PDCWolf

Sorry for the necro but this has been omitted in the discussion: Those images are not even close to raw sensor data. What you can get from light is entirely limited by physics, just like most things in our universe. This image is a combination of two instruments: NIRCam and MIRI. They take hundreds of images at multiple levels of exposures, some to get the highlights, others to get the detail in shadows. Those are then processed with super advanced masking techniques, by teams of dozens of people, and they're converted via software from infrared to color. No matter how advanced your technology, getting that to a real time hud/magic eye is impossible simply because: You need multiple exposures, and some need to be long to allow detail from shadows to come up. An HDR image is composed of at least 3 different exposures. You aperture is limited, so unless you consider a lens the size of Earth, dimmer objects will always need multi-second exposures. Even if you had lenses the size of Earth, you can only configure them to a certain exposure per image, so you still need multiple exposures. You could overcome part of this with a multiple-lens system, but you'd still need to correct parallax artifacts, and have a system to integrate everything in real time. You'll need to constantly adjust the exposure for either multiple images, or multiple lenses, as lighting changes say from interstellar space to being in orbit of a star, or just night to day. If your low light sensors are too sensitive, you get noise, if they aren't, you still lose detail to darkness. Low light images still need to be masked/protected from brighter light sources. You can't realistically handwave away the limitations of how we capture light, and it's not like there are other ways out there to capture light. Magic eyes/HUDs are not even sci-fi, that's why it's an artistic choice, and not a realism one if you decide to portray your media like that, because you can't achieve that result in real time with any real life method.

That's why I asked "why". If you lurk/post here on KSP2 hype/feature/marketing threads without really expecting anything, why bother? I understand stoicism, I don't understand willfuly wasting one's time when you aren't taking any part of the information releases as holding any value. Then what is? Saying a feature is coming apparently isn't, showing it isn't either, giving a timeframe for it ("post 1.0 update") isn't either. That's subjective at best, specially since they used MP coming as the biggest sales bait on linked public articles and their social medias. Doesn't detract from the fact that I can still tell people to not trust those promises based on the dev/studio history of not being able to keep them. Even if there's no legal accountability, there's public accountability. As many as they should, specially since it was used as sales bait, this is exactly why 10 years later we've still got people asking for the feature, and why the sequel was announced with a big "MULTIPLAYER AT LAUNCH" attached on social media posts and other publications. My only goal here is telling people to not believe that based on their history of using MP as bait and then silently failing to deliver.

I mean, if we dismiss words like that, why are we even expecting a game? They literally didn't say "we promise to deliver KSP2", which it is said in one of my linked articles for KSP1. They mentioned the word "committed" in "committed to bring Multiplayer as a free post 1.0 update", they answered community members telling them it was coming, planned, and lastly, I challenge you to find any post that says "multiplayer for KSP1 has been cancelled". Found this one to add to the list too: https://www.facebook.com/kerbalspaceprogram/posts/pfbid02XaN4WXrPbKnYAJmMw6Lx3zNDMEAYxwJwu1B8qhB8PNgnYUyjpmek8wWFyLTtqWDwl?comment_id=978554832163741&reply_comment_id=978557518830139&__cft__[0]=AZVwiaMTGEh_cezOVANZ1-TfC7oeTZY4SWP6Rfi_rsdsenCI_J-p8VswhssfvtsvQanhtzno8KiH3YIjerixjBk9xHtnSmKvzfTqOgUvcda1tsXK41oXa25Me8BlS2Z4TmxTmBpiaSe_2Rsl9-LZqPsH&__tn__=R]-R Multiplayer was a last resource promise to give a boost to 1.0 sales. It never arrived, it was never cancelled either, just swept under the rug if anything. Like really, and I'm repeating myself, at that point we really shouldn't be here, or listening to any marketing if nothing they can ever say is ever to be considered as "promised".

"Squad is committed [...]" https://www.pcgamer.com/kerbal-space-program-committed-to-multiplayer-career-and-sandbox-modes/ "We're working on it[...]" "Free update after 1.0". "Squad has promised other long-requested features, including an official multiplayer mode" https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/kerbal-10-release-women/

I check these forums through RSS and the title really fricking got me. They still owe us updates from multiplayer in KSP1, and you think they're gonna say anything about multiplayer in KSP2? That's probably not coming till like a year after release, if it ever comes, no matter what they've said.

This'd be great, but requires a lot more effort than just a 3d model and its texturing job. Real motors have a lot of components not even close to being simulated in the original game: Inefficiencies from deep throttling, chamber pressure dropoff, myriad of fuel combinations, etc. Add to that the fact that the universe is 10 times smaller, and you get a whole level of inconsistencies that's unreconcilable. This is exactly why Realism Overhaul pretty much requires RSS and breaks everything in the game if you don't get the real solar system size. This means they have to rework the parts for the toy scale, add the missing systems, and then somehow find a way to translate that to a performance level that matches the real world. The level of compromises they'd have to take makes it pretty impossible for it to be anything more than a simple visual representation (which some parts already are). If we leave realism aside (which should be the point of something like this), I think it'd still be cool to see more real-life analogues, even if just visual.

Can we please have some clarification on whether this is captured in editor, in engine or in game?

First off, sorry, I quoted the wrong post, I meant to quote this one: Second off, I do agree with the statement if we're talking about KSP1, but definitely not KSP2, it has to at least live up to its contemporaries, they have one of the biggest publishers in gaming behind them, and a big enough team now as well. Those are my expectations as a customer obviously.

KSP is no longer an indie developed by an independent small studio. We need to do away with the lowballing.

If 2 really is done, then 1 is mostly done as well, they're pretty tight with each other. 3 requires that legs and SAS stop being magically strong, once that is done, hills and such will become pretty hard to land on. Further on, proper aerodynamics (with consequences) will make packing legs a challenge, so you can't just add legs to anything and use those + magic SAS to plonk a vessel down anywhere. Those barriers would not be arbitrary, they'd be as realistic as they get. Real life rockets don't take off with unprepared un-aerodynamic parts hanging off the side. 4 has been done by mods, don't really need to explain, just make the magic tracking station map not magic by blurring it or just showing a 2d image or something, until you send a mapping probe. 6 has progress from breaking ground, they just need to iterate a couple times more on it to get a proper and engaging sample return experience. 7 is again literally made by mods, requiring life support limits your choices in a meaningful way, as crew can't just land anywhere and spend any amount of time hanging out, missions suddenly require planning AND execution. Add to that a layer of wind/clouds/weather and you can't just land or takeoff whenever you want anymore, there are weather mods already for KSP1. It seems the issue is you grossly overestimating everything suggested as an atom level simulation, when it really doesn't need to be that.

That's a wide berth you have to take to go from "planets are uninteresting" to "the only way to fix that is simulated geology and meaningful voxel terrain". On top of that, the challenge you mention applies once per body, thus again back to my argument: You have no reason to visit more than once. What I'd suggest is they look at planets from a level design perspective and not just a collection of PQS parameters to form a homogenously boring collection of hills and craters. Moho has the mohole, and other than that is just a brown Mun; Eve is probably the only one you visit more than once trying a return mission but outside the difficulty of returning, again, a purple Mun with metal oceans Minmus lets you play with marginal gravity, but it is such an easy body to do whatever you want in that its huge contrasts of flatness and mountains matters zero; Duna is everybody's first target, but it is no more than an orange Mun with its poles being interesting, yet they offer no difference in gameplay; Dres has an amazing canyon, which you'll land in or around once and then never visit again, if anybody ever visits in the first place; Joolian moons offer an oversized Mun, an ice Mun, a smaller and geology-lacking Kerbin, and 2 asteroids which offer no difference between each other (or with the other asteroid, Gilly); Lastly Eeloo offers a challenge in solar panels being mostly useless, but its geology is again really uninteresting. If you really want a collection of suggestions, here: Make the biome system meaningful: More biomes, and actually visually different from one another, instead of random, arbitrary boundaries. The most visually varied biome collection, where you can actually discern you're in a different biome, is the KSC right now. Manually design planets with its geology in mind, PQS and other procedural systems are great to spam, but they've got a very limited number of planets, with even some gas giant wildcars they don't even have to model. Make landing challenging: If I can literally land anywhere with enough legs/SAS, then examining the geology of a landing site becomes meaningless. I'd prefer planets with obvious landing targets and accesible science on those than just rocket hopping, which again is only a choice because landing is no challenge. Planets shouldn't be completely identifiable at first glance. This has been "fixed" by many mods, you shouldn't be able to just look at a planet and chose a landing site with magic tracking center map data, you should need to at least send a mapping probe first. Meaningful atmospheres. Atmosphere density was barely played with in KSP, and there was no wind either, let alone clouds or weather. Those make landings and launches hard, as you can't just land or launch anywhere and anytime. Sample returns should be meaningful, and so should be probe science. Breaking Ground added some good changes to that system, the trend should continue. Life support. Not all planets are supposed to support life, most don't even give a place for grass to grow, sustaining anything from landed vessels to colonies should be a challenge, and this would greatly tie in with all the previous points.

Alright, let me put it like this: KSP1/2 planets (for KSP2 seemingly) have no organic reason for me to come back, and that's organic as opposed to forced. "We made biomes so you can farm more science although the planet still looks exactly the same anywhere" is forcing me to come back, because even if the text from the experiments is different, the rest looks exactly the same. This is the opposite to the absolute myriad of missions we've sent to the Moon, Mars, and all those we've designed for other bodies, where each of them has a different profile, goals, and study subject.

Note that with "Barren" I don't mean "lacking life/civilization/aliens", but rather "lacking anything interesting other than random scattered models you'll look at once and never have any reason to go back to said world". When your worlds are procedural, with the same recolored texture over them, there's literally no reason to revisit, this is why career forcefully coerces you to do the same thing over and over in different "biomes", which again are no different from one another. In SpaceEngine for example you get interesting constructs, hints of activity (even if geological), and can look at many different geographical formations, along with a full suite of astrophysical data. In No Man's Sky every planet might be a single biome, but at least has its own flavor of generated native constructs to have anything different from other similar bodies, plus a whole system of derelicts from other spacefaring individuals/races, and then the two tech tree unlocking facilities, plus some specific planets set aside to be entirely different from the rest tying into the sentinel narrative. KSP1 (and seemingly KSP2) do none of that.

I think the last trailer was a negative for anyone who's played the previous Bethesda (not necessarily fallout) games. The group I was watching SGS with instantly recognized the classic "beth rpg" gameplay and engine mechanics. This adds up on top of negative articles coming out. Now, for your apples to apples: Starfield's ship building looked like a direct repurposing of FO4/76's base building, with building (ship in this case) blocks interconnecting to provide bonuses/maluses. Shape really didn't seem much relevant in what they showed, because neither were physics relevant in what they showed. Base building: Again, they literally have no reason to do anything different from what they did in 4/76, those systems were liked, even when limited and buggy, and it seems they've really gone and done nothing but new assets. IVA in Starfield is probably limited to walkable "interiors" and first person flying. With this I mean that you'll be able to move inside your ship only when your ship isn't being flown (so, only after you land, or if they maybe have some "in flight" phase). KSP2 seems to have nothing different from KSP1 in regards to IVA. Planets in KSP1 were absolutely barren and KSP2's are looking no different, other than maybe some heavily planned and worked geographical accident I don't really expect anything but random scatter. Beth probably will do the same, with either small explorable zones as "maps", or ME's Barren giant maps with some scattered POIs. As for environments, they've gone for the magic space clouds and stars with 0 realism, and magic space particles to visualize movement in controllable flight. Combat really looks no different than NMS in that it is the most simplistic "dogfighting" you could come up with without having people learn how stuff actually would work in space. Outside of that, Starfield will literally be FO4/76 with fake air combat. Bethesda clearly has no intention of stepping up their elementary school writing, or give up bad systems like "infinite quest generation" composed of "grab X from Y after killing Z". Another show of wasted potential until modders decide to switch to it and maybe make something out of the game.

There's a bit more nuance to the topic, and the presence of a human face is not needed. See for example the demos shown at places like E3 where you have a human holding a controller, performing motions that have nothing to do with the running demo on screen, that's non verifiable, even with a human right there, specially since those demos tend to have a lot of movement and camera smoothing, and sometimes they've been found out to be completely scripted. This ties into scripting having the possibility to show stuff in a way you won't experience, If you show me a hudless static building with a camera turning around it you could definitely write a whole article around the colony building system, but really the only thing we can all unequivocally agree has been actually shown working is the models of buildings. Heck in that specific shot even the terrain is up to question. That's why the concept of verifiable gameplay exists, because companies have, for decades, really tried to play around every angle and setting to pass their bullshots for actual products. That's why the requirement is simple: human input (which can easily be shown under a scripted camera) or human perspective (as opposed to a scripted camera), or a mix of both (best possible case), otherwise it gets the label of "not real gameplay".

No recent gameplay footage of any conditions has been shown, other than non verifiable bits of ships using their engines. Hey, "nobody likes it" includes me as well, I hate them with a passion, but so far a lot of verifiable gameplay shown outside the vab includes wobbly rockets. Check the following sources: 0:34 7:53 and 12:40 though it is the same rocket 1:15 Since this follows more or less the same line as the other posts: Verifiable gameplay shows human input, or a human perspective, or a mix of both. If you can attribute scripted qualities to a footage (hud-less scripted camera movement being the most used by KSP2 media shown to date) then you can't really, scientifically, can't verify that a human was actually playing a videogame. This is why "in-engine" cutscenes/footage don't qualify as gameplay. This is exactly why they had changed their approach from labeling footage "pre-alpha gameplay" to "not real gameplay". Starfield, even with the delay, has more than 3 times the following of KSP2, yet they do engage in those marketing avenues you mentioned and public/gaming media are still pretty much interested enough in what the game is actually about to produce both articles about it and traffic to them. KSP2 enjoys none of that, along with a much smaller following that's also been allowed to peter out for almost 3 years. It's really not as similar as you might want to put it. There would be no reason to focus the attention of the public, but I believe there pretty much is once you consider the running numbers.

Under very specific circumstances and only in very specific ways, not as a wet noodle which is what the game shows. Further on, real life structural flexibility has nothing to do with in-game bending either. You sold me two false equivalences for the price of one. I refuse to relate the in-game wobbliness with any real life event, they're not the same, they do not represent the same, and they do not happen for the same reasons. Wobble can happen on a short, balanced rocket so long as you mismatch node sizes (which is why it tends to happen on the payload side), it can be (and most times is) completely unrelated to real life events, this is not at all equivalent to staging related complications which work pretty well as a real-life abstraction and the same goes for aerodynamic tumbling, they're well simulated and communicated, wobble isn't.

They implemented a hacked fix to sidestep their own gameplay fix, that's enough of a clue that it's not really a programmed mechanic. Nowadays if your rocket is bendy you can just right click > autostrut to X. Further on, most bending is caused by how dumb the joint system is (weakness being a result of different sized joints interacting). It is not really a gameplay feature, shouldn't be, and shouldn't be considered as one either. On this same hand, rockets don't bend in real life, just check Proton's most popular failure, where it even went completely lateral against the airstream and disintegrated first before visually bending.

I hate part clipping with a passion, but since they denied us advanced tweakables there's no other way to get the parts you want unless you mod the game and make the part yourself. There should be a middle ground here, or rather a proper implementation of "there's X volume inside this part and you can fill it with whatever you want". Yes, at that point it is just plain exploiting. This extends building capabilities without being cheating per se, the only advantage is based on the dumb way they manage drag (empty nodes + bounding box). High lift low drag describes all the wings, they're absolutely broken like the whole aerodynamic system. I have no idea why they gave such aggressive stats to heat shields, considering they don't offset the CoM to allow controlled descents. That's entirely on the devs, they made parts that magically attract, along with a whole hacked-in system of force dispersion. The whole physics management during unpacking on all scenarios is royally broken, and there's a myriad of mods that attempt to fix that and expand functionality, I'd be really disappointed if they made the same mistakes again. Unity's crappy default joint system. Wobbliness should not be a feature, rockets would explode before visually bending anyways. They're weak, sloppy, buggy, and left unfinished. I regret paying for them every single day. Didn't know this one lmao. The whole part resistance system is completely out of balance and was never looked at again. Again, would be really disappointed if they made the same mistake. Most of the things on your list are attributable to Unity's crappy physics, or stuff the devs overlooked or outright didn't bother fixing/polishing, but hey, they had to prove us wrong that the game was ready for release :^)

This is the only verifiable hands on gameplay we have yet: https://youtu.be/Vmgm8L4QlCE?t=266. The other verifiable gameplay footage dates from before this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRewAKMllVo love how even VGC calls it "first real gameplay". Anything else doesn't qualify as gameplay, as it lacks a person clearly playing the game. This is an opinion. Getting a real product in people's hands, even a broken one, is marketing, and has been used as marketing since ever, EA just gave a new way to do that other than demos or shareware CDs in ye olde days. We do agree that a big studio using it is kinda cringe, but at this point I'd take any signal that KSP2 has progressed along. Yes and no, as I said, it'll at least be a life signal. I do agree going EA after 3 years of delay would be a red flag for many, but it's also a way to actually get something out before people completely forget and the product underperforms due to that. "Hey we're delaying because we're trying to get this particular feature we promised to work" "Hey it's us, we've gotten this other feature to work now" "Hey it's us, we're still developing something" Those are all examples of stuff they could do whilst not leaving their customers in the dark. Delays alone are an even worse pr strategy than saying something. People spend their money somewhere else (now we'll probably get starfield before KSP2), look away, or just outright forget the game exists. KSP2 doesn't have too much people to forget about it before it's just usual forumgoers waiting for it, and that's how you get an underperforming product, ending up in a shortened lifespan, and bitter feelings towards the franchise from the studio/publisher. I expected whoever is in charge now to continue the marketing campaing, instead they've first slowed it down to a video every few months, and since the last video to total silence. They played that little moon rocket landing easter egg game on their videos and it only ended up in a delay, so that's yet another loss of goodwill. You don't market something and then forget about it, because that's what customers will do.

Yeah, for sure, however we have so little actual in-game footage that I'm really not comfortable with just ignoring anything. No, I expected a buggy early access game with rapid delivery of updates, like most EA. On the other hand, we got slow and dry updates which they wanted to "internally test" to polish for months before delivering to their... early access customers. This is exactly what lead to people claiming for a "public test branch" (on an EA GAME!) to actually have an early access experience, but the original devs insisted on closed testing cycles before releases to achieve an X level of "polish" before public releases... on an EA game. Not anymore, you might want to go with dictionary definitions but EA has taken off into so much more than just "let people test for free and fund development". This is basic marketing stuff that people have already realized, thus not every early access includes the customer as a tester (like how, you know, KSP1 didn't). Neither "funding development" and "have the public do testing" are the only goals of Early Access launches, together or separate. The rest of your post feels like you put marketing on an on-off switch to judge it... "their marketing can't be crap if its not being done", yeah no, that's called crap marketing, they've just gone and got free advertising by a real life space program and did nothing with it. The rest is wishful thinking... "you'll see this and that", yeah, when I see it I'll see it, otherwise it's just a wish.

Originally? Sure, EA was a way to outsource testing to paying customers, however this hasn't been the case for long and not even KSP1s EA had that approach to the model, as we were unable to test anything, only report bugs on "polished" builds that went through a closed testing cycle first, that's why we had the Public Testing Branch and Youtuber-Preview outrages, as they were actively holding back updates on a game that was supposed to be early access, unless you were famous enough. "They don't need the views" is a big difference in perspective. I've already posted data that they don't have views anywhere close to any AAA title in their pre-release marketing cycle. Average gamers (i.e. not long term franchise customers that exist in these threads) don't know the game is coming out, or at this point with the delays, don't care anymore, that's why I used the phrase "[With early access] the game stops being an abstract concept", as that's all that is now except for us 50 to 100 avid fans arguing to and fro in these threads. I'd urge you to check footage compilations for shown gameplay, as wobbly rockets are heavily implied to still be a feature. As much as I hate them. Internet is a tool that helped expand gaming from basement nerds to mainstream people, you wouldn't have the grossly oversaturated market and thus the endless demand we have today if it wasn't for the internet. Further off, the only other thing I'd answer to your post is: If we assume the worst, then the best case is to not make a videogame and stay at home. Sure, EA can go horribly wrong and kill the product, but so can 3 years of delays with loose information released inbetween that has had 0 repercussion in gaming media (until Boeing threw a huge but heavily underplayed helping hand and took jeb to space), even the latest stunt only had 3000 likes on twitter, that's nothing. I'll die on this hill: The average gamer never knew, or lost interest, in KSP2. The only hype that exists right now, only exists in this forum and the subreddit (and it's much smaller on the latter).

You're missing some clear context to make that wrong assumption. Internet today is what prevents the gross oversaturation of the market from creating a second industry crash, as demand has now taken gaming off the original minimal numbers of geek and nerd rejects (not sure how old are you but I do remember getting myself beat at school over only playing videogames) and put gaming into a market with much more space for saturation, yet notice how I keep using the word "saturation": Average global paytime is 8 hours a week, barely more than a single hour a day. If your game is not on people's minds, if it's not relevant enough, you don't get to access that massive market. Add to that the fact that KSP's inaccessibility, and indie status, keep it further from said market, and then you'll have your explanation: Small, niche indie titles need early access (or at least a very active marketing campaign), that's why it's such a successful model.

The game stops being an abstract concept, for starters, which means a possible storm of user generated content, a mod scene kicking into gear, mp servers if they managed to implement that, etc.

Allow me to differ very hard on that. 113k followers in 3 years since the announcement, and a twitch visibility of less than 900 people. For comparison, elden ring had 350k followers before launch, Starfield got 100k followers in just 7 months. KSP2 might not be an indie anymore, but they're still dealing with indie+ levels of visibility/accesibility/following. Edit: Followers as people who hit Follow on steam.