State of the game - How is KSP doing?

[PunkyFickle]

Hello everyone,

I used to play KSP quite a bit back in 2013-14 (the glorious days of the asparagus design!) and left it since then. I am now back at it and quite eager to overcomplicate my life once again with life support spreadsheets and realistic aerodynamics mods and never manage to reach Duna. As it has been quite a while, I am wondering what has happened during that long period of time. How is Squad work doing? What is that Private Division logo on the loading screen? What is up with the community? Is the Kraken still a feature? Are my favorite 64 mods still relevant? ^{(I just want to open the topic to the discussion, of course, but there are a few things I genuinely would like to hear about : is RemoteTech still relevant with the addition of the stock CommNet, what about TAC Life Support and FAR and what and how challenging is Kerbalism?)} Basically anything you'd like to tell/discuss with an old player coming back to the game after being away for a few years.

Edited January 26, 2019 by PunkyFickle

[The Aziz]

KSP got 1.0 release (some still consider it as early alpha), got bought by TakeTwo, hence the private division logo, and is still releasing updates every few months. Most of the original team left, but new people came and it seems to work well.

Modding community is thriving (some pessimists said it would end after TakeTwo takeover), some mods are getting abandoned, new appear in their place, some (a ton of them) are maintained by one person.

You may want to read wiki for version history and changes over the past five years because a lot has changed. Yet, we still launch and explode little green men in the same manner.

RemoteTech adds much more than stock commnet, so it totally can be used.

[steve_v]

39 minutes ago, PunkyFickle said:

Is the Kraken still a feature?

Of course. Slightly more difficult to provoke, but still there.
 

39 minutes ago, PunkyFickle said:

is RemoteTech still relevant

Yes, because signal delay and planning.
 

39 minutes ago, PunkyFickle said:

what about TAC Life Support

Alive and well, I'm using it. Still no LS in stock.
 

39 minutes ago, PunkyFickle said:

and FAR

That too, because stock aerodynamics is still pretty naff.
 

39 minutes ago, PunkyFickle said:

how challenging is Kerbalism

Seems rather challenging from the hour or so I used it, but I ditched it due to performance problems. TACLS and Kerbal Health have the core functionality covered for me.

Edited January 26, 2019 by steve_v

[klgraham1013]

3 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

How is Squad work doing?

There was definitely a rough patch recently.  Particularly 1.4.x.  They seemed to have pulled it halfway together for 1.6.  There's still a few oddly missed new bugs, and a few oddly dismissed old bugs.  Otherwise it seems okay.  Mods are still doing a lot of the heavy lifting in my opinion.  KSP1.3.1 is still my go to version.

3 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

What is that Private Division logo on the loading screen?

Kerbal Space Program (Not Squad) was bought by Take Two.  Private Division is Take Two's "indie" label.  Squad is now contracted to continue development on KSP.

3 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

What is up with the community?

As a long time forum member, I'm saddened to say that a lot of old timers have left.  The forum itself has slowed down a lot.  This is very evident when "hype" trains happen. (...or don't happen as it were.)  There's some new blood around, but it's just not the same as it once was.  I think it also has to do with the current disconnect between Squad and the community.  Squad is far more PR than they used to be.

3 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

Is the Kraken still a feature?

Less than it once was, but the Kraken morphs and shifts, taking on new faces, and finding new, insidious ways to kill our dear Kerbals.

3 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

Are my favorite 64 mods still relevant?

That depends if LinuxGuruGamer likes them or not.  He's been a savior for KSP modding.  The mods you listed are, indeed, still around.

[Pecan]

6 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

the glorious days of the asparagus design

Are still going.  It's still the second-best way to stage behind twisted candle.
Space and, especially, spaceplanes have got easier in almost every release though, so lots of stuff is SSTO.
 

[Deddly]

I'd say that a great deal has changed since 2014. It has gradually improved with regards to performance and visuals, and there has been a leaning towards more realism, whilst still staying a game rather than a pure simulation.

Some of the biggest changes that come to mind:

• Aerodynamics is much more realistic. It's a far cry from FAR, (snigger, I bet nobody ever heard that one before) but it's way better than the old soup-o-sphere.
• Re-entry effects and an entire heating system was introduced, including skin heating and core heating.
• The heaviest parts sink in water instead of bouncing comically after a water landing/crash. Boats and seaplanes are more realistic possibilities and submarines are now possible (including SSTO submarines, naturally, because why not?)
• Water landings are no longer deadlier than lithobraking
• Wheels and landing legs got utterly clobbered with a Unity upgrade and haven't been the same since, but many hours of development has made enormous improvements. On the other hand, wheels don't cause craft to suddenly flip like they used to, and doughnuts and skids are now possible, so rovers are more fun if you can escape the bugs.
• Tweakables is probably one of the most significant additions. The position and rotation of parts can be fine tuned, root part can be switched, joints can be stiffened and invisible struts can be set to stop the craft from flopping about like it were made of rubber.
• Fuel flow priority can be set so that some tanks drain before others or all at the same time for a given stage.
• Subassemblies can be saved and loaded as if they are parts to add to a new craft.
• EVA parachutes.
• On the fly Delta V calculations.
• Asteroids.
• Comms system.
• Kerbals can remove helmets and the neck ring.
• Lots of new parts, and a lot of them rebalanced and retextured.
• Localisation into several new languages.
• Scanning for biomes and ore, mining, processing ore into fuel, setting waypoints.
• New launch/landing locations on Kerbin.
• Career mode, which came out differently to what everyone was expecting because everyone has their own idea about how it should be done. Nevertheless, it's a nice way to play if you would like to have a budget and reputation to deal with and a gradual introduction to the new parts instead of playing sandbox.

There's a lot more, but there's something to chew over at least

[adsii1970]

6 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

As a long time forum member, I'm saddened to say that a lot of old timers have left.

There are still a few of us around. And we still get hyped over planned features when they are announced.

Ditto to what @Deddly said, although I often miss the "junkyard" old parts the game once had.  

[Aegolius13]

4 hours ago, Pecan said:

Are still going.  It's still the second-best way to stage behind twisted candle.
 

I am hereby reserving the name "Twisted Candle" for my KSP-themed hair metal band.   It will be glorious. 

[PunkyFickle]

20 hours ago, The Aziz said:

KSP got 1.0 release (some still consider it as early alpha), got bought by TakeTwo, hence the private division logo, and is still releasing updates every few months. Most of the original team left, but new people came and it seems to work well.

16 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Kerbal Space Program (Not Squad) was bought by Take Two.  Private Division is Take Two's "indie" label.  Squad is now contracted to continue development on KSP.

That is quite a twist. What were the reasons to that? I remember a slight lack of initiative and rigour back in the days. If I am not wrong, could this be related? Or did they go bankrupt or something? Did the members of the team leave one by one or was the game "abandoned" all at once? Most importantly, did the new publisher or developers release a statement on what they are planning for the game? I see there is a paid extension (yuk, but quite understandable in this situation), are they planning on releasing more of those rather than updating the game for free in order to generate profits?

 

12 hours ago, Deddly said:

Some of the biggest changes that come to mind:

[...]

Interestingly enough, some of the most impactful changes you list here were already implemented after 0.90, which was a huge update, and some of them were just implemented in the last couple updates. It saddens me that the development basically stopped during the last few years, but I guess that it makes sense from what I guess of Squad situation.

 

17 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Less than it once was, but the Kraken morphs and shifts, taking on new faces, and finding new, insidious ways to kill our dear Kerbals.

Thank Jeb, the core gameplay is still there!

 

@steve_v Glad to hear that the juggernauts that made the game playable (vanilla was simply not even a possibility) are still running. I started playing with a few of my old favorite mods and haven't had issues yet. I'll happily delve into the forum to find new ones to crash my game a bit more.

 

@Pecan About the asparagus design, it used to be unavoidable without FAR back then because of the very poor aerodynamic model. "Rockets" were basically one stage high and 200m² in surface area of boosters sticked to one-another. I guess that the new model @Deddly refers to prevents this at least a bit.

[Deddly]

57 minutes ago, PunkyFickle said:

Interestingly enough, some of the most impactful changes you list here were already implemented after 0.90, which was a huge update, and some of them were just implemented in the last couple updates. It saddens me that the development basically stopped during the last few years, but I guess that it makes sense from what I guess of Squad situation.

Depends what you consider important. Development never stopped, but it focused for a time on some things that might not be relevant to you but were desperately needed by others  E. g. localisation was and still is a massive undertaking. If you speak English fluently, sure, maybe development relevent to you slowed for an update cycle or so, but nothing can be inferred as to Squad's "situation", whatever that means. Some devs left, other devs were hired. As far as we know, that was unrelated to how TakeTwo wanted KSP for years, finally making an offer that was attractive to the owners of Squad - that's all we know. 

[PunkyFickle]

I hear you, but localisation is rather the exception on the list. Close to everything else is gameplay related and the most impactful (by which I meant important for the highest amount of players, not just regarding my own subjectivity) things I referred to were impactful in opposition to, for example, being able to remove the neck ring. Additionally, I feel safe assuming that the developer(s) working on the game physics for example are not related to the Russian translation and were as available as before on their core duties, so that time and those resources spent during the localisation process were not lost for gameplay improvement, at least in theory.

29 minutes ago, Deddly said:

nothing can be inferred as to Squad's "situation", whatever that means. Some devs left, other devs were hired. As far as we know, that was unrelated to how TakeTwo wanted KSP for years, finally making an offer that was attractive to the owners of Squad - that's all we know. 

I assumed a slowdown in activity given the few gameplay improvements that occurred in 4 years (!), the release of a "finished" 1.0 version, the fact that most of the developers left the company and the fact that it got bought (which can easily mean financial difficulties - but your last post tends to refute that) . But I didn't follow last years' events of course, so I could be very wrong.

Edit : reread my last post and figured out I answered the last part wrong.

Edited January 27, 2019 by PunkyFickle

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, PunkyFickle said:

That is quite a twist. What were the reasons to that?

Nobody knows. I wonder sometimes if Take Two knows. Squad wanted money I suspect, and the offer was good enough. For all I know, Take Two was just buying it for the chance at a return if Jeb became the next Mario.

Quote

Did the members of the team leave one by one or was the game "abandoned" all at once?

Yes

No to be serious it was generally gradual with an odd exodus of people who were mostly hired from the modding community, not long after 1.0 came out, who all quit on the same day.. To my knowledge nobody ever said what happened and we don't really deserve or need an answer.

Quote

Most importantly, did the new publisher or developers release a statement on what they are planning for the game?

Nope. Not even a "we bought KSP" to my knowledge.

Quote

I see there is a paid extension (yuk, but quite understandable in this situation), are they planning on releasing more of those rather than updating the game for free in order to generate profits?

So far it seems the opposite. I bought MH and it's fine. It's overpriced but if it cost $100 it'd still make KSP a bargain for all the joy I've gotten, and it does come with some very nice parts.

Since then though, the game has gotten two big updates (1.5 and 1.6) with another likely in a couple months, and there is no indication that we won't see 4 a year going forward, all free and for the base game AND Making History. So not too shabby there.

[radonek]

59 minutes ago, PunkyFickle said:

That is quite a twist. What were the reasons to that?

Hard to tell, people who know ain't telling. But we can speculate. It begun when Harvester left us. Yes, KSP father left the scene and I find it kinda sad that nobody found it worth mentioning in their "short histories". :-( I think we can now safely say that he did not want to be part of what was coming. Even if it was to be ordinary buyout. Which it definitely was not, because next (within few months I think) came Grand Developer Massacre. That was when I knew things are going downhill -  no matter the reason (we did not know then), loosing almost whole team like that is among worst things that can happen to a software project. At the same tame, Squad presence on forums was taken over by nice people who, on closer inspection, did not have anything to say. That was T2 marketing taking over. Actual takeover announcement came much later.

So my take is that Squad wanted to go back to their usual business, Harvester did not like it and quit,  and KSP got sold in worst possible way - Squad kept developers and T2 got the source code. Hence the lul in development (and that would be much worse if T2 did not manage to hire some mod devs who obvisouly knew a thing about the code and could pick up the pace). 

[The Aziz]

The development might slowed down over the last four years, but imho it's because the game reached that magical number with 1 at the front. You could also look around, a lot of games in early access are being developed waaay faster in that stage, then, after release of that one point oh, devs slow down the pace (or, leave it whatsoever).

But we still got few quite big updates. What I see, it was a big update followed by small one. In 1.0 we got career mode, female Kerbals, mining, heating, parts, new aero... Then there was 1.1 I don't even remember what that one was about, but then 1.2 hit with commnet, kerbnet, parts, improvements... 1.3 was basically localization update, but it did fix some major bugs or issues (terrain seams, the doom of my rovers). Then 1.4 came out, and I personally connect it with Making History, even though I had to pay for it (hey, I've seen more expensive DLCs that add much less content). And I think that one gave our Kerbals parachutes so they don't pop into the ground after bail-out? 1.5 came with part revamps and probably something else, like I said, another minor one, and now we're in 1.6 with even more revamps, and THE Delta Vee Stock Display which is huge leap forward in development, I still say it's the biggest update since 1.0.

Now where I read that one, was it KSP or minecraft? Because someone said that current development plan is to release an update every three months or so. Of course, they will be smaller, but we will be getting updates, and what comes after it, improvements and bugfixes (and never-ending complaining about game updates breaking people's mods hurr durr). 

I'm staying positive, I just woke up after 6 hour sleep after five hours of non-stop playing. Game is as good as always.

2 hours ago, radonek said:

I think we can now safely say that he did not want to be part of what was coming. Even if it was to be ordinary buyout. 

I have Notch flashbacks here

Edited January 27, 2019 by The Aziz
Smaller, not slower, lol

[klgraham1013]

3 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

What were the reasons to that?

We'll never know.

3 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

did they go bankrupt or something?

Not a chance.

3 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

Did the members of the team leave one by one or was the game "abandoned" all at once?

It started as a trickle and turned into a mass exodus.  Squad hides behind PR speak now.  The community doesn't really know much about who works there now.

3 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

did the new publisher or developers release a statement on what they are planning for the game?

Eh.  Kind of?  Business as usual?

3 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

I see there is a paid extension (yuk, but quite understandable in this situation), are they planning on releasing more of those rather than updating the game for free in order to generate profits?

We're still getting free updates of varying quality.  It seemed that the DLC was a financial failure.  We may or may not get more.

 

[steve_v]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

Then there was 1.1 I don't even remember what that one was about

Dodgy wheels and lots of crashing, IIRC.

 

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

Delta Vee Stock Display which is huge leap forward in development

It's been a long time coming, and I'm glad it's finally arrived.  Unfortunately the current implementation is a performance hog, because someone thought that updating the gauges 60 times a second was sensible thing to do.

 

[wumpus]

2 hours ago, radonek said:

Hard to tell, people who know ain't telling. But we can speculate. It begun when Harvester left us. Yes, KSP father left the scene and I find it kinda sad that nobody found it worth mentioning in their "short histories". :-( I think we can now safely say that he did not want to be part of what was coming. Even if it was to be ordinary buyout. Which it definitely was not, because next (within few months I think) came Grand Developer Massacre. That was when I knew things are going downhill -  no matter the reason (we did not know then), loosing almost whole team like that is among worst things that can happen to a software project.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if you could find the missing devs/former modders over at Floating Origin studios (Harvester's new company) or some other studio.  It might have been a layoff, it might have been the old Squad (pre-KSP) guard deciding that everything would be conducted in Spanish from then on, or they might have decided to leave to a different company (and Floating Origin is the most obvious).

As far as Squad acting all "PR", remember that's the company's original core function (they provided software and animation to marketing departments).  They only became a game studio when Phillipe suggested building KSP.

For all our worries about Take Two, the things that bother me the most come from Unity (and its data collection policies).  Take Two seems to let KSP be KSP.  I think the biggest reason for the "old guard" leaving is that the game (meaning the gameplay, localization is pretty critical as well) is more or less finished.  There are always little details to add, but they are a lot of work for small additions when they got used to the rush of going from a single flat plane of a planet to an entire solar system in a few years.

[radonek]

45 minutes ago, wumpus said:

I think the biggest reason for the "old guard" leaving is that the game (meaning the gameplay, localization is pretty critical as well) is more or less finished.

I that case they would trickle out slowly. Even when evacuating sinking ship kind of project, people tend to move out one by one, whenever their individual situation allows them to. No, this was, in one way or other,  result of deliberate managerial decision that speaks of incredible amount of incompetency.  

[Superfluous J]

7 minutes ago, radonek said:

No, this was, in one way or other,  result of deliberate managerial decision that speaks of incredible amount of incompetency.  

That's a massive stretch to deduce that based on one piece of information.

[wumpus]

26 minutes ago, radonek said:

I that case they would trickle out slowly. Even when evacuating sinking ship kind of project, people tend to move out one by one, whenever their individual situation allows them to. No, this was, in one way or other,  result of deliberate managerial decision that speaks of incredible amount of incompetency.  

Except there was also a trickle of developers one by one.  I don't think anyone else left the same day as Harvester.  And considering the state of KSP (probably hitting every wild goal Phillipe could imagine actually hitting), it didn't have to be a "sinking ship".  It may well look like a project that was heading into what (developers from the .1x era at least would think of) maintenance mode.

The other thing we will never know is the budget between Take Two and Squad to develop KSP.  It may well have been that Take Two simply didn't want to pay that many.  To be honest, I don't think I've ever heard of any game development studio in the whole industry that wasn't an ongoing personnel disaster: probably too much supply of people willing to work arbitrary hours for low pay.

[Pecan]

7 hours ago, PunkyFickle said:

About the asparagus design ...

Wide is not good, so pancakes are out.  If you're using side-boosters already, however (eg; standard core+2 design) you still get better performance by making them asparagus.  The only cost is no pretty Korolev cross with core+4.  Lots of fuel-handling strategies are easier because of the new priority system, which means hardly ever needing a fuel line.

Almost everything's a lot easier now though, with typical rocket payload-ratios above 20% and twisted candle over 30%.  All so that people can easily build spaceplanes that fly the entire system, using ISRU to mine resources and refuel themselves as they go.  KSP still definitely isn't arcade but it's started to forget (because to commercialism?) "We choose to do these things, not because they are easy ..."

[radonek]

That particular piece is based on years of personal experience. I could speculate a lot about what it really was - devs angry about this or that, T2 showing their famously gentle hand in contract terms, Squad wanting some key personel, T2 being cheap...  I can speculate a lot and I quite intentionaly did not. It does not really matter. Letting go of  almost complete development team at once is Incredibly Bad Idea under any imaginable  circumstances short of zombie apocalypse :-) I don't know of single pm who would not move heaven and earth to avoid that. Even in company mergers people are laid out in waves to allow for training and knowledge transfer, and it's not like those are known for being painless.

So, I don't know, and don't care what led to that decision, but it was stupid decision.  It's like firing a ship crew or factory workers and hiring new complement to learn the ropes on their own. Based on my experience (and yes, THIS is a speculation), it cost T2 several months of development time, on top of all the hassle with takover.

[StrandedonEarth]

My two cents here and there on random stuff:

1.1 involved re-writing practically the entire game for a major Unity engine upgrade. While this introduced a new pile of bugs and required a complete re-creation of the wheel/landing gear module code, it also allowed individual ships to use separate CPU cores. Overall it gave a big boost to performance as well as a big boost to the bug count, and 'wheels' (including landing gear and landing struts) have never been the same. Since the major effort of 1.1 was the rewrite, there was little in the way of new features.

One purported reason why Harvester left was project burnout. After the major push for the 1.1 rewrite, that's understandable. 5 years or so on one project is an eternity for a software developer (or so I've heard on this forum), and a change is good for clearing one's mind and bringing fresh blood views to a project. However, I don't quite recall exactly which update Harvester left after.

With the plethora of new bugs in the 1.1 rewrite, IIRC 1.2 was mostly a major bug extermination effort. Many talented modders were hired to help in the hunt. Nobody knows why they all most of them left at the same time because of NDA's, but the two leading rumours involved their contracts simply being up, or unhappiness with working conditions. At any rate, they were no longer needed for a massive bug hunt, and by no means did the entire team quit. So the major effort of 1.2 was bug squashing, and not a lot in the way of new features (Commnet?)

Take Two did not just buy KSP; nor did they buy Squad. They bought the entire Kerbal franchise, and kept Squad on to continue developing it. So any merchandising and future Kerbal games belong to T2. This is where it gets weird, as kerbal merchandise (especially the 3D Kerbal prints from Shapeways) have been pulled from the virtual shelves and can no longer be ordered, although Kerbal-themed T-shirts can still be found online (probably not officially sanctioned). One would think that T2 would be trying to maximize their return on their Kerbal franchise by pumping out the merchandise.

1.3 was mostly localisation (languages) and 1.4 was mostly the MH DLC. 1.5 and 1.6 have mostly been old part revamps, and the new dVee readout for 1.6 was a very nice, long-awaited surprise. IMO 1.6 has been the best update in a year or two.

.

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by StrandedonEarth
spellnig

[RealKerbal3x]

4 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

IMO 1.6 has been the best update in a year or two.

I agree. With 1.6 SQUAD are getting close to pre-Unity 2017 levels of stability.

[klgraham1013]

2 hours ago, radonek said:

I that case they would trickle out slowly. Even when evacuating sinking ship kind of project, people tend to move out one by one, whenever their individual situation allows them to. No, this was, in one way or other,  result of deliberate managerial decision that speaks of incredible amount of incompetency.  

 

1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:

That's a massive stretch to deduce that based on one piece of information.

I've got to side with @5thHorseman on this one.  They were probably all contracted to a singular date.  Whether that be the finalization of a version, or an actual calendar date.  Once this occurred, they were either not offered a new contract, didn't care for the contract offered, or simply moved on.  Each individual could have had a different reason.  I do think their is something under the surface.  A lot of people did leave at once.  ...but we need to be careful to not overreach with our suspicions. 

1 hour ago, radonek said:

Letting go of  almost complete development team at once is Incredibly Bad Idea under any imaginable  circumstances

I can agree with this.