Kerbart

And what if the game makers in their wisdom decide that autostrutting is a feature that makes the game too easy to play, just like not needing life support, and figure that "no autostrut" should be mandatory for everyone? We need things to be realistic and challenging, after all.

Some nuance is in place here. The early access prices were heavily discounted, to the point of being free at one point. And “getting paid before releasing a reasonably finished product” is a big deal; as it’s a very big challenge for indie developers. And that’s where innovative games come from, as big studios tend to stick to what is known to make money (which makes sense with the investments being made, but doesn’t generate fresh new games). There’s quite a few early access games that worked out well. Astroneer is a favorite of mine. There’s also games that were not early access but used different ways of financing development (No Mans Sky), proving that early access alone is not a guarantee for success or failure. What did hurt KSP in its development were factors that are in hindsight easy to attack, but hindsight is 20/20: the game started as a very limited proof of concept and morphed gradually into what it is now. That means that lots of things have been bolted on and do not integrate very well with the rest of the game, like career mode. A lot of promises were made about the final product that were hard to full fill. Multiplayer being the most obvious, but “don’t pay for upgrades” was an incredibly shortsighted promise. Don’t get me wrong, DLC is a great way to keep development financed after five years and I gladly pay for it, but it raised unrealistic expectations with a large part of the community who even now are asking if they’re entitled to a free 2.0 version. You can’t please everyone, but Squad tries to do so, and that results in failing everyone. To the left, shirt release cycles and implementing promised/wanted features. To the right, no bugs. And smack in the middle, us, seemingly getting neither. Even if in reality a large part of Squad is involved in KSP2, having Private Division (or before that, Star Theory) run the game has the immense benefit that there’s no positive or negative expectations in those regards. It doesn’t have to be early access, therefore no “release quickly” pressure and the game can truly be built from the ground up. I don’t think Early Access is to blame for the state KSP1 is in, but it was certainly an enabler. The biggest problem is/was that there was no vision of the final product and the game kind of randomly evolved. There a plenty of early access ganes that did fine in that regards. And early access is not always problematic; without it we would not have had KSP. We’re still better off with it!

There’s multiple aspects to how KSP performed as an early access game and not all of them have to do with Squad not being a game developer. I remember that at the time KSP was heralded as an example of “successful early access” development. Granted, that was around the 0.18 days and before questionable 0.22–0.90–1.0 jump in versioning. Squad, as a marketing company should be very aware of the perils of releasing a buggy partial product. Saying that because they’re a marketing company one can expect lower standards is like saying “well Adobe is not a paint manufacturer, so what do they know about colors?”

You can also search for a mod called EVA Struts - these are struts that engineers can attach and release in-flight.

I know... up until now the bugs I've encountered were of the "When I do x, y happens... Well, don't do x then!" type but I have no mitigation for this one and it frustrates me a little bit. With various space stations in orbit that have the release valve my save doesn't work in 1.8.1 - but I'll manage.

This was entered into the bug tracker nearly two weeks ago. It's not a minor bug; it makes missions beyond the Mun pretty much unplayable. @SQUAD, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's disappointed no action (the bug tracker status is pegged at "10%") seems to be taken to fix this. What's the point of updating Moho textures if you can't get there?

An amazing feat for sure, but we had better pictures of Pluto and the New Horizon's mission blew us away with how different it was.

No, but that's what at the time I posted that seemed to be the case before PD released their statement. Hindsight is 20/20.

The best answer. A fixed date, and Private Division desperately sticking to it, means we’re getting a rushed and unfinished product that nobody will be happy with. Water is wet, the sun rises every day and software never gets delivered on time. Accept the facts of life and learn to live with them without getting angry over it.

Star Theory has most likely been absorbed by Private Division. The people in the video now work for Private Division (yay for Linked In) and worked for Uber Entertainment (later Star Theory) in the past, so it’s the same people working on the project, which is all that matters. To me it makes sense, there’s a lot of resources the various independent studios can share that they otherwise couldn’t, including some niche specialists that are otherwise hard to come by or expensive to hire.

Clearly. A couple of things have also changed significantly since the thread was started; Star Theory is no longer an entity and has been absorbed by Private Division, and PD has broken radio silence around KSP2 development. And these announcements of course. As much as there was absolute no reason to assume there would be anything KSP2 on PAX East previously, that has now turned 180°, which is only good!

“None of these things work in reality in the way they work in the game” MH doesn’t seem exceptional to me in that sense.

The game is full of made-up technology and physics that don't exist, will never exist, but makes the game playable. Lifeforms that don't need food, water, or oxygen to survive (but do need space suits. Go figure) Batteries that require mere minutes to be fully charged Solar panels the size of a table cloth can power entire space stations Magical flywheels that never need to be de-saturated and can routinely rotate Saturn-V sized rockets Remote control systems that act, and provide feedback, instantaneously even at light-minute distances You're free to draw the line at metallic hydrogen. But do recognize that it's still a rather arbitrary line.

There’s “I believe in space aliens who are little green men with insect-style bulging eyes” gullible. And then there’s “I believe in fixed software release dates” gullible... Anything that Star Theory or Take Two or Private Division publishes about a date will be spectacularly unreliable.

I don’t think you’re dumb. I can say more but that will probably cost me an infraction.

Actually I'm a "screaming firehawk." Aka a "The Expanse" fan. But "Star Theory" keeps confusing me for obvious reasons.

PD is T2's Indie label. What you want is Star... Helix? Whatever they're called. They are the ones writing KSP2.

I think it's a release that clearly bridges the gap between 1.8 and 1.10

Through prime, but not for free. Also, what prime offers differs from country to country, and I think access is tied to the country associated with your account (so you can’t bypass it with a VPN ) but I might be wrong.

Congratulations! Science is in a rough spot. It will never claim to have the full answer to anything, while Faith does. It’s a tough fight.

Only if they're good bois.

I dunno. You'll drain any tank in seconds with that. Sounds pretty good to me.

The videos showcasing some of the new features (Or was that 1.8?) clearly showed them. That, or new landing gears.

If you want continuous updates to the game there are three options: Subscription: the game costs, say, $5 per month. Stop paying and you will stop playing. Releasapalooza: every year or so a new version comes out which is really just an update of the existing version, and you will have to pay full price for it. Usually the game has the year in its title. DLC. Pay full price once, and get extra features at reduced cost from time to time. Clearly the worst option. ”What about pay once and the game gets upgrades for free for the rest of time?” You mean like Santa Space Program?

It’s software development. Time frames are pretty much meaningless. Mention a deadline, deliver on time and customers will (rightfully so) complain about having a rushed and unfinished product. Mention a deadline but focus on getting it right, and customers will (rightfully so) complain about having to wait. Blog your progress and provide updates? “I wish they would focus on finishing the game instead” Focus on the game? Where we are right now. For every scenario there will be complaints; there’s just too many people.