I wonder does in KSP 2 would we have alien civilisation

[Pawelk198604]

We already know that in the new installment of KSP 2 we will have other planetary systems besides the base Kerbin system, I wonder if there will be other intelligent civilizations, besides our kerbals, it would be cool if our native Solar System and its 9 planets were added to the game

[pandaman]

My guess is that the only evidence of other intelligent life will be 'anomalies' etc that they leave behind, like the monoliths etc in KSP1.  I very much doubt there will be 'aliens' as such to interact with.

Yes it would be a nice touch if one of the other star systems is ours, but we humans are a weird bunch, so it is probably best if Kerbalkind never meet us in the flesh.

[The Aziz]

I think I have said this already somewhere:

Alien flora, yes, why not, even can be hostile (don't get too close or it will attack, look up Astroneer). Alien fauna, or anything non stationary - meh, the devs would have to program some AI. Too much effort.

[mattinoz]

Like Earth there will be no intelligent life in the Kerbin system.

[ChrisSpace]

On 31 October 2019 at 8:06 AM, Pawelk198604 said:

We already know that in the new installment of KSP 2 we will have other planetary systems besides the base Kerbin system, I wonder if there will be other intelligent civilizations, besides our kerbals, it would be cool if our native Solar System and its 9 planets were added to the game

So, as I see it there are two big problems with adding alien civilisations into KSP2:

1. Adding existing civilisations means adding some kind of diplomatic system, which means some kind of political world building would be necessary, and everything about the first game has been designed to be as politically neutral as possible.

2. Even with the simplest diplomatic system, an alien civilisation would need a lot of really advanced AI. It would be similar in difficulty to adding a rival space program on Kerbin.

Overall I like the idea but I don't think it would be worth the added months or years of development time. Besides, we're getting multiplayer and interstellar colonies, why not role-play alien civilisations with some friends or something?

On 31 October 2019 at 8:18 AM, pandaman said:

Yes it would be a nice touch if one of the other star systems is ours, but we humans are a weird bunch, so it is probably best if Kerbalkind never meet us in the flesh.

Ideally, if the sol system exists I'd like there to be a lot of million-year-old ancient artefacts and stuff, but no actual humans. Like what's shown in Life After People. As for what happened to the humans, that should probably be left vague.

On 31 October 2019 at 9:55 AM, The Aziz said:

Alien flora, yes, why not, even can be hostile (don't get too close or it will attack, look up Astroneer). Alien fauna, or anything non stationary - meh, the devs would have to program some AI. Too much effort.

Hostile alien plants? I haven't thought of that. I guess immobile fauna would be just as easy to add in, like coral and starfish.

(Yes I know starfish aren't immobile but that's beside the point)

[Drakenred65]

There’s already an alien civilization present in KSP.

 

and I don’t mean the guys who put artifacts and monoliths all over the place.

[GoldForest]

On 10/30/2019 at 4:06 PM, Pawelk198604 said:

We already know that in the new installment of KSP 2 we will have other planetary systems besides the base Kerbin system, I wonder if there will be other intelligent civilizations, besides our kerbals, it would be cool if our native Solar System and its 9 planets were added to the game

Nate Simpson was very no comment on this topic. So Aliens, whether feral animals or sentient life, is semi-confirmed. 

[kerbalk]

ChrisSpace, i See your Point, if they were to add Aliens, they might as well make it a War Game, i don't think they should add Aliens. And if there is no Politics, and they just stand around and do nothing, then there's really no Point to Aliens.

[GoldForest]

1 hour ago, kerbalk said:

ChrisSpace, i See your Point, if they were to add Aliens, they might as well make it a War Game, i don't think they should add Aliens. And if there is no Politics, and they just stand around and do nothing, then there's really no Point to Aliens.

Just because they add aliens doesn't mean it has to become a war game. Aliens can serve a lot of purpose rather than war.

A list of possibilities:

Aliens can be used to unlock further tech. The whole game is about progression now instead of science, so aliens could help you progress.

Alien bases can be used as a temporary base of operations until we can get our own colony setup.

Alien plants can lead to a mew type of rocket fuel that makes rocket engines better.

Aliens can point us towards easter eggs or points of interest.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

They would make small green Kerbals and big gray Kerbals.

Upd.

Spoiler

Oops.
Another green."

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by kerbiloid

[fjw]

Please don't. This is to much fiction.. KSP is interesting because it's close to reality....

[mcwaffles2003]

I hope aliens exist, just not a civilization. The non-sentient type. Even if its just plants

[Unixsystem]

Actual live aliens would massively increase the amount of work to get the game out the door, while adding basically nothing to the core draw of the game (building, exploring, colonizing). There are loads of space sims and 4X games that cover alien diplomacy, I'd rather Kerbal stick to being Kerbal. 

That said, and expansion of the anomoly system could be really fun. Doesn't need a full narrative or anything to that extent, but some sort of progression of finding weirder and weirder anomonlies, maybe where one leads you to the next, could be really fun. Cap it off with some sort of unlock for finding a certain number/all of them like a hidden planet that is otherwise invisible on the map, and you've got some really neat endgame objectives.

 

Pretty sure something similar was planned early in KSP1's development, but with the bigger focus on deep space and surface exploration in KSP2 it feels like a natural fit. 

[Bej Kerman]

On 10/30/2019 at 10:55 PM, The Aziz said:

Alien fauna, or anything non stationary - meh, the devs would have to program some AI. Too much effort.

I think it has more to do with NPCs just being, how could I put this, foreign to KSP. Like how KSP science (or any sort of science) is foreign to Mario.

On 11/4/2019 at 9:39 PM, Unixsystem said:

Pretty sure something similar was planned early in KSP1's development, but with the bigger focus on deep space and surface exploration in KSP2 it feels like a natural fit. 

KSP 2 should add the forgotten planet, but frozen over with ruins and monoliths all over, as and analogue to our theoretical Planet 9. Fun > Realism, so even if P9 turns out to exist, it would be fun to have a 9th planet or a rogue planet to aim at when practicing interstellar travel. While talking about this stuff, we should also get an oort cloud with asteroids that could be settled on, allowing colonies in interstellar space.

[ChrisSpace]

On 4 November 2019 at 12:23 PM, GoldForest said:

Nate Simpson was very no comment on this topic. So Aliens, whether feral animals or sentient life, is semi-confirmed.

I personally interpret "no comment" as "not happening but we don't want to crush your hopes yet".

 

On 4 November 2019 at 12:29 PM, kerbalk said:

ChrisSpace, i See your Point, if they were to add Aliens, they might as well make it a War Game, i don't think they should add Aliens. And if there is no Politics, and they just stand around and do nothing, then there's really no Point to Aliens.

KSP/KSP2 is violent enough without actually being a war game.

 

On 4 November 2019 at 2:10 PM, GoldForest said:

A list of possibilities:

Aliens can be used to unlock further tech. The whole game is about progression now instead of science, so aliens could help you progress.

Alien bases can be used as a temporary base of operations until we can get our own colony setup.

Alien plants can lead to a mew type of rocket fuel that makes rocket engines better.

Aliens can point us towards easter eggs or points of interest.

Okay, that could be useful. Perhaps they're hoarding a valuable resource like antimatter or Helium-3.

 

On 5 November 2019 at 1:28 AM, mcwaffles2003 said:

I hope aliens exist, just not a civilization. The non-sentient type. Even if its just plants

Plants would be easy, they already exist on Kerbin. I think that Laythe could certainly use some, since I headcanon it's biosphere to be similar in development to Earth's during the Silurian or Ordovician.

 

On 5 November 2019 at 8:39 AM, Unixsystem said:

That said, and expansion of the anomoly system could be really fun. Doesn't need a full narrative or anything to that extent, but some sort of progression of finding weirder and weirder anomonlies, maybe where one leads you to the next, could be really fun. Cap it off with some sort of unlock for finding a certain number/all of them like a hidden planet that is otherwise invisible on the map, and you've got some really neat endgame objectives.

This would be better with a full concrete narrative.

[KerikBalm]

Alien life is fine. My mod world Rald has seas, with green land around the water, and grass tuft ground scatters... Nothing more. So obviously, I am ok with that level of life (although in my headcannon, it shares a common origin with life on kerbin, thanks to ejecta and being nextdoor relatively speaking, so its not completely alien)

I could maybe even go so far as to be ok with pre-industrial civilizations... Anything beyond that leads to interaction that would massively change the scope of the game, or break suspension of disbelief if it doesn't

[Xd the great]

Maybe some type of vegetation that kerbals can pick up and bring back to Kerbin for food/science/funds. Or plant locally for oxygen/rocket fuel.

Oh, and a kerbal-eating ship-wrecking carnivorous plant.

Edited November 8, 2019 by Xd the great

[Unixsystem]

On 11/7/2019 at 6:50 PM, ChrisSpace said:

This would be better with a full concrete narrative.

I disagree. One of the biggest appeals of KSP is the sandbox nature of the game and the freedom to set any goal you want. If they bake in a real set narrative then you essentially get railroaded into doing what the game wants rather than what you want. 

By making any sort of hypothetical alien artifacts/planet a completely optional "side mission" of sorts, you give something for players to hunt for and be rewarded if they want that sort of experience without hampering those who don't care and just want to do their own thing. 

That said, I could see an optional extended tutorial option at the start of a career game that sort of holds your hand in building ships, getting to orbit and maybe your first Mun landing, and in that they could possibly introduce the idea of an alien scavenger hunt (maybe the "narrative" to the tutorial is that Kerbals want to get to the Mun to investigate a strange signal, for example). That way you give a newer player a concrete goal to progress towards as they learn how to expand out further and further, but again it wouldn't interfere with those of who are more focused on building optimized space planes or the perfect orbital colony or what have you. 

[mcwaffles2003]

On 11/9/2019 at 5:26 PM, Unixsystem said:

I disagree. One of the biggest appeals of KSP is the sandbox nature of the game and the freedom to set any goal you want.

This is why sandbox mode exists

On 11/9/2019 at 5:26 PM, Unixsystem said:

If they bake in a real set narrative then you essentially get railroaded into doing what the game wants rather than what you want. 

Whats wrong set narratives in a campaign, it would be nice to have a career mode that actually functioned like a private space center with stuff happening around.

On 11/9/2019 at 5:26 PM, Unixsystem said:

By making any sort of hypothetical alien artifacts/planet a completely optional "side mission" of sorts, you give something for players to hunt for and be rewarded if they want that sort of experience without hampering those who don't care and just want to do their own thing. 

Can't side missions have narratives? I feel this is what they were suggesting anyway

On 11/9/2019 at 5:26 PM, Unixsystem said:

That said, I could see an optional extended tutorial option at the start of a career game that sort of holds your hand in building ships, getting to orbit and maybe your first Mun landing, and in that they could possibly introduce the idea of an alien scavenger hunt (maybe the "narrative" to the tutorial is that Kerbals want to get to the Mun to investigate a strange signal, for example). That way you give a newer player a concrete goal to progress towards as they learn how to expand out further and further, but again it wouldn't interfere with those of who are more focused on building optimized space planes or the perfect orbital colony or what have you. 

I'm hoping this is the case, when people show up on KSP after 100+ hrs of gameplay saying they finally got to the mun I think thats showing that the learning curve might be too steep and people are  having problems just getting anywhere to start. Probably alienates a large swath of people from playing it.

[OOM]

On 11/4/2019 at 3:18 PM, fjw said:

Please don't. This is to much fiction.. KSP is interesting because it's close to reality....

You do not know - do not make such reasoning. Alien life is not a fiction, but a normal phenomenon in the universe. Karbals himself is an alien life.

And humans is no exception.

Spoiler

Alien life is most likely even present in our solar system. Although this life is unreasonable, I am more than sure that it is.

I am not a supporter of the conspiracy. But I am afraid that this may be true. The annoying skepticism of “scientists” is starting to annoy.

Although we did not even normally explore such planets / moons as: Titan, Europa, Enceladus, Mars, Venus.

Suppose a normal probe is sent there, which will certainly examine everything. He will find signs of microbial life there.

But what will they say in the official statement? I am more than sure of any of this:
1. This is a mistake.
2. The probe became infected with life from the Earth and brought it to say on Titan. 

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by OOM

[Unixsystem]

On 11/11/2019 at 4:11 AM, mcwaffles2003 said:

This is why sandbox mode exists

Whats wrong set narratives in a campaign, it would be nice to have a career mode that actually functioned like a private space center with stuff happening around.

Can't side missions have narratives? I feel this is what they were suggesting anyway

Sandbox mode and Career mode are totally difference experiences, and adding an extensive narrative that gets in the way of actually playing a career game would make that mode substantially less appealing to me. You could always add an additional mode that is career + story, but my worry is that then the career mode without story wouldn't include the alien aspects. I definitely would like a more goal oriented, scavenger hunt style way of playing, I just would rather that it not be bogged down in narrative. 

I suppose that I should define that when I hear "narrative" I'm assuming that includes things like cutscenes, extensive dialog, scripted events and (relatively) tightly defined objectives/goals. Many of those things wind up being both very time consuming and very expensive from a development perspective, and at least for me that would be time and money that would be better spent almost anywhere else. Not to mention that while the writing in KSP has always been mildly clever, I don't know that the world of KSP really lends itself to a really engaging narrative. Could be done, certainly, but again it requires throwing resources into something that is completely outside the bounds of the reasons that many people play the first game for. 

Now, if by "narrative" you mean some text backstory/early game optional handholding to lead you to the first anomaly, followed by something like a few paragraphs of text for each subsequent anomaly explaining what it is and vaguely hinting at where you should go next, I'd be totally on board with that. Sort of the same way that the built in missions in KSP1 have events that will cause the KSC mission control to pop up and explain what happened/what's next. That would be easy to implement and could help give more of a driving force to finding cool stuff and is more along the lines of what I was originally thinking. 

[Guest]

On 11/11/2019 at 11:11 AM, mcwaffles2003 said:

This is why sandbox mode exists

The career/science/progression mode of KSP should remain a pure management game with sandbox being your tipical "infinite funding and research" of such games.

If a story mode with any kind of narrative that isn't lore background has to exists it's better done with scenarios or a separate "story mode"

[Xd the great]

Just now, Master39 said:

The career/science/progression mode of KSP should remain a pure management game with sandbox being your tipical "infinite funding and research" of such games.

If a story mode with any kind of narrative that isn't lore background has to exists it's better done with scenarios or a separate "story mode"

If there is a story mode, I demand a good amount of explosions.

[mcwaffles2003]

On 11/16/2019 at 6:47 PM, Unixsystem said:

Sandbox mode and Career mode are totally difference experiences, and adding an extensive narrative that gets in the way of actually playing a career game would make that mode substantially less appealing to me. You could always add an additional mode that is career + story, but my worry is that then the career mode without story wouldn't include the alien aspects. I definitely would like a more goal oriented, scavenger hunt style way of playing, I just would rather that it not be bogged down in narrative. 

I suppose that I should define that when I hear "narrative" I'm assuming that includes things like cutscenes, extensive dialog, scripted events and (relatively) tightly defined objectives/goals. Many of those things wind up being both very time consuming and very expensive from a development perspective, and at least for me that would be time and money that would be better spent almost anywhere else. Not to mention that while the writing in KSP has always been mildly clever, I don't know that the world of KSP really lends itself to a really engaging narrative. Could be done, certainly, but again it requires throwing resources into something that is completely outside the bounds of the reasons that many people play the first game for. 

 

I dont think we're in disagreement. By narrative I meant a side quest with a story one could pull out of the mission log and clues through things discovered at anomalies. Cutscenes, dialog, etc and the like wouldnt fit into KSP at all

On 11/16/2019 at 6:47 PM, Unixsystem said:

Now, if by "narrative" you mean some text backstory/early game optional handholding to lead you to the first anomaly, followed by something like a few paragraphs of text for each subsequent anomaly explaining what it is and vaguely hinting at where you should go next, I'd be totally on board with that. Sort of the same way that the built in missions in KSP1 have events that will cause the KSC mission control to pop up and explain what happened/what's next. That would be easy to implement and could help give more of a driving force to finding cool stuff and is more along the lines of what I was originally thinking. 

This

Edited November 19, 2019 by mcwaffles2003