No New Comms System in 1.1

[magnemoe]

12 hours ago, Virtualgenius said:

Squad are there own worst enemy most of the time they show us new content and at the 12 th hour remove it why show us at all. They engage the community on some things then make a huge change that impacts us with no consultation then wonder why we get all upset and belligerent. To be honest  we are sadly lacking a community manager he was the bridge between us someone with a voice in both camps. To be honest I haven't been happy with squad for awhile they seem to have lost there community focus which is what bought me here in the first place

This tend to be an common issue in video games, worse in that games launches while missing features seen in previews. 

 

11 hours ago, Raptor9 said:

At the risk of beating a dead horse, another thing that I don't understand is how belligerent and hostile people get when Squad changes plans (ie: this thread topic) or when updates take longer than expected.  Why are people so critical of Squad when they encounter unforeseen delays or unexpected issues?  They are human after all, and sometimes development (like Unity 5 update) takes longer than expected.  It's just a game...doesn't mean the forums should be lit on fire.

Welcome to a day at Squad...
Decision A: Hold update from release until development time can be allocated to ensure new comms system can be properly QA'ed and implemented in KSP 1.1 --> People complain update is delayed or is taking to long.
Decision B: Release KSP 1.1 update in accordance with internal deadline but remove new comms system feature from implementation due to time constraints --> People complain the new comms system isn't in update.
Decision C: Release KSP 1.1 update in accordance with internal deadline and include hastily QA'ed and possibly buggy new comms feature in update --> People complain the new comms system doesn't work right and/or buggy.

EDIT: (I forgot one) Decision D: Become even more tight-lipped about development progress or future plans to avoid above three outcomes in the future...

D tend to be the new standard. 

[lajoswinkler]

On 2/5/2016 at 1:20 AM, Caelib said:

That's disappointing to hear -- it's been nearly a year since 1.0 with no significant features added to the game and I was really, really looking forward to something new!

The last significant version was v0.9. It had the largest impact on the community. Even since then it was mostly about economy and repairing mistakes. I hope the new U5 version will make us feel like it's significant.

[Red Iron Crown]

14 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

The last significant version was v0.9. It had the largest impact on the community. Even since then it was mostly about economy and repairing mistakes. I hope the new U5 version will make us feel like it's significant.

You don't consider 1.0 with its reworked aero model and resource system to be significant? Huh.

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Just now, Red Iron Crown said:

You don't consider 1.0 with its reworked aero model and resource system to be significant? Huh.

Yeah, I've never gotten how people don't say 1.0 is a big update, considering it changed a good majority of the game. Resources, aero, new parts, not to mention bouyancy, which opened up the possibility of a whole new set of vehicles.

[NeoMorph]

On 07/02/2016 at 0:28 AM, Raptor9 said:

Hopefully the expandable heatshield @RoverDude was working on is still planned for 1.1

If you want one already, just get the Chaka Monkey Exploration Systems collection pack. It has one in there that I use (along with a bunch of other good stuff from other modders).

Oh and regarding how software performs on different equipment... you also have to take into account firmware, how much software has been installed onto a machine, drivers, how many peripherals used (which all use drivers), how old the system has been run (as in lots of old crap clogging up the works), temperature of the room the PC is running in, how well the heatsink has been affixed to the CPU and what heatsink compound was used, do you have liquid cooling (all these heat related things can affect the speed of a CPU if it is running adaptive heat management), what bios settings have been uses, what version of bios in in use, what motherboard, what amount of memory, what speed is the memory running at, what type of memory it is, etc, etc, etc. It is not as simple as saying "Oh yeah, I have an i7 running at 3ghz with a Geforce GTX970".

Devs can give you an idea as to how their product runs but not definitive proof of how it will run on your system (which is why they give out "suggested" specs). I had one PC that had all the best equipment in it that was available at the time... unfortunately it turned out that the memory I used, while being a top rated (and expensive) model just refused to work right with the top rated motherboard. There was just something that caused them to not like one another. Another fact is that games like Fallout 4 will be more graphics intensive than KSP which is actually CPU intensive. So while Fallout 4 will run fine on your PC it could have problems with KSP. Remember, KSP has to do a LOT of physics calculations to do with flight paths that are not needed in something like Fallout.

 

[lajoswinkler]

1 hour ago, Red Iron Crown said:

You don't consider 1.0 with its reworked aero model and resource system to be significant? Huh.

 

1 hour ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

Yeah, I've never gotten how people don't say 1.0 is a big update, considering it changed a good majority of the game. Resources, aero, new parts, not to mention bouyancy, which opened up the possibility of a whole new set of vehicles.

 

No, I didn't have the feeling it was important. I already used popular crucials mods that made the game realistically tougher (DRE, FAR) and I used Kethane which I still consider vastly superior over this click-to-get ISRU. I like its actual scanning system that teaches you how different orbits affect ground paths.

Also, I never cared about buoyancy because I play this game because I want to explore space, not build ships. And aeroplane parts don't impress me much as, again, space, not air.

 

For me, a major content update would be new planetary bodies, enriching old bodies, and things for the Kerbals to do (locating and picking up special rock samples for a museum, for example).

I'm not saying the work done since v0.9 is stupid, but I never felt the game progress that much since then.

Edited February 8, 2016 by lajoswinkler

[Snark]

3 hours ago, WWEdeadman said:

On a side note: Every time someone on the forums tries to tell Squad how to focus their work and resources, a kitten dies. Save the cats, stop the unqualified comments.

^^ This.  Seriously, this.  Making software is hard.  Making software in a hurry with a small team is even harder.  Unless you've been there and done that (I have, for a very long time, which is why I keep spouting off about this), maybe cut 'em some slack, guys?

13 hours ago, Raptor9 said:

Decision A: Hold update from release until development time can be allocated to ensure new comms system can be properly QA'ed and implemented in KSP 1.1 --> People complain update is delayed or is taking to long.
Decision B: Release KSP 1.1 update in accordance with internal deadline but remove new comms system feature from implementation due to time constraints --> People complain the new comms system isn't in update.
Decision C: Release KSP 1.1 update in accordance with internal deadline and include hastily QA'ed and possibly buggy new comms feature in update --> People complain the new comms system doesn't work right and/or buggy.

EDIT: (I forgot one) Decision D: Become even more tight-lipped about development progress or future plans to avoid above three outcomes in the future...

 

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

D tend to be the new standard.

Well, sure.  Is that surprising?

Say I'm a KSP player, who spent US$27 on a game that I've gotten thousands of hours of enjoyment out of.  And say that Squad's working on the next update, which means that a bevy of smart, dedicated, passionate people are spending weeks or months pouring their heart and soul into improving the game so that they can give me shiny new toys.  For free.  Again.  And then no matter what they say about the upcoming development, I yell about how awful they are and how they should have done the opposite thing, because suddenly I'm an expert in video game production and small-company economics.

Well, is it any wonder that that would tend to give them pause before saying anything?

Seriously.  Cut 'em some slack.  I'm not saying "you shouldn't be critical even if they're doing a crappy job."  If someone is doing a crappy job, by all means, criticize.  Just make sure that you're sufficiently informed to know what a "crappy job" is.

I've been a software engineer for a very long time-- longer, in fact, than a lot of KSP players have been alive-- in companies ranging from little startups to multi-billion dollar behemoths, and I've seen what "crappy software development" is from the inside.  And what Squad is doing isn't it.  What they're doing is an incredibly hard job with very constrained resources, on a product that is very clearly a labor of love, in a way that is astoundingly responsive to their user community, and I honestly don't see how I could do a better job myself if I were at Squad (which is saying a lot, because I have a pretty high opinion of myself). 

So, unless:

1. you have professional software industry experience, and
2. you have a good knowledge of what it takes to get software out the door, and
3. you have a good understanding of Squad's constraints (financial, manpower, etc.), and
4. you're pretty sure you know specifically how to "do it better" than Squad within those constraints, and
5. you're prepared to give specific, productive suggestions on how they could improve their process,

...then maybe tone down the rhetoric?  Just a little?

At least until the next cool shiny toy that they give us?

For free?

Again?

 

[magnemoe]

11 minutes ago, Snark said:

Well, sure.  Is that surprising?

Say I'm a KSP player, who spent US$27 on a game that I've gotten thousands of hours of enjoyment out of.  And say that Squad's working on the next update, which means that a bevy of smart, dedicated, passionate people are spending weeks or months pouring their heart and soul into improving the game so that they can give me shiny new toys.  For free.  Again.  And then no matter what they say about the upcoming development, I yell about how awful they are and how they should have done the opposite thing, because suddenly I'm an expert in video game production and small-company economics.

Well, is it any wonder that that would tend to give them pause before saying anything?

Seriously.  Cut 'em some slack.  I'm not saying "you shouldn't be critical even if they're doing a crappy job."  If someone is doing a crappy job, by all means, criticize.  Just make sure that you're sufficiently informed to know what a "crappy job" is.

I've been a software engineer for a very long time-- longer, in fact, than a lot of KSP players have been alive-- in companies ranging from little startups to multi-billion dollar behemoths, and I've seen what "crappy software development" is from the inside.  And what Squad is doing isn't it.  What they're doing is an incredibly hard job with very constrained resources, on a product that is very clearly a labor of love, in a way that is astoundingly responsive to their user community, and I honestly don't see how I could do a better job myself if I were at Squad (which is saying a lot, because I have a pretty high opinion of myself). 

So, unless:

1. you have professional software industry experience, and
2. you have a good knowledge of what it takes to get software out the door, and
3. you have a good understanding of Squad's constraints (financial, manpower, etc.), and
4. you're pretty sure you know specifically how to "do it better" than Squad within those constraints, and
5. you're prepared to give specific, productive suggestions on how they could improve their process,

...then maybe tone down the rhetoric?  Just a little?

At least until the next cool shiny toy that they give us?

For free?

Again?

 

I was talking more about general trend in the industry, and I understand very well why, would probably done the same myself. 

Its still sad remember how bethesta has changed from giving lots of information to almost nothing. 
Fun fact Morrowind had an legendary exploit, you could make an potion who increased your intelligence, potion strength increased with intelligence. It was no limits on max potion strength nor how many potions you could drink outside of 2^31
The insane part is that this was predicted by players before the game was released.  

Else I can only ansver positive on 1 and 2 

See 64 bit as important for future growth of KSP. As its now its mostly an issue for the hardcore players with many mods and giant structures.
However it also restrict new planets and better graphic. 

Edited February 8, 2016 by magnemoe

[Raptor9]

37 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

No, I didn't have the feeling it was important. I already used popular crucials mods that made the game realistically tougher (DRE, FAR) and I used Kethane which I still consider vastly superior over this click-to-get ISRU. I like its actual scanning system that teaches you how different orbits affect ground paths.

So because a mod existed that provided feature X in game (which provides no guarantee of compatibility after an update or perpetual author support), you don't consider a stock feature that provides the same basic gameplay elements a big deal. Ok...fairly subjective, but ok.  Such a feature integrated in stock ensures feature QA and possibly even development of feature X beyond it's current scope.

37 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

Also, I never cared about buoyancy because I play this game because I want to explore space, not build ships. And aeroplane parts don't impress me much as, again, space, not air.

Why does buoyancy matter? I could think of a big reason: Laythe is primarily oceanic, players could make floating research bases or seaplanes for biome exploration.  Same could be said for Eve I suppose, but Eve scares me. (To quote Admiral Akbar: "It's a TRAP!" )

As for aeroplane parts, I believe @Red Iron Crown and @Choctofliatrio2.0 were referring to the aerodynamics model, not the aeroplane parts specifically.  The aero model affected the rockets and/or spacecraft as much as aircraft/spaceplanes, or more.  More realistic launch trajectories, aerobraking, cargo bay drag occlusion, fairings were now necessary (or helpful at least).  That is a significant change in gameplay.

Regarding the airplane/spaceplane parts themselves, I would say they provide a significant amount of gameplay to a lot of players.  This is why I have this theory:  I host a lot of craft files on KerbalX, clocking in almost 100 individual craft.  My list is fairly evenly split between rockets/capsules/landers, etc and aircraft/spaceplanes.  Each day I check the downloads, and the majority of the downloads players on that site download are aircraft, not even spaceplanes.  Just air-breathing atmo planes.  Statistically, there may be flaws in my observations, but when more people download aircraft each day than rockets, I would say the airplane parts are in huge demand for one reason or another.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Raptor9

[Snark]

1 hour ago, Red Iron Crown said:

You don't consider 1.0 with its reworked aero model and resource system to be significant? Huh.

 

46 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

No, I didn't have the feeling it was important. I already used popular crucials mods that made the game realistically tougher (DRE, FAR) and I used Kethane which I still consider vastly superior over this click-to-get ISRU.

So essentially what you're saying is, that a new KSP feature somehow "doesn't count" if some mod already does something like that?

And then,

46 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

For me, a major content update would be new planetary bodies, enriching old bodies, and things for the Kerbals to do

...guess what?  All of these these have already been done in mods, too.

Outer Planets Mod, in particular, is just stunning.  It's incredibly professionally done, the richness and quality is totally up to the quality of the stock game, it's well-thought-out in terms of game design and balance, it brings new challenges without being gimmicky, and stylistically it meshes very well with the "Kerbal way."  And it's huge.  Four new planets, eleven new moons, all of them fully-featured with lavish attention to detail.

So, suppose Squad gives you exactly what you're asking for, and adds a bunch of new planetary bodies and moons, in a major update that takes them months of work.  Does that "not count" because Outer Planets already existed?

The fact is, of course there are fantastic mods out there that do stuff that stock KSP doesn't.  That very fact is a tribute to Squad.  It's a tribute to them for making the game so incredibly moddable.  It's a tribute to them for being so responsive to the player community, with actual Squad devs jumping into actual player forums to help personally with advice (which is astonishing-- I've never seen that degree of user-community engagement from any other software company).  And above all, it's a tribute to them for building a game that's so incredibly fun and engaging that it inspires people like sarbian (MechJeb), and CaptRobau (Outer Planets), and KospY (Kerbal Attachment System), and many more, to spend incredible quantities of their time building amazing mods for free to benefit the KSP community.

And that mod community is hugely larger than Squad.  Squad has, what, half a dozen developers?  There are far more programmers than that contributing mods for free to the community.  Squad has managed the enviable trick of being simply unable to compete with its own player base in terms of raw manpower for developing features!

So it's hard for me to see how "Squad shipped this amazing thing in the stock product, which totally changed the gameplay and made KSP into a whole new, richer experience" is in any way lessened by the prior existence of mods that may do something similar to what they've just added.

Apologies If I rant; it's just because I loved 1.0 so much.  It was a total game-changer (in a good way), and was by far the biggest change in the game that I've seen since I started playing around 0.23.5.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Snark

[Mister Dilsby]

Big relief, for me. This update is likely going to hit right in the middle of an ambitious Jool mission for me, and I was worried maybe I should delay the launch even further to make sure I would have comm sats in place etc. 

[HebaruSan]

2 hours ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

You know, while the game does offer some lag issues, and while it isn't the most optimized game, remember: Squad is NOT a game company. They're a marketing company that decided to make a game, and I think they did a pretty good job for what they're trying to do. Is it perfect? No. Am I satisfied? Absolutely. 

Wow. I honestly had no idea.

Quote

The main business of Squad is to provide digital and interactive services to customers like Coca-Cola, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Samsung and Nissan, including creating websites, guerrilla marketing, multi-media installations, and corporate-image design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squad_(company)

That is just crazy! It's like the Bern patent office opening a theoretical physics division in 1905 because one of their employees published an influential paper.

It does help to put it all in perspective. They're not a AAA studio with a master plan and already-existing processes and systems for development. Rather, they're near-amateurs that fell into a successful product almost by accident due to the brilliance of its core idea and are trying to make a good show of it. Well, here's hoping Felipe never has to go back to guerilla marketing and corporate-image design.

[lajoswinkler]

There's a pretty big difference between DRE/FAR and OPM/KAS/KIS/etc.

DRE/FAR/NEAR are core physics behaviour mods that remove the unrealistic silly behaviour of the game. They're basic components that the game should have and now it really has it, at least in one way.

OPM just adds planetary bodies. Granted, it's amazing (I've done massive exploration using it) and I really hope it becomes stock one day, but it doesn't add detailed substance. Just new balls floating around. New places. You get there and you can say: "Yay, I got there!".

 

Kerbals are still lifeless ragdolls sitting motionless and doing nothing. 99% of the character lore was made up by the community and relies on the fact Jeb has a badass script function that makes him laugh in the face of danger. But that's pretty much it. That and the Kraken.

Besides introducing a female model, the gaming elements remained the same as before. I think it's way past time to actually pump out new unique content for this game. Lots of work has been done on tweaking the economy, adding bits of this and that, but all of the experienced players I've been talking to say it's not moving forward and most of them are simply bored of it.

I just install new realistic mods and keep inventing missions but I'm a minority. 

Edited February 8, 2016 by lajoswinkler

[RW-1]

4 hours ago, marach said:

Nope not one bit. The console version is being worked on by flying tiger entertainment not Squad itself, in fact it's probably helped them find more bugs and issues and squash them since they have to meet really annoying console publishing requirements.

 

As for the people demanding that squad should do things their way or not at all, @zKrieg for example, they should get their heads out of their asses and do it themselves if it's so easy. Seriously  I'd be willing to bet the majority of players who are unmodded never have an issue. Why come to the forums to ask about a bug if you never encounter any? The player base of KSP is much much larger than it's forum user count would reveal and even on here there are FEW who have the problems these people think everyone has.

Sure there's slow down on large part counts (with large being relative to the IPS of 1 core of your CPU) but then KSP is doing a LOT of calculations/s. I'm actually struggling to think of another Unity based game that is  doing as many Rawrbots used to but thats gone and the only way it dealt with it was to implement a new physics engine... So yeah can't blame squad for Nvidia's bad coding...

There was a memory leak on scene switching but that seems to be mostly sorted now...  There are other bugs but those are the 2 most complained about.

Here's the thing will the bugs be gone next patch? Hell no!

They've  just done an engine switch that's HUGE I don't think people get just how much work it is, yes for some games the change was easier thanks to the translation code Unity provided but those were people who started on the latest version of U4 KSP started in Unity 3! KSP relied on some old kludges to get it's early code working in U4 those kludges are gone in U5 so they've had to update some of their earliest work has this allowed them to kill bugs? Definitely. Will it have introduced new bugs? Yes of course how could it not? U5 itself is still buggy, Squad had to actually skip one whole version of U5 because it had a bug that meant KSP couldn't work at all! So please remember that.

 

tl;dr

There will be more bugs in 1.1 many of them won't be Squads fault as U5 is still buggy and new it's just how games design works when you only have about 12 people working on a game rather than the 2-400 of AAA games

This.

This sums it up very nicely.

For some unknown reason, there are those out there who paid for the game, and still feel entitled to something from Squad when a new release comes out.

For me, this was the worst $27 I ever spent, ruined my life, endless hours spent in KSP when I could have been fruitful doing other duties, but hey, that's for another thread....

If you bought the software, there is really nothing you can say to me that satisfactorily explains that entitled feeling that you demand of Squad now. The game is it is, is definitely worth more that what I paid for it, and you get updates (so far) for nothing

I look forward to 1.1, basically because I'm getting a treat here, I expect improved performance from the changeover (the ability to go beyond single core should make it nicer for everyone who has more than one eh?), especially since my main rig is down and I'm not yet complete on my new one. But what I expect is just that, and expectation - no demands here, just enjoyment.

Bugs? There are always bugs, there will always be bugs, and mods will come and go as well. 

If you have modded it and are having issues, well, be glad it works as well as it does modded. I happen to play stock, I don't have anything against mods or those who use them, but to complain against the dev's that make the core code when a mod doesn't work is just ... well you fill in the blank. Or for that matter those who want it to function on a 8086 (of course not ...)

While I would have looked forward to the comms system, overall I too would rather see a 1.1 than to wait just for that to be incorporated, as it has been said, it's not gone, just delayed.

 

Lastly, I'm glad Squad is not one of those huge EA or Valve type conglomerations, sure, we'd have all these issues possibly ironed out, but I'd bet you you would be paying $30-40 or more for each new feature pack... something to consider.

Edited February 8, 2016 by RW-1

[Terwin]

On 2/5/2016 at 5:09 PM, Curveball Anders said:

Given the move from Unity4 to Unity5 and serious rewrite of backend I wouldn't count on it.

As always, keep your current game in a folder away from any auto updating stuff (like Steam).

Then you can update and see if your saves work.

And if doesn't, continue with the active save in it's safe folder and play with the new stuff when you want.

 

Actually, the save games are all .xml files with nothing directly related to the back-end in them.

Aside from functionality tweaks that could affect in-progress missions, I would not expect any problems with carrying over a stock save game from 1.0.5 to 1.1.

On the other hand, I use a number of Mods and would not expect a seamless transition if only because my mods will require time to get updated.

 

On 2/6/2016 at 6:28 AM, steve_v said:

It feels like I've been watching this exact scenario playing out with each new release - more and more CPU intensive features added atop an engine that clearly cannot handle even the base game at reasonable performance levels. Adding mods to this "extremely moddable" game only compounds the issue.

In this day-and-age I expect release-quality games to have release-quality performance.
Every other game I have runs just great, including shiny new titles like FO4 - I get consistent v-sync 60FPS on at least "high" settings.
I'll take a graphical fidelity hit or turn off features to achieve smooth FPS if I have to, I'll even buy new hardware if that's what it takes. My problem with KSP is that there is exactly nothing the player can do to improve performance of the lousy physics engine - the game chugs along at miserable FPS while my GPU twiddles it's thumbs and 3/4 of my CPU goes idle.

I am well aware of the reasons for this, but after several years hearing them I am through listening to the lame "unity limitation" excuses.

Someone brings up the well-known stutter, and the response we get is "better things to do" / "new features = more meaningful improvement".

I don't care if it pushes back the release or puts new features on the back-burner, Fix. Performance.

 

Seems the powers that be are keeping very quiet on what kind of performance improvement we can expect from 1.1, and details on how effectively the new PhysX is multithreaded are hard to come by.
This does not inspire optimism.

How about some benchmarks to show off the improvements? It'd go a long way towards allaying my concerns.
Surely someone has done such testing internally before making the vague "better performance" claims I have encountered, show me the numbers so I can stop complaining.

The 'knobs and buttons' for KSP mostly revolve around part-count and mods.

I am confident that if you have an unmodded game and restrict yourself to 30-50 parts in the Kerbol system(including debris), I am confident that you can maintain the highest available FPS.  (much like you almost never see more than 30-50 active units/objects(independent objects that can each be hit, hit back, blow up, etc) in any other game all on the screen at the same time, and if you see 200+ active and independent units on the screen at once you will generally get lag much like you do for 200+ piece craft in KSP.  It is just that you have the freedom to have 200+ part craft in KSP while most other games will never permit that to happen)

 

Personally, I like the available mods, but I recognize that this means there will occasionally be problems that need to be addressed, and even save-game breakages (ckan downloaded an update to UKS-LS before I realized it would remove all my bases and interplanetary vessels for example), but that is just the price you pay for taking a pretty awesome base-game and making it even better.

 

 

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

See, I feel like it's really important for some mods to be integrated into stock. They'll get more attention and are less likely to get dropped, plus getting them to work with other mods isn't a problem. In addition, I'm awful with mods. The one time I tried to get one for another game, it didn't work and shortly afterward the computer got several viruses (could just be coincidence). Having these features in stock makes them much more accessible.

the closest I've come to modding is downloading characters for Don't Starve Together

[Snark]

1 hour ago, lajoswinkler said:

DRE/FAR/NEAR are core physics behaviour mods that remove the unrealistic silly behaviour of the game. They're basic components that the game should have and now it really has it, at least in one way.

Point taken, though I might not have put it quite so strongly.  It's true that DRE/FAR/NEAR are amazing mods, and they were available well before 1.0 when the stock game was still stuck in the "unrealistic silly behavior" of pre-1.0, souposphere and all.

If you're just saying "KSP should have DRE/FAR/NEAR-like functionality, and they should have put a lot of effort into delivering such features" ... well, you're right.  And they did.  In 1.0.  Not necessarily exactly the way DRE/FAR/NEAR does it, but implementing something for the stock game for all players is not the same as a specialized hyper-realism mod for hard-core players.

If, on the other hand, you're saying that Squad made poor choices-- i.e. that "KSP should have had those features long before April 2015" ... that's where I have to take issue.

It all comes back to how tiny Squad is.  I don't think they make a bad decision on the pre-1.0 aero; they've always meant to have better aero, it was on their to-do list.  But they had to make a judgment call, and consciously decided to go with something suboptimal-but-simple-and-easy-to-code as a placeholder until they could get around to "doing it right"-- because they were busy working on other features that couldn't wait.  We can argue about whether they made the right decision or not... but KSP seems to have been wildly (and persistently) popular in the years leading up to the release of 1.0, so in any case it appears that they didn't get it too wrong, at least by the only metric that matters.

It's great that the authors of DRE/FAR/NEAR were able to deliver such mods well in advance of 1.0.  It means that players who were really slavering for such features could get them, in some form, without waiting for Squad to catch up.  But those mod authors were able to focus on those features because they didn't have their hands full trying to develop the rest of the game, and they also had the luxury of catering just to hard-core players without needing to worry about the extended player base.

There's so much to do in KSP, it simply exceeds Squad's available bandwidth.  It's why they're still cranking away at the game after all these years; they're not even close to "done."  There were plenty of other features waiting for Squad's attention, and I don't feel that I'm in any place to say that Squad should have put those features on the back burner in favor of reentry and better aero.  Science and contracts probably do more to keep me engaged and interested than better aero would have done; I don't have a problem with the order in which they delivered the features.

2 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

OPM just adds planetary bodies. Granted, it's amazing (I've done massive exploration using it) and I really hope it becomes stock one day, but it doesn't add detailed substance. Just new balls floating around. New places. You get there and you can say: "Yay, I got there!".

No argument with you there.    I only specifically brought it up because you listed "new planetary bodies" as something that you consider to be part of a "major update", whereas new aero and reentry was not.

2 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

Kerbals are still lifeless ragdolls sitting motionless and doing nothing. 99% of the character lore was made up by the community and relies on the fact Jeb has a badass script function that makes him laugh in the face of danger. But that's pretty much it. That and the Kraken.

Besides introducing a female model, the gaming elements remained the same as before. I think it's way past time to actually pump out new unique content for this game. Lots of work has been done on tweaking the economy, adding bits of this and that

I can't argue with you there!  There's a lot of stuff on the kerbal / character side of things that could be done, and it would be great to see more development there.

But it always keeps coming back to the same thing:  Squad is tiny.  They just don't have enough developers to ship everything at once.  Yes, it's been nearly a year since 1.0 came out, and from the perspective of a player it may look a lot like "nothing's happening" ... but I really don't think that the Squad devs have been sitting around twiddling their thumbs and watching Youtube cat videos the whole time.  They're really busy.  They're going as fast as they can.  It's simply not possible to go any faster without getting much bigger and throwing a lot more money at the problem.  They're working on the "bigger" thing (they added Porkjet to the payroll... and then RoverDude... and now Claw & taniwha...), but it takes time and they simply don't have the resources of an EA or a Blizzard or a Valve to throw at the problem.

So sure, I'd like to see more "character development" stuff, and more "content"... but for me, KSP is primarily about flying rockets.  That's the core mission.  Spending time on character development and what-not would be great, but not at the cost of getting in the way of cool rocket stuff.  (In fact, pre-1.0 they did spend some time on content-- science, contracts, career-- at the cost of core rocket stuff such as reentry and aero.  And I gather that you're not a fan of that decision.  Can't have it both ways...) 

So I think it's beside to point to say that it's "past time" for KSP to have this feature or that feature, unless it's couched in terms of "...instead of this other feature that they're currently working on."  Which particular KSP feature currently under development would you like them to axe (or, at least, greatly delay) in favor of "new content"?  For example, they're working on a new comms system as the next big new feature, and I think that's great.  Much as I'd like to see more attention given to professions/experience/etc., I'd rather have a new comms system before I have that, because the comms system is about flying rockets.

2 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

all of the experienced players I've been talking to say it's not moving forward and most of them are simply bored of it.

...and of course that's the real kicker to your argument.  If enough of the player base gets bored and wanders away, KSP dies.  Nobody wants that.

The real question is:  are enough players getting bored, and is there anything Squad can do about it.

It's hard to stay interested in something for a long time, unless it turns out new stuff at a fast enough clip.  And I think Squad is going as fast as they can, but as small as they are, they simply can't go very fast.  It takes them an unavoidably long time to deliver anything big.  If that means that they bore the experienced player base... well, that's unfortunate but can't be helped, unless the player base can develop longer attention spans.  Or are willing to take a break from KSP for a month or two, here and there, to give Squad time to catch up to their expectations.

It's totally reasonable for players to get bored; the apparently glacial pace of progress (from a player's perspective) is frustrating.  I've been playing a couple of years now, I get frustrated too.  But as computer game players, that's the price we pay for choosing to play an artisanal, hand-crafted, quirky game from a tiny indie company, instead of a major AAA title from one of the big guys.  I really hope that not too many of us will get bored and wander away to games from EA / Blizzard / Valve / etc., because KSP needs plenty of love.  We'll just have to see what develops.  I know I'll be sticking around for the foreseeable future, myself. 

2 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

I just install new realistic mods and keep inventing missions but I'm a minority.

Maybe a minority.  Not sure how small a one.  Count me in, there... I do that too (as I suspect an awful lot of us do)!

[Wallygator]

7 hours ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

You know, while the game does offer some lag issues, and while it isn't the most optimized game, remember: Squad is NOT a game company. They're a marketing company that decided to make a game, and I think they did a pretty good job for what they're trying to do. Is it perfect? No. Am I satisfied? Absolutely. 

(Briefly, pops head out of protective "Protective escape capsule")

Uhhh... when the marketing "company" published a game, then they also became a "game publishing company".  Just saying'...

Edited February 8, 2016 by Wallygator

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

2 minutes ago, Wallygator said:

(Pops head out of "Protective capsule")

Uhhh... when the marketing "company" published a game, then they also became a "game publishing company".  Just saying'...

Well yeah, fair enough, but I was meaning that they don't have much game-making experience or anything like that. I see your point though

[Vanamonde]

I can't believe this is coming up again so soon after the last time I had to say this. Squad is not a marketing company. some of the people now making KSP were working for a marketing company when they got the idea for KSP. They were split off from the marketing company several years ago as their own sub-company. They do not do marketing. Most of the people now working for Squad have never done marketing. KSP is Squad's first game, but it is the only product that this game software company currently makes. 

Please stop repeating this misinformation. 

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

19 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

I can't believe this is coming up again so soon after the last time I had to say this. Squad is not a marketing company. some of the people now making KSP were working for a marketing company when they got the idea for KSP. They were split off from the marketing company several years ago as their own sub-company. They do not do marketing. Most of the people now working for Squad have never done marketing. KSP is Squad's first game, but it is the only product that this game software company currently makes. 

Please stop repeating this misinformation. 

Alright, but what I'm trying to say is that most of them aren't experienced game-makers, and it's a small company.

[CloudlessEchoes]

20 hours ago, Snark said:

Really?  I sure can.  In a heartbeat.  And the folks I've recommended it to have mostly become addicts themselves, and consider it money well spent.

I spent US$27 on KSP.  That's nothing.  These days, you can spend almost that much on a single movie.  And in exchange for that, I've gotten literally thousands of hours of bliss.  And I keep getting new shiny toys to play with, for free, every time Squad comes out with a release.  And I'm still happily playing after nearly two years of this game, having not given Squad one dime, beyond the initial purchase of the game.

This is the perspective I have on it. I spend more than that to gas my car up. I've spent a lot more on games that were "polished" but not nearly as fun. When I landed my first craft on the Mun it payed for itself and then some!

One thing I find interesting (and disappointing) is that the new trend of devs and users communicating during the creation of a game has led to a lot of "armchair" developers who really have no idea how it all works. Saying that "other" devs know how to do it quicker and better is great, but if so why haven't they gone out and done so with their own game? It's all talk, and there is more to running an entire company than just coding the game. SQUAD is well within their rights to stop working on KSP immediately and move on to other things, no one is entitled to anything from them. They don't want to put mods straight into the game, they want to put systems with their own vision into it. And as rover put it well, the way a mod is made has little to do with how a stock implementation is made. Not to mention the myriad of legal and financial issues that could be involved moving a mod into stock.

I want to be excited about reading these updates, but it seems like the negativity overshadows it. I guess it's best to remember that the handful of people complaining are a drop in the bucket compared to the 1 million plus sales of this game.

[I_Killed_Jeb]

Just to chime in here to say we all love the game folks

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, Vanamonde said:

I can't believe this is coming up again so soon after the last time I had to say this. Squad is not a marketing company. some of the people now making KSP were working for a marketing company when they got the idea for KSP. They were split off from the marketing company several years ago as their own sub-company. They do not do marketing. Most of the people now working for Squad have never done marketing. KSP is Squad's first game, but it is the only product that this game software company currently makes. 

Please stop repeating this misinformation. 

On one side we have the wikipedia page about Squad, on the other a strongly worded forum post from someone tagged as a moderator. These are both about medium-level credibility as internet sources go; good enough for government work, but worth questioning when questioned. I certainly don't want to spread misinformation, and I'm sorry that I can't think of a nicer way to say this, but can you give us anything more persuasive to show that it's misinformation other than your own say-so?

[ModZero]

2 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

I can't believe this is coming up again so soon after the last time I had to say this. Squad is not a marketing company. some of the people now making KSP were working for a marketing company when they got the idea for KSP. They were split off from the marketing company several years ago as their own sub-company. They do not do marketing. Most of the people now working for Squad have never done marketing. KSP is Squad's first game, but it is the only product that this game software company currently makes. 

Please stop repeating this misinformation. 

Could you please spread some information then, instead of strongly worded posts? If there was news about Squad splitting, I've certainly missed it, and you're the first time I hear about it. Everything else, including this forum's footer, reference "Squad S.A. de C.V.", which I'm pretty sure is the same old company. I mean, sure, I know that it's a distinct team with distinct tasks and maybe even their own office (though even in dev notes not more than a year old I remember mentions of someone helping with the main Squad operation - but it was just once and mentionable, pretty unusual I guess), but "hey, it's separate companies" would be significantly bigger than that. Seriously, the only reason not to dismiss what you write out of hand is your mod status.