How finished is KSP in your opinion?

[Skyentist]

about banana% finished

[GeneCash]

I think the U5 rewrite will fix a metric buttload of lingering bugs and poor performance simply by revisiting and rewriting most of the code. Harvester looks like he's putting in the care necessary to get this done now, when it needs to be done, as I don't think there will be an opportunity to ever scrub on the code this thoroughly again.

I think the orbital EVA model is completely and totally broken with it's up/down orientation. That needs to be fixed to be even somewhat realistic. As it is right now, I just don't EVA, period. If I need the Kerbal to be in another ship nearby, then I edit the save file.

I also think the new aero model & re-entry could be balanced & tweaked quite a bit more. For example, there needs to be more on the re-entry difficulty slider toward the "deadly" end.

I think once that's done, it'll be finished/complete as far as I'm concerned, and anything more is icing on top, as far as I'm concerned.

[razark]

The software is finished when it does everything it's supposed to, and doesn't do everything it's not supposed to.

Since Squad A) won't tell us what the plan is; and changes their plan occasionally, there is literally no way for us or even Squad to say how done it is.

Even when Squad officially says "done, nothing but maintenance from now on", every single one of us will have different ideas about what Squad should have done, shouldn't have done, should have done differently, how "finished" it is, etc.

[Boomerang]

I said 60% as a rough estimate. If it were my product, I wouldn't consider it any where near a state in which I would be comfortable or proud to have it for sale, at full price, on the shelves. We're still having significant aspects of gameplay added (the upcoming addition of required satellite relays, for one), and probably more importantly, the bugs haven't been ironed out. I'm not talking about minor things, but bugs in the category of, 'if I hadn't paid a low price with the understanding that this is in early-release, then this would be unacceptable'. Random crashes, random collisions or disassembles flinging parts away at solar escape velocities, or collisions making the rendering of Kerbin disappear and locking the game up. Things of that nature. To say nothing of continuing balancing passes.

I don't mean to say the game is bad in its current state. But if it was my brain-child, I certainly wouldn't put it out there and expect people to pay $35-50+ for it.

[AlanP]

I'm saying 20%. I know there is so much more they can do with the game. That leave 80% more stuff for them to add and fix.

Right now it is a more complete, functional, and with a better replayability than any game I've played except for the original Neverwinter Nights.

To me it's like getting a new game every 3-6 months.

Live long and develop more.

[Columbia]

I won't consider KSP finished until a competitor comes along and shows them what a decent spaceflight sandbox looks like. Orbiter doesn't count because no VAB/SPH and no Linux client.

Errr.. what is with KSP that's so bad?

I mean, there are a handful o' bugs here and there, but it's not to an unplayable not-release-worthy-at-all extent, IMHO.

[Mastathrash]

Atmospheric vessel switching is an absolute must!, a reverse warp, better launcher and mod interface would be nice to but so far so good. I have found them buggy and unreliable. Also an Automated crash report system that would automatically send in reports would be absolutely amazing....Other then that i'm addicted

[regex]

but it's not to an unplayable not-release-worthy-at-all extent, IMHO.

Our HO's differ, IMNSHO.

[Taki117]

I'd say it's about 80% finished. I'd like to see some more parts, some visuals (Stock EVE and part visual updates), and maybe a few more widgets (dV readout I'm looking at you). Other than that I'd say it's done.

[Mastathrash]

I also think you should be able to expand on the planet. Having Civilian populace (to recruit from) population and other launch sites. I'll say 75 to 80%

[steve_v]

Feature-wise, It could be called complete at any time. It stands as a good game even without the upcoming content.

But there are still far too many bugs and performance problems to give it more than 70%, IMO.

TBH, I'd be quite happy with it if the core game was stabilised and the rest left to mods. But with the bugs, poor performance, and physics engine glitches it still feels very alpha.

[Edax]

I'd have to say the lack of dedicated moon/planet base parts and the lack of planets (gas giants with tons of moons and rings) means to me that this game still has work to complete on top of the polished this game needs. I'd say 60% is a rough estimate. It's not an alpha, still feels a bit like a beta, and I get the strong impression that a year or two from now, this game is going to be a lot bigger then it currently is.

[Superfluous J]

On a scale of 1 to 4 Toyotas, I'd say it's somewhere near sunset on Thursday.

[Deathsoul097]

I personally think that KSP wont ever be finished, and that it will stay in a permanent beta-ey stage until squad decides they're done with it, and at which point, the community will band together and take it over like FAF. That just seems the most likely option, and if we ever see a KSP 2.0, it wont be a new KSP, it will just be the next milestone update, like 1.0, and 0.90.

[Albert VDS]

Everyone calling it less than 100% finished either hasn't mentioned any reason why they think that(just an estimate) or they mention missing graphical improvements, bug fixes or new parts.

The game doesn't need graphical improvements to be a finished game, it's a full game even if it doesn't look like game X.

Games will always have bugs, big some AAA titles had worse bugs on release and were still considered finished games.

For parts there's almost an infinite amount of possible type you could have, but more realistically; a few missing parts that hinders only a personal build and not the whole player base does not make it an unfinished game.

I won't consider KSP finished until a competitor comes along and shows them what a decent spaceflight sandbox looks like. Orbiter doesn't count because no VAB/SPH and no Linux client.

But this thread isn't about how it could be a better spaceflight sandbox game, it's about if it's a finished game or not. Also Orbiter isn't a sanbox game but a space flight simulator.

And if a perfect game has no Linux client then it's not a perfect game?

[Superfluous J]

Everyone calling it less than 100% finished either hasn't mentioned any reason why they think that(just an estimate) or they mention missing graphical improvements, bug fixes or new parts.

I figured the deficiencies were obvious.

• Contracts are not very deep. They're doing something about this in 1.1 but if I had to guess, it'll be like going from the wading pool to the swimming pool, when I want the ocean.
  
• Planets are bare and boring. Other than "getting science" there's no reason to land in a different part of any planet once you've been there once, and a few planets (Sorry Dres) aren't really worth going to at all because their peers (Moho and Eeloo) give more challenge but are otherwise exactly the same, gameplay wise. There needs to be a reason to go explore, and no I'm not talking about contracts that send you to random wayponts whose locations look exactly the same as the other wayponts' locations.
  
• Lots of parts still need to be balanced relative to each other, most notably command pods. Engines are pretty good right now. If we had to make similar decisions when picking a command pod, I'd be a lot happier. Right now, it's the Lander Can, unless you're going for aesthetics (or planes, but I don't fly planes that much so can't say which cockpit is the obvious one from an efficiency standpoint).
  
• There are hundreds of bugs that are long-standing. They're constantly working on these and in my opinion are doing so at an expected pace, so I'm not complaining. I'm just stating the fact. No software is bug free, but no "completed" software has this many stand-out bugs.
  
• The entire UI needs thrown away and remade. You should not have to bounce between map mode and flight mode during ascent to see your apoapsis. You should not have to move the mouse 75% of the screen and back to cancel a contract. You should not have to right click a tiny part, then click a tiny button on a moving pop-up window to perform a critical function in a time-sensitive situation. You should not have text coming up all over the screen to tell you random things. You should not have to go from your ship to the space center to Mission Control to accept a contract. There should be a "contract" window that comes up and has all of that functionality, and the same should be true of the Astronaut Complex, Admin Building, and R&D. Of the other 5, 4 are okay to keep dedicated to the Space Center and the last one - the Tracking Station - is mostly Map Mode anyway. But I could see justification in making Map Mode and the Tracking Station the exact same screen
  

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. There is probably more.

[Renegrade]

I mean, there are a handful o' bugs here and there, but it's not to an unplayable not-release-worthy-at-all extent, IMHO.

This is something that drives me insane: how can people NOT see the bugs? Do they simply not ever switch between ships (causing kraken attacks and NaN cascade failures), ever make a high pass approach at a planet (any orbit at Jool, high speed returns at Kerbin ex. from Moho), or try to add a maneuver node to an orbit (prioritizing the purple orbits or simply failing to work/failing to slide properly)?

Nevermind the parts-overheating-because-of-cargo-bays-and-fairings-plus-timewarp crap or the endless memory leaks..

I have to restart the bloody thing about five times in a play session (on average). That's below par, even for a Unity game (Unity™©®©™©™™™®®©. Lowering the Bar™).

(most of these bugs are well reported. I've seen a good percentage of 'em happen to MaxMaps during the SquadCast, even though he plays at a basic level)

Games will always have bugs, big some AAA titles had worse bugs on release and were still considered finished games.

AAA studios. Also Lowering the Bar™. Actually, We've Been Lowering the Bar Since Well Before Unity™©®©™©™™™®®© Even Existed™.

Just because something is mediocre doesn't mean we should let things slide. Successive generations of software should be held to higher standards, not lower ones. Eventually, we must stand back and say, "This is fail and made of lose" and give it the good ol' thumbs down, otherwise eventually things that don't immediately format all of your fixed storage and eat your cat will be given 4.5/5 (or more) stars.

"Unlike Generic Shooter 2015, Generic Other Shooter by a Different Studio 2015 did not eat my cat, would play again 11/10"

[Nookos]

Games will always have bugs, big some AAA titles had worse bugs on release and were still considered finished games.

This is a very modern statement I feel old all of a sudden. When I was a kid games were released once they were really finished and bug free because there was no way to fix it afterwards.. But I guess it s a good thing for game developers that this is the standard nowadays. Release as soon as possible and let the community fix it for free. Don t get me wrong I still thing that stock ksp is great. But not finished. Version 1.0 would have been released on a cartridge in the old days it would have failed in my opinion. However thanks to the great ksp community it feels more than finished once modded.

[Wallygator]

Feels like 80% to me. 10% bugs and 10% balance to go in my opinion.

Still the game is playable so I'm not taking that into my consideration.

Regardless of what a creator feels or says, it's the customers and critics who will create the "feeling" of finished in their own minds. It also seem like Early access exists with this effect in somewhat of a "deadly embrace" to misuse an old data architecture term. As always only my opinion.

[steve_v]

I have fairly recently revived an old DOS machine, and a collection of 50+ games, circa 1995.

Bugs encountered = 0

Patches applied = 0

Crashes = 0

Release quality = stamped on CDROM, or packaged on floppy disks. Fixes practically un-deployable, and yet everything works.

Have expectations of software quality really fallen so far?

Were this an open-source project, I'd be happy to contribute to development and hunt bugs. But it's not, it's a released commercial product. The content that constitutes a "finished" game is negotiable, bugs and crashes are not. They are simply indicative of a shoddy, unfinished product.

That the community has, so far, put so much time and effort into fixing squads game for them is commendable. But it's not our job.

KSP will, IM(NS)HO, be finished when one can play through the whole game without encountering bugs, crashes or unintended behaviour. Thus it has always been, for any software project. If it doesn't work properly, it's not done.

I stand by my <= 70%, until such time as I can play the game without having to go bug hunting.

[Albert VDS]

This is a very modern statement I feel old all of a sudden. When I was a kid games were released once they were really finished and bug free because there was no way to fix it afterwards.. But I guess it s a good thing for game developers that this is the standard nowadays. Release as soon as possible and let the community fix it for free. Don t get me wrong I still thing that stock ksp is great. But not finished. Version 1.0 would have been released on a cartridge in the old days it would have failed in my opinion. However thanks to the great ksp community it feels more than finished once modded.

That's true, but KSP couldn't be developed back then in the first place without early access.

Still the game is playable so I'm not taking that into my consideration.

You might not mean it this way, but calling it playable sounds to me like driving a car which is barely held together.

The biggest problem I have with people calling KSP unfinished(or worse) is that the same people put tons and tons of hours in the game.

"I've seen this movie like 50 times, but it's an ok movie".

[steve_v]

The biggest problem I have with people calling KSP unfinished(or worse) is that the same people put tons and tons of hours in the game.

While I have indeed spent many hours playing the game, I have spent almost as many debugging the damn thing or attempting to recover craft taken by game-breaking bugs. Yes, it's a good game. But it should be better, and it won't be "finished" until 100% of my time "playing" it is actually spent... playing.

While I expect this sort of thing from "early access" or beta software, it's inexcusable in a released product.

[Albert VDS]

@steve_v: So you're saying that you might have spend 100hrs total of which 60hrs were actually debugging problems, doesn't that sound a big exaggerated to you?

Most problems I had with KSP were due to mods, so maybe that's the case with your experience?

[steve_v]

That people (who may have spent "tons of hours") are here complaining is simply an indication that they care. If it wasn't a worthwhile game I would have quit in disgust long ago. But beta testing is (apparently, says squad) over now, time for some polish and bugfixes.

I have yet to finish the tech tree, ever. Because bugs.

I am also counting all those "do over" missions, because bugs. That accounts for much time.

[Renegrade]

"I've seen this movie like 50 times, but it's an ok movie".

I watch Die Hard and Die Hard 2 every Christmas - they aren't great though, just fun. I really like 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I've seen it maybe three or four times. Leaving aside jokes about how that's the same number of viewing hours (heh), number of viewings/hours is not a sign of overall quality.

Also I'd have spent a lot less time in KSP if the warp regimes weren't stupid.

Plus what steve_v said - KSP is like a diamond in the rough, but it's getting rougher as time goes by, not smoother.

I'm not opposed to Early Access development, but I stand by my internal KSP version system. Leaving aside that ARM could be it's own full update*, the correct version numbers are: 0.25 - 0.25. 0.90 - 0.26. 1.0 - 0.27. 1.0.x - 0.27.x. 1.1 - 0.28.

* - NathanKell pointed out that the 0.23.5 ARM update had more stuff in it than many of the other non 0.x.5 updates; in that system, ARM would become 0.24 and 0.24 would become 0.25, etc. I generally stick by my own system though as I'm sure I could justify demoting 0.25 to 0.24.5 or something heh.