icon, but appears to be named autonomous imaging, which would fit for the camera rover part we see in the VAB. This gives us 8 nodes that seem to unlock a science part, and when we add the one science part we start off with, we get 9! This means that in theory, we can use the name of the science nodes and try to line them up with the image of science parts we see in order to guess at what they will do. I am now going to try to go through each one numerically and try and link it up with a science node. Okay so the 8 nodes we see that probably unlock a science part are (going in order off of the tech tree here): Environmental science, Research miniaturization, Atmospheric science, Autonomous imaging, Radiation science, Orbital science, Aquatic science, and finally Orbital report. Science Jr probably doesnt line up with a node, because its probably the part we start unlocked. This part seems to work anywhere, the behavior of this part is probably the same as mystery goo from ksp1. Environmental science and Research miniaturization probably unlock the two golden XS squares we see, I doubt there's much too special with these parts as theyre unlocked pretty early on in the tech tree. If I were to guess these parts gimmicks, one of them probably introduces return limits (ie needs to be returned to ksc), and one of them probably is the first part to have science over time. This guess is purely off the fact I feel like part complexity will be introduced gradually so it makes sense for the first few parts to be pretty simple. Atmospheric science is probably the fly by wire looking thing. This is because its a XS part (thus making sense to unlock early on in the tech tree), and its a nose cone, hard to get more atmosphericy then that. If I were to guess this parts gimmick, it probably generates science over time and needs to be in atmosphere (duh), so if you need a plane to analyze it. Autonomous imaging is probably the camera on a stick. This is probably just the scanning arm from breaking ground. Radiation science is almost certainly the cylindrical thing titled radiation survey we see selection. idk if there will be anything too special for this, hopefully it needs EC or something. Orbital science is probably the other small sized part with all the stuff sticking out with it. Probably will only work while in orbit and over time. Aquatic science is probably the spherical one. It looks like a diving bell, so it will probably only work while in liquid. We know from code some parts will have a crew requirement and this part seems to have a door. You will probably need this one to be manned. Orbital report is probably the one with the purple thing attached to it, I dont feel like this one will be too special. Has a door so probably has a crew requirement, also probably will only work in orbit.

I think the reason for that is simply they dont have the expanded view from shift, though there is defiintely some other interesting stuff in that picture. The purple thing looks like a greenhouse for example

There was an image on the steam announcement that wasnt on the forums for some reason

Im pretty sure the return type refers to how it can be returned. The screenshot with the purple thing shows that some science parts can only be returned via physically returning to the ksc, both probably means it can be returned both by transmission and by physical means (also this implies some science types may only be transmissable via radio transmission which seems interesting). Argentina

Dakota you were supposed to go to bed like a half a hour ago you have a flight tomorrow