Everything hinges on the first update. Fingers crossed! [discussion]

[Speeding Mullet]

Blanket statements such as "everything hinges on the first update" tend to reduce nuance from the conversation, and only really serve to polarise opinion when the discussion is more subtle which the body of your post speaks to. I certainly share hope for the future, but I believe if you want to hang a G-11 Hinge on anything being critical it is the first year as per @Periple's comment, not the first update.  Effective communication is also critical during this time. 

I would assume that if you polled the entire KSP community you would find scarce few people that genuinely don't want KSP2 to succeed.  As it picks up stability, performance, and features no doubt more of the community will migrate over along with modders and a new player base.  Maybe this means it doesn't quite hit the lofty highs of player numbers it would otherwise have done, but it was never going to be cs:go.  I doubt T2 thought this either, and therefore some of the motivation to push it out the door may come down to understanding of this, and that the incredibly passionate player base has been the best testing platform for KSP1, as it will be for KSP2.  Pricing and a some of the most glaring bugs aside, I support dropping it off for its "first day at school" and to a certain extent, letting the community bear some of the load.  I'd say this regardless of the size of the publishing studio, although I understand this is a contentious point.

I would describe my current KSP2 experience as pockets of fun with bags of potential over the original.  I would like to think that the patience, time and care required to put together complex and exciting missions in KSP is extended to the development team, and that it doesn't become a victim of now or never-ism, by the community or publisher.

SM

Edited March 1, 2023 by Speeding Mullet
spelling

[mcwaffles2003]

13 hours ago, LameLefty said:

According to SteamDB, a “RELEASETEST” branch was updated 17 minutes ago.  So fingers crossed for some fixes Soon(tm). 

A

As of 23:40 EST

[TheArturro]

4 hours ago, Speeding Mullet said:

Blanket statements such as "everything hinges on the first update" tend to reduce nuance from the conversation, and only really serve to polarise opinion when the discussion is more subtle which the body of your post speaks to. I certainly share hope for the future, but I believe if you want to hang a G-11 Hinge on anything being critical it is the first year as per @Periple's comment, not the first update.  Effective communication is also critical during this time. 

I agree about the communication. While it has been spotty, I think we can all agree that we more-or-less knew about the current state of the game thanks to the ESA event. What troubles me is why this event was so late, when they (probably) knew about the deadline for a long time. But I guess it once again was publisher's decision, not the devs' one.

 

Quote

I would assume that if you polled the entire KSP community you would find scarce few people that genuinely don't want KSP2 to succeed.  As it picks up stability, performance, and features no doubt more of the community will migrate over along with modders and a new player base.  Maybe this means it doesn't quite hit the lofty highs of player numbers it would otherwise have done, but it was never going to be cs:go.  I doubt T2 thought this either, and therefore some of the motivation to push it out the door may come down to understanding of this, and that the incredibly passionate player base has been the best testing platform for KSP1, as it will be for KSP2.  Pricing and a some of the most glaring bugs aside, I support dropping it off for its "first day at school" and to a certain extent, letting the community bear some of the load.  I'd say this regardless of the size of the publishing studio, although I understand this is a contentious point.

I guess there wouldn't be much point being a member of KSP community if you'd like to see the game fail . I really wish this game succeeds. It's been my dream game ever since I saw the first trailer. I think it might start to actually "steal" the playerbase from KSP when they introduce the science/resource mode. (Assuming most important bugs are fixed first). Also the system specs are a hard barrier for a lot of players now. I have an RTX3070 Ti and i5-12th gen but even with small rockets (1-Kerbal minmus/mun lander, <50 parts) I only get about 30 FPS which is the "comfortable" threshold for KSP in my opinion.

 

Quote

I would describe my current KSP2 experience as pockets of fun with bags of potential over the original.  I would like to think that the patience, time and care required to put together complex and exciting missions in KSP is extended to the development team, and that it doesn't become a victim of now or never-ism, by the community or publisher.

The potential is undeniably there, if it wasn't there wouldn't be much sense in creating the game in the first place. However this EA release gives a strong vie of "now or never", which is worrying for me.

 

2 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

A

As of 23:40 EST

That is extremely nice to see! 

[sjwt]

11 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

  *SNIP*

RE: Fuel lines, Ive had no p[roblems and mopstly ive only made Stupid oldschool stage to sgate to sgate over kills to test the sytem, I allways snap like I did back in the good old days, lower end of tank to drop to upper end of tank to filll, now the game shows the tanks dropping when they shouldnt, but as soon as I dop the emapty stage the tanks then show the correct full value, so not sure if we are talking about how they show that they are draning when they arnt, or are we talking about being partly drainged after staging to them?? I wonder if they are moddling based on the lines as if they where realy connected up?? Like it will only fill the tank upto where the line conects too. 

[Twipsy]

Hopefully the first patch will be available by the end of this Friday

Edited March 1, 2023 by Twipsy

[Sequence]

My expectations for the first patch will be for hard crashes and bugs that are preventing people from playing at all. I'd expect it to be another week or two after that before we get some of the gameplay bugs fixed. 

My personal opinion is that I'd rather they take some time properly testing the gameplay bug fixes rather than rushing the patches out. After how the launch was received, if the first patches break more things it will cause even more drama and frustration. 

[linuxgurugamer]

10 hours ago, EngineerinSquid said:

Dude you can go look at the bug report threads and see that all of these are very common bugs. Multiples of these and worse have happened to me, and the SAS and RCS bug is a major deal as well. Now I have up to this point just reported them and moved on, but you are being very elitist about this. All you are using here is anecdotal evidence, "Oh IIIII didnt experience this, so your complaints are invalid", a lot of these bugs are gamebreaking to the average player, as not all of us can make content enough to have a patreon link in our forum signature

And your point is?  I didn't say they didn't exist, just that they didn't happen to me.  and if they don't happen to me, that only says that they don't happen to everyone.

In case you can't read, this is an Early Access game.  That not only implies, but specifically states that there are going to be bugs.

Gamebreaking is dependent on the player, some players can work around bugs, others can't.  Obviously you are in the group which cannot (or is unwilling to) work around bugs.  Others, like myself, can.

I strongly suggest that you stop complaining about the issues, and either wait for a few updates, or at least provide constructive criticism.  I've seen lots of EA games go through these teething problems, this is one of the very few I've really participated in.

Not sure why you decided to point at my patreon link.  If you don't like my content, you are free to not use it.  You don't have to watch me, you don't have to use any of my mods, etc.  Doesn't bother me, I don't have an ego involved here, unlike some others I've seen on the forums

[Stephensan]

development4

 

1 hour ago

https://steamdb.info/app/954850/depots/

 

not even kidding

 development

10665287

37 seconds ago

[Moons]

3 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

And your point is?  I didn't say they didn't exist, just that they didn't happen to me.  and if they don't happen to me, that only says that they don't happen to everyone.

In case you can't read, this is an Early Access game.  That not only implies, but specifically states that there are going to be bugs.

Gamebreaking is dependent on the player, some players can work around bugs, others can't.  Obviously you are in the group which cannot (or is unwilling to) work around bugs.  Others, like myself, can.

I strongly suggest that you stop complaining about the issues, and either wait for a few updates, or at least provide constructive criticism.  I've seen lots of EA games go through these teething problems, this is one of the very few I've really participated in.

Not sure why you decided to point at my patreon link.  If you don't like my content, you are free to not use it.  You don't have to watch me, you don't have to use any of my mods, etc.  Doesn't bother me, I don't have an ego involved here, unlike some others I've seen on the forums

 

Early access still isnt an excuse for everything and depending on the price there will be different expectations. If you sell an EA game for the price of a full price AAA game people obviously expect way more quantity and quality then when you do a normal EA release at 15-35 USD.

[Stephensan]

2 minutes ago, Stephensan said:

development4

 

1 hour ago

https://steamdb.info/app/954850/depots/

 

not even kidding

 development

10665287

37 seconds ago

it seems they are making tons of them right now ( yes i quoted myself)

[LameLefty]

5 minutes ago, Stephensan said:

development4

 

1 hour ago

https://steamdb.info/app/954850/depots/

 

not even kidding

 development

10665287

37 seconds ago

They’ve been pushing numbered “development” branches regularly, usually several a day,  since depot was created.

You need to watch for “staging” and “public.”

EDIT:  They’ve already pushed “development” and “development3” both within the last five minutes. Chill your jets, folks, and wait for “staging.”

Edited March 1, 2023 by LameLefty

[Ferio]

44 minutes ago, LameLefty said:

They’ve been pushing numbered “development” branches regularly, usually several a day,  since depot was created.

You need to watch for “staging” and “public.”

EDIT:  They’ve already pushed “development” and “development3” both within the last five minutes. Chill your jets, folks, and wait for “staging.”

Sitting on 6 now and releasetest ... lets see what it will fix.. hopefully update soon and hopefully what we expect.

Edited March 1, 2023 by Ferio

[Periple]

People, please stop obsessing over the branch pushes on Steam. They'll roll out the update when they think it's good and ready, and you risk staying up late clicking the refresh button for no good reason.

[Stephensan]

3 minutes ago, Periple said:

People, please stop obsessing over the branch pushes on Steam. They'll roll out the update when they think it's good and ready, and you risk staying up late clicking the refresh button for no good reason.

is there really, hear me out, is there anything else really to see/look forward to for ksp 2 right now?

 

wait for the update that comes whenever? or look and check every so often the most recent the updates are coming out...

 

because there is nothing else you really can do.

[Periple]

1 minute ago, Stephensan said:

is there really, hear me out, is there anything else really to see/look forward to for ksp 2 right now?

wait for the update that comes whenever? or look and check every so often the most recent the updates are coming out...

because there is nothing else you really can do.

I can only speak for myself but when I finish today I'm really looking forward to getting back to my jumbo cargo plane design!

[Nuke]

it does set a precedent. how much they get done and what state the game is in post-patch will send a very good message about how things will be going forward. 

[Grimmas]

1 hour ago, Stephensan said:

because there is nothing else you really can do.

Do what I did, start another run in KSP 1 while you wait for the patch to drop. 

Or work on your game backlog. The premium version of Dwarf Fortress also got released recently (hint, hint). 

[LameLefty]

2 hours ago, Stephensan said:

there anything else really to see/look forward to

Sure - practice your manual flying and remember the early days of KSP. 

I’ve already flown manual precisions landings to two Munarches, the anomaly on Minmus and even managed a manual parachute landing at the anomaly on Duna within 330m of my target, all by instinct and eyeball. 

I plan to send a big probe to Jool and several moons this afternoon after work.

There’s plenty of fun and challenge to be had even despite the bugs and deficiencies. 

[Wheehaw Kerman]

It’s way too easy to get fussed by the hysteria on the Discord.  Intercept isn’t a large team, TT’s sunk costs will have been relatively minor compared to a big flagship project, and it’s clear they intend this to be a long term revenue generator with spin-offs and perhaps other media (look at the EA cinematic and tell me that nobody at TT is thinking movie or animated series) that’s going to have a longer life as a revenue generator than your average shooter.

Everyone should just relax.  A bunch of children pitching tantrums on the discord is not going to have any significant impact on TT’s plans.

[modus]

3 hours ago, Stephensan said:

wait for the update that comes whenever? or look and check every so often the most recent the updates are coming out...

Well, not this week

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/213881-to-the-ksp-2-dev-team/&do=findComment&comment=4248874

[Dakota]

I would highly suggest not theorizing about when updates are coming based upon the Steam branches. The team is working on multiple builds at once and each branch (dev1-6+) contains new changes siloed so the team can work on multiple different features at once.

See our latest comms about the first patch here, which includes the major issues we're looking at:

 

[TheOtherDave]

20 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

A lot of the people with negative feelings will go 'Oh look, they fixed a bunch of the game breaking bugs - why didn't they do that last(week/month/quarter).

Last week/month/quarter they were working on other things.

[magnemoe]

15 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

A

As of 23:40 EST

Why is it development branches on Steam? 
My guess they are using external testers. 

[Jacke]

22 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

A lot of the people with negative feelings will go 'Oh look, they fixed a bunch of the game breaking bugs - why didn't they do that last(week/month/quarter).  And where are all those features they promised?  Where's KSP1 parity?'.

1 hour ago, TheOtherDave said:

Last week/month/quarter they were working on other things.

I'm with @RocketRockington.  It's like this.  All the bugs that have been encountered, though many are very variable, with even a small amount of proper play testing, they would have been detected.  And should have been logged and set a priority to be investigate to track down the root causes and a fix found or suggested, tested, and deployed.  Similarly, deficiencies with the UI and things part of and/or solved in KSP1 should have been noted for consideration for addition to KSP2.

What were IG working on last week/month/quarter that was more important than in addition to all the other things, testing their single product to see how it was working?  How well did it play?  What should be changed, investigated, fixed, etc?  They either knew about some of these bugs, issues, and lacking features, and didn't act on them enough that they were at least partly addressed for the launch version, perhaps for reasons they had more serious issues.  Or they didn't know about them because of lack of testing, lack of knowledge about KSP1, etc.  Or something in between or some combination of this.  And I do hope they weren't just doing this on the highest end machines; it's long been a staple of proper programming to not use the highest end machines so that issues with the market's equipment will be found during development.

Really, wherever it is, it's rather damning.

But that's the past.  Things are wrong now.  How quickly and how properly they are addressed is now the ongoing test.

[HebaruSan]

On 2/28/2023 at 5:17 PM, Sunscreen said:

if a patch does land that deals with such issues in such a short time frame, how could it be that these issues were not addressed in an equally expeditious manner pre release?

One possibility is that the state of the game was worse 1 month ago, worse than that 2 months ago, even worse still 3 months ago, etc., and they spent that time fixing even more serious problems that we never saw. We'll never know what problems the devs fixed before release, because they were fixed before release.