Sandworm

But what are EVAs good for in reality? People in spacesuits basically do three things: retrieve samples from science experiments, replace broken parts and pick up rocks. We have these already. More broken parts could be an option, but most of the parts fixed on EVAs are in systems that KSP doesn't model (life support, communications, electrical). Nobody goes anywhere near something as dangerous as a faulty engine or leaking tank. Both would preclude even opening the hatch.

Yes, It is illogical. Fuels should be basicallly free in comparison to the hardware in which they burn. But that path leads to low TWR rockets that look similar to realworld space systems and we don't want that.

fyi, it looks like advance payments is a default in contracts. So a loan office would be superfluous. And on twitch they just confirmed that the media team will again have access 2-4 days before the rest of us.

Please don't set it to refresh every 2 seconds. There is a fine line between and eager community looking for news and a ddos attack.

If the timetable is six months, and pretending that .24 comes out essentially now, that's only two remaining updates for all the intended features. Assuming one update would be reserved for final balancing, bug fixing, and the addition of some final parts, that only one update for whatever features Squad currently thinks the game lacks. Multiplayer, aerodynamics, communications, new planets/'textures, weather, "tycoon" gameplay ... Either they will have to be very selective or will break from the timetable. I'd bet on the later.

You are assuming that "they" know, or at least have a planned direction. Looking at things like the asteroids, flag planting and such, I come away with the impression that they are lurching from one update to another, adding features ad hoc. They have said they have no timetable for feature inclusion and I believe them.

Don't jinx it. One of the last steps is them sending the final build to the early access people and waiting 24-48 hours for final bug reports. A few weekdays with no new build is a good thing.

Not necessarily. The first indication is not normally that a new update available, but rather that the previous version is moving from current to stable/previous. The removal of the previous stable/previous build can also indicate Squad preparing to go public. Each developer does things differently but if you watch them long enough they all have their patterns. They stick to whatever worked for them last time because, for developers, managing builds is sometimes tricky. Every office has the one guy who is an expert on handling steam and talking to valve.

Well, anyone watching SteamDB will know before the announcement. In the case of the official win64 build, we knew of its existence through steam 24hours before squad said a word publicly. (fyi the win64 build still seems much much smaller than the other builds. Don't expect it to come will all the bells and whistles.)

Another key pattern is that, close to release, threads like these are allowed to persist for days without being locked for speculation regarding release dates. We wouldn't want any potential customers reading this forum to leave without reading that a game-changing release is likely in the very near future. Between the patterns of experimental builds sent to steam, the drop in scratchpad activity, the calender date, the activity of mod maintainers (especially those likely given access to ensure their mods remain playable) the near silence from the other early-access groups, squad's vacation patterns, steam sales, changing voice of the dev notes, the over-staged announcements (flags) ... you don't need to be an NSA analyst to make a reasonably accurate prediction. oh, and one more... Actually discussion from actual developers. Over on reddit Harv has answered direct questions in the last 24h. Squad never does that unless they know exactly what is and is not going to be in the next release. And they wouldn't know that unless .....

Because they have made a couple moves in recent months (resources) that broke some people's trust. They thought a feature was being worked on only to learn that not only was it not, but that Squad and the community had very different concepts of that feature --> lack of proper communication. At the moment I am trusting Squad to produce a 'contacts' system that is open to mod creators/authors. I had hoped the same for the tech tree and was let down. Everyone has something they hope and believe is going to happen one day. That's good for Squad because it keeps people interested, but most will be disappointed because, in all likelihood, they and Squad are not on the same page. Squad should do more to communicate its intentions and temper expectations, rather than spew vague notions meant only to drive speculation.

"Alpha" is used as an excuse to stop people complaining. But when software is under development, is not that the most important time for complaints. That is the only time where input might actually mean something. Once development is over, once KSP is "done", there will be no point in complaining about anything as everything will be locked down. So this is the time for screaming.

Really? The last update said what exactly? A couple vague words about RCS modules and a statement that the developer was "in the cave"? That isn't what i call an informative update. An informative update would be ..."This is what we are doing. Here are a dozen screenshots. He is the basic outline of how we intend feature X to work and play. And here are the problems we are having." Instead we get "We are really busy working on something epic! Man, you are going to love the lighting in our new video. Bill just got back from a conference and Ted's been having a great time talking to all of you on the forums. We have no idea what's happening or when it might, but man is it going to be great." Advertising /= information.

I do not believe that Squad is deliberately keeping the community poorly informed. They are not evil. I think they are giving us as much information as they themselves have to give. What's happening beyond .24? I don't think they have a clue. It looks to me that they are lurching from one update to another with absolutely minimal strategic planning. As for which features will be in .24, someone knows but it isn't Squad. A couple people within Squad may have a reasonable idea of what will likely be ready in time, but the company as a whole is probably just as much in the dark. As to the WNTS list, that serves two purposes. It does keep certain problems/repeat discussions from overwhelming the forums. That makes things more efficient here. But it also keeps those deficiencies out of Google search results. As this game is not yet "done" it would be unfair if every KSP-related search resulted in links to repeat bug reports. On the other hand minor deficiencies, if deemed unaddressable for months/years, become longstanding issues that potential customers should hear about prior to purchase.

Am I correct in saying that, other than Voskhod's sleeping-bag lock-out thing, no craft had a dedicated air-lock prior to shuttle?

That is an advertisement. Things you say in ads mean little to nothing (the legal term is "puffing"). That particular ad is also out of date, not even mentioning multiplayer.

Lol. I have heard nothing from squad about tycoon-style play. Remember that the first iteration of "contracts" didn't involve any money or rewards. Tycoon-style play would require investment mechanics, expansion to acquire resources and most importantly, a failure state. Each of those would take months to develop, putting any notion of tycoon-ing at least a couple years away.

Ah, relegated to the "suggestions" forum. Hope and/or criticism = suggestion. I wouldn't mind except for the fact that Squad doesn't take suggestions when it comes to features. As I said, we will all see soon enough. Like they did with their tech tree? Have you looked at how much effort is required to simply rename a tech node? There is no room there for widespread modding. I am in no doubt that someone will break down whatever walls squad erects, but a developer shouldn't assume so much of mod developers.

You've already fallen into the mindset that I pray Squad will avoid. I don't want any "first few contracts". I want contracts to be a system, an API, that allows non-Squad people to write contracts. I really couldn't care less about the contracts Squad creates. They will be dead simple I'm sure. They won't, cannot, incorporate any non-squad parts or resources and must be simple enough to accomplish with the limited orbital data provided in stock KSP (ie no KER/void etc). Even requesting a specific biome on Mun would be difficult in stock. Flybys and altitude records are exactly the limited descriptors I worry about. How about something more like "A Minmus flyby with at a max altitude of X and max speed of Y over a midlands biome", with differing science/money rewards based on which of those you manage to pull off. Or perhaps "a 3-man pod in orbit around mun for three days, splashing down (ie in water) on Kerbin, with a minimum of 3 units of O2 remaining" (ie you have to be using a life-support mod). Those are the sort of descriptors made possible by the MissionController mod.

I really really hope that Squad adopts the philosophy behind MissionController mod. There are many creative people in the mod community who could write great mission packs. I am one of them (writing is a large part of my job). I want the ability to describe missions based on a host of variables such as onboard resources (ie fuel/O2 etc) included parts, orbit variables, planets, biomes, speed, altitude, crew count. I want requirements that X contract be completed before Y is available. But I worry. I worry that, like the tech tree, we won't have any variables to work with. I worry that missions will be limited to "take X part to Y place". I worry that Squad will use contacts as yet another tutorial mode for new players. The worst case scenario would be a situation whereby there are only a handful of contract "slots" such as a fixed number of companies that then randomly repeat based on what parts the player has unlocked in the tech tree. We will see soon enough either way. I've got a few dozen missions written for the MissionControler mod. Those who played them had good things to say. I'd love to covert these into contracts. I hope I get the chance.

There has been lots of realworld talk over the years about refuelling stations. None of it has led anywhere because it's simply is not efficient. Every mission launches into a different plane. So if two different missions going two different places want to use a single fuel station, one of them needs to make a massive plane-change after fuelling. That is unless they are both going to the same place relatively close in time to each other (ie Mun trips a couple months apart at most). Refuel also means docking, requiring all the associated navigation, thruster and antenna parts = increased weight. But KSP is not reality. Perhaps given Kerbin's tiny size and low orbital velocities it might make sense.

KSP is about launching little green men into space. Squad's version of carrier mode is essentially a tutorial for new players and new players need to see little green men atop rockets. So imho it's safe to say that contracts will be a continuation of this pattern. The first missions will involve one-man capsules, not probe cores. Squad is also reluctant to revisit old ground, so I expect the tech tree to remain basically unchanged. That means early contracts simply won't have probe parts available.

Avalance is wrong... way wrong. World War II online (aka WWIIOL and now "battlefield europe") uses a map 52,000 km2 and has done so since 2001. I was in the beta. There were/are limits as to the number of players visible in one local, but you can walk continuously from one side of the map to the other. One could argue the concept of "open world", WWIIOL has no shopping malls, but the size is there.