zeekzeek22

I'm interested in, if there are telescopes as part of discovery/progression, what the relationship between ground/in-space telescopes is. I'd be fine if there is a blanket "ground-based telescopes only work when not facing a star" so that the only ground based telescopes you make are only useful at night, while space-based telescopes produce discoveries at all times? Or there is some sort of "sensitivity" variable that increases with distance from the star...incentivizing an exoplanet hunter to Jool's orbit as opposed to doing all your planet hunting around Kerbin. Just thinking about how to implement it without it being a whole game mechanism that is completed in a single kerbin-orbit mission, but also not feeling needlessly tedious.

The RCS and SAS buttons are hard for me (red/green colorblind) to clearly know the states of. Some buttons invert (black/blue background with colored edge shading, to colored button with black edge shading), but the RCS/SAS on/off states just aren't clear/intuitive enough for my eyes...i don't even know what colors they are haha. Do they go from gray to green? red to green? I'd just prefer them to follow the clear "filled/colored = on, black/dark blue = off" scheme. Also happy to provide red/green colorblind feedback on any particular bits of UI...I haven't played much, so the RCS/SAS is the only one I remember that I had a moment of struggle/uncertainty with.

I think having this automatic tool makes sense, I think it's just a matter of game design...actually manning the throttle, and in some cases having to keep your ship on heading during a burn, might be a part of gameplay that IG feels is an integral part of the experience. That said, all their description of "interstellar trajectories are threading a needle" seems like they are going to give us more precision tools. The current throttle is way too jumpy too...needs a way to fine tune it. Or maybe it will come down to challenging the player to have a combination of thrust regimes...using an SEP engine to do hyper-fine tuning. And the automation of supply routes that they've described cuts into that argument...if you can automate that, what's the logic of not automating any single part of player flight control? I think they want to avoid a pitfall of players "learning" KSP2 by just always hitting "automate" buttons...they want players to learn the nuance of flying a spaceship, and if you give a human a shortcut, most will take it. There is something special about having your manual drop into a 101x99km orbit and having to know how to correct it to 100x100. give a player a single button that guarantees a 100x100 every time removes some of the uniqueness of every flight? At the end of the day, that's all creative direction. But I agree, we ned (and will certainly get) some tools to manage precision burns that isn't just "add a secondary low-thrust engine for fine maneuvers"

I'll chime in to agree that there doesn't need to be any balance in Sandbox Mode. It's in the name. The whole resource collection aspect of gameplay will balance things on their own...harvesting nuclear material will probably be a challenge mid-game, as will as tech tree progression. Could be viable that you hoard your nuclear material till you unlock the SWERV, or you spend the first you get on a NERV to enable stuff. I'm really looking forward to the resource system's progression balance, even though I'm sure the balance will be broken at first.

I can't wait for the patch notes. The list they put out two weeks ago was solid by itself, and I expect they got probably 75% more significant fixes in before handing off to QA, and have probably already gotten another 75% worth done since then that'll go into the next patch. It makes me fantasize that patch 2 will come out ~3/31. And as they go on, the fixes will be bigger. I imagine a person crunching through a sizeable rework that'll take 6 weeks, just to have it land satisfyingly on patch 3. I don't expect this patch to really transform it or double the framerate...that'll take a couple of those bigger fixes to really make a difference. I think patch 3 or 4 will be when people start going "alright, this is the EA I signed up for and I love it!".

HYPE! Tomorrow comes the patch and I am HYPED that it will play smoother and I can start visiting the Mun/Minmus anomalies with minimal fear/frustration! Then we can all HYPE for the next patch in 2-3 weeks! and after like 5 3-week cycles, in June we can start being HYPE for the first roadmap update! In the meantime don't forget to hype for real space stuff that'll happen before Roadmap-Update-1: Starship! Terran 1! Hakuto-R! Peregrine! IM-1! So much beyond-kerbal space stuff with hopefully minimal lithobraking...but probably some!

Yeah this is a common wishlist item, and possibly my biggest. It is a huge "discovery" motivator. There are varying degrees...you could say planets don't even show up until you have a certain science module do a thing, and an easy way for it to not be a frustration is for there to be a tutorial that walks you through making a "planet-hunter" satellite that will pretty much find everything for you in one go. But yeah. I really would love a thing where you build a satellite, do a scan, downlink the data, and your first view of Rask/Rusk is a blob that makes you go "OH MAN I want to know what weirdness this is, just by the shape!"

VlonaldKerbin's quoting of the STEAM EA guidelines and definition actually do sway my opinion on the whole discussion a bit. If those are Steam's rules, I feel like 1. TT/PD likely violated them with their motivation for pushing IG into an EA they weren't planning for (if that's what happened), 2. the "worth the current value of the playable build" part is probably violated right, no matter how much of a fanboy I am (the gap there will probably close a lot with tomorrow's patch), 3. I have been wrong in preaching that EA is a "Pre-Purchase+". I do think it is *literally* that, but if Steams rules say it is not that, then it should not be on Steam. Still fine for them to sell this EA directly and such, but...if Steam's rules say "you can't price an EA like it's a discounted pre-purchase if the EA build is not worth that discounted price", they shouldn't have sold that version on Steam. Again, tomorrow's patch may bring the whole thing into a much better position, but as of right now, reading those terms, I'm happy to admit my perspective has been mostly wrong (as it related to selling on Steam).

+1 great post. no notes.

Cue the people raging that EA is just a developer making *us* pay *them* for beta testing Or the people saying that anyone who plays the EA should get the game for half price or free, in flagrant disregard for how "selling a product for a price that makes the development breakeven" works

Hmm. This fits in pretty solidly with what I thought was up...using a revamped version of KSP1's shader during dev with the intention of adding a schmancy shader later in development, but getting a bit jumbled with an unexpected EA...since you don't need fancy terrain to make your interstellar physics sim. But I'm then confounded about the relationship with the artist team...if the terrain artist teams really needed to know/have the shader tools to do their work, that throws my whole idea out the window, and implies they should have moved on to CBT as soon as the artist started needing it to make assets. (laughing at how many people on this forum knows the "other" meaning of that acronym....as a psychology guy I remember naively going "why is everyone talking about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?")

Based on some official Twitter comments, I think they’re seriously reconsidering the parts manager and will short/mid term implement the “old” system

Yeah it’s going to be a design choice for KSP2: keep the infinitely throttlable main engines that let’s you impart 0.1dV, or “force” you to add secondary engines or RCS thrusters for a more “realistic” design experience. That said, realism would include a way to have timed cutoff with a degree of precision that’s better than an average person’s ability to eyeball when to cut off their orbital insertion burn…at least to the same accuracy real rockets do. I personally would be fine if they made main engines less infinitely throttlable. Things would be harder but more realistic, and having easily set-up action keys to shut down main engines and power up secondary would be a must.

I haven't made it yet, but I'm looking to build a small, simple Mun Lander/Return with reliable dV. I've been off KSP1 for like a year and I have lost all efficient rocket building intuition! My first attempt was enormous. Will post back as I work on it, then once I've got it I'll do a dV-remaining challenge like the LKO challenge.

Agreed...Seems logical, but also robotic parts may also be some of the buggier features. I'd judge based on the state of the game when they announce a Science Update date...if they've made leaps and are done with 80% of the functionality bugs and are starting parse through visual quirks, robotics would be likely. If they're still dealing with a lot of functionality stuff, I'd imagine they'll punt robotics if possible, and minimize the number of complex core functions to bug fix in the next update to give the team more time to focus on core functionality.

I think there's a general sentiment that, although missions with goals are nice, the KSP1 implementation was a bit too random and grindy. I recall in my career mode, just doing dozens of "bring 2/4/6/8 Kerbal tourists to the Mun" missions for money and science. The missions should feel purposeful and rewarding, maybe unlocking technologies or decals? Leading you to anomalies? Mission "campaigns" that have you set up a scanner, scan for anomalies, find one, and visit it? Also, you don't want the missions to get too all-encompassing if you want KSP2 to really be a sandbox game...most sandbox games make sure you can ignore the missions/story.

Sequel game wikis seem to be a pretty un-standardized activity. If I recall, God of War and Assassin's Creed are usually referenced as examples of "good" franchise wiki-ing. The Horizon games just packed both games into one wiki rather than making a new one...common elements just had two sections. But overall agreed, KSP2 needs a wiki. The interesting part is that the KSP wiki is not hosted on Fandom...it's an official wiki that's populated by the community. So will they make a wiki.kerbalspaceprogram2.com website? I don't know much about wiki backends and what kind of headaches get caused by trying to cram two branching wikis on one base portal.

That could be a setting (that would probably slow things down a bunch and make enormous save files). But it sounds like a feature that would 90% be for streamers and would only be for people with the best computers. Would be cool but hard to imagine it'd be prioritized. Short recorded nuggets would be ideal and the most appealing for a broad audience.

I imagine they have a list of part types/features in a "post-release expansion" bucket (probably two buckets...stuff for paid expansions vs stuff for free updates), and I wonder what those things are...I imagine people will fuss if KSP1 expansion content (robotics/helicopters) ends up in a paid KSP2 expansion...I bet all KSP1 stuff will be in by 1.0, or if not, will be a free update. But man do I want to know what kind of unexpected cool stuff is coming after 1.0 beyond just more solar systems. More story, I bet. More engines/parts. But like, I imagine an expansion would include a new *kind* of surface feature, not just resources. But idk what that would be! Exciting mysteries.

I agree with your positive assesment of what probably happened. It really makes sense. I'm really optimistic that once the core game is like 80% debugged, the rest of the main feature modules will drop in fast succession since a lot of the features are pretty straightforward technically, if you assume everything else is debugged.

Reminder that Intercept Games has a huge AAA budget in the same way a local craft brewery that got bought by Anheuser Busch has Budweiser's R&D budget. IG is a small-shop "indie-scale" developer, owned by a publisher of only-indie-scale games, which is owned by Take Two. No company, not to mention project under Take Two's umbrella has access to GTAV's budget, or is even a AAA title. KSP2 is not AAA. Their small team gets some corporate support from PD, who gets some corporate support from TT. I work on a project that is subcontracted by a subdivision of NASA. Nobody sees our occasional struggles and goes "how are you messing that up when you have all the knowledge of NASA at your fingertips"...we don't.

I like the idea of solar sails but based on what I've seen, thrust over time warp is monodirectional relative to the orbiting body, and a solar sail's thrust vector rotates with the spacecraft's motion around Kerbol. That said, I'd love to see a togglable overlay with space weather...get a telescope in orbit with a certain detector and you can just toggle a view that plays a model of CME activity and such...the solar wind doesn't have to do anything, it could just look cool. I work in a heliophysics division and get to see those pretty models all day.

I *Really* want this. I like the idea of having to discover planets first...even having them show as blurry in the tracking station until you reach the SOI. That would create such a huge sense of excitement for discovering new planets, even ones modded in...the excitement of the approach...the immediate noticing that something is funky (seeing a blurry rask/rusk or a blurry ringed planet)

I also think some of the features are going to have pretty short debug periods before they move to the next one. Like, the science tech tree unlock feature is probably really simple, as is the "buying parts with resources". The "touch end of drill to within 2m of surface resource feature to initiate harvesting" stuff will be a big more, but it's small. I think this first big debug period is going to be the longest by far, and the big features will all roll out only a couple months after each other. I bet the roadmap step updates are going to be way less buggy on their own...the hard part is now.

I haven't even looked...where does one read what biome they're in in KSP2? Wasn't it not even displayed in KSP1 without running a science experiment or mods?