Some more KSP2 footage

[nikokespprfan]

  On 8/25/2019 at 6:27 PM, Kaerbanogue said:

Hi guys there's this interview that had been released today, but it's in german... 

Any german folk to tell us if something new is said? 

https://youtu.be/ftLT_puDtxo

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Here is the german transcript stolen and edited from the subtitles

  Reveal hidden contents

INTRO by interviewer:

Auf der diesjährigen Gamescom 2019 ist Kerbal Space Program 2 angekündigt worden. Der absolute wahnsinn da ist mir erst mal der kopf explodierte und ich bin großer fan des ersten Teils, denen ich laut Steam über 500 Stunden gespielt habe.

Und ich freue mich auch dass es geklappt hat auf der Gamescom ein Interview bei Private Division mit den Entwicklern von Kerbal Space Program 2 führen zu dürfen. Vielen dank noch mal an Private Division dass das so kurzfristig möglich gewesen ist und seht ihr jetzt das Interview.

Ich wünsche viel Spaß.

Dev: Hi, mein name ist Nate Simpson. Ich bin der Creative Director von Star.Theory Games und arbeite gerade an Kerbal Space Program 2.

Interviewer: sind nett dich kennenzulernen. Kannst du kurz eure ziele für Kerbal Space Program 2 zusammenfassen?

Nate: Nun Kerbal Space Program 2 erweitert das originale Konzept von Kerbal Space Program, insbesondere im Hinblick auf den Maßstab. Das ganze findet in einem wesentlich größeren Universum statt in dem man mehrere Sternensysteme erkunden kann und so mussten wir beispielsweise auch den Technologiebaum vergrößern um es dem Spieler zu ermöglichen über neue Technologien diese weit entfernten Sternensysteme auch erreichen zu können. Zum Beispiel neue Antriebstechnologie, neue Treibstoffvarianten und größere Variationen bei den Raumschiffkurs. Dazu kommt noch ein neues Kolonie-bausystem was ist ein ermöglicht sowohl auf Oberflächen von Planeten als auch im Orbit Großraumstationen zu bauen. Wenn diese Kolonien oder Raumstationen dann eine entsprechende Größe erreicht haben wird es dort möglich sein neue Raumschiffe zu bauen die dann sogar noch größer werden können. Das ermöglicht es gerade in der Progression des späteren Spielverlauf riesige Raumschiffe zu bauen die dann genügend Treibstoff mit sich führen können um lange genug Beschleunigen zu können, dann letztendlich zu wenden und abzubremsen um zu weit entfernten interstellaren Locations zu gelangen.

Interviewer: Cool he.

Und eine Sache wollen wir natürlich nicht vergessen denn das ist ein ziemlich großes Ding nämlich der Multiplayer. Wir haben die Architektur des Spiels komplett überarbeitet sodass Multiplayer überhaupt erst möglich werden kann während wir gleichzeitig darauf geachtet haben dass es weiterhin möglich ist das Spiel zu modden und auch noch besser zu machen als vorher.  Das war eine ganz wichtige Priorität für uns und die Modder werden sehr zufrieden sein wenn sie feststellen wie weit sie in die Kernsysteme des spiels eingreifen können.

Zu guter letzt haben wir den Zugang zum Spiel auch ein bisschen vereinfacht. Dabei war es uns sehr wichtig dass es immer noch ein anspruchsvolles Spielerlebnis bleibt genauso wie das erste Kerbal Space Program ein sehr anspruchsvolles erlebnis gewesen ist, denn das ist letztendlich auch ein grund dafür warum das erste Kerbal Space Program so großartig gewesen ist.

Wir sind aber der Meinung dass einige der Konzepten nicht so schwer begreiflich sein müssen für Leute die das Spiel zum ersten mal sehen. Dazu haben wir beispielsweise eine neue form von Tutorial integriert die über kontextbasierte Animationen die relativ intuitiv angezeigt werden, einem neuen Spieler die Mechanismen des spiels visuell erläutern anstatt durch viel text.

 

Interviewer: Wird es so etwas wie Lebenserhaltungssysteme geben so dass man für die Kerbal Sauerstoffversorgung, Wasserversorgung und Lebensmittelversorgung sicherstellen muss.

Nate: Ich kann so viel sagen dass die Notwendigkeit Kerbals am leben zu halten eine Feature ist dass wir jetzt einführen werden. Genaueres kann ich dazu aber zu diesem Zeitpunkt noch nicht sagen aber ich kann soviel sagen. Falls du die mods zum Thema Lebenserhaltungssysteme ausprobiert hast; so etwas detailliertes wird es nicht geben, aber wie gesagt ich kann nicht allzu viel dazu sagen denn es gibt da ein paar geheimnisse.

Interviewer: Geheimnisse! ... Moment mal, ja nächste frage!

Interviewer: Du hast bereits das Bauen von Raumstationen und Kolonien erwähnt. Wie genau wird das Ablaufen?

Nate: Der Basisbau läuft in einem neuen Editor der ganz ähnlich dem Vehicle Assembly Building funktioniert. Das ganze findet allerdings statt auf dem jeweiligen Gelände wo man dann letztendlich bauen möchte und wir haben das ganze BAE oder auch beziehungsweise Building Assembly Editor genannt. In der frühen Progressionsstufe steht Basisbau allerdings noch darin aufblasbare Module in einem Fahrzeug zu der entsprechenden Location zu bringen. Man fliegt also mit einem Fahrzeug hin, landet das Fahrzeug, entfaltet entsprechende Module und diese Module können dann auf der Oberfläche platziert werden als Basis.

 Im weiteren Spielverlauf ist es dann möglich gesammelte Ressourcen zu verwenden. Dazu gibt es dann spezielle Ressourcensammel- und Verarbeitungsmodule um Ressourcen entsprechen für die Erweiterung der Base zu nutzen. So kann eine Kolonie auf eigene Weise organisch wachsen und jede Kolonie hat außerdem eine Bevölkerung die natürlich auch über die Zeit wächst, und je größer diese Bevölkerung wird bist du eher werden neue Module freigeschaltet die man dann wieder an der Base platzieren kann, bis man letztendlich in der Lage ist auch Fahrzeuge und andere Raumschiffe in einem neuen Vehicle Assembly Building dass man in der Kolonie platziert bauen zu können.

Und dann wird es natürlich richtig spannend, weil man dann mehr Möglichkeiten zum Raketenbau bekommt.

 

Interviewer: Kannst du ein bisschen genauer auf neue Fahrzeugbauteile und vielleicht auch neue Antriebssysteme und dergleichen eingehen?

Nate: Tatsächlich haben wir einen Experten in sachen Antriebssysteme. Sein name ist Dr Uri Shumlak von der University of Washington.

Und ganz ehrlich weißt du, na ja ich nehme sämtliche Schuld auf meine eigenen Schultern wenn diese Antriebssysteme in irgendeiner form nicht so 100 prozent der realen Vorgabe entsprechen sollten. Wir haben unser möglichstes getan um dafür zu sorgen dass diese Maschinen in der realen Wissenschaft verwurzelt bleiben, selbst wenn wir damit nur eine geschichte erzählen. Da ich aber zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt noch nie eine funktionierende Rakete mit metallischem Wasserstoff als Antrieb gesehen hat, kann ich natürlich auch keine Garantie dafür nehmen dass dieselbe rakete in unserem Spiel auch in irgendeiner Zukunft irgendwie noch was mit real existierenden Raketen dieser art zu tun haben werden.

Bleiben wir mal bei der Technologie mit dem metallenen Wasserstoff. Dabei geht es darum dass der metallene Wasserstoff tatsächlich bei normaler Zimmertemperatur stabil bleibt. So ein Stoff wurde erst vor einigen Jahren im Labor erzeugt. Das ist also eine brandneue Technologie aber die Tatsache dass es ihnen gelungen ist ein kleines bisschen von diesem Material herzustellen reicht uns aus um das ganze als möglichen Treibstoff für unsere Kerbal Raketen zu benutzen. Mit einem solchen treibstoff könnte man nämlich Raketen entwickeln die doppelt so viel Schub entwickeln können wie herkömmliche Chemische Raketen.  Leider verbrennt dieses Material bei 6000 Grad Kelvin was so ziemlich jede Materie sofort zum Schmelzen bringt. Daher liegt eine große Herausforderung darin den mettalischen Wasserstoff zu verdünnen damit die Temperaturen nicht ganz so hoch werden.

Einige der Fahrzeuge im Trailer insbesondere am anfang das Lunar Lander Module verfügen übrigens über genau diesen antrieb, nämlich ein vakuum-zertifiziertes metallenes Wasserstoffantriebssystemen.

Tja das ist gerade mal die erste fortschrittliche Technologie die man nach den normalen Flüssigtreibstoffraketen bekommt also da gibt es wirklich einiges was man noch entdecken kann.

Darüber werden wir sicher zu einem anderen Zeitpunkt noch genauer sprechen können.

 

Interviewer: Du hass erwähnt dass das Spiel für neue Spieler ein bisschen einsteigerfreundlicher werden soll. Kannst du das ein bisschen genauer erläutern. Wie genau habt ihr das umgesetzt.

Nate: Bei unseren ersten Tests dazu haben wir einfach sehr sehr lange handgeschriebene Passagen um Zeichnungen verwendet um bestimmte Konzepte zu illustrieren. Und sobald wir einen neuen Mitarbeiter im Team engagiert haben, haben wir diese handgeschriebenen Tutorialkonzepte an demjenigen ausprobiert. Dabei gab es nur ein kleines problem denn auch unsere neuen Mitarbeiter waren oft schon Fans des originalen Kerbal Space Program.

Immer wenn wir dann einen Noob gefunden haben, haben wir natürlich sofort diese Konzepte ausprobiert oder auch an Familienmitgliedern oder Freunden, und es stellte sich heraus dass wenn man diese Gameplaykonzepte in der richtigen Reihenfolge und bezogen auf eine bestimmte Problematik die derjenige versucht gerade lösen präsentiert, dann ist es gar nicht mehr so schwierig das ganze zu verstehen.

Und es ist schon sehr erfreulich zu sehen wie Leute die ursprünglich Angst vor Kerbal Space Program hatten aufgrund seiner Reputation als sehr komplexes Spiel, wird sich sogar etwas über orbital mechanics gelernt haben.  Und ja so ist uns dann gelungen letztendlich diese leute ziemlich schnell ins Spielgeschehen einzuführen.

 

Interviewer: Aus wie vielen einzelnen Bauteilen kann ein Fahrzeug maximal bestehen?

Nate: Über die maximale Anzahl der Bauteile bei einem Raumfahrzeug kann ich leider noch nicht so viel sagen weil wir gerade auch noch dabei sind die Physikberechnungen für feste Objekte zu verbessern.

Wir wollen sicherstellen dass das Spiel Spaß macht und man sich nicht extra einen neuen Computer anschaffen muss, damit das ganze flüssig läuft.

Wir haben da tatsächlich noch die ein oder andere Stellschraube an der wir drehen können um die Physikberechnungen noch weiter zu optimieren, nämlich genau diese Physikberechnungen die früher auf der CPU abliefen und dafür gesorgt haben dass die Framerate im ersten Teil doch relativ häufig sehr stark eingebrochen ist. In unserem pre-alpha gameplay dass wir veröffentlicht haben sieht man durchaus ein paar Framerateprobleme. Allerdings sind wir sehr zuversichtlich dass wir diese auch noch in den Griff kriegen bis das Spiel dann letztendlich veröffentlicht wird.

Interviewer: Kannst du ein bisschen was zu den interstellaren Reisen erzählen. Wie viele Sternensysteme wird es beispielsweise geben die wir besuchen können?

Nate: Na ja die Frage zu beantworten wie viele Sternensysteme es geben wird, fühlt sich für mich ein bisschen an wie ein Spoiler. Ich möchte schon gerne dass die Leute das beim spielen selber entdecken können. Daher kann ich dann nicht allzu viel zu sagen. Es ist ein ziemlich großes Universum mit vielen Möglichkeiten coole Dinge zu entdecken und wir legen großen Wert darauf dass du davon vieles selber entdecken kannst als ein normaler Teil deiner Progression durch das Spiel.

 

Interviewer: Dann hinten die Wichtigste letzte Frage: kann ich das Spiel sofort haben?

Nate: Sagen wir es mal so falls du es bekommen hast das fertig ist dann schickt bitte zu.

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Outro by Interviewer:

Noch eine kurze Info. Zum Ende dieses Interviewmöglichkeit hat sich wirklich sehr kurzfristig ergeben und ich hatte ungefähr 20 Minuten für dieses Interview Zeit gehabt. Daher war es mir leider nicht möglich alle eure Communityfragen in diesem Interview unterzubringen.  Ich hoffe trotzdem dass ihr aus dem Interview ein paar Informationen herausziehen konnte und würde mich freuen wenn es euch gefallen hat. (General Like, Comment, Subscribe talk.)

and here is the english translation, edited for clarity.

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INTRO by interviewer:
At this year's Gamescom 2019 Kerbal Space Program 2 has been announced. The absolute madness. my head exploded and I'm a big fan of the first game, which I've played for over 500 hours, according to Steam.
And I am also pleased that it worked out that I had an interview with Private Division at Gamesecon with the developers of Kerbal Space Program 2. Thank you very much to Private Division for making this possible on short notice and now you are seeing the interview.
Enjoy your time.

_____
Dev: Hi, my name is Nate Simpson. I'm the Creative Director of Star.Theory Games and I'm currently working on Kerbal Space Program 2.
Interviewer: Nice to meet you. Can you briefly summarize your goals for Kerbal Space Program 2?
Nate: Now Kerbal Space Program 2 extends the original concept of Kerbal Space Program, especially in terms of scale. The whole takes place in a much larger universe in which one can explore several star systems and so we had to, for example, enlarge the technology tree in order to allow the player to reach these far away star systems on new technologies. For example, new drive technology, new fuel variants and larger variations in the spaceship course. In addition, there is a new colony-building system which makes it possible to build large-capacity stations both on surfaces of planets and in orbit. When these colonies or space stations have reached an appropriate size, it will be possible to build new spaceships that can grow even larger. This makes it possible to build huge spaceships in the progression of the later game, which can then carry enough fuel to accelerate long enough, then finally turn around and decelerate to reach distant interstellar locations.
Interviewer: Cool hey.
And of course we do not want to forget one thing because that's a pretty big thing, namely multiplayer. We've completely redesigned the architecture of the game so that multiplayer can be made possible while at the same time making sure that it is still possible to mod the game and mod it even better than before. That was a very important priority for us and the modders will be very pleased to see how far they can intervene in the core systems of the game.
Last but not least, we have made access to the game a bit easier. It was very important to us that it still remains a challenging gaming experience just as the first Kerbal Space Program was a very challenging experience, because that is one of the reasons why the first Kerbal Space Program was so great.
But we think that some of the concepts do not have to be so hard to understand for people who are seeing the game for the first time. For example, we have integrated a new form of tutorial that uses context-based animations that are relatively intuitive to visually explain the mechanisms of the game to a new player rather than a lot of text.

Interviewer: Will there be such a thing as life support systems so you have to ensure oxygen supply, water supply and food supply for the Kerbals.
Nate: I can say so much that the need to keep Kerbals alive is a feature we're going to introduce now. But I can not say more about that at this point, but I can say so much. In case you tried mods on life support systems; it will not be so detailed, but as I said I can not say too much because there are a few secrets.
Interviewer: Secrets! ... wait a minute, yes next question!

Interviewer: You have already mentioned building space stations and colonies. How exactly is this going to happen?
Nate: The base building runs in a new editor that works quite similar to the Vehicle Assembly Building. The whole takes place however on the respective area where one wants to build. And we we called the whole BAE or also respectively Building Assembly Editor. In the early progression stage, however, base building will mean bringing inflatable modules in a vehicle to the appropriate location. So you fly with a vehicle, land the vehicle, unfold appropriate modules and these modules can then be placed on the surface as a base.

Later in the game it is possible to use collected resources. There are then special resource collection and processing modules to use resources for the extension of the base to use. This way, a colony can grow organically in its own way, and each colony also has a population that grows over time, of course, and the bigger that population becomes, the sooner you unlock new modules, which you can then put back to the base, until you finally are also able to build vehicles and other spaceships in a new Vehicle Assembly Building that you can place in the colony.
And then of course it gets really exciting, because then you get more opportunities for rocket construction.

Interviewer: Can you take a closer look at new vehicle components and perhaps also new drive systems and the like?
Nate: Actually, we have an expert in drive systems. His name is Dr Uri Shumlak from the University of Washington.
And honestly you know, well I take all the blame on my own shoulders if these propulsion systems in any form should not be as 100 percent of the real target. We have done our best to ensure that these machines remain rooted in real science, even if we are only telling a story. Since I've never seen a functioning rocket with metallic hydrogen as a propulsion system at this time, of course, I can not guarantee that the same rocket in our game in any future will somehow still have something to do with real existing rockets of this kind ,
Let's stay with the metallic hydrogen technology. The point is that the metallic hydrogen actually remains stable at normal room temperature. Such a substance was only produced in the laboratory a few years ago, so this is a brand new technology. But the fact that they have been able to make a little bit of this material is enough for us to use it as a possible fuel for our Kerbal rockets. With such a fuel you could namely develop rockets that can exert twice as much thrust as conventional chemical rockets. Unfortunately, this material burns at 6000 degrees Kelvin, which causes almost any matter to melt immediately. Therefore, a major challenge is to dilute the Mettalic hydrogen so that the temperatures are not quite as high.
By the way, some of the vehicles in the trailer, especially at the beginning, the Lunar Lander Module, have exactly that drive, namely a vacuum-certified metal hydrogen propulsion system.
Well this is just the first advanced technology that you get after the normal liquid fuel rockets so there is really something you can still discover. We will certainly be able to talk more about this at another time.

Interviewer: You mentioned that the game should be a bit more beginner-friendly for new players. Can you explain that a bit more. How exactly did you do that?
Nate: In our first tests, we just used very long handwritten passages around drawings to illustrate certain concepts. And as soon as we have hired a new employee in the team, we have tried these handwritten tutorial concepts them. Only there was a small problem with that, because our new employees were often fans of the original Kerbal Space Program.
Whenever we found a Noob, of course, we immediately tried these concepts, or to family members or friends, and it turned out that if you were to present these gameplay concepts in the right order and in relation to a specific issue that the player happens to be solvingat that time, then it is not so difficult to understand it all.
And it's very gratifying to see how people who were initially scared of Kerbal Space Program due to its reputation as a very complex game, will even have learned something about orbital mechanics. And yes, we finally managed to introduce these people pretty quickly to the game.

Interviewer: How many individual components can a vehicle consist of at most?
Nate: Unfortunately I can not say that much about the maximum part count, because we are still in the process of improving the physics calculations for solid objects. We want to make sure that the game is fun and you do not have to buy a new computer to make it run smoothly.
We actually have a few knobs that we can turn to optimize the physics calculations even further, namely exactly these physics calculations that used to run on the CPU and made sure that the frame rate in the first game was relatively often very strongly broken. In our pre-alpha gameplay that we have released you can see quite a few frame rate issues. However, we are very confident that we will get them under control before the game is finally released.

Interviewer: Can you tell a little bit about interstellar travel? For example, how many star systems will we visit?
Nate: Well, answering the question of how many star systems there will be feels like a spoiler to me. I'd like people to discover it while playing. Therefore, I can not say too much then. It's a pretty big universe with lots of opportunities to discover cool things, and we put value into being able to discover a lot of it yourself as a normal part of your progression through the game.

Interviewer: Then back the most important last question: can I have the game already?
Nate: Let's say that if you managed to get it then please send it to us.
...
Nate: I really appreciated being here, I appreciated you in depth questions.
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Outro by Interviewer:
A short info. The end of this interview opportunity has really come at very short notice and I had about 20 minutes for this interview. Therefore I was not able to accommodate all your community questions in this interview. Nevertheless I hope that you could extract some information from the interview and would be glad if you liked it. (General Like, Comment, Subscribe and Outro- talk.)

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by nikokespprfan
very strong =/= very strongly broken

[RealKerbal3x]

So I just found this video...it’s all of the KSP2 pre-alpha gameplay footage we have at the moment.

What do you think?

- I like the look of the Kerbals and their little animations.

-The art style is interesting - it’s somewhere between the old style and the new revamp style. Since this is pre-alpha, it may change, but it’s interesting to see.

-The explosions are much cooler than KSP1’s.

-I was hoping to see realistic expanding plumes a la RealPlume, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Of course, it’s pre-alpha so it could change, but if it doesn’t we can count on the modding community to fix it.

Overall though, there’s a lot of information that could be gleaned from this!

[Kaerbanogue]

Thanks a lot nikokespprfan, you an angel amongst kerbals <3 

[shdwlrd]

@nikokespprfan thanks for posting the translation. 

[chaos_forge]

Thank you so much for the translation, @nikokespprfan! It seems like the most interesting new news it has is that there will be some sort of life support system added to the game. I'd guess it'll be more similar to something like the Snacks! mod than to a more complicated system like TAC.

[juanml82]

  On 8/25/2019 at 11:55 AM, lajoswinkler said:

It's definitively early work and you can see it with the reflections and framerate getting wonky. I like the look of the engines.

What I can not forgive are two things:

1. skybox being there all the time, even in the brightest conditions possible (Kerbol is literally shining into our faces)
2. skybox AGAIN being that awful "London fog" with splotchy stars

It looks so cheesy and ugly.  Why on earth are the developers making this same mistake again, is incomprehensible to me. They basically just repeat the trope seen in space video games.

 

Make the skybox nicer, peppered with tiny, point like sources of light, and extinguish it when it's daylight or when Kerbol is in the view. One of the things that's nice and grand about space is that unnerving void in which worlds just "hang". I'm not advocating for removal of skybox, just make it less cloudy, more starry, and make it reveal itself when the conditions are right. It's most rewarding.

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Keep in mind that's a limit of photo cameras. The human eye can deal with much higher contrasts than cameras, both film and digital

[magnemoe]

4:20 was weird an Kerbal in an one seat cocpit with shadows passing over him. 
to far to slow to be an helicopter rotor or similar, he is in atmosphere it looks like so it could not be an rotating habitat next to him

[nikokespprfan]

  On 8/26/2019 at 6:55 PM, juanml82 said:

Keep in mind that's a limit of photo cameras. The human eye can deal with much higher contrasts than cameras, both film and digital

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But still, have you ever seen the milky way, I've never seen the milky way, and tried it at the telescope park at La Palma when I was there. And that was at night. During the day, which also happens sometimes, you'll be hard-pressed to see any stars at all. All of this, even though I know that the sky is seeded with stars of the milky way.

 

A variable skybox would still matter, even if you posit that eyes, not camera's, are seeing them.

[Guest]

  On 8/26/2019 at 7:04 PM, magnemoe said:

4:20 was weird an Kerbal in an one seat cocpit with shadows passing over him. 
to far to slow to be an helicopter rotor or similar, he is in atmosphere it looks like so it could not be an rotating habitat next to him

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That was just Jeb doing barrel rolls. He does that whenever he gets to fly a jet. Haven't found a way to stop him.

[Guest]

  On 8/26/2019 at 7:11 PM, nikokespprfan said:

But still, have you ever seen the milky way, I've never seen the milky way, and tried it at the telescope park at La Palma when I was there. And that was at night. During the day, which also happens sometimes, you'll be hard-pressed to see any stars at all. All of this, even though I know that the sky is seeded with stars of the milky way.

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I've seen the Milky Way. Go out on a clear night in the countryside without much light pollution and it's quite easy to see.

[pschlik]

I'm interested to hear more about what life support-ish stuff they are doing. Also, I'm quite surprised that the engine on the Munar transfer stage in the trailer is meant to be metallic hydrogen. Would a magnetic nozzle really work with metallic hydrogen? One of the metallic properties could include magnetism, I guess... And a magnetic nozzle would be a great way to somewhat counteract the whole issue of extremely hot exhaust.

Unless, of course, the Poodle and Thuds are suddenly metallic hydrogen powered. Which I don't think is the case since stock parts are supposed to retain their original balance.

[nikokespprfan]

  On 8/26/2019 at 7:16 PM, Brikoleur said:

I've seen the Milky Way. Go out on a clear night in the countryside without much light pollution and it's quite easy to see.

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I envy you. I live in the netherlands, there is just too much light pollution. I realize I implied that no one ever sees the milky way, which I didn't mean. I just meant that there are plenty of reasons not to see the milky way.

[HebaruSan]

  On 8/24/2019 at 4:18 PM, GoldForest said:

But in all seriousness, KSP 1's unstability comes from lack of deep code fixing. The code is unstable and it's a wonder the game works as well as it does. 

KSP 2 will have hard code fixed by launch. Stability should be at least 5 times that of KSP 1's, or more. 

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Stability does not come from 10 nerds hacking on something in secret for 2 years; new code always contains bugs! Stability comes from iteratively crashing code up against the reality of users over and over until all the bugs you didn't know about are exposed and fixed. This "deep code fixing" idea is highly dubious, especially for things that already work "well enough."

We know they're using Unity. We also know they already have (access to) a successful product that already does a huge amount that they need, also using Unity. SQUAD have been improving KSP1 for years, working out kinks, solving tricky problems, and it would be utter lunacy to throw that all away and start over from scratch. Why bet the farm that you can beat the code quality of a years-long effort on your first try, when you can stand on the shoulders of giants instead?

What is more likely? They'll start with the KSP1 code, then make the changes they think are needed to deliver their design goals and vision, including backwards-compatibility-breaking changes that could not be made for KSP1:

• They've promised multiplayer, so they will have to refactor the game into some semblance of a client-server architecture, then create network code and UI and content for that game mode.
• They've promised interstellar travel and exotic new planetary systems with rings and double planets, so they'll have to enhance how celestial bodies are handled and make stars and planets.
• Colonies and next gen tech will probably be mostly content-oriented; new parts plus a few new mechanics to go with them.
• "Improved Onboarding" sounds like somebody forgot to filter the internal project-speak out of public-facing documents, no player cares about onboarding but it reveals that they also plan to spend time working on the tutorial-type content.
• Under the hood they'll probably update any easy-to-update engine technology to stay current.

If you are interested in those features, then they're working on changes you'll like, and you should be excited. If those features require another change that you care about (it has been speculated that colonies will require improved surface friction handling, which I find quite plausible), then that's also good news for you. If you are hoping for something that's not on the announced list and has nothing to do with it, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

They will probably have performance targets of some sort, but they'll be based on what typical players are expected to do in a typical game. They're not going to assign one of the new devs to spend his or her scarce time between deadlines trying to squeeze a few more FPS out of a 2000-part megacraft so a few Youtubers can build gigantic ships and fly them comfortably (even assuming that was possible!).

[Guest]

I have a new post about new planets (more from this video) in game but I forgot one of them so please be patient

https://kerbalanders.wordpress.com/2019/08/24/new-confirmed-ksp-2-planets/

P.S the planet I forgot Is that big gas giant with that icy moon and a atmosphere

[chaos_forge]

  On 8/26/2019 at 7:19 PM, pschlik said:

I'm quite surprised that the engine on the Munar transfer stage in the trailer is meant to be metallic hydrogen. Would a magnetic nozzle really work with metallic hydrogen? One of the metallic properties could include magnetism, I guess... And a magnetic nozzle would be a great way to somewhat counteract the whole issue of extremely hot exhaust.

Unless, of course, the Poodle and Thuds are suddenly metallic hydrogen powered. Which I don't think is the case since stock parts are supposed to retain their original balance.

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Metallic hydrogen rockets use normal nozzles, not magnetic nozzles. The energy comes from the fact that the phase transition from metallic hydrogen to gaseous/liquid H₂ releases energy. In order to deal with the heat, extra H₂ is pumped into the nozzle to absorb the heat. The end result is rocket exhaust of a similar temperature as chemical rockets, except that the exhaust is H₂ instead of H₂O. The lighter exhaust means the ISP is approximately 9 times higher.

  On 8/26/2019 at 8:03 PM, HebaruSan said:

Stability does not come from 10 nerds hacking on something in secret for 2 years; new code always contains bugs! Stability comes from iteratively crashing code up against the reality of users over and over until all the bugs you didn't know about are exposed and fixed. This "deep code fixing" idea is highly dubious, especially for things that already work "well enough."

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Stability doesn't, but optimization can . If what you have is a huge spaghetti (which I'm pretty sure is the case with KSP), sometimes the best thing to do for better performance is to throw it all away and rewrite it from scratch. This won't necessarily make it less buggy, but it definitely can make it 1) easier to optimize, and 2) easier to update/add to, both of which are very desirable features. There are many areas where KSP doesn't work "well enough." The devs at Squad have mentioned multiple times that there were some features they could not implement because of limitations in the game engine. And the performance of KSP often leaves much to be desired as well.

EDIT: Also,

  Quote

no player cares about onboarding

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I suspect new players care quite a bit

Edited August 26, 2019 by chaos_forge

[pschlik]

  On 8/26/2019 at 8:34 PM, chaos_forge said:

Metallic hydrogen rockets use normal nozzles, not magnetic nozzles. The energy comes from the fact that the phase transition from metallic hydrogen to gaseous/liquid H₂ releases energy. In order to deal with the heat, extra H₂ is pumped into the nozzle to absorb the heat. The end result is rocket exhaust of a similar temperature as chemical rockets, except that the exhaust is H₂ instead of H₂O. The lighter exhaust means the ISP is approximately 9 times higher.

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That's what I figured...so what part of that Mun rocket has anything to do with metallic hydrogen?

[chaos_forge]

  On 8/26/2019 at 8:39 PM, pschlik said:

That's what I figured...so what part of that Mun rocket has anything to do with metallic hydrogen?

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If I understand the interviews correctly, I believe metallic hydrogen will be a new fuel type to replace LiquidFuel and Oxidizer in chemical rockets. So the Mun lander is fueled with metallic hydrogen, but using chemical rocket engines with it.

[HebaruSan]

  12 minutes ago, chaos_forge said:

The devs at Squad have mentioned multiple times that there were some features they could not implement because of limitations in the game engine.

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And that will probably still be true of KSP2. Are those features on the announced feature list for KSP2?

  12 minutes ago, chaos_forge said:

I suspect new players care quite a bit

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It can greatly affect their experience and is definitely worth working on, but nobody looks at a game trailer or web site and makes a purchase decision based on whether "onboarding" is mentioned. Nowadays gamers take for granted that the game will teach them how to play. That's what I meant about filtering project-speak out of public-facing documents.

[GoldForest]

  On 8/26/2019 at 8:03 PM, HebaruSan said:

Stability does not come from 10 nerds hacking on something in secret for 2 years; new code always contains bugs! Stability comes from iteratively crashing code up against the reality of users over and over until all the bugs you didn't know about are exposed and fixed. This "deep code fixing" idea is highly dubious, especially for things that already work "well enough."

We know they're using Unity. We also know they already have (access to) a successful product that already does a huge amount that they need, also using Unity. SQUAD have been improving KSP1 for years, working out kinks, solving tricky problems, and it would be utter lunacy to throw that all away and start over from scratch. Why bet the farm that you can beat the code quality of a years-long effort on your first try, when you can stand on the shoulders of giants instead?

What is more likely? They'll start with the KSP1 code, then make the changes they think are needed to deliver their design goals and vision, including backwards-compatibility-breaking changes that could not be made for KSP1:

• They've promised multiplayer, so they will have to refactor the game into some semblance of a client-server architecture, then create network code and UI and content for that game mode.
• They've promised interstellar travel and exotic new planetary systems with rings and double planets, so they'll have to enhance how celestial bodies are handled and make stars and planets.
• Colonies and next gen tech will probably be mostly content-oriented; new parts plus a few new mechanics to go with them.
• "Improved Onboarding" sounds like somebody forgot to filter the internal project-speak out of public-facing documents, no player cares about onboarding but it reveals that they also plan to spend time working on the tutorial-type content.
• Under the hood they'll probably update any easy-to-update engine technology to stay current.

If you are interested in those features, then they're working on changes you'll like, and you should be excited. If those features require another change that you care about (it has been speculated that colonies will require improved surface friction handling, which I find quite plausible), then that's also good news for you. If you are hoping for something that's not on the announced list and has nothing to do with it, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

They will probably have performance targets of some sort, but they'll be based on what typical players are expected to do in a typical game. They're not going to assign one of the new devs to spend his or her scarce time between deadlines trying to squeeze a few more FPS out of a 2000-part megacraft so a few Youtubers can build gigantic ships and fly them comfortably (even assuming that was possible!).

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Yes, new code contains bugs, but new code also fixes core problems. KSP 1 CAN'T fix some of it's 0roblems because it was coded so poorly. 

It's not lunacy to want to build KSP 2 from the ground up to fix those problems. They wont copy any code from KSP 1, not in the sense you're talking about. They might borrow some code, but they will fix it and make it better. KSP 2 for all terms and purposes is new code. I would argue 90 to 95 percent is new. That's more likely. They have stated it even that they are rebuilding KSP from the ground up.

And we can get evidence of this:

You mention multiplayer, that would need a complete redesign of the code. KSP 1 needs a lot of hacks and works around for the multiplayer mod to work stably. 

Interstellar travel, again needs a complete rework on the planet system as KSP 1 can't really support new solar systems without hacks.

Improved onboarding is not just dev talk. It means making the game easier to learn.

And under the hood isnt easy to update. You basically have to start a game from scratch to update anything under the hood. Things like replacing DX9 with DX12/DX11. Using the latest unity engine, which would literally break KSP 1.

As for building giant ships, they said KSP 2 will allow for bigger ships with really better performance. 

All of what you said is not possible in KSP 1 because Squad built poor code and aren't willing to fix some of it because they dont want to brak people's games. But KSP 2 is willing to fix it and they have the knowledge and experience to fix it.

[pschlik]

  On 8/26/2019 at 8:43 PM, chaos_forge said:

If I understand the interviews correctly, I believe metallic hydrogen will be a new fuel type to replace LiquidFuel and Oxidizer in chemical rockets. So the Mun lander is fueled with metallic hydrogen, but using chemical rocket engines with it.

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Huh, I never thought of it as a retrofit option. That does sound far more practical than attempting to create a whole suite of new parts for new fuel types. MethalOx has been mentioned before, and I could easily see the devs getting quite tired of making chemical rocket motors over and over with only slight differences. I guess we will have to leave it to mods for the purpose-built engines.

Edited August 26, 2019 by pschlik

[HebaruSan]

@GoldForest, you're going to be very upset when you install KSP2 and your baseless sky-high fantasy expectations aren't met. Just don't say that no one tried to warn you.

[GoldForest]

  On 8/26/2019 at 9:18 PM, HebaruSan said:

@GoldForest, you're going to be very upset when you install KSP2 and your baseless sky-high fantasy expectations aren't met. Just don't say that no one tried to warn you.

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They're not baseless and they're not fantasy. They can and will fix most problems with KSP

[Geschosskopf]

  On 8/26/2019 at 1:38 PM, nikokespprfan said:

and here is the english translation, edited for clarity.

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Thanks muchos!

 

  On 8/26/2019 at 9:05 PM, pschlik said:

Huh, I never thought of it as a retrofit option. That does sound far more practical than attempting to create a whole suite of new parts for new fuel types. MethalOx has been mentioned before, and I could easily see the devs getting quite tired of making chemical rocket motors over and over with only slight differences. I guess we will have to leave it to mods for the purpose-built engines.

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I dunno if it's a retrofit to an old ship, or just a better way to make new ships.  The lander in that clip looks pretty much straight outta KSP1  So maybe what you see here is a standard lander, which wouldn't benefit from the new engine (maybe it's expendable and the new engine is expensive?), being taken to Mun by a new, reusable, highly efficient tug that's worth buying the new engine for?

[Kerbart]

  On 8/26/2019 at 9:03 PM, GoldForest said:

And we can get evidence of this:

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I hate to rain on your parade, but evidence in the form of developer quotes accompanied by a video released by said developers is not the most convincing evidence.

I agree with you that there’s a good chance that a lot of the KSP2  code will be written from scratch. Not because “KSP1 was coded so poorly” — that’s hard to judge without seeing the code. What we do know is that KSP1 has gone through various focus changes; starting as a 2D rocket launch simulator even without “space” to what it is now. There’s only so much you can stretch the original framework; I agree that it’s likely that there’s a new framework that  will support requested features (multi-play, large ships, etc). As to performance? We’ll find out when the game is released.I doubt it’s running on an Osborne 2 computer with a potato graphics card, so seeing anything that’s less than smoothin a video that showcases the best they have so far is not promising.

luckily we have about two years to argue over this!

[GoldForest]

  On 8/26/2019 at 9:35 PM, Kerbart said:

I hate to rain on your parade, but evidence in the form of developer quotes accompanied by a video released by said developers is not the most convincing evidence.

I agree with you that there’s a good chance that a lot of the KSP2  code will be written from scratch. Not because “KSP1 was coded so poorly” — that’s hard to judge without seeing the code. What we do know is that KSP1 has gone through various focus changes; starting as a 2D rocket launch simulator even without “space” to what it is now. There’s only so much you can stretch the original framework; I agree that it’s likely that there’s a new framework that  will support requested features (multi-play, large ships, etc). As to performance? We’ll find out when the game is released.I doubt it’s running on an Osborne 2 computer with a potato graphics card, so seeing anything that’s less than smoothin a video that showcases the best they have so far is not promising.

luckily we have about two years to argue over this!

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The game releases in 7 months more than likely and at worst 10 months. Not 2 years. Unless you mean something else.