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While the game already includes randomly generated hairstyles, skin colours, glasses, and eyeball sizes, expanding this system to allow for comprehensive customization beyond just suit colours would greatly enhance our connection to the little green kerbanauts and their missions. Drawing inspiration from the discontinued kerbalizer game, we would be able to create or modify unique Kerbals with distinct facial features, hairstyles, and outfits & accessories that they would wear when idle (in the astronaut complex, colony habs, or floating around on a space-station).

It would be nice to have big elevators for ksp2 colonies, especially for the Dres canyon, Eeloo and maybe Vall.

So I was watching the short film recommended by Nate Simpson and found this scene at the end and it just amazed me. I've aways felt the gas giants in KSP were kind of distant and purposeless, like a distant god that can't be touched, a far wonder that exists only to be contemplated in the skies of their moons. Being able to construct floating bases in those worlds would bring them a surface, landing in one of those colonies would be a new exciting gameplay challenge that could be rewarded with the resources extracted by those facilities. Just imagine the terror of missing the landing spot and falling to the infernal core of Jool. Imagine how beautiful it would be to fly a plane down the cloud layers to extract certain elements and then land back on a floating runway. Imagine the challenge of designing a vehicle capable of diving to the metallic hydrogen mantle and then getting back to the colony by inflating some sort of balloon. The possibilities are endless...

Does anyone have an estimate of when colonies will come out? Any guesses?

When do you think the next updates will be? By this I mean the next couple of bug fixes and then the roadmap releases. There is no wrong answer! Currently I predict the first update sometime next week or the following (early March) and then a second patch late March or the beginning of April. Then I think Science will be added in the Summer (July or September) Then Colonies in the Winter of 2023 (December) I sadly don't think Interstellar will be added until 2024, realistically speaking. Same for the second "Exploration" update which I predict in late 2024 Thoughts?

KSP 2 Colony Speculation (CHECK BOTTOM FOR GOOGLE DOCS LINK) Introduction Ground colonies Orbital colonies Mobile colonies The relationship between them (the colonies) An interstellar convoy (what it could look like) Introduction Firstly, this “guide” if you will, will include my speculations about colonies in KSP 2, and has very little factual basis other than what we already know from the developers. That aside, the way I see it, a colony will contain the following thing A main command center. Used for colony builder menu. Likely will be self-sustaining (if you have nothing else, it will still work as a “base”). Required to build anything else, likely where you will have to manage your supply routes, exports, and imports. Will be utterly basic, but includes basic resources (see later). Habitation modules. Just holds kerbals… Can store food resources (?). Required to hold larger populations. Allow for kerbals to multiply. Greenhouses for snacks. Science modules Needed to refine science. Colony science coupled with communications could allow progression through research tree (?). Could be used to make more efficient colony parts along with engineers (?). Science kerbals speed up or allow these modules to work. Engineering modules VAB/SPH Will be used to make crafts. Requires building resources which need to be created and stored. Smaller VAB/SPH modules at first. Can be expanded. Could store landed crafts (Hangar module?) Fuel/ISRU/Material refinement Used to build various modules. Turn raw material into usable material. Heat problems (?). Store all resources until further use. Certain small particle accelerators (for making isotopes of hydrogen required for inertial confinement engines). Anvil/refiner for metallic hydrogen. Mining modules Gather natural resources from planet Colony building module Could be a part of the VAB/SPH (?). Builds modules. Requires engineer kerbals. Utility modules Electrical production, structural elements, communication antennas, etc. To have a functional colony, you would need a combination of these modules. Mentioned several times however, are resources. The resources that will likely be in the game could be grouped as follows: Electrical resources Power units like amp hours (kamp hours, amp kours? Could just be power units) Fuel resources Methane (Natural). Oxygen (Natural, derivable from water). Metallic hydrogen (derived from hydrogen resources such as atmospheres or water). Inertial confinement pellets (derived from hydrogen for deuterium, and again hydrogen for the tritium). Others (Unknown) Natural resources Uranium (seen to make some parts) Hydrogen or molecules containing hydrogen (i.e. water) Unknown natural resources, likely required for the other engines like the “torch ship” engine. Kerbal resources Snacks Each is required for certain purposes, and each can be obtained naturally with the use of certain modules. Additionally, resource spread is likely to be a major factor when placing a base. It could be random so you will need to bring resource analyzers in order to see where it is most efficient to settle your base! Ground colonies Ground colonies are likely the most stable type of colony that will be possible, because they are the most independent. Once you launch your interstellar convoy (or local convoy), it will include everything you need to start one. Ground colonies will likely be affected by several characteristics of a planet. Firstly, what is the terrain like of a planet, is it hilly, flat, or varied. Secondly, what is the climate like and what is its tilt. If it is on a tilt, then temperatures may vary, and sun position may vary, and light that passes through to the base could vary by time (solstices), and irregular orbits could mean a different amount of light available. Clouds could block sunlight. Bad environments for RTG’s could be a problem, and early on, fuel cells could be bad for a developing colony that is still growing (not enough fuel). Thirdly, what is the resource spread of a planet? What abundant resources does it have and does it have any resource dense areas? These are the things I think should be considered when making a ground colony, especially since this will likely be what affects any other colony in the object's SOI. When you’ve decided where to build it (we will discuss this in the interstellar convoy section), it would help to plan out where you’ll put things. You may want the flat land nearby for a runway, and instead build the habitation and other modules on the bumpy terrain with structural elements. Your refinement locations should be in the more resource dense spots of your area, and all of these elements would need to be connected. For vehicular excursions, you would want certain vehicle hangars, and airlocks to go to important locations such as the refinement cells. Orbital colonies Orbital colonies, despite seeming like the meta type of colony that could replace ground colonies, actually hold a significant dependency on ground colonies. While they do not have terrain physics challenges and can be more compact, they actually have their own engineering problem of not having any resources. All of its fuel and building resources are only obtainable from other ground colonies with refineries. While having advantages over ground colonies, such as that they are (by far) the most efficient way to make interstellar craft (you just make the modules and put it together), it also is more of an extension of ground colonies. Orbital colonies will likely serve the role of a colony that would be mostly responsible for all of the interstellar/big craft construction, as well as minor roles in energy production and communication (thick atmospheres could severely limit the range of antennas. Mobile colonies Not a physically confirmed thing, but an interesting one nonetheless, a mobile colony would be some sort of large scale self sufficient rover that could house smaller crafts and would be mainly used for excursions. For example, for a deep science excursion, you could send a big rover to a biome and when it gets there, you would use a science rover that is slower but holds lots of science equipment, an exploration rover to look at the terrain, and the main craft which relays communications to these two crafts and also gathers resources and data about the resources in the area. This is entirely speculation, and has not even been talked about by the developers, just me pitching an idea that came up when thinking about this. The relationship between these three colony types As stated for all of them, each colony (note: any information stated about the mobile colonies could be ignored) has its own requirements and dependencies, and so I think that it would have a structure as follows. The main ground colony will be supporting it all once large enough, it would start to construct an orbital colony, which would have supply chains with three crafts you would need to build, a fuel tanker, a resource shuttle, and a kerbal shuttle. To fuel up the large ships the station would make, you would need a lot of fuel that needs to be automatically brought to the station via a fuel tanker. The resources required to build the ship would be brought by the resource shuttle, and since most of the kerbals will be on the ground colony, a kerbal shuttle would be required for any kerbal excursion to another star or planet that comes from the station. A mobile colony would be self dependent, but most of it is more of a utility thing in order to explore a planet and get information. It serves the ground colony, but is very unrelated to the colony type theme here. Mobile colonies could however be the root of a colony, meaning the command center is mobile and will explore a planet to find a good spot, then it will anchor itself and become the command center. An interstellar convoy When making an interstellar convoy, your first goal will be colonization. You do not want to send multiple crafts to the star system to colonize it, so you would need to send all of the essentials, mainly a rover to explore the surface to find a good spot to make a base, the modules for a base, specifically a command center, VAB, habitation, life support, fuel refinement and utility, and the last two things you need is a shuttle to bring the kerbals down to the surface to the base (the modules are likely condensed meaning you can’t have kerbals in them until they are put together in a colony), and perhaps a the rest of the core spacecraft can be left floating around in orbit around the planet to be used later when constructing an orbital station so that you have immediate materials you can break down for resources. Authors note Thank you so much for reading this, I wrote this specifically as a brain dump so that I would have all of these thoughts just sitting in my head, and I just thought to share them. For context, I've played the game for about 3k hours, and this is what I think could happen and I would be happy to see. I hope you found the information both interesting and informative, and please comment below your speculations about this and what you think about this information. Please tell me also if you think this is accurate, what you want to see and if it made you have any other ideas. Edit: Sorry for the garbage bullet points. I don't know how to get them to work, so here's a link to copy a google doc with this same article for better readability https://docs.google.com/document/d/11vY7E_sHpzds16tFb1hvvHJiqznsM1wydgpgWapWYbw/copy#

Kerman Colonies Lore(-ish) Since the KSP2 early access release date was announced, I realised how little of KSP I've actually explored. I thought "what would be an actually fun way to finally explore the whole solar system before KSP2 releases?" hence Kerman Colonies. My goal is pretty simple; see how much of the Kerbal solar system (including Outer Planets) I can colonise before I get KSP2, my plans are ambitious but I doubt that I'll get half of them done in the time anyways lol. But anyways, might as well crack on with it before March comes around! Launch No. 1 - Kerbin Logistics Outpost (KLOP) Core Module Kerbin Logistics Outpost will pretty much be a home base for most of my craft and missions, comprising of living space, and refuelling facilities. However, to launch it, my funny little kerbals needed a bit more launch capability than they already had. Hence, I present: Prost, Kerbalkind's largest and most capable rocket to date, and also fully reusable! "Liftoff of Prost, carrying the core of the KC's newest station to orbit!" The booster performs fine through ascent, hauling the upper stage skyward to finish the rest of the journey. MECO, and the upper stage separates while the booster prepares to come back down to Kerbin. The vessel completes a good orbit, meanwhile all focus is on the booster and it's first ever landing attempt. "Entry burn start-up." However, not everything goes so well with the landing. Telemetry is lost on touchdown, and the booster is destroyed. Not long after, the Prost upper stage deploys the station core, and prepares for re-entry. De-orbit done, it prepares for a hopefully smooth landing. And thankfully, this landing goes off without a hitch. The mission is deemed a success, with the loss of the booster being the biggest let-down of the mission, but luckily it wasn't mission-critical. Back at the KSC, they already start preparing for another launch, this time a separate service and station-keeping module to support the station during station construction

Colonies need more challenges Say, a real-life colony would face the planet's hostile environment. A surface colony on Venus wouldn't exactly be easy to make, as it would have to contend with extreme weather. That's what I suggest. On Duna, you couldn't rely solely on solar panels, since sandstorms could form. On Eve, you have to contend with temperature, pressure and possibly acid storms. A floating colony on Jool (assuming the atmosphere could be chlorine) can withstand unbelievably powerful winds, and an oxidizing atmosphere. Even planets with little or no atmosphere would not be as safe as it would have to deal with radiation and possible asteroid rains (On planets like Dres this would be frequent, since they are in an asteroid belt, or even moons that are inside the rings of some planet). Also on Jool, colonies on its moons would have to face the radiation that Jool itself possesses. A good way to prepare is to predict what might happen, with weather stations being built. Weather balloons could also be launched. This could bring a significantly greater challenge to building colonies.

I'm very excited to hear that automated delivery routes are confirmed and can't wait to over-engineer a logistics network. Positivity First: It sounds like resource routes will be established by performing a delivery with a truck or rocket manually first. Once a single successful loop is completed, a new delivery route will be unlocked. This is an excellent design choice because it requires a player to achieve sufficient mastery for each route, and since some routes will be harder than others, the available wealth for a player will grow in proportion to their skill. Even better, the tedium of repeated manual hauling missions is eliminated (I've certainly done this in KSP1). There are two aspects of delivery routes that could cause problems if not implemented well: #1 - Variable dV requirements for routes that cross multiple SOIs If you want to get from Kerbin to Eeloo, the dV required will depend on the relative positions of those planets and the order you perform your maneuvers. This gets even less repeatable when gravity assists are considered. One potential exploit could be a player manually running a delivery route at the optimal time with very favorable gravity assists, and then getting future deliveries for less dV than they really should cost. Personally, I wouldn't mind this, and if a player is smart enough to exploit this... maybe they should be rewarded for it? This is one of those cases where I believe satisfying gameplay is better than realism. That said, I think there should at least be some sort of in game acknowledgement of this issue. Another possibility could be imposing some sort of handicap on a player while proving a delivery route... such as 10% greater fuel consumption. #2 - Will automated vessels be under control of the Physics Engine Please don't do this for the following reasons: It will cause delivery routes to spontaneously fail off-screen at no fault of the player due to kraken like bugs. Even if KSP2 has far more robust physics than KSP1, delivery routes would also greatly expand the number of failure modes. It wastes CPU - The rigid body physics calculations are computationally intensive and may be fundamentally limited in how much they can be parallelized. This cost is worth it for craft the player is actively looking at and piloting, but not for stuff off screen. Even if different vehicles far away were give their own physics threads, it would wouldn't take long to saturate even a high-end CPU. One possible exception - It may acceptable to physically simulate delivery vessels while they are close to a player. For example, if a player is piloting a space station and an automated freighter comes in to dock, this could be a reasonable because it only needs to scale with the number of players and if a kraken occurs, the player will witness the failure and learn something immediately. Discussion of possible deliver route implementations Since it hasn't been explicitly confirmed is exactly how the automated resource routes will behave. Let's consider 3 possibilities (there are many others): Exact Record/Playback This implementation would be like trucks in Satisfactory. You press "record", pilot your craft manually along a delivery route, then "stop" the recording when you close the loop. The craft would replicate your actions exactly. Tradeoffs: [-] Please don't implement this [-] Would only work for land-based routes. Orbital targets would change relative positions between iterations of the delivery route, so rigidly executing the same maneuvers at a different time would not work. [-] Not robust - It is not realistic to expect a vehicle to perfectly execute recorded instructions each time. If the player barely grazed the edge of some scatter while recording, it may cause a collision during a random playback. Ghost Ships on Rails - After recording a resource route, your craft will repeat that same route, but will be non-collidable and on rails [+] Robust - Players still have to prove route viability but don't have to worry about spontaneous failures due to FP rounding errors or kraken-like bugs. [+] Moderate CPU - This should be little more than viewing a bunch of craft in the tracking station, or rendering a few ghost ships docking at a resource depot. [+] Provides visual feedback/beauty to the player to appreciate as they build up their industrial infrastructure. [-] Still has the problem of different maneuvers required depending on relative celestial body position. Since these are ghost ships, some cheese is allowable here, for example "draw a curved path from Kerbin to Jool that looks reasonable". These automated ghost ships should achieve these paths "magically" without burning their engines (except maybe for visual purposes). Abstract Network - Delivery routes would behave like the KSP1 relay network. After manually executing a loop, the UI could draw a line between the source and sink and you could utilize this link in some sort of logistics/production management UI. [+] Very robust - No moving vehicles means no spontaneous failures [+] Very Low CPU - All you need are some new UI elements but no actual craft to render or track [-] Not as cool - It may be hard for some players to suspend their disbelief if a stack of ore magically appears every 6 hours in their station without seeing anything dock.

Straight to the point: we're going to want to build tourist colonies that other players can visit in multiplayer. Colonies with beautiful vistas, breathtaking sunsets, amazing skies to dream about at night. Maybe we'll even be able to charge players for a space bus ticket and a bed. Maybe we'll even be jealous that we were not the first to plant the flag at the location of our dreams. But we're also gonna wanna build extreme sports resort colonies. We'll produce and sell jetpacks, mini-copters, fast jets, AWD rovers and bikes.. I'm sure someone will even build an amusement park and a huge roller coaster on the Mun to fund his interstellar project. More ideas for extreme sports activities and related colonies built at location: captured asteroid surfing in very low orbit around Minmus (actually saw a video on YT - don't know if he also built a mini-colony using the ground anchor) asteroid field racing (like in the KSP2 cinematic) jumping off huge vertical cliffs with friends (parachutes included but useless) underwater trench exploration (going down to max depth with a submersible) last bus trip into the sun (expensive ticket) racing jets through Dres and Duna canyons Kerbin desert Baja motorcycle jumping dunes Minmus flat plains ramp jump to orbit (prepare your max downforce rover) falling from orbit wearing just a helmet and a heat shield rover jumping over Mun craters and Eeloo crevasses volcano exploration (i hope we also get nonflammable crane parts) hovercraft racing over the Rask & Rusk lava lakes high altitude balloon bungee jumping on Eve going down the Mohole with just a suit and a helmet (it might take a while to return) last one to avoid jets collision is a chicken (1v1 on Laythe) drag racing on Tylo jetpack racing around Gilly, Bop and Pol having dinner at the space-station restaurant in the stable Lagrange point between Rask & Rusk (then having a tug of war party) Jool atmospheric deep dives (under pressure tananana) surfing storm planet tsunamis erupting ice geyzer riding on Eeloo kerbal cannonball between Rask and Rusk infinite depth limbo on Glumo Minmus flats hover-racing Skoot upside-down dining and spacediving jousting with Asteroids ring casino (tug puts you into a polar orbit swings a ringed planet and picks you back up if it survives an orbit) sledding / skiing on Eeloo, Merbel gravity assist roller coaster around the moons in the Jool system Eve mountaintop outlook at the North Pole (diving board included) X-Games: reaction wheel assisted stunts (jumps, flips) with all types of vehicles (buggy rovers, bikes, even planes or jet skis) (also related to the Baja idea, but can be done on all planets with gravity and atmosphere acting as difficulty levels) battle arenas (jets, space ships, mechs, tanks, naval, underwater). Bring your best creations and duke it out. hide & seek in the clouds Trackmania! And I'm sure we can come up with a lot more! Only question is if we can respawn back at the colony / space station.

New power generation modules for colonies! Your nuclear power options will progress from compact fission reactors to giant fusion tokamaks to next-generation Z-pinch fusion reactors. Yes, the radiator on the fission reactor opens and closes like an umbrella. Credit to Jonathan Cooper and Matt Reynolds for the fusion reactors, and special thanks to our friends Bob Palmer (RoverDude) and Alexander Martin at Squad for building the fission reactor.