Death Engineering

I come from a fairly extensive KSP1 experience, so I agree with most or all of the things wrong with KSP2 mentioned here. The one thing I will add that really irked me was how "disposable" KSP2 made Kerbals seem. In KSP1, the game was generally stable enough and game-play was logical enough that Kerbals rarely experienced glitch-based de-Kerbalizing. Sure, sure.. spaghettification and landing leg mishaps, but in KSP2, the game seemed hell-bent on chewing through as many Kerbals as possible. In KSP1, we'd plan a rescue mission and the stranded Kerbal would still be there. In KSP2, you'd be lucky to replicate the landing zone without physics glitching. And a safe EVA over to the rescue vehicle was a slim chance. (This may have been better on last update; I gave up long ago). From auto-loading too many crew, falling through the surface of bodies, just plain vanishing between saves.. I started to care very little about "rescues" or getting them home safe. The game wouldn't even let me, more often than not. Save-game management/confusion also contributed to this lack of interest in making it a safe and successful mission. And I never once really understood the vessel management system. Maybe it's my style of play and over-familiarity with KSP1, but for my gameplay experience, KSP2 made me care less about the Kerbals. And being in the game's title, that to me seems problematic. I've gone back to KSP1, modded and pretty, and happier for it. What's really sad is that KSP2 only needed to be a tightening up of the code and incorporate some popular parts and visual mods. For example: Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 Lastly, IMHO, at it's heart KSP2 would never have worked. It was doomed from the start. With the amount of rendering and physics going on, by the time things were scaled to interplanetary vessels and multiplayer, we'd have been all buying new computers (again!).

Yeah! Let's check it out

Thank you!

Did anyone happen to download the 2.5x dV map from the OP? It vanished (like today I think)

I call this valley north of KSC 'Shangri La'. This shot is from about 3/4 up from the bottom of the valley and is looking almost directly South towards KSC. Flown here in a modified Aeris 3A to carry a passenger photographer. Location: 36' 2'' 11 N , 74' 49'' 37 W It also hosts a monolith!

These two points are critical to enjoying the stock game. Once the "I launched my first rocket!" missions wear off, more complex missions require the ability to plan multiple maneuver nodes in succession along a flight path regardless if we have the delta-V to do it. Gravity-assists and rendezvous' with other craft all need the flexibility to plan beyond ones' means. Besides, are we really going to trust the limit is accurate? Ehm, no. And the dV reading not counting-down is like the gas needle in your car always reading full. "Yep, you filled up! Yay! Oh, how much is left? Well.. how far did you drive and how many times did you stop at the drive-thru for a coffee then drive slowly past your ex-girlfriend's house revving the engine? Ok.. take all that away from your initial range and you're set!" Okay, it's not that bad, but I'm in the auto industry and I never resist the chance to use a car metaphor. Exiting the SOI after a mission to return home IS game-breaking when the expectation of adherence to basic orbital mechanics is in place. Sure, the methods suggested here all work and have worked but WHY? As others have said, this is a basic necessity for a space simulator and has worked for a decade in V1. Missing this in the next bug fix will be very costly to the long-term viability. I've been relatively silent on KSP2 since launch, and I am happy for the huge list of bugs being fixed. But, I am concerned that the game engine has flaws hidden deep within the codebase that will make bringing this to maturity a challenge. I've played KSP1 a lot. Like seriously. I've seen bugs in KSP2 that haven't been addressed that I saw in KSP1 1.4.3. Weirdo bugs that cause vessels to flip out or physics to collapse into spaghetti, all fixed before KSP1 1.12.x. If these still exist in KSP2, what other ghosts in the machine are there?

I just can't play something so utterly and disappointingly filled with bugs. As a career, I support and troubleshoot buggy software. The last thing I want is something way worse as "recreation". Call me when this thing, oh I don't know, works? Orbits drift or disappear, parts fall off spontaneously, whole designs sink into the VAB floor like it was made of quicksand, EVAs that knock the lander back into space, EVA's that fall through the terrain, I mean it is truly endless. I give KSP2 a few low chance of ever making to as feature-complete as KSP1 got.

I'm excited for colonies and long, long, loooooooong missions.

Welcome back, michal.don! Just curious.. what, if any, mods did you install to increase difficulty/realism?

I totally agree with general suggestion that Kerb's are still very prop-like in IVA mode. Can you imagine free IVA travel in the current KSP? Stuck on a ladder, jammed between the command seat and the control panel.. wobble-wobble-POOF! Scratch one kerbal.

Jim, prolly.

Is this only when on the KSC overview screen, but normal everywhere else? There was a mod that caused that bug at one point... harmless mostly harmless.

Having a very hard time fitting USI-LS/MKS designs into the 100k / launch limit and get the mission done. lol! Going to take another run this weekend and incorporate SSPX mod bits to get (totally admitting the truth here) the cheaty/undermass crew pods. Trying to stick with a common Duna lander that can drop crew modules, supplies or carry things back into orbit and just swapping out the modular bits that snap into the lander. In theory/testing, it works great but the two designs (lander/RTO and resupply modules) are near 200k each at launch and over 40t per payload. Stay tuned!

[snip] THIS THIS THIS!!!

I like ambient music like from Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse or Ambient Space Music or Spaceship Ambience.