Kerbart

I'm going to assume this is a recorded session. There wouldn't be a reason to do it this Friday as opposed to next Friday, unless the Dev Update schedule is packed to the gills and I find that very hard to believe. With that addressed, why on earth would you make this announcement when the only thing said about the critical registry bug is "we'll provide an update soon." Few things say "tone deaf" as loudly as "we're going to have a video on why we think wobbly rockets are great without addressing a major system bug that repels the remaining three dozen players from playing the game." The request was more communication. This isn't communicating. It's broadcasting.

As always history is written by the victors. Who's to say we're not anti-matter and what we really call anti0matter is the "kegit" matter?

Ooooh the irony... While I agree, given that the game was 5 years in development and what we ended up with, it's hard to argue that they couldn't have switched to UE. On the 3D front UE games seems to work more performant, and Unity requires C# software here UE requires C++. I agree that this will mainly be an "on paper" issue and not reflect on real world performance for a game like KSP. But still, if there's one argument in favor of Unity for KSP2, it's not “but what about everything we achieved so far.”

Yeah but to say that the community is united about Unity is disputable as well...

Practically none of the issues is caused by Unity. The few that are, like the registry bug, are caused by devs not reading the API documentation and that can happen with Unreal as well. In fact, given the unfamiliarity of the devs with Unreal, it's even more likely. Switching to Unreal wouldn't bring any benefits.

doozy — something difficult (bowling three strikes in a row is a doozy) literary — meaning exact that (it's literary rocket science) literary — meaning not that, only in a poetic way (it's literary rocket science) bike — a bicycle. Do not mistake for a motorcycle. bike — a motorcycle. Do not mistake for a bicycle.

There’s two issues: The game spamming the registry the registry filled with up to hundreds of megabytes of PQS junk While they first one can be addressed by not playing the game until it gets fixed, that doesn’t fix the second one and that is a system issue most would want to see fixed rather sooner tan later. Given the quality of the work produced so far I’m not even sure I want Itercept to have a “cleanup the registry” routine running when you start the game because, well… it’s Intercept code. But even if I trust them with a large scale system registry update, do I want to wait with that until, say, Thanksgiving? I’d rather do it now. Personally I’d rather do it myself than running “some random code downloaded from the internet” but I’m also quite proficient in registry surgery. For those that don’t it’s nice to have options.

Let's assume that it's indeed a leftover from an internal tool. That uses the registry to store some session values instead of storing the in a dictionary. And somehow that code made it into production. “The notion that we did this knowingly is preposterous. How could we? We absolutely don't know what we're doing”

Your argument has merit, but what stands is that they were exceptionally careless in checking what was written to the registry. Your sleuthing suggets an instance ID which sounds to me as something very volatile and changing — how could they use that? Was this simply a typo? And what else did they get wrong? It's not an exact vote of confidence for the code.

That deletes everything in the KSP2 tree. Wouldn't it suffice to only delete the keys there that start their name with PqsObjectState and leave legit settings alone?

ARE THEY INSANE??!! I know professional developers who recommend .ini files over the registry “so you can never get blamed for messing up the registry” and [snip] use it as if it where a Temp file?! And that is on top of gargantuan game save files? “Save files were getting too big so we're using the registry instead.” Wow. You couldn't come up with this when asked for a list of “stupid things no developer ever should do” and yet here we are. I'm liquided they're wrecking the KSP legacy but now I'm PO'd they're trying to wreck my PC as well. I have the habit of briefly playing KSP2 after each update until I get disgusted with it (that doesn't take long, as you can imagine). Now I even don't want to do that and I'm seriously considering uninstalling the game until this is fixed. In my (and assuming everyone's) book this is not something that can wait two months until the next patch; fixing this warrants its own hot patch rolled out as fast as humanly possible. I didn't think anything could surpass the current state of the game as a bad reflection on the dev team, but here it is. They truly outdid themselves. @Anth12 thank you for uncovering this.

Exactly. Engine plate fairings is a good example. Ok, so don't use them on interstages; I can handle that. Although it doesn't seem a particular hard to find issue yet it's still there in 1.4 and worse you can't use them anywhere now. I can handle not doing a complex Grand Tour but even just going to Mun is asking too much of the game.

Now that could arguably be "group think," the dev team telling themselves the product is great and what they're hearing is just from a bunch of grumpy old curmudgeons not representing all the other players.

I don't agree. Software like Python is community driven. There are PEPs, a steering committee, development is initiated and executed by the community. "Community driven" means that development goes in a direction "community" finds desirable. Intercept Games may say that development is community driven. If they need to tell us that they're community driven, and that our input is valued, you can almost take it for granted that it's not. They don't need to say it if it were; we'd see it in their actions. Was it community driven to drop insane system specs two days before Early Access release? Was it community driven to announce "yay gridfins" when there was an absolute outrage over the bugs and lack of performance. Was it community driven to take three months to acknowledge the sorry state of the game and bump (minor) bug fixing higher up the priority list? If development actually is community driven, they have a weird way of acting on it.

I’m not singling out any developer. I am singling out the guy who is in charge, and whose voice came out of his mouth accompanying all those videos over the years telling us how fantastic the game was going to be and how amazing all the features in it are. THAT is the guy I am singling out. The only “groups” we have are those that think IG is a bunch of charlatans milking their scam as long as possible vs those that think it’s an “honest failure” with hopes it will eventually turn into something better. Both groups agree the game is bad. Even youtubers paid for their content don’t think the game is good. You can try to apply what you learned in psychology class here but the main reason I’m not reading that wall of text is because it seems to claiming “we” are to blame, And while it’s natural to not want to take responsibility for actions is frequently occurring, putting the balme on the players is, while I appreciate the novelty of the approach, not something I agree with in this case.

Has done it right from the start. Very frustrating. Then again, what isn't.

You are absolutely right. As a group, we're unified in thinking that KSP2 right now sucks. But instead of chalking it up to group think, I'd chalk it up to the product just monumentally falling short of expectations raised by Nate.

It flatters you that you can't think of any reason. If you're not young of age, you're young of mind! Do not discount the “If I can't have it, no one should have it either” mentality. Yes, it's toxic and immature but there's living proof of throngs of that mentality here on the forum. Reasons people feel they can't have game are: They're upset T2 charges full price and that it's not a free upgrade from the 0.18 game they paid $10 for They're upset it doesn't run on their 25 MJz 386SX with Hercules graphics card because KSP1 ran on a potato They're upset the game doesn't offer multi-player out of the box Etc It's not really that they are physically incapable of acquiring the game (aside from unrealistic expectations that you should be able to run it on a laptop provided by high school), but for whatever reason the game is not up to thir standards. And that's fine... except when that turns into “and since I'm not playing it, no one else should” and yes we have these people. Well let's be honest, Intercept Games have painted themselves in a very, very difficult corner regarding their communication. Consistent over-promising, under-delivering and claiming the game is in a fantastic shape when it's a god awful pile of dog bowel batter. The only good thing that can be said about the current communication is that it finally matches what they produce: very modest, underwhelming and infrequent. And that sad thing is that this is progress.

Preface Yes, I'm very salty about the state of the game, and it didn't take long to see that 1.4 isn't the leap into “playable” territory. Still, I do want to get into a “seeing the game imrpove before my eyes” vibe and the only way to do that is by putting in the hours between updates. But my god, Nate, you’re asking a lot from us... The objective Building a medium rocket to launch a series of communication stations around Kerbin an Mun. Over-engineered communication stations, with a Mk I lander can (so when the electronics need fixing or upgrading an engineer can work on it in short sleeves) and a large dish, so a substantial rocket is required. Ye olde engine mount plate An expected problem is that when returning to a ship in flight, engine plates will have their fairings back. If you're lucky it just looks ugly. But most of the time a sign “HEY KRAKEN OVER HERE IF YOU DARE” seems to be slapped on, stretching and disfiguring the ship at best and ripping it apart at worst. Yes, it's still there. But surely using it on the first stage will not be an issue? Well, the good news is that the game will not lull you into a false sense of security by pretending things are right at first. My first rocket exploded on the pad before launch, the second one decided spontanous mid-flight to eject all engines, which, now detached and without a lot of mass, accelerated a lot faster as somehow they were still getting fuel. Colliders seem to work as designed though, with expectable results. Decouplers aren't reliable either. Let's just shift your engine off-center for no good reason is something else I just learned can happen. Adjusting Orbits Setting up synchronous orbits requires precise maneuvering. Finally, got the first one in place. Engine off, solar panels out... back to tracking station. Click “control” instead of focus. That sound you hear? That’ Nate laughing hysterically, he knows what's going to follow. Stupid me clicks “Tracking station” in the escape menu without thinking. Did you spot my mistake? Collect your prize if you thought “Kerbart, you didn't deactivate your engine when you accidentally went to control. So now when you go back to the tracking station it's going full throttle!” Aside from the frustration of having to correct my orbit back to what it should be, I even can't — by the time I notice and I'm back in control I'm already out of fuel. Thank goodness for the Lazy Orbit mod. Renaming ships At least Intercept tackled the annoying KSP1 feature of making it way too easy to change your vessel name. You can only do it from the tracking station. Then you have to click on the vessel in the left panel. Then click on rename, only to be reminded if there's an "M" in the name that it's not really renaming it because you didn't click "focus". Nate laughs again, because map mode is of course controlling your ship, so now it goes back full throttle when you return to the tracking station. The game can be very helpful here, because if you had deactivated your engine before hand and you go full throttle, obviously it should automatically be reactivated. There are about 25,000 things the game doesn't do without asking, but this one it will, when you really don't want it. Ok. Click ship, Very carefully, as if dismantling a life bomb, click focus. Then click on the pencil button. Then click on the edit box. Then change the name. Setting up a Mun orbit The straw that broke the camels back was, what I thought, the easy task of flying one of the com stations to the Mun. Setting up maneuver node and executing it was easy. Click on the Mun periapsis and naively click “time warp to point” and Nate starts laughing. Once again I fell for it! The ship time accelerates right past it, exits Mun SOI and then stops. I lazy orbited it back where it should be, and quit the game. I don't think I have the courage to go back until 1.5 Conclusion I really want to play the game. I really do. I like the graphics. The UI is different but I do like it, I think it's a more a matter of getting used to it than anything else. Sound is great. But game play is such a non-stop exercise in frustration, and making sure you don't fall for making “mistakes” that aren’t really mistakes but simply triggers for known bugs. The lack of content doesn't even bother me at this point; it's impossible to play the game long enough to notice the lack of content. I doubt the next patch will make it playable, so it will be at least another half year (at the current patch rate) before we get to a point where I can play it without having to hear Nate hysterically laughing.

I agree that there seems to be a group who wants to see the game fail. Why I don't know. My ignore list is pretty big, so we might be seeing the same improvement for the same reason. I admit that I'm pretty salty at the moment... but... I do hope the game will be turned around eventually. It's just a very frustrating experience.

It's nice to see less bickering, but the opposite of love is indifference. It could also be a case of people checking out. Chances are that they exchanged “playing the latest KSP update” for something more exciting or faster paced. Like watching grass grow, or watching paint dry. Just to clarify: I'm not one of those people. I'm more into sloth racing.

Maybe they found another platform to communicate on. Slack, Mastodon, threads… the current ones are actually used so they’re less prederred.

I think we've reached a point where getting confirmation that the engineering team still exists and is working on updates is a not completely unreasonable wish.

I'm in a business where when we give out products away for free customers complain that we're fleecing them, so yes, I will not agree over the severity of a 20 cent surcharge when there are other parties who take away more than half the revenue. Time will tell; when everyone dumps Unity in favor of Unreal then we know the iron boot of Unity is indeed too much to handle.

Steam tajes 30%, your incredibly excrementsty publisher (your choice) takes 50%. That leaves you, the developer, with 20%. So instead of making $40,000 after all is said and done you now make $38,000 because the developer of the engine you're using wants to keep the lights on. Yes, others are taking $162,000 of your revenue but I don't see Unity as the big evil bogeyman here. I don't think the math was that particularly hard. Especially since we all pretend to be rocket scientists.