RileyHef

Right, that interview is what helped me draw this conclusion. The interviewer actually mentioned that modders can do it and Nate agreed. "Eventually, IF THE MODDERS DON'T GET TO IT, I'd love to revisit commnet." - Nate Simpson. Well, there are already 2 commnet mods and one is making significant strides as a more robust tool than what we had in vanilla KSP1. What incentive would the dev team have to retread a native commnet in several years (after the last milestone update of multiplayer finishes) if the community already has access to one via mods?

While official mod support for KSP2 has barely been mentioned lately, I do wonder how much the dev team is secretly relying on the community to create additional missions to fill the gap being mentioned on this thread. KSP1 had quite a few mission-related mods that improved my experience. I also have heard of a mission editor mod already being worked on for KSP2. I could very easily see the dev team essentially saying "do it yourself" or "here is a Modding tool we can provide to create/share missions" down the road. I doubt they will create a generated mission system or enough hand-made missiosn to satisfy the more seasoned playerbase. This seems to be their attitude towards Commnet so far. It sounds like they have no intention to pursue that feature themselves. Other features like Science archiving has been mentioned, but modders beat them to it with a pretty solid tool already. By the time the dev team prioritizes many features, such as mission creation, I bet the community will already have a better answer implemented already.

To quote Nate in the original post, "Most of our team continues to be pointed squarely at the Colonies update. We’re making a lot of progress this month on colony founding, the colony assembly experience, and colony gameplay mechanics." If it isn't already clear, priority 1 is reaching the next major milestone. Given that we have 0.2.2 and 0.2.3 on the way, I think it's also safe to say that the second priority is gameplay/performance improvements and bug fixes. Yeah, it is a slow process, but I wouldn't want it prioritized any other way. That said, I am perfectly fine with other members of the team working on smaller, lower priority tasks in the meantime. Even if those smaller projects have no immediate impact on the gameplay loop/experience, they are important for the ultimate goal of reaching 1.0. As for specifics of clouds/graphics, I'm sure the team has more incentive to work on more optimized graphics and performance with the eventual goal of a console release (which provides them more revenue), so it makes sense for some resources to be allocated there. But an "all hands on deck" mentality in any business can lead to inefficiencies and/or missed opportunities. So yes, let Blackrock and the VFX team work on non-critical work that still improves the game if they have no immediate contributions to be made to the top 2 priorities right now. The critical gameplay shortcomings will likely be fixed or improved, with time, but it is obvious the kind of pace this team can move at and the complexity they feel these issues have. I doubt we will see any major gameplay fixes until at least 0.3. Speculating here, but I think they prefer to hold off on major gameplay upgrades/improvements until milestone updates to beef up the marketing of the game. Do I agree with it? No, but I think that is why heating came out with 0.2 despite not even being ready/fully implemented. Same goes for wobbly rockets finally getting fixed in 0.2. That's my not so tinfoil hat theory, at least.

Providing an update on my speculated timeline due to news we learned today (confirmation of 0.2.3 and a still unknown on 0.2.2 release date). The average time between updates is now 54 days (up from 49 in quoted post). If 0.2.2 released in 2 weeks we would have it on May 9th, 2024. Using the current average of all update timeframes, we could anticipate 0.2.3 on or around July 2nd, 2024. Again, using the average above, the time between 0.2.3 and 0.3.0 would take us to a release date on or around August 25th, 2024. 0.1 to 0.2 was 9 months, 25 days. This speculative colonies release date would put time between 0.2 and 0.3 at 8 months, 6 days. --- These are rough numbers and approximations only, so I am not making any sound predictions. However, I do believe this is an easy way to put progress into perspective. This timeline still has colonies beating the time it took to reach For Science by roughly a month and a half. Still acceptable, given Nate's previously mentioned hopes. However, there is very little room for additional 3 month gaps between updates and/or a 0.2.4 update if we are to believe his word. I'm skeptical that we get colonies before September 2024, but I would love to be proved wrong.

I want to highlight that this type of communication (a brief update on some major bugs/projects, some images or data, etc) is exactly what I hope to see in comms! If something like this existed every other week or so I wouldn't feel so discouraged like much of the community does. There is a ton within this post to get excited for. We hope you continue to share that excitement with us!

Right. This comment was a follow up to my initial timeline speculations below (with an admittedly optimistic 0.2.2 update release in consideration)

You asked, "Are you still following the roadmap or not? " The team said, "Yes the roadmap will be followed and fulfilled." That's your answer. Game dev is complex and takes time. This is a company selling and marketing a product - not an open source project that we are all free to peek into. We will see Colonies content when they want to market it to us. Look at 0.2. That was not fully announced until a month before its release and we had very little info prior to that. After it was announced, the CM's launched a marketing campaign to provide more content and details. Given that colonies is likely not going to be released until at least June (and more realistically around August, imo) I would not expect a mountain of info until at least after 0.2.2 drops. It's probably better to take a break from following development if you want to see specific, working colony gameplay/news right now.

Already told us. This one shouldn't require links as it is mentioned constantly but, again, they already told us. As shown by the linked chart, while this is our biggest gap between updates it does not indicate a major setback. However, more comms on this (RIP the K.E.R.B.) would be lovely. The links above are enough proof that this game is not being cancelled. It's clear that IG is following a similar communication/marketing tactic as they did for 0.2.0, which is to show absolutely nothing until announcing the update and provide comms/leaks after. While I wouldn't consider things so far "empty promises", I agree. We want to see the work being done. Let us be excited about what excites you and the team, IG!

"Find a thread on the forums that this statement doesn't apply to" challenge (impossible).

Some really great thoughts in this thread. I originally made this topic to commiserate with others about my apathy towards the game, but I've actually found some inspiration to play my exploration save again (for the first time since January) and am having some fun! (tldr at the bottom). While I still have a chunk of tiers 3 and 4 to complete on the tech tree and numerous missions unfinished, I actually have felt most inspired by the Orbital Survey mod to continue playing. My newest goal is to map out the Kerbolar System to the best of my abilities while creating modular orbital stations with capabilities to expand with future parts. Who knows, maybe a current station will become an orbital colony someday? (Big note here, haven't done too much docking pre-0.2.0 and I am terrified of the potential bugs I'll face). Really glad a few people pointed out the team's verbal commitment of saves being compatible with future updates and milestones - I am really banking on this being true. This has turned my focus from "trying out the new features on For Science!" to "prepping my space program for colonization and eventual interstellar capabilities". The Science Arkive mod has also driven me to complete the tech tree AND save up additional science for eventual colony parts once 0.3 drops. Not to mention many mods also support additional science earnings. Yeah, it's a bit of a grind, but provides some reward for creating "imaginary" missions for myself instead of following the official mission structure exclusively. Without the mods I've mentioned (and the many more I use in-game), idk if I'd be playing again at all. But with the enhancements offered by the community I've been having a good time and am planning on keeping busy with tasks in-game that should easily carry me to 0.3. As for a lot of the game's shortcomings, I've experienced a few issues but nothing that has completely turned me off yet. I know more problems will come as the scope and complexity of my missions evolve, but I am just not there yet. Other common gripes such as optimization have been non-factors for me - I'm always between 70-110 FPS so far (again, subject to change once complexity of crafts and missions increase). Maneuvers have been okay, and once again mods have really improved my experience with this aspect of KSP2. Overall, the game is very much playable - although it did require some tweaking from mods to maximize that enjoyment. Many, many aspects of gameplay still make KSP2 feel incomplete and empty for me at times, but I find that it still provides me that novel "wow" factor just as often. I imagine part of that feeling is thanks to never breaking past Kerbal and Duna's SOI's back in KSP1. Much of the franchise itself still feels new to me and I am sure this feeling is different for the veteran players on the forum. I do feel lucky in that way. So, tldr - mods and the creation of a plan of preparation for 0.3 have inspired me to play again. I'm eager for the future improvements this game desperately needs, but feeling content with what I have for now.

Absolutely crucial mod for me, thank you for finally restoring some KSP1 camera controls! I didn't realize how much I missed the panning feature until KSP2 launched without it. Would love to see if there is any way to replicate bokeh/depth of field effects and other, more cinematic camera features that some KSP1 mods had too. I think that is a natural "next step" for increasing the beauty of this game. Either way, well done. I'll never play KSP2 without this mod again.

Correct! Here at around 15:40. "Significantly shorter turnaround time," with, of course, an large asterisk including everything Nate said in the minute prior to the timestamp about not wanting to make concreate guarantees. In my eyes, a 6 month period between 0.2 and 0.3 would definitely be a significant difference. We will see come June.

Could this provide us a better clue for the release timeline of Colonies / 0.3? We have confirmation of at least a 0.2.2 release. Let's be optimistic and say that update comes in about 2 weeks (May 2nd, 2024). Using Scarecrow's average of 49 days between releases, we could anticipate the next update around June 20th. If that next update was 0.3 (again, being optimistic), then the timeline of milestones would look like this: 0.1 to 0.2 - 9 months, 26 days 0.2 to 0.3 (speculated) - 6 months, 2 days This timeline would match the hopes shared by Nate that the Colonies update would come quicker than For Science! and leaves quite a bit of breathing room. Even if there was a 0.2.3 update that dropped in June instead of 0.3 these timelines would still allow for an August release to follow (which still would meet the proposed timeline goals). Of course, this talk feels quite arbitrary given that each update and milestone is unique, but it helps put things in perspective. Do I want to wait until the end of summer for colonies? Not at all. However, the rate of development seems to show that we are indeed in the thick of it for now and the upcoming months.

Putting on my skeptic hat here, but given that this message is not a confirmation that project cancellations and/of layoffs did not impact KSP2, could it be possible that this news impacts overall development after 0.3? Could we see the project be cancelled midway through EA? I'll counter my own point by acknowledging that yesterday Mike also said, "The roadmap will be followed and fulfilled." Sure, this was just hours before the T2 Layoff news hit, so anything could change at any point, but speculating doomsday scenarios is much more entertaining when you have no leaks or content to look forward to!

Is this true, and if so can someone reference this? I always figured that current saves are always at risk of being broken by future updates and that's been a big reason why I haven't bothered to go far or create too many elaborate crafts.