KSP2 EA: Road map explained by Nate!

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

10 hours ago, Gex said:

it seems to me that the lack of a career will affect the game for the worse, my friends and I do not like games where there are no goals, where construction is for the sake of construction, without any purpose, and I think there are many like us. and the lack of science at the start essentially turns the game into a sandbox, which is not very good. I hope that the developers will make changes and make the gameplay meaningful, and not just aimlessly launching smaller rockets for the sake of later launching larger rockets, it will be a failure. those who play EA often pass the game completely by the time of release, so when they announce the release of the game and solemnly clap their hands, there is no one to play it, so the start of EA should already be like a full-fledged game

I wrote elsewhere about this: our expectations are that the first step on the roadmap (Sandbox only) should be fairly short.  The second step (Science - science gathering and tech tree progression) should be a bit longer. 

With Sandbox-only the main thing they are looking at is bugs in the parts, ship-building and physics systems and how various PC builds affect the game.  Basically crash and performance testing across the variety of machines people hope to play the game on.  They'll get posts on everything from complaining about not being able to play on a Surface tablet to "my Ryzen 9 7950x, 4090 with 32gb DDR5-6000 RAM PC bogs down with memory leaks!!!"  They get to see 1080p/1440/4k @ 64hz - 240hz complaints.  They get to field all the complaints about the UI choices and basic assumptions about what players want and start finding the glaring bugs like 'my Kerbal got stuck under the plane and can't move' stuff.  I like to think they've already discovered and fixed all the big conflicts - so by releasing into the wild they will find and fix the chunky bugs.

I don't think this should take that long - likely a short matter of months to tackle all the easy to find stuff. 

Moving on to Science lets them work on the balance assumptions and basic economic issues.  Players will be motivated to go to specific places on various bodies and test all the 'fun stuff' Kerbals do beyond planting flags and getting EVA reports.  We will be putting Kerbals and ships and science stuff into a lot of weird configurations the problems we find during this part should be a lot more granular.   Science should also add new parts (progression elements like rockets and modules) not just science parts. 

Again - I don't think this step will take a heck of a long time.  Mostly because at this point we get (effectively) a feature-complete upgrade of KSP, skinned as KSP2 with the underlying improvements in the physics system and other upgrades baked into the build. 

After that the steps all add the new stuff.  Who knows how long it will take.  I've been critical about MP - but Nate seems positive that it will be implemented. And while I was convinced it would always be a TBD 'feature', since the PCG show I'm starting to think it may actually happen... And within a reasonable time frame. 

Edited November 20, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[ZAJC3W]

21 hours ago, t_v said:

Right, I can pretty much tell that you have not taken a look at the game and you won't change your opinion based on evidence, and I don't have to try to understand you any more than you've tried to understand the situation. But on the off chance that you really want to like this game and you are willing to look at the game to decide whether you like it or not, this forum has lots of photo and video evidence of work that the team has done beyond UI. 

You can check the Show and Tell and Dev Diaries subforms (within the KSP 2 section that this subform is in) to see some examples of this. The UI has indeed ben overhauled in all scenes, from the VAB/SPH to flight to map mode, but there is a lot more.

The physics and collisions systems have also been overhauled, making collisions consistent even at very high speeds.

The terrain, atmospheric, and other visual systems have also been revamped, bringing KSP 2's base visuals up to par with visual mods, and implementing technical features that enable modders to make the next generation of visual mods even more spectacular.

A plethora of new parts, many procedural, have been added which will make building and flying craft much nicer, even without the UI improvements.

If you are tired of the bugs and annoyances that KSP 1 is filled with, KSP 2 has already shown that it fixes many of those - something that I would pay for on that fulfilled promise alone. The remaining ones, such as kraken attacks and lag, are either not provable until we get our hands on the game (I haven't seen any unintended behavior yet, so I'll have to test it for myself) or not able to be determined at this stage in development. 

All of that is at release. If that is not enough for you that is fine. But, if you are making your decision based on the assumption that the remaining features will take decades or more to implement, then I would advise you to look at some of the evidence.

First, we have been shown assets for interstellar scale parts, along with related engine effects and interaction with other parts. We have also seen assets for other star systems, which pretty much means they are done since the planets don't have complex machinery going on in them. And we have seen assets for colony parts, including animation for a crane part that could be scrapped by now.

Beyond that visual evidence, members of the team talking about progress on the game have mentioned that multiplayer has been working in various states for a while now, and have talked about testing various systems that are not there on release. You might wonder, "if the assets and coding for these systems are done, why not release them right away?" Well, once again there is evidence to help inform our decisions.

The conclusion I've reached is that these systems are not done, mostly because of a few lines in the latest feature video. The team needs more time to focus on polishing individual sections rather than releasing all of it in an unbalanced mess. We have seen they have the assets, we can be reasonably certain the technical foundations for multiplayer are there, the only thing left is optimizing and balancing the half-finished systems. Coding takes a long time, but certainly not decades long from this point in development.

I do hope you're right and it won't take ages to get ouf of sandbox. My hype deflated greatly by the end of 2021 and died completely now.

Looking back at KSP roadmap(I bought it in 0.14 or 0.15) I really can't muster any optimism, one can hope new blood in dev team would help, but I'd rather expect total flop and be positively surprised.

Edited November 20, 2022 by ZAJC3W

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, ZAJC3W said:

I'd rather expect total flop

Game won't be that  -- there are enough of us 'baked in' to the project that it will sell.  Kerbal is simply that unique.  Whether it goes GRFPS7* levels of 'viral' is unlikely, but I suspect another reprise of the first game; where word of mouth, pure silliness and fan recommendations lend to solid sales over time.

KSP2 won't bust.

 

 

*GenericReskinnedFirstPersonShooter7

Edited November 21, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[MarcAbaddon]

I think in general the roadmap looks good. I am a bit dubious about two aspects:

Multiplayer seems to be added quite late given that every other system needs to be designed to work in concert with it. At least some limited version would be good to have early. OTH the issue with Early Access is often that people lose interest in testing a bit leaving features added late notoriously undertested. Multiplayer has at least a decent chance to pull people in again.

I am also doubtful about the removal of the currency system. Using resources instead of money again makes a lot of sense for the late game when you have colonies. But it means you switch from operating without any restraints at the start to having restraints in the endgame. That's the opposite of what most games do. Both currency and resources also nudge the player into building efficient vessels instead of just overengineering everything. It'd be good to have a nudge like that early in the game as well, and not only when you move your launches extraplanetary.

I am also interested to see how Kerbin and colonies will interact later on - realistically speaking Kerbin should have most resources you need. There's not that much stuff in outer space you can't find here, with some notable and relevant exceptions. There should even be resources that can be only found on a living world, making Kerbin one of the few available sources for them. But this would mean that with automated supply runs and no currency system you can simply supply the colonies with most resources, instead of mining them locally. So this seems like a weird balance act, and I am looking forward to see how they do this. Still having currency restraints for vessels launching from Kerbin would instead encourage locally sourcing everything you can. But I guess there could be other restraints we are not aware of right now.

This being said, of course the contract system in KSP 1 wasn't that hot and getting currency often was more of a chore. But this seems like an issue that could be tackled instead of removing it completely.

[Pthigrivi]

55 minutes ago, MarcAbaddon said:

I am also doubtful about the removal of the currency system. Using resources instead of money again makes a lot of sense for the late game when you have colonies. But it means you switch from operating without any restraints at the start to having restraints in the endgame. That's the opposite of what most games do. Both currency and resources also nudge the player into building efficient vessels instead of just overengineering everything. It'd be good to have a nudge like that early in the game as well, and not only when you move your launches extraplanetary.

I am also interested to see how Kerbin and colonies will interact later on - realistically speaking Kerbin should have most resources you need. There's not that much stuff in outer space you can't find here, with some notable and relevant exceptions. There should even be resources that can be only found on a living world, making Kerbin one of the few available sources for them. But this would mean that with automated supply runs and no currency system you can simply supply the colonies with most resources, instead of mining them locally. So this seems like a weird balance act, and I am looking forward to see how they do this. Still having currency restraints for vessels launching from Kerbin would instead encourage locally sourcing everything you can. But I guess there could be other restraints we are not aware of right now.

I would think most high level resources would not be available from Kerbin at the outset and would need to be unlocked over time. Others will have to forgive my repetition but I think a clever solution would be a fuel farm/ resource depot building at KSC that recharges over time and can be upgraded using science.  That way KSC acts kind of like a starter colony and the game logic remains the same throughout. 

[TheTennesseeFireman]

If I had to guess, money was in the career mode in the beginning but got removed when it was discovered how little sense it made with the colony system. If we’re constructing vessels and facilities in deep space, it doesn’t make sense to use money… there’s nobody out there to buy stuff from! It would be a Kerbin-only resource, and if you’re really only using it for resource exchange on Kerbin itself, you may as well cut out the middleman.

[GigFiz]

As far as resources limitations in the early game on Kerbin go, that could easily be explained as, since it is a brand new, untested, space program, it has a more limited budget to work with, and as successes and accomplishments accumulate, the resources/money/manpower at their disposal is being increased accordingly.

Also, even if launches are free from Kerbin, that still doesn't necessarily make it the best option beyond the really early game. Yes, you could use it to cheese things a bit, but the huge increase in fuel expenditure versus getting something from, say, Minimus, will make it take way more time and launches, and honestly, if you are that determined to abuse the system, just use cheats and be done with it. Not to mention time: yes, you can ship everything you need on Duna from Kerbin, if you really want to, but do you really want to wait several years for a launch window and travel time every time you need something?

'Currency' wise, switching to the system they are describing largely makes sense to me.  As people have said, money was done in a...not very compelling way in KSP anyway. You could generally ignore it completely (though, yes, there were sliders to make it more relevant), and the half baked mission system made it so that you either got more than enough without ever thinking about it, or had to farm random missions that, the majority of the time, weren't fun. Resources were also half-baked, being useful-ish, but kinda boring and usually not worth the time setting up, outside of RP reasons, or just for fun. Using money makes no sense at the scope KSP2 is at anyway;  like the post above me said, having to pay money from the same pool for building stuff on Kerbin, a random moonbase with minimal infrastructure, and a whole other planet around a distant star just screams 'arbitrary video game thing'. Meanwhile, wherever you are, building a ship requires building materials and fuel, and all that good stuff; even in a simplified form, it feels much more natural.

Otherwise, I personally would like a mission system of some kind (A good one. If it would just be another boring, half-baked thing, may as well skip it). As others have said, I like have specific goals, at least some of the time. Even without money in the game, there are other rewards that could be used, even just science. I could see this very much being a YMMV love it or hate it thing, but having missions/mission chains that unlock parts or building upgrades (as long as it was relatively logical and not arbitrary or annoying) could be interesting

And as far as multiplayer goes, I think it makes sense to wait until later, like they are doing; it adds another huge moving piece, and would be much easier to balance/test and debug if they are already pretty confident with the stability and quality of the base experience. There is a reason a lot of games wait until pretty late in the development cycle to implement multiplayer.

[SciMan]

I thought of a completely different factor that can limit just how many colonies you can support from just Kerbin's launchpads.

You only have so many launchpads. And no matter how quickly you can launch things in KSP 1, it's a relatively trivial thing to add in the fact that the launchpads can only launch so many rockets per day, potentially with a size derating in there too, so the bigger the rocket you launch, the longer you have to wait until you can launch another one.

That's part of why KSC in KSP 2 has 4 launchpads I bet.
Early game it means you can do 4 launches before you ever have to have a single brain cell dedicated to "can I launch yet?" or not.

Late game, it means you might be limited to 4 launches per day, if you choose to launch the maximum size rocket from all the pads.

Or they could also tie that limit into the DSN, something like "The DSN can only provide active communication to so many vessels at once, gotta wait for one of your existing missions to end before you can launch another one"

If you combine both of those, then guess what? Suddenly the size and number of colonies you can support from just KSC is severely reduced, ideally down to maybe just one or two.

Before that bottleneck becomes a bottleneck, you should have unlocked the technology and facilities to allow you to start mining things from off-Kerbin colonies at the Mun or Minmus, thereby dodging the "bottleneck" entirely because you can transition to launching things from colonies where you can simply build more launchpads or more DSN antennas if you need to launch things more often.

That's what really limits KSC. You can't expand it beyond a certain maximum size, because you'll run into the sea or nearby settlements who probably won't take kindly to having rocket stages land on them (don't care how much of a space nut/nerd you are, if a spent stage destroys your house you're gonna be at least a little bit upset).

[Vl3d]

1 hour ago, GigFiz said:

As far as resources limitations in the early game on Kerbin go, that could easily be explained as, since it is a brand new, untested, space program, it has a more limited budget to work with, and as successes and accomplishments accumulate, the resources/money/manpower at their disposal is being increased accordingly.

Also, even if launches are free from Kerbin, that still doesn't necessarily make it the best option beyond the really early game. Yes, you could use it to cheese things a bit, but the huge increase in fuel expenditure versus getting something from, say, Minimus, will make it take way more time and launches, and honestly, if you are that determined to abuse the system, just use cheats and be done with it. Not to mention time: yes, you can ship everything you need on Duna from Kerbin, if you really want to, but do you really want to wait several years for a launch window and travel time every time you need something?

'Currency' wise, switching to the system they are describing largely makes sense to me.  As people have said, money was done in a...not very compelling way in KSP anyway. You could generally ignore it completely (though, yes, there were sliders to make it more relevant), and the half baked mission system made it so that you either got more than enough without ever thinking about it, or had to farm random missions that, the majority of the time, weren't fun. Resources were also half-baked, being useful-ish, but kinda boring and usually not worth the time setting up, outside of RP reasons, or just for fun. Using money makes no sense at the scope KSP2 is at anyway;  like the post above me said, having to pay money from the same pool for building stuff on Kerbin, a random moonbase with minimal infrastructure, and a whole other planet around a distant star just screams 'arbitrary video game thing'. Meanwhile, wherever you are, building a ship requires building materials and fuel, and all that good stuff; even in a simplified form, it feels much more natural.

Otherwise, I personally would like a mission system of some kind (A good one. If it would just be another boring, half-baked thing, may as well skip it). As others have said, I like have specific goals, at least some of the time. Even without money in the game, there are other rewards that could be used, even just science. I could see this very much being a YMMV love it or hate it thing, but having missions/mission chains that unlock parts or building upgrades (as long as it was relatively logical and not arbitrary or annoying) could be interesting

And as far as multiplayer goes, I think it makes sense to wait until later, like they are doing; it adds another huge moving piece, and would be much easier to balance/test and debug if they are already pretty confident with the stability and quality of the base experience. There is a reason a lot of games wait until pretty late in the development cycle to implement multiplayer.

Great analysis, I completely agree.