Tw1

I'm just dropping by to salute the amazing work you guys are doing Is your intend to make this purely an archive? Or to have a backup forum ready should this one to down?

Even though I no longer frequent it, this forum was such a big part of my life. I still prefer back to it, look at things I and others made, and check in from time to time. There's also so much history here of the development of this legendary game. If it wasn't backed up by someone capable, it would be a very sad loss.

It's been a while since I've been to these parts, so I hope that slow, forum pace is still ok around here. But anyway, What I wanted to add here was that when it comes to time based game mechanics, it's often missed that warping isn't just a skip button. Things can happen over time, and that imposes a cost, and a challenge. Maybe you've designed a resource collector wrong, and it runs out of power and fails to collect enough before your planned launch window. KSP1 kinda did this if you skimped on solar panels. Maybe your thermal system is bad, and means leaving something close to a star too long eventually causes it to overheat - right there could lead to interesting decisions over cheap short lived vs expensive permanent stations and probes. Maybe if you go to long without doing anything of interest, your funding gets cut. Plus, scheduling is already a thing in the game - launch windows and rendezvous times. If they can work in time based game mechanics which feel natural like them, it's only going to make KSP feel a little more like you're actually running a space program. Yes, it's going to make going out to Jool quite different than runs to the moon, but that's part of space exploration. Casini launched when I was in pre-school. It arrived when I was about 11, but I'd left university before the mission ended. Working out what sort of schedule to launch Jool probes at should be part of the challenge. Plus imagine a probe using early tech tree parts at Jool while more advanced ones are landing closer to home - that would be a very authentic space program experience. As people constantly raised, even back when I was more active here, something about contracts felt off. I have long suspected it's because KSP never embraced any management sim game mechanics - which made if feel like the player didn't have control over the organization they're supposedly running. In games which do involve both design and management - Cities Skylines for example - if things aren't set right, leaving the game running for too long only leads to problems. If you don't adequacy fund a hospital, leave the population to grown things might reach a tipping point where people die, then you don't have enough people paying rates, etc, etc. It means you have to get things right and keep what's going to happen over time in mind. That's why I think the full career mode mode should include such mechanics - those are problems you'd expect to encounter running a space program. Not a lot, but just a small amount of this sort of higher level thinking could round out the game. Time based mechanics don't work when if it's always fast forward = more pay out. But fast forward can also mean more costs. Cost/benefit/time is what makes that sort of thing work. It feels more real to have to take time into account, instead of things just happening instantly. (Plus, having something like experiments that take time to do would make warping the long times between encounters feel less wasteful)

Oh this is cool news. But I really hope they think it through better than the original game did. Everything after science first game out was the weakest side of the game. The rocketry was elaborate and well thought out, the science was just a series of fetch quests. The tech tree ended up becoming what most players new to the game saw as the main progression, rather than just a start, and overshadowed actual space exploration. It didn't help that everything was then framed around 'contracts' which reduced players incentive to set their own goals. Please don't directly mirror the first game here. This part never lived up to its full potential in KSP1. It deserves a rethink for KSP2.

I have had bugs like this a few times. Some glitch in the mirroring system - it made making rovers quite difficult

Will this produce identical planets to PQS+? Or will there be changes?

That's pretty small for a non-glich exploit craft. I like your weird looking propeller set up

I'm glad to see him look so happy about it Who needs probe cores? Kerbals are far more useful

In a random sample of 21, i only got 3 female kerbals. There may be something going wrong with the generator here.

I've been playing around with rovers, and they are all struggling to go up slopes. IRL, I think a car can do about 20 degrees, and the Curiosity rover is programmed to attempt slopes up 30 degrees. I took a rover with bigger wheels to The Mun, and it had similar struggles. As did this stock vehicle, And this thing: Idk if it's realistic or not, but they feel underpowered to me. To make rovers more useful to play with, I think wheels need better ability to take on slopes. Especially so we can make things with proportions like this: Rather than having to cram on as many wheels as possible like I tried with my larger vehicle.

There isn't really one non-binary look or set of features, so as long as none of them explicitly were saying they're gendered either way, any of them could be. But we've had female kerbals for years. Here's some old photos of mine with helmets off so you can clearly see faces/

I too am hoping for the return of the mountains.

I always think back to the old Kerbin City mod, which put their main city in the harbour some way to the south on the same continent as KSC

I'm still nervous about what my old favorite Minmus will be like. I know the idea is that it will be glassy rathe than icy, and don't care as long as it still gets to be smooth, lumpy, and shiny. Also hoping to see an improved mountain range behind KSC, and the old island airfield apear in some form, but I've been too nervous to really look into it

Is having a kerbal with you to watch a launch good luck or bad luck

This. It's like they learnt the word from minecraft. Even back in the day we thought it was silly, but they never changed it. This too. This would be better than the tech tree approach, especially I think in my ideal science system, there would be three levels. 1. Passive sensors - scanners, instruments, etc, Stuff which you just turn on as part of your ship, and return data based on the situation they're in. Novel situations bring you more interesting (or maybe valuable) data. 2. Active experiments - stuff you have to interact with. Drilling stuff, or chemical tests, stuff you actually have to move around and click to make work. 3. Long term projects. Stuff you set up to run then leave for a while. Research in stations and bases, or something which involves signals between multiple probes, or that you deploy on the ground for long term data collection. We kind of got these all in KSP1 by the end, but it would be nice for them to be designed in a more comprehensive way from the start. Something that makes them interact in interesting ways. I hope KSP2 embraces (cost / time x depreciation) mechanics. There's potential there which was wasted in KSP1, fast forwarding years was too easy a choice.

As mod, or as a gadget made of spaceship parts?

Personally, I would rather science to be more passive in a lot of cases. You shouldn't need to trigger a temperature sensor at a specific moment, just remember to have the thing turned on. My major turn of for the KSP1 science system was how much it felt like fetch quests, rather than actually doing science. My dream for that game was to have more things which you'd actually get data from, values which change per location, stuff you could plot, etc. The other problem was how much it was linked to scoring simple points, rather than science for the sake of science. Not against it helping you get somewhere, but I hope it has more emphasis on the building-up-an-understating-of-the-planet side of things this time. I want to see more graphs and charts to complete. Hopefully this time, using your science to get somewhere might mean learning what areas are easier to travel through in rovers, or what hazards you might encounter, or what resources there might be on the surface. More of that please, less of "This arbitrary amount of points lets you gain one unrelated set of parts". The issue for me with both science and tech tree was how unauthentic they felt compared to the space travel side of things. They broke the illusion, and made it clear I was just playing a game. I hope it appeals more to the imagination this time.

I would rather it be good, than it be here sooner.

If they properly realise the balance between rewards for active play, and passive rewards/costs per time, then I'll be happy. There was no downsides or benefits when it came to timewarping, which was a bit of a loss if you ask me. The shallow, quest style gameplay that characterised KSP1's carrier was the biggest problem for me. Life support, passive experiments, funding based on what sort of reputation or standing you've got, crew salaries, that sort of thing. Perhaps a simple budget spreadsheet to help us keep track of that aspect. The absence of this sort of thing was what stopped KSP1 feeling like a space program, rather than just an advanced rocket launching sim. It needs to feel like I'm commanding a space program. Make if feel authentic, not like I'm being handed a list of randomish tasks to do. Let tasks arise naturally from what I encounter in game, not imposed by a list. That was the fundamental problem with contracts and the clicky science. I'm being told what to do, rather than given the info I need to work it out for myself. KSP has 5 levels of things the player gets to do. Program direction, Engineering, mission planning, executing the space travel, close up exploration. I long felt it was lacking in the first, and only in the later updates did much interesting about the last. Do to the third well often relied on external tools, IF they can give us proper management and time based mechanics, and fully flesh out each of those 5 levels, I will be very happy.

I'm hoping it's possible to set up a multiplayer server tbh. If so, I'd end up focusing on setting up cool space bases.

God yes. These and the poodle were iconic. Why did they use that engine for the real size kerbal rocket when they had that booth to announce KSP2? I'll bet it was because it was recognisable. Uniquely kerbal. The blandification of all these parts was a big factor in pushing me away from the game, as it lost something of it's charm.

Fingers crossed Minmus is still smooth and shiny Maybe some craters But I want to see those sparkly slopes and glassy flats in HD.

TBH, I've imagined it working with a system, where time, timewarp, and so on is local to the player. This would lead to weird effects from the view of a non warping player as another player's vessel would appear to take a path through the solar system which isn't physically possible, or be able to warp to catch up to another player's orbiting ship. But it eliminates all sorts of other issues. No need to worry about what happened before what, as all players operate on real life time, not in game time. Plus, no risk of one player's time warp messing up another's plans. When a player is not online, time based things simply don't happen to them. Time has long been an infinite resource in KSP anyway.

Glitch based acceleration and save manipulation have seen people go crazy far out even in KSP1, resulting in glitchiness, so I suspect the same will be the case here.