Kerbart

Tier 2 is visiting Mun and Minmus. We didn't set foot on the Moon by building a self-sustaining colony there; we sent a skimpy LM on an equally sketchy Apollo mission. I see absolutely no reason to have colony tech there. It's a feature we know nothing about so it's hard to say how much it will change the way the game is played and even then that doesn't necessitate it being introduced right after the player learned how to orbit Kerbin. Keep in mind that an important part of the tech tree (as stated in the interview) is to work as a not–so–obvious tutorial and gradually feeding new parts to new players. Remember if you give everything priority, nothing has priority. There are more important concepts to master first. Docking, interplanetary transfers, re-entry I know that "realism for the sake of realism" is a bad argument for the design of a game, but that's not how space exploration works. Also, this is all tech we don't have yet. Those gateway stations can be made of parts that we currently have and are without a doubt available in the lower tiers. THREE HUNDRED years later, not exactly an argument to put that in Tier 2. Closing thoughts... It feels to me that you're very excited about colony parts and want to get your hands on them as quickly as possible. And that's ok. We have sandbox mode for that. But from what I've seen the decision to put colony tech in Tier 3 and Tier 4 is very much driven by the desire to guide the player along a path of progress in something called progression mode. There seems to be a very good reason for doingit the way they did it.

Watch the video. They're referring to the "tabs" in the tech tree. The higher tiers have plenty of open spaces because those are reserved for colony tech once it is available.

Well, that too, but what I meant (and clearly not communicated very well) is why they didn't reuse that particular plume style for the re-entry effects because it looks breathtaking. Then again I've never been floating outside a spacecraft during re-entry so I just think it looks really like that, but what do I know? I suspect as @Bej Kerman that there are performance issues, and the darker side of me likes to think that publishers aren't always truthful when trying to hype us up, and what we're looking at was actually blender/adobe after effects and not something created in Unity.

Makes you still wonder why they don't reuse that in some form. It looks so much better.

Was it in the interview with Shadowzone that Nate Simpson mentioned "we don't want to be working through the holidays so we plan on releasing the game earlier than that' which I ASSUME would include a week for virtually guaranteed needed hot patching. The fact that only now a release date is announced and that it's so close to the holiday weekend suggests that there were some hickups revealed with internal testing. It might even explain why there were less sneak peaks than we would have liked to see, but that could also be part of a "let's not overdose on the hype this time" strategy. So the 19th probably wasn't the date they wanted. But it's still in December, and it's even before Christmas. And we'll just have to hope that there are no bugs that require immediate fixing because that'll likely wait until the new year.

I typed the comment on my iPad and it doesn't have a key for the /s tag.

Well, obviously you can… until the 19th! Hotfixes? That sounds wildly speculative.

Quite a lot. An announcement at the Soace Day convention about the For Science update (December), immediately followed by rolling out the 0.1.5 update which is another step evolving towards a playable version of the game. you REALLY missed all of that??

It's not just Isp; it's thrust as well. Your goal is orbital (tangential) velocity and any power perpendicular tothat (vertical) is basically wasted; this is what's called gravity loss. Intuitively you'd think this is a function of altitude (Work = Force × Distance) but as gravity is acceleration that factor effectively becomes time. The more time you spend burning vertical, the more fuel you waste. And a big factor in that is your TWR, which should be roughly in the 1.3-1.7 range. Anything less (you'll notice by how long it takes to clear the tower) and you'll need lots and lots of fuel. Anything more and once Science arrives you'll have fantastic pyrotechnic effects during launch, caused by extreme drag (a function of velocity). As you get higher and your trajectory is more horizontal you can do with less thrust—usually engines with better Isp—which is one of the reasons why multiple stages are so effective. Once you have that under control your DV for orbit should consistently be closer to 3000 than to 4000.

A video with re-entry effects was shared earlier in the week. So not that quiet.

A casual observer would almost mistake this for a demand. In general, demands have an "or else..." clause. Curious what it is. Also, we don't need a date. We were told December. If it's not, we'll find out. It's not like we need to update our plans if that's the case. And what makes you think that there's a delay until January if no release date is shared yet?

Why would it have the density of Kerbin? The only reason Kerbin has an absurd density is to give it the same surface gravity as Earth despite its miniscule size. The whole point of a real-sized solar system would be to not have planets made out of unealistic materials or suns that could never sustain fusion. Talk about reality! You're working from the assumption that everything has to be the same as the Kerbol system. Me and others don't—that's the whole point of other systems. In KSP1 you're forced to replace the Kerbol system with a modded version if you want something Earth-sized. For the record, personally I don't care. I see great opportunities for KSP2 for someone to introduce a modded system that has solar-system like properties without replacing what we already have but you're telling me they can't because that would break the rules you have about the Kerbal "universe?"

Have you checked... the universe? Even just that infinitesimal small part of it, our galaxy? Red dwarfs hardly larger than Jupiter, with multiple planets orbiting it closer than Mercury orbits our sun? But also stars with sizes that'd extend to the orbit of Neptune? Lopsided systems with gas giants in close orbits and the rocky ones farther away? Neutron stars that are the size of Minmus but have the mass of five times our Sun? This one is a lot bigger than the one we just left is hardly a disqualifier for realism. If anything, consistency would be. Interstellar will be a lot more attractive if you get to see something else, instead of a clone of the Kerbol system.

You should read/watch The Expanse. Ships have torpedoes, PDC's (also used in CQB) and sometimes rail guns (with some limitations in its use due to their size). Defense is evasive maneuvering, signal jamming, chaff, double hulls and crew wearing vac-suits in combat to anticipate hull breaches. Can't say the battle are less exciting than when shield generators and phasers are used.

The fur system in KSP1 needed an upgrade but at least it has that dynamic feel. I agree that this looks great in still pictures. And then it looks exactly the same in-game. Which is very disappointing. I hate to bring up the "after five years of development this is what we got" trope, but seriously, this is the best they came up with so far? All we can hope for is that this is just a basic placeholder and that better looking reentry effects are in the works.

Impossible as in "you can't have inclined planetary axis is KSP1" impossible (ie a game limitation) or impossible as in "this wouldn't exist in reality" because this is a game about little green men in space after all... Personally I don't see why we can't have a real scale solar system analog in the game.

Gravity works the same on both with 9.8 m/s2, but air resistance doesn't. It's a function of frontal area and aerodynamics. Both the booster and the probe aren't particularly aerodynamic, so they both receive drag, and the booster probably more, since it's got a larger front area. But... the effect of drag is of course force/mass and while drag force on the booster is more, its mass likely is a lot more. So it slows down less. The probe benefits from the separation force of the decoupler at first, but that wears off after a few seconds, and then the booster goes faster (more correctly: is less slowed down by drag ) than the probe.

Yes, that's what I remembered. They probably want to shut down for the last two weeks of the year, or expect a lot of their staff to do—it's been a grueling year for them after all. Allowing a week to push out some emergency fixes (it's safer to assume they're needed), then I suspect they're aiming for the 10th.

But how does it interact with progress mode? It would indeed be disappointing if it still comes down to “fly to x and do science” instead of something that has more direct impact on which direction the game takes. Luckily Nate promised us it will be very exciting, and we know we can take his word for it.

I did get the impression that it will be released to "the usual suspects" a bit before the official please so they can (hopefully) hype us up with videos of gorgeous landscapes, engaging gameplay and broomstick-shaped rockets so stiff that in reality they'd be loaded to the gills with blue pills. But I'm old and my memory might be failing me. But I'm old and my memory might be failing me.

It was mentioned in an interview that they’re aiming for “earlier not later” in December. I doubt it’s the 1st but I don’t think it will be the 20th or later either

The people who create the challenges are not the developers fixing bugs. Stopping the production of challenges will not free up resources to fix more bugs. What”s more, it’s not a secret toanyone that the game in its current state isn’t offering a lot of gameplay. For some, those challenges do provide a reason to play the game and step outside the boundaries of “safe play.” And that is where they discover bugs. Discovery is the first step in the process of fixing bugs.If anything, challenges are helping the bug fixing, not slowing it down. Did you file a bug report?

Think of the consequences of interstellar trips being one-way trips without communication though; effectively sending a ship to another system then effectively starting a new game with a "seed vessel" instead of on Kerbin. In which case the transfer could simply be "magic" and tadaa—you're in a new system. We know that's likely not the case; devs have been very clear that one of the problems they had to solve was tracking locations while in interstellar travel, and the fact that the Kerbol system has an SOI also suggests something in that direction (although that might be a weak argument; leaving the Kerbol SOI might simply trigger "interstellar travel.") And maybe that's where colonies come into play. Like you mentioned, a huge radio array could be required for system-to-system communication, and it's use could be exchanging science (although that effectively means that gameplay in each system could be its own little sandbox and not one gigantic galaxy)

That's not exactly what @Spicat wrote and looking at KSP1 there's little reason* to assume they're tooltips. The "tips" provided are more likely larger dialog windows (with or without PAIGE) explaining shortly what the function is of each building being entered for the first time, and then have to be clicked out of the way. They very well could be tooltips of course—nothing is certain until we see it—but I find it more plausible that they're roughly the same "tips" we see in KSP1. * given the tendency for KSP2 to be a fairly exact clone of KSP1 in many aspects

There's no light delay for radio signals within the Kerbol system. Why would there be outside it? Antenna reach could be a different issue though.