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F/A-18E Super Hornet "You're one to talk about range, since all you do is go to airshows and pull Cobras in front of a crowd."

It is. My computer did the not alive (which wasn't surprising) and it'll be a longwhile before Im up to getting a replacement. Fortunately, as this isn't the first time this has happened, I do have the data backed up so nothing is lost. That said, I do keep thinking on it and while I have other things Im focused on, I probably will come back around to it. Particularly because now I have a pretty well developed eye for game design, and I think I could come up with some clever stuff given that. But that'd have to come after I get another computer, and that'll be a while as I have other priorities that require my money atm. Like having functional eyesight and personal transportation Fortunately, at least barring some horrible disaster coming out of nowhere, I don't suspect it'll be too long. This has been the longest I've been stable in nearly a decade, and thats saying something. Pretty well. The game is called Labyrinthian, and I've had a heck of a time working on it. Its still in a proto stage, as its a pretty big game by rpg standards, but its coming along. In terms of a game pitch, its a game about shaping your character's legend. In other games you'd find cool lore about these wild characters that did things way cooler than what you can do in the game; in Labyrinthian, you get to be those wild characters other games use as background lore. You see that dragon over there, by that mountain? You can suplex that dragon, and break the mountain with it. But it goes farther than that, as the game seeks to deliver a truly reactive, living world where, even if you and your party decide to just be fantasy Bakers (and they can, its fully supported!), the world will change and develop around them as they play. And if they do decide to get involved, then they can start forging a legacy that will persist even past their own lifetimes. Your character's great grandchildren could very well still be dealing with the fallout of your original choices. Feature wise, we got: Tactical, fast-paced combat that scales cleanly, and effortlessly, from the grit of 1v1 Duels to the dire slaying of complex boss monsters, to epic slug fests between the tens of thousands amongst the forces of Good and Evil. You will witness the reality of warfare in a world of high magic. Featuring a core system revolving around the Combat Grid, inspired by the Tactical Grid of the upcoming game Hollows and featuring a hybrid of Position and Zone play, Combat is an intricate tactics game thats easy to learn and effortlessly fun. An expansive and wide open character building system that hybridizes classic Class systems with an Elder Scrolls style Skill+Perk system. Make a character in minutes, and realize their potential in how you play. 20 Base Classes and 80 Subclasses, all of which can be mix and matched and built up in any order you choose. You want to take all the subclasses at once? Go for it, its balanced. Crafting - Inspired by Tears of the Kingdom, the game will feature an elaborate, and relatively realistic, crafting and gathering system, allowing you an unprecedented amount of expression in what your character will make of the things they find in the world. A sword is no mere combination of a couple ingots and some leather strips, but of potentially many different metals, leathers, woods, and oils, all of which will provide unique and emergent properties as you combine them. The cost of your creations is that they won't last forever, but this is a good thing; as your equipment degrades, you'll be able to repair them and add new materials to gain temporary abilities, and if you let your weapons break (or, with the right Skill, do so deliberately), you can add these new abilities permanently. Sprinkle some Springhorn into your sword as you sharpen it, and it'll gain the Boomerang property, and will fly back to your hand after being thrown at a target a few times. Reforge your broken sword with it, and you'll be able to do it forever. And all this before we even start talking about Magic! A True Exploration System - Exploring the world is the bread and butter of an adventure in Labyrinthian, and as you learn more about the world, your characters will find Inspiration in their knowledge, and will be able to leverage what they've learned not just to succeed in the challenges they find out there, but in the greater schemes of play. Seek out and discover new places to build, to gather, and to explore, or don't! Exploring is about more than just striking out into the wilderness; its about learning. Find out that big bad evil guy is weak to bananas? You're Exploring! A Systemic Living World - Building out from very simple mechanics governing the passage of Time, the gameworld will come alive as play continues, and narratives begin to emerge. Entire Cultures could rise and fall and change, and heroes and villains will come forth to inevitably face each other. Your characters Reputations will invite challengers and pleas for help, and as you affect others they'll affect you back, whether they be Rivals or Allies. Full Integration of Improv - Its an open secret that much of whats enjoyable about RPGs is just improv; we call it roleplaying, but there's a whole lot more we can do than just pretend to be elves. Improvisation is useful and supported in nearly every sector of the game, from Combat to Exploration to Questing. Easy Set Up - The game only needs a World map and the Combat Grid, and new characters can be drawn up in minutes. World Keepers, the Game Masters, will need a bit more, but the game has your back, with innovative tools to get you in the game. The Quantum Statblocks and Quantum Quest Blocks will help you improvise enemies and entire questlines all on the fly, and the gameworld is designed to be easily managed with nothing more than a Calendar and a handful of Region Sheets. Easy Integration with all Playstyles - Don't want to just play with an abstract grid and some tokens? The game's got you; you can build as elaborate a set up as you want and the Combat Grid is easily applied to it. Don't want to engage with this elaborate living world? Thats fine too; the game will only break if you stop playing it. Want to play without a World Keeper? Co-op is easy. Want to just play by yourself? Go solo! ===== But anyway, yeah lol. I'm under no delusion that I'll perfectly nail all of this, but so far I've nailed a hell of a lot of it, and when its ready to be playtested publically, I'm confident I'll be able to refine it to a fine sheen, so to speak. I also didn't even elaborate on everything that's going into the game, but I'm always happy to talk about my ideas if anyones curious.

The error mentioned above by @OrbitalManeuvers is caused by a typo in the Bumblebee Sensor Package config file. The typo prevents running the barometer experiment from an action group. Here is a Module Manager patch to correct the typo and let the barometer experiment work as intended. I prefer patches like this over editing the original files, but obviously it could be done that way, too. Bumblebee Sensor Package Barometer Fix // -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- // Bumblebee Sensor Package Barometer Fix // -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @PART[bb_Sensor]:NEEDS[Bumblebee] { @MODULE:HAS[#experimentID[barometerScan]] { @useActionGroups = True } } I didn't come here to talk about that, but I saw that error and had to fix it before I felt comfortable posting what I actually came here for... While I was doing a personal update on the Knes TweakScale configs, I decided to write some for Bumblebee. I always enjoyed using the electric props from Firespitter to make things like quad copters and whatnot, and when you combine that with TweakScale, you can make some pretty neat low part count stuff. TweakScale for Bumblebee seemed like something interesting to play with, so I wrote the requisite configs to do so, and I decided I might as well share them. So here they are. Note 1: Some of the parts will require the latest version of the TweakScale Beta with TweakScaleExperimental enabled, but if you're only after the props, pretty much any version of TweakScale will do. Note 2: Scaling up the size of the props exacerbates the issue of the Bumblebee props continuing to generate thrust when they run out of available EC. Rest assured the problem exists even on standard sized props without my patch installed, but the thrust values are so low that they typically wouldn't be enough to move your craft. Scaling up the size increases the size of that latent thrust. Bumblebee TweakScale Patches // -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- // Bumblebee TweakScale Patches // -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @PART[bb_Aeroshell]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee "Apiary" Aeroshell { %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = stack defaultScale = 2.5 } } @PART[bb_Chute]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee Main Parachute { %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free_square } } @PART[bb_Core]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee Drone Probe Core { #@TWEAKSCALEBEHAVIOR[Science]/MODULE[TweakScale] { } %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } @PART[bb_Decoupler]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee Decoupler { #@TWEAKSCALEBEHAVIOR[Decoupler]/MODULE[TweakScale] { } %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } @PART[bb_Drogue]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee Drogue Parachute { %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free_square } } @PART[bb_HGA]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee "Antennae" High Gain Antenna { %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free_square } } @PART[bb_Prop]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee "Wings" Contra-Propeller { #@TWEAKSCALEBEHAVIOR[Engine]/MODULE[TweakScale] { } %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } @PART[bb_PropSingle]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee "Wing" Single Propeller { #@TWEAKSCALEBEHAVIOR[Engine]/MODULE[TweakScale] { } %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } @PART[bb_RTG]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee "Stinger" RTG { %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } @PART[bb_Seismometer]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScaleExperimental] // Bumblebee "Proboscis" Deployable Seismometer { #@TWEAKSCALEBEHAVIOR[Science]/MODULE[TweakScale] { } %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } @PART[bb_Sensor]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScaleExperimental] // Bumblebee Sensor Package { #@TWEAKSCALEBEHAVIOR[Science]/MODULE[TweakScale] { } %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } @PART[bb_SingleTruss]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee single-mount Truss { %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } @PART[bb_Skids]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScaleExperimental] // Bumblebee "Knees" Skids { #@TWEAKSCALEBEHAVIOR[Science]/MODULE[TweakScale] { } %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } @PART[bb_Truss]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // Bumblebee Truss { %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } @PART[bb_Dunaprop]:NEEDS[Bumblebee,TweakScale] // "Dragonfly" Low Density Contra-Propeller { #@TWEAKSCALEBEHAVIOR[Engine]/MODULE[TweakScale] { } %MODULE[TweakScale] { type = free } } Enjoy or not as you see fit

The following are my thoughts, more or less on what I would do to distinguish KSP2 from KSP and make it a far greater experience if I were making the game. I'm not demanding these things, and understand that the structure and affordances of the game at a basal level may already be set in stone in many respects. Still, now is the time to talk about what can be made, while it's still a bunch of ideas in all our heads. What is KSP2 trying to surpass anyway? What is KSP1? KSP1 is a rocket simulator at its core, the "challenge" that the game entices the player with are the construction of working vehicles and the piloting of those vehicles to various destinations. There's never been much to "do" at those destinations, except take in the sights, maybe send a rescue mission, or try to build the biggest thing you can there. There didn't need to be more than that - KSP is about spacecraft design and flight, and teaches players about the challenges of spaceflight and the thrill of getting from here to there while trying to avoid blowing up. The science system acts as a simple form of guided progression, and science instruments don't provide much practical purpose except as a source of a currency for unlocking more diverse spaceship parts as a reward for traveling to new destinations with limited technology. The mission system also provides a set of design and flight challenges that act as "suggestions" if you're stumped on where you want to go next. What could KSP2 do that's "more" or "different" from that? Right now, KSP2 basically has all those things KSP1 does: The rocket simulator, the flight challenges, the unlockable parts, etc. It also has updated graphics to rival the best KSP1 mods, some slight changes to the UI, and an ecosystem of bugs almost as diverse as I'd expect to find by overturning a log in the Amazon. So KSP2 is using KSP1 as a base so far, to hopefully metamorphose into a new and different experience. There are a few main "new" aspects the devs seem to be working towards for KSP2, and while I see the beginnings of some of those inside the 'skeleton' of the game today, there are some things that have been carried over from KSP1 that I think don't help KSP2 grow to the greatest experience it can be and develop its own "personality" if they remain as they are. KSP1 was a "rocket" simulator. KSP1 helped players answer for themselves "Why should we build rockets?", to the point that the story of KSP players enrolling in aerospace engineering programs because of the game has become somewhat common. For this reason, I consider KSP to be the best game. (I myself graduated as an aerospace engineer last year, though I can't say that KSP inspired it - I was already committed to becoming an astronaut long before I heard of the game. I've had interviews with SpaceX for various positions in recent months, but no offers yet.) Where KSP1 was a "rocket" simulator, I see KSP2 as trying to be a "space program" simulator. In KSP1, the player could build powerful rockets and touch down on any body in the solar system, but it would occur in isolated missions or voyages. Where KSP1 asked players "Why should we build rockets?", KSP2 seems to want to ask a question more like "What should we USE our rockets for now that we've built them?". The colonies, base-building mechanics, and interstellar destinations seem to point to a goal of letting players create a vibrant ecosystem of space travel. Instead of singular missions and tiny labs in space, we would be creating cities on the planets and trade routes between them, with complex exchanges of resources and technology culminating in the assembly of an interstellar vessel and the opening of the wide frontier. I think KSP2 has an opportunity to teach players not just about how rockets go from here to there, but about how they gather the information while exploring that leads to scientific discoveries and better informed designs of new vessels, and about the realistic challenges of living and building on another planet, and, most importantly, about exactly what makes it worthwhile to go to all that effort of leaving our perfect blue marble behind and actually trying to live there. To that note, there are a few specific aspects of the game that are presently implemented in a way that I think will be detrimental to those goals (which I just made up in my head) if they continue to build directly off of KSP1 and the simple precursors in the game now. These are the main aspects that I think should be overhauled to make KSP2 a grand step forward from KSP1: Realistic Science Currently, science in KSP2 functions purely as a currency for unlocking new ship parts. The experiment modules themselves don't provide any useful information, and the game doesn't go out of its way to tell you what was learned from each experiment. The experiments are all packaged together in a mysterious bundle, and the only interaction from the player is a simple reaction to the blinking "science" button, to click and receive science points. This is based directly on science in KSP1, which had the same function as a currency but allowed more direct viewing of the readings from some instruments like thermometers and barometers. I think KSP2 has an opportunity to embrace science in a more realistic way, and bring a taste of actual science for players. The repeated clicking on individual experiments from KSP1 doesn't need to return for this, but perhaps an "experiment manager" window or some other form of more in-depth interaction would be warranted. What I mean by this is for the science experiments to act as sensors measuring quantitative qualities of the environment. Examples of this would be a probe dropping into the atmosphere of a planet with a barometer and thermometer and creating graphs of pressure and temperature by altitude for that planet, or a spacecraft orbiting a planet with LIDAR to map its terrain for the first time, while the player would not be able to see the surface detail up close in map view or with probes before doing that. The player could gather actual scientific data, and the game could guide them into understanding why they've learned something about the planet by doing what they've done ("See the spikes in your spectrometer reading? Those prove that there is water on Duna!" "You measured a dip in this star's brightness, that must have been caused by its planet!") I recall the devs mentioning the idea of not giving the player all the information about planets right away, and players having to "discover" at least some celestial bodies on their own. I think this idea of the player gradually building up their own "discovered world" based on their own measurements helps with that, and I hope science gains a lot more depth and realism in KSP2 in the future. Some of the science experiments I can think of: -Magnetometers that can map planets' and stars' magnetic fields over time by orbiting them, and can help forecast solar storms -Spectrometers that give spectra for stars, planet atmospheres, and surface samples, which the player can look over to characterize composition -RADAR, LIDAR, and cameras that allow the player to record detailed maps of surface topography -Telescopes with various specialized instruments and wavelength ranges for observation of deep space objects, exoplanet discovery, and mapping the stellar neighborhood Player-Driven Exploration With discovery at the forefront of the game, I think the player will have all the incentive they need to drive the direction of their space program on their own. Want to explore the Sun? Prioritize radiation and magnetic science parts. Made an unexpected fascinating discovery about Jool? Drum up the resources for a planetary probe. Prefer visiting Minmus over the Mun? Focus the game on that destination. Show the player the options, and let them choose their own goals. A big place where I feel the game falls short of this are the anomalies. Instead of encouraging the player to go to space to learn about their environment and place in the universe, about the natural beauty of the world, the game sets the main goal as learning about the ancient aliens who were in the Kerbol system. I think having those artifacts in the game is no problem at all, and can make for a really cool adventure, but no part of the game should tell us to go seek them out or visit them. I would implement them far more subtly, requiring the player to discover them through actual anomalies in the data they gather as they explore. For instance, mapping out the magnetic environment around the Mun with an orbiting probe and discovering a strong localized magnetic field that reveals the location of the Mun arch. No Keri Kerman telling us that there is an arch, no mission handed to us by the game - all the incentive and excitement can come from a pure "What's THAT?" as the player discovers a tantalizing measurement. Then, visiting the arch (which should probably be covered up to begin with until excavation is possible) could allow discovery of an actual signal, a puzzle which would need to be deciphered by the player. Another example would be finding nearby stars and exoplanets. Once the player has the technology to do parallax measurements and light curves of stars, the game shouldn't tell them where to look in the sky. They should just be able to start a sky survey or point their telescope at whichever star they like, and see what they find. They might not know about all the same planets as some other player does, and when the time comes to launch their interstellar vessel they'll choose a different star to point it at, based on what they've discovered. Resources As the game progresses into colony-building, I'm sure the focus on material resources will grow, as now it isn't there but I can see the place for it in the game. On extraplanetary bases, it's obvious that there will be a limited budget of raw materials, metals, oxygen, etc. with which to build rockets, buildings, and other machines, with that budget coming from resource extractors and mining of the surface through combing, excavating, and drilling the planets. Other planets would also have alternate materials available like regolith for buildings, roads, and launch pads. On Kerbin, presumably advanced industry elsewhere on the planet is able to supply KSC with an "allowance" of materials and parts, which don't necessarily need to be limited by cost in money units, but could be limited by quantity available, especially for specialized parts like probe cores and science instruments. For instance, "There are 6 FL-T200 fuel tanks available" or "There are 3 probe cores and 1 capsule available". Part of the player's directive for exploration could be the strategization of prioritizing production/purchase of certain kinds of parts and materials. Probes vs. space station modules, longer range antennas, different types of experiments...These would make every player's "space program" unique and personalized. Conclusion This is basically my outline for what I personally imagine KSP2 could be like in the future. The main aspects I see in this "speculative" version of KSP2 are: Science experiments functioning in a realistic way, as sensors that observe the environment, and conclusions about the universe being drawn from those observations, as well as useful information for designing and piloting vehicles in those environments Player-driven exploration, with much less direction coming from the mission system as to what to focus on or find important A focus on material resources for production of parts, vehicles, buildings, and missions that is adaptable to the player's self-determined goals There are a few places in the game where I see gameplay mechanics that I think will prevent KSP2 from achieving these aspects if they are left as they are and taken for granted. Mainly these are copied from KSP1: The "science point" system and its dynamic with the tech tree Exploration being driven by "missions" where the game tells you where you should go and what aspects of space exploration you should consider important I think those aspects from KSP1, which themselves were added after the core identity and function of the game were fairly well established, should be rethought and reworked to better fit the mission of KSP2. I'm not demanding that they be changed or made to fit what I've described here, my only request is that they not be taken for granted just because they're the status quo. I know this is just my idea, and I'm sure the actual game could turn out very differently from what I've described and still be a very good game. The devs have no doubt been thinking and shooting ideas around about these very topics for years longer than I have, too. Developers, thanks for listening to the community, and thanks for your dedication and commitment to trying to make something even greater than the best game ever.

We didn't have those tools in KSP1 either, without mods. There are extant calculators for resonant orbits already, so parity with KSP1 is a reasonable ask. As explained, main purpose of this is getting them from "we might talk about it again later" to "we WILL fix this by 1.0."

When are you guys putting an alarm clock app into KSP2? Hopefully not after 1.0 like KSP1 did, that's a pretty crucial feature. I've been hoping to do a completely modless playthrough in KSP2, something I never really did in KSP1 because so much of my playtime was pre-1.0. Anyway, have a happy new year and keep up the great work! Your start on exploration mode and the current science gameplay is excellent, a much better experience than I expected given the talk of how similar to KSP1 it was going to be.

We had a lot riding on the For Science! update that we released two weeks ago — it’s been a long first year of Early Access, filled with the arduous and mostly unglamorous pursuit of bugs, stability improvements, and performance gains. This update, the first of our major Roadmap Updates, had to achieve some big new goals for KSP2: it had to round out the core game loop with re-entry heating and buoyancy; it had to introduce a whole new progression system via the R&D Center and Mission Control; it had to introduce Science collection, Science parts, and dozens of new points of interest; and of course it needed to continue to deliver quality of life improvements (banishing wobbly rockets) and performance improvements. Also: there are boat docks now! In a nutshell, the addition of Exploration Mode transformed KSP2 from a sandbox experience into a proper long-form game. Working on something with so many moving parts, there’s always a little trepidation when we release a new build to the public - especially when there are so many new systems in play. We do our best to test every possible scenario, but there’s always a chance that something terrifying will rear its head once we’ve got thousands of people playing the game. It was with this fear lurking in the backs of our heads that we sat together in our own mission control room and waited for confirmation that For Science! had been released into the world. We nervously watched the first review videos appear on YouTube, and were relieved to discover that veteran players like Carnasa and Matt Lowne were excited about what they found in the new update. We cycled between the livestreams of Everyday Astronaut, EJ_SA, and Giantwaffle, discovering to our delight that all three were not only having fun, but were having trouble putting the game down! By the time we did our own livestream that evening, it was clear that we’d succeeded in creating a more stable and realistic universe, and that we’d given players some compelling goals to pursue within that universe. Our stream ran over an hour longer than planned because we, too, had a bit of trouble putting it down. That’s a story we’re hearing a lot - you sit down to play this game for an hour, and before you know it the sun’s coming up. Over the last couple of weeks, a clear picture has emerged - there are still some bugs, as well as some big opportunities to improve the player experience - but for the most part, those rough edges have not gotten in the way of some very ambitious exploratory missions. I’ll talk more about those bugs in a bit, but first I’d like to highlight some of this update’s biggest wins: The music. Yes, you all love Howard Mostrom. We’re going to need a bigger inbox for all his fan mail. The tutorials and first-time user experience have paved the way for a new group of first-time Kerbal players, and we’re not only seeing lots of you get to space, we’re also seeing a lot more players doing interplanetary missions. In many ways, the original justification for KSP2’s existence was to find a way to welcome more new players to Kerbal, and we’re very excited to see that this work has begun to bear fruit. We knew that bringing rocket science to the masses wasn’t going to be easy, and there’s still a lot more work to do in this area... but we’re making progress! Folks are enjoying the missions! We’re excited to continue adding new missions to the game via upcoming updates, and we’d love to hear your suggestions for compelling new exploration goals. In general, we’re beginning to see the flourishing of player creativity that we knew would take place once the most critical performance and usability issues had been ironed out. It’s been a pleasure to visit r/kerbalspaceprogram and our #bestof Discord channel and just bask in the awesomeness. People are making magnificent things, and it feels so nice to see all that imagination unleashed. Look at this stuff! Courtesy of Aravir Courtesy of Flypig07UA Courtesy of Dr. Seno Courtesy of BioticKeen Of course, one key benefit to our game being in Early Access is that we get detailed bug reports and feedback from a wide variety of players, and boy, did we get a big helping after releasing this update. Check out the spike we saw on our K.E.R.B. bug submissions at the end of December: There are some annoying bugs and usability issues in the mix - some are new, some have been around for a while but have risen in prominence now that other more consequential problems have been addressed. Areas of frustration include font scale and legibility, the maneuver node interface, thermal system tuning (including the propensity of some parts to explode even when they’re shielded and the insufficiency of fairings to protect their contents), as well as a few weird one-off stability issues (most of which can be corrected by reloading or restarting). We are triaging and trying to reproduce issues related to things like parachutes failing to deploy, trajectories vanishing from the map view, and Delta-V accuracy (which given the dependency of maneuver plans on accurate Delta-V projection, can result in being blocked from planning a maneuver). We’ve also noted some user experience gaps, most notably the game’s failure to properly communicate to new players that "Revert to VAB" is different from "Return to VAB" - an oversight that has led some newcomers to lose their progress after completing a mission. I’ll also take this moment to offer a new protip that I learned today after complaining to Chris Adderley about my spaceplane wings being destroyed on re-entry: while the heavier wings are more heat-resistant, the volume of every wing (and especially the wing’s thickness) affects its thermal mass. A thicker wing will be more resistant to destruction via heat! I’ll be trying out the "fat wings" approach tonight after work. Procedural wings sure are cool. Anyway, back to bugs. If you’re one of the people who have come up against a truly blocking or fun-destroying issue, please do take the time to share that information with us via the bug report subforum. We’re seeing much less of this after the For Science! update, but it’s still something we want to investigate aggressively when it’s encountered. We’re already hard at work on the v0.2.1.0 incremental update to address as many of these issues as we can, and we’ll update you here as soon as we know the exact timing and contents of that update. In the meantime, thank you for continuing to share your bug reports and feedback - your detailed reporting continues to play a huge role in helping us to improve the game. Another exciting new development: modders have started to produce some extremely cool augmentations for KSP2, including Orbital Survey, an alarm clock mod, and there’s even some planet modding underway! Our team is especially happy to see that the extensible tech tree file format created with future moddability in mind has paved the way for things like the new Tech Tree Manager mod. The Orbital Survey mod The 2.5x Kerbolar System mod The next major Roadmap Update, which will bring colonies to the game, is now also in progress. In the meantime, the current plan is to sneak a few additional missions into the next incremental update, just to keep things fresh. Now that there are interesting things to do in the game, we’re very excited about all the ways that we can continue adding new layers to that experience in the coming year while knocking out the bugs that remain. 2024 is going to be a very exciting year for KSP2, both for the players and for us developers! Nate

Please stop constantly harassing me. You have all my arguments above about why there's a better learning progression with Stayputnik, a small SRB and control surfaces and why the Starting Rocketry node is currently bad. If you want to talk, bring counter-arguments. I've been very explicit and clear in my reasoning.

Was that because their vessel had lost all control due to loss of electricity, or did it crash into terrain due to lack of a parachute? Oh wait, that can only happen with probes. Sorry? Also batteries, solar panels, antennas, even more reaction wheels because probe's own is way too weak to control much more than its own core. Weird how you forgot about those. And if you omit parachutes and experiments, what's your probe for then? It won't gather science (the only purpose of those first few flights) and even if it did, it will crash because no parachute, so you'll end up with nothing anyway. Your first flight is nothing more than a waste of time. Besides, there's one thing you keep forgetting when you talk about how "hard" it is to learn basics - there are friggin tutorials right there. Yes there isn't many of them and they don't cover all the basics but there's nothing harder about methalox engine than there is about an SRB. I'd say it's easier because the Swivel gives the player some control over the rocket, with SRB you shoot straight up... And that's about it. I'd like to refer again to the Science Deep Dive video where it's all explained.

There is a long life left ahead for KSP 1. A long, and happy left before the rot you talk about hits. Tho, I have some small measure of faith that if it needed it, that IG would put out some sort of 1.12.6+ update to maintain KSP 1 and keep it from dying out entirely.

There are two threads here which get you around your problem. Docking ports are a new gadget. You can work out how to building them and test them on the ground. You can make them with the same materials you already use to build the rocket. You just need to do that in space to prove you can, ie Soyuz 4 or Gemini VIII. Going somewhere and finding something new is what gives you big step changes in capability. Perhaps a new material that allows a more efficient or lighter engine, or a different fuel compound that means you can fit more dv in a given volume (yep, sorry, variations on a theme. others will have better ideas). Maybe you could get there without leaving the Kerbal SOI, but it would take a heap longer. This is an issue in KSP1 - the power of the science labs means you don't really need to. This sounds a lot like 'science points'. However, following PDCWolf's train of thought, you don't exactly see the tree, just the outputs from your general intended direction. On this point, we can agree. If nothing else, all this talk of science has had me doing some basic reading into what did happen, when and how in the '50s through '70s. I know I've had to rethink some of my ideas on tech progression.

I was wondering when all the talk about precision fermentation would go mainstream…

Well, I've crossed the 200 hours total time spent in KSP 2, so the game is worth my time. Surprisingly, it was not the exploration that got me hooked.. but actually building first stages of various sizes and tonnage to LKO and also designing more and more complex science return missions. So basically most of my enjoyment came from the VAB. Executing those missions is somewhat painful - from bad dV data to bad maneuver node control, buggy RCS which makes docking a PAIN.. which means that for me KSP2 is up to the level of KSP1 Science Mode but just below designing multi-vehicle missions which require orbital assembly and refueling. Besides bugfixes and QoL improvements, what I feel is missing: - more edge, spice, adult humor - many more discoverables & asteroids-comets - better terrain and environment graphics + weather visuals - better science utility and planetary discovery and survey progression - CommNet missions which require launching satellite constellations to have unoccluded signal in a SOI - extra survival gameplay mechanisms like radiation - being resource constrained and a resource collection game loop - previous and next points are closely related to delivery routes - more reasons to build vehicles other than rockets, probes, pods and landers - the orbital colony system + EVA construction to make building in space easier and faster. Only when the game will have all this will it really be just above KSP 1's level. And only after that does it make sense to talk about interstellar exploration.

Okay here are my UI notes. Overall the UI is really pretty solid, Im just listing the items for improvement to keep the list shorter. I'm still getting started honestly so let me know if there's something I've just misunderstood. Many of these have been mentioned previously, just adding data points. General: - It would help to have color consistency on "Training Center" + "Mission control" in the escape menu--just pick a color for each and use in both words. - In settings generally "graphics" is next to "audio" in most games. - I might have missed it but I'd like to be able to rename my agency and set a new flag - Several buildings are missing return to KSC/Go to Mission Control/VAB. Only hitting escape lets us transfer between - As noted highlight/text contrast is so low when renaming vessels in the Tracking Station its impossible to read. - Many menus have very low contrast, especially the handles/ dismiss button at the top. - (Bug) Several General settings are listed as both "on" and "off" until mouse over. Tutorials: - Im wondering if there's a way to interconnect missions and tutorials in a tighter way? Maybe there could be links in between before and after certain stages? - It might just be the nature of the beast but the tutorials seem to jump around a lot--introducing stages in flight before going back and showing staging in the VAB, etc. Would it be better if there was more linear continuity? - It seems like the navball is introduced very late. Again there's a lot to talk about so maybe thats okay. - Science and reentry tutorials are great but perhaps some mention of parts exposed outside the heat shield and recommendations on safe reentry angles? - I figured it out eventually but a tutorial on transmission + estimating power needs would be useful. - Im sure these are WIP but we should have tutorials on plane changes, Radial/Normal burns, intercept + docking, vacuum + precise landing, (and more Im sure) VAB: - Trip Planner should show dV to LKO when "Kerbin" is selected as destination. This could be the default unless another body is selected. - Trip Planner should also be more dynamic, allowing us to select + add up destinations in a more custom way. - I'd love the ability to eyedrop colors in the color manager. - Id like a way to group-select in the Parts manager, especially for setting action groups - I might be missing something but how can we see through fairings? I liked KSP1's explode/transparency on mouse over. - I think its because of atmo vs vac calculations but dV readout in VAB doesn't match when you go to the launchpad. Maybe save the settings? Flight: - Escape should pause the game - Maybe "Go" button should change to say "Stage" after initial launch? - It also took a long time to find the Kerbal Manager... maybe some of these menus should be covered in the tutorials? - Id also like to be able to rename and recover vessels in flight without having to go to the Tracking Station - (Bug) When UI is scaled up the Research Inventory appears in a place that it cant be moved or dismissed because the top is above the frame - Pinned Ap/Pe markers should stay pinned when switching between flight + map view. Focus should also stay fixed. - Probably a bug but vessel icon scaling goes crazy when switching focus sometimes. - (Bug) Time-warp seems to lose count when warping to maneuver - becomes paused when not indicating pause. - I would love to see time to reentry, time to impact, + time to intercept readouts—basically time to whatever is next with more specificity. This is super important for an alarm clock if/when implemented. - Add a ‘toggle antennas’ button next to solar action group. - Safe parachute deploy speed is a bit opaque to me. What is the unsafe deploy speed? - The Navball itself is a bit busy. Target markers should be in a different color (not white) to stand out. - Agreed with others that the maneuver nodes are tough to use and labels frequently overlap and make manipulation + navigation difficult. Definitely add fine-maneuver tool with graphic + numeric input. - Also agreed we should be able to place maneuver nodes when paused and in other SOIs. - The burn-bar should have squared off rather than rounded ends so its visually clear when you've completed the burn. Also agreed^ it should say "burn remaining" and tick down. - Burn countdown lights are great but the colors are confusing. Make it more clear you're hitting Z at zero. - (Bug) I like the warp to maneuver feature but warp-stop notification says warp canceled because of proximity to celestial body. - I would LOVE the ability to snap maneuvers to Ap/Pe/An/Dn. Maybe a right-click option? - Id love if the science button had a subtle audio cue when lit/ new science available. - Research inventory should list experiments from newest to oldest so recent experiments appear at the top of the list. - Agreed^ many experiments are repeating even after being submitted. "Transmit all" should also be greyed out when there's nothing to transmit. - We absolutely need biome maps at the least. Topography would be nice too. - Agreed the SOI transition graphic is handy but a bit overbearing. - I'd love to get more diverse vessel icons back in map mode, and then some. Again Im really pleased with the progress thus far. Im sure a lot of this can be solved in the next year or so. Thanks for all you do, devs!

when i was digging through the files i went into squadexpansion and i found out that Breaking Ground wasn't always called that it was originally called Serenity and i thought it would be a cool thing to talk about tell me if you knew this or you didn't feel free to ask me a theory about it

There was another Starship debate over on a Discord server today, as seems to happen every couple days like clockwork, and I came away from it with somewhat of a new perspective on the Starship program. Many of the criticisms of Starship ultimately come down to the idea that it is too ambitious, that SpaceX has bitten off more than they can chew here. Well, that and taking off the cuff remarks by Elon (for example 1m per flight, 1000 passengers in p2p) as gospel and using them to show why the program is obviously stupid and the whole thing is a scam. But the first one is more interesting and what I thought about a lot today. Ignore HLS for a second, I'll talk about that later. I think a lot of people would have liked to see SpaceX originally take (or pivot to) a more conservative approach to a next generation launch vehicle as a stepping stone to a fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicle rather than skipping straight to something with Starship levels of ambition. Like, for example, a fully reusable but not rapidly reusable vehicle, or a very large partially reusable vehicle. But why? The obvious answer is that it allows them to create something that blows Falcon out of the water for considerably less effort than Starship would take. ...But why? They have the market completely cornered. Nobody can compete with Falcon, even discounting Starlink. Everyone except possibly Blue Origin and Relativity is stuck trying to create a rocket marginally competitive with what Falcon 9 was a few years ago. Serious competition is at least 10 years away. SpaceX doesn't need to do a thing to completely dominate the space industry for the foreseeable future. They can sit on their hands, maybe make Falcon block 6 if Relativity is looking threatening enough in a few years time. Basically do what ULA did. What could they do with a Falconlike SHLV that they could not do with Falcon? Large stations if anyone was interested, maybe small scale medium-high cost Moon missions, being the de facto Artemis launch vehicle. But not much that is commercially viable. Not many people are going to pay 120 million for 100 tons to orbit. There would be a market, but as we are seeing with Falcon Heavy, not a huge market. SpaceX does not want to launch a handful people to the Moon for tens of billions of dollars. They don't want to sit on their hands and accumulate wealth. They do not want to keep making minor improvements to Falcon 9 forever. Whether or not you agree with this goal, SpaceX wants to create a self sustaining city on Mars, or at least, create some of the prerequisite technologies required for that to happen. It is not a financial goal. It is an emotional goal. SpaceX is fundamentally an emotionally motivated company, and while finances can't be ignored, they are a means to an end. If money was the primary goal, Elon would have created sensible businesses with the PayPal money. instead, SpaceX was created out of spite for the Russians and frustration with the state of the industry. Since then, they have plastered windows on things with no business having windows on them (Cargo Dragon, I4 dome, doubling down on Starship having a huge window), dragged the space industry, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century, with many of the major advancements financed on their own dime, made Dragon 2, their spacesuits, the crew access arm, the launch tower, and much more look stylish and cool (depends on taste), arguably at the expense of a small amount of functionality, and strapped a meme payload to what was at the time the most capable operational rocket in the world. I rewatched the IAC 2016 talk today, and while almost all of the details have changed, the core architecture has remained the same. That talk laid it out clear, this core architecture was designed with Mars in mind. In order to create a self sustaining city on Mars under reasonable economic conditions, a rapidly and fully reusable vehicle must be mass produced, and it must use propellants practical to produce on Mars, and orbital refilling must be utilized. While an incremental approach to developing such a system does have some merits, if there is a proper time to dive in headfirst into the onslaught of engineering challenges associated with such a ridiculously lofty goal, it is while they are a decade ahead of everyone else. In order to succeed, everything known about rocket building needs to be challenged. Anything short of a high performance mass producible rapidly and fully reusable rocket is not an acceptable stopping point, and SpaceX has made that clear with how often they threw out things that weren't working. They tested every assumption about rocket development made to date, knowing full well most of them would be reinforced, but a few would give way to unexplored potential. They threw out carbon fiber after investing a ton of money into the hardware to produce 9 and 12 meter tanks. They threw out the Florida starship site (for now at least). They made a water tower fly, and then threw out the next six prototypes for not being good enough. They built or partially built 26 starships and 3 boosters before getting something that might get to orbit, each of which had major changes from the previous, and then threw B4/S20 out practically on the eve of flight. They tried a new launch pad, and when that didn't work, they threw it out and tried something else. They tried a new form of staging, and when that didn't work, they threw it out and tried hot staging. They tried hydrolox Raptor, and it didn't work, they threw it out. Large scale ITS Raptor, thrown out. Raptor 1, 1.5, etcetera, thrown out. Raptor 2, on its way out because Raptor 3. There's even been talk of a different engine altogether. They have produced hundreds of Raptors by now and they haven't even gotten to orbit, that's more than the total production of most other rocket engines. ITS re entry configuration, thrown out. Two strakes, thrown out. Tripod with two flaps and a rudder, thrown out. Body flaps, modified numerous times. Initial tiles, thrown out. Bare metal, thrown out. Transpiration cooling, thrown out. Back to tiles because that might actually be the best option, several iterations, throwing them out until they are good enough. Can't land on the launch mount? Can't crane a ship from a landing pad to the launch pad fast enough to colonize Mars? Throw it out, try landing directly in the crane. They are pushing the envelope in all directions trying to find anything that will get them closer to their goal and they can and will throw out any design, no matter how firmly entrenched, if it falls short of their goals. They have created the largest satellite constellation ever (okay, if you're gonna be that guy, project West Ford was indeed way bigger) just to finance the rate at which they throw stuff away. Even that satellite constellation is designed to be thrown away and replaced every five years. This whole time, also pioneering the early stages of mass production necessary to make the city on Mars a reality. But this city can't be built alone. A rocket such as what Starship aims to be is a prerequisite for a Mars colony, but not sufficient on its own. So every so often, SpaceX will put Starship out there to get people thinking about what such a revolutionary rocket could do in fields it isn't even optimized for. A Moon base, gigantic space stations, crewed missions to the moons of Jupiter, probes ejected from Earth at insane speeds with refueled expendable upper stages, and even point to point. Some of these are more realistic than others. If enough people start thinking about what this could do, some of them will start trying to make it a reality, and some of them might just end up producing Mars hardware in a few decades time. Then, SpaceX decided to go "Hey, NASA, Starship can also be used as a Moon lander!" And in a move that was unexpected to most external observers, and may have even been unexpected internally, NASA, strapped for cash and with the only other status quo choices being "expensive consortium led by a company with no orbital experience" and "oopsie daisy, negative mass moment", saw a chance for an incredibly radical future, and went "Okay. You have four years. Show us what you can do." Of course, this is where it all went a little sideways. You can fiddle around with your revolutionary side project all you want when your only limiting factor is how long it takes other space companies to catch up with you. There are no customers to complain when it takes twice as long as planned, or keeps blowing up over and over and over again. While HLS has been great for emphasizing Starship's legitimacy and getting even more people thinking about it, now SpaceX can't just keep throwing stuff out ad nauseum, it actually has to deliver results in a reasonable timeframe. Granted, some of this is the government's fault, selecting a lander in 2021 and expecting a landing in 2024 was never a realistic goal no matter who is doing the design. But now, a program with the single constraint of "Get lots of stuff to Mars, toss away everything that can't do that" has to be made to support the most important human spaceflight mission in decades in relatively short order. It must be safe and with a relatively frozen design, and the tankers must be produced and rapidly launched with not much more tweaking. I don't know yet whether the added cash and legitimacy is outbalanced by the conflicting requirements. These conflicting requirements seem to be where a lot of the conflict is coming from. Since HLS, Starship is both a vehicle that needs to be chaotic in the near term in order to be revolutionary in the long term, and stable in the near term in order to get us back to the Moon. I don't know if they will make it to Mars, much less build a city, but if anyone can do it in the next hundred years, it is probably going to be them, and they are not going to stop trying to reach that goal until they go bankrupt or the CEO dies and doesn't get replaced with a like minded person. That was a lot more than I intended to write. TLDR: SpaceX is emotionally/ideologically motivated. Their ultimate goal is to colonize Mars. If their goal is to make money and remain competitive, they already have that, no reason for something Starship level. Something in between Falcon and Starship also does not make sense if their goal is merely to remain competitive. Starship makes sense viewed through the Mars lens, its other applications are byproducts. I suspect long term an optimized Lunar architecture will look a lot different. SpaceX will not design themselves into something that cannot be evolved into a rocket capable of creating a city on Mars. This means a lot of throwing out stuff that doesn't work, pushing boundaries, and lots of failures. Starship won the HLS contract, which is not a contract you want to have rapid iteration, boundary pushing, and frequent failures on. The two conflicting aspirations for what Starship is supposed to be are causing some amount of conflict and debate. In the time it took me to write that, the news that the ship firing today was a single engine maneuvering burn test arrived. This is completely unrelated to the above wall of text, but given how small LEO maneuvers will be (I'd guess this is simulating a de-orbit burn), that static fire might have actually been full mission duration.

I had to pay already for the privilege of play-testing and emit feedback, why would I also perform the job of a paid position on top of that? I can design you a science mechanic, come back to it with a presentation, multiple docs, spreadsheets about balance, and whatever you ask, but we've gotta talk money first. If you want stuff for free, there's plenty on the thread.

I really have to ask this question every time I see one of these, "This is stupid, get rid of it!" /Feedback/ posts.. How would you do it? Seriously, how would you design it? What do you want? Describe the form of gameplay you want. Describe your design, step for step, let's have it. Also, if you're going to talk about science in KSP2 from a point of "realism" , you do realize that we launch probes in to space that just sit in space and follow commands sent to them to just take pictures and gather data from sensors yeah? Ya know, like SOHO, JWST, MRO, LRO, Artemis, MAVEN, Trace Gas Orbiter, etc....

Flight 1001 (KSC - Island Airfield): KJ-119-1 Crew: Jeb and Bill The KJ-119 is the first jet airliner built by Kerbal Spaceless Program to use more than 1 engine. In this case, it's a Wheesley and a Juno. ----------- Jeb: Good morning all Kerbs, welcome aboard to Trans Kerbin Airlines! We will be taking off shortly. Bill: Wow, they even put a second engine on this one! Talk about safety first! The Wheesley spooled up and spat to life. The Juno? Not so much. Bill: Jeb, I think the Juno failed. Hopefully we'll make it to the Island Airfield. Jeb: SIlly old Gene making us fly test planes with passengers on board. Bill: Wait a minute... you left the PA on! The passengers immediately began screaming. Jeb: Calm on guys, we've almost landed. After the landing, the passengers made their way of the plane and the other unsuspecting group of passengers entered the plane. Luckily the flight went relatively smoothly. As the passengers left, they made sure to leave their positive reviews. "They didn't even have seat cushions!" - Bingus Kerman "Where are the in-flight snacks, and why am I able to open the plane's windows?" - Doofus Kerman "This flight pulled more G's than I ever did in the Kerbin War!" - Rofel Kerman The KJ-119-1 was immediately sent to the SPH for repairs for the Juno. Hopefully this ends well.

I have played and adored nearly all of Chris's mods and they are absolutely brilliant. I don't always agree with him though when it comes to gameplay. I think efficiency and simplicity are really important but I'll return again and again to the chess vs checkers example. What makes good gameplay is not absolute simplicity, but maximizing the ratio between input rule complexity and total output creative gamespace. Sometimes a very large investment in dev work results in a very small increase in creative gameplay. Sometimes a modest investment in dev work results in a HUGE increase in creative gameplay. Every smart developer is playing these odds. I happen to think there were some decisions in KSP1 like instant scanning on polar orbit and not incorporating biome maps that were huge missed opportunities, and across the board when you talk to folks who used SCANsat the verdict is pretty unanimous that the mod did it better. Thats because it hit that sweet spot leveraging a bit more complexity in design to capture a much more robust gameplay experience. I think avoiding LoS, real-time mapping, time-based mechanics, and life support are similar kinds of missed opportunities where a modest investment in development time could leverage a much more dynamic set of design, planning, and navigation puzzles for the game.

I support this and agree with @Pthigrivi. That being said.. I feel like the devs read and listen to player opinions, but they don't confirm it. Slowly I see that gameplay decisions are made, the items on the wishlists are getting added and some things seem to be well thought out. We're all starting to have an idea about what this game wants to be. But the dev - player interaction is minimal at best. Good thing we have the CMs to talk to. Anyway, when you as a player feel like life is not fair.. remember that @Nertea's Discord handle is Destroyer of Fun. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Not necessarily! The wiki software (MediaWiki) have all the tools the community needs to afford this thing. KSP has a community waiting to massively restart to write the history of the game. It's already happening. For example: Kerbin (like duna Duna, the Kerbol System and other) already has a single main page about the concept of the planet with different sections about the KSP1 and KSP2 differences. The community did a wonderful job with KSP1: let's them to continue. The risk is of dispersing the know-how. KSP1 nad KSP2 specific pages can of course exist for example for Easter eggs or parts lists, the community will (they are still doing) find the right way! EDIT: i mean: we could already have this talk in the talk pages of the wiki!

First off, I would like to say that For Science! has made the game massively more playable, fun, and performant. I appreciate the hard work and dedication of IG when some of the player base (myself included) went from not just critical, but skeptical that we would even see the promised features. The science update proved that skepticism wrong, and I want to sincerely thank the IG team for their persistence. I say this because while part of this post may sound negative, it’s coming from someone who’s genuinely a fan of the game, wants the game to succeed, and appreciates the massive step forward this last update was. All that said, after playing it long enough where I feel I can give a solid opinion, I must say For Science! still hasn’t reached the tipping point of being fun to play for fun’s sake yet. As a tester, and an EA player seeing the game grow, yes. But KSP1 remains more fun at this point. I really would like to share my feedback on the game, but it’s hard to do with the specifics of future features still largely unknown. For instance, how much are resources going to affect the early, mid, and late game restrictions of exploration mode, if at all? There’s a lot of feedback I can give here, but without details on the roadmap beyond just the highest level concepts, most of that feedback is meaningless. KSP1 had a lot of janky complexity. I loved it dearly but career mode was hodgepodged together for sure. KSP2 (seemingly so far) didn’t so much streamline the complexity as outright remove it. It’s rather simple to get to anywhere in the system without unlocking any tech nodes as there’s no restrictions on size, part count, or funds/resources. (I personally prefer no funds and the limiting factor to be resources, as I believe to be the plan.) How I feel those restrictions could be added in an engaging game play loop is something I’d love to talk about, but currently it’s unclear if any such limitations are even being considered. The new and zombie bugs did also sadly affect my gameplay, both with the resurgence of the orbital decay and the loss of orbital lines. Those I see have been clearly communicated to the devs and it is clear they are a priority. I would personally, at this point in development with a “game” now in the sandbox game, rather they focus on bugs for a bit. My larger point with this thought though is that bugs can be clearly communicated, and then addressed. Larger framework decisions and feedback much less so without knowing exactly the plan for interstellar, colonies, and isru. The devs have clearly asked for feedback, and I’m happy to provide it. I just feel it’s hard to give good, actionable or even considerable feedback with so many unknowns for the player community. Had KSP2 launched in this state into EA I feel there would’ve been much less criticism. The game, while buggy and feature lacking, has clear potential, details of quality in the surfaces of the planet, audio design and other areas. Most EA games are very clear about the development process, and I fully understand why they went so quiet with the harsh criticism they were receiving. They knew the only way to win back trust was to deliver, and while there’s still a ways to go for me personally they delivered a great update that won my trust. Now that we have that trust, I feel like it is the time to open up more about the specifics, and then recieve, consider, and implement as they see best fit player feedback. This would include the plans changing slightly as the game progresses and in response to the feedback, and trusting the community to be understanding of that. Again, I don’t want to be too negative. My pessimistic outlook was solidly proven wrong, I’m excited and passionate about KSP and am way happier now having my pessimism be proven wrong and having a fun KSP2. I just please ask that now that trust has been rebuilt some thought is put into how much of the specifics of the coming features can be shared with the community so we can give quality feedback.

Flight ????: KJ-099-1 Crew: Jeb and Bill Passenger: 1 TKA Flight Inspector The KJ-099 is the first passenger plane the KSP developed. With a passenger capacity of 4 kerbals, the KJ-099 is perfect for use for flight inspections (establishing a new flight route). The first test flight is to send an inspector about 20 km out above the ocean and fly back safely. Morty gives a little pep talk: Bill: Whatever, starting up the Wheesley... Jeb: Fly safe? That's not something we're good at! Flight Inspector: What'd you say? Jeb: Nothing... With a bit of struggling due to the bad landing gear placement, the KJ-099 somewhat flopped into the air. Luckily it seemed to like flying, so that should be okay. Flight Inspector: Why does my metal seat have no cushion? Bill: Uh... it's for cooling purposes since we don't have an air-con vent back there... Flight Inspector: I hate my job... Jeb: All kerbals please fasten your seatbelts. This landing may not be pretty. Jeb: Try to flare it a bit... Jeb: Nailed it! With the success of the first flight, the KJ-099 is immediately sent to the SPH for improvements, notably the bad wheel placement. A few days later... Flight 1000 (KSC - Island Airfield): KJ-099-1 Crew: Jeb and Bill Passenger: 3 TKA Flight Inspectors Bill: Can't believe they woke us up at 2 for this. Flight Inspector 1: Well get on with it, can you? Jeb: I think they're complaining about the legroom again. How are they so awake? Bill: I suppose it's the jet-lag. Now that the jet has arrived at the Island Airfield, the Inspectors get off to negotiate flight deals. And before long, the KJ-099 is off again. The wheel placement improvements certainly helped with takeoff. Jeb: "Friendly reminder that you are not allowed to have food fights in the cockpit" Gene knows us so well... Bill: So how'd you enjoy the landing? Flight Inspector: At least it was better than Kyanair... Now with a place to fly planes to, the KSP begins building a larger plane...

Welp, I don't have KSP 2 at the moment (current hardware can't run it and I really can't afford it). But skimming here tells me the KSP 2 gamesave system is confusing some really good KSP players. Whether it's UI or something internal or both, it's not quite right. And it really isn't explained to the player, when its complexity indicates it should be explained. That's not making KSP 2 look good to me. Talk about barely being alpha grade, but KSP 2 has been released (even if Early Access), but a save/restore system is a core game mechanic that shouldn't be in this state at this time.