How will KSP 2 Development work?

[justspace103]

With the development of new content for KSP 1 now being essencially complete, ive been thinking about how the devs of KSP2 will approach releases and new content. When KSP2 is released, will it be completely finished in terms of features, or should we expect more content in the form of free updates like KSP1?  Will there be DLCs to KSP2? 

I realize that alot of these questions may not have answers as of this point, but I'm sure that alot of us are curious as to what we should expect from KSP2 development after initial release.

What do you all think?

(thanks guys!!!)

Edited September 9, 2021 by justspace103

[Dr. Kerbal]

Well. Of course there will be updates for bug fixes but I think so. I think as tedhnology grows and as the player base gets hands on KSP2 suggestions will pop up and make it in the game. 

DLCs im not sure. I will say 50/50. I say this becasue of multiplayer reasons. I means how to you intertwine DLC loaded players with base game players in multiplayer games? How!? 

20 minutes ago, justspace103 said:

With the development of new content for KSP 1 now being essencially complete, ive been thinking about how the devs of KSP2 will aproach releases and new content. When KSP2 is released, will it be completely finished in terms of features, or should we expect more content in the form of free updates like KSP1?  Will there be DLCs to KSP2? 

I realize that alot of these questions may not have answers as of this point, but I'm sure that alot of us are curious as to what we should expect from KSP2 development after initial release.

What do you all think?

 

[shdwlrd]

24 minutes ago, Dr. Kerbal said:

I means how to you intertwine DLC loaded players with base game players in multiplayer games? How!? 

You either have non-DLC players not see the parts or you replace them with something generic but similar. (MS flight) Or you don't allow the dlc and non dlc players to intermingle. Or you do like space engineers and the server controls the DLC and mods. Non dlc players can use the parts only on that server.

[K^2]

Games just don't ship finished anymore. It just doesn't happen. There will be updates and patches. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the core features aren't enabled on ship and will have to come in as patch, like the multiplayer, for example.

But also, yeah, I expect DLC. I would expect it regardless, but this is a Take Two game. They are going to milk it. It has been promised that there will be no micro-transactions, and I hope T2/PD don't go back on that, but that means DLC will be even more prominent. I would expect something fairly significant within the first six months.

And yeah, multiplayer is a concern with DLC. There are good ways to address it and greedy ways, and I really hope they don't start pay-walling players out of multiplayer content. Ideally, yeah, I'd like to see a system where other players who have DLC can still build with DLC parts and you simply can't add them to your own ship if you don't have the DLC.

[MKI]

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

like the multiplayer, for example

I cannot see this game launching without multiplayer. I'd rather see missing complex-parts/non-game-breaking-bugs than no multiplayer. The #1 thing that builds hype is watching your friend explode, rather than you just exploding for the millionth time. If there is any feature that must make it at launch, its multiplayer.

 

I like the idea of solid DLC, and will happily pay for more parts/systems/whatever to support the games development beyond launch. 

3 hours ago, Dr. Kerbal said:

DLCs im not sure. I will say 50/50. I say this becasue of multiplayer reasons. I means how to you intertwine DLC loaded players with base game players in multiplayer games? How!? 

Multiplayer+DLC should be done where players can still intermingle, but you can't use what you don't have. It really depends on what's in the DLC. Stuff like new parts is easily dealt with, but something like DLC planetary systems might be along the lines of "the host" game defines what mods are available. This assumes the game uses more or less peer-to-peer multiplayer. (which is my current guess on how it will work) 

I think giving a "taste" of what DLC's have to offer through multiplayer games is an easy way to spur sales of more DLC, assuming its not too easy to get and use a DLC without paying. 

 

3 hours ago, justspace103 said:

should we expect more content in the form of free updates like KSP1?

I'd hope there is a mix of paid-for DLC and free content over time. Going full one or the other creates too many problems. Having a mix satisfies everyone involved and should sustain the game's development longer.

 

 

[shdwlrd]

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

Games just don't ship finished anymore. It just doesn't happen.

It's really a shame that the gaming industry has ended up like this. I miss the days you bought a completed game and the only bugs were outliers that you had to force. There was nothing you had to deal with in normal game play.

[MKI]

1 hour ago, shdwlrd said:

It's really a shame that the gaming industry has ended up like this. I miss the days you bought a completed game and the only bugs were outliers that you had to force. There was nothing you had to deal with in normal game play.

This is more due to customer demands, increasing costs related to game development, and increasing complexity of modern games rather than greed oriented industry decisions.

"Normal gameplay" decades ago was written by a hand-full of people writing assembly to sell a 30$ game. 

Now "normal gameplay" is created by hundreds of people writing high level code using multiple tools for multiple platforms with complex 3D graphics, multiplayer support, with thousands of complex features,  all to sell a 60$ game. (!)

There are still small time indie developers who do something different (like Squad) but it doesn't work when it comes to larger game devs. Games just require a lot of effort, time and money to build now a days as what the consumer expects is just vastly more complex than what they expected decades ago, and the price points don't work out as well either.

 

 

Edited August 4, 2021 by MKI

[K^2]

1 hour ago, MKI said:

I cannot see this game launching without multiplayer.

From perspective of developers and publishers, if things aren't ready for launch and it comes down between finishing multiplayer or polishing main content, they will opt to polish main content. I'm not saying this has to happen at all, but if there is a problem, multiplayer is likely to be the first thing on the cutting floor. And nobody's going to abandon it - it might simply land a few weeks after initial release. Alternatively, it might be there, but missing a lot of features that would be vital for good experience, like synchronizing time warp or something.

And I think that's fine. Even if the biggest thing you want is multiplayer and you won't play the game until that's in, I think a few weeks of delay isn't going to be a huge problem after we've had to wait this long. And yeah, it kind of sucks that devs might be pressured to release the game when not all features are ready, but I also understand that release schedule exists for a reason and it's a thing that sometimes has to happen.

[justspace103]

3 hours ago, MKI said:

I cannot see this game launching without multiplayer. I'd rather see missing complex-parts/non-game-breaking-bugs than no multiplayer. The #1 thing that builds hype is watching your friend explode, rather than you just exploding for the millionth time. If there is any feature that must make it at launch, its multiplayer.

I definitely agree with this, as multiplayer is one of the 5 or so improvment points plastered all over the website as well as (albiet without specifics) core to some of the ideas talked about in the dev blogs and videos. I honeslty think that if multiplayer isnt ready by the time they said they will release it they would just push it back again. the KSP community would understand as it has for previous delays. we all want a good game, not one devoid of a main feature.

4 hours ago, K^2 said:

But also, yeah, I expect DLC. I would expect it regardless, but this is a Take Two game. They are going to milk it. It has been promised that there will be no micro-transactions, and I hope T2/PD don't go back on that, but that means DLC will be even more prominent. I would expect something fairly significant within the first six months.

I defnitely agree with this as well in the fact that T2 will milk this game of all its sucess. my only hope is that that hype will work in KSP's favor as more and more people are inspired by rocket science and little green men. 

[MKI]

15 hours ago, K^2 said:

And I think that's fine. Even if the biggest thing you want is multiplayer and you won't play the game until that's in, I think a few weeks of delay isn't going to be a huge problem after we've had to wait this long. And yeah, it kind of sucks that devs might be pressured to release the game when not all features are ready, but I also understand that release schedule exists for a reason and it's a thing that sometimes has to happen.

A few weeks to release an advertised core feature of the game just means the game gets pushed back so its ready. It would turn into a huge PR nightmare if a game advertised "with multiplayer" doesn't launch with multiplayer just to meet some deadline.

I don't remember the last game to have done that that wasn't a "pre-release" sorta game, which AFAIK isn't the route they are taking with this game. (Maybe some beta preview or something?)

 

Since the game had to be designed with multiplayer in mind from the start, I'd hope this is an unrealistic hypothetical. You can't just "add multiplayer" within a week, or spend all this time developing a game to support multiplayer and not get it done before launch. It would have to be one of the first core features and mechanics to have been figured out and implemented. It might not be optimized and be laggy or something, but what isn't in today's day and age hahaha. (Peer to Peer hosting should prevent this from happening however)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[K^2]

2 hours ago, MKI said:

It would turn into a huge PR nightmare if a game advertised "with multiplayer" doesn't launch with multiplayer just to meet some deadline.

No it won't. Happens all the time with games that have way larger profiles from way larger companies, and it always goes over quietly, so long as information that multiplayer is going to be available via a patch is published with a bit of an advanced warning.

Multiplayer is a kind of feature that introduces a whole bunch of fragility to a game. And if the game is in a shaky state, your options are delaying, releasing a broken game, working dev team to a mental breakdown in a crunch, or releasing without multiplayer. The later is by far the least bad option.

2 hours ago, MKI said:

Since the game had to be designed with multiplayer in mind from the start, I'd hope this is an unrealistic hypothetical. You can't just "add multiplayer" within a week, or spend all this time developing a game to support multiplayer and not get it done before launch.

You develop the game with multiplayer, then you look at your bug list 6 months before certification, and there are 10 months worth of fixes in there. Five of these are multiplayer bugs. What do you do? That's right, you focus on single player bugs, get them in to cert, and then spend the rest of the time working on multiplayer bugs. If cert was submitted, say, two months in advance, you manage to get 3 months worth of these multiplayer bug fixes in by the ship date, and you just need two more months of work before you can cert the multiplayer patch.

The numbers are made up, but situation is real. It's more common that multiplayer bugs are fixed by ship and is enabled with day-one patch, but game as-shipped not having multiplayer is practically the norm. Of course, a lot of games ship as coasters these days, but that's a separate story.

[MKI]

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

No it won't. Happens all the time with games that have way larger profiles from way larger companies, and it always goes over quietly, so long as information that multiplayer is going to be available via a patch is published with a bit of an advanced warning.

I can't really think of any game that did this that wasn't some pre-release version. Let alone a game that should be built around the logistics of multiplayer, from a large game developer, that is building a sequel to the game that is advertised as the single most requested feature. (multiplayer) 

 

I believe the hope for many is multiplayer is to the game what it would be for a game like Minecraft in the sense everything you do in single player is what multiplayer is like, except with other people. So if you get to launch day and you still have issues with multiplayer to the point it straight up doesn't work. You screwed up the game's development. Its one thing if there are bugs, but to not launch with what is more or less the core reason to rebuild the whole game from scratch again is a huge red flag. No amount of delays would fix a fundamentally broken game, which is why KSP 1 never got multiplayer, the game wasn't designed for it originally, even though it got multiple DLCs, part packs, and years of upgrades and updates. Multiplayer requires different architecture and system design from the start, it's not something that should be "not ready" anywhere near launch date. Its not something you can just "add on", or "test later", it should be something you work on more or less first as it touches upon everything else. 

 

Again, this is all a scary hypothetical because if the game releases without multiplayer, the only reasons would ultimately lead back to really terrible fates for the game. Namely bad design through the entire games development, which would indicate more aspects of the game probably have quality issues. Put together with the increased scope and potential pitfalls of taking KSP 1 and trying to "make it better", KSP 2 could be a complete disaster if a core marketed feature that should of been designed around from day 1 isn't ready at launch day. Again, there's differences between shaky launches and features not being included at launch that are heavily advertised. There's also the possibility the server infrastructure is not ready to support the game, but since I personally do not believe KSP 2 to be anywhere near a "massive multiplayer game" I don't see this as a likely possibility. 

 

The other concerning hypothetical is multiplayer isn't what most people imagine it to be. If its something as limiting (and questionably entertaining) as commanding around a single Kerbal in someone else's game, without any access to most other features of the game, then maybe it would be different enough and "low priority" enough to not include at launch. However I think such gameplay would be seen as a disappointment, released at launch or later if they were actually designed so differently from the core experience it seemed more like "an add on".

 

 

All and all, if KSP's multiplayer is all that's cracked up to be, it should of been the main focus this entire time, as it was even during KSP 1's development. If it fails to "be ready at launch", I'd be concerned for the entire game's development. 
 

If it multiplayer isn't ready at launch (for whatever reason), KSP 2 isn't ready. 

 

[K^2]

1 hour ago, MKI said:

I believe the hope for many is multiplayer is to the game what it would be for a game like Minecraft in the sense everything you do in single player is what multiplayer is like, except with other people.

I'm starting to think that you are expecting a different game than the game that is being made. I'm worried that you might be very disappointed.

Going by LinkedIn page, Intercept is very engineer-light overall and has just one engineer working specifically on multiplayer. There might be more people involved, but there aren't a lot of people with multiplayer experience to begin with, so the multiplayer work being done is very light.

Multiplayer is not the main focus of the game that Intercept is currently working on, so the rest of your argument does not follow.

[shdwlrd]

Some of the off hand comments Nate has said about playing multiplayer and having a blast, I believe multiplayer will be included upon release. No, I don't think it will be anything more complex than a simple peer to peer or invite only system through Steam or whatnot. At that point, the game will technically have multiplayer support. If they manage to release with full dedicated server support, I will be surprised.

Of course they can throw everyone and have the game start as it's own private server that you can invite people into. (Valheim, Avorion)

[MKI]

16 hours ago, K^2 said:

Going by LinkedIn page, Intercept is very engineer-light overall and has just one engineer working specifically on multiplayer. There might be more people involved, but there aren't a lot of people with multiplayer experience to begin with, so the multiplayer work being done is very light.

Multiplayer is not the main focus of the game that Intercept is currently working on, so the rest of your argument does not follow.

This assumes LinkedIn provides a perfect reference point for how much work is performed for a given feature on job title alone, and from that it is inferred multiplayer is not the main focus of the game. Except LinkedIn isn't a perfect reference point, and job title doesn't directly correlate to who much work has been performed on a given feature. So its at least a rough estimation from incomplete information. for a given timeframe. The fact there is a dedicated "multiplayer engineer" probably is enough of a sign the feature will be included at launch. 

Simply put you don't need 5 "multiplayer software engineers" to build a multiplayer game, nor do you need heavy specialization in optimization for multiplayer as the game's requirements aren't extravagant. Its one thing if your building an MMO, its another if its a small time-coop level game. You probably could also probably leverage an off-the-shelf multiplayer setup built for Unity without much trouble. 

Again, if they designed the game from the start with multiplayer in mind, including the experience Squad had with trying to integrate it the first time, I see no reason for it to be in "development mode" much at this time.  It should more or less be complete by now, where the single player experience and multiplayer experiences work more or less the same. This leaves you only having to add more features, like parts, planets, physics updates, life-improvements, etc, which would directly correlate between the two modes. It isn't exactly the kind of feature you leave "unfinished", it either works reliably or it doesn't. 

During the planning phase of a software project, its usually recommended to focus on the highest risk areas first. As these have the most unknowns in terms of long-term impact on the project. Multiplayer is hands down one of the top risks, as it already couldn't make it into the first game, which focused more on the challenging gameplay physics itself. However with the second game, all of the first KSP 1 challenges have been more or less dealt leaving multiplayer as the next "big risk". If Intercept has any project management brains, they would of focused on multiplayer first, among other risky challenges. 

15 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

No, I don't think it will be anything more complex than a simple peer to peer or invite only system through Steam or whatnot.

I think this is fine for a majority of people.

If I can watch my friends explode I give multiplayer an A+.

[K^2]

5 hours ago, MKI said:

This assumes LinkedIn provides a perfect reference point for how much work is performed for a given feature on job title alone, and from that it is inferred multiplayer is not the main focus of the game.

LinkedIn is how you get a job in the industry. Your resume isn't as important as your LinkedIn page. So you have one, you keep it up to date, and when you start at a new studio, you add it to your profile. It doesn't reflect the studio 100%, but it's close, and I can correct for discrepancy.

5 hours ago, MKI said:

Simply put you don't need 5 "multiplayer software engineers" to build a multiplayer game

No, for a multiplayer focused game you need about 20 multiplayer software engineers. Between infrastructure, networking, ops... That's actually an optimistic count.

If your game is just some light co-op in a monster masher, or something like it, you can get away with a team of a few. But this still implies that you have a solid single player campaign and you're building on top of it. The single player part is still your focus. You aren't building a multiplayer-focused game with one engineer who has prior multiplayer experience. You just don't.

5 hours ago, MKI said:

Again, if they designed the game from the start with multiplayer in mind, including the experience Squad had with trying to integrate it the first time, I see no reason for it to be in "development mode" much at this time.

They had vacancy listed for multiplayer designer for at least half a year after the switch to Intercept happened, and the multiplayer engineer wasn't a first month hire either. This game has had a significant chunk of its production done without any multiplayer experienced developers on board at all. They might have planned on inclusion of multiplayer, but to think that this has been game's core from day one is absurd. They were not staffed for it and they aren't staffed for it even now.

5 hours ago, MKI said:

During the planning phase of a software project, its usually recommended to focus on the highest risk areas first.

Only if it's a core feature you can't cut. And if that was the case, you wouldn't start production until you have multiplayer designer and lead multiplayer engineer on board. They didn't have either. They still don't have a multiplayer lead, because there isn't a multiplayer team. So it's very clear that it was not considered a core element of the game.

I have done game pre-production, so I actually know how these planning meetings go, and you absolutely would not kick off a game with multiplayer as core with the team they've had.

[MKI]

19 minutes ago, K^2 said:

They might have planned on inclusion of multiplayer, but to think that this has been game's core from day one is absurd. They were not staffed for it and they aren't staffed for it even now.

Absurd? Its the main reason there is a code overhaul.

Quote

Specifically, it was the inclusion of multiplayer that necessitated a major architectural overhaul of the game’s code. And since we were rebuilding so much from scratch, we’ve also gotten a chance to build a good foundation for improved performance, increased moddability, and much nicer graphics and sound. Really, there’s no part of the game that has not seen a radical redesign.

Source: https://nordic.ign.com/kerbal-space-program-2/29231/interview/kerbal-space-program-2-interview-with-nate-simpson-creative-director-at-star-theory

Mind you this was even before Intercept Games. 

 

22 minutes ago, K^2 said:

No, for a multiplayer focused game you need about 20 multiplayer software engineers. Between infrastructure, networking, ops... That's actually an optimistic count.

You know someone titled "software engineer" can still do all that right? Its a very generic title. You might not slap all the specific architecture labels on your job title, but that doesn't mean you don't know anything about building server architecture to support a multiplayer game. You also don't magically need 20+ engineers to build a multiplayer game. Don't believe me? Think of all the indie game developers who support multiplayer, I'm pretty sure none of them had 20+ people with the title of "multiplayer engineer" working under them, let alone 20 employees. 

If you can't think of an example, I throw out the game Hell Let Loose, which is a realistic WW2 FPS  with 50v50 teams, with focus on voice communication and teamwork. Its created by a company called Black Matter, which was created just to build the game and has roughly 20 employees in total. (Its also a very fun, but very punishing game)

Source: https://hellletloose.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Matter

However I think that comparison is way beyond what KSP 2 needs. KSP 2 wont need anywhere near 100 player dedicated server capacity. The team could of just pulled the technology off the shelf and not have anyone actually dedicated to it. Or literally just follow the docs: https://docs-multiplayer.unity3d.com/

Unity might have some flaws, but it does have its advantages in being well supported by a huge number of technologies. 

 

 

 

 

[K^2]

6 hours ago, MKI said:

You know someone titled "software engineer" can still do all that right? Its a very generic title.

Yes, as someone who was in charge of server architecture with a title of "Senior Software Engineer," I'm well aware of it. But I did have two years experience in working on character movement on an MMO by that point, and I had previous experience that prepared me for that. It's not just the title. You look at what people have done in the past. Networking is not something you pick up on a weekend.

6 hours ago, MKI said:

If you can't think of an example, I throw out the game Hell Let Loose, which is a realistic WW2 FPS  with 50v50 teams, with focus on voice communication and teamwork. Its created by a company called Black Matter, which was created just to build the game and has roughly 20 employees in total. (Its also a very fun, but very punishing game)

Yeah. Unreal Engine is made precisely for making FPS games and comes with built in networking support to make a team-based MP FPS game. You can make a WWII FPS in Unreal Engine 4 with exactly zero engineers of any kind. You just need a few designers with Blueprint experience. It's not going to be amazing without some custom work, but it's the exact thing the engine was built for. Consequently, a very small team can make a pretty decent FPS in UE4.

None of this applies to Unity and KSP2. It's a tiny team with a lot to do. All of the game components have to be written in C# - there is no mechanism for designers to stand up something functional. (I mean, you don't want to ship a UE4 game running on Blueprints either, but at least the stop-gap is there.) UI also takes engineering work in Unity. And then you have the rest of the game.

LinkedIn lists 11 people who have "engineer" in their title. One is an EM, one is a build engineer, one is physics engineer, and one is multiplayer engineer. One other is Animator/Engineer, so most likely a tech artist. That leaves you with six people to build you the rest of the game. Given that there is only one EM, this is probably the exact count. That's barely enough engineers to just make the damn game. Just replicating KSP with optimizations, adding colonies with all of the new systems surrounding that, new progression/science gameplay, UI for absolutely all of that, an onboarding and tutorial system, and then debugging and polishing and optimizing, because having KSP2 run like KSP is just not an option. All of that needs to be made in 3 years with 6 engineers, because the other five are spoken for, and we know that even some of these 6 didn't join until at least mid 2020.

I'm an engineering manager - technically, my title includes the word "director" in it - and it's my job to figure out how to make a game happen while not having enough engineers on a team. And this one is hard. Doable, but hard.

But now you want to also add multiplayer as core feature? One around which everything else is built? With all the dependencies and infrastructure night mare? Without dev ops, infrastructure, with one build engineer, and with multiplayer engineer not even available day one? Just... How?

 

Looking at profiles of people in charge of KSP2 as a product, starting with Nate and going up, they are neither magical wizards nor incompetent. Competent person is not going to try and make KSP2 have multiplayer core with this team without having supernatural powers on their side. A big important feature? Sure. But one that can be removed from the game without making the whole thing collapse. Whatever precise form KSP2 multiplayer will take, it is a side feature. An addition to core gameplay to be enjoyed with your friends, and not the only reason someone might buy this game. Because if multiplayer was critical for KSP2 success, this game would not get a green light to be made with this team. If KSP2 could not be shipped without multiplayer, it would have been canceled when the contract with Star Theory was dissolved at the absolute latest and probably not even make it that far.

[MKI]

11 hours ago, K^2 said:

Yes, as someone who was in charge of server architecture with a title of "Senior Software Engineer,"

So if your a software engineer/engineering manager I'm sure you'd be familiar with the idea of risk management, and how Intercept Game, or Star Theory, or even Squad would of done their research on adding multiplayer into a game like KSP.

Even if you had minimal experience as an organization, you'd could do this as an MVP using pre-existing assets and focus entirely on architecture, just to see how it would work and if it could work, and how much work it would take. From those tests you can at least determine what level of risk you'd be undertaking. Later once Intercept/Star Theory gets the green light on the project, its already determined that multiplayer will be a key feature, as its already marketed, and you'd already be able to more or less know what it would take to build out that feature. At a bare minimum, core early high risk features aren't high risk by the time you launch.

Unless of course you suck at your job and didn't manage risk, but any one with a basic understanding of project management would know to focus on high risk areas of the project first. The fact multiplayer is a known high risk, a well researched high risk, and a highly demanded feature it makes it a no brainier to invest time and energy into it early in the process that I'm sure was executed, if Nate's enjoyment with multiplayer is any confirmation.

 

12 hours ago, K^2 said:

Consequently, a very small team can make a pretty decent FPS in UE4.

So a small team can make a large-team+comm-based multiplayer-only FPS using Unreal engine, but a team of a similar size, using Unity can't make a smaller scale game with multiplayer using a previous game as a starting point? That doesn't make any sense. Unless Unity3D as a company doesn't like money, and leaves a giant gap in its ecosystem and lets them walk over to the competition, they'd offer similar capabilities. So yes its possible for Intercept games to add multiplayer into KSP and have it ready by launch.

 

Finally a "director engineering manager" is determining project risk based primarily on LinkedIn profiles, while also ignoring stakeholder expectations, and being worried about "not having enough bodies" on a given problem, as if that actually works. Seems kinda like the traditional "lead from the top management" sorta thinking that creates large bureaucratic systems that are slow, difficult to change and require larger amounts of people to make any "move". So I can see why your hung up on the idea "its not possible without more resources and thus wont make it to launch". I have my opinions on such approaches to software, but this isn't the time or place for those XD.

 

Its ironic that we are concerned about the developer resources, when the first game was made by a gosh darn advertising company. 

 

[K^2]

10 hours ago, MKI said:

So if your a software engineer/engineering manager I'm sure you'd be familiar with the idea of risk management, and how Intercept Game, or Star Theory, or even Squad would of done their research on adding multiplayer into a game like KSP.

Taking the most complex feature and leaning into it as your core without having people to actually land it is the exact opposite of risk management.

10 hours ago, MKI said:

So a small team can make a large-team+comm-based multiplayer-only FPS using Unreal engine, but a team of a similar size, using Unity can't make a smaller scale game with multiplayer using a previous game as a starting point?

KSP2 runs custom physics in multiple frames of reference on an engine not built to do any of that, let alone provide any frameworks for networking it. Just getting two ships to be in the same general area without getting Krakened to bits is a huge challenge. So yes, imagine that, making an FPS multiplayer game in an engine that's been used for over 20 years for making FPS multiplayer games is orders of magnitude easier.

 

10 hours ago, MKI said:

Finally a "director engineering manager" is determining project risk based primarily on LinkedIn profiles

And having kept track of KSP2 development since first announcement. And having played KSP since alpha days, digging into its internals. I believe, there are some posts here where I analyze disassembled code of old aerodynamics functions and some reverse-engineering of engine thrust curves. And having experience with Unity as an engine as well as numerous others. And having worked directly on multiple game titles for better part of the decade. And having experience maintaining two in-house engines, including relevant components, like physics and networking. And leading game teams as a lead engineer. And... Do I need to go on? I've been involved in games as manager, engineer, and as modder for a very long time. I made it my career to know how games are made from the ground up across all available technology. I can take a look at footage that's been published, the articles that have been written, the time-line as presented and as it changed over time, and combine it with what information I see about engineering staff to make concrete predictions about what the team is and isn't capable of, because that's pretty close to my job description.

[MKI]

On 8/6/2021 at 8:52 PM, K^2 said:

Do I need to go on?

I had a feeling you'd end up talking about all the experience you have, how you know what your talking about. You may as well be right, and KSP multiplayer is all false promises and will crash and burn at launch because they don't know what they are doing. Its possible you know how the game engine will be worked to work with multiplayer and how it wont work, its possible with all your experience you know the risks involved and know Intercept has made a mistake and multiplayer is totally different than what I (and a lot of other people) imagine it to be. Its possible I'm completely clueless about game development and am also totally wrong about how KSP is managing risk, and they are managing it all wrong and won't have the feature ready, or its totally different than what most people expect, or its a combination of both. 

All these things are possible, you seem to think its not only possible, but highly likely all of this will occur due to said experience. Hence your amazing prediction a core advertised feature wont be ready at launch because the team isn't qualified enough according to your experience and background.

However, I think all that experience might be creating unforeseen bias on the engineering risk, as who doesn't want to leverage their experience on a project? Its the sensible thing to do right? Well it might be, if we have enough information on the actual requirements of the project to make a determinable estimate and if more information to go off of. Because right now we don't (or at least I don't), so making assumptions on previous biased experiences on the short amount of information available means the end results are just biased guesses that are stanchly defended because "experience". Something as simple as "how does multiplayer fundamentally work" isn't even known and here we are all making this dead set predictions about the team not being qualified, its frankly somewhat ridiculous. 

The small amount of information we do have available, might of even ended up "ignored" for one reason or another because it doesn't match with the original viewpoint which again is staunchly defended, since again "experience tells otherwise". Which only just goes back to the fact one is built from their own experiences which can easily clout new information. This is more of a human nature thing than anything, because who likes committing a bunch of resources/energy to something believe in something only to flip/change later? (no one) More experience = more energy = more commitment, its a natural psychological process . Even though, again, those original assumptions are primarily built on experience rather than much hard evidence. "Nate already has played multiplayer? He probably made that up, or obviously wasn't using the full load testing, because my experience says it can't be ready by launch."

Of course maybe you got the source-code for the new game downloaded and already reviewed it and are making your comments on that. Then sure! Please tell me more, because I'd be curious and would like to set my expectations accordingly. Otherwise my expectations are more just wishes based on nothing besides a few tidbits of data, like most people, rather than based on some personal experiences. 

I give the team the benefit of a doubt, primarily because I want a specific version of multiplayer, and have enough software engineering sense to see a path on how I'd make it work with limited experience, time, man-power and available technologies and infrastructure. I don't know enough to make my own determination of what's going on beyond that it will probably make it to launch, simply because Nate has already freaken played the mode. Maybe the multiplayer mode sucks, and is some form of basic save sharing, or a simple observer mode. I have no clue, but to go from Nate playing it to = not available at launch doesn't make much business sense, let alone a technical one. How much polish you need before shipping a feature? Just patch the thing after launch. Telling an engineer "its not possible" is probably the quickest way to make it possible, unless of course you "lead" your engineers so they are more mindless drones smashing keyboards to fulfilling their duties rather than a person with a brain with their own ideas and experiences. Who needs "agile" when you have experience? (this is sarcasm btw)

 

Finally, "all great engineers can be wrong". I'm no great engineer, I'm just a scrappy one with too much work, to many ideas, to many projects on my plate, and not enough time in the day to execute them. I realize I might be completely wrong about my assumptions for the game, but I also realize my assumptions are based on almost no information, let alone any hard information. I also know that experience builds bias, and that questioning biases and previous experience is a difficult but necessary thing to get closer to the objective truth. Just in this situation we don't eve know what that is yet.

 

Obviously I'd hope your completely wrong about multiplayer getting released by launch, or being such low priority that it isn't ready by then. As a fan of the game, I really wonder why you'd want to be right about it too? Being right is ultimately extremely overrated, especially in the case where it means I can't watch my friend blow up his Kerbals because he didn't check his staging ;D

 

 

 

 

 

[K^2]

5 hours ago, MKI said:

All these things are possible, you seem to think its not only possible, but highly likely all of this will occur due to said experience. Hence your amazing prediction a core advertised feature wont be ready at launch because the team isn't qualified enough according to your experience and background.

I'm not saying it won't be ready. I'm saying it won't even be worked on as a core feature, because it's not feasible to build a game with multiplayer core given the resources available.

Moving multiplayer development to a supporting feature is exactly how the risk is mitigated. If it doesn't land, you still have the core game and you can land multiplayer in a patch. Once multiplayer lands, whether at release or a few months later, great, you have a much better product.

5 hours ago, MKI said:

I give the team the benefit of a doubt, primarily because I want a specific version of multiplayer

My impression is that this is the problem with your entire analysis. This is what you want from the game. That has no bearing on how the game is designed or what the team's objectives are. I'm seeing absolutely no supporting evidence for multiplayer being something more than a way to play the game co-op, and that's not a core feature. There have been no mentions of social, infrastructure, or any sort of features in support of multiplayer as core. What we have seen a lot of evidence for is expanding the game's progression and new user experience. These are all core features of KSP2 and they are clearly there to make sure the game is a complete experience out of the box even without the multiplayer. Very clearly, Intercept's design team thinks they can have a complete user experience as a single player game. And this is a crucial disagreement with your premise that KSP2 cannot exist as a successful product without multiplayer.

Once you accept that KSP2 can be a game that a huge number of people can enjoy without multiplayer, that such a game will sell and generate revenue, the rest falls into place. You build core gameplay around single player experience. You start with the gameplay loop of KSP, which is perfectly solid, and you work on improving progression. The basic pitch of KSP but with new star systems to explore and with a good, well-designed progression system to replace career/science in KSP is absolutely solid. That alone is a game a lot of people want to play. I'm fairly confident that this was the entire pitch for Star Theory's original project. The next iteration on top of that is adding better tutorials, base-building as part of progression, and multiplayer. This increase in scope is why the game is coming in '22 and not '20. And while tutorials and base-building have clearly been integrated into the progression, meaning they are now core features, we've heard hardly anything about multiplayer development. Which wouldn't make sense if the entire game was overhauled to be multiplayer-first.

But if you look at multiplayer as a bolt-on co-op feature which doesn't alter fundamental game progression and merely lets you experience the game with a small group of friends, then all of it makes perfect sense. There are multiplayer-specific design challenges that have to be addressed, such as what happens when two player ships dock together and how to handle time-warp, and there are some fairly hard challenges about synchronizing KSP2 gameplay across clients, but nothing an engineer with multiplayer background can't solve.

This approach fits into the team size and background, presumably, because it fits within the budget Private Division was willing to invest in. It also fits into development timeline and history of the project transitioning from Star Theory to Intercept.

If you think you have plausible hints to the game being a lot more than that, I'm actually curious to take a look at your sources. There could be something I missed. But right now, everything looks like a complete picture with assumptions above and there are a whole bunch of missing pieces or pieces that don't fit if we make your assumption about multiplayer being a core experience of the game.