Blocker features in KSP2 -- what would stop you from playing it?

[Guest]

There are a lot of threads about wishlists for KSP2, so I thought it's time for a little negativity: what features or characteristics in KSP2 do you absolutely not want to see? I.e., what is over or near the line of "if this is in, then I'm out?"

I have a bunch of them, most of which fall under the realism/hardcore/simulation feature set:

• Realistic life support. Screw it up and your kerbals die deep in space; regular resupply missions needed for crewed stations and bases. 
• Realistic (n-body) orbital mechanics with no magic fudges. I do not want to deal with unstable orbits, orbital adjustments, or resupplying satellites so they can maintain their orbits. If n-body physics are in, then I expect satellites will have magic automation that allows them to maintain orbits with no resource expenditure, as easily as they do with patched conics.
• Realistic low orbit decay through atmospheric drag (see above).
• Realistic fuels, meaning ISRU can only resupply a small subset of engines using suitable fuels. I.e. if your engine requires kerolox, you're SOL.

I do not want KSP2 to be a hardcore space simulation. I want it to continue to be a lighthearted space program game with constraints that are loose enough to get creative, with spectacular explosions when things go wrong. Put another way, if it's no longer possible to make orbit in something like this, then I'm out:

Edited August 31, 2019 by Guest

[Guest]

There's a wide space for balance between "you can do a tour of the galaxy wih a chair strapped to an Oscar-B" and "SSTOs are not possible because it's not practical".

I don't think there's a possibility of reaching the point (in either direction) where I would be turned away from the game just because modding is a thing. 

 

[DStaal]

Blocker features: Not being released to Mac.    There's probably some others, but that's the big one.

[KSK]

I can't think of any single feature that would stop me buying KSP2.

I doubt it's going to be my perfect game so it'll boil down to whether the good bits are good enough that I can ignore the less-good or outright bad bits (if such exist).

 

Edited August 31, 2019 by KSK

[Concodroid]

If they don't allow it to be installed without admin as a .zip.

 

Then again, I'm sure I'll still buy it, no matter what.

[Francois424]

Blocker features:

Poor optimization. 
I love KSP1 to death, but god the optimization blows, and IMHO it's getting worse every major version. 
I'm seriously thinking in resurrecting my 1.31 folder and only playing that.  If KSP2 does a poor job at optimization, then I'm out and back to KSP1-only.
I don't think I have to worry about this tho, the interviews have been quite clear that they plan for huge ships without lag.  But it's still a deal-breaker.


Lack of exploration.
Again I don't think I have cause to worry, especially since the PAX interview.  But I spent far more time roving on planetary bodies in KSP than flying rockets.
I spent more time flying planes on Laythe/Kerbin/Eve than flying to Eeloo.  I love going slowly from Biome to Biome, taking in the view.


Babysitting
I don't play KSP to babysit the game like a crazy mother [snip]. I want to strand a Kerbal on a Mün or Eve mission only to rescue them weeks/months/years later.
I want to start a colony on Duna, but only visit there when *** I *** feel like it, to either add a module or just mess around the colony in a rover or something.
I want to resume exploration of Vall after leaving my rover idle on it for now than 3 in-game years (haha), and no problem.
If I have to devote minutes-to-hours of babysitting/maintaining stuff instead of doing fun stuff, then KSP2 isn't going to fly for me.  This one is a TOTAL KILLER.

For the rest, it looks a lot like KSP1, so even with different tech/tech tree and a few annoying changes (persistent rotation.  Please give us RCS builder then.  It just became super important over night) then I think it's going to be fun.
Still bummed about not getting the 9(8) planet analogue starting system...  But not a deal breaker.
I hope modders fix that, or that we get a DLC later that add the missing 4 and their ~25 moons (Saturn-10, Uranus-7, Neptune-5, Pluto-3...  at least.  Why stop at 5 like Jool ?  )

 

Edited August 31, 2019 by Snark
Redacted by moderator

[Snark]

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Realistic life support. Screw it up and your kerbals die deep in space; regular resupply missions needed for crewed stations and bases. 

I asked them point-blank "will there be life support".  They hemmed and hawed a little, then said "no comment".  I read this to mean that there may be something that's some kind of nod to the idea "you need to take care of your kerbals" (maybe in the colony mechanics, somewhere?), but that it maybe wouldn't be "classic" life support such as you've described here.

And that would fit in with the philosophy they've been very explicit about:  they don't want to alienate people who would otherwise enjoy the game, and don't want the core gameplay to be too different from KSP 1.  So I'd guess that you probably don't have to worry about this one.

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Realistic (n-body) orbital mechanics with no magic fudges. I do not want to deal with unstable orbits, orbital adjustments, or resupplying satellites so they can maintain their orbits. If n-body physics are in, then I expect satellites will have magic automation that allows them to maintain orbits with no resource expenditure, as easily as they do with patched conics.

Not a thing.  We asked, and they were quite definite, they are not doing N-body physics.

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Realistic low orbit decay through atmospheric drag (see above).

Based on their saying that the aero model is not too dissimilar with KSP 1, plus the philosophy thing noted above, my guess would be that you won't have to worry about this, either.

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Realistic fuels, meaning ISRU can only resupply a small subset of engines using suitable fuels. I.e. if your engine requires kerolox, you're SOL.

This may very well be a thing.  I suspect they'll have different fuel types.  However, also bear in mind that they strongly want good playability, so I assume that if they go with "multiple kinds of fuel", they'll have some sort of mechanism so it's not too much of a hassle.  Just my guess.

2 hours ago, DStaal said:

Blocker features: Not being released to Mac.   

I specifically asked at the interview about Mac and Linux support. The response was a carefully worded one, to the effect that "we want as many people as possible to be able to play the game, but beyond that it's no comment for now".  So it was encouraging but slightly noncommittal.  My read of that is that they likely strongly want Mac support but maybe they might have to delay that in some way depending on how their schedule works out, something like that.  TL;DR:  A valid area of concern, my guess is you'll be okay.

1 hour ago, Concodroid said:

If they don't allow it to be installed without admin as a .zip.

They did confirm, definitely, that it will be DRM-free (at least for single-player), and that the game's folder tree is freely copyable and will be playable from the copy.  So you should be good to go.

29 minutes ago, Francois424 said:

Poor optimization. 
I love KSP1 to death, but god the optimization blows, and IMHO it's getting worse every major version. 

Yep, a very valid concern.  As you mention, they've made it clear that performance optimization is a major priority for them.  Not only do they want to improve the perf woes that KSP players have borne for years, but also they want to enable much larger ships with much higher part counts.  So we won't know for sure how good a job they've done until we get the game in our hands, but at least we know they're aiming high and working hard on it.

30 minutes ago, Francois424 said:

Lack of exploration.
Again I don't think I have cause to worry, especially since the PAX interview.  But I spent far more time roving on planetary bodies in KSP than flying rockets.
I spent more time flying planes on Laythe/Kerbin/Eve than flying to Eeloo.  I love going slowly from Biome to Biome, taking in the view.

Then you'll likely love what they're doing.  They're putting a lot of effort into making planetary surfaces not just prettier, but also more procedurally varied so that no two spots on the surface look alike.  They want players to want to explore, and find favorite features and spots in specific places they like.  And they're designing the game to reward exploration-- you get rewarded for finding stuff.

33 minutes ago, Francois424 said:

Babysitting
I don't play KSP to babysit the game like a crazy mother [snip]. I want to strand a Kerbal on a Mün or Eve mission only to rescue them weeks/months/years later.
I want to start a colony on Duna, but only visit there when *** I *** feel like it, to either add a module or just mess around the colony in a rover or something.
I want to resume exploration of Vall after leaving my rover idle on it for now than 3 in-game years (haha), and no problem.
If I have to devote minutes-to-hours of babysitting/maintaining stuff instead of doing fun stuff, then KSP2 isn't going to fly for me.  This one is a TOTAL KILLER.

I think you should be fine there, too.  They made it clear that they want the player's focus to be on designing and flying rockets, not worrying overmuch about logistics or babysitting or stuff.

For example, an important new feature is that ships can accelerate when under time warp or not being flown.  You can set up your ship's hour-long burn, start it, then switch to another ship to do stuff and the one you switched away from will continue to burn.  That's a huge and important feature, representing a lot of development work, and it's done to save you from having to babysit those really long burns.

So if they're putting that effort in, my guess is that they probably will be careful about excessive babysitting requirements elsewhere in the game, too.  I suspect you're fine.

[Guest]

Thanks a lot for the intel @Snark. That sounds quite reassuring. We'll wait and see about the fuel types; I don't object to a few more as long as there's a wide-enough range of engines that can be refueled with ISRU. Inability to refuel could be a good way to limit some otherwise OP engines in fact, the metallic hydrogen ones for example.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

the metallic hydrogen ones for example.

That exactly what I was thinking about, it seems to be the "you have to set up a extremely well developed colony to produce the thing here" kind of engine.

[Lisias]

Free time.

[SpaceFace545]

4 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

There are a lot of threads about wishlists for KSP2, so I thought it's time for a little negativity: what features or characteristics in KSP2 do you absolutely not want to see? I.e., what is over or near the line of "if this is in, then I'm out?"

I have a bunch of them, most of which fall under the realism/hardcore/simulation feature set:

• Realistic life support. Screw it up and your kerbals die deep in space; regular resupply missions needed for crewed stations and bases. 
• Realistic (n-body) orbital mechanics with no magic fudges. I do not want to deal with unstable orbits, orbital adjustments, or resupplying satellites so they can maintain their orbits. If n-body physics are in, then I expect satellites will have magic automation that allows them to maintain orbits with no resource expenditure, as easily as they do with patched conics.
• Realistic low orbit decay through atmospheric drag (see above).
• Realistic fuels, meaning ISRU can only resupply a small subset of engines using suitable fuels. I.e. if your engine requires kerolox, you're SOL.

I do not want KSP2 to be a hardcore space simulation. I want it to continue to be a lighthearted space program game with constraints that are loose enough to get creative, with spectacular explosions when things go wrong. Put another way, if it's no longer possible to make orbit in something like this, then I'm out:

Hey no offence but, you seem kinda lazy to not want these features, they would make the game immersive and a lot harder

[DunaManiac]

7 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Hey no offence but, you seem kinda lazy to not want these features, they would make the game immersive and a lot harder

To be honest, I agree with @Brikoleur because while many people on this forum may want the game to be hard, but this forum may not be a accurate sample of the KSP community. It maybe the only part with a voice, but the vast majority of the KSP fan base are people with little to no expertise at this game. We have all been there, even people who want realism now in KSP2. I myself played KSP for years to even get past the mun and get to minmus. The devs themselves have said that KSP2 will be even more moddable than KSP1 (and it is very moddable) so if you want realism features, go to the mod developers, not Star theory or Squad.

And not wanting the game to be hard is not being lazy. Some people don't want to have to deal with orbit decay, so by your own definition, not instally RSS/RO and principia being lazy? absolutely not.

[Klapaucius]

4 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

To be honest, I agree with @Brikoleur because while many people on this forum may want the game to be hard, but this forum may not be a accurate sample of the KSP community. It maybe the only part with a voice, but the vast majority of the KSP fan base are people with little to no expertise at this game. We have all been there, even people who want realism now in KSP2. I myself played KSP for years to even get past the mun and get to minmus. The devs themselves have said that KSP2 will be even more moddable than KSP1 (and it is very moddable) so if you want realism features, go to the mod developers, not Star theory or Squad.

And not wanting the game to be hard is not being lazy. Some people don't want to have to deal with orbit decay, so by your own definition, not instally RSS/RO and principia being lazy? absolutely not.

I don't know how much in the background coding this complicates things, but it seems to me you could easily make everyone happy by having a difficulty setting--like you do for example in Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak or even some of the RPGs.   This would appear in the start screen along with choosing sandbox or the new "progression" mode (I don't know if that is the official name or not). 

 

Easy mode (or easier mode, there should be no really easy in KSP): just like KSP as we know it.

Medium: Same as above but with orbital decay

Hard: Full life support, orbital decay, fuel issues etc.

 

And leave the rest for the modding community.

 

BTW:  Reading between the lines from interviews so far, I think there is going to be some form of autopiloting, so it is conceivable that issues like decay can be managed without too much difficulty. This is, of course,  only speculation.

[Snark]

24 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Hey no offence but, you seem kinda lazy to not want these features, they would make the game immersive and a lot harder

Making it harder.  That would make the game more attractive to some, and less so to others.  Not everyone wants the same thing.

Case in point.  At PAX West, I went into the KSP2 presentation room, and got to sit and watch while ~20 people (for whom all this stuff was new) sat through and watched it.

At the beginning of the presentation, the guy with the mic asked everyone for a show of hands:

• "Who here has played KSP?"  ->  everyone
• "Who here has gotten to orbit?"  -> about 90% of everyone
• "Who's landed on the Mun?"  -> about 25% of everyone
• "Who's gone beyond the Mun to visit other planets?"  ->  one single hand out of ~20 people

So let's remember that different people want very different things-- and best not to be dismissive of what other folks want just because it's not the same as oneself. 

[Klapaucius]

4 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

• Realistic fuels, meaning ISRU can only resupply a small subset of engines using suitable fuels. I.e. if your engine requires kerolox, you're SOL.

 

 

In the interview with DasValdez, it was noted that there will be a lot more varied resources and that getting them will be part of the game.  See about 15:50 in video:

Spoiler

 

 

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

 

Hey no offence but, you seem kinda lazy to not want these features, they would make the game immersive and a lot harder

Think the work behind of MKS with all his gameplay loops and complexities, half of the code is directed towards making things on the ground not explode (I've not read the code, I'm exagerating on purpose to make an example) and the remaining is divided between part and assets laking from the basegame (Habitats, modules, base parts, rover parts, containers), the extraplanetary launchpads and the logistic system that's there mainly to spread the hight part count in multiple bases on the surface to hide the performance limits of the game.

Only a small portion of that is actual design of those largely loved complex mechanics.

For what we saw in the trailer (which is confirmed to be 100% game assets rendered by an artist) al of the things above are stock now and basically you can have the full functionality of the old MKS with a relatively simple plug-in working on the new stock features.

That's why doesn't bother me at all if they don't implement more complex systems like the mods offer right now, simplified stock versions could put the base systems in the game and then let the modders expand upon that without the need to do all the work from the ground up.

[Klapaucius]

The biggest blocker for me, and this is true of KSP1, is the just the time factor.  I've sunk a huge amount of time into this game, and I have barely done any interplanetary missions--though I can pretty much make anything fly.  As much as I love KSP, it sucks time from other bits of life, and that is a hard balance to find.

I'm learning Italian and I play trumpet in a community brass band and community orchestra.  I have not been practicing enough.  I need to be able to do a Hermione Grainger and slow down time so I can get KSP missions in (including learning how to properly dock) and still have time for real life.

[Nuke]

2 words

bad physics

[shdwlrd]

Honestly there's not much that would keep me from buying KSP2. There are a few things that would make me unhappy, but nothing that is a hard no.

[Curveball Anders]

No Linux support.

I'm not going to dualboot and I'm not sure if I can bother with Wine/Proton.

 

[CardinalBiggles57]

Intrusive, in-game microtransactions. If Take 2 want to sell skins to make ships pretty that isn't a problem for me, but the more predatory types would be a  no-no. Apart from that I can't think of anything.

[Superfluous J]

There isn't much that will keep me from buying KSP2, but if you have to right click a part and click some variation of "do the science with this part" I will be VERY unhappy. If you have to manually trigger science at all I'll be fairly unhappy.

I missed my first Eeloo flyby because I was too busy clicking on parts. Please don't make anybody else go through that.

[harrisjosh2711]

The future tech engines being too realistic. I'm not trying to time warp for a decade. I would never reach my destignation because im not a one mission at a time kinda guy. Gotta have the life support and fuel options imo. Those are two huge challenges in space travel that could add alot in terms of gameplay on other planets. After my first mun and duna landings i always got extremely bored traveling to other planets. These days i mostly just play around with airplanes. Reaching orbit and traveling to another planet is simply no challenge at all for me anylonger. If all i were looking for is interstellar travel and some colony pieces id probably just stick with ksp 1 because there's plenty of mods for that. Im really hoping alot of new gameplay comes with the colonization system and that will require gathering recources. I also hope for some challenges involving radiation. I'm looking for a challenge. Ksp is by no means a challenge for me.

[LekkoBot]

not being able to play on my potato of a computer

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, harrisjosh2711 said:

The future tech engines being too realistic. I'm not trying to time warp for a decade. I would never reach my destignation because im not a one mission at a time kinda guy. Gotta have the life support and fuel options imo. Those are two huge challenges in space travel that could add alot in terms of gameplay on other planets. After my first mun and duna landings i always got extremely bored traveling to other planets. These days i mostly just play around with airplanes. Reaching orbit and traveling to another planet is simply no challenge at all for me anylonger. If all i were looking for is interstellar travel and some colony pieces id probably just stick with ksp 1 because there's plenty of mods for that. Im really hoping alot of new gameplay comes with the colonization system and that will require gathering recources. I also hope for some challenges involving radiation. I'm looking for a challenge. Ksp is by no means a challenge for me.

As I said above even if this game come without a fully fledged LS system or a resource system comparable to the actual modded one it has most of the parts and systems to do that already in place.

The game already has means to build enormous colonies, stations and ships, already has a extaplanetary launchpad system, already has a resource system and big rover, lander and container parts, there's no need to do all of that from scratch like in KSP1 so if the system is too easy modifying it to have a more complex challenge should be way easier than maintaining a dozen of mods adding everything from scratch. 

Edited August 31, 2019 by Guest