Rothryn

Agreed. Insights like that are fantastic. Not only are they generally interesting to watch (including the differences to KSP1 and what tradeoffs/benefits occur), but it also shows that this game is in active development and juicy features are very much in the oven just waiting to be well done.

If taking over development of a game(or computer program in general) from a different studio was as easy as transferring a bunch of files to different people, many people out there would sleep a lot better and be less stressed out. Not to mention that Intercept didn't even exist before they took over from Star Theory, so not only did they have to get into the code and the models and the structure of the game, they also had to develop all the development processes on for it on top of developing their whole company structure and internal processes. All of this takes a significant amount of time and money. The pace they're developing at isn't "incredible" as you so sarcastically wanna put it, it's just pretty decent. But again, you evidently don't wanna play this game early access, nor do you care about insights, so be happy you get that tasty discount over the release version and wait a while to check back in, like OP. ^^

The scope is still to make a game that has accurate enough orbital mechanics approximations that you can timewarp over the span of a few ingame years in a matter of minutes and still have your PC not melt due to the amount of calculations, have the trajectory accurate enough under really fast time warp (and with acceleration under time warp) that the inevitable calculation rounding errors don't end up making you miss the targeted solar system entirely and make that easily packageable to send it over the internet to multiple people, which is a much bigger scale than what KSP1 ever set out to achieve. Not to mention that so far they've improved upon aerodynamics and the thermal system looks like a huge step up from KSP1 as well. For example, yes. They've shown the improvements of the new system over the old and how the system works vs how it worked in KSP1 (also, they did show a brief ingame example). I believe so far they've also talked about how the thermal system will work compared to KSP1 in a forum post. They're actively developing, dispite thousands of people not having the patience for what is an alpha release with about an update every two months so far and a certainly playable, fairly stable and gorgeous looking version of the game. 10 years will be plenty time to get this game going. The performance improvements from the last few patches alone compared to the Early Access release have been quite good. The game is in a very playable state right now and they're currently ironing out the kinks after getting thousands of new eyes on it. And don't forget that having a game transferred to another studio isn't just like shoving over a document and another person keeps writing in the same style. The whole pipeline of creating it has to be looked over and adjusted, maybe re-established entirely. Code, models, development tools have to be looked over, understood and implemented anew. You don't start from scratch, but it's not a trivial amount of effort. Given that that happend in mid 2021, Intercept's official development time on the game has been more around 2 years at this point and it looks like they've done a good job so far. But I guess all of this doesn't matter, if you don't wanna play an early access game, so check back in a while to see how it's going and see how much it has improved or which new features have been implemented, maybe even wait a year. I for one am enjoying the new aerodynamics with my planes in the meantime and can't wait for the thermal stuff so I can get into proper spacecraft. ^^

Definitely a great idea, especially the incentive based approach instead of a punishment based approach. Would certainly incentivise much more interesting vessel designs. A well thought through suggestion!

That was a reply. You feel like KSP1 moved ahead a lot faster than KSP2 and I gave reasons as to why it might seem like it, even though there's quite a few more and more experienced people working on it.

That's because KSP1's team was absolutely tiny and they had little funding, initially little understanding of game development and a very limited scope, which all limited coordination, limited how many features at a time could be developed, etc. The scope and dev team of KSP2 is a LOT bigger, especially with interstellar travel and multiplayer in mind with everything they build, so a lot of these features take more coordination and time to develop and, as evident, blasting out updates like nobody's business that actually don't improve a lot (because tons of the bugs are really complex), will have people label them as "lazy" anyway, so why not take your time and make sure stuff you put out there works? Also, recent update communications and vidoes about future features have been fantastic. I'm very, very sure that even though it may feel like KSP2 isn't moving at a breakneck pace, the complexity and breadth of a sandbox spaceflight simulation with self-built spaceships over distances that span lightyears with errors during timewarp small enough that you won't notice them and syncronising that via internet between multiple clients all the while gathering science, having that look pretty and maybe, just maybe, not fry your processor is quite the task that requires careful planning and, most importantly, time.

I think a hide option would be a handy addition. Maybe even a "hide parts without options/toggles" tickbox at the top of the window. Would certainly make navigating that menu much easier.

Not just on shuttle replicas, it would be beneficial for everything that uses the Mk3 cockpit. Heck, I'd probably use it more often if it had them. Also, since the RCS are modeled on the part, player expectations will be that they will be functional, given that all other pods that have modeled RCS thrusters have them be functional as well. There is also no option for aerodynamic RCS (even if it's just for looks) and the other RCS thrusters just kinda look like warts sticking out from the sides on the Mk3 cockpit's nose. On that note, an "aerodynamic shroud" option for RCS thrusters would be a really cool idea in general as a part toggle or an additional variant, even if they're physicsless parts. Could even integrate with the research system so you can unlock regular RCS early on but on some aerodynamics research tier you get the sleek, cool RCS ports and can even upgrade some old craft with those.

It's not super difficult to merge a few procedural wings together into one as long as both wing parts are the same size category (as in small, medium, large) and as long as you build the whole wing before tilting it in any direction. You can basically enter the same values you have in the wing tip of the first half of the wing (as in tip thickness and tip length) for the wing root of the second wing (as in, enter them for root thickness and root length). You'll have the exact same shape and now you just have to attach the second wing half to the tip of the first half with snapping enabled from where you just have to adjust the position of it to match. That being said, being able to split the control surface in two and ajusting where that split is would for sure make stuff quite convenient if you only want a single, simple wing shape.