Kerbart

Not really. The first video has the helpful caption of "watch what happens" so after looking at it for two minutes in which nothing happens I kinda gave up. Here's a tip: if you expect people to take 10 minutes to listen to you story, make it worth for them. Tell them what the bug is. "This video shows how it takes two minutes for things to explode without a heatshield", "this video shows it takes only 30 seconds with a heatshield" and so on.

It's tempting to call anything you don[t like a bug, but that doesn't make it a bug. Bugs (and I'm sure I'll get flak for my definition) are where the software isn't behaving as it was intended. For instance the root part heating up like crazy inside a fairing, that's clearly a bug. But this... that looks much more like the result of a decision that was made and doesn't work out. Should it work out? Remember, "it worked like that in KSP1” is not the most convincing response because the heat model in KSP1 wasn’t perfect either. I'm not saying this is fine; it probably needs fixing. But "heating is not working in a way players expect it to work" is an entirely different discussion than "a bug with heating causes x to happen”

Remember that we‘re not making train schedules, but rather an impression of what a certain velocity means. A baristochrone assumes constant acceleration, for this exercise you just need constant speed. For instance, to travel to the moon (300,000 km), you'll need: Speed seconds time 10,000 m/s 30,000 8h, 20m 50,000 m/s 6,000 1h, 40m For planets you can either provide a range (shortest/longest) or the median distance. Shortest would be the difference between the SMA, longest would be added together

Yes, that sounds like a better solution than frantically deploying them one-by-one with RMB while plunging to the ground.

I think it's especially relevant for rovers, and to some extend for rendez vous. Aside from realizing that 300 m/s is roughly the speed of sound (“fast”) the higher numbers are meaningless in the sense that it’s hard to relate to. But complaining that wheels are bugged because your rover can’t traverse rough terrain at 30 m/s is silly when you realize it’108 kmh (or 68 mph in mickey mouse units). In similar fashion you might not want to close in at that speed at close range. So maybe even more granularity at lower speeds and less at higher Also, consider throwing in travel time at higher speeds. How long will it take to reach Jool? Or a nearby star (which is guessing as we don't know how far way they are located)? That makes them far more meaningful.

The most needed mod! Thank you for making this. Take your time adding features. Having it in the first place is amazing!

“Some?” I'm not sure about that. Unlike the double-tap staging, chutes not deploying is inconsistent. Also, the solution is different as “trying again” doesn't work—or at least entails something different (making a new stage). The problem occurs when staging (not when not registering staging at the first attempt). It's not the link with space bar/button --> stage, but it's the stage --> chute link that goes wrong.

I used the Rovemax M1 wheels (whatever they're called now, the Apollo moon rover style wheels) and just turned the rover 90° on it's end to make it fit behind a heat shield. The parachute will land it on all 4 wheels. First time I did land in the middle of the lake. That was less fun.

From the Microsoft site:

Check if the orbit should be retrograde

Wait, that box is showing the vessel name? Who knew?

I know this is a subject solidly beaten to death, resurrected, beaten again, burried 10 feet deep with stake through its heart, necromanced, driven over by a bulldozer, regrown into a new Kerbal, and so on, but... It's the Kerbal Space Program. Not the “Planet Kerbin Space Program.” It's easy to assume the Kerbals already have experience with probes and unmanned flight, they just want to put Kerbals in space. Even inside that program there's some room for probes — relay satellites, early surveys — but that's not why the program is there. It’s to put Kerbals in space, front and center. The emphasis on Kerballed missions in KSP2 supports that. Feel free to use a modded tech tree that puts probes first. But to me it feels like suggesting a marathon can be completed much quicker by using a motorcycle. Yes, of course you can, but that’s not the point, is it?

Those are actually good points. I agree that after ten months of Sandbox, the For Science release is like water to a person lost in the desert. Tech tree pretty much demands unlocking everything, the game would be more interesting if the player is forced to make exclusive options (say Apollo/Soyuz/SpaceX crew capsule styles, even if they’re technically interchangeable). It’s still the “go place, click science, unlock unrelated tech” mechanism. Missions that unlock specific tech with specific tasks would have been nice. It's not super easy to fix that though. If your science instrument readings determine what you can unlock, you’ll still get the “go to crater X to unlock Y” mechanism. It’s just a bitless obvious but after unlocking half a dozen nodes it’ll be really obvious. Unless those readings are no predetermined. But then the game can become an exercise in frustration as non of your experiments is giving you that one reading you need to unlock docking ports.

If I get this right, you mean perpendicular to the build orientation? Because you can flip the build orientation between vertical and horizontal in the VAB (or switch buildings in KSP1), but you have enough experience to not mean that (but I do mention it on the off chance you do). I agree that we do miss parts that allow “building out” —hinges, etc, although even those in KSP1 didn’t work quite satisfactory because they were geared towards (robotic) motion and not really stiff enough to fold out to a static position allowing for large forces.

I was lazy! I’ll admit, I even have it on my personal keystrokes webpage, together with ⅗ and ⅞ but opted for a cheap typesetting trick instead. Shame! Shame! But I did use curly braces instead of straight quotes, so there’s that.

They're essential for building craft that resemble what we see in SF movies. I think there's a good chunk of players who enjoy that. In that sense they're relevant. From an efficiency perspective, yes, a total waste. Once we have robotic parts they'll be more relevant, as it's more practical to use them. But that'll likely be DLC and far over the horizon.

We’re all thrilled on how the game has progressed since EA. And while congratulations to the team are in place, that is a pretty low bar to pass. As a group on social media—and I suspect that extends to the Discord and Reddit communities—we’re biased about the game though. The Steam Charts tell a more sobering story. After nearly 2 weeks, KSP2 usage has dropped to the level of KSP1. The rate at which the stats drop seems the same—if not steeper—as when after EA release the game had a similar number of recorded players (early March). It's tempting to blame the holiday season for that, but with more time available player count tends to go up and the KSP1 stats confirm that. So, assuming the numbers don't lie and are indicative of the popularity of the game: A lot of players have downloaded KSP2. Either bought it or pulled it out of their mothballed archive. Interest in the game is still there, although only half of what it was at EA Over the course of 2 weeks, the player count dropped nearly 2/3 So what does it tell us? Probably nothing we didn't know already: The game is better. Much better. But it's far from good, Science mode is much more exciting than sandbox, but in the end it's basically the same as in KSP1 but with better visuals and a challenging tech tree; it gets old quickly There's still a collection of Old Bugs that is annoying. Yes, some of the Rage Quitters are gone, and many are happy about the unnatural stiff rockets, but orbital lines still disappear, engines still spontaneously throttle up, the VAB is still a bug fest, and so on As to be expected, new features have brought new bugs, especially around re-entry heating to a point where many consider playing without it A roadmap update will bring a boost in the stats. I'm sure T2 is delighted about that. The reason it took 10 months to get here is because of a lot of technical debt. There's still a lot left and not suprisingly it increased now. Given Intercept's promise to deliver the next update “much quicker,” I wonder where we end up with the stats. A roller coaster ride of new players joining and still casting the game aside, because objectively, it still leaves a lot to be desired from a stability point of view?

If only the game had some kind of mode where you are unconstrained in what you want to build. Anything! Like a kid in a sandbox!

Does the mission state they all need to go at once? Or is it just bringing ten Kerbals to the surface of Eve and returning them to Kerbin? Like 5 missions in pairs?

Yes that did the trick. Had some very interesting repercussions for staging, but I digress.

This was also at a velocity where heat should not be an issue. I'm not sure if the fairing is ignored or that it affects the heat flux of enclosed parts in some unexpected way.

Not just high altitude. i have an Okto2 consistently blowing up once it passes 10k on ascent due to overheating. Going maybe 500 m/s at that point. It's inside a 2.5m fairing, if that matters. Had to turn of heating to get it into orbit.

New players will mainly wonder if their boomsticks have the oomph it takes to go to space. I don't think they're throwing the game aside with a disgusted look an their face saying “can you imagine, this game STARTS with methaloc instead of kerosine?” For most, knowledge like that comes from playing the game, not the other way around.

And I don't think the tech tree should purely, only, and exclusively be tailored towards first time players. It's very important that the game doesn't provide extreme hurdles for first timers, but that doesn't mean that options should be not available for experienced players, who can have all kinds of reasons to pick them over liquid fuel engines. Even if some players don't see the point in it. "It's not needed because I personally don't want it" is generally a position that's hard to defend.

SRB's are still my goto if I need raw thrust. It's a lot easier to improve TWR with SRB's than with liquid fuel, especially if I don't need that thrust anymore when some of my LF has been burned up, and we're higher up with enough velocity to worry less about gravity losses. Of course, I could throttle down at that point, but I'd rather just run 100% throttle all the way with staging in between than managing thrust. Call me lazy. Designed that way, my launch vehicles also tend to be simpler.