Discord AMA 2 - Design Director Shana Markham Answers

[Scarecrow71]

47 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Edit: Allow me to add, no life support means the final speed and thus time requirements of interstellar travel are pretty much meaningless

I wouldn't say they are meaningless.  You still have to account for the trip itself, colonies will still need maintaining, and you can't just let the ship idle.

[PDCWolf]

6 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I wouldn't say they are meaningless.  You still have to account for the trip itself, colonies will still need maintaining, and you can't just let the ship idle.

Nate's answer on the first AMA suggests that colonies do not require active flying to supply them.

[Scarecrow71]

24 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Nate's answer on the first AMA suggests that colonies do not require active flying to supply them.

And I've learned not to believe too much of what is being said right now from the devs.

[PDCWolf]

15 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

And I've learned not to believe too much of what is being said right now from the devs.

I choose to believe Nate on the basis his answer is pretty much the minimum viable product: an abstract "just numbers changing" layer.

[Redneck]

not one question allowed for multiplayer or internal/enhanced IVA's huh? Picking and choosing the questions i assume

[Scarecrow71]

6 minutes ago, Redneck said:

not one question allowed for multiplayer or internal/enhanced IVA's huh? Picking and choosing the questions i assume

Multiplayer was pretty decently addressed by Nate in the first AMA, and that was at the expense of roadmap features that are well before MP.  Not to mention that they barely mentioned bugs or patches, both of which at this point are far more important than MP.

[Redneck]

1 minute ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Multiplayer was pretty decently addressed by Nate in the first AMA, and that was at the expense of roadmap features that are well before MP.  Not to mention that they barely mentioned bugs or patches, both of which at this point are far more important than MP.

no and thats sounds more like an opinion then fact

[Scarecrow71]

Just now, Redneck said:

no and thats sounds more like an opinion then fact

No, what I typed was fact.  Go check the videos I recorded of both AMAs and you will see.  Or, rather, hear.  Anyhow, MP is several roadmap features away, and there are major bugs that need to be fixed before we can even get Science.  It isn't cherry-picking to not address the 5th thing on the roadmap.

[Redneck]

4 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

No, what I typed was fact.  Go check the videos I recorded of both AMAs and you will see.  Or, rather, hear.  Anyhow, MP is several roadmap features away, and there are major bugs that need to be fixed before we can even get Science.  It isn't cherry-picking to not address the 5th thing on the roadmap.

i see so out of the thousands of users of this forum and hundreds of users on discord these questions (listed in my post above) were never asked for THIS session of Q&A? I kind of find that hard to believe. Would lead one to assume they are only taking questions THEY think are relevant? So more of a infomercial than a true Q&A. Am i missing something?

[Scarecrow71]

16 minutes ago, Redneck said:

i see so out of the thousands of users of this forum and hundreds of users on discord these questions (listed in my post above) were never asked for THIS session of Q&A? I kind of find that hard to believe. Would lead one to assume they are only taking questions THEY think are relevant? So more of a infomercial than a true Q&A. Am i missing something?

Yeah, you are missing something.  MP questions were asked; they chose not to dive into them in explocit detail this time around.  Now, I have to caveat that with stating I have no inside knowledge, and I have no idea what was asked on Discord.  But there is a pretty hefty contingent of people here who want MP, do it has to be assumed that MP questions were asked but not answered.

[Redneck]

15 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Yeah, you are missing something.  MP questions were asked; they chose not to dive into them in explocit detail this time around.  Now, I have to caveat that with stating I have no inside knowledge, and I have no idea what was asked on Discord.  But there is a pretty hefty contingent of people here who want MP, do it has to be assumed that MP questions were asked but not answered.

Ok from your own words "Mp questions were asked but THEY chose not to dive into them." sounds to me like I am not missing anything but I am correct in my assumption that "Ask me Anything" (AMA) is not really a AMA but more like a predetermined Q&A infomercial.  

[Strawberry]

3 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

She talks about having direct conversations with the fans...but does she have a forums account?  Maybe she's more direct on the discord.  I haven't seen a post of hers

I think she's speaking more about the team as a whole here then her in specific. It very much wasn't unusual for devs to just casually go "Yeah we plan on introducing telescopes" in a forum thread during star theory days, but once take two took over communication definitely decreased a lot. I assume take two policy meant they couldnt speak much while it was in development, but since KSP2 is now technically released, I think those specific policies have been loosened a lot. 

I don't think she has a discord but on the discord there are a few people more on the development side that speak there semi regularly.  A few guys on the QA team are regularly on discord, they tend to be pretty helpful and chill (also they love hearing about spec stuff understandably). Outside of the QA team its pretty rare for a proper dev to show up though. We know that there's media training required before employees can casually interact on discord/forums and some rules involved, so I think its a case of The QA guys are the most useful people to have to be able to interact with the community right now so lets prioritize getting those guys media training so they can get live feedback for bugs and stuff, or its a case of designers/engineers/etc arent allowed to interact casually (I doubt this is the case though because this seems kind of weird, QA guys probably have some of the widest knowledge about what's going on development wise so why would they be special here).  I dont think its a case of "No one on the development team wishes to interact with us" because again, some were semi active here during star theory. Hopefully as time goes on more people get media training and they talk here more.

[Superfluous J]

21 minutes ago, Redneck said:

Ok from your own words "Mp questions were asked but THEY chose not to dive into them." sounds to me like I am not missing anything but I am correct in my assumption that "Ask me Anything" (AMA) is not really a AMA but more like a predetermined Q&A infomercial.  

  I don't feel like typing it again.

On 4/20/2023 at 9:12 PM, Superfluous J said:

I would like to remind everybody that "ask me anything" does not mean "I'll answer everything." It never has.

If you want real, solid, concrete information about the future of the game there is only one way to get it: Wait.

 

[Redneck]

46 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

I think she's speaking more about the team as a whole here then her in specific. It very much wasn't unusual for devs to just casually go "Yeah we plan on introducing telescopes" in a forum thread during star theory days, but once take two took over communication definitely decreased a lot. I assume take two policy meant they couldnt speak much while it was in development, but since KSP2 is now technically released, I think those specific policies have been loosened a lot. 

I don't think she has a discord but on the discord there are a few people more on the development side that speak there semi regularly.  A few guys on the QA team are regularly on discord, they tend to be pretty helpful and chill (also they love hearing about spec stuff understandably). Outside of the QA team its pretty rare for a proper dev to show up though. We know that there's media training required before employees can casually interact on discord/forums and some rules involved, so I think its a case of The QA guys are the most useful people to have to be able to interact with the community right now so lets prioritize getting those guys media training so they can get live feedback for bugs and stuff, or its a case of designers/engineers/etc arent allowed to interact casually (I doubt this is the case though because this seems kind of weird, QA guys probably have some of the widest knowledge about what's going on development wise so why would they be special here).  I dont think its a case of "No one on the development team wishes to interact with us" because again, some were semi active here during star theory. Hopefully as time goes on more people get media training and they talk here more.

lol wait....media training? Seriously? You are kidding right?

[Scarecrow71]

11 hours ago, Redneck said:

Ok from your own words "Mp questions were asked but THEY chose not to dive into them." sounds to me like I am not missing anything but I am correct in my assumption that "Ask me Anything" (AMA) is not really a AMA but more like a predetermined Q&A infomercial.  

I will echo what J said above:  Ask Me Anything is not a guarantee that your question, or questions related to what you are most interested in, will get answered.  It's that simple.  Just because they didn't dive into MP doesn't mean they ignored you.

[Strawberry]

11 hours ago, Redneck said:

lol wait....media training? Seriously? You are kidding right?

No

This very much feels like a take two policy. It makes sense for a game like GTA VI where you have hundreds of people working on it (meaning some will definitely not be the most sociable/intelilgent), and any details about gameplay will lead to a PCGamer article (vs for ksp2 where itll just lead to a forum post with 5 comments on it). It doesnt really make sense for an office like intercept games where they only have like 30 people working on it (meaning basically all of them are just average guys), and information getting out about the game isnt nearly as important compared to whatever rockstar is working on at the moment. 

[LoSBoL]

7 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

It doesnt really make sense for an office like intercept games where they only have like 30 people working on it (meaning basically all of them are just average guys), and information getting out about the game isnt nearly as important compared to whatever rockstar is working on at the moment. 

It makes perfect sense, even for KSP2 and any other game no matter in what state it is. Any communication will be interpreted by a notoriously sensitive, emotional and impatient group known to have pitchforks in their backpockets, those groups go by the name 'gaming communities'. 

Every word will be weighted and even then there is no guarantee the pitchforks stay in the backpockets. 

 

[Alexoff]

12 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

It makes perfect sense, even for KSP2 and any other game no matter in what state it is. Any communication will be interpreted by a notoriously sensitive, emotional and impatient group known to have pitchforks in their backpockets, those groups go by the name 'gaming communities'. 

Yeah, these are the main villains of the gaming industry! Gaming communities! How many problems they create! Why don't they just keep silent and happily accept everything that developers and publishers give them?!

[LoSBoL]

2 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Yeah, these are the main villains of the gaming industry! Gaming communities! How many problems they create! Why don't they just keep silent and happily accept everything that developers and publishers give them?!

Probably because of the 'impatient' part 

[Alexoff]

10 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

Probably because of the 'impatient' part 

Terrible people! They can't wait until 2026, when the game announced for release in 2020 is finally finished! Because of them, developers become sad, make a lot of bugs in games, spoil the optimization and postpone the addition of new features for many years to come!

[LoSBoL]

30 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Terrible people!

No, not terrible people, just people. 

[Alexoff]

34 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

No, not terrible people, just people. 

The same people who, under normal conditions, should advertise the game for free no worse than highly paid advertisers with billboards on every corner. And the same people who are the first to buy early access, which is rarely done by regular players.

[razark]

20 hours ago, Redneck said:

lol wait....media training? Seriously? You are kidding right?

You've never had a job where management told you "If you're asked questions by the press, defer to the company PR people, don't answer questions yourself."?

Seriously? You are kidding right?

[TechDragon]

On 4/22/2023 at 10:45 PM, PDCWolf said:

Quote

. We add procedural parts when we feel like "wow there's a lot of parts that are kinda samey."

You do realize the most "samey" part is literally the 50 differently sized fuel tanks? Wings are a leap in the right direction, radiators and solar panels make a lot of sense, but not doing it for tanks (when they're the main source of "le wobble XD") is contradictory.

This... a million times this right here. The moment I read the question and reply, my mind without a single second delay, went "what about all the tanks"... So this needs to be the double down question in the next AMA... like a coordinated campaign to have multiple people ask it to raise the odds or however we can try to get an answer... because its so bizzare they are making decisions with a criteria of "there's a lot of parts that are kinda samey" and somehow haven't noticed how basically all the Methalox tanks are boring "kinda samey" stuff... i mean do they not ever use more an one tank per stage or something? how are they not seeing the boring stacks of tanks and thinking "kinda samey"... I'm baffled. 

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

46 minutes ago, TechDragon said:

I'm baffled. 

Me too. 

But it might be hard to code/make? Fairings are simple, just make segmented tube, make it not collide.

Tubes are simpler, they are just... tubes. With sliders in the abysmal parts manager to change the length. 

But tubes don't carry propellants. I find it so incredibly impossible that they have not thought about procedural tanks when they have fairings and tubes. I think it might have to be something with the amount of propellant and how to code it. Lots of geometry and volume calculation.