Did the developers take the wrong approach to KSP2?

[tstein]

14 hours ago, CMDRennie said:

I agree 3+ body physics would be a huge challenge to implement, but it serves as an example of the kind of changes which could have been made to increase the technicality and depth of the gameplay. Other ideas that have been mentioned like radiation, transmission delay, surface scanning and life support would also be good fits.

 

It would NOT be a challenge people. For god sake. The physics can be implemented in 1 afternoon, I did it in Python then  in Rust just to see the performance.. in the SAME afternoon.   The only issue is how to REPRESENT in the interface and not confuse the player, and that is where it intersect with the  Thread tittle.  It is a game direction choice. I  also would like  more a deeper game with zero  chenanigans of  kerbal  expressions for example, but the game decided to focus on a different direction, it happens.

[tstein]

11 hours ago, GregA said:

 I think it comes down to limited developer time.  Would you rather the developers be spending their time making a good space ship simulator, or a solar system simulator?  For a truly dynamic system like you are describing the developers would spend a bunch of time tuning it and getting it right, and those are resources that would be better spent making a good space ship simulator.  For the time being I think most folks reading and posting would rather the developers be working on their spaceship simulator, if forum thread titles are to be believed.  

I have been playing with Unreal Engine a lot recently, it would be almost trivial to make a gravity orbit tool toy thingie in UE with blueprints.    Maybe I do that tonight and post some screen caps of what I come up with.

The gravity part  is indeed not hard...the issue  is how to you represent on screen  long orbits that take years? I  started writing a 2D space simulator with n-Body physics some time ago, unfortunately  I have very little time to make it progress . If you want to try something here lies my tip from what I did  and worked well.  Pre compute quite head then only store  some of the points   you can have really  calculated  n-Body path for  each HOUR for example. And in between them you interpolate with a cubic interpolator. it  works  fast and  it is a valid engineer solution (as engineering solutions are to math theorethical ones, not   exact but good enough that no human will care )

[RocketRockington]

1 hour ago, tstein said:

The gravity part  is indeed not hard...the issue  is how to you represent on screen  long orbits that take years? I  started writing a 2D space simulator with n-Body physics some time ago, unfortunately  I have very little time to make it progress . If you want to try something here lies my tip from what I did  and worked well.  Pre compute quite head then only store  some of the points   you can have really  calculated  n-Body path for  each HOUR for example. And in between them you interpolate with a cubic interpolator. it  works  fast and  it is a valid engineer solution (as engineering solutions are to math theorethical ones, not   exact but good enough that no human will care )

Have you looked at the Principia mod?  It adds N body to KSP1.

 

I agree with the people saying n-body is too confusing for normal players, because while Principia is fantastic, figuring out where your craft will be in relation to another body is indeed very difficult, even though Principia has really good UI integration with KSP.

Edited February 26, 2023 by RocketRockington

[tstein]

5 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

Have you looked at the Principia mod?  It adds N body to KSP1.

 

I agree with the people saying n-body is too confusing for normal players, because while Principia is fantastic, figuring out where your craft will be in relation to another body is indeed very difficult, even though Principia has really good UI integration with KSP.

The whole game need to change to  accept soemthing like that. You need to make a longer run predicitons than prinipia does (but with MUCH wider steps) and   you can put some reasonable estimates even on  long runs. What you cannot is make a burn in  kerbin orbit and expect to  pass exactly at the periapsis you planned in  jool without  correcting a few time sin the middle. You need a system where the path is not updated every tick  wher eyou acelerate  but only every  couple of second or when you stop your engine. Yes  the usability  drops, that is true.  But it is the same tradeoff of playing DCS vs playing war thunder.

Edited February 26, 2023 by tstein

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

I'm not concerned by what's been there on day one. I understand Early Access, I've played KSP1 and I'm optimistic about KSP2's future. fingers crossed

 

My concern lies with the price, and how much it arguably lowered the sale numbers and how much it potentially increased the expectations and left much more room for criticism and negative reviews from people who expect their moneys worth and who look at what they get today for that amount of money.

I'd also argue  that this chosen pricing and launch strategy doesn't put the future of KSP2 in the best light, for both us and for Take2.

Sure, most people (I hope) know what to expect from an EA, but there are some other EA's out there that had much more of the planned features and polish since day one. A more recent example of that is Sons of the Forest.

So the way this launch has been handled just brings more questions:

• Why did they take this risk of being one of the most expensive EA in recent history ? It goes without saying if you sell something more expensive than the majority expect, you'd better sell something that's  better polished and more feature complete than other less expensive EAs
• Was this price tag a higher up decision?
• Was this to test the loyalty of the fan base?
• How much more expensive they expect this to be when (if) it reaches version 1.0?

Edited February 26, 2023 by GGG-GoodGuyGreg

[CMDRennie]

My suspicion is that because KSP became such a huge phenomenon, nearly the entire player base will be aware of KSP2 and ready to buy it day 1. At some point in development they decided to do an early access release, which poses a problem. If they set the price to reflect the state of the game for an EA release, a huge proportion of the total sales will be at the lower price (which may not be enough to support development to 1.0). So they decided to set the EA price at what you would expect for full release, and develop the game to justify that price.

The trouble with this approach is that allot of the players are put off by the discrepancy between price and quality, and choose to get a refund.

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

Then what would KSP 1.0 cost when that day hopefully comes? as the EA is already 50$.

Also, if it backfired in EA because of the asking price, you maybe got two options, either you slightly lower the entry price (which would angry the ones that kept it) or you give some stuff like DLC's for free and hope you covered enough of the progress to entice people to pay for base game + DLCs.

[tstein]

3 minutes ago, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

Then what would KSP 1.0 cost when that day hopefully comes? as the EA is already 50$.

Also, if it backfired in EA because of the asking price, you maybe got two options, either you slightly lower the entry price (which would angry the ones that kept it) or you give some stuff like DLC's for free and hope you covered enough of the progress to entice people to pay for base game + DLCs.

I really think now they cannot do anything about it. All they can do is FIX the bugs on the core gameplay and leave useless stuff like painting rockets for when the important stuff is ready.

[Monger]

48 minutes ago, CMDRennie said:

My suspicion is that because KSP became such a huge phenomenon, nearly the entire player base will be aware of KSP2 and ready to buy it day 1. 

Simulation games tend to have very steady sales over long time periods. Cities Skylines was in the top steam Charts for years. It is also unlikely that any similar game will come soon, so lowering the price is probably damaging.

So, why early access now? I guess they have to rake in at least some money. And if done right, in a year or so, the hassle will be gone, and new players will buy. 

[GregA]

1 hour ago, tstein said:

I really think now they cannot do anything about it. All they can do is FIX the bugs on the core gameplay and leave useless stuff like painting rockets for when the important stuff is ready.

Speak for your self, cool skins on the rockets is easily one of the most important features in the game.  I am a little disappointed there is no micro transaction store where I can buy decals to apply to my space ships.

[J.Random]

16 minutes ago, GregA said:

Speak for your self, cool skins on the rockets is easily one of the most important features in the game.  I am a little disappointed there is no micro transaction store where I can buy decals to apply to my space ships.

Buying decals is too easy. Buying lootboxes with "collectable" decals (one use only, btw) would be perfect.

[tstein]

1 minute ago, J.Random said:

Buying decals is too easy. Buying lootboxes with "collectable" decals (one use only, btw) would be perfect.

I would imagine thes eloot boxes woudl appear in space and then you had to buy space tracker   upgrades to go find them after you bought them.

[J.Random]

2 minutes ago, tstein said:

I would imagine thes eloot boxes woudl appear in space and then you had to buy space tracker   upgrades to go find them after you bought them.