steveman0
-
Posts
175 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Developer Articles
KSP2 Release Notes
Bug Reports
Posts posted by steveman0
-
-
4 hours ago, herbal space program said:
and there's also the peril that colonies/interstellar will fall flat because it will turn off a lot of the fanbase by abandoning the core hook of KSP (building and flying spacecraft) in favor of a more Factorio-like model of resource extraction and automation.
But also potentially enable them to expand to a much wider market due to the growing popularity of this genre. I see this aspect as one of the ways they were aiming to enable KSP2 to branch out to a wider consumer base to profit off the IP. There is potentially an overlap in the types of players who would play these two genres, although it isn't clear to me how many of the existing market is already accounted for in the KSP community in this regard.
-
3 hours ago, Ryaja said:
Off topic: is it worth $35? I have the steam funds but don't know if I should buy other games or factorio.
Check out FortressCraft: Evolved. It predates Factorio, but is ahead of it in several technical regards. Still scratches the factory genre itch and the base game is quite a bit cheaper, especially if you get it on sale. There's easily hundreds of hours of entertainment before committing the extra cost for expansion if it wins you over.
Full disclosure, I have contributed to this game's development.
-
4 hours ago, cocoscacao said:
I'll quote myself...
Re: performance - this improved greatly with the patch and there were no notable regressions that I'm aware of. Polished.
Re: wobble - for practical purposes for gameplay, wobble was fixed. While there might be a more optimal under the hood improvement, from a gameplay perspective it is as good as fixed. This was welcomed with a lot of praise for the patch. Polished.
4 hours ago, PopinFRESH said:Did you miss Nate posting proudly the massive spike in bug reports after the FS update? That seems counter to what you're saying.
How many of these were legitimately new and not reposts of bugs that happened to be found again by new players due to the uptick in purchases after the patch? Honestly not aware of anything squarely on the FS update itself that was notably broken. Besides the science issue noted earlier, heating needing some tweaks is the only other thing I recall getting much attention and they're not gamebreaking.
1 hour ago, PopinFRESH said:Sure it was an improvement and there was some actual content finally after a year of development; but it is far from what I would refer to as "extremely polished".
Obviously there's more work to be done, but the point is the specific aspects that were worked on for the patch were very well done. It isn't fair to call the patch bad because there are other aspects of the game that weren't touched in it. The patch was extremely polished. The point is the level of quality of their most recent work has been objectively good despite the earlier failures. They stepped up and that should be respected.
-
6 hours ago, cocoscacao said:
How? An example, please?
The simple fact they released an extremely polished patch that was very well received. The only notable bug, if you can call it that, associated with the release I recall having any issue with was the timers on science resetting when crossing biome boundaries. This was fixed in a bug fix patch soon after.
-
While I get many opinions on the matters of communication as that was completely botched/misleading, looking objectively at what was provided ignoring any timelines purely on the quality of what was released was poor at first but quality ramped up greatly for FS! There has been certainly a lot of unfair feedback, some of it from people who openly admitted didn't own the game. Given time, I think the high quality work of FS! would show with continued patching and drown out all of the misleading criticism based on echo chamber feedback that isn't grounded in actual play experience. If they continue to develop it, of course.
-
10 hours ago, PDCWolf said:
Now let's say your prediction is true... are you ready for another ~year with 0 progress and for the remainder of the roadmap to be developed even slower, let alone to a possibly more rushed standard?
I waited 5ish years since I saw the release trailer. I could easily wait 5 more. Part of me hopes they using the opportunity to rescind the EA and return to a private development process where they can work in peace free from the pressure of all of the community expecting far more than is healthy. If they went radio silent and just suddenly released a complete 1.0 to the full scope of the roadmap years from now, I would be ecstatic.
I never needed the EA cycle. I would have been happy with them simply delaying it instead of entering EA in the first place. And from my view of the community, it would have been better for many if they had done it this way.
-
13 minutes ago, DeadJohn said:
Yes Option #2 generates revenue but also incurs expenses. Maybe the estimated expenses are costlier than expected revenue? Maybe someone evaluated the code and thinks it's too much effort to fix?
This is the crux of it. The past year has been apparently a lot of time fixing foundational issues. They've had an upward trajectory as of late, but we can't know how much more work there is to be done to get to 1.0. It could be they are nearly out of the woods and colonies will be a big turning point with many on the fence ready to commit to purchase... but it's also possible the remaining milestones could still be mired with a ton of work.
There is a ton of potential untapped revenue, but if it will take 4+ years to realize it, I couldn't blame them for not taking the risk. It could just be the timing is coincidental that T2 needs to make cuts and they are restructuring to cut costs and hopefully streamline the remaining development work to 1.0 with the full expectation that despite the turmoil the restructuring will cause that they are still lined up for a big success by 1.0.
-
Been saying it for a while and will keep doing so. The economics are simple. There is too much untapped revenue with much already invested in it to stop now. Even if they had to contract out the remaining work for 1.0, it would likely be a net financial return for them to finish it compared to canceling.
-
It's a near certainty they didn't break even yet, but those estimates are just terrible. Both the sale counts and costs are way under reality.
-
16 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:
It's only a big news break if they're actually affected... Back when paul furio got the boot, and then the second round of t2 layoffs happened, we got clarification almost instantly.
There's a whole spectrum of possibilities that could be included under "affected". Clearly some have been laid off, we don't know the scope, and they might not either and policy might be let HR notify all affected before commenting.
-
8 minutes ago, DeadJohn said:
How many copies of EA do you think they sold? Multiply that by $50. Then compare it to the cost of paying a team of 70 people for more than a year.
They probably lost money on EA. In hindsight, it would have been financially better for them to have killed it prior to ever opening early access.
And the most profitable thing would have been to start EA, get a bunch of sales, then kill it a few weeks after EA. That would have been evil ... evil but profitable.
While it is true they are likely in the red, the decision to terminate a project only should look at the cost to finish and potential future revenue. Estimates put KSP2 at only about 300k sales and $15m. KSP1 sold 4m copies. There's still plenty of potential revenue to earn if the cost of finishing it and the confidence of traction to gain those sales covers the costs.
Killing the project guarantees virtually no additional revenue while completing the project to desired quality could mean $100m in potential revenue. There's room for profitibility yet unless they see no possibility to recover. This would be an odd assumption with some of the restored faith with FS! We don't know what it is lile internally though.
-
51 minutes ago, TLTay said:
They would have been in here right away to dispel any false ideas about studio closure. The fact that nobody fron the impacted studio has said anything official yet is telling enough. It's over. Just waiting on the legal-team approved Nate post.
This is assuming they have the informatiom and permission to post it. A big news break like this might have communication on lockdown until they get everything in order.
-
On 4/28/2024 at 12:30 AM, Meecrob said:
I said I think Take Two is making a watered-down version of KSP for KSP2, and every official word and release has proven me right so far.
Take Two is the publisher. They're role in day-to-day decisions is not going to be substantial with respect to gameplay implementation beyond approving the overall creative direction set forth for the game. This is already locked in with the roadmap. Any concerns from a gameplay perspective are then only really to be based on the roadmap and public statements. Any bad feelings about the publisher are moot unless/until we get official statements to say otherwise.
So getting to the facts, are you honestly saying you think KSP2 with it colonies built in part with resource collection to supply orbital construction of future-tech interstellar craft by ferrying the required materials by automated supply lines established by player flown example flight plans to enable the growth of those colonies to support interstelar colonization is a watered-down version of KSP?
To me this is a massive project scope with steep requirements that will take substantial dedication to complete. With such a massive scope deviating from the original in notable ways it should come as no surprise that some of the filler/fluff features of the original title would be reevaluated in the context of whether they fit the sequel or if they are not worth prioritizing among the long list of work that must be done to accomplish their goals. With such radical changes, it would be prudent to wait to hear how these will impact the gameplay rather than make assumptions.
Again back to the topic at hand, is where communication is needed, but the lack thereof is not an excuse to make things up as the expected way they will be. It may well be that some decisions have not been made one way or another.
And to be clear, this is not just directed at people disparaging the game or direction. There has been plenty of assumptions on the other side too that also originates from the lack of clear communication of the granular gameplay plans. It all goes to reinforce the need of the team to communicate plans with the community better if we're to effectively utilize the EA period to direct the game in the best direction. The problem is that the community is impatient, the pace of new content release is slow, and the engagement with the community over discussing planned features and collecting design feedback is basically non-existent.
It's understandable that such large development goals would take time, but in entering early access there should have been plans in place to bridge the large gaps in major roadmap releases with community engagement or else they shouldn't have committed to early access. Their failure here is not an excuse to fill in the blanks with rapant speculation though. The unfortunately correct answer is patience, but that's a tall order for anything on the internet and moreso for something with a price tag on it.
-
9 hours ago, Meecrob said:
My argument is simple. You need to read it with an open mind as opposed to one that wants to argue people you see as "anti-KSP2." Its like 6 inches above this reply. I've got better things to do on this fine Saturday than teach people English reading comprehension. Please report this post for being mean...it'll give me some peace and quiet from the peanut gallery.
I'm not trying to argue. Just legitimately confused. People seem to come up with fantastical stories of what the game is and is not rather than listening to the official word. It has been a huge factor in the community going all sorts of negative directions unnecessarily. Nothing good comes from doomsaying over assumptions.
-
1 hour ago, Meecrob said:
I am talking about the fact that the scope of KSP2 has changed from what we were told it was going to be.
How so? The roadmap has been published for a long time and the content on it fixed more or less since the beginning.
1 hour ago, Meecrob said:No Funds, no XP, no upgradable buildings.
The first was never announced as a planned feature as far as I'm aware, resources were always planned to fill this role. The other two have no word one way or another. I think you're just assuming these things while ignoring the plans they laid out. There is a ton of room for strategizing around colonies and how you'll pursue interstellar travel given the requirements for it in the cotext of finite resources and dependencies on colonies to accomplish this.
If anything, we need more communication to stop people making up what they think the game is going to be than what it is. There has been doomsaying left and right despite many of things like this that fly in the face of many of the gameplay goals laid out as a part of the roadmap.
-
Check oit the latest dev update. We're getting 0 dV manuever planning soon.
-
8 hours ago, NH4Cl Enthusiast said:
I'm genuinely curious though, have you played through the progression path more than once? Were you or do you honestly see yourself being equally engaged with the missions on second or third playthrough?
My problem with the way it's done now is not that it's not engaging or fun on the first time but that it seems to lack any longevity.
I haven't played through them multiple times nor do I have plans to. I very rarely replay past games as I almost always have new ones on the backlog that I could play instead.
I don't see why replayability is a concern though. Even with what we have now, there's over 100 hours of content finishing the missions they provided if you don't rush it and we know there are plans to continue adding missions. By the time they are done there will be hundreds of hours of content and little reason why I would want to go back and do it all again.
It's perfectly fine to me to be "done" with a game in that regard. I think there's plenty more to the game that will make for good entertainment anyway that doesn't require replaying from scratch at least through to the end of EA. There's plenty of time to consider changes if they end up being needed, but I'm not worried.
-
12 hours ago, ttikkoo said:
May I ask which aspects you find more enjoyable in the sequel? No judgement here I promise, I'm staying out of the KSP2 discussions, just genuine curiosity/interest.
Just want to throw in my perspective since it contrasts with the following discussion that the biggest factor for me was the vastly improved gameplay progression the exploration mode introduced. I got KSP 2 on its initial 0.1 release but only really played ~5hours before putting it down. The science and mission progression in FS were the hook I needed and these were substantially better than the original.
I found KSP1's tech tree progression did not provide much push to actually explore the system much and the career missions were quite repetitive. I lost interest before I left Kerbin's SOI. KSP2's requirement to complete the missions and go interplanetary for the science to progress made it much easier to commit to bigger missions. It didn't have as much of a barrier to it as I felt in 1.
There's so much more to do and think about with those bigger missions that makes for good fun. I'm not self-motivated in sandox games as well as some, so the structure here provided the enthusiasm to experience it.
-
I don't think the parts are what are holding them back. As you noted, new parts and modules aren't challenging. The fundamentals of the system including improvements to performance to support them aren't something easily released early. The requirements are quite extensive and why I have always felt the original 6-8 month timeline was a bit optimistic. A lot has to be done if they are aiming for it to be complete to the extent that they can fully shift new development to interstellar.
-
21 hours ago, chefsbrian said:
Its not KSP2 or Unity specific, its physics specific. You can't really do parallel physics calculations, since you need the results of the last physics frame to start computing the future physics frames. In theory, you can parallelize calculations for groups of entities that are guaranteed to not interact in a frame, but in practice doing that without a bajillion bugs is near impossible. Best you get is KSP's attempts to on-rails stuff with predictable outcomes.
So while its inaccurate to say KSP2 is single-threaded, KSP2 is only able to effectively utilize a single thread for what is probably the overwhelmingly most expensive part of its CPU work.
Unity is not really central to the situation. It is possible to solve these issues either through multithreading, as difficult as this would be, or through batching parts to reduce simulation load. The choice of engine is irrelevant to this though as any good solution here isn't going to rely on the simplified toolset of any off-the-shelf engine.
-
3 hours ago, calabus2 said:
Unity strikes again
Is this based on actual knowledge of KSP2 specifically? Unity games are perfectly capable of leveraging multiple threads just as nearly any other engine when designed as such. Can you elaborate on the KSP2 design of their threading approach as to why it's an issue?
-
59 minutes ago, MARL_Mk1 said:
That works for a game already past 1.0. Not for an Early Access borderline unplayable preview build of what's yet to become a videogame (current KSP2)
It's this kind of exageration that makes it understandable why they wouldn't want to engage with the community right now. You hurt your credibility by making claims like this. 0.2+ has been quite playable. Not bug free, but easily playable for 100+ hours as a solid game with the addition of the science and mission objectives.
-
2 hours ago, chefsbrian said:
more towards being a long term activity
But... how? We already have science experiments that require time in orbit, or orbits, to capture the science for a biome. Just take that to the extreme? I suppose if they simulated it so that it could work in the background when you are controlling other craft, but how does this change the gameplay outside of encouraging time warp to finish it? This is a notable problem that hasn't been answered. What exactly would be different in this ideal new science scenario?
I already find science gathering to be quite an engaging, long-term activity to the extent that it requires me planning many missions to explore new places. Going places is a large part of exploring the game after all. Pressing the button to register I've done it is a nice conclusion to the efforts of the mission for me.
-
1 hour ago, Presto200 said:
Here's to hoping that them specifically saying "Primary" means that there will be expansion of side missions
They asked for feedback on missions for ideas before. I recall mention that part of the hold back on more missions was the logic to evaluate the objectives are met. As they implement these, I'm sure we will see new side mission types. For example, I could imagine a case where we get an "Observe an eclipse on a body other than Kerbin". They just haven't written the code to detect this event to make this a mission.
2 hours ago, Presto200 said:I think every roadmap milestone (besides multiplayer) will bring more missions
That'd be a shame. Imagine, multiplayer specific mission objectives!
1 hour ago, The Aziz said:Sadly, one that teaches docking ain't there yet
This was one I submitted to the mission/tutorial feedback threads. I wasn't the only one either, so I would expect it's high up on the priority list for addition.
The game failed because...
in KSP2 Discussion
Posted
This is assuming the base was fundamentally strong enough to rely on to build up a sequel directly on top of it. I don't think you'd find many who would agree with this. There were several technical limitations that required rework from the ground up. It's this kind of work that takes time.