Infinite Aerospace

That's true, whether it's an official account or not really matters given the context.

Next question being, why continue to develop a project you are intending to axe at the end of June? I think there's a decent chance the 0.2.2 patch will drop in the next week or two, with some communication from Nate and there's a very outside chance the next update could be Colonies related, perhaps aimed for the final curtain. I guess it depends how the progress on that has been. But it does point toward the game being handed over, rather than cancelled IMO.

God, that's going back a while, I have no idea! When was that now, four years ago or something?

Whilst I agree, it would be in their best interests overall to clarify the situation. If the game isn't dead, they need to reassure people of that IMO.

I've gotta ask, if Intercept Games is no more, Kerbal Space Program development has stopped and the game is dead.........who is updating the development branches? Going by the Steam DB there's been numerous updates to numerous branches (one yesterday to a branch titled 'Voyager'). Whilst I'm not reading too much into what that does or doesn't mean, it's certainly interesting. Ah, Robin Hood country.

I think to call the game what amounts to a buggy mess, in its current iteration is a bit disingenuous to be honest. Does it have bugs? Yes, it does but nowhere even in the same area code as what it did have, game breaking bugs like the 'save bug' where the games save file would balloon to fantastical sizes, is long gone at this point. The Kerbal Space Centre randomly joining us on the ascent to orbit, for example, is also long gone. Now the bugs are a lot less 'game breaking' and more an annoyance. Like, "Will my parachutes open? Who knows!" is really the only bug I persistently come across now, and occasionally something like the trajectory line will disappear, but all in all it's not too bad and I fully believe the remainder of the 'more irritating' bugs were being dealt with over time. What I think got lost somewhere is how not bad the game actually runs for people using decent, mid-range and above systems. With For Science! we'd reached a point where the game actually ran quite well, certainly not hugely less than KSP1 with stuff like volumetric clouds (which are vanilla in KSP2) but loads times remained fantastic, and quick. I honestly believe that Colonies would have changed the fortunes of the game and finally set it apart from the original we all hold so dear.

Hasn't he been listed as Private Division since the development of Kerbal Space Program II started?

I can 100% understand the reasoning, and I don't at all criticise it but if Kerbal Space Program II is in-fact now, clinically deceased in gaming terms. Everyone who currently owns it is still free to play it and given it's dead status, the fact it'll be review bombed to oblivion, no-one is realistically going to purchase it, not really. Take Two aren't going to be earning from people playing a game they already legally own, their point of making money is at the checkout. So, assuming we're going to be the final vestige of Kerbal Space Program II owners, realistically I don't think it really matters what we do, and don't do. If modders wants to pull the plug from their personal passion projects and distance themselves from it, that's perfectly fine, I respect the moral motivation of that. If modders wants to continue exploring what can be done in Kerbal Space Program II, there's a good few thousand owners of the game that could be beneficiary's of that. Either way, the decision is up-to whoever it is, and that's really it.

It doesn't have a specific purpose in-game so much as to act as a framework for other mods. Lux's SORRY mod for example, requires this for the engine exhaust and plumes.

There's some fairly high profile people, in the space community who are players and supporters of Kerbal Space Program. So it's a potential hornets nest for sure, given that none of these people are affiliated with, or work in the games industry but do command a sizeable audience, on Twitter.

Some mods have done that, I'd argue JNSQ has the best planet textures of any Kerbal Space Program mod. However I've not really seen any substantial improvement to Kerbin itself. I'd love to see it, don't get me wrong.

Does that collection of fixes fix robotics being like wet pasta? If so, then perhaps robotics has some redeeming features.

Really well put together response. Thank you for that. Where abouts in the UK might I ask do you hail from?

Given that the games use totally different version of Unity, and the first game was a bit of a mess in terms of coding, I *doubt* it's practical to do.

The only question that matters is: Does Kerbal Space Program still represent some potential value to Take Two Interactive. Do they see the completion of the game as a potential profit making point, I know the feelings around the game are currently at an absolute low point. They're going to be looking further ahead than that. Kerbal Space Program is a potential sleeper Game of the Year, and I'm not even being facisous. With what was planned, it's right up there with other contenders for that accolade. So, is there value in the IP for Take Two Interactive?

I agree with all of those 'could be' scenarios. I would like to think it's 1) at the bare minimum. Back when our old Yard was closing, we were all essentially jobless on *insert date*, there wasn't anyone who didn't still give it their all because at the end of the day, we owed that to our customer to deliver the work that we were being paid to do. I can't imagine professionals in a given field just, sitting around even during their final months in their given role. So, I'd like to think at an absolute minimum, the developers are still well, developing until their roles officially end. Even then if Take Two were being honest when they said Kerbal Space Program is safe, then it's also gotta be either 3) or 4), or 4) until 3) comes into effect. As much as Take Two are 'big bad' corporate types, it's a big public relations risk, on their part to broadcast for the world to see that a project is safe, and then have lied about it and cancelled it. There's one thing that matters to corporations, especially those of which who highlight their 'Best Place to Work' awards on Linkedin, is reputation. Coming across as deceitful, and/or disingenuous could genuinely hit their bottom line somewhere down the line, and you can guarantee that statement is saved by some incase they do in-fact go back on their word. It's extremely dangerous business practice to risk such a thing in a world where a single Tweet can snowball, spiral out of control. I've seen companies sustain irreparable damage due to the social media world and public opinion. So I'd honestly urge Take Two to be sincere on their intentions here. It could be the case that, looking at progress made, time taken and funding, Take Two have decided that Intercept as a studio just isn't up to the task at hand and think perhaps another team might be. As positive as I 'was' feeling about the game, with Nate's quite excited tone in his most recent update, would you blame Take Two if that's what was deduced? Has Intercept Games done enough to validate it's existence, and stewardship of the IP?

Might I ask, has Tim C. Kerman tagged the likes of @ToryBruno with this petition (on X), the guy bleeds rocket fuel, he'd probably actually sign it.

To be fair if the likes of ESA, NASA, SpaceX and the likes even voiced their support for the game. That could make a big difference, organisations like NASA and companies like SpaceX are kinda hard to ignore. It cements your game in the realms of actual space flight and exploration. The fact Tory Bruno, United Launch Alliance CEO talks about Kerbal Space Program over on Twitter (Sorry Elon but X is just stupid) speaks volumes, given that he's the head of a real life launch provider. In-fact, a genuine, not insane thing to do, would be to draft a collective letter, to the likes of NASA, Elon Musk, Peter Beck (Rocket Lab USA), Tory Bruno and just ask them to tweet something in solidarity with Kerbal Space Program. It sounds ridiculous, but I honestly think Tory at least might actually be willing to do it, I'd genuinely not be surprised if Elon did as well. Same goes for ESA. #SaveKerbalSpaceProgram could be our proposed hashtag on Twitter (X is a crap name, come on Elon)

The main issue there is, we're such a small group that I doubt Take Two care about the 'Horrendous brand stewardship' part of that. Kerbal Space Program just happens to be the only Take Two game I'm interested in to begin with. Also, at this point if the game does somehow go on, I'd honestly just scratch 'Multiplayer' off the roadmap. It's genuinely the least appealing of the roadmap items that is going to be one of the biggest technical headaches with the most potential coding/implementation issues. Remove that and I think development time will come down a fairly significant amount. It's Colonies and Interstellar that would have made, or broken the fortunes of this game.

I mean, it's objectively better than KSP1 right now I would argue to be honest. Whilst it's missing 'some' of the features, stuff like resources, robotics (Let's face it, these were always crap). When Kerbal Space Program, as in the original was in this stage it was barely even a game, and it ran comically bad even on decent systems. Look at it in an objective sense, and you'll notice that it has achieved parity with KSP1 in terms of visuals, when KSP1 is modded to the eyeballs, it does this whilst achieving bloody good load times, it doesn't run as bad as a lot of people would believe, get EVE (With volumetric clouds), Scatterer, Planetshine, Parallax, and not only does it take about ten (or more) times longer to load, it doesn't run appreciably better. Does it have bugs? Yeah, it has bugs but remember, KSP1 was barely even playable in the earlier phases of development, I think the main complaint regarding the current state of the game is that it should realistically be further along at this point given the development team size. But the next patch was going to contain a significant drop in VRAM usage for example, so each major patch they find areas that can be better optimised. KSP1 doesn't have this because the coding is just mush. Plus, have you seen the screens of the updates to volumetric clouds? To keep getting better and better visuals, whilst digging out more performance indicates that at its core, KSP2 is a much better coded game, vs. KSP1. The laptop I use is as follows: Ryzen 7 5800H, 64 Gb RAM and RTX 3060M, M.2 SSD. Running the game at maximum settings (Except textures due to VRAM) with max anti-aliasing.

[Snip] Nope, they've got no hope in hell of breaking even as we are discussing this right now. Like at this point, the only hope for KSP2 to make money is to dramatically speed up and streamline development. That's why I don't get the whole concept of scrapping a half baked product before you've ever really seen how it can perform in the market. To Take Two interactive it's either write the game off as a loss of *insert figure* or to continue to completion, which will cost *insert figure*. Looking at that I can't really make a case for the first. Completing it will undoubtedly cost more money, but a completed KSP2 is much, much more appealing than a half-baked, cancelled one. You could conceivably see a completed KSP2 shifting quite a few copies, especially if it's ported to the Xbox Series S/X and PlayStation 5. Owning an IP is utterly pointless if it's just going to gather dust.

Glad to see you still enjoying the game. I haven't been on for a while until about eight days ago and I fired up the laptop and went straight back in. It's a 'good' game to be honest, I feel we kinda under-appreciated what it was, because of what we wanted it to be. How I see KSP2, in May of 2024 is, it's like modded KSP1 without the glacial load times and some nice refinements (I know this is subjective, but I like their design choices with the UI, with the Part Manager). It's going to be hard to go back to KSP1, never thought it would be but I tried it the other night and man, it just 'feels' different.

[Snip] I've gotta ask, because I'm curious. What were their 'real intentions'? Because the whole insane notion the game was some 'cash grab' is insane, as if it has indeed been cancelled (fingers crossed there is still a lifeline for KSP2), Take Two are going to be making a loss on it. That's not a very good plan if the plan was to mislead, and fleece people.

You can find that on Michael (NerdyMike) Linkedin. He comments about being layed off at Intercept Games, how it's bittersweet in essence but how he's enjoyed his time there and is doing what he can to ensure his work (whatever that might entail) is 'left in good hands'. Now that, left in good hands part suggests he is handing over to someone else, otherwise that statement is a non-statement. He also mentions Dakota being someone else whose being layed off but does not state the team as a whole is being layed off. Whether there's anything in that or not remains unclear, we also know BlackRack has been let go, but the likes of Nate, Nertea, for example still have their positions (on Linkedin) at Intercept Games - Private Division. Again, whether there's anything beyond face value, is unknown. It might just be that neither Nate or Chris has bothered to update their current job on Linkedin, OR it could mean that not everyone is gone and development is simply being restructured, relocated.

Yeah "No Comment".