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Please avoid unnecessary discussions and stick to known facts about the game. I got your attention? Good. So, after countless threads, interviews, videos, diaries I lost count what in fact, is going to be included in the upcoming game. So I created this thread to determine it once and for all. Below you can find a (hopefully) well-thought-out list of things we know for sure are coming. Parts, mechanics, systems, bodies, features, you name it. Now, the "you" part is important, I can only dig through so much stuff, so I ask you, dear reader, for help. You found something I didn't? Please post it, with reliable source, so I can add it to repository. The list is going to be of course expanded as more news come in the upcoming months. Some pictures may repeat, as they fit in more than one category. credit: cropped version of this picture Now it's the list! 1. Environment 1.1 Celestial bodies We know, as it was mentioned multiple times by our dear Nate Simpson, that the game wil include several star systems, with plenty of planets, moons, and Kraken knows what else. As far as I know, specific numbers hadn't been released to the public, but we've seen some of them. What we do know for sure, is that planets will have axial tilt. And while the starting neighbourhood (Kerbin, Mun, maybe more) won't have it for easier learning curve, we can expect some craziness further into the game, possibly going as far as 90 degree tilt, just like Uranus in our system. 1.1.1 Kerbol System The main, "starting" system known from the first game is going to stay mostly the same (no new additions, no Gas Planet 2, no asteroid belts, nothing) However, the bodies are getting a massive, well, overhaul is small word for that - it's essentially a remake. Let's start with Kerbin. We're getting a very expanded KSC, however, the looks vary from picture to picture. What we know for sure, is that there will be multiple space centers on the planets, and along with the ability to choose one of total four launchpads or two runways (they wil be longer now), we'll be able to launch craft from docks. The launch tower will move to accomodate the size of the rocket standng on the launchpad. Oh, and probably the most important bit, the KSC buildings will be destructible. The Mun stays roughly identical, with big and small craters and gray surface. Well there's actually quite a difference after recent update, and I expect this level of detail to be kept on every single body in the Kerbal universe Minmus got shiny. Of course, it's frozen after all. Now it's made of glass! The team on a meeting with a scientist couldn't figure out how the ice would stay on the surface this close to a star without dissipating. So the tiny moon is still shiny, but glassy. We got Moho, I repeat, we GOT MOHO Gilly. Not much to say, looks better and that's it so far. A LOT BETTER. Eve. Now the first picture from orbit is quite old and by looking at shots from the surface below you can probably tell that it'll look much better than that. Duna, now there's plenty of pictures, looks like very significant changes happened. Dres was presented by Nate himself, and with ridge in the middle it looks a bit like Iapetus. The famous canyon is still there. And it has a tiny ring! Jool system, that's a big one, and there's few things to see. We got a peek at Laythe, Vall, Bop, Pol and Jool itself, which has actual moving volumetric clouds. Eeloo, looks like it has gone through few changes since the first reveal in 2019 and the last. 1.1.2 Debdeb system It is a young star system, and currently we know of four planets there: Charr. Now it is said that it's "a heat-blasted world of iron", the innermost planet in the system. Glumo & Merbel (yes, Merbel, not Merble, confirmed by Nate) a gas giant with rings and it's icy moon we've seen in the trailer. Gurdamma, a young terrestrial planet that's still experiencing heavy asteroid bombardment, much like Kerbin did billions of years ago. Water on the surface and atmosphere, but with no oxygen. It has a moon, Donk. It has a very short day and is comparable in size to Kerbin. Keen eye will notice patches of lava on the surface (volcanos?). In fact, we did get a peek at this planet quite a while ago, while people thought is was Laythe. The picture I'm talking about is the last here, you can see how level of detail has changed over time. 1.1.3 Other exoplanets Now, we don't know where these new bodies are going to hang out, but we do have some pictures. Rask and Rusk, "a binary pair locked in a dance of death", so close to each other that tidal forces rip them apart. Should be fun. And as far as we know, the only binary system using different physics system than the well known from first game 2-body. "in the case of Rask and Rusk, we’ll be calculating the gravitational pull of multiple bodies on our Kerbal vessels, so that developing a stable orbit in complex conditions like a binary planet system becomes a new and exciting challenge! In addition, attempting a landing on Rask or Rusk will be a different experience depending on the location of the sister planet in relation to your target for touchdown, and yes, there will be an astable Lagrage point between the two planets (if we pull this off correctly)" Skutt. A rocky body of irregular shape that could fling you out into space if you tried to land on the far end of it. That implies very fast rotation. Ovin is a terrestrial super-Kerbin, 60% larger than Kerbin with a gravity of 4G’s. Ovin has no tall mountains - this is a smashed, scorched landscape. Puf is the always watching eyeball (and it scares me to this day, and will forever). All we know is it has polar caps, and the rest of the surface isn't frozen, so I doubt that it's tidally locked to the star. Lapat appeared only twice and rumor says it has vegetation on the surface. And clouds. 1.2 Terrain & visual effects That is something we really want to see, after decade of looking at, let's face it, very bland environment. 1.2.1 Ground Tired of seeing smooth hills, two patches of grass per square kilometer and rocks you can clip through? KSP2 comes to the rescue. We're getting redone ground that sure would be interesting to explore, and look at. Mesas, hills, canyons, meadows... And yes, terrain scatters have collisions now. 1.2.2 Rings. Yes we're getting them, and they're not only a 2D plane you fly through. There are rocks inside them, so plan your trajectory. They also cast shadows, and receive shadows from the planet. 1.2.3 Eye candy. Shiny stuff! Explosions! Reflections! PBR! Lights! VFX! Waves! CLOUDS. The game will look nice. Things are going to look different depending on the surroundings. Engine plumes are based on type of engine, fuel they burn etc. Explosions we will see willl be different each time, and will depend on various factors, like where they are (vacuum? atmo?), what's inside the tank that's exploding, how much fuel is inside etc. 1.3 Interface 1.3.1 HUD That's a subject to change. So far we've seen several iterations, while kinda similar to each other, there were a lot of changes to the style. Look at differences. It's worth mentioning that the plan is to make it much more useful than the one in first game, and more ergonomic. However, we'll be able to move its elements around, like if for example you'd want to obstruct the bottom of the screen and not see where you're landing, you can put the navball there. The Map view has been also completely overhauled to better present important bits of information, like spheres of influence, maneuvers, spots on the orbit path etc. And there is an integrated burn timer, for more precise maneuvers. 1.3.2 VAB That's a big one. Because we won't have just one VAB on Kerbin, as we explore the solar system and beyond, so we're be able to switch between different buldings on different worlds. Sorting, filtering, searching have been improved, as well as the subassembly system. Now we'll be able to save not just one rocket, but a whole workplace, for example with different upper stages on the same lifter - all in one file. We're also getting some new buttons which, as far as I remember, weren't explained. Yes, there were some speculations (a breakdown by ShadowZone for example, and my own edit of the picture below) but it's still open. Another new feature is a blueprint view. Makes, among other things, arranging symmetry in easier way than in old 3D view. 1.3.3 Animated tutorials The whole tutorial section is getting an overhaul. No more boring wall of text by Wernher von Kerman. We're going to see animations. To get the message through better, they're gonna use metaphors so they're easier to understand for someone who doesn't get physics. And more than that, the tutorials will be contextual. Let's say you're launching a rocket with the intent of docking in orbit. So your mission profile contains few elements. Building, launching, gravity turn, circularizing, rendezvous, docking. If you have trouble with any of these, you don't have to watch a 10 minutes-long video by Scott Manley, you can just stay in the game and watch a tutorial that covers that specific part of the mission you have trouble with. So all in all, tutorials, if I read that correctly, last 47 minutes total. Not that anyone would just sit and watch from start to end, that's why they're contextual. Plus, I see some popculture references. 2. Gameplay 2.1 Colony mechanics and off-world construction Right, so while the main point of the game, as pointed out by devs, is still flying rockets, but colonies will play a big part here, as they are our window to interstellar voyages. At first, our bases you have to be brought from Kerbin and assembled, inflated in place, but once we get access to ISRU (more below) we'll be able to construct more parts, expand the colony, and even assemble new spaceships. And it's not only ground-based, because we'll be limited by the size of new VAB, but orbital shipyards will also be a thing. From there we will be able to create ships few times the size of Kerbin's VAB, capable of reaching insane velocities on interstellar travels. On the other side of the equation, there wil be a new way for colony construction. BAE (I love the name though), Building Assembly Editor. 2.2 Resource extraction Yes, resources. No more magical Ore -> Liquid Fuel+Oxidizer plus Monoprop. We're going wider. Unless I missed something, so far we are aware of five types of resources. Xenon, metallic hydrogen, helium-3, methalox and good old monopropellant. Plus two the devs have not revealed yet. And we obviously can't create resources out of thin air, so we have to extract them (from atmosphere? ground? synthesise in some other way?) and process to something usable. From the parts we know, there's deep resource scanner, which is quite large. Also, those resources will be used to develop new technologies. 2.3 Life(?) support of some kind and other things affecting Kerbals That's a tricky one. While I know that nothing has been officially confirmed take that back, we have some translated info "I can say so much that the need to keep Kerbals alive is a feature we're going to introduce now" , so I'm kiiinda taking this too far, but come on. These in a picture below must exist for a reason. Also, we know that different form of radiation will have some effect on Kerbals. 2.4 Automated resupply missions/delivery route system To keep the game entertaining and not make it too repetitive, once we've done particular mission at least once - like, for example, drive a rover to dig site, load some materials, drive back and unload; or. take a payload of xenon from surface base to orbital shipyard for vessel contruction - we'll be able to set it to work continuously without our attention, in the background, so we don't have to spend countless hours flying the same rocket there and back again only to transfer 420 tons of xenon. 2.5 Discoveries During normal progression, we won't be able to see every single body the game will have to offer. No, we would see stars, but planets would have to be discovered - most likely by some sort of a telescope - and then, more info would appear as we get closer and finally land on the surface. Good, more unknown. 2.6 Asteroids! Yes they exist! Look like below aaand that's pretty much all we know. 3. Parts There will be many, many more parts. Around 600 currently, with probably more to come after release. Also the team said that most of the original parts are making their way into the new game, plus all the parts we've seen in the trailer are also actual assets in the game. So yeah there was a lot of stuff. And like, just look above, how many new things you see. Mindblowing if you ask me. 3.1 Engines and propulsion Metallic hydrogen engine. Early video tells us also about atmospheric, water-cooled version, let's see if that makes it to the final version. Orion-kind engine. Powered by nuclear explosions against a pusher plate. Real world concept. Not for use in proximity of, well, anything. It's nuclear explosion after all. Note that there are few sizes of that engine, and one of them is now officially named! Right below: "Torchship" engine, basically endgame thing. Quoting "the holy grail, it is a torch that you ride, screaming white death" Daedalus-style engine. In short words, a fusion engine based on another real life concept, theoretically capable of reaching significant % of lightspeed. We've seen it multiple times, usually near a shipyard somewhere near the orbit of Vall and flying by Glumo. It is said that it will use brachistochrone trajectories to get to places. As in, accelerating for one half of the journey, and decelerating for the other half. Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicles - UpScaled, or NERV-US. "a 2.5m part that, like the new NERV, runs on liquid hydrogen fuel. The engine has 2 modes: Low-thrust, high-ISP mode that uses liquid hydrogen in the same way that the NERV does. High-thrust, low-ISP mode that burns both liquid hydrogen and oxidizer (think of this as an afterburner that dumps LOX into the nozzle itself for extra kick) In low-thrust mode, a large vacuum-rated nozzle telescopes downward, extending the overall nozzle length. In high-thrust mode, the nozzle is short. Plasma engine. Based on real life ideas, mid tech engine, which was described in detail here. Mammoth-II, "packing all of the performance of the old four-nozzle Mammoth into one very powerful package" Alongside NERV, there's also yet-to-be-unveiled SWERV(?), a large size nuclear engine. And new 3.75m low thrust engine, Poodle's large cousin, Labradoodle. 3.2 Power generation That's the freshiest piece of information we got. "New power generation modules for colonies! Your nuclear power options will progress from compact fission reactors [tiny one in the middle] to giant fusion tokamaks to next-generation Z-pinch fusion reactors." Also if you look closely, you can find a Kerbal in the picture. Just if you wondered about the scale of these things. There will be also more, smaller generators to fit on spacecraft. Below, geothermal plant and wind turbine. Yay renewable energy! 3.3 Colony fuel factories We know of five types of fuel factories. "From smallest to largest: Methalox Fuel Factory, Monopropellant Fuel Factory, Xenon Fuel Factory, Helium-3 Fuel Factory, and Metallic Hydrogen Fuel Factory. How does it work? LASERS, of course!" 3.4 Procedural parts Quite a big change, eh? But yes, some parts like wings and radiators will be procedural, up to certain point. Wings will go with control surfaces right in them. No more fiddling with elevons and trying to figure out why they want to attach in wrong axis. And every edit will show how it affects how the vessel flies, how it affects its aerodynamics etc. Radiators are editable in every direction (I'm assuming on 2D plane). Wings are editable in all sorts of ways, thickness, length, control surface size, angle etc. 3.5 Other known parts Runways/roads! Using a set of straights, corners etc we'll be able to build whole cities to walk or drive around Rover wheels with working suspension Orbital launch clamps, for releasing your ship for a voyage into space (from space) 3.6 Color-coding and painting We will be able to pain our ships. Not much to say about it, but I think it could be important in multiplayer, and to make your way through 15 ships docked to your station, so you know wchich one goes where. Another quote from Nate: "the color controls in the VAB allow for application of color on a whole-vehicle or a per-part basis. You select your default color scheme when you start a new game, and your vehicles automatically have that color scheme. But I've found that you can make some incredibly cool-looking vehicles by changing the color of individual parts" 4. Kerbals(wip) 4.1 New animations Talking about in-game animations, their reactions for player's actions will be determined by their traits. We will still have courage and stupidity, but that's what we know so far. 4.2 Population growth 5. Multiplayer 5.1 Agencies and game modes. As of now, we know of two modes in multiplayer - cooperation or space race. In coperation mode, players will be working inside a single agency, contributing to one space program. In space race, each player will be controlling their own space agency, each one located in different place on Kerbin, competing with each other, basically going for "who's first". Or sabotaging each other launches, or whatever else they can come up with. 5.2 Cooperation in construction We will be able to swap and exchange our VAB/SPH workspaces between other players, which means, essentially, that you could use someone else's launch vehicle with your rover at ease. 5.3 Trading resources will be possible. And probably any other interaction with other player's ships, colonies etc. 5.4 Kerbal emotes Aside from default idle animations, we should be able to control what they show. Credits: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/195263-show-and-tell/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/200602-developer-insights-4---ksp2-engineering/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/187315-kerbal-space-program-2-master-post/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/197951-finally-peeled-that-gold-foil-off-the-windows/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/197513-xenon-and-on/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/195206-pc-gamer-article-is-now-online/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/187421-ksp2-flight-ui-from-developer-story-trailer/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/187802-pax-west-pre-show-info-dump-thanks-to-nomrbond-for-bringing-this-to-our-attention-all-credit-goes-to-them/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/profile/205123-nate-simpson/content/&type=forums_topic_post&change_section=1 https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/187318-hopes-and-wishes-for-ksp-2 https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/200104-show-and-tell-new-power-generation-modules-for-colonies/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/187606-some-more-ksp2-footage/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/200486-show-and-tell-colony-fuel-factories/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/201765-show-and-tell-pol-terrain-work/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/202101-show-and-tell-mun-terrain-work/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/202735-show-and-tell-the-kerbal-space-center/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/202990-show-and-tell-creating-new-parts/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/203719-show-and-tell-gurdamma/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/203310-show-and-tell-new-lantr-engine/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/204240-show-and-tell-terrain-progress/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/209147-show-and-tell-mammoth-ii-engine https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/208746-developer-insights-14-part-creation/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/209566-developer-insights-15-writing-for-kerbal-space-program/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/209962-show-and-tell-jool-flyby/