Large Info Dump

[prestja]

A large info dump regarding Kerbal Space Program 2 has been posted to Imgur here. As a site note: we're getting nurseries!

TLDR

Spoiler

• Life support is seemingly confirmed with greenhouses mentioned.
• Nurseries will permit Kerbal reproduction once milestones are achieved
• Career mode has been replaced with a new mode internally called "adventure mode" which does away with funding and instead focuses on giving the player objectives they may optionally complete in addition to letting them discover the galaxy at their own pace. World firsts are emphasized, and science points make a return.
• Colonies are integral staging grounds for interstellar progression.
• There is finally a proper pause button.
• Post-flight reports will point out areas the player's rockets can be improved upon.
• G-forces are now listed for each individual Kerbal.
• Rocket subassemblies are robust enough to produce one incredibly complex component in the VAB and simply attach it to an even larger rocket through symmetry rules.
• Parts are arranged into size tiers within categories (finally!)

Transcript (work in progress)

Spoiler

The Big Boom

Ext: Space. The camera pans across a desert landscape, the faint flow of starlight refracting through a layer of atmosphere at the horizon. Stirring synth chords and a bass drum aren't quite repoducing Also sprach Zarathustra, but the tone is the same. Mysterious. Ominous? The vibe is unmistakably 2001. 

Then, peeking out over the edge of a cliff, we see it - a colony on the dusty orange surface, futuristic apartment buildings on a lattice of steel support beams flanked by rows of solar panels and greenhouses. A long runway for space planes suggests how fresh supplies and colonists will reach this output on the Planet Duna, while the ramp at the end of the runway immediately makes me want to ruin the ambiance by strapping a rocket to a rover and seeing how far it could jump. The Kerbals, I think, would certainly understand.

Flying to the Mun adn beyond is just the beginning of your progression through the solar system and, eventually, the galaxy. To reach those far-flung stars, you'll now be able to establish orbital and planetary colonies, staging grounds for the next leg of your cosmic journye.

"[Colonies are] capable of producing colonists through a method that we will not describe, for everyone's sake, after something that the player initiates called a 'boom even'", says lead designer Shana Markham. Throughout Kerbal's new career mode, which the developers have nicknamed 'adventure mode', making discoveries and unlocking new technologies will trigger these boom events, which kick off various effects across your civilization. In a colony's nursery module, for example, that means making new colonists. "You know, discoveries make kerbals happy," Markham says.

The goal of adventure mode is to provide a far more ambitious campaign for players to embark on, building ships powerful enough to leave the solar system. The structure will include specific missions, but creative director Nate Simpson says these will feel more "compelling" than some of the first game's missions, which would direct you to fly to a specific latitude/longitude and trigger a part on your ship. "Those felt grindy. We're going out of our way to make the mission goals for adventure mode feel meaningful: real firsts that feel unique relative to every other goal in the game."

Simpson says adventure mode has a lot in common with the first game's science mode, which gave you unlimited funds but made you earn science points to advance the tech tree. In KSP2, the missions will be there for players who want them, but you can also set your own goals. "You'll begin to collect science and trigger boom events as you explore what's out there," Simpson says.The campaign is "explicitly designed to be non-punitive" so you'll never reach a fail state where you've" [article cuts off here]

[article resumes] unstable, explosive rockets. Simpson says that with each addition KSP2's developers have tried to distinguish between "constructive failure" and "frustrating failure". The new tools are meant to ensure failures allow you to learn something (or at the least laugh at Jebediah Kerman's horrified face as your rocket corkscrews back to the ground at a thousand miles per hour).

"We don't want you to make the same mistake twice," Simpson says. "We want you to make lots of different mistakes." And now when you make those mistakes, KSP 2 will have a lot more help to offer.

Class in session

Truly getting into Kerbal Space Program inevitably means spending hours delving into YouTube videos on rocket science and the game itself. Even if you have a physics degree, there's still a steep learning curve to understanding how the hell to work Kerbal's interface. KSP2 fixes some obvious oversights and make the user interface a whole more elegant.

Flight tools are now clustered together in more logical ways, with navigation on the left and time controls in the centre, a place of prominence that reflects how important fast forwarding will be as you start launching long interstellar journeys. There's now a pause button, which I fervently hope gets a tool-tip that says 'DONT'T PANIC'.

Pausing will be one of the main ways players access KSP2's greatly expanded tutorials, which include a mixture of interactive tutorials to guide you through using interface elements, and animations that give you a crash course in rocketry. The example I saw adeptly explained high thrust and low thrust rocket engines with a pair of kerbals biking up a steep hill (see left).

"We're trying to create a system where the player comes to the tutorial with the desire to gain a specific category of information," says Simpson. The tutorials will be context-aware, so if you pause after leaving the atmosphere, for example, you'll be able to easily pull up a tutorial on how to execute a gravity turn to escape Kerbin's orbit. You'll perform that maneuver in 'VR space', then go back to your real rocket and put what you learned to good use. Hopefully.

"Teh big thing for me is that these are actually bite-sized, so you have a whole tutorial section about going to the Mun, but it's broken up into a large number of subsections, so you can learn and practice a specific piece," says Markham. And the game will make suggestions, too. When a launch inevitably goes awry, the post-flight report can highlight a tutorial based on what went wrong, so you'll learn as you go.

Given how much of the joy of Kerbal Space Program lies in discovery and personal achievement, there is a risk in over-explaining. The dev team is well aware of that pitfall because they've already stumbled over it. In early tutorial iterations they leaned too far into telling players how to play - the most straightforward tutorial, after all, is to tell someone exactly what rocket parts they need to reach their goal - but realized that the gratification comes from figuring it out yourself. "The important thing is to provide people with puzzle pieces and informational context, but don't tell them how to make the rocket. Concepts, not prescriptions," Simpson says.

Kerbal Space Program 2 is clearly going to be a far easier game to start playing, but the changes to the UI and a proper campaign mode should excite its loyal kerbonauts, too. What I'm really dying to know - and unfortunately saw precious little of - is what awaits outside the Kerbol System, and what it's going to be like exploring it with friends in multiplayer.

Space walk with me

I learned precious littel about just how big Kerbal Space Program 2 truly is, but I did come away from two days of interview with some clues. The dev team is around 30 people and still growing, and that's not including support from publisher Private Division's QA team, who the developers praised as being seasoned Kerbal fans and very helpful. It's easily the biggest team Kerbal has ever had behind it.

Edited May 28, 2020 by prestja
transcribed "class in session" and "space walk with me" sections

[Misguided Kerbal]

A few things I noticed:

1. Time Warp is now called "Time Zoom". Not sure I like that.

2. Parts are now rearranged by size

3. The UI now has a "flat" & "digital' look, and is rearranged a lot. Again, not sure I like that.

4. A new mode called "Adventure Mode"

 

Overall, not sure I'm exactly sold on KSP2 yet.

[TheNeutralCat]

The UI elements of KSP 2 remind me of Subnautica, almost

[Jacke]

10 minutes ago, Misguided_Kerbal said:

A few things I noticed:

1. Time Warp is now called "Time Zoom". Not sure I like that.

I agree, I prefer Time Warp over Time Zoom.

10 minutes ago, Misguided_Kerbal said:

2. Parts are now rearranged by size

Finally!

10 minutes ago, Misguided_Kerbal said:

3. The UI now has a "flat" & "digital' look, and is rearranged a lot. Again, not sure I like that.

Would have to study that more.  That navball definitely needs more lines on it.

10 minutes ago, Misguided_Kerbal said:

4. A new mode called "Adventure Mode"

As long as it's an addition and doesn't exclude a more details Career mode.  Which needs a *lot* of attention.  Preferably by looking at mods like Probes Before Crew and Unkerballed Start, as well as the Community Tech Tree.

10 minutes ago, Misguided_Kerbal said:

Overall, not sure I'm exactly sold on KSP2 yet.

I'm happy that the trend appears to be release it right rather than rush it out.  There's a lot to glean from how people mod and play KSP to guide KSP 2.

[DStaal]

54 minutes ago, prestja said:

Life support is seemingly confirmed with greenhouses mentioned.

I still think this is more likely something similar to the Civilian Population mod than what we normally think of when we say life support.  Yes, there are greenhouses and yes they are necessary to progress - but maybe not to keep your Kerbals alive.

[shdwlrd]

45 minutes ago, DStaal said:

I still think this is more likely something similar to the Civilian Population mod than what we normally think of when we say life support.  Yes, there are greenhouses and yes they are necessary to progress - but maybe not to keep your Kerbals alive.

I really hope that is the case.

I do like the UI, but I hope it's has some ability to rearrange the different elements.

[Jacke]

1 hour ago, TheNeutralCat said:

The UI elements of KSP 2 remind me of Subnautica, almost

Don't give the devs ideas!  I had to steel meself to get through Subnautica's deepest zones to finish the game.  You want a KSP 2 with an actual Kraken?  And worse?

Really should get on to trying out the latest updated Subnautica: Below Zero.

[SpaceFace545]

Actual [snip] INFO, LET THE KERBALS REJOICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[snip]

[theJesuit]

I quite like funds - but it does distract from gameplay a little I guess, managing getting to the new place.

 

But what is the point of reusable rockets and SSTO space planes if there are no cost?.

 

I reckon the first DLC for KSP 2 (as Take2's model for games is new release, two DLCs and then a new release) will be returning the Career Mode with funding.

 

Peace.

 

[SpaceFace545]

the ui looks like a bunch of wierd sci fi alien bubbles not high tech, kinda childish

[Cavscout74]

Lovely, so they are taking away the mode I spend 90+% of my time and replacing it with something called adventure mode that sounds to me like a big step backwards - random optional contracts for no reason other than what, Steam achievements?  Or will they lock more advanced parts behind these optional contracts?

1 hour ago, Misguided_Kerbal said:

1. Time Warp is now called "Time Zoom". Not sure I like that

Same here, just sounds bad to me.  Actually, it makes me think they are trying to make it appeal to middle-school age children

1 hour ago, Misguided_Kerbal said:

3. The UI now has a "flat" & "digital' look, and is rearranged a lot. Again, not sure I like that

 

2 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

the ui looks like a bunch of wierd sci fi alien bubbles not high tech, kinda childish

I also agree here, it doesn't appeal to me that much and seems to match what I said above - aimed at children

 

This info update actually pushed me more to the category of not gonna buy it.  I'm not making up my mind yet, but I don't like the direction this seems to be going

 

[SpaceFace545]

Just now, Cavscout74 said:

Lovely, so they are taking away the mode I spend 90+% of my time and replacing it with something called adventure mode that sounds to me like a big step backwards - random optional contracts for no reason other than what, Steam achievements?  Or will they lock more advanced parts behind these optional contracts?

Same here, just sounds bad to me.  Actually, it makes me think they are trying to make it appeal to middle-school age children

 

I also agree here, it doesn't appeal to me that much and seems to match what I said above - aimed at children

 

This info update actually pushed me more to the category of not gonna buy it.  I'm not making up my mind yet, but I don't like the direction this seems to be going

 

looks like this

2 hours ago, prestja said:

A large info dump regarding Kerbal Space Program 2 has been posted to Imgur here. As a site note: we're getting nurseries!

TLDR

  Reveal hidden contents

• Life support is seemingly confirmed with greenhouses mentioned.
• Nurseries will permit Kerbal reproduction once milestones are achieved
• Career mode has been replaced with a new mode internally called "adventure mode" which does away with funding and instead focuses on giving the player objectives they may optionally complete in addition to letting them discover the galaxy at their own pace. World firsts are emphasized, and science points make a return.
• Colonies are integral staging grounds for interstellar progression.
• There is finally a proper pause button.
• Post-flight reports will point out areas the player's rockets can be improved upon.
• G-forces are now listed for each individual Kerbal.
• Rocket subassemblies are robust enough to produce one incredibly complex component in the VAB and simply attach it to an even larger rocket through symmetry rules.
• Parts are arranged into size tiers within categories (finally!)

Transcript (work in progress)

  Reveal hidden contents

The Big Boom

Ext: Space. The camera pans across a desert landscape, the faint flow of starlight refracting through a layer of atmosphere at the horizon. Stirring synth chords and a bass drum aren't quite repoducing Also sprach Zarathustra, but the tone is the same. Mysterious. Ominous? The vibe is unmistakably 2001. 

Then, peeking out over the edge of a cliff, we see it - a colony on the dusty orange surface, futuristic apartment buildings on a lattice of steel support beams flanked by rows of solar panels and greenhouses. A long runway for space planes suggests how fresh supplies and colonists will reach this output on the Planet Duna, while the ramp at the end of the runway immediately makes me want to ruin the ambiance by strapping a rocket to a rover and seeing how far it could jump. The Kerbals, I think, would certainly understand.

Flying to the Mun adn beyond is just the beginning of your progression through the solar system and, eventually, the galaxy. To reach those far-flung stars, you'll now be able to establish orbital and planetary colonies, staging grounds for the next leg of your cosmic journye.

"[Colonies are] capable of producing colonists through a method that we will not describe, for everyone's sake, after something that the player initiates called a 'boom even'", says lead designer Shana Markham. Throughout Kerbal's new career mode, which the developers have nicknamed 'adventure mode', making discoveries and unlocking new technologies will trigger these boom events, which kick off various effects across your civilization. In a colony's nursery module, for example, that means making new colonists. "You know, discoveries make kerbals happy," Markham says.

The goal of adventure mode is to provide a far more ambitious campaign for players to embark on, building ships powerful enough to leave the solar system. The structure will include specific missions, but creative director Nate Simpson says these will feel more "compelling" than some of the first game's missions, which would direct you to fly to a specific latitude/longitude and trigger a part on your ship. "Those felt grindy. We're going out of our way to make the mission goals for adventure mode feel meaningful: real firsts that feel unique relative to every other goal in the game."

Simpson says adventure mode has a lot in common with the first game's science mode, which gave you unlimited funds but made you earn science points to advance the tech tree. In KSP2, the missions will be there for players who want them, but you can also set your own goals. "You'll begin to collect science and trigger boom events as you explore what's out there," Simpson says.The campaign is "explicitly designed to be non-punitive" so you'll never reach a fail state where you've" [article cuts off here]

[article resumes] unstable, explosive rockets. Simpson says that with each addition KSP2's developers have tried to distinguish between "constructive failure" and "frustrating failure". The new tools are meant to ensure failures allow you to learn something (or at the least laugh at Jebediah Kerman's horrified face as your rocket corkscrews back to the ground at a thousand miles per hour).

"We don't want you to make the same mistake twice," Simpson says. "We want you to make lots of different mistakes." And now when you make those mistakes, KSP 2 will have a lot more help to offer.

Class in session

Truly getting into Kerbal Space Program inevitably means spending hours delving into YouTube videos on rocket science and the game itself. Even if you have a physics degree, there's still a steep learning curve to understanding how the hell to work Kerbal's interface. KSP2 fixes some obvious oversights and make the user interface a whole more elegant.

Flight tools are now clustered together in more logical ways, with navigation on the left and time controls in the centre, a place of prominence that reflects how important fast forwarding will be as you start launching long interstellar journeys. There's now a pause button, which I fervently hope gets a tool-tip that says 'DONT'T PANIC'.

Pausing will be one of the main ways players access KSP2's greatly expanded tutorials, which include a mixture of interactive tutorials to guide you through using interface elements, and animations that give you a crash course in rocketry. The example I saw adeptly explained high thrust and low thrust rocket engines with a pair of kerbals biking up a steep hill (see left).

"We're trying to create a system where the player comes to the tutorial with the desire to gain a specific category of information," says Simpson. The tutorials will be context-aware, so if you pause after leaving the atmosphere, for example, you'll be able to easily pull up a tutorial on how to execute a gravity turn to escape Kerbin's orbit. You'll perform that maneuver in 'VR space', then go back to your real rocket and put what you learned to good use. Hopefully.

"Teh big thing for me is that these are actually bite-sized, so you have a whole tutorial section about going to the Mun, but it's broken up into a large number of subsections, so you can learn and practice a specific piece," says Markham. And the game will make suggestions, too. When a launch inevitably goes awry, the post-flight report can highlight a tutorial based on what went wrong, so you'll learn as you go.

Given how much of the joy of Kerbal Space Program lies in discovery and personal achievement, there is a risk in over-explaining. The dev team is well aware of that pitfall because they've already stumbled over it. In early tutorial iterations they leaned too far into telling players how to play - the most straightforward tutorial, after all, is to tell someone exactly what rocket parts they need to reach their goal - but realized that the gratification comes from figuring it out yourself. "The important thing is to provide people with puzzle pieces and informational context, but don't tell them how to make the rocket. Concepts, not prescriptions," Simpson says.

Kerbal Space Program 2 is clearly going to be a far easier game to start playing, but the changes to the UI and a proper campaign mode should excite its loyal kerbonauts, too. What I'm really dying to know - and unfortunately saw precious little of - is what awaits outside the Kerbol System, and what it's going to be like exploring it with friends in multiplayer.

Space walk with me

I learned precious littel about just how big Kerbal Space Program 2 truly is, but I did come away from two days of interview with some clues. The dev team is around 30 people and still growing, and that's not including support from publisher Private Division's QA team, who the developers praised as being seasoned Kerbal fans and very helpful. It's easily the biggest team Kerbal has ever had behind it.

could you show us some of the pictures of the game, those were clipped off.

[shdwlrd]

8 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

could you show us some of the pictures of the game, those were clipped off.

It looks to be from next month's PCGamer magazine. It may end up on their site soon enough.

[linuxgurugamer]

I can see it now.  Kerbals from KSP 1 meet Kerbals from KSP2, each runs screaming from each other

[Jacke]

16 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

I can see it now.  Kerbals from KSP 1 meet Kerbals from KSP2, each runs screaming from each other

...leading to the smash cross-over event, Crisis on Infinite Kerbins.

[linuxgurugamer]

All depends on which the run. What if they were so panicked that they each ran to the other's homeworld 

[Jacke]

Just now, linuxgurugamer said:

All depends on which the run. What if they were so panicked that they each ran to the other's homeworld 

Trust the Kerbals to turn a cross-over event into a literal cross-over event.

[linuxgurugamer]

At least it isn't  a LaCrossover event

[Jacke]

2 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

At least it isn't  a LaCrossover event

But it could become a lacrosse event.  Which could lead to an ice hockey event.

Which could turn the Kerbals into Little Green Canadians.  All nice and friendly until the ball or puck is dropped, then watch out!

[Lewie]

14 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

Which could turn the Kerbals into Little Green Canadians.  All nice and friendly until the ball or puck is dropped, then watch out!

But you really have to watch out if you don’t feed ‘em enough maple syrup snacks...

CHANGE THE UI!! Please. It just don’t look good flat. It’s gotta be that ball...if they don’t change it you pc gamers probably will get a mod for it, but what about us console users? Lets start a petition or something to change it to be more like Ksp’s ui...and oh gawd, don’t try to sell it to lil children. It’s just pathetic if they’re going to do that. Make it suitable for us older guys! (I say ‘older’ yet I’m in high school. Well, there are pretty well aged players of the game...)

[SpaceFace545]

4 minutes ago, Lewie said:

But you really have to watch out if you don’t feed ‘em enough maple syrup snacks...

CHANGE THE UI!! Please. It just don’t look good flat. It’s gotta be that ball...if they don’t change it you pc gamers probably will get a mod for it, but what about us console users? Lets start a petition or something to change it to be more like Ksp’s ui...and oh gawd, don’t try to sell it to lil children. It’s just pathetic if they’re going to do that. Make it suitable for us older guys! (I say ‘older’ yet I’m in high school. Well, there are pretty well aged players of the game...)

done, made a petition

http://chng.it/2DRkHzpf25

Edited May 28, 2020 by SpaceFace545

[Jacke]

Just now, Lewie said:

But you really have to watch out if you don’t feed ‘em enough maple syrup snacks...

Just provide a good beer.  And woe unto you if it's a crappy beer....  It's like not providing booze to your Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress.  It's going to end badly.

 

Just now, Lewie said:

CHANGE THE UI!! Please. It just don’t look good flat. It’s gotta be that ball...if they don’t change it you pc gamers probably will get a mod for it, but what about us console users?

That's a excellent point about the base game needing to be as right as possible.  That's one place that KSP is currently lacking.  I find several mods to be required for me to enjoy play.  KSP 2 should be better.

Looking at the image included, I really don't like that mostly monochrome UI.  The current KSP one is better with contrasting colours.  And as I stated above, that navball is worse than the stock KSP one, which I always replace with a more detailed one.

I don't think a petition is going to move the KSP 2 devs any more than commenting on this post.  We should be seeing more information on the form of KSP 2 while that can still be changed by reasonable pushback.

[Lewie]

10 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Just provide a good beer.  And woe unto you if it's a crappy beer....  It's like not providing booze to your Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress.  It's going to end badly.

 

That's a excellent point about the base game needing to be as right as possible.  That's one place that KSP is currently lacking.  I find several mods to be required for me to enjoy play.  KSP 2 should be better.

Looking at the image included, I really don't like that mostly monochrome UI.  The current KSP one is better with contrasting colours.  And as I stated above, that navball is worse than the stock KSP one, which I always replace with a more detailed one.

I don't think a petition is going to move the KSP 2 devs any more than commenting on this post.  We should be seeing more information on the form of KSP 2 while that can still be changed by reasonable pushback.

Well said my dude. Well said. 

The new ui is just flat out bad. THERE! Someone said it! 

Sorry star theory, but ksp 2 is gonna suck if the ui is like that. The navball of ksp makes flying stuff much easier, cus you can actually visualize the movement of the craft via the navball, if you understand. I can’t put it into words that well.

also, time zoom? Are you ####### kidding me? What the h-e double hockey sticks is this, Roblox? Damn it, it’ll always be time warp for me, and probably for the rest of you guys. So star theory, if you see this, you better change that crap otherwise you’ll probably lose hundreds if not thousands of buyers. Why? Ksp2 won’t hold a candle to ksp if this is what it’s going to look like. 

And please pardon my french

thank you for listening to my angry ramble

[Jacke]

All out of likes for the day.

15 minutes ago, Lewie said:

So star theory, if you see this, you better change that crap otherwise you’ll probably lose hundreds if not thousands of buyers. Why? Ksp2 won’t hold a candle to ksp if this is what it’s going to look like.

The UI is a critical part of a game.  I've heard so much about Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic being a fantastic game.  The one time I tried to play it, I did not like the UI being so bad.  I knew better UIs were being made at the same time.  SWKOTOR succeeded despite the UI because of the story and the Star Wars connection.

KSP 2 shouldn't be banking on players getting over a poor UI.  It's not just the sale of the game at stake.  It's DLCs and later Expansions.  If they get the base game and don't enjoy it, they're not going to keep playing and buying.  And that applies no matter the age of the player.

I also don't think that putting the crew info on the top centre of the UI is a good idea.  The bottom right is working well now.  If there's other elements going there, pick another corner.  It's bad to take up so much vertical space in the centre of the screen, as this is going to be played on screens that are wider than high.  Even better, make the UI elements moveable, like the current navball.  That was an excellent incorporation of a mod into the base KSP game.  Continue that trend.

Edited May 29, 2020 by Jacke

[Lewie]

The ui, truly is the base of the game. Without it, we can’t do squat. If it’s poorly designed, it’ll lead to loss of dlc and expansion purchases, as you said @Jacke

so star theory, listen to us. We’re the future of your success. you guys must have quite a bit riding on the success of the game. So listen to us, we know this crap. As they say, the customer is always right.