Hopes and Wishes for KSP 2

[GoldForest]

5 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

My wishes:

* Optimization, and something similar to part welding

* Axial tilt of planets

* improved aerodynamcs and hydrodynamics/ buoyancy.

* a larger scale to celestial bodies, Kerbin should be at least 1,500 km in radius, not 600 km.

* More varied propellant types (I think this is in), with drawbacks (cryogenics?), that can't all be made from just "ore" (I think this is in based on a presumably H and He3 fueled craft around Jool, a plausible source for He3 and H, and other statements)

* Some more outer planets for the Kerbol system

* 3-body physics (N-body would be too much I think) - Orbits around Rald and Rusk will be janky without this, and it enables lagrange points.

* colony optimization- colonies impact performance in a way similar to KSC, and not a gargantuan vessel

* life support.

* vessel based ISRU (as opposed to colony based) is still in, but more detailed/difficult.

* more interesting topography. So far the in game pre-alpha terrain has better ground scatter, but the topography is no where near as interesting as what we saw in the trailer.

* some way to recover boosters/craft that separate in the atmosphere (multiplayer and another player flies a carrier plane for an air launch/booster back?)

* some use of procedural parts (particularly wings)

 

Optimization is a given. They're building KSP from the ground up and they're a team that has game making knowledge.

Axial tilt plants would be nice, but I think it should be only for a few planets. Keep Kerbin 0 degree, that way it doesn't mess up old KSP players too much. 

Improved aero and hydro dynamics would greatly be appreciated. No more making sure the COL is in the right place compared to COM. If it has wings, it should fly. No need to add wings hidden inside the body. 

Larger body? Mmm, I don't think it would be such a good idea for people used to being able to get into orbit with small rockets. But, I'm not against the idea.

Varied Propellants are coming. Star Theory has said they plan on adding more resource types. 

I say keep Kerbol the way it is. Just give it a face lift. 

As long as the orbit doesn't decay over time, I'm fine with orbital mechanics changing a little bit. 

Colonies sound like they will be like a lego set. You have to build them yourself and make sure they're stable. They said in the interview that if you build a platform too far out without supports, it will snap and fall away. 

Lift support, only if it is toggable. I don't play with life support because I don't want the hassle of making sure my kerbals have everything and then forgetting to refuel and resupply them. 

We saw pre-alpha footage. And we only saw small bits and pieces. Give it time. They'll give us varied terrain like they said. 

Built in recovery for single player would be nice. Something like that mod that sends you back in time. And you would be able to use the helipads near the runways as landing pads.

Procedural parts, mmm, my opinion is leave that to modders. Procedural parts doesn't seem like it should be stock imo. Although, a resizable wing would be greatly appreciated. 

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, KerikBalm said:

That's a big no from me, and I'm glad the devs have taken the same stance... no warp drives, no jump drives, no FTL, no magic tech.

Then how will interstellar travel work otherwise? Star systems can't be light hours away. Unless Daedalos or other propulsion system let's you achieve something like 99% of c then you will be waiting for a long time to get from one star to another.

I'm honestly totally fine with stationary deep space jump gates in a form of a really big and hard to build structure or a magical artifact.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Wjolcz

[GoldForest]

2 minutes ago, Wjolcz said:

Then how will interstellar travel work otherwise? Star systems can't be light hours away. Unless Daedalos or other propulsion system let's you achieve something like 99% of c then you will be waiting for a long time to get from one solar system to another.

I'm honestly totally fine with stationary deep space jump gates in a form of a really big and hard yo build structure or a magical artifact.

Daedalus can only achieve 18% of C according to the wiki. 

But people shouldn't really worry. We have modders. Modders will make warp gates, warp drives, etc. 

[Wjolcz]

1 minute ago, GoldForest said:

Daedalus can only achieve 18% of C according to the wiki. 

But people shouldn't really worry. We have modders. Modders will make warp gates, warp drives, etc. 

Let's say 50% because it's KSP. If there's Alpha Centauri counterpart in the game that's still 8 ingame years/Kerbin orbits. That's not bad if you are playing alone. Just warp. Will be super boring in MP.

[GoldForest]

5 minutes ago, Wjolcz said:

Let's say 50% because it's KSP. If there's Alpha Centauri counterpart in the game that's still 8 ingame years/Kerbin orbits. That's not bad if you are playing alone. Just warp. Will be super boring in MP.

And with mods like better time warp or another mod that increase time warp speed, you could time warp there within minutes rather than an hour. 

As for multiplayer, I'm sure they're working on a solution. Multi-instance servers for instance. In the current multiplayer mod, there's a master instance, then every player can time warp in their own instance. 

Oh, and it's 12% not 18%. Man, I have a terrible mermory XD. 

I suspect KSP's Daedulus to go no faster than 25% the speed of light. 

Also, that's 12% the speed of light after 4 years of burning 2 stages evenly. 2 years up to 7.1% then 2 years to get to 12%. 

Edited August 22, 2019 by GoldForest

[KerikBalm]

29 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Improved aero and hydro dynamics would greatly be appreciated. No more making sure the COL is in the right place compared to COM. If it has wings, it should fly. No need to add wings hidden inside the body.

Ummm, no, CoL should still need to be in the right place compared to CoM, and just because it has wings doesn't mean it should fly. Wings hidden inside the body should do nothing. Wing aspect ratio, sweep, etc should affect aerodynamics, and thus the CoL, A long thin wing shouldn't work the same when its rotated 90 degrees, etc

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Larger body? Mmm, I don't think it would be such a good idea for people used to being able to get into orbit with small rockets. But, I'm not against the idea.

I play at 1,800 km radius, and I can already get over 17% payload fraction to orbit with an SSTO. 1,500 km radius would be fine. I'd also be fine with a multiple scale settings, like a difficulty setting... but these futuristic drives will be super OP within a system of the current size.

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As long as the orbit doesn't decay over time, I'm fine with orbital mechanics changing a little bit.

Decay and destablization aren't the same thing. There would be stable and unstable orbits... we sort of have things like that now when an orbit will intersect an SOI eventually

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We saw pre-alpha footage. And we only saw small bits and pieces. Give it time. They'll give us varied terrain like they said.

We will see. I have my reservations... I'll say that I'm cautiously optimistic.

27 minutes ago, Wjolcz said:

Then how will interstellar travel work otherwise? Star systems can't be light hours away. Unless Daedalos or other propulsion system let's you achieve something like 99% of c then you will be waiting for a long time to get from one star to another.

I'm honestly totally fine with stationary deep space jump gates in a form of a really big and hard to build structure or a magical artifact.

Transfers to Eeloo can take like 7 in game years, sometimes double that if you don't do it quite right (like your craft is hanging around near apoapsis waiting for Eeloo to arrive). At 12.5% the spped of light, 1 light year takes 8 years to travel. If KSP 2 is about 1/10th scale for distance, but 1:1 scale for Isp (as with 4200 Isp ion drives and 800 Isp LV-Ns in KSP 1), then the nearest star may be 0.4 light years away, and only take 3.2 real years to reach, which is about 11 in game years... so its a similar travel time as a hohman transfer to Eeloo in Ksp 1

I would not be fine with jump gates... at all

[GoldForest]

3 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Ummm, no, CoL should still need to be in the right place compared to CoM, and just because it has wings doesn't mean it should fly. Wings hidden inside the body should do nothing. Wing aspect ratio, sweep, etc should affect aerodynamics, and thus the CoL, A long thin wing shouldn't work the same when its rotated 90 degrees, etc

I know COL still needs to be in the right place, what I meant was it shouldn't have to be a guessing game as to if you have it in the right place or not. in KSP 1 it seems to me with stock aerodynamics it has to be in just the right place or your plane won't fly well, if at all. 
 

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I play at 1,800 km radius, and I can already get over 17% payload fraction to orbit with an SSTO. 1,500 km radius would be fine. I'd also be fine with a multiple scale settings, like a difficulty setting... but these futuristic drives will be super OP within a system of the current size.

Maybe they've already increased the size. On the other hand, solar system distances could adjust for the OPness. Daedalus can only reach 12% of C. Make a system 120 light years away, that's 12 hours in game, give or take. Make it 240 light years, that's 24 hours in game. But you'll have to reach that 12% C. It will take you years to get up to 12% C, then you have to worry about slowing down.

 

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Decay and destablization aren't the same thing. There would be stable and unstable orbits... we sort of have things like that now when an orbit will intersect an SOI eventually

Ah, okay. Yeah, I got confused. Destabilization I'm fine with. I've had it happen to a few long range satellites. I put them so far out that when the Mun came by, it grabbed then and flung them out into interplanetary space, and I was left thinking, "Wait... how'd that happen?" until I looked at the orbits of the other satellites in orbit and saw the Mun was grabbing and fast balling them away. 

 

 

[KerikBalm]

6 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

I know COL still needs to be in the right place, what I meant was it shouldn't have to be a guessing game as to if you have it in the right place or not. in KSP 1 it seems to me with stock aerodynamics it has to be in just the right place or your plane won't fly well, if at all. 

I've had a different experience... but I think part of people's problem is that body lift isn't factored in the VAB/SPH display, and the center of drag isn't shown either.

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Ah, okay. Yeah, I got confused. Destabilization I'm fine with. I've had it happen to a few long range satellites. I put them so far out that when the Mun came by, it grabbed then and flung them out into interplanetary space, and I was left thinking, "Wait... how'd that happen?" until I looked at the orbits of the other satellites in orbit and saw the Mun was grabbing and fast balling them away. 

Yea, destabilization happens already, but with the hard SOI cutoffs, an orbit on rails will never change if it doesn't intercept another SOI. A 3 body simulation would be more complex... but KSP 1 got people used to the basics of orbital mechanics... KSP 2 could kick that understanding up a notch

[GoldForest]

6 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

I've had a different experience... but I think part of people's problem is that body lift isn't factored in the VAB/SPH display, and the center of drag isn't shown either.

I literally have to hide layers and layers of wings inside the fuselage of my craft to get the COL to be near the COM in the right spot. Somehow they still generate lift. I hope this exploit isn't gone from KSP 2.

 

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Yea, destabilization happens already, but with the hard SOI cutoffs, an orbit on rails will never change if it doesn't intercept another SOI. A 3 body simulation would be more complex... but KSP 1 got people used to the basics of orbital mechanics... KSP 2 could kick that understanding up a notch

I'm hoping the binary twins of death with allow figure 8 maneuvers of space craft and stations. As well as points where the station just hovers between the two planets, no movement at all. Lagrange points?

Edited August 22, 2019 by GoldForest

[Skipperro]

I hope for Scott Manley voice-over in tutorial  

[Kaerbanogue]

16 minutes ago, Skipperro said:

I hope for Scott Manley voice-over in tutorial  

Star Theory this is what we need

[GoldForest]

I thought of the biggest feature that multiplayer needs...

The ability to save designs from other people. 

Basically, right click their craft, and have a button that saves it to your local files.

[Radekpl]

1. Sloped runways

2. Reentry path prediction based on future stages - You are leaving Mun with propeled stage 5 and switch Kerbin path projection to count with only reentry capsule which IS stage 7 (for example) 

3. Walking and science IVA

4. 6D mouse support for docking (rotate and translate toggether without mode switching) 

5. Real cities at Kerbin

6. IVA custom action buttons with custom action labels

[Norcalplanner]

Don't know if this has been brought up before, but I'd be supportive of being able to start in different eras in career. If you've already unlocked the whole tree and/or achieved a designated level of success, it would be nice to start in the Kerbal equivalent of 1970, or 1990, or 2010 in terms of infrastructure and available parts. Having to start from the very beginning every time gets a little old. 

[DunaManiac]

2 minutes ago, Norcalplanner said:

Don't know if this has been brought up before, but I'd be supportive of being able to start in different eras in career. If you've already unlocked the whole tree and/or achieved a designated level of success, it would be nice to start in the Kerbal equivalent of 1970, or 1990, or 2010 in terms of infrastructure and available parts. Having to start from the very beginning every time gets a little old. 

I actually like starting from the beginning because I don't want to be able to build a rocket that can get to the Mun on the the first launch.

[James Kerman]

Welcome to the forum @Radekpl.

I've merged your topic with this pre existing thread.

[Norcalplanner]

2 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

I actually like starting from the beginning because I don't want to be able to build a rocket that can get to the Mun on the the first launch.

I'm thinking it would be an option, not a requirement. Far be it from me to take away someone else's grindy fun!

[DunaManiac]

Just now, Norcalplanner said:

I'm thinking it would be an option, not a requirement. Far be it from me to take away someone else's grindy fun!

I agree.

[Alguien]

- Make Kerbin actually lively, cities with lights at night, kerbals walking around and cars. Make it a planet with a real kerbal civilization and not just the KSC
- Full Kerbin system. ot was going to be similar to our own but it was never completed (officialy) that way in 1, also a real asteroid belt instead of just random ones
- Ship interiors where the kerbal move around doing stuff, make them lively instead of just seating in a chair 24/7
- More anomalities, maybe with some storylines with them
- Give the ground crew some love, make them characters, small window cinematics celebrating launches or you can be in the command room when iva with probes.
- Weather effects
Many of them are not really gameplay changing, but I feel giving some atmosphere (ok maybe not in the Mun) to the game is also important.

[cubinator]

-Ships fully pilotable from IVA

-In-depth mining mechanics, leading to ability to build ships on colonies eventually

-Larger launchers than 3.75 m

Edited August 22, 2019 by cubinator

[GoldForest]

Just now, cubinator said:

-Ships fully pilotable from IVA

-In-depth mining mechanics, leading to ability to build ships on colonies eventually

You can fully pilot ships from IVA in KSP 1. It's difficult, but doable. 

Colonies can be used as launch points once they achieve a certain size, this has been confirmed. 

[Teek]

A lot of people have already posted things that I want, but here's a few more that I haven't seen or would like to expand upon:

A sense of progression:  In another thread, I noted that the trailers we've seen so far seem to have an interesting hodge-podge of parts.  Old Mk 1-2 command Modules with current KSP1 fuel tanks, old RCS fuel tank with an apparently new design of Mk2 Lander Can, and obviously a ton of new futuristic parts.  This makes me wonder if we may see more parts with variations of models as well as skins.  So if you want to go for the ol' Jumbomax oil cans, you can!  Or, you can opt for the sleeker modern versions.

Even better, I think it would be cool for campaigns to start you out with old junky parts, and allow you to use sleeker skins later on.  Would provide a nice visual of how you've progressed into future tech.

Similarly: Noodle rockets.  I know we've all seen the gameplay footage, and many are disappointed.  However, I'm hoping that noodle rocket physics are something that can be addressed in game with later tech, and not just struts (although struts, still important and should be in game!)

Personally, I think noodly rockets are good for the early game, adding a bit of challenge into what would otherwise be fairly simple launches into orbit.  Plus, wacky physics explosions are part of KSP's history and charm.  However, I don't know how we could see the physics of what we see in that rocket launch work with the space stations and massive vessels later on.  My suspicion, then, is that we may have the ability to weld parts together, with or without struts, later on in the game to make more robust craft and hopefully simplify the physics model a bit.

Finally (for now) I hope we see a significant revamp of science mechanics.  I'm usually a campaign player these days, because I like working with constraints and having specific objectives.  But science is in need of an overhaul, grinding out some of the tech tree branches is a pain and some of it's layout isn't optimal.  I'd like to see probes feature much earlier and have a more significant roll to play, and to even out the allocation of science outside of those initial first data sets (labs aside.)

[cubinator]

-A neutron star or white dwarf system inside a planetary nebula

-A rogue planet which doesn't have a parent star, very dark and difficult to find

[Bill Phil]

Mini-Mag Orion

We saw Ol Boom Boom in the trailer and in other materials, along with Daedalus. But we also saw a few other magnetic nozzle designs, so I’m hoping to see a Mini-Mag Orion - it may be a bit late game though but could be interesting.

[pquade]

A toggleable setting on probe control units to enable maintaining relative relationships to the body it's orbiting.  I don't simply mean prograde/retrograde, radial, or normal, but also persistent rotation.

Lack of the ability to have persistent rotation means I can't (stock) really make an accurate ISS.  I can make the shape, but not the behavior of it maintaining its orientation relative to the surface.  What that means is I can't count on the radial in docking port to continue to be in the radial in position as I approach it during rendezvous.  This also has implications for things like solar panels and how they are properly oriented.