Rooting for JUICE

[Nate Simpson]

Good day, fellow Kerbonauts.

In last week’s post, I communicated our intent to decrease the update cadence during Early Access to allow our team to devote a greater portion of their time moving toward 1.0 and a little less time prepping incremental public updates. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of you have expressed concern that this change signified some dark portent. To ease some of your concerns, here are a few clarifications:

• Our team is fully funded, properly staffed, and completely focused on executing the full vision of KSP2. Our velocity is good and our morale is great. This is still a dream job, and we’re still committed to making this game spectacular
• We want to balance our desire to be Santa (literally the most fun part of my job) against our goal of delivering an excellent product. The update cadence we’re looking at right now extends the previous cadence by 2-3 weeks - structurally, the change is not radical. I know the waiting can be painful, especially when there are still game-breaking bugs. Hopefully, the fact that each update will contain more improvements due to that lower frequency helps to offset some of the frustration of waiting
• This project has from the beginning been viewed as a long-tail endeavor requiring a long-term investment. We are not worried about keeping the lights on, and we will be delivering all of the promised roadmap features over the course of Early Access
• We will continue to post these weekly forum updates to provide visibility into areas where gains are being made. These posts are by no means comprehensive, not least because many of the improvements we’re seeing aren’t necessarily photogenic. They are meant to give you a taste of what’s to come

For example: we have seen rescalable UI elements in action for the first time this week (with many thanks to our newest engineer Ryan Ekhoff). We know this is a highly-anticipated improvement, especially for players with higher-resolution displays. The sample below is work-in-progress (yes, I see the app bar isn't scaling yet) -- the final implementation is likely to index to preset sizes to avoid scaling artifacts. I’m certainly looking forward to this upgrade:

   

Yesterday, Darrin House, our Director of QA, posted a really in-depth dev blog that I think does a great job of showing the behind-the-scenes reality of testing this game. It pairs well with a lot of recent discussion in the community about the role of QA in the development process, and it gives some insight into the unique challenges presented by KSP2. No shade on previous dev blogs, but this one raises the bar. I am perhaps betraying how much I like pictures here. It has lots of pictures.

This week saw some unprecedented radness on the ksp2_screenshots channel. Check out these masterpieces from @Coriolis, @Little Earl, @memes1, and @Schwing2727:

I can't stop, there's just too much cool stuff. Here are four more creations by @hidearimjosh, @Keagan1st, @Suppise, and @APairOfVintagePants:

For more like this, take a peek at our screenshot roundup here!

Finally, this week’s Challenge: fly a mission inspired by ESA’s JUICE program. While we wait for the RIME antenna to get itself unstuck, let’s send good vibes ESA’s way by flying our own multi-moon probes to the satellites of Jool! Now’s a great time to polish up your gravity-assist chops. Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

• Primary goal: send your probe to Jool
• Stretch goal: visit Jool and one of Jool's moons with your probe
• Jeb-level goal: visit all of Jool's moons with the same probe
• Val-level goal: achieve the Jeb level goal while doing one or more gravity assist maneuvers

Have a lovely weekend!

[ahmed4363]

So basically we wait longer, but its like we were already getting that stuff anyway so it just has more time to cook in the oven. Good luck team, can't wait to see what you can accomplish!

[Datau03]

Thanks for the update!

 

Funny, I was right now in the process of building and flying a crewed Laythe mission. Also, does visit mean land or flyby?

 

[TomKerbal]

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Edited May 19, 2023 by TomKerbal

[Strawberry]

21 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

For example: we have seen rescalable UI elements in action for the first time this week (with many thanks to our newest engineer Ryan Ekhoff). We know this is a highly-anticipated improvement, especially for players with higher-resolution displays. The sample below is work-in-progress (yes, I see the app bar isn't scaling yet) -- the final implementation is likely to index to preset sizes to avoid scaling artifacts. I’m certainly looking forward to this upgrade:

 

I dont even see this guy in the credits, I assume this means this guy mustve been hired recently. Its nice to see that the team is still growing!

[HammerTyme]

Did I just get a shoutout from Nate Simpson himself?! Yes I did!  Very cool!!   That’s my space station with 2 shuttles in the bottom right of the first image. (Schwing2727)   I never played KSP1.  I’ve been playing KSP2 since launch and maaaaaaan it’s been an awesome ride.  Learning to intercept with other objects in orbit and then docking with them has been a wild experience learning to achieve.  This game is amazing.  

 Thank you for the update and thank you for clarifying some things. You guys are awesome, keep doing what you’re doing! 
 

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by HammerTyme

[VlonaldKerman]

Really appreciate how this post directly addresses some of the discussions that have been playing out on this forum. Thanks for this, looking forward to the next update.

[J3B]

Always appreciated!

[Dakota]

6 minutes ago, VlonaldKerman said:

Really appreciate how this post directly addresses some of the discussions that have been playing out on this forum. Thanks for this, looking forward to the next update.

Glad to hear it. We make it a priority to keep up-to-date with the conversations going on on each platform - and definitely want to use these dev updates to address those discussions and concerns.

[Topher420247]

Look i need fuel creation you can overhaul it all later but give me drills, ore, and a converter plz. You know you want too come on Santa don't let me down

[Racescort666]

12 minutes ago, HammerTyme said:

Did I just get a shoutout from Nate Simpson himself?! Yes I did!  Very cool!!   That’s my space station with 2 shuttles in the bottom right of the first image. (Schwing2727)   I never played KSP1.  I’ve been playing KSP2 since launch and maaaaaaan it’s been an awesome ride.  Learning to intercept with other objects in orbit and then docking with them has been a wild experience learning to achieve.  This game is amazing.  

 Thank you for the update and thank you for clarifying some things. You guys are awesome, keep doing what you’re doing! 
 

 

It’s crazy to think that Buzz Aldrin’s doctorate thesis was on orbital rendezvous and that early in the Gemini program, the astronauts struggled to rendezvous with the target vehicles. Now, we have a game that can teach it to you to the point where it’s intuitive. Welcome aboard!

[regex]

Thanks for the uodate.

I'm looking foeward to (hopefully) one day driving Kerbin on not-terrible TR4s without having to quicksave every five minutes. Hopefully that's something on the "to address" list.

[nestor]

59 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

I dont even see this guy in the credits, I assume this means this guy mustve been hired recently. Its nice to see that the team is still growing!

Nice catch, yes Ryan recently joined the team. 

[MechBFP]

Thanks for the update. The overall demeanor on this forum the past couple weeks has been quite negative, to say the least, and can't say I don't necessarily feel the same at times. Overall I don't suspect that will change anytime soon as I think a fair chunk of us have mostly or altogether moved onto other things until this starts to see some serious content/improvements being pushed out to make it worth our time.

I am glad to hear that people new to KSP are having fun, as that is a good sign that it will hopefully pickup traction later on. Unfortunately I personally can't say the same as a veteran KSP player but hoping that is able to change soon.

Edited May 5, 2023 by MechBFP

[RocketRockington]

1 hour ago, Nate Simpson said:

Our team is fully funded, properly staffed, and completely focused on executing the full vision of KSP2. Our velocity is good and our morale is great. This is still a dream job, and we’re still committed to making this game spectacular

Bold is mine.  Tucking in obvious falsehood in with the all the unverifiable statements just makes us further doubt the rest of it.   

Your velocity is clearly not good.  3 months after launch and you've managed 2 patches that haven't addressed a huge swath of playability problems...after 3 years of delays what you claimed were to make sure everything was high quality.    Look at actually successful EA titles and their cadence of updates and then tell us why 6-7 weeks between updates is a 'good' velocity.

[TomKerbal]

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Edited May 19, 2023 by TomKerbal

[Strawberry]

15 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

Your velocity is clearly not good.  3 months after launch and you've managed 2 patches that haven't addressed a huge swath of playability problems...

Im pretty sure they already commented a lot on why they're aiming for larger and slower patches compared to other companies?

[thabuckwizar]

Can you please just drop the PR speak and address the fans honestly? Just for once come out and say "yeah, we launched a big stinking 50$ turd and the fans deserve better". All of this "we could never have found all the bugs in a million years of QA" or "we are focusing on the positive player experiences", etc etc. And the softball AMAs. Its so blatantly PR speak its disrespectful. You can't keep asking us to be respectful "or else the team loses their motivation :(" but then also gaslight us every week. The Steam player count is now under 500.

[thabuckwizar]

2 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

Im pretty sure they already commented a lot on why they're aiming for larger and slower patches compared to other companies?

But their 2 patches are not that large. They have just padded the patch notes by adding every small little insignificant fix that other studios would just file under "and more fixes/optimizations".

[thabuckwizar]

1 hour ago, Racescort666 said:

It’s crazy to think that Buzz Aldrin’s doctorate thesis was on orbital rendezvous and that early in the Gemini program, the astronauts struggled to rendezvous with the target vehicles. Now, we have a game that can teach it to you to the point where it’s intuitive. Welcome aboard!

You can read it here https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/12652, its significantly more complicated in the real world than what's presented in KSP

[Turtle6]

2 hours ago, Datau03 said:

Also, does visit mean land or flyby?

Flyby, just like with the JUICE mission.

[RocketRockington]

12 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

Im pretty sure they already commented a lot on why they're aiming for larger and slower patches compared to other companies?

And yet those other companies, at least the ones that a succeeded, managed to do a lot better, doing both updates and bug fixes - I guess other companies can chew gum and walk at the same time.  Sons of the Forest launched to EA at the same time, and has done 4 patches and 7 bug updates in the same period.

Basically, I'm saying I don't take anything Nate has to say at face value, nor should anyone else after the years of overhyping and overselling.

The game is released, and the proof is in the pudding now.  When it comes to the KSP2 pudding, I'm pretty sure you have some idea what flavor I think it is, and it's not chocolate.

[Scarecrow71]

So, this post from @Nate does address some of the concerns I and a lot of other players have.  Most notably, that he actually communicated update cadence to help alleviate the feeling that something was amiss or suspicious.  For that, I say a hearty thank you.

The one thing that I think is still missing is adequate communication on what major bugs are being worked on.  For example, the only reason I know the trajectory bug is in the works is because I complained and asked enough until @Dakota verified they were working on it.  But what about the rest of them?  The developers don't post on the forums, and we have no idea what they are trying to fix.  Which can lead to multiple bug reports on stuff they are already working on, or, worse yet, the feeling that they aren't listening to us.

I think you can tell from my post here that my biggest concern, apart from the bugs, is communication.  That is my biggest ask.

With all that said, I'm still waiting for the next patch before I pick this up again.  I appreciate the dialogue, and now with a quasi date for that to drop (we know things can change), I have something to look forward to while playing KSP1.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Scarecrow71

[cocoscacao]

[snip]

For those who are impatient about the game... Well, I trained my nerves on Mount and Blade Bannerlord development

Edited May 5, 2023 by Vanamonde

[Fluke]

13 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

Sons of the Forest launched to EA at the same time, and has done 4 patches and 7 bug updates in the same period.

And I just bought an EA game that had a patch in a matter of days after release. Proves absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip.