Pats selection: How many more options?

[TLTay]

What do you think we will get in terms of new parts? Twice as many? Five times as many? I think Nate said they were redesigning how parts were sorted because it was hard to find parts... 

I'm curious as to how many parts KSP2 will have relative to KSP. They've been very careful in what they've shown us, but I wonder if ballpark numbers of parts is vague enough to share?

[Bej Kerman]

4 minutes ago, TLTay said:

What do you think we will get in terms of new parts? Twice as many? Five times as many? I think Nate said they were redesigning how parts were sorted because it was hard to find parts... 

I'm curious as to how many parts KSP2 will have relative to KSP. They've been very careful in what they've shown us, but I wonder if ballpark numbers of parts is vague enough to share?

It doesn't matter as long as we're not left with gaps in the selection of parts.

[The Aziz]

As a start

How many new parts are in there?

We have 7 sizes now. Even if we get one new part of each important type (pod, tank, engine, decoupler etc) that gives us I say a couple dozens of parts. And that's only in VAB, nobody knows how many, and what kinds of parts we would see in BAE.

In any case, you could head to https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/199981-kerbal-space-program-2-knowledge-repository/ and count every new part you find. Let us know when you're done 

 

[shdwlrd]

Depends on how Intercept does the parts. Semi-procedural with fuel switching, we can end up with the near the same number as KSP1. The same style as KSP1, I can guess 5 to 6 times more.

56 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

It doesn't matter as long as we're not left with gaps in the selection of parts.

There will always be some gaps.

[Bej Kerman]

23 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

There will always be some gaps.

No duh lol

[kanelives]

What's the argument against not having separate parts and only having procedural parts? It would be way less clutter in the parts menu. There's no reason to mod in additional tanks because they're redundant in most cases . If you care about career progression you can just unlock certain sizes as you progress. Super fine tuned customization when you need it. I can't think of any downsides.  First thing I do on a new install is hide all the stock tanks that can be replaced by procedural tanks.

Edited December 19, 2021 by kanelives

[SciMan]

I think procedural parts are a great idea, with some limitations. The primary limitation is that you shouldn't be able to enter a custom diameter, because that makes the logic that checks for a smooth aerodynamic transition between parts much more complex, and it could also make the player confused by "too many choices", a thing that already occasionally happens to me personally with all the mods I have installed.
Because of this, I think it might be the case that we'll have LESS "parts" to choose from in the editor, but those fewer parts will cover more options, leading to an overall better experience.

Semi-procedural cylindrical parts is a good thing, you'd select a diameter from a list, select a length from a list (or enter a custom one if it's within the range of lengths covered by the list), select what fuel combination, "Battery", or just "structural", there's your cylindrical part.

If we have parts dedicated to being the "spine" of a gigantic ship assembled in orbit, those should be semi-procedural too, pick a diameter, pick a length (or enter one), but the difference between these and the regular cylindrical parts is that the limits on length would be something on the order of a full kilometer (having just one part that long is REALLY IMPORTANT when you're building a gigantic ship in orbit, as otherwise with so many joints in the stack you're bound to get a wobbly vessel unless the parts are literally non-physically attached to each other aka parented to each other instead of being connected via joints).

Semi-procedural diameter adapters would be good too (select top diameter from list, select bottom diameter from list, select or type in a length (within a sane range), select fuel combination, battery, or structural, done.

Fully procedural wings would be needed, and I'm pretty sure they're coming.

SRBs should also be procedural, because right now we have way too many of them. There would be several preset configurations available that match up with the existing KSP1 SRBs, but if you wanted something "in-between" you could still choose from a list of diameters, enter a custom length, choose if it can gimbal or not, and finally choose if the engine bell is optimized for vacuum, sea level, or very high atmospheric pressures like Eve (or any similar Venus-like planets planets in KSP 2 that are in other solar systems).

Engines might have to stay the way they are in KSP 1, however there should be an option for "clustering plates" where you stick a number of engines on it and it (for the sake of making the math easier) will turn both the plate and all the engines on it into something the game considers as "just one part" as far as both physics and the resource consumption logic are concerned.

Also since we're going to be building gigantic vessels in orbit, it would be real nice if we had some feature like the old UbioZor Part Welding mod (such code could be used in part to implement the functionality of the clustering plates I mentioned above, but there might be more code needed to make it work besides that). Even if it only works on certain kinds of parts, that would be a massive improvement to the overall structural rigidity of the vessels we make in KSP 2. I don't care if it has to be an "advanced tweakables" option or something that's disabled by default, it's functionality I'm looking for.

[intelliCom]

On 12/18/2021 at 8:10 AM, The Aziz said:

We have 7 sizes now. Even if we get one new part of each important type (pod, tank, engine, decoupler etc) that gives us I say a couple dozens of parts.

Question: Does your "couple dozen parts" estimate include different fuel types, such as LF + LOX,  LH + LOX, LF only, LH only, orion bomb units, metallic hydrogen, and ³He + ²H?

Edited December 22, 2021 by intelliCom

[The Aziz]

No

But honestly I hope for tanks to be configurable at least in this regard. There's no point in having a bunch of tanks of the same length and diameter, with their only difference in what's inside. Ksp1 didn't really have this problem, as there were only few LF tanks, and I believe only one in cylindrical shape (1.25m). RCS could technically come separate as the tanks were usually much shorter than anything else.

But let's say that everything comes as separate part.

2.5m cylinders: LH/OX, LH, LM/OX, MH. Note that I didn't include monoprop, xenon, He3 and whatever Orion uses, so that's 4 types. Now multiply that by 4 lengths as they used to appear, and we've got at least 16 tanks. If different shapes will be separate (we've seen some hexagons etc) that multiplies again. That's only one size! We've got 7, aaand we're now beyond a hundred parts in fuel tanks only.

The best way I think, to approach this, is to treat the tanks like engine plates/fuselages in ksp1. You pick a diameter and inside you can choose from 4 lengths and propellants. Intercept has been silent in that regard, but they did make wings procedural, so maybe there's hope.

[t_v]

I think that this topic is mostly a matter of opinion, as I’ve seen many people offer different levels of sub-menus based on preference. Additionally, I think that parts selection customization like that would have to come with mods, as making it properly customizable would be out of scope for the base game. Therefore, intercept actually does have to think of what can appease everyone, because it will impact everyone, at least for a short time. 
 

And here’s me adding to the problem by simply stating my preference with equally feeble backing. First, I think that it is important to note that the difference between the different tabs in the inventory list and a pop-up menu is functionally nothing, so probably keep the tabs, because I don’t want to navigate many pop-up menus whenever I select a new part. Ideally, there is a healthy balance between the time it takes to find a new part in the list and the time it takes to place more parts (and no, I’m not counting mod+click to copy, what if you need a similar part, then you have to go through the whole process again)

To that end, I’ll split parts up into several identifiers: function, size, fuel type, tech level, resource types required, mass. A small list of potential categories to split parts up into. First, function is separated into different tabs, as we have already seen, and then size is split up. I agree with this decision sort of, because I would like an easy to access system. But there’s a few changes. One last organizational method that has been overlooked so far is the “variant” selection of KSP 1. This has the benefit of offering multiple types of the same engine or command pod and you do not have to go through another selection process when you want to fat another of the same part, because it saves which variant you want, and you can use it next time. Currently the system only makes cosmetic changes to engines and a structural change to the mk. 2 pod, but we see that functionality can be changed using variants. On a side note, I wish that mods would use this system more often, as I don’t want to have to set the fuel mix to methalox for every differently sized fuel tank on my ship and then deal with copy pasting the middle of a stack. 
 

Ok, so the final system would work like this: parts would be split up by function (ideally could be sorted other ways in a KSP 1-like advanced option) and then by overall size tiers (so from 0.625m to 15m) in those drop-down menus so that you could keep a certain size tiers visible. Have an alternative to split by fuel type if you want to work with lots of parts of different sizes. Next, if split up by size, each fuel type will have 1 tank and 1 radial tank option, which you can select a variant for 4 different lengths (like KSP 1). Now, when you need to select a part, you only have to look at 14 total parts at a time within a size tier or fuel type, much much lower than KSP 1, and it only takes one click to bring a part from the list to the editor. Additionally, you have one-click access to 13 other “relevant” parts, whereas if you wanted to make previous systems one click (by saving the part) you would have to change the part every time you wanted a similar part. Lastly, within one click you can access all the other functions which is 13 total types, which means 182 “relevant” parts ready to deploy in one click while still being easy to find (only 14 on screen simultaneously), which is a bit better than 65 relevant parts having to be fully customized , a generous five per category. 
 

Lastly, remember that how parts are selected has nothing to do with how many parts are in the game, so it really is just a matter of preference and how many clicks you are willing to go through to get your parts. 
 

Edit: I’m taking fuel tanks as being representative of other categories because, aside from utility, it has the most options for different parts especially with all the fuels, and so using fuel tanks as a proxy for other categories is a good way to get a worst-case estimate. 

Edited December 23, 2021 by t_v

[Pthigrivi]

Id still like to know who Pat is. 

[The Aziz]

Postman, who else?

[Pthigrivi]

26 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Postman, who else?

I had to google and it turns out Im not British enough for that adorable reference.