Parts and Circumstance

[LuxStice]

45 minutes ago, schlosrat said:

From his posts I got the impression it wasn't all that simple. That said, if you're itching for grid fins, then take a look at SORRY - it may have what your looking for.

@Alexoff like he said, its not that simple, i took the easy approach for my gridfins, but its not optimal at all, Gridfins arent as simple as a "plane that creates drag", they behave diffrently at diferent speeds and angles.
On my iterations of the gridfin concept i use the game's control surface as a force driver, so basically they are just like any other control surface, but they rotate sideways.
I've just finished fixing all the drag models for the parts but its still not optimal... But sure will be better in the next update of SORRY

[Wheehaw Kerman]

13 minutes ago, FlazeTheDragon said:

Lets GOOOOO, drag is finally being looked at.

Cant wait to start doing cargo ssto's...... and ''torpedo boats''

Drag was already being looked at.  The only difference that Nate’s post has made is that the June update’s been delayed by the number of production hours diverted to making it. 

On the one hand this level of transparency and detail are nice to have, and would have been great during the pandemic, when I was checking the forums a few mornings a week for news, but pandering to the negative toxic members of the forum may come back to bite the team.   It’s just going to encourage them, and make things around here even worse. They‘ll use this post as ammunition the second Nate doesn’t respond to their entitled demands or they find something to complain about in the update…

Edited May 27, 2023 by Wheehaw Kerman

[herbal space program]

Thank you! This is the kind of transparency that makes us have faith that you are really going to make this game the kind of awesome experience  all of us here are hoping for. That list of top ten bugs and what's going on with them was something I specifically asked for in the last thread,  so it's really great to see that my plea and those of all the others here asking for the same thing did not go unheeded. For may part, I'm much less inclined to become distrustful over self-imposed deadlines not being met  (because you know, stuff happens) than I am over what might seem like evasive treatment of glaring issues.  If you can fix the worst five of those ten bugs, your game is going to be one heck of a lot more fun to play, and you are going to be getting a whole lot less complaints and a whole lot more kudos.

[Heretic391]

Wow thank you for the update! That engine looks great. The Methalox engines will be great for our space plane designs. 

[Bej Kerman]

This communication is even better than what we had with NMS (after the initial silence Sean put HG through in order to focus solely on the game, of course). It takes a lot of courage to speak like this in the face of people who dedicate their existence on this forum to whining about how the game is supposedly doomed and claiming you and the other team members are not communicating, despite the obvious evidence that's not the case. I've not seen transparency like this before, even with Squad. Good luck, and fly safe 

[TLTay]

I prefer this communication style for early access.

This might be the first post in a while that didn't make me feel crabby.

20 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

, but pandering to the negative toxic members of the forum may come back to bite the team.   It’s just going to encourage them, and make things around here even worse. They‘ll use this post as ammunition the second Nate doesn’t respond to their entitled demands or they find something to complain about in the update…

I'm one of those people who is not inappropriately supportive and positive when the situation doesn't warrant it. I approve of the new tone and delivery (not that my approval matters). Transparency is like this is preferred by most people.

As far as feeling rewarded by it, I don't really care. If my crusty posts helped in tiny part to lead to an increase in transparency, so be it. Better for all.

I'm not thrilled with the state of the game, but at least my fangs aren't dripping with venom after reading this. 

[asmi]

3 hours ago, Strawberry said:

Just for clarification, do you currently think this is related (at least partially) to the wobbly orbits bug? Or was the breakthrough you mentioned last week unrelated

It may very well be that they don't really know yet. Sometimes when you investigate a tricky problem you can find the change "surfaces" in some unexpected places.

[Scarecrow71]

As one of the biggest and loudest naysayers here, I have to state that I truly appreciate the comments made by @Nate Simpson, especially those as they relate to the trajectory bug.  To hear that you are working on it, and that it is really deep in the code, fills me with hope.  And it is good to hear you acknowledge that you are trying to be more transparent; it is something we desperately wanted out of you and your group.

Now, with that said, I've got a question or two if you could be so kind please.

Q1.  Will there be any more AMA's?  If so, when?

Q2.  As far as the trajectory bug goes...is it possible to glean any information out of the code for KSP1?  I know 2 is a whole new code base, but maybe something is there that could spark a thought?

Either way, thank you for the update!

Edited May 27, 2023 by Scarecrow71

[mason417]

Thanks Nate.   I appreciate all your hard work  but I also feel the frustration like many others sometimes.  Please know I am so very happy KSP2 is out and it is a visually beautiful game.  There are some bugs that have to be fixed and I am sure you are working to fix them.  I have a list.  I only ask you to work with hast and determination.  With all that in mind, I am grateful and thankful for all of the KSP2 team.

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

4 hours ago, Nate Simpson said:

Next up, at the suggestion of @RyanHamer42 on Twitter, we’re building space stations! Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

• Primary goal: build a station by docking at least two Wayfarer habitat modules together in orbit above Kerbin
• Secondary goal: add a deployable solar panel truss and a fuel depot tank to your station
• Jeb-level goal: dock a transfer tug to your station and place the station in orbit above another planet
• Val-level goal: send a lander to your station that can be reused for down-and-up flights to the surface of the planet below

@BechMeister

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Sylvi Fisthaug

[jclovis3]

I know KSP2 isn't as open to the public as another game I've been watching for the past 10 years, but here are some things they do to keep us informed.

An updated Roadmap with two views. First, is a release view with blocks for each quarter and a list of features marked for this release. They don't go more than a couple quarters out as these features are in the high assurance category. The other view is a progress tracker, which lists most features in a sort of time line along with the teams who are working on them and when. This is connected to their internal Jira system and delayed by a couple of weeks. There are of course some features they deem "redacted" so as to give us something to thirst for, but much of it is open because millions of players are watching, testing, and submitting bug reports to the issue council or contributing to reports, voting them up and making them more visible.

Weekly video showcasing some aspects of development, including white boxing, grey boxing, and in engine testing, even if it's not stable because they can always edit out the breaks and try another take. These videos are usually 10-20 minutes long.

Weekly behind the scenes video usually as a way of getting to know the employees and what they're working on. Sometimes it has nothing to do with actual production but more about their background and what they had done before. Other times they demonstrate the tools they are using (artists love this) or do Q&A sessions about their area of responsibility in coding and development. There may be anywhere from 1 to 4 developers or other staff used in addition to the host in these videos and being on Twitch Live, they give players a chance to react and respond or ask questions on the spot.

Patch notes and testing releases. These are first sent to a smaller group of players who sign an NDA to test game patches and report on bugs that make it too unstable for a wider release. The patch notes and bug reports on these patches are not public. Then a quarterly release candidate moves into the first public wave, where players having a concierge status can perform the same tests and report on bugs. At this point, the patch notes are released publicly and not behind an NDA but only a relatively small number of players can play and report. They will likely release their own YouTube content on these patches, making the state of development more known to the public. More weeks later, the next public wave introduces more players into testing. Now this is a game that has both a Live (long term) major version and a Player Test version. It is the test version that is going through these waves of tests by players. When it is deemed stable enough, the Live version is updated to the new major quarterly patch, which is similar to what you are doing now with KSP2. This sort of commits any changes and updates to the game and prevents players from using older versions. Those of us doing test patches have to have extra drive space for a separate and isolated copy but the same launcher is used to select which version we are playing or testing.

The last is something you are already doing. Hosting a forum for discussion of problems, ideas, and events or challenges. That keeps us engaged but having developers engaged with us is what keeps us with you. This other game has two types of posts we can make. One is the traditional chat where content becomes lost over time, and the other is categorized discussion groups, where we create a discussion about a specific topic or idea and comments are shown either in their parent/child node view (replies indented and collapsible), or in order of posting date (user decides which view and what sort order). This view provides the user name of any user who replied to it in a linier list below the post as well as the user name of who the post replies to above it. Those names are links to the other replies or posts. This sort of category discussion view lasts longer in time and for the most part, remains within the context of the OP's first post or statement.

Forgive me for being vague on what this other game is, but I do not want to detract from KSP2 by giving that title away.

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, Strawberry said:

I honestly doubt youll get much complaint if some of this stuff doesnt come to fruition 

I'm in a similar boat, but for me it's...

I honestly hope you'll not get much complaints if some of this stuff doesn't come to fruition.

[Dakota]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Q1.  Will there be any more AMA's?  If so, when?

I'll answer this one: yes. We really enjoyed the last ones and we want to keep doing them. We're looking at a new more approachable format for some of our comms, and the AMAs would most likely appear that way compared to just doing them on Discord again.
 

No timeline, but we have a list of team members ready-to-go - so expect one sooner rather than later.

[razark]

I'd like to point out that the list provided was not a list of the top ten things that are being worked on.  It's not stated as a list of the top priorities, or the order of things being done.  It's not mentioned as a list of what's in the next patch.  There were no promises made, schedules given, nor projections estimated.

Quote

here are a few of the biggest issues we’re wrangling with right now

As quoted, it's a list of some of the things they happen to be working on, no more or less.

 

Just for when the "they promised they were going to fix <X>" posts come in later.

Edited May 27, 2023 by razark

[mcirish3]

You probably wouldnt get so much blow back about the state of the game if you had chosen a $20 price point for early access instead of a bloated over priced price point of $50.  Just saying price sets expectations .

Edited May 27, 2023 by mcirish3
typo

[Meecrob]

1 hour ago, mcirish3 said:

You probably wouldnt get so much blow back about the state of the game if you had chosen a $20 price point for early access instead of a bloated over priced price point of $50.  Just saying price sets expectations .

They probably would have gotten more than 2.5x sales and actually made more money if they sold it for $20. They could legit say its EA. Most complaints include the price for what is offered.

 

Edit: Aimed at the Dev team; I don't know how feasible this idea is, but maybe even put out blooper videos of some hard to fix bugs. As in "We are trying to fix X bug and found this bit of code that seems to conflict, so we implemented Y fix" and it totally messes up. If you guys are gonna homage Shaun Esau, you can homage Danny2462.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Meecrob

[danfarnsy]

This is a good change, Nate. Last week's feedback was largely fair, and it's good to see you're still focused in detail on the core issues. I've stopped playing out of frustration with those core issues, and I'm looking forward to coming back when those are ironed out.

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

I, like others here, also appreciate the change in communication style, while it’s not fully there yet, it’s a good step in the right direction and offers us a bit more information about what is going on.

Don’t want to sound too critical, but it has been acknowledged months ago, by the CM, in the orbital decay bug report thread, that the bug is being worked on so while the extra confirmation helps, it’s still not bringing more information about that and in which update that bug is going to be fixed.

We’re really looking forward to your solution  for more transparency in bug priority and progress, whether it’s a bug tracker or some other way of seeing what’s being worked on and potentially in which update the fix is coming.

Happy weekend to you & the team. 

[Well]

Many thanks for this Dev Update, with more transparency. This probably take a lot of time, but i feel that what the community need actually.

I think most of us could perfectly understand than some stuff takemore time, but it's really important than we have an ideas about what you work on. Early Access is also about sharing.

Sure you have stuff you want to keep secret.  And if some stuff take more time, just remember than Failure is part of the Kerbals way, until they have sucess!

Thanks for sharing my Moho Lander 

[Klapaucius]

As an on-again, off-again trumpet player, I'd just like to say how much I love the fact the new engines are called Trumpet and Tuba!  So, will there be small variants, ie piccolo trumpet, C trumpet, cornet?  Will there be a large, twisty tuba variant called Sousaphone?

 

Now I just gotta hear some horns!

 

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Klapaucius

[Dakitess]

Well, i'm really not going to be as positive as you, guys...

There is barely nothing in this post. It's only very simply reacting to the whole complaints about the lack of transparency, to say "I get it, sorry, I'll be more honest and give you more details". It's, like... Not even a sincere Mea Culpa, just bare communication.

And as en example of transparency we get some classification for bugs (wew !) and then a top10 with some comments on the status. But damn, this is the very minimum of anything ! It's good to have, thanks, better than nothing, but there is nothing to praise at all ! Ans well, it really really does not show much progression to say the least. When patch3 will come, patch2 might be 2 months old, and we might not see any meaningful bug fix in it, if I read it correctly.

Get me right : it's nice to now get more insights and details. But it's very basic, and as a communication reaction to the past week in Mohopeful. It does not feel sincere, it does not Say much. Ksp2 really really need an honest and transparent Mea Culpa with a plan to save it. A new "starting date", a milestone that community will aknowledge as a New start with a new organization, a New motivation. It needs this Mea Culpa.

At least, it will help people complaining about repeated and insisting complaints, understand that yep, it allows the ksp2 team to really get that there is something wrong which Can't be ignored and need to be address. 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Dakitess

[Wyleg]

13 hours ago, Dakitess said:

It needs this Mea Culpa.

Oh my god. So you really want the devs to say that they are bad? You want to tank their self esteem and turn them into whining mess to achieve what? Personal satisfaction because you feel underdelivered? [snip]

Edited May 27, 2023 by Vanamonde

[Periple]

1 hour ago, Dakitess said:

Ksp2 really really need an honest and transparent Mea Culpa with a plan to save it. A new "starting date", a milestone that community will aknowledge as a New start with a new organization, a New motivation. It needs this Mea Culpa.

That's a lot more than a mea culpa, it's a complete reboot. If things get to that point, I think it's more likely the game will simply be cancelled. They already rebooted once.

For the people calling for Nate's head on a plate: he's the creative director. His job is to maintain a coherent vision of the game and if necessary make the tough calls on what features need to be cut. His job is not to produce, nor to engineer, nor to do QA. Creative directors who try to do any of that invariably cause more problems than they solve. If you want to point fingers, point them at production or possibly engineering direction.

And finally, just a reminder -- they don't owe us any mea culpas, apologies, explanations, or even communication of any kind. They owe those of us who paid for the EA a game that meets the goals they set out in the EA's initial roadmap, however long that takes. You can pout and stamp your foot all you want but it won't change anything. Nate sprinkling ashes on his head won't fix any bugs, improve performance, or implement any features.

If you're really angry about the state of KSP2 now, I humbly suggest that you log off the forums and go build some rockets and rovers and aircraft in Tears of the Kingdom instead (the physics are incredibly robust and the game overall is so, so, so well executed it brings a tear to my eye). Then come back in six months or a year and see where the game is at. Raging about it here does nobody any good -- not you, not the forum community, not the developers, and not the game.

[Dakitess]

Why guys are you so upset and defending when someone says his opinion about the game, about a post, a communication ? Why always this need to invite someone to log off, to take rest, to go back after some months / patchs ? Like we are not capable enough thinking about it ?

A Mea Culpa is only an official post to say "Okay, KSP2 is not what it is supposed to be right now, even for an EA, we aknowledge that, we know lot of things could have gone better, we heard you, and we will provide some information regarding the new honest dev plan we are looking to, as follow : blabla". This is not what we have here, do we agree ?

I'm not asking for Nate head or whatever the hyperbolic sentence you could say, it's ridicule. There is nothing like taking their self-esteem : it's just about sincerity, to recognise that things are not going good at all.

KSP2 need a fresh start *in my opinion*. A date from which things are going to be different, including transparency, honesty, and maybe a required reorganization. That's all, it does not need to be a new development, a new team, nope. But it's a personnal take, it's something I feel necessary. Nowhere did I said they owe us to do so, you're not saying much about it, they don't owe us much at all, good, let's move forward ?

I would not have insisted if comments were a bit more nuanced instead of 95% buying what is said : it's cool to be positive and optimistic, enjoying the new transparency and the news we are given. It is. But it's honestly quite lacking insights and contents, we were aware of most of this bugs being worked on, we knew there were various progress percentage about them. Now we can officially read it, good, but that's not anything particularly... meaningful, and theses states are not very reassuring either, don't you think ? Soooo, now that there is so many compliments, that you're free to consider deserved, can I nuance it with my own comment, the only one so far being quite negative ?

Anyway, I'll keep "complaining" as long as I feel it's serving a purpose, as an humble no-one here, to discuss about the game, to keep it alive showing that we are a lot a bit depressed about it, but still hoping for the best rather than deserting the forum.

And please, learn to nuance and moderate your words.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Dakitess

[Wyleg]

Devs are paid primarily to deliver a game, everything else, including public relations, is secondary. Apologetic letters with intricate and nuanced wording achieve nothing.  Furthermore, this roads not only leads to nowhere, it opens up for the opportunity for negative and unconstructive people to taste blood, take the 'moral high ground' and further push the devs towards their momentarily satisfaction goals, draining all the energy. And I just refuse your narrative that they owe us such thing. Between "Shutting up and doing things better and "Apologetic crying about how bad things were" I choose former.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Wyleg