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I was just thinking the other day how nice it would be to have more boosters and as if by magic....!

@benjaminlamont thats fine, no worries, it sounds like you are busy and have your priorities in the right order. Those mountains can be tricky. FYI Landing wherever you want is fine as long as no parts are lost and a speed of zero is achieved so that you could recover the craft if you so wished. I only asked because it is one of the extra achievements possible and wasn't sure if I needed to add it to the listing in the OP. However, a successful K-Prize mission is kudos enough in its own right! Congratulations on completing the K-Prize mission with Liquidescent (name changed as per your instructions) and thankyou for your mission report. Welcome to the roll of honour aka the K-Prize party guest list.

Spaceplanes are hard! @benjaminlamont Thanks for your report on your several attempts to build and fly an orbital spaceplane, as you have discovered, its not as easy as it looks but I am glad to note your success with the all liquid fuel design which you stated made it into orbit and back. I am assuming you are well aware of the requirement for not losing parts and that "back" means safely landed without losing parts. If that is the case you have won the K-Prize. However on a technical issue before awarding the K-Prize listing I need to know if the craft made it back to the runway or not and what name you would like it to be known by. EDIT I decided to go ahead and link the K-Prize listing without extra kudos and improvise a name, craftymccraftface, which I am happy to replace if you wish to provide a better one.

Congratulations @Robdjee on completing the K-Prize mission successfully with your interesting tri-hull design Syrvania. Docking with a space station earns the coveted Advanced Pilot Precision Award (APPA) and delivering a payload to orbit earns the esteemed Utilitarial Commendation. Well played, thanks for your mission report video and welcome to the K-Prize roll of honour aka the K-Prize party guest list. See you at the Dog and Booster!

The present moment is the gate through which we must pass to reach the future. One aspect of the politico-economic reality is you have to justify the expense of space development in relation to human wellbeing and economic productivity. Which is why the current R&D strategy for space can proceed if it is productive relevant to the present economy, something Elon Musk is well aware of and is making a good job of optimising. As Lach-01298 pointed out we are already falling far behind the Rockwell time line because we have other priorities. These include development for undeveloped economies, which is also an humanitarian endeavour as this raises the standard of living and survival rates. Which is why people like Bill & Melinda Gates have funded the development of a malaria vaccine for example rather than space stuff. The good news is that the more developed and livable our lives become the more productivity we can sustain and the better space development will proceed. Currently we are not only focussed on global equality of development but we have to change over from fossil fuels which is a major economic drag, even if the climate arguments are ignored (which personally I would not think was wise) the finite supply cannot be and it implies an impending collapse of supply and therefore of global productivity, so the sooner we get on with it the less catastrophic it will be while we still have fossil support. So this has to be prioritised. In this context the defence of Earth from asteroid strikes is one of the few space related goals we cannot afford to ignore, so I would suggest that for the time being this has to be the focus for space science and exploration development beyond industrial applications, (which provide their own incentives and thereby funds). It is a feature I could not find on the Rockwell plan, please correct me if I am wrong.

I like the idea personally and mentioned similar in a previous post. I have seen similar mechanics in other games, where research goes towards designing custom creations before making them. It creates a sense of manufacturing to add a preparatory step to the design process. IMHO it would be nice to be able to develope a line of engines and better still if it depended on the quality of your Kerbal scientists e.g. Its something which crops up repeatedly that I use an engine with a smaller shroud than the fuel tank diameter, it would be nice to resize an engine and change its native diameter as well as proportional thrust characteristics. It would also be nice to be able to make marginal improvements, like to ISP or shave mass off, by changing materials used since new resources are supposed to be a thing in KSP2. I don't think sharing is a reason not to do it. The same logic applies to sharing designs in career for which the tech is not unlocked, you cannot build it period. Shared designs would either be buildable in sandpit or not in career if the part was not unlocked. In fact an improved part might become a sharable blueprint which become a researchable research target if you have the scientists to do it, which could add a big incentive to sharing.

Depends how you look at it. I am a cup half full about this, when I first got into KSP it was ages ago, 2011 or earlier due to notification on relic.news, now defunct, which was originally a Homeworld fansite, before they went WH40K etc because I love games with spaceships in. I bought KSP alpha for $15 or something and then I bought it twice more just to give them more money. So I guess you could look at it as Private Division reducing legacy liabilities and maximising profits but if they are developing KSP2 and money helps then I want to give them money, because that means KSP2 gets funded. The very least they have to do is pay costs and break even and if they make a profit then its an incentive to make more KSP which I want them to do so I want them to make a profit. IMHO they have judged carefully what is worthy of being KSP1 DLC and what is KSP2 and have gone the extra mile to add to KSP1 while reengineering the engine so it can handle multiple star systems, which seems to qualify as KSP2 in my book. This does not feel like an accounting driven fast ball approach, they have thought about this and IMHO they got it right. I wont tell you how much I backed Elite and Star Citizen for due to the high profile of spaceships in the pitches but compared to those, full price for KSP2 is great value, considering how much I play it.

I ran searches for this and I cant find a recent reference to the idea of animated Kerbal emotes in KSP2. Though there were modder suggestions about this as far back as 2014 for KSP1. IMHO multiplayer in particular would make whole body animated emotes for Kerbals entertaining and these would also facilitate video producers trying to get Kerbals to act.

I think cooperative play would mostly be friendly. A space race scenario needs another KSC or two or three but I could see that as a benefit for coop play as well. Some people will want to play adversarially so let them IMHO, so it needs at least two if not more game modes i.e. coop and competitive but protect hosts of coop games against trolls. I think it would be good to share universes in coop as well as ship designs and also sub-assemblies, so one player can build a lift section while another one builds payload kinda thing. Or one player can provide a ship another player pilots. Or two pilots can take off independantly and rendezvous. In all cases players should be able to import designs from their SP saves. If a host uses their own built on SP universe map to host MP it should be copied and firewalled from the hosts original SP universe save in case trolls get into games and do bad things. It should be possible to save in MP universe and import-/export from-/to the SP universe for both hosts and guests, so if trolls or disasters occur in a MP shared scenario the host can revert the MP universe or if all goes well the host or guest can export the MP session save into a SP save and keep playing it in SP. The notion of competitive play introduces the possibility of scoring achievements. Also rules regarding foul play such as accidentally dropping a stage on a competitors launch pad for example. Some competitive game modes this should result in a penalty against the offender but in others like open warfare mode it would not be naughty but an achievement! So different modes would need different rules and different methods for scoring achievements. N.B. it should be noted that HarvesteR was absolutely against weapons as components for craft in KSP and I agree with this but I also note people want to play in their own way and some players do like to find ways of using KSP to do battle so IMHO this should at least be recognised and if not encouraged at least permitted.

Yes, its almost as if HarvesteR left stubs in KSP for those who came after to fill in

I mean the procedural mission contracts generated in the mission control building. It works but I feel like the part testing missions in particular could be refined and also the milestones incentives ought to be integrated and visible here.

Has the mission system been revisited and refined, or is it unchanged?

Well since you ask what I think, judging by the KSP2 videos and interviews, KSP2 is built firmly on the foundations of KSP1. Scott Manley took pains in his video to point this out and warn us against hyperbolic expectations. So I think this suggestion for "proficiency" is realistic because it enhances existing mechanics and uses existing assets like the Astronaut Complex staying true to the success of KSP. Time deserves discussion. Yes devs implied its not good game design to solve colony growth by doing the timewarp until our colony is bulging at the seams with baby kerbals, the other side of the coin is that in KSP time means something because of the way missions take time to fly and have to be planned around mission windows. Time is intrinsic to orbital mechanics and a rocket sim, this is why they dont want to use magic tech like warp drives, because it would wreck the subtle illusion of the rocket simulation. Logically though, just because devs want more than timewarp for colony growth does not mean they are against timewarp or time related gameplay. The point of timewarp is flights take time because they emulate reality and timewarp is there to make them more fun because they would take too long. In real life, training takes time, so that is part of the subtlety of the sim, which is why training absolutely cannot be instant. Comparing colony expansion with kerbal training, the two objectives are on a different scale in terms of game goals, making the colony grow is a macro game goal whereas training a kerbal is a micro game goal. The question is the kind of gameplay each encourages. Will players while away the game timewarping to get better kerbals or respect and work with the training mechanic because of the advantages it can offer? Having a kerbal in training for a year really does make a difference to what missions they can go on because of mission windows but in KSP I find I have rescued many kerbals by mid game, plenty, too many, because they are lot cheaper than hiring but also I like the idea of saving kerbals, so I have enough to do some training to provide advanced crews for an interstellar mission and dont need to screw up my mission timing to do it. So I think using time is OK with training a kerbal just as it is with with spaceflight, spacelab research and ground experiments because I think players will play with it and not make sim breaking short cuts. IMHO training kerbals would add to the subtlety of the sim and make choosing our crews a deeper more strategic decision, giving us something to play with which would remind us of NASA in "First Man".

Sorry I didnt address these points directly in my last @nikokespprfan , it was getting late and I needed some sleep! Its worth explaining since if I explain it to you it helps explain it to all other readers as well. First point, I am not sure what phasing in means but I think you are getting the idea, this is what proficiency is trying to achieve via the experience system. This is because all the useful attributes/skills for kerbals are currently linked to experience rank, so rather than reinvent the existing mechanics, proficiency does what you are suggesting by improving experience rank, for both very proficient pilots who can raise their experience rank via gaining proficiency and trainees who can raise their rank before gaining further experience. You are absolutely correct about experience providing diminishing returns. In fact returns from experience diminish to zero after one trip. The whole point about proficiency is it would continue to accumulate and so it is worth sending experienced pilots out to gain more proficiency and it creates a choice dilemma between sending noob kerbals out to gain experience and raise their rank or setting up a trainer kerbal to train them first so that when they do eventually gain experience they get even more rank, which adds skills and can become a virtuous circle because that increases the rank they can train other kerbals to (if they have enough proficiency). Its worth pointing out that with this mechanic as it stands, if noob kerbals go and get experience they cannot train later*, as they sooner reach a rank their trainer cannot surpass and have to go further afield to gain more experience the hard way, whereas if they train first then they start with an extra rank and can then add to that with experience from local expeditions which are quicker to do as they have shorter flight times. Not sure if this* is entirely a good thing since it suggests training is useless after experience is gained which is not always true since further education like refresher and specialist training and the educational interaction it entails is often valuable and is why many good employers invest in continued training. Adding training after gaining experience would be a minor mechanic which allows instituting a program of further education among kerbals whereby the trainers could impart proficiency rather than simple experience rank. i.e. A further education kerbal trainer would be able to add proficiency to kerbals once they have experience rank but again only a limited amount, probably the lesser of the trainers own proficiency level -1 or the trainees experience rank -1.

Thanks for replying. Sorry if it is dense for you. Most of your summary points are correct but not sure if the big picture has clicked. If you read it again after sleeping on it, it might make more sense and click! An important point to clarify is that the trainee gets the rank while training but that is just the starting point for their career, noob kerbals start out with better skill and they can surpass their mentor by adding to their trained rank with experience, this actually means the trained kerbals have a head start over their trainers and go on to forge their own path in life. What made me think of this was my kerbals making orbit or flying to the Mün and not necessarily repeating the same task, perhaps doing something completely different and adding to their flight time but getting no experience because they went to that location once already. Didnt feel right to me for them to get nothing out of it, felt like something was missing. I feel like the KSP1 mechanics were often placeholders and this is what they might have been aiming at. What I like about the idea is it makes the society of kerbals important and makes individual kerbals significant to the gameplay for the player, adds to their usefulness and even character and also gives the nuance of historic and social significance of kerbals to other kerbals which I think would be a nice touch and reflect the reality of space programs staffed by humans in a way which adds to the enjoyment. I also recently watched First Man which may have something to do with it, as the film follows Neil Armstrong through the training program for the Apollo 11 moon landing. Another factor may be that I qualified as a teacher once long ago and come from a family line with lots of teachers in it. But try not to hate me, I am not a compulsive megalomaniac like too many of my teachers were ! In short it makes the kerbals' experience valuable, so keeping kerbals alive is useful and desirable and it offers something to the player to improve their missions using kerbals and even craft design specs which they otherwise could not build.

This whole idea of kerbals training kerbals comes into its own when you consider how kerbals can help the space program. They are already pilots of course and the scientists and engineers can place surface experiments, run space labs making science and ore digging and refining machinery making fuels. Which is why I think they could help with operations in KSP2 as well. For example a colony VAB might be able to build cheaper or bigger or with more parts with better engineers overseeing operations and giving them a % bonus depending on their skill rank. Say a VAB can assemble a 30 part vessel might have a rank 3 kerbal engineer staffing it who adds 10% per rank so 30% = 9 extra parts. A rank 4 engineer might add 40% to a colony launch platform which can take 18t ships, raising the limit to 25.2t. IMHO it would be nice if scientists could staff research facilities which actually make a difference to the performance of craft. So for example if the KSC research complex or a colony research building staffed by scientists researches "monocrystal components" or "vacuum sintering" etc they might be able to reduce the weight of engine bells or heat shields for parts of craft built at that location. by a % margin related to the rank of the scientists (likewise isp, max thrust, tank mass, wheel impact tolerance, torque etc etc). Considering colonies are likely to have the more experienced scientists, due to the way distance increases rank they might be able to send their more advanced construction technology to the rest of kerbalkind by developing blueprints which can be sent as data (either transported as documents by interstellar couriers or transmitted if powerful enough tranmitters can make a connection) to other colonies and back to Kerbin adding the % bonus from the research conducted elsewhere to those facilities. Just a few ideas for why it might be fun to have highly trained steely eyed missile kerbals on the job.

Further to the above, given what is known about KSP2 colonies, proficiency mechanics would need to work with the scenario of colonies as well as the ability of the space lab to update kerbal experience rank. The problem is that if a kerbal gains proficiency with every mission then unlike experience which is a one off bonus per activity type, proficiency would be added with every repetition. If a kerbal is in a space lab or similar training related building which can update proficiency far from Kerbin, then if the proficiency is calculated like experience (relative to Kerbin) then the kerbal could add proficiency for just sitting there and updating repeatedly. So if proficiency is updated at a remote location then that location becomes the new home location and further proficiency would be calculated for missions relative to that location (even if the building which allows the update moves from the location, even if it moves with the kerbal). The resulting mechanic, while logical and representing an advantage of colonies/labs/training facilities means a doubling of proficiency points since a trip to Minmus and back to Kerbin for example could result in twice the proficiency if there is a proficiency update facility on Minmus. So the proficiency point requirements for ranks (which IMHO should scale geometrically with rank to make higher ranks harder to get) would need to take that into account but it is another reason why such facilities are worth having. Such an advantage can be considered to represent effective debriefing and mission planning at the facility, not to mention a coffee machine and snacks dispenser. This problem of mission value relative to other locations besides Kerbin needs to be solved anyway for kerbal reproduction at colonies based on accomplishments. (Sounds like it must involve some pretty wild parties.) Doing the same for proficiency would not add this development task but would make the most of something which needs to be developed anyway.

I have some ideas and wanted to jot them down for the devs to consider. Dont know a better way to communicate. If anyone else wants to spark off this or chime in please do. In KSP1 Kerbals gain experience rank by missions which enables better abilities but a second mission within the same rank-range avails zero experience. I always thought it would be nice if there was experience to be gained by Kerbals becoming an old hand and running many missions within the same experience rank-range, so gaining a prestigious flight time record. The suggestion I have for this is to add another dimension to kerbal experience, lets call it proficiency, plus add training to the Kerbal astronaut complex, where experienced Kerbals can pass on their skills to new recruits in training facilities. The idea is, as Kerbals fly they gain proficiency points in the same way they would get experience points but they keep on getting them with every flight even if it is to the same location. Proficiency levels require significantly more points though. Then when they have a high enough proficiency they can teach other Kerbals some of what they know. Since no amount of theory can prepare astronauts the way actually flying does, it might be more credible if Kerbals who become trainers can only raise recruits to one rank less than the level of their own experience and only when they have enough proficiency and adequate facilities. To simplify it to mathematical language, max training rank is the smaller of (experience rank -1) or (proficiency rank). e.g. A level 3 pilot with level 2 proficiency could train Kerbal pilots up to level 2. A level 5 scientist with level 2 proficiency could train Kerbal scientists up to level 2. A level 4 engineer with level 3 proficiency could train Kerbal engineers up to level 3. A level 3 engineer with level 3 proficiency could train Kerbal engineers up to level 2. Naturally a trainer cannot be flying at the same time as training, so experienced Kerbals would only be able to train while assigned to astronaut complex duties. While time can always be warped in KSP it would also make gameplay sense if training rate was related to Kerbal recruit "stupidity" and trainer proficiency. So a trainer with higher proficiency would train Kerbals faster than a trainer with lower proficiency and Kerbal recruits with low stupidity would rise in experience rank while training faster than Kerbals with high stupidity. It also seems like a valid idea that adding (expensive) training facilities to the Astronaut complex would enhance the speed of training and perhaps raise the cap on the highest experience rank a Kerbal can reach through training alone. So a level three complex can train Kerbals to level 3 max for example. Further to this, it might be nice if proficiency rank can raise experience rank as well and enable better skills, meaning a Kerbal can never have higher proficiency than experience rank, but will take a lot of missions in the same rank-range to gain a proficiency rank. Hope that makes sense, hope you like it watjafink?

VGC also published an interview article with creative director Nate Simpson, yesterday. Worth a read. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/features/interviews/an-in-depth-conversation-with-the-creator-of-ksp2/

Daedelus is I think the inspiration for the craft we see at 9:53. Daedelus is a fusion design with putative 12% of lightspeed, so not FTL... FYI but hopefully fairly efficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus I wonder if they will have light sails and Bussard ramjets / plasma scoops? Wherever they are going with this it sounds like we are on the final approach since we only have about 8 months to spring 2020 ! So I guess we will have to wait and see. I have good Uber karma as I backed Planetary Annihilation at kickstarter and got PA:Titans into the bargain and am still enjoying it. So I trust they have good taste, especially when it comes to explosions. Those planetary impacts are quite something If I am honest, my immediate thought on hearing of KSP2 was to hope Star Theory have been able to revisit the tech tree, research, mission progression and Kerbal experience because I think there are a lot of potential gameplay dynamics in there which have not been developed.

No this is not fraud. I can understand people feeling suspicious considering the behaviour of some game makers but IMHO this is completely legit. Private Division have done a lot to extend KSP for which ye olde backers like me were never even charged, living up to the promises made by Squad and they have given everyone value for money. The time has come, if we want KSP to live and grow, when we have to pony up to make it possible. In the end KSP is about more than money, its about Kerbals... in space...! ...?

KSP2 !!! Well why didn't you say so!? Awesome interstellar colonies! Cant stop smiling. Looking forward to this, will pay money np

Indeed it did @arctangent and a good job too since in space, noone can hear your propellers... whirring... Congratulations are in order for adroit use of RAPIER engine technology to bring a satellite plus spectators into Kerbin orbit thus completing the K-Prize challenge with added kudos for landing on the KSC runway. Your mission report has been listed with a Utilitarial Commendation and an Advanced Pilot Precision Award for the flight of Aleph III. Many thanks for participating and welcome to the K-Prize party guest list aka the roll of honour. Feel free to grab a badge and wear it with pride if you so wish (link is under the big logo on the first page).

Congratulations @Lokachop on taking on and completing the K-Prize mission successfully with SSOrbiter MK1. Thankyou for your mission report and welcome to the roll of honour aka the K-Prize party guest list. It makes sense to reduce the lift off weight by removing fuels you will not be using.

Congratulations @Reinhart Mk.1 on your good taste in piano music and on completing the K-Prize mission and with the help of a plethora of parachutes and some interesting reentry manoeuvres earning the highly regarded accolade of... - Expeditionary Astrokerbal Distinction (Duna), Advanced Pilot Precision Award with Javelin Mk.1 Thankyou for your video mission report and welcome to the K-Prize roll of honour aka the K-Prize party guest list