Discord AMA 2 - Design Director Shana Markham Answers

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

4 hours ago, mindstalker said:

I'm hoping this is more of a tree.

Or maybe a table! Like, a periodic one? Oh, this sounds familiar...

[Dunas Only Moon]

11 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Or maybe a table! Like, a periodic one? Oh, this sounds familiar...

Yea, must be a table

[Superfluous J]

6 hours ago, Dakota said:

Parts will be different between the two games. In this case, the design team really wants to hit on their own building and flying usage challenges. You'll see less "let me put a thermometer on my command pod" and more "i've got this weird bulbous thing that performs an experiment and I need to build a rocket around it."

You didn't explicitly answer my question (no anger, I know you had a billion questions and had to pick a small subset) but this basically did answer it, and in exactly the way I was hoping it'd be answered.

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

39 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Dude, quit cherry picking interpretations. 

36 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

And I think this is a traditional official evasion of the answer.

Many people and old players clearly, and understandably, had high expextations of this new game after close to seven years of KSP. 

I say understandably, because we have gotten high expectations from trailers, we know this is the big and awaited sequal for years, and there have been so many delays, and so many postponed launch dates. 
This game has got to be good, right? 

Well, in all those years of development, there have been massive changes to the dev team, partly due to the pandemic.
While this game builds on many of the core mechanics of KSP1, in many ways the team is building a new game. Not just a new shell on the old code. 
This WILL create bugs, but also free the devs of eventual constraints the old game had. 
The team have stated now, but also before, that they are very happy that the game is just, out there. 
And they do probably feel proud of the game just being... a game. 
After all, we don't know the state of the game a few months before release. 

In many ways, my take on this new Kerbal Space Program, is that it's more like "Kerbal Space Program... again" in the way that we start the same way the old KSP1 started all those years ago. 
But the team also wants to make something new, to expand on what the old game was and still is.
Mind you, that game took all the better of 7 years to get into the state where it is now.
Still, I also have my moments where I want to crush something because my landing legs fell of or my rocket did an unscheduled disassembly next to my space station.

If you feel frustrated about the game in the future, I will advise you to send a spacecraft into the clouds of Jool, and just marvel. (SPOILER for Jool missions)

I'm gonna leave you with a quote from the previous AMA, where (I think it was Nate) stated this on a question on how they felt with the negative feedback: 

On 3/24/2023 at 6:24 PM, Dakota said:

  Quote

Can't answer for all the team, but will give you my personal answer: we're feeling good. We're playing the game and having fun while squashing bugs. Been great seeing the community get their hands on the game and enjoying it. Feels really great to fix a bug, almost like scratching an itch. Mean comments are kinda something that just comes with game development - but with the KSP community the negative comments come from a place of care, not hare. All over, feeling good.

[Superfluous J]

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.

If I was working on KSP2 and Nate asked me if I wanted to do an AMA, I'm not sure if I'd laugh or cry. Possibly both. But my answer would be "No [expletive] way."

[Fluke]

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

You didn't explicitly answer my question (no anger, I know you had a billion questions and had to pick a small subset) but this basically did answer it, and in exactly the way I was hoping it'd be answered.

I actually don't mind the "point and click" science of KSP1, but with all the discussions I agree there could be something far more. This answer gives me hope a new science system could be great!

[RocketRockington]

3 hours ago, TLTay said:

I'm seeing the same kind of language as with the Nate AMA.

TONS of future tense for things that could already have been planned out by now. Lots of "want to" and little "going to" or "are." 

Feels like the same kind of thing I've seen from EA-launched indie games that get shadow-abandoned after sales slump to nothing.

 

A lot of 'we can discuss it' or other generalizing to a broader group who made decisions,  and quite a bit of deferring to Nate too.  Shana seems to be more of a committee chairperson than a design director from the way a lot of this reads.

 

I'm not saying there shouldn't be consensus of course...but it feels like a lack of taking direct responsibility for the design of the project, if that even is her role.

Edited April 21, 2023 by RocketRockington

[Scarecrow71]

2 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

And they do probably feel proud of the game just being... a game

But it isn't even a game yet.  Shana admitted as much during the AMA this morning.  It is merely a toy, a sandbox to build ships and try to launch them.  No direction, no meaning, no cohesion.  And with all the bugs and lack of parts it is hard to stay interested for much longer.

The statement about being proud of this does not help their case.  KSP2 is in dire straits, and it needs fixing.  And they shouldn't be relying on the modders to give us functionality that should be core.  To be proud of this is to really not take any pride in their work.

...Or it is all lip service, shilling for the execs.  Either way, it's a bad face to present to the customer.

[MagicCuboid]

It sort of sounds like they're creating parts that are more like payloads for Science rather than the little knobs and dials we have now. I think that's a good idea for vanilla KSP2; it creates opportunities for more launches, different designs for mass etc. I also hope the science experiments themselves have parameters to fulfill, like polar orbit, certain EC generation over time, etc.

[Klapaucius]

"Absolutely. Kerbal is a super interesting piece of world-building, almost like a FromSoft game. Things in the world are teaching you the lore, not just dialog.  That will continue as we add new parts and celestial bodies, but also missions that might ask you to go visit some of those easter eggs...."

 

I think the developers need to be very careful about this. KSP 1 had all sorts of easter eggs and teasers, but at the end of the day, we still knew little about Kerbals, and that generated all sorts of fun speculation and discussion. It also allowed us to fill in the blanks and incorporate what we thought was important into our own missions.  For example, I never worry about Kerbals going into space for years, because in my mind, Kerbals are very good at zoning out (almost a self-hypnosis) for years on end.

There is no lore for this, nor any reason for me to do this other than my imagination. But I can do that, because it has been left for me to do so.  To cite an example from movies, I found the backstory  in Alien Covenant of the Space Jockey ulitmately disappointing. The mystery was far more intriguing than what I was eventually given. 

 

Less is more.  Too much lore will make things too restrictive and impose an outside narrative on a sandbox game. 

[Vl3d]

1 hour ago, Klapaucius said:

I found the backstory  in Alien Covenant of the Space Jockey ultimately disappointing. The mystery was far more intriguing than what I was eventually given.

First of all, there is no backstory for the Space Jockey in Prometheus or Alien Covenant. Speculations are that it would come in the third film. Secondly, those are movies more about rogue AI and less about biting monsters. So maybe you're not being intrigued by the right thing.

As for KSP2 state of affairs, it's just a stretched out, torturous waiting game. It has been ever since the game was announced. Just a "wait.. it will be a great game in 2,3 ..5 ..10 years". But what hurts me the most is that I feel this business-oriented expectation that the modders should be the ones who build the most interesting parts of the game. This was supposed to be an amazing sequel, but it just looks like a slow reboot. I'm still waiting for any spark of creativity in KSP2 game design.

[Dunas Only Moon]

what is happening...?

[Alexoff]

17 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Well, in all those years of development, there have been massive changes to the dev team, partly due to the pandemic.

Judging by what we saw in 2019, the pandemic hit the game's code directly, causing the game to die and have to be remade.

17 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

This WILL create bugs, but also free the devs of eventual constraints the old game had.

Is it true? And what problems are missing in KSP2 that were in KSP1?

17 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

But the team also wants to make something new, to expand on what the old game was and still is.

Well, that's what they say, it would be surprising if the developers said that they just work to pay off the mortgage and the debt for studying at the university. Nate is so pleased with the game that he went on vacation, he decided to please us with this news. In general, there are more and more talks on KSP2, and less and less specifics.

[Davedavidson]

"That doesn't happen if the game doesn't provide players the information and guidance needed to make those decisions."

This is about as wrong a way of thinking as possible for a game like ksp. there was no guidance in ksp and it was way more popular than ksp 2 so far. Also for example Elden ring, dark souls, don't starve , these are all very successful games that pretty much are popular because of and not in spite of the lack of direction and level of difficulty. This to me is a sign of this game being mismanaged. 

[Kerbart]

16 hours ago, MagicCuboid said:

It sort of sounds like they're creating parts that are more like payloads for Science rather than the little knobs and dials we have now. I think that's a good idea for vanilla KSP2; ...

Prediction:

Science Parts stay the same:  KSP2 Is Just VeRsIoN OnE wItH ShInY GrApHiCs!
Science Parts are revamped: WhY DiD ThEy ChAnGe ScIeNcE PaRtS? G@me Br0k3n!!

I'm with you though. Much needed change.

[MagicCuboid]

39 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Prediction:

Science Parts stay the same:  KSP2 Is Just VeRsIoN OnE wItH ShInY GrApHiCs!
Science Parts are revamped: WhY DiD ThEy ChAnGe ScIeNcE PaRtS? G@me Br0k3n!!

I'm with you though. Much needed change.

It'll drive down part count too. Also prevent me from my unrealistically overdesigned satellites where the design ethos is, "if I just cram every single science experiment on this one probe, then I guess I'll never have to play the game again!" 

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

3 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Is it true? And what problems are missing in KSP2 that were in KSP1?

21 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Graphics. Possibility for multiplayer. Possibility to add a another star system, and travel to it. 

The old code had constraints that did not allow graphics at this level. Sure, the mods have done a great job, like KSP redux back in the day and so on. But have you SEEN the volumetric clouds at Jool?? 

And slowly, the performance will increase.

KSP v0.7.3 only had Kerbin in the system, not even Kerbol, and was missing lots of the core features later added. 
This was the first release in 2015, as the game had been in development since 2011. 
KSP2 almost never saw the light of day. The team have made a terrific job to have this sandbox thing somewhat playable. 

I'd take current KSP2 than having to wait another year for a cleaner, more expensive version any day. 
And having the community coming with feedback as you and I are doing now, will help the team develop the game faster, and with clearer goals.

Sylvi, out.

[Alexoff]

44 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Graphics.

The graphics in KSP1 are great with the addition of mods. This could be done without mods if the developers put more effort into the game. There is nothing unusual in KSP2 in terms of graphics. And if you look at the buildings of the space center when flying nearby, you can be very surprised, because it’s already 2023, and zigzags of pixels are visible in the game!

44 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Possibility for multiplayer.

And what does it look like? How can you see it? This can only be heard in the words of the developers.

45 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Possibility to add a another star system, and travel to it.

Such features are available in KSP1, these features are implemented in a variety of mods. We don't know how this will be implemented in KSP2, why it will be less buggy, we don't know either. Or has someone proved that in some place the KSP2 code is written better in this regard?

48 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

But have you SEEN the volumetric clouds at Jool??

Have you seen the new cloud mod that the scatter creator is developing alone?

49 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

KSP v0.7.3 only had Kerbin in the system, not even Kerbol, and was missing lots of the core features later added

KSP2 has been in development for 6 years, KSP1 was version 1.2 after 6 years of development, it was already a finished game with very few bugs. Moreover, a game created from scratch, and not a remaster of the same game.

51 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

The team have made a terrific job to have this sandbox thing somewhat playable.

If they worked like that for 6 years, then why are the results so terrible?

53 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

I'd take current KSP2 than having to wait another year for a cleaner, more expensive version any day. 
And having the community coming with feedback as you and I are doing now, will help the team develop the game faster, and with clearer goals.

Unscrupulous gaming companies profit from such naive fans.

[Scarecrow71]

2 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

And having the community coming with feedback as you and I are doing now, will help the team develop the game faster, and with clearer goals.

If that's is the case, then why the delays for several years?

[Meecrob]

Honestly, this AMA gave me vibes that they think I am too stupid to get that things aren't awesome...like its a "me" problem?

Edited April 22, 2023 by Meecrob

[PDCWolf]

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One of our writers (Jim Peck) did a knowledge-share internally about precision landings

Imma do the one pet peeve of this forum and recommend a mod.

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it would directly impact the game negatively

Meanwhile, in the real world, RSS remains one of the most popular mods and countless re-scales of the OG system exist as well. Pretty shameful that this fallacy of bigger = bad has become part of the official narrative.

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We want to build missions to be able to highlight the cool things about the Kerbolar system.

The OG game failed at making you visit places more than once. Right now it seems the only fix you propose to that is the colony system. This really didn't answer the question properly.

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This expands on the last question basically. Science and resources will lead to more players exploring the Kerbolar system, and experiments/missions.

Speaking of things the first game failed at... I seriously hope your "fix" isn't gating parts of the trees with "resource requirements" because that would be really cheap.

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You'll see less "let me put a thermometer on my command pod" and more "i've got this weird bulbous thing that performs an experiment and I need to build a rocket around it."

Unnecessary commentary, specially since the first game allows you to purpose cargo bays to build your own experiment platforms. I'd rather take a lightweight instrument suite along with my craft, as you do, rather than try to launch a laboratory. This becomes specially intuitive once you account for the Kerballed rather than probed start of the tech tree.

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So instead you go somewhere else and build an additional orbital colony to help build resource pathways.

It seems I was kinda right when I speculated the logistics layer would seemingly only exist to be able to make X part at Y place by sending it Z resource. Specially since there'd be no life support.

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Answered this a bit before, but to give a specific number, I think we're looking at 14-15 specific resources throughout the universe.

Pretty much confirms my suspicions, unless you happened to not include the ones we already have in game in that number.

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We wanted to make sure exploration is about exploration.

You really need to open up much more about the constant repeating of "Exploration". The sole idea of "Exploration" clashes hard against a game where planets are algorithmically built with some manual features and easter eggs sprinkled in, plus the idea you could fill multiple planets in multiple star systems with worthy stuff to bother "exploring" for is highly improvable.

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. 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.

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so expect in the future that the Kerbals will start to give them more attention.

Yeah, like oxygen... for breathing... through life support systems.

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. how does the community feel about this?

This + the EVA building system in KSP1 would make for an amazing multiplayer experience where we could build cooperatively as well.

Quote

We want to make sure automation is implemented to make sure the part of the game that is really important to us, rockets, continues to stay the main gameplay loop.

This directly contradicts the level of abstraction Nate implied on the previous AMA when he mentioned building colonies was just clicking on a "VAB", and resource logistics was (at first) just a moving number.

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Nate talks about this....and it's terrifying. No other comment....

Nate specifically mentioned no breaking the speed of light, shouldn't be that terrifying then, heck, relativity talk shouldn't be a thing even if we remain sublight. Please clear this up.

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so we're coming together as a team to figure out how they can be implemented. Figuring out if we have enough sizes and types of Gridfins to make sure we can meet players expectations.

... procedural?

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In KSP2 we unified this to the PAM, the list of parts.

I absolutely hate having a huge UI element opening up when I want to click a single slider on a part that may not even have more than 2, or check a single number on a tank. It'll also make fuel transfers hell since all tanks have the same name.

Quote

When we're hiring a writer, I ask them a similar question, like "hey if you look at the tech tree for KSP1, crewed pods come before probes, tell me narratively why that is" 

Yikes.

The first AMA pushed me to refund, and I'll admit that the F.O.M.O. did start, and I even felt a little bad for refunding and not being able to test patch 2, specially as I saw the review score climb a couple points. This AMA fixed all of that, it assures me I made the right call.

Edited April 22, 2023 by PDCWolf

[theJesuit]

On 4/21/2023 at 6:24 AM, Dakota said:

Will we get part size categories larger than the 5M parts, like 7.5M? And will the 1.875M parts from the making history DLC make a return? (/u/Combatpigeon96, Reddit)

Quote

Not fully sure on the 1.875 parts, but for the larger part categories you'll see this come with Interstellar because those engines are gigantic!

I'd really like 1.875 parts too please.

[RocketRockington]

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

[Davedavidson]

8 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Imma do the one pet peeve of this forum and recommend a mod.

Meanwhile, in the real world, RSS remains one of the most popular mods and countless re-scales of the OG system exist as well. Pretty shameful that this fallacy of bigger = bad has become part of the official narrative.

The OG game failed at making you visit places more than once. Right now it seems the only fix you propose to that is the colony system. This really didn't answer the question properly.

Speaking of things the first game failed at... I seriously hope your "fix" isn't gating parts of the trees with "resource requirements" because that would be really cheap.

Unnecessary commentary, specially since the first game allows you to purpose cargo bays to build your own experiment platforms. I'd rather take a lightweight instrument suite along with my craft, as you do, rather than try to launch a laboratory. This becomes specially intuitive once you account for the Kerballed rather than probed start of the tech tree.

It seems I was kinda right when I speculated the logistics layer would seemingly only exist to be able to make X part at Y place by sending it Z resource. Specially since there'd be no life support.

Pretty much confirms my suspicions, unless you happened to not include the ones we already have in game in that number.

You really need to open up much more about the constant repeating of "Exploration". The sole idea of "Exploration" clashes hard against a game where planets are algorithmically built with some manual features and easter eggs sprinkled in, plus the idea you could fill multiple planets in multiple star systems with worthy stuff to bother "exploring" for is highly improvable.

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.

Yeah, like oxygen... for breathing... through life support systems.

This + the EVA building system in KSP1 would make for an amazing multiplayer experience where we could build cooperatively as well.

This directly contradicts the level of abstraction Nate implied on the previous AMA when he mentioned building colonies was just clicking on a "VAB", and resource logistics was (at first) just a moving number.

Nate specifically mentioned no breaking the speed of light, shouldn't be that terrifying then, heck, relativity talk shouldn't be a thing even if we remain sublight. Please clear this up.

... procedural?

I absolutely hate having a huge UI element opening up when I want to click a single slider on a part that may not even have more than 2, or check a single number on a tank. It'll also make fuel transfers hell since all tanks have the same name.

Yikes.

The first AMA pushed me to refund, and I'll admit that the F.O.M.O. did start, and I even felt a little bad for refunding and not being able to test patch 2, specially as I saw the review score climb a couple points. This AMA fixed all of that, it assures me I made the right call.

I agree on most your points but relativity only applying if you go faster than light is not accurate. for a game like this I think keep relativity out of the discussion but still you don't need to go faster than light for relativity to apply (in fact that's impossible as far as we know unless you are space itself expanding)

[PDCWolf]

51 minutes ago, Davedavidson said:

I agree on most your points but relativity only applying if you go faster than light is not accurate. for a game like this I think keep relativity out of the discussion but still you don't need to go faster than light for relativity to apply (in fact that's impossible as far as we know unless you are space itself expanding)

Of course, but depending on the final speed, it can be negligible enough, it really picks up exponentially as you approach light speed. Further on, simulating relativity would make either the interstellar flights unplayably slow if you focus on something else, or the rest of the universe moving destructively fast if you focus on the interstellar ship.

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

Edited April 23, 2023 by PDCWolf