A Taste of Science

[Nate Simpson]

Good afternoon, Kerbonauts!

I wanted to start off by saying thanks to all of you who have been so patient and supportive as we’ve progressed through Early Access. We play KSP2 a lot, and we understand both the big and little frustrations around playing the game in its current state. It’s easy enough for me to say, in my corporate way, that we’re "aware" of these bugs and that we’re working on them, but I don’t think that gets close to the urgency we feel. This is a project to which we’ve devoted all our energy and passion. For many of us, the 1.0 version of KSP2 will be a crowning, career-defining achievement. We’re not just "aware" of the bugs. They stand between us and the promised land, and we are making every effort to eradicate them. It means a lot to us that in spite of the setbacks, the community still believes in this team and in the overall vision for KSP2.

We’ve been working on the usual stuff this week (bugs, stability, performance, and new feature work for the Science update). We expect to be able to communicate timing for the upcoming v0.1.3.0 update next week. In the meantime, we’ve been building some lovely Science collection parts, which are meant to provide interesting, meaningful payloads for research missions. This is one of our new radial science collection parts (designed by Chris Adderley, built by Alexander Martin, and animated by Paul Zimmer:

Bonus points to anybody who can identify what all the science bits do!
On to this week’s challenge: we’re going to Dres! If you in fact are a believer in Dres’ existence (I myself am skeptical), feel free to attempt the following:

• Primary goal: Land on Dres
• Stretch goal: Land in one of Dres' canyons and return safely to Kerbin
• Jeb-level goal: Land a rover on one side of the Dres canyon and jump the canyon. (You can use rockets to hop and cushion impact, but use wheels to gain speed)
• Val-level goal: Place a satellite in orbit within the outer gap in Dres' rings
• Tim-level goal: Do all of the above in one mission

Finally, if you’re in the mood to check out some other players’ impressive vehicles, take a look at kspbuilds.com! Not only do these downloadable workspaces contain vehicles that are fun to pilot, it can also be super instructive to pull one of these into the VAB and take it apart to see what makes it tick. Here’s a little taste:

Some very creative use of procedural wings in there, right?

Have a great weekend!
 

[J3B]

Thanks!

[The Space Peacock]

thanks for the update Nate, have a great weekend!

 

[Datau03]

Thanks for the update Nate! I wish you and the team a happy weekend!

[The Aziz]

Magnetometer boom I see there.

Similar to the original if I may say so.

But with extra bits.

[HammerTyme]

Appreciate the update.  Although I was hoping for some more info on when heat and reentry would come to the game. Hopefully soon.     I look forward to the future patches.  

[livetalk]

12 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

This is one of our new radial science collection parts (designed by Chris Adderley, built by Alexander Martin, and animated by Paul Zimmer

HUH? It does all of the things? Truly radical :O

[Superpluto126]

Sorta looks like a Magnetometer but will collection and Optical Equipment.

[Scarecrow71]

15 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

In the meantime, we’ve been building some lovely Science collection parts, which are meant to provide interesting, meaningful payloads for research missions.

Is this in addition to whatever you were building for Science prior to EA?  Or did you scrap whatever was being built and start over?

[J3B]

3 minutes ago, Superpluto126 said:

Sorta looks like a Magnetometer but will collection and Optical Equipment.

It also appears to have mystery goo.

[PicoSpace]

Looks to me like advance telemetry science pack for measuring gravity forces and momentum.

[Superpluto126]

Just now, J3B said:

It also appears to have mystery goo.

I missed that, but it looks like a 'all in one' sorta science package. 

[DunaManiac]

27 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

This looks pretty cool - building cool-looking probes in KSP1 is one of my great joys, so it's nice to know that I'll be able to continue that if and when I move to KSP2.

[jimmymcgoochie]

I see a magnetometer boom, some kind of radio plasma wave science array, two mystery goo-looking capsules, a camera array and something that could either be a telescope or a mass spectrometer tube. It's like every stock KSP experiment rolled into one convenient package!

[juanml82]

Magnetometer plus mystery goo plus antenna for transmission.

I hope the science equipment does more stuff than showing a blurb of text and assigning points. Maybe something like scansat, in which certain pieces of equipment map the terrain for landing spots and locate the resources on the ground for fuel and colony manufacturing.

[Spicat]

Nice, very happy to see news from science.

This science part seems to be on par with the part we saw back in 2020

Spoiler

Source :

Spoiler

 

 

[ninjaj03]

I appreciate the straightforward update.  First one in a few weeks that hasn't given me the hebby-jebbies.

[regex]

That's a much more interesting part than what I was expecting; I think Squad really scarred me with crap like the barn and the dumb "junkyard" aesthetic. You all are doing a great job and clearly I should be realigning my thoughts on the future of this game.

[Meecrob]

Hey could we get an update on how science will work? Or expected timeline? It sounds like 0.1.3 will be bugfixes? So science is later?

Edited May 12, 2023 by Meecrob

[InterstellarDrifter]

Just now, Meecrob said:

Hey could we get an update on how science will work?

I'm pretty sure you just got what you're gonna get...at least for a little while. 

patience young grasskerbal! 

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

41 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

It means a lot to us that in spite of the setbacks, the community still believes in this team and in the overall vision for KSP2.

I have not yet read any comments, as I fear there be a lot of complaining, but I do believe. 

I have built my two first stations in KSP2, and I never did that in KSP1. I just started my third. It is sometimes hard and frustrating, but I believe. 

Keep going, team! I am really looking forward to see what's to come.

5 minutes ago, regex said:

You all are doing a great job and clearly I should be realigning my thoughts on the future of this game.

 I have seen you in the comments of the dev posts here before, and I am so happy to see you write this, and telling us that you are chaning your mind about the game!! It makes me believe in the it, and the team, even more. Thank you.

[PDCWolf]

51 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

We understand both the big and little frustrations around playing the game in its current state. It’s easy enough for me to say, in my corporate way, that we’re "aware" of these bugs and that we’re working on them, but I don’t think that gets close to the urgency we feel. This is a project to which we’ve devoted all our energy and passion. For many of us, the 1.0 version of KSP2 will be a crowning, career-defining achievement.

Which bugs? Oh wait, you don't have public bugtracking. When I sent support an email reporting a bug, you know what I was told to do? Post it here, on the forum. The forum has that same bug reported from before patch 1. How would I possibly know you've noticed it? Even your support people have no idea what's already been reported.

51 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

We’ve been working on the usual stuff this week (bugs, stability, performance, and new feature work for the Science update). We expect to be able to communicate timing for the upcoming v0.1.3.0 update next week.

So, an announcement to announce a release date for an announced update. An it is not even a firm commitment to communicate a possible release date.

51 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

In the meantime, we’ve been building some lovely Science collection parts, which are meant to provide interesting, meaningful payloads for research missions.

How does this embody what Shana Markham said? How is "a radial science part" not just the same "put a thermometer on my command pod" she belittled when talking about the new science parts? Is it because it seemingly does more than one thing?. What I see is 2 sets of "cameras", goo canisters, a magnetometer boom and a collection of integrated antennas, which I'm sure are there for radio-frequency scanning, is all of what Shana said just "we put many parts in 1 and give it a weird shape" ?

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by PDCWolf

[Alexoff]

47 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

In the meantime, we’ve been building some lovely Science collection parts

Are you making them now? How long ago did you start? I'm afraid to ask how it is with the parts for the colonies ...

[Meecrob]

1 minute ago, InterstellarDrifter said:

I'm pretty sure you just got what you're gonna get...at least for a little while. 

patience young grasskerbal! 

Please stop. You have zero information.

[Strawberry]

Okay so this is a really interesting item because its definitely not just one thing. This thing gives off pioneer 9 vibes with all of its "antennas", one of them is definitely a magnetometer, I'm guessing the rest of the antennas are some mixture of solar wind plasma analyzer, cosmic ray detector, and cosmic dust detector. The green stuff is interesting too, algae/mystery goo maybe? or perhaps its kerbals. The JWST lab has both the green goo and something that looks a lot closer to the classic mystery goo so Im feeling like its not mystery goo. I think the red thing is supposed to be a infrared something as well, Im guessing its supposed to be an infrared spectrometer for near planet usage with its small size? Looks like the  Near-Infrared Volatiles Spectrometer System? All these parts are optimized for space, and the fact that it follows the gold foil fuel tank makes me feel like this part is designed for orbital usage for space probes and itll be pretty useless on the ground

36 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Is this in addition to whatever you were building for Science prior to EA?  Or did you scrap whatever was being built and start over?

The fact that the JWST lab posted below you from 2020 has many of the same parts as we see here makes me feel like this asset has been finished for a while. 

The interesting thing is the two science part we've seen has been "combos" of experiments. The JWST lab has some experiments from this part as well. I'm super curious if all science parts will be combos or there will be combos and individual science parts (hoping its the latter). 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Strawberry