Planets and moons (still) feel barren and empty

[Vl3d]

In general I have been supportive of the game after launch, I have not criticized things that will surely be fixed by the devs.. it's all part of the EA process.
This feedback looks past the technical issues and the lego building aspects of the game. Assuming the first EA release had no bugs and performed well.. what is there to explore in the game? Well, not a lot.

The celestial bodies look good when seen from far away / high orbit, which really makes them unique and interesting. But when you get closer the terrain is not great. It will probably be improved with higher resolution textures and more polygons when the performance budget will be available.

Anyway, I have done complete visual orbital surveys of all the planets and moons searching for anomalies or special terrain features that stand out. I have found very few.
It seems that, at least for now, there is not much creative content in the game. I don't see reasons to hop a lander or drive a rover or fly a plane around looking for interesting stuff. It's just not there.
You basically have 1.. or maybe 2 interesting and unique things to see on each planet or moon. Other than that, yes there are some biomes like craters, hills, valleys, mountains. But there is nothing special there, no interesting scatter, no fascinating natural objects.

The planets and moons feel as barren and empty as KSP1... for now. And this is a surprise because the devs always said in the feature videos (paraphrasing): "the planets are great, everyone's gonna love the planets".. "exploration is a much bigger motivation now" .. "some of the things the creative team is cooking up.. it will blow you away" etc.

It just feels like a great waste of space, with no real reason to go exploring over the next hill. There should be more "wow" moments than just arriving at a nice looking planet with beautiful music and landing once. Hopefully more content will be added (the Duna and Tylo anomalies are very high quality and the Vall place is very interesting).

Also: please limit the camera zoom-out when in low orbit. We can basically zoom out and move the camera close to the ground anywhere. It kind of spoils the fun of landing and roving. The zoom is limited when landed, I think this should also apply in low orbit.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Vl3d

[Tazooka]

Yeah, I was hoping for more scatter like in the show and tell video

There is more than the original stock KSP 1... but it still feels barren 

[Vl3d]

Pol is the best for now. Very interesting and diverse terrain.

[Moons]

To be honest i never understood that - they seem to combine the worst elements for the most performance impact at the least good looks.

My personal opinion:

Kerbals are rather comic-like so it would make sense to have stylized low poly models with stylized textures - for trees, for buildings etc. - that would enable them to give planets etc. way more general details - instead - for example looking at the trainign centre - it looks as if they put maximum polygons and textures in the smallest things and to compensate for the performance this costs 99% of everything is emtpy.

 

It feels as if they are concentrating on the wrong things - it was the same in the first game - for example something important in KSP2 would be good looking clouds, and minimalistic but more  buildings. It looks like many buildings instead of using textures are actually using higher poly models - which to me for example makes no sense in a game like this.

 

Looking at the video above to me the art style also doesnt look consistent.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Moons

[RayneCloud]

1 minute ago, Vl3d said:

Pol is the best for now. Very interesting and diverse terrain.

I've seen some amazing cliff's and mountains on Duna that made my jaw drop., but umm, Pol is quite the experience. Dres's rings are awesome as well.

[Vl3d]

1 minute ago, RayneCloud said:

I've seen some amazing cliff's and mountains on Duna that made my jaw drop., but umm, Pol is quite the experience. Dres's rings are awesome as well.

I agree, Duna is in a better state also. And Dres is now one of the most interesting planets from afar. But there are still not enough unique objects to discover when surveying the terrain.

[RayneCloud]

Just now, Vl3d said:

I agree, Duna is in a better state also. And Dres is now one of the most interesting planets from afar. But there are still not enough unique objects to discover when surveying the terrain.

I do agree, I think the surface scatter does need more things to find and explore, but I personally think all the worlds are worth exploring as they are now.

[Sequence]

I'm hoping that:

1) they lowered the scatter count due to the terrain rendering performance issues and it will be improved once performance is resolved

2) the science and exploration updates will include more things to find and do on the planets and moons

[Periple]

I don’t think it’s enough just to put anomalies and other things to discover on the planets. There should be a reason to look for them.

I’m very curious to find out what they intend to do with science, then resources, then exploration. They should give good reasons to go places rather than just sightseeing!

[Moons]

12 minutes ago, Periple said:

I don’t think it’s enough just to put anomalies and other things to discover on the planets. There should be a reason to look for them.

I’m very curious to find out what they intend to do with science, then resources, then exploration. They should give good reasons to go places rather than just sightseeing!

I think a lot of cool things could be added for example tools to plan your next landings etc. - for example putting satelites and/or space probes to planets to scan it and beeing able to plan landing areas etc - also for finding points of Interrest. But yes they need more things on them than just a few anomalies etc.

 

I think expanding the exploration aspect of the game would probably be a good idea.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Moons

[Sequence]

In KSP1 ore was pretty common and spread out over the planets. I get the impression we'll be getting multiple resources to mine in KSP2.

If they make them more localised it will give us reasons to visit specific places on planets. If their distribution is randomly generated, they could tie it in to the scatter system, so different terrain scatter objects signify the presence of different resources to gather. That might give us reasons to explore different terrain features.

That said, I'm expecting a scansat type approach to resource finding like we had in KSP1.

[regex]

vOv I'm still finding new stuff on Kerbin to wow at. Different priorities I guess.

[Vl3d]

3 minutes ago, regex said:

I'm still finding new stuff on Kerbin to wow at.

Like what?

[regex]

1 minute ago, Vl3d said:

Like what?

Like all the terrain features. Flew out to see how they handled the rivers last night (much better than KSP1), I'll probably go explore the big crater again tonight, maybe see if the badlands on the southern continent look like whatever's northwest of KSC. I can't wait for rover wheels to hopefully have that bug fixed where they randomly shoot you up into the air, I'm gonna drive all this stuff.