3/24 Discord AMA Answers

[RocketRockington]

Just now, Superfluous J said:

I don't know a number but it's a LOT, especially early game (pre-Minmus landing). You're not going to unlock mk3 plane parts but it can easily be the difference between whether or not you use the next tier of engines, fuel tanks, and science parts.

That could have been alleviated in KSP 1 just by changing Kerbin landed science multiplier to 0, or removing the biomes from KSC.  Relatively small tuning changes in other words.  He was asked about significant changes to science and that's the first thing he thought to answer with...

[Alexoff]

4 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

When you show too much too early, people end up saying stuff like this:

Probably because it is very early, there are still decades of work ahead. It was necessary to promise less in 2019 or do more and say less in numerous videos. The cyberpunk developers at least apologized, but Nate seems to be going according to plan, the tutorials are almost ready, the most important part of the game!

[Superfluous J]

2 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

That could have been alleviated in KSP 1 just by changing Kerbin landed science multiplier to 0, or removing the biomes from KSC.  Relatively small tuning changes in other words.  He was asked about significant changes to science and that's the first thing he thought to answer with...

Ah so "significant" not in amount, but in presence.

Yeah I'm not too happy about what they've said so far about Science plans in KSP2. Like many of us, I have my own list of things I don't like about KSP1 science and another list of things I think will make it better, and hearing "Yeah it'll be about the same" is a shade disheartening.

Though I'll be okay with it so long as the first time you arrive at a new place full of splendor and awe, you don't have to spend the first few minutes (or the entire flyby if it's a flyby) right clicking parts and clicking "science this part too".

[regex]

34 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Though I'll be okay with it so long as the first time you arrive at a new place full of splendor and awe, you don't have to spend the first few minutes (or the entire flyby if it's a flyby) right clicking parts and clicking "science this part too".

Good lord I'd drive up to Seattle on a work day with some strong words if they dropped that KSP1 crap on us...

Edited March 24, 2023 by regex

[Fullmetal Analyst]

43 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

I don't know a number but it's a LOT, especially early game (pre-Minmus landing). You're not going to unlock mk3 plane parts but it can easily be the difference between whether or not you use the next tier of engines, fuel tanks, and science parts.

idk, personally i have never done a lot of science on kerbin, just the basic stuff u can get in orbit + launchpad was usually enough to unlock parts the bring u to mun and minmus with ease

i mostly did kerbin science when i was missing just a few points for the next upgrade

[Fullmetal Analyst]

15 minutes ago, regex said:

Good lord I'd drive up to Seattle on a work day with some strong words if they dropped that KSP1 crap on us...

looking at how they are 1:1 ripping most stuff from ksp1, they much likely will

[Geredis]

4 hours ago, Dakota said:

If you have any feedback on the AMA format, please let me know! This is our first time running something like this so we're looking to iterate and make the next one even better

Biggest issue I have so far with it is that it felt like it was 90% Discord, and any time you had questions coming from other sources you simply stated the username but very rarely acknowledged the fact that a question came from elsewhere (whether the official forums here, or Steam forums, or Twitter, or wherever else you were collecting questions). Too many times to count, I'd hear mention of a username, but never the source when it wasn't "another question from Discord". To say nothing of the lack of variety in terms of question askers. I don't mean to nitpick with this, but hearing the same several username(s) 4 or 5 times, to the point where people in the live chat section on Discord were meming on that...suggests that you guys  need to curate questions better.

Further, I would suggest that you properly format the transcript so we know who is asking the question, who is answering, where the question came from, etc in the transcript. Lastly, all transcripts should be as close to as-spoken as possible, in their completeness. More than a few of the answers feel like they were heavily edited and a lot of nuance or intention feels like its missing in the answer. That nuance or intention (occasionally) comes through in Nate's answers to the question when you listen to the audio, but feels entirely lost in the highly abridged answers we see here in writing.

You guys should do a better job of keeping questions relevant. Towards the end especially, it feels like the questions are meandering into irrelevant personal matters

Edited March 25, 2023 by Geredis

[RocketRockington]

8 minutes ago, Geredis said:

You guys should do a better job of keeping questions relevant. Towards the end especially, it feels like the questions are meandering into irrelevant personal matters

Some softball questions were to be expected though

[Geredis]

15 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

Some softball questions were to be expected though

But there's a significant between softballs that are relevant, and some of those they asked.

"How did it feel to finally ship?" "Did you ever feel like giving up on the project?" are relevant softballs given we know the answers even before they answer them, but at least they are tied to the game and/or its actual development.

The whole mess surrounding "How do you take your milk with cereal?" or "Jeb TV show when?"  or "What else other than KSP do you play?" is more indicative of the kind of nonsense I meant. It gives no insights or information about the game itself in a meaningful way.

I mean, sure, I get it - an AMA means you can ask anything, but given the context, none of those questions I'm taking issue with felt relevant to KSP2, its development, or its roadmap.

[VlonaldKerman]

7 hours ago, Dakota said:

Also like people landing in weird spots, landing in the tracking station dish, into the parking garage (we're going to fix that btw)

WE ARE SAVED! KERBALS NOW HAVE RESERVED PARKING!!!!!!

Devs are absolute legends I can’t wait to play next update. BIG KSP 2 W!!!!!

Edited March 25, 2023 by VlonaldKerman

[RocketRockington]

6 minutes ago, Geredis said:

ans you can ask anything, but given the context, none of those questions I'm taking issue with felt relevant to KSP2, its development, or its roadmap.

Well he did mention that the team is not good at knowing what really matters to the community

[Majorjim!]

7 hours ago, Dakota said:

Anytime I hear about someone who wasn't get into KSP1 who was able to get into KSP2

LOL, WOT? 

[Scarecrow71]

13 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Probably because it is very early, there are still decades of work ahead. It was necessary to promise less in 2019 or do more and say less in numerous videos. The cyberpunk developers at least apologized, but Nate seems to be going according to plan, the tutorials are almost ready, the most important part of the game!

Decades of work ahead?  So, then, you have access to the code and know where they are definitively?

Edited March 25, 2023 by Scarecrow71

[asmi]

3 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Decades of working ro ahead?  So, then, you have access to the code and know where they are definitively?

This is the world we live in - who cares about facts when there are emotions? 

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

4 hours ago, VlonaldKerman said:

WE ARE SAVED! KERBALS NOW HAVE RESERVED PARKING!!!!!!

Devs are absolute legends I can’t wait to play next update. BIG KSP 2 W!!!!!

This was known (and confirmed through a fair and democratic vote) to be the most important issue with this game. As such, I would lime to take this opportunity to congratulate you on, not only taking on this immense responsibility, but seeing it through to the end; and ultimately, prevailing.

Kudos, sir. May your ships fly high.

[LoSBoL]

14 hours ago, Dakota said:

[9:25 AM]
What non-KSP game/piece of media has inspired you and the team the most?

There's a video called "The Wanderers" by Eric Wernquist. It's a beautiful, very short video, that definitely feels like our "north star" for what we want KSP2 to feel like. It has these beautiful rendered scenes of humankind exploring the solar system. We watch it fairly frequently and show it to new hires.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH3c1QZzRK4

---
YouTube
Erik Wernquist - Digital Artist
Wanderers - a short film by Erik Wernquist [Official Version]

 

I knew it!!  In Januari when the Time Lapse of the KSC was posted it immediately  gave me the 'Wanderers' vibe just because of the background music alone, While I haven't been to many places in KSP2 yet, just the Mun, Minmus and Duna, the music bringing the Wanders vibe is spot on!!  You've hit the nail Nate, awesome!

 

ps, you can visit some of the places shown in the Wanderers video in real life, I'm no base jumper and actually scared of heights, but have stood on the edge of the 600 meter high plateau  twice in the last 15 years.

Edited March 25, 2023 by LoSBoL

[Wheehaw Kerman]

16 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Is this some kind of joke? Released the game in such a technical condition after a bunch of delays and everything is fine with you? Are you worried about the game?

Have you considered asking to speak to Nate’s manager?

[stephensmat]

18 hours ago, Dakota said:

[9:25 AM]
What non-KSP game/piece of media has inspired you and the team the most?

There's a video called "The Wanderers" by Eric Wernquist. It's a beautiful, very short video, that definitely feels like our "north star" for what we want KSP2 to feel like. It has these beautiful rendered scenes of humankind exploring the solar system. We watch it fairly frequently and show it to new hires.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH3c1QZzRK4

---
YouTube
Erik Wernquist - Digital Artist
Wanderers - a short film by Erik Wernquist [Official Version]

I feel seen, and reassured. I watch this video at least once a week. I know it by heart. KSP is definitely a game made for people like me. Or at least, who dream of what I do.

[BeastHunter]

19 hours ago, Dakota said:

Howard, our composter, has been showered with praise upon the EA release - and it's SO deserved.

Yep. It’s nice to see actual orchestra soundtracks, and is probably the main reason I play this game.

[PDCWolf]

Trade Routes: Apart from in-situ construction, one of the other answers removes all uses for this feature and colonies. Since there's no life support, there's no need for colonies other than a small local launchpad. I'm guessing (from yet another answer) that you'll need to ship X material to Y colony to be able to fabricate Z part. Absolutely, mind-numbingly boring. It's an unappealing logistics layer that completely misses all points of real space colonization, and almost all challenges of it as well (heavily dependent on how shipping logistics end up being handled). Do I need to just plop some parts down and establish a magic route, or will I be challenged to design my own logistics ships on further implementations?

Multiplayer: Schrodinger's feature. One answer says it is not synchronized, another says it can be both, and a lot of speculation which is not really far from what I've been reading on these forums for years. Also, they can't talk about it. Yeah, you can't talk about things that don't exist.

Wobbly Rockets: Hot garbage take. Wobble is not realistic, not fun, and is only a feature of Unity's incredibly crap default joint system made for prototypes and indies.

Playing the game as dev / QA: Nobody would believe that. The results of that are visible.

Moving solar systems: Dumb. Even on chemical-rocket scale interstellar travel (centuries to millennia from one star to another), systems would move so little, even the ones furthest away from the center, that modelling such a thing as a half-way is a waste of resources. Either do it right or don't, the middle ground doesn't work either way.

Procedural parts: If you really want to leave wobbliness to rocket stacks, then you know you yourself are forcing players into wobbly rockets by limiting their part choices. Make everything procedural so we can avoid wobble.

Science/Career: "There will be a system that rewards you for doing missions", "Gather science points, redeem them for parts". So, the only real change is tuning the planetary modifier for KSC? The rest is just a KSP1 ripoff? god.

Colony building: So, I have this space rocket game, but buildings are built magically off an interface and not shipping + docking? BRUH.

IVAs: The fact you're not culling high res meshes from outside to not waste performance is pretty yikes. Also, those models are unoptimized, as much excuses as you want to throw at people.

Robotics/Propellers/Rotors/Hinges Post 1.0: I thought one of the goals of KSP2 was to start off with a better foundation and a more complete game. This answer only tells me that KSP1 will be a much better product for about a decade.

Thanks to the community for wasting like half the questions on irrelevant stuff.

 

Edited March 25, 2023 by PDCWolf

[The Aziz]

20 hours ago, Dakota said:

Howard, our composter

 

[Scarecrow71]

23 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Trade Routes: Apart from in-situ construction, one of the other answers removes all uses for this feature and colonies. Since there's no life support, there's no need for colonies other than a small local launchpad. I'm guessing (from yet another answer) that you'll need to ship X material to Y colony to be able to fabricate Z part. Absolutely, mind-numbingly boring. It's an unappealing logistics layer that completely misses all points of real space colonization, and almost all challenges of it as well (heavily dependent on how shipping logistics end up being handled). Do I need to just plop some parts down and establish a magic route, or will I be challenged to design my own logistics ships on further implementations?

Which answer removes the need for this?  I don't recall Nate having said anything about there being no life support.

24 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Multiplayer: Schrodinger's feature. One answer says it is not synchronized, another says it can be both, and a lot of speculation which is not really far from what I've been reading on these forums for years. Also, they can't talk about it. Yeah, you can't talk about things that don't exist.

It's a bit frustrating to continue reading posts where people claim stuff that they know nothing about.  How do you know it doesn't exist?  On some of the features that have been promised, the devs simply cannot give straight answers either due to disclosure reasons OR because they haven't quite figured them out yet.

26 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Wobbly Rockets: Hot garbage take. Wobble is not realistic, not fun, and is only a feature of Unity's incredibly crap default joint system made for prototypes and indies.

Wobble IS real.  Ever take a bunch of those alphabet blocks and stack them up?  Now what happens if you try to pick them up from the bottom?  The whole thing wobbles and probably collapses.  Same principle, and it's pretty basic physics.  And now imaging that instead of you picking up the blocks, they are being pushed with serious force.  I don't disagree that it isn't very fun, but there are ways to get around the realism of it.

27 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Playing the game as dev / QA: Nobody would believe that. The results of that are visible.

Because nobody QA's their own work, right?  Nobody writes a line of code and says "You know what?  I think that's gonna work and I don't need to test it."

28 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Moving solar systems: Dumb. Even on chemical-rocket scale interstellar travel (centuries to millennia from one star to another), systems would move so little, even the ones furthest away from the center, that modelling such a thing as a half-way is a waste of resources. Either do it right or don't, the middle ground doesn't work either way.

Solar systems do move, and yes, they do move on what you would think would be a pretty small or slow scale.  Heck, it takes Sol 230 million years to make one revolution around the center of the Milky Way.  But it DOES move, and you DO have to take this into consideration when planning interstellar trips.

31 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Procedural parts: If you really want to leave wobbliness to rocket stacks, then you know you yourself are forcing players into wobbly rockets by limiting their part choices. Make everything procedural so we can avoid wobble.

I don't disagree that our current choice of parts is limited.  But this is EA, and data-mining has proven that there are other parts coded in the game that aren't released yet.  I'd ask that you temper your expectations of parts until we see what future updates bring us.

32 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Science/Career: "There will be a system that rewards you for doing missions", "Gather science points, redeem them for parts". So, the only real change is tuning the planetary modifier for KSC? The rest is just a KSP1 ripoff? god.

This....isn't news, really.  We were told up front that it would be similar, but that the grindiness of the KSC and the removal of funds would be part of the new system.  And until we actually see what is in store, anything talking about it is pure speculation.

33 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Colony building: So, I have this space rocket game, but buildings are built magically off an interface and not shipping + docking? BRUH.

See my above answers regarding parts and science.  We don't know what this will be, and until we do, it's all speculation.  Unless you have an in with the devs and know the code?

34 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

IVAs: The fact you're not culling high res meshes from outside to not waste performance is pretty yikes. Also, those models are unoptimized, as much excuses as you want to throw at people.

One of 2 points I whole-heartedly agree with you on.  The models aren't optimized, they know it, and they need to fix it.  Although Nate gave the answer about having cameras inside some of the pods, that doesn't excuse using high polygon counts that aren't needed.

34 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Robotics/Propellers/Rotors/Hinges Post 1.0: I thought one of the goals of KSP2 was to start off with a better foundation and a more complete game. This answer only tells me that KSP1 will be a much better product for about a decade.

The second point I agree with you completely on.  To hear that Robotics won't be part of the game until AT LEAST after 1.0 is disheartening.  So many designs that can't be done because we can't fold parts or extend things.  Guess the modders will have to tackle this one.

[PDCWolf]

53 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Which answer removes the need for this?  I don't recall Nate having said anything about there being no life support.

Here:

Spoiler

[9:47 AM]
Do you plan to add life support to the game like the USI life support mod for ksp1?

We made a determination that the addition of life support won't enhance gameplay that much, for most players. Obviously a lot of people have a ton of fun with the life support mods for KSP1, and we hope that once moddibility is easier it'll get added that way.

Life support confirmed not a thing.

54 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

It's a bit frustrating to continue reading posts where people claim stuff that they know nothing about.  How do you know it doesn't exist?  On some of the features that have been promised, the devs simply cannot give straight answers either due to disclosure reasons OR because they haven't quite figured them out yet.

From what it looks like right now, we all know as much about multiplayer as the devs let on: "it'll be this or that but we can't talk". The fact they don't even have a proper blueprint they can share yet, compared to (for example) how much they talk about colonies and science, is pretty much all you need to know. Multiplayer at the moment is probably not more than a talking point in meetings with shareholders or T2.

56 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Wobble IS real.  Ever take a bunch of those alphabet blocks and stack them up?  Now what happens if you try to pick them up from the bottom?  The whole thing wobbles and probably collapses.  Same principle, and it's pretty basic physics.  And now imaging that instead of you picking up the blocks, they are being pushed with serious force.  I don't disagree that it isn't very fun, but there are ways to get around the realism of it.

We're talking rockets. We're only making rockets as a stack of parts because that's literally how the game lets us do it. Punishing the player with unrealistic mechanics because of a building method they have no agency over is not correct. Neither does wobble correctly abstract real-life structural issues with rockets. Also, the stack of books and alphabets blocks are not supposed to compose a single structure, or joined by a joint system.

58 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Because nobody QA's their own work, right?  Nobody writes a line of code and says "You know what?  I think that's gonna work and I don't need to test it."

What I said is the release didn't even have a hint of being QA'd, so anyone would have a problem believing their statement was real.

59 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Solar systems do move, and yes, they do move on what you would think would be a pretty small or slow scale.  Heck, it takes Sol 230 million years to make one revolution around the center of the Milky Way.  But it DOES move, and you DO have to take this into consideration when planning interstellar trips.

Ah yes, we both take it into consideration in our day to day interstellar trips. Considering there'll be no FTL, their interstellar scale is exceedingly small, meaning realistic stellar motion is irrelevant, intangible. Of course, they could probably make stars move laughingly fast, as that's the only possibility to justify bothering with stellar motion: Everything being extremely small, and extremely close.

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I don't disagree that our current choice of parts is limited.  But this is EA, and data-mining has proven that there are other parts coded in the game that aren't released yet.  I'd ask that you temper your expectations of parts until we see what future updates bring us.

Procedural radiators and solar panels are a good start, procedural wings was quite a leap in the right direction. All I ask is they give the same treatment to tanks, to solve both wobble and most shape limitations.

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

This....isn't news, really.  We were told up front that it would be similar, but that the grindiness of the KSC and the removal of funds would be part of the new system.  And until we actually see what is in store, anything talking about it is pure speculation.

Yes, and from what they've talked about, I speculate they're just being roundabout about copying KSP1's career, minus funds. However, you are the first person I see that isn't expecting career to evolve in KSP2.

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

See my above answers regarding parts and science.  We don't know what this will be, and until we do, it's all speculation.  Unless you have an in with the devs and know the code?

I'm only going off about what Nate answered here. When asked about colonies, he mentioned a new VAB-like building with an interface to build stuff off of, that answer leaves off a lot of important bits, which is where my questioning comes in.

 

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Wobble IS real.  Ever take a bunch of those alphabet blocks and stack them up?  Now what happens if you try to pick them up from the bottom?  The whole thing wobbles and probably collapses.  Same principle, and it's pretty basic physics.  And now imaging that instead of you picking up the blocks, they are being pushed with serious force.  I don't disagree that it isn't very fun, but there are ways to get around the realism of it.

On top of it, the most laughable argument against wobble is "not realistic" because it tends to be a really bad problem with unrealistic rockets and far less with well engineered ones.

"In reality my rocket wouldn't wobble like that"

"In reality that pile of metal you dare to call a rocket wouldn't make it off the launch pad"

[Kerbart]

20 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

We're talking rockets. We're only making rockets as a stack of parts because that's literally how the game lets us do it. Punishing the player with unrealistic mechanics because of a building method they have no agency over is not correct. Neither does wobble correctly abstract real-life structural issues with rockets. Also, the stack of books and alphabets blocks are not supposed to compose a single structure, or joined by a joint system

Are we playing the same game? Because I do have agency over what parts I pick for my rocket. Practically any video I've seen about "noodle rockets" involves incredibly bad design by stacking larger parts on top of smaller parts and expecting it to be stable. Then there's the unrealistic expectation that a single strut should stabilize that monument of bad engineering ("I have strutted the ### out of it," without exception, shows me a picture where three or four struts are applied).

You think structural flexing isn't a problem of real life rocketry? You think that in real life engineers are not frustrated that they can't launch whatever they want? Are you aware that the ISS was launched in many parts, not as a single structure, because that would certainly have noodled during launch?

There's more to getting into space than just the rocket equation. Read up on Hooke's law. You're barking up the wrong tree here. If physics where as realistic as you want them to be, your rockets made of single procedural parts would still flex and break in flight. Just not at the joints.