Dakitess

Hum, no, no. Stop with this argument. There is PLENTY way to get proper scenery, while not doing them handcrafted. Obviously, thanks captain. Examples were given. There is probably many others. You'll say that KSP is a way smaller team, that it's not using the good engine to do so, etc : yes, and that's part of my point. It won't get get good enough even with time. It might get correct-ish, and enhanced by mods. But not something that would set it apart from KSP1, from the old decade scenery, which is, to me at least, very VERY a shame. That's it. And yeah, trailer, not actual gameplay, blabla, the debate has been treated a thousand time, it's fine if you don't see any promise in it, no expectation, no engagement, if you can show whatever you want as long as you mention the magic phrase for the whole show, etc. Not my opinion, by any means. You show me a BIG focus on terrain and scenery ? I don't expect it to be the way it looks in the trailer, but I expect it to be a major thing in the game. You show me a BIG focus on the per-part physic destruction ? I expect something related in the game, which is not. Etc. This is not a gimmick, a transition, a camera work, a cut-scene, a context, that would be legit to give a nice continuity to the video, a global enhancement, etc. No, it was a specific "LOOK AT IT ! SCENERY ! TERRAIN ! TOPOLOGY, look, look ! The wheels bumps dinamycally on a rough terrain ! Look, mountains, valleys, sharp canyon, you'll set in a proper scenery which rich details, at high-medium-low scale ! Look ! The 'Splosions, the destruction, so detailed, gonna be amazing, you'll love it !! It's MILES BETTER than KSP1 and we show it to you, proudly !" Nah ? You just see a nice 3d render fan-made video ? Cool.

My guess is that we won't ever have anything close. We won't get any proper scenery that are really worth the proud message "dang look at what I find, the perfect spot to settle, it's at this coordinates guys, and here are some crazy screenshots !". This is exactly why the trailer gave me the thrills, the feeling : ok now we will have a beautiful aesthetic KSP, this is what is the most exciting and what was the most lacking in KSP1. But we rather have a very shy update, and even it if will surely improve, maybe get 3 times as beautiful as it's right now, the tone is clearly that it will remain mostly boring and technically out dated graphics. No really impressive and sharp canyon with appropriate textures and not stretched ones, no real river with good looking flowing water, no epic massive mountains (appropriate texture and no strteched one bla bla), no micro-topology, no proper dense scatters, and this is the very basic, then we could think of fancy places, very specific one, but instead will actually just get theses very specific places with lazy integration in the environment, texture / ligtning / shading not matching, like a very abrupt and arficial cave, a vary rough and dumb lava crater, a weird bones field in the water with weird looking artifacts, etc. And not AA yet. It will improve. No doubt. It's necessary, and it's a good thing. It might even got to something correct with enough time. But it won't set appart from KSP1, just a tad better, no real scenery, nothing that will set KSP2 in the actual decade. Let's hope it will bring enough nowadays technologies so that modders will have fun trying to make it truely worthy.

Yeah, theses POI are really the best lever to offer a "simple" yet comprehensive story line to the Kerbal Universe. Even without a whole narration, no cutscenes, etc, you can do a whole lot with proper selection and good integration. Actually, it could pretty much be the kind of mechanism we got in Outer Wilds ! Did not played it but one of the very best video about it is surely the one from TheGreatReview, a french Youtuber : no or not much story lines, no specific orders, just incentive to discover, and to reassemble the puzzle. But since in KSP it's going to be a very very (very) "poor" content, just dropping assets after creating and writing the lore, at least it needs to be very well done. Something like 30-40 POI, 90% in the original star system and the rest in other ones, for instance. I've actually done that myself in KSP, using a save to share a "world" where there is some crafts, some flags as message holder, some decal to hold other messages in RP way. The story has a big "Foundation" feeling (well, i'm not Asimov by any means xD), while it was totally not planned since I read it 15 years ago and did not recall of it at all until I saw the TV Show. Anyway, yeah, it's possible to write a whole story in KSP, a whole universe, background, lore, call it the way you want, that set the story, the characters, etc, without the need of anything else than KSP as it's nowadays. But it needs to be good enough to offer proper incentives to the mass, not only the more passionate about Kerbals.

The last update and the upcoming one are fixing some of the weird aesthetic of KSP2 but there is still a lot of work to address the whole inconsistency when it comes to visual. I won't consider KSP2 any beautiful as long as the lightning is so messed up, as long as the paints are so "greasy", so bizarrely shiny, as long as the horizon / mountains / reliefs are so doomed by overcontrasty / over speculared, as long as we have the Back-in-2000s aliasing, etc etc etc. The list is quite long. This game looked like garbage (yeah yeah, I dare to say, I really really find it technically completely dated and aesthetically completely broken). This update helps a lot with the overall lighting feeling, it's nice, but I hope it will improve a lot more.

Did you really enjoy the Easter Egg in KSP1 ? I really found them ultra lazy, random assets being drop down with barely no adequation to the environment, no lore, etc. Regarding the "POI" shown in KSP2, so far, it's the very same, it's cruelly lacking proper design and integration with the environment, the textures, the lightning, the whole aesthetic design seem completely off with the rest of KSP. Even the last one shown is really not convincing by any mean to my eyes. Yeah, best word is "laziness" when it comes to these POI... And it actually kinda prevent the dev to build actual scenery everywhere rather than very localize and weird thingies. We can expect some integration to the Exploration mode though, some lore, some story line... Otherwise, damn, I would not get it, and I'll allow myself to strongly doubt, based on the past.

I love soooooo much the original trailer and the global sound design of the actual game.

Well I actually find that it's a good thing to balance high-ISP / high efficiency system with low thrust. Ion always were way too powerful and Nuke were something like 30% too powerful as well, you would go the nuke way all the time, ignoring all the various other engine that might suit the situation better. It's cool to have this compromise separating ISP and Thrust, to me. It'll make high efficiency system more exclusive to specific situation.

This indeed, but also some milestone, I don't know how to express it correctly. Like... Exploring Jool will let you know that there is interesting gaz out there, which should lead you to send a probe in the atmo and getting it back to Kerbin, so that you finally find out the exact composition of it, which... tells the Kerbalkind that there is a way to do nuclear engine using this gaz after some chemistry transformation, chemistry which is a basic tech tree progress. So yeah, basic "points to progress" when it makes sense, let's say for 80% of the research, but also some specific meaningful milestones that relate to IRL discover / physic based comprehension. Of course an "easy mode" would lead you to this kind of discover while a hard mode would let you find it by yourself, with only contextual popup saying "oh, looks like this newly discovered giant gaz planet is different from the other, the atmosphere looks... weird and interesting !"

I really hope some depth and difficulty with the new For Science! game mode. I've only played the original KSP1 science once at the very beginning, and it really did not hold me at all. I've then seen multiple stream / videos about it, and it was really not convincing either. Not interesting, obviously, but also WAY too easy. Being able to farm science around the launch pad makes no sense. At all. Because in this case, you're kinda forces to do it because it's frustrating to voluntarily ignore easy-points. And thoses easy points are not spread in more meaningful areas. Mun/Minmus as well, are enough to research the whole tech-tree : why ? how ? It really needs to be a comprehensive overhaul of the system, to get some meaning in the experiments, some initiative from the player to "feel" what is supposed to be a valuable experiment, according to the IRL science, the physics basic. Nothing related to gate-keeping or elitism, I see you coming, just more meaning, more sense, to get a reward feeling when discovering something in the game that'll make you progress, unlock a new tech, a new knowledge.

I do hope the best, whatever the KSP2 future, hopping that it will be good even if it's in 5 years, but in any case i'll really hope the best for this community, for KSP1 at least. KSP2 damaged so much the franchise, the interest, the modding sphere, it divided users, it gave hope for a new opus that would last another decade and there is a lot of players like me that kinda can't properly return to KSP1 just because the 2 exists. I know it sounds silly for people that are not in this mindset, you do you, but I guess it's something important for a good proportion of players, it's not natural to keep playing or completely returning to the 1st game if the second one is aspiring all the momentum of the community, with a bad mood especially, if there is still hope to get it good, if we know that further dev / mods won't be as focus as before on the first one. It's an uncomfortable "In between".

Uh, even after the huge RTX 2XXX serie inflation, gaming rigs are far more affordable than they were, 12 yo, when it comes to FPS/Cost. Nowaday a 750€ desktop PC will run 60FPS 1080P Max Settings or just one compromise or two, at most. And they will do so for a year or two. Back in 2013, a 750€ rig would get you a GTX 660 that would barely hold 45 FPS in Medium 1080p. You would need a top of the line PC to get it without compromise, which was 1500-2000€. Soooo nah, definitely, the ratio that include performance / visual / framerate / price is way better now, especially thanks to 4k that is carrying the whole challenge and allow us to profit from DLSS and so on.

I really can't care less than for Kerbal names / personnas in game. I've never even considered them individually, never got attached to a Jeb, a Bob or a Valentina. Don't know why though, it simply did not hook me at all.

Indeed. Already said that multiple time : it's totally OK to find it beautiful enough for a KSP Game / for you / for now, but I can't even imagine how it can objectively considered as beautiful / up to date / etc. This is a big nuance. And yes, KSP1 fully modded is still a mile ahead of KSP2 : you can consider it "logic" or "not fair", whatever. Or you can even consider it wrong but I would not get it : this is not about aesthetic choices, you can totally prefer the look of KSP2, more cartoonish, saturated, than the KSP1 modded experience which is more aimed at photorealistic so far while keeping the original flavour to my eyes. Nah, even considering this, KSP2 aesthetic is full of flaws, of artifacts, of technical details that are definitely off, be it lightning, texture consistency, lightning, very poor / unequal terrain topology, lightning, clouds, ocean, lightning and lightning as well. This is plenty... "bad", yeah, sorry. It's definitely better than Stock KSP1 but c'mon what's even de point noticing that ?... I hate the KSP2 look by now, which is personal, and I hate the technical aspect even more, it looks like a unfinished draft with a lot of things that are done wrong, feels "beginner", and definitely not up to date, EVEN for a KSP game. And I fear that this aesthetic won't change much, except thanks to mods when it will be interesting and possible to do so, but if the game dies before, well...

Sound like you took it very personally haha, maybe my message did not sound the way I intended, sorry for that then ^^ I just had the feeling and indeed it's only a feeling, that your craft / rules does not allow much room for improvements / skills, because of the wheel speed limitation. It's perfectly clear, normal and legit that rovers and rovers wheel in general are not meant to go ever faster than 1m/s haha.

@Socraticat Nice video but it's very slow, nah ? I feel it would be more fun with some more speed, some drift, etc. It does not feel like there is any challenge or way to improve things on your try, just because you're limited by the wheel speed and that's it. I've organized plural "Race Against Time" on KSP1, and the last one looked like this, I still have the record haha, even if it's still far from perfect. Both the craft design and the pilot skills are equally very important here :

Because of the state of KSP2 and the very bad momentum it gave to the franchise and the community, no, I don't see that coming. Which is what is heartening me the most and why I speaking about "dreaming" than hopping : KSP2 failure would not mean a bad KSP, but the end of it, or barely, while damaging the first one. Dang. I don't know if getting a "proper" KSP2 by 2025 would be enough to ensure a KSP3, be it in 2035 or more. Like, if a roadmap-finished and somewhat working KSP2 but not fantastic by any means, would help turning the page. I feel it needs to overcome the status of being simply "finished" and completed, with all it went through, or no one would ever risk trying a KSP3 dev.

Yeah I don't see that happening either, for the reasons you mentioned... Ha, let me dream of a KSP3 then :p

I'll be sincere, I'd love an official statement saying that they'll start again from scratch on a whole new modern engine, even if they announce it to be EA in 2030. I don't see KSP2 being worth the "2" before 2 good years at least, and it would still be very very limited compared to what a "KSP2" can / should / must be. And it very well might be a final point to the KSP History which would be unfortunate. So yeah, since I can't expect any serious KSP3 being developed, even for 2035, because of the massive failure of KSP2, I would really be hyped by a "Sorry, ignore everything of the past months, we'll start it again, see you in a few years, you'll trust us again". It would at least give some hope about KSP being something for coming decade, rather than this drastically diminishing interest, still going down, and taking down KSP1 with it unfortunately. This is not sardonic by any mean, just a true feeling, I would really see this as a good news.

I would not mind at all having difficulties to built SSTO or to make them more benefitable than classical rockets. Since it's KSP, with all its approximations and forgiveness, there is no doubt we would still be able to build SSTOs in Real Scale with Kerbal-rated parts. We would just had to stick to high efficiency design, waaaaay smaller Payload mass ratio, rather that the actual 50% which is... well, it's fun and all, but its way way way way way too much to let the basic rocket has their own interest. With the real bonus of getting back the entire vessel in IRL and KSP, and without the real malus of being sure it returns well, don't diminush too hard the reliability, and is not hell of expensive to maintain in operational condition that we would not have in KSP (or would we ? It would still be very interesting !), there is no doubt about their interest, with an additionnal challenge. And in addition, it would totally make Two-Stages craft a real thing to explore, as it would be the perfect sweet spot that we don't explore today, except when we Role-Play. I know, I know, this kind of considerations were held as "gate-keeping" when we first discussed about it, some months ago, especially on Discord. This is nothing like elitism, like, really, just some insight about challenge, difficuly spread along start-mid-end game etc. Edit : there is so many typo and grammatical error that I won't correct them, sorry, had a very tough night

Ha, I must say that I've 'ever thought about the Gravity homogeneity ! Indeed, it would make no sense to get same SeaLevel Gs on a real scale earth than on our tiny Kerbin.

Definitely doable, already did it just like a bunch of other players in RSS. Clearly not ideal and it will put a hard limit on tiny payload and efficient crafts, but this is nothing like impossible. You know, EVE was about 10km/s of DeltaV, with a crushing atmosphere, and you had to get there, land, before being able to take off, which mean a WHOLE lot more difficulty as you had to launch from Kerbin a... rocket embedding a payload able to do this 10km/s. With Stock Parts. And thick atmo that would destroy your ISP. So yeah, far from impossible. And quite interesting to me to actually get this end-game need to streamline the craft, to think them differently because of the new constraints : yeah, if Kerbin had been 10 times bigger, you would have never been able to get to another star system, or simply to colonize the whole kerbal system "so easily". And, as said, there is no problem to then get some end-game scalable parts, adapted to the new Real Scale environment.

I really really really would like to see the Real Solar System as an end-game interstellar destination. With the same parts and all, to represent a whole new challenge for KerbalKind, and maybe some additionnal bigger ones as an extension or (obviously) mods. But it would be so fun to get to Solar System with some lore maybe, like dozens of thousand years after nowadays, humanking disappeared but left some artifacts, etc I don't see how it won't happen through mods anyway ! ^^ After having fun for hundreds of hours spent on the original system and maybe 2 or 3 other "normal kerbal sized" system, it would be a big WOW factor to get the Real Scale solar one, very different that actually starting on it with RSS.

I don't like when they cluster multiple parts together, especially when it's functional ones. I've never used the Apollo-ish pod that embed the RCS thrusters, the tanks, etc, for that reason, it does not feel KSP at all. That's all personal of course. It helps dealing with part counts by a lazy way. When I see the whole gravity ring that has been advertised, I really hope we won't get more and more "all-in-one parts" like this. It will kill creativity, thinking out of the box, emergent gameplay, etc.

It's good to get various feedback about perceived quality of the past KSP1. It's pretty sure we are glowing up how KSP1 was by any time, be it 0.18, 0.25, 0.90 or after 1.0 releases, so it's nice to have people saying in all honesty what they remember about it : there is no need to sacralize KSP1 to criticize KSP2

I really can't recall of KSP being like we have currently in KSP2 : as you said, we've had some bugs along the dev, now that you quote them I remember having them : craft falling into the ground or bouncing on it when entering the physis bubble, encounters cursors getting mad, and the terribly frustrating stuttering that was a really pain in the ass. But the 2 first items were far from systematic, like, I've only rage quit because of it once in about 3000h of gameplay by that time ! It happened but really really really really less often than KSP2 which cumulate far more other concerns in addition of having them way more systematic. Do you really honestly feel that the current KSP2 state is better than any post 1.0 KSP1 version ?... Sincere question, you might be right and me wrong, just to ask if there is any kind of exageration