Kerbart

Yes, because you're suggesting that NASA went out on a whim, didn't study any chemistry and decided blindly on looking for DMS. They're better than that. The "we don't know" does not, as you allude with an air of superiority, have a basis of ignorance to it, but rather "no one has figured it out despite trying." When betting on scientists picking DMS as possible indicator for signs of life ("maybe we should look harder at this planet") and some random dude online, I know where I put my money.

So what do they want per install? $20? I mean if it's like 2 dimes it doesn't really have that much of an impact but I assume they charge a substantial amount to cause such an outrage?

The article was pretty clear that DMS, to our knowledge, is not formed in a natural abiotic process. Scientists are not very eager to say it can't be done (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence — an approach that is scientifically correct but has caused irreparable harm to society), but the point of the discovery was that, unlike amino acids which can be created relatively easy under the right atmospheric conditions, no process is known that would synthesize DMS outside a biological or artificial setting. And simply listing the components and then suggesting "it will happen, DOH" is a bit simple and requires a better argument.

One can argue that a chemical plant sustaining an industrial chemical process using a reactor with a catalyst makes it a very likely indicator of not just life, but technologically advanced life as well. Not sure why there's so much nitpicking over an article that very clearly states the various caveats. It's also interesting to see that we can look for something else tah an atmosphere with a high O2 content.

Not really. They don’t have an issue with not publishing science until February (anniversary) nor with taking two or three more updates to semi-fix orbital decay. They assume that when they release those long awaited gridfins all will be forgiven as the game will be so awesome with them. Don’t assume that thosein charge at IG have even a remote connection with the playerbase and have a sense of what needs to be fixed (let alone urgently). Nothing so far has given any indication of that.

I'm going to be pretty cynical about what we should be excited about. More minor bug fixes?

That doesn’t mean there are different builds You might not call bugs that others report. I’m fine with 20 FPS, I don’t build slender (wobbly) rockets and the graphics look fine i.e. “not ragged” to me even when others scream it causes physical pain in their eyes. some issues are environment specific and a laptop is a lot different from a desktop I wouldn’t jump to conclusions that the Steam release is bugged. There are a lot of variables in play.

Engine plates still useless? Check. Engines spontaneously going full throttle when switching to the KSC? Check. Velocity (and orbit) still increasing after disabling said engine? Check. Rage quitting? Check. This release is far, far removed from being a stable base for the Science update.

Your calculation doesn't take into account the diminishing mass during the burn -- check the rocket equation for that.

Reporting same issue, it renders engine plates for all but the lowest stage useless. Happens consistently with each reload.

It might provide some numbers on what the community thinks needs to be prioritized though. While losing sound certainly is annoying, few outside Intercept Games will claim that it's a bigger issue than Decaying Orbits. And yet it got fixed first. Surely it was easier to fix, but the fact remains that IG seems rather deaf in regards of what needs fixing. We got air brakes though. Yay!

If it takes years that means we could have it by patch 1.7!

I think what’s alluded to is the state of the game when it was released after five years of development. In fairness, it’s unrealistic to expect an answer to that. There are guesses out there that sound pretty legit, and are probably spot on, but we’ll never know. As to “stabilize before adding features”, I’m pretty sure everyone was on board with that. That’s because “expect that it will take six months before you can play a featureless sandbox without rage-quitting in the first five minutes” wasn’t added (and unlikely, planned either). But it’s where we are now. I look forward to the new features, but my expectations regarding the gruesome pace have been set by now. It’s not a surprise there’s a lot of pessimism on *when*, let alone *if*, we’ll see the end of the roadmap.

I wouldn't call the positivity toxic; it seems that with this release it's (partially) warranted. But, but, but... The lack of content now xlearly becomes apparent. But that's what the community wanted; focus on the bugs. Yes, because the bugs made the game a total disaster. You can play around lack of content for a while; run amazing, complex missions. Except that the game punishes you for that; ships disappear or explode when taking control of them, and which one was my refueler, Safe-Flight-12 or Safe-Flight-23 because you can't rename them (something seemingly insignificant but becoming a problem if you have longer running saves). Yes, we're now at a point, it seems, that playing decent sandbox becomes possible. The problem is that being limited to single-session to-Mun-and-back missions wear out. Six months is a long time. Science is at least one update away. That makes it two months. Likely, two updates. That's 4 months. And at that point it's so tantalizingly close to the (sad) one year anniversary of EA that it might be used to crown that sad occasion. And there still are bugs. IG did an amazing job hyping the game. We did an amazing job hyping ourselves, egged on my IG. Now we all have that after-party hangover. The trick will be to get players back into the game. By now when I look at the KSP2 main menu I feel resentment, not a joyous "what am I going to do now" feeling and I really want to get that back, but it's hard to imagine how. Once things get more interesting player count might go up, but there's a chance many players have completely checked out by then. IG doesn't seem to think the glacial development pace is an issue, but it really is at this point.

Not in a rush to find out.

As a taxpayer I regard that a very practical application.

In 1.5, they’ll go up instead and explode the ship. In 1.6, they’ll just straight explode and in 1.7 they’ll do what they’re supposed to do.

There’s some possibilities. Maybe these were bugs that really impacted gameplay and were hard to fix. Instead of low-hanging fruit they went after What Matters. Time will tell if that’s the case.

As you allude two, I’d rather see them fix five game-stoppers than fifteen minor bugs.

What tweet?

Reminder that @Dakota said they *aimed* to get it done this week. They didn’t say it *would*. I know, reading is hard and we’re all salty but holding the dev team to promises never made is just plain silly.

Like everyone else, I'm disappointed at the time factor. But at this point it has become such a joke that it doesn't bother me. I stopped playing KSP2 because the time between updates is just too long, and when one gets there it gets there, and I'll check it out. But I'm no longer desperately waiting for updates, because the game isn't worth playing right now.. At this point, to paraphrase Terry Pratchet, I have the same eagerness as someone probing a rotten molar with their tongue, to find out how bad they can get. That's why I am betting on Science being proudly presented at the 1 year anniversary. I don't think it's that much of a stretch. It's going to be a race to get 1.4 out in August but effectively it's really September. Next update, at the current pace, will then be late November or early December and that puts 1.6 right in February. And I don't think it's a leap of imagination to expect the Science update with 1.6 No, I am pessimistic about the character of the game; I'm afraid I can't share your optimism (but I do share your hope!) regarding that. We all have high expectations in this respect, expectations set by what we've been told by IG so far. And therein lies the rub, because it seems that IG is really, really good at painting a certain picture of the product, in such a slick corporate CYA way that they can truly say afterwards "we never said that, that's just you interpreting the videos." Actual delivery falls miles short of our expectations, but not of their promises, because they pretty much promised nothing. I didn't get cynical over waiting five years and getting a turd delivered. What did make me cynical was the continuous "look what a fantastic game we delivered!" that continued throughout the first months. "We're aware of some minor bugs, and we're not really taking them serious, but we ARE working on grid fins!" The disconnect between what IG says and what comes out of the studio makes me very afraid. The very first thing on the roadmap is science. In KSP1, science monumentally sucks. Is it going to be different in KSP2? From what I understand, no. That is what really is tempering my optimism. We hope for new game play. We expect new game play. From what I'm seeing so far, we won't be getting new game play.

That's actually a pessimistic but not unrealistic take. Why pessimistic? Because it suggests that the roadmap features will be, pretty much like in KSP1, glorified mods and not radical game play structures that require a radical architectural overhaul or complex integration. One can argue that the required plumbing for that is already there, but that requires foresight and planning that appears to be very inconsistent with what we've seen so far. Which means KSP2 will be pretty much KSP1 but then prettier and not really a better game.

Some will, not unreasonably, criticize your optimism.

It took me about 4 months to get to a level of "not caring." Don't get me wrong — I think the game has great potential. Kerbals are no longer motionless robots sitting in their craft, orbit lines are not polygons when zooming in and the sound track has enough variation, drama and appropriateness to keep it from being turned off. I also haven't started the game in like two months, I went back to KSP1. Once in a while I'll run it, think to myself "why did I do that" and shut it down. So for me it doesn't really matter when the Science update comes. At the one year anniversary (my bet)? Fine. Whatever the update is, I'll run the game for five minutes, and then think "meh, still a turd." Or maybe, maybe not, and I'll keep playing it. But until that day comes I won't be terribly upset over the current state. It is what it is.