KUAR

did T2 refuse to do any work in case their lovely paintwork got wet?

Sorry to say, Westinghouse, but if it is cancelled the chance that any of that will happen is next to zero surely.

At risk of deviating from the topic, have you ever tried running scrum for a hybrid software/hardware product which is subject to waterfall procurement and agile development (internally)? Really struggling to mesh the competing frameworks!

For me, the fun is about discovery. I don't think we need more planets, but I regret that we can see the current ones as clear as day from the KSC, mission control and the tracking station. I wish that we started out not knowing anything more than Kerbin, Kerbol, Minmus and Mun. Everything else needs to be discovered. We can get a rough, grey-ish indication from a space telescope; we can get more information by flybys; more by putting a scansat into polar orbit. That way, every mission adds something to our picture of the cosmos. The concept could be extended to Interstellar. Rather than identifying a specific planet, perhaps we only know that there's a star our there. We need to send a probe to figure out what planets there are and their orbits, and whether they have atmospheres.

Upvoted for the "Babe" reference

This is listed in "known issues" on the release notes

I have also seen this bug

I have also seen this bug

That's good and I agree...but figuring out the new drag cube maths will be interesting!

This is honestly the only way I see it working and I (perhaps naively) think that it should work. Perhaps it's an extension of sub-assemblies: you can define an assembly which is a rigid body, with a single resource storage/generation/specification characteristic, etc. etc. There would of course have to be limitations - decouplers/docking ports couldn't be in the middle of your assembly for instance, and perhaps it's progression-locked (rigid sub-assemblies up to X tonnes/Y parts, upgradeable like the VAB size/part count limits). It could also be limited to a certain percentage of your overall craft's mass or part count. I can see that it would be complicated to implement with e.g. aero model, parts manager UI, etc. etc. but I see it as being the best option. A small number of large monolithic parts doesn't interest me as it'll kill variety. If they're going down that route then serious investment in part development would be required.

As a person who generally errs on the more positive and optimistic side for KSP2, sadly I've been a little underwhelmed at the imagination that the new science mode appears (at first glance) to exhibit. Then, positively shocked at the clunkiness of the work in progress reentry heating animation! I expect it will be made a little more slick before release but right now it looks like the graphics design apprentice did it as homework. Sorry, I know there's probably a committed developer on the other end of it, and I'm sure there's complexities I've missed...but that's how it looks to me.

I disagree. I'm fine with being punished for forgetting to do this at the right time. It's realistic - we've lost control of the probe. Allowing us to deploy them after that is cheaty like the OP implied. Now, there's an argument over whether some models of panels have some exposed area even when folded away - that's fair.

Better - scrap the current method and have a kerbal placement dialog after hitting the launch button. It's something I forget to check far too often. I'm launching an unmanned rescue mission only to discover all the seats are already occupied by hitchhikers...

Before I start, I'm of the view that KSP2 should be aiming to differentiate itself from KSP1 and with the first two milestones it feels like the aim is to create a remaster rather than a sequel. It feels like the team is a little afraid of changing too much look and feel - although perhaps they have their hands full with the under-the-hood changes that are needed for the later milestones. I'll also deliberately avoid commenting on specific parts, and gameplay mechanics that conceivably could be in announced milestones. That's a separate thread I think - e.g. "how should colonies work". That said, here's a list: - Take the most popularly-installed mods from KSP1 and bring them into core. The ones on my mind right now are procedural parts; docking port alignment; KER; etc. Specifically, I can't see a good reason why not to have procedural tanks, even if it's of a set diameter and variable length. Adds some graphical challenges for the part modellers but as a gameplay mechanic and general tidy-up of the parts catalogue, invaluable. - More reasons to progressively explore planets with different science experiments to enable future exploration/expansion. For example, off the top of my head - we can use a drag prediction tool so we can get the right parachutes config...but only if we've measured the atmosphere composition at the relevant altitudes. We can EVA...but we need to have measured the temperatures, radiation etc. so we can "have a suitable spacesuit". I'm of the camp that says it doesn't have to make perfect scientific sense. It's a game and they rarely are completely logical. But, if you could imagine yourself convincing a five-year-old that "we need to do X so that Y can happen" then that's good enough. - Mission planning tools. I've mentioned parachute predictions earlier - it's disappointing that we need to guess the number. Equally, landing stability calculations - will my craft balance OK with this much fuel left on this angle of slope (ok so perhaps we have CM indicators for that, so never mind). I'm not sure how realistic re-entry will be but do we need to identify how much ablator we need? Heat/solar management predictions. I know we can go get a notebook and calculator for some of this, but some in-built tools would be really cool. - Ability to rotate docking ports once docked, or they snap on docking to the right orientation if you're close. If I'm building in orbit, I want to be able to get the modules of my space station lined up right. Aah dammit, just generally more support for orbital construction. I'm now moving away from the things that have bothered me, and am now into the realms of pulling ideas out of thin air... - Auto-adjustment to achieve a given CM or CT. If you're creating a non-symmetric design, when you thrust up it can start to rotate (obviously). Tools in the VAB to offset certain masses or thrusts to achieve alignment (might need to assume a certain fuel load) would be handy. Later, Auto-adjustment of engine thrust per-engine (or per symmetry set?) to maintain heading - we can do it with RCS, reaction wheels and gimbal but not dynamic thrust adjustment. Perhaps only certain engines can support it for "technology" reasons... -

I can' believe we ever used to build wings from multiple fixed panels and it's revolutionary* (now one of the wings doesn't think it needs to be upside-down in the VAB). *no pun intended