Search the Community

I have heard many people debate about whether or not to have probes or crew be sent up in rockets first. The Probes First argue "That's more realistic." The Crew First argues "That's the kerbal way." I recently had an idea: boilerplate capsules. It's simply a variant you can toggle on any part that a crew can control from. Visually, it removes the windows and suchlike, but functionally, it lessens weight, removes the crew capability, and makes it a probe control point instead. If you want to send probes first, you can send a non-crewed boilerplate capsule that would allow a realistic progression. If you prefer the kerbal way, you can simply send crew up. Since it's up to the players, it can satisfy a larger group of people about the matter.

1. Grid fins. They would be a great addition and help enhance aerodynamics. 2. more heat shields. This would be great for atmospheric re-entry in sph ships, like the heat shield used by the space shuttles. 3. Bulding and customizing your facility. It would be awsome if you could choose where to place your buildings and customize them. 4. Custom flags. I think it would be great for ksp 2 to be able to upload a custom flag, this would go great with the new color customization that is planned for ksp2. 5. Make manuver nodes easier to understand. This one is self explanitory. 6. Kerbal customization. I would love a KSP avater creator, maybe there could even be randomly generated kerbal avatars. 7. Sandox mode planet creator. It would be AWSOME if we could create our own planets in sandbox mode. It would be cool if we could share our systems/planets in the workshop. So thats my recomendations.

Realistic aerodynamics is not only an essential topic for aerospace engineering, it is absolutely FASCINATING. I wanted to break the sound barrier with the Farrem Aerospace mod and the Realistic Progression mod tech tree. This led me to spend a whole 2 days researching aerodynamics, including watching the old Shell Oil film "High Speed Flight," which explained all the considerations of transonic and supersonic flight. This included elevator issues, thin wings, the area rule, sweeping wings behind the shock wave so they experience subsonic flow, etc. I spent 2 days excitedly researching, but I had also taken both incompressible and compressible flow courses. Think of all the fun I would have had if I were to discover those aerodynamic principles for the first time! If the developers want to make a game marketed as being a fun way to educate the next generation of engineers and scientists, they should go all the way and implement realistic aerodynamics so players can try to break the sound barrier and optimize the aerodynamic profile of their spaceplane for supersonic flight. Procedural nozzles could even be added just to experiment with optimizing engine efficiency for different atmospheric pressures (future update?). Make the game the ultimate sandbox of aerospace engineering! (The same goes for including realistic n-body gravitation like in the principia mod! But while it can and should be implemented I know it probably won't be...)

Are all up to date rockets like Saturn v, shuttles and other lifters like Russian one will be included in game as prebuild and ready to use? Are current and past spacecraft like Voyager, Sputnik will be included and prebuild? Are space station like ISS and Mir will be included and prebuild in base game. Maybe in cat example like. Mir-> each part( stage) separate ISS -> each part(stage) separate. It would be a good start to be able to replay cards of history form start (as learning curve) it would be more progressive ( from first rocket in space through establishing mission to moon and building space station stage by stage to landing on Mars) and then once achieving those steps new players would be able to carry on exploring further in to space. If this thread( questions where already asked) exist please point me in their direction and I do apologize for inconvenience.

I think that on all platforms the games should be the same

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_Aircraft_Launch_System This came up when discussing designing aircraft for Duna using a runway. As a possible upgrade in the tech tree it would be nice to have a launch/capture system similar to an aircraft carrier. Imagine you build your super fast plane but you don't have enough runway to take off or land.

We're all familiar with the concept of space elevators, right? And since KSP2 will have colonies and orbital shipyards and some kind of milk-run logistics system to send resources from one colony to another, it kinda makes sense to have space elevators. I guess this would need something like: A "ground anchor" colony building: build via KSP2's BAE but only near the equator A "counterweight anchor" part/building, meant to be attached to an asteroid. Or part of a big (i.e. massive) fuel dump station. A "cable spool" part. Buildable/launchable only from colonies with a "ground anchor" building. A four-part mission/contract to: Build the ground anchor Put a counterweight in a specific equatorial orbit (have a vessel of N tons in orbit, with the counterweight anchor part) Launch a vessel with the cable spool part (from the colony with the ground anchor) to the counterweight; rendezvous and dock (in less than half an orbit or so) Maneuver the counterweight exactly into its very specific final orbit. And when the cable is unspooled and tensioned then, boom, a new orbital station appears in stationary orbit just above the colony, as the colony sends up a lonely "elevator stop" module/building (then player opens up BAE at the station and adds more modules/buildings using the colony's resources). And I'm not thinking about a Kerbin elevator, but rather Mün & Minmus elevators. If KSP2 is gonna have inter-planetary logistics and economics, then I want to optimize resource launches from Kerbin's moons. --- I know there'll be a fraction of KSP players that will oppose this, with arguments like "but tensile strength" and "but tidal forces" and "but lagrangian points and escape velocities" and "but navigation hazard". So I'll remind you folks that KSP2 is a game and not a hardcore simulator, and I, for one, prefer unrealistic tensile strengths and ignoring problematic bits as long as the game teaches me something cool about futuristic space travel. So I wish for space elevators in KSP2.

Seems like a great reason to create a moon base, if the technology is actually possible. I'm not so sure a robot could create cells, lay them flat, and wire them. Then beaming the power to a receiver is a whole other challenge. In KSP2, the crawler cost, speed of cell production, cell efficiency, and micro-meteoroid impacts (which would require replacement of cells) would vary depending on each body. Would only be possible on certain bodies where the regolith can be made into solar cells.

When doing a resupply mission, instead of just saying you've done it so now forget about it, make it so it always follows a "milestone mission." This would allow for these gameplay features: 1. Make repetitive missions as optional as the player wants, as planned by the developers 2. A way to set a cost to each automated mission so that they aren't simply ignored 3. Incentivize efficiency and creativity for all skill levels 4. Introduce almost endless compelling yet optional challenges for players of all skill levels, increasing replayability of KSP2. The uniqueness of each location would determine how fun optimizing these missions would be. They would be optional regardless, so it can't hurt the game for anyone, only improve it.

The Kerbal news agencies report on all colony channels that Scott Kerman's vessel suffered critical failures, jeopardizing his mission. Some fear starts spreading through Kerbal society (along with causing a big distraction), reducing colony productivity somewhat (i.e. resource production, construction, science research). Later it is confirmed that Scott Kerman has gone MIA. For the Kerbals that know what this means, they become fearful of spaceflight, reducing population growth of the colonies, especially the one that Scott launched from as well as nearby colonies. Like an opposite "boom event" caused by player actions. This would be a difficulty setting to introduce consequences that require more safety features and margins for each mission. This would make the game more challenge and allow the developers more opportunities to make unique mission types and locations. Adding news reports would increase the player feeling of their actions being consequential to their Kerbal interstellar civilization, as well as allow for more humorous Kerbal reactions in the game. TLDR; Killing Kerbals is reported on Kerbal news, triggering an event making kerbals less likely to want to travel to new places in space for a while, reducing pop growth.

Just three wild ideas dropped on my head while I was drooling thinking about how the game would eventually be like. Terraforming: I've been playing a lot of Surviving Mars, that game focuses heavily on terraforming mars. Although rationally I agree with the mainstream view that terraforming Mars would not be as easy or as necessary as our modern day Sci-fi depicts. But gameplay-wise, I can hardly think of a better end game goal for colony management gameplay. I'm saying this because it's already pretty obvious that colony management would very likely become a vital part of KSP2 gameplay. If I chose to be a colony-minded player, after a hundred hours into the game, all the resources and technologies I pooled together on Duna would surely be rather sizeable. Eventually I'll need a rewarding sink hole to dump them into, terraforming would fit in just right as such a sinkhole. Dynamic career science: Now this is a heavy one, it's in some ways a revamp of the contract and milestone system. I can't honestly say that I'm satisfied with the "point buy" system the current science tree relies on, it's grindy, static, immersion breaking, and makes very little sense. I wish to see science point become more subtle. The player, instead of purchasing nodes in the tech tree with "blue points" earned by biting extraterrestrial dust, complete certain milestones to stimulate the development of the scientific progress in that particular area. For example, the "Basic Construction" tech has a progress bar which grows by 1 point each day, representing the day to day science development. It will unlock itself after some time, along with some other techs of the same tier even if you do absolutely nothing other than time warping forward. However, if you complete the mysterious goo and material bay related milestone, the achievement would give its progress bar a plain point boost as well as applying a modifier to the natural growth of the material related techs, for a certain period of time. I believe this is somewhat closer to how space programs impact our science progress in real history. And instead of grinding for contracts and repeating experiments, the player should be rewarded for planning their space programs strategically. The anomaly hunting would fit in well with this system, the player should receive some very unique boost should they detect and properly study an anomaly. This should also synergize well with the colony system, because a colony is inherently, time sensitive. Time becomes a vital resource with this system, a successful colony, be it a scientific outpost or a giant habitat, provides sustained boost to science progress, but it also requires maintenance and supply from time to time. This system should encourage the player to design and plan their colonies strategically so as to achieve net positive output with their investments. Cinematic Camera: This one is somewhat trivial in comparison with the overhauls above, but with KSP2 aspiring to be such a beautiful game about such a beautiful universe, it would be weird if the player is not granted the proper tools to capture such beauty. I wish to see more sophisticated camera tools implemented into the game, with lenses, apertures, focal lengths, even camera rails, tail-followings, etc. I can already see players taking pride in their own creations, why not let them film their own documentaries? I guess that's all for my daydreaming, I'm looking forward to seeing other players expanding upon these ideas in this thread. And thank you, team Squad, for such a fabulous game.

Hello, things that I would really like to see in KSP 2 are surface fixed reference frames, let me elaborate: There is this mod called principia, it models n-body gravitation and has an option to manually change reference frames, one of the options is a surface-fixed one. This one is really useful for analyzing how a satellite drifts in say a geostationary orbit, or even a Molniya orbit, and is really nice for fine tuning orbits like that. Here is an example how this would look in a RSS KSP 1 system in a geostationary orbit: Here you see a satellites history as it moves into GEO (using RSS + principia). It is clearly visible that at the final trajectory, the satellite has very minimal movement with reference to the fixed surface of Earth (in map view). In principia there is also this other reference frame, where you can select a target, and the target becomes the center of the reference frame (like the visual effect you'd get when you get an encounter with another body), this is way more intuitive to look at than 2 closest approach markers as we would have in stock KSP 1. I would really enjoy these features in KSP 2, if possible.

An easy way to plan Mun mission is to be in LKO, drop a maneuver node, drag the prograde till the propagated orbit kisses the Mun orbit, then drag it forward in time until it gets a Mun encounter, and fiddle it to tune. Using this method you can easily plan even a free return "by the seat of your pants". You cannot use the same method for interplanetary transfers, but if you gave some maneuver node behaviors to celestial bodies it would be that easy. Select Kerbin, drop a node, prograde till it kisses Duna orbit, ... At the end you'd have a time for a transfer window, and a delta-v (from heliocentric orbit, so you have to adjust somewhat, it's a guide). You can even seat of the pants the adjustment if you could set a vehicle node time to match the Kerbin node transfer, fine drag it to be at midnight (for outer bodies), set the prograde to the Kerbin node value, and tweak it down from there. Even "ghost nodes" make sense; drop a node in LKO and do the above to do preplanning without a vehicle, if you later rendezvous with the ghost node you know you are in phase to burn at the right place at the right time. (the node back propagates for the encounter detection) Reusing the concepts and code would deliver a lot of power for the players. This is really nothing more than we have now, just accessible in a new context.

weather its light wind or heavy wind, storm or lightning, turbulence or whatever you get the point, there should be weather in ksp 2, think about it weather affects rockets in real life and it'll be amazing for us to have realistic weather in ksp2 i think there is a mod for that in ksp 1 but im suggesting that there should be at least some form of wind or storm that goes in ksp2 and a weather indicator that tells you the weather for the next 7 days, the weather should also be different on other planets too like raining acid on eve or heavy snow on laythe or extreme storms on jool or radiation spikes on duna, yes it would be a bit more of a task to maintain your crew (or there could be a automated feature that manages your crew in case of such event) weather would be really nice to have on all planets, also can we have kerbals hair blowing in the wind depending on how strong it is and kerbals reacting to heavy snowstorms like putting thier hands over thier heads and squinting thier eyes or wiping thier helmet every 20 seconds or maybe kerbals sweating heavily on planets like moho and eve i know thier thread wont get far but i really hope someone forwards this to nate simpson to add it into ksp 2 or maybe ksp 1.11 because im too scared to do it lol but hey its just a suggestion and if nate decides to actually put it i the game then it wouldn't really matter if ksp got delayed again as long as he and the other ksp devs get it right. :A delayed game is eventually good but a rushed game is bad forever -Shigeru Miyamoto