Parts and Circumstance

[LoSBoL]

Great update, as I read from someone before in what was needed, you are now taking to us instead of at us and are managing expectations. Please let this be the precedent for future communications.

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by LoSBoL
Typo

[Squaremantis]

While my faith has not been completely restored yet, this post has given me a bit of hope for the future of the game. I am very happy the new update will actually be including new parts along with bug fixes and performance improvements, even if the update has taken longer because of this. One concern I have though is whether the science update will even be released this year or not, I really don't see the harm in just giving us a rough time frame on when the update is going to release (like what you guys have been doing with these smaller updates recently). Another thing is transparency, transparency is something that all of us have been wanting more of due to how complicated the development of this game has been. While I understand the developer's concerns with revealing stuff like release dates and major new features, it would be nice to see at least a little bit more of those things every dev update.

[RayneCloud]

Wonderful, honest, straight forward. Thank you Nate.

[Lyneira]

Thank you Nate, for sharing a bit more about what you're internally working on. When I look for the dev updates every week, I'm not necessarily looking for early hints about what the next patch will contain, but also hope to learn what you'd like to do with the game in the medium and longer term, and how that evolves over time. I hope you'll continue with this new style of writing and wish you and the team the best in stamping out those bugs you mentioned!

I'm also intrigued by these new extensible-nozzle engines. They look like they'd have great vacuum efficiency in extended mode, but also viable for use on landers in retracted mode. Maybe even usable in a similar ground-to-space launch profile as the aerospike. Looking forward to trying them out in the next patch!

[Wheehaw Kerman]

8 hours ago, TLTay said:

I prefer this communication style for early access.

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

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. 

So the point is that Nate’s post revealed that, guess what, IG was doing exactly what anybody who knows anything about how projects work, and who wasn’t going full conspiracy theorist, knew already: that they’ve been systematically planning and executing bug fixes, adding parts and features, and progressing the roadmap.

Heck, all we had to do was listen to Nate in the first place.  Did anybody seriously think that they wouldn’t be working hard on the trajectory bug?

All the hissing and venom-spitting was completely unnecessary and only pointlessly turned the forums into a toxic snake pit for the mods and everybody else.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Wheehaw Kerman

[rebel-1]

The news is good, but progress is already slow. When will we see at least some semblance of a completed game?

 

[RocketRockington]

Hopefully this will head toward the EA people wanted, where the community was involved in the development process, rather than the prior 3 months of hyping and PR speak that seemed primarily oriented toward pretending everything was fine, papering over the problems with jpgs, and encouraging sales of this underwhelming EA.

[Ramen]

I don't think I've ever physically cheered while reading through a parts list, but the shielded docking port returning brought me so much joy. I've used that on more than half of my space planes in KSP 1 so I'm very attached to it. I'm also relieved to hear the team is trying to improve transparency with the status of bugs, perhaps a public Trello board could help? I know that the Phasmophobia team communicates through a Trello board, so it came to mind as an option. In any case, please tell the team to keep up the great work! I'm excited to see what comes next :)

[Periple]

2 hours ago, Dakitess said:

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 ?

Because you just keep repeating the same complaints in the same way in every thread where the devs post and it's really tiresome! 

[schlosrat]

1 hour ago, Dakitess said:

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 agree, we have not been give a Mea Culpa. But then, I don't think we're owed one either. I think @Periplenailed it as to what we are owed, and what I think most want to see. Apparently you may feel differently, as is your right. Is it more important to assign blame and exact some sort of acknowledgement of wrong doing, or to get bugs fixed, new features added, and to see the game progress down the roadmap? It seems as if you're more focused on the former than the latter in these past two posts.

5 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

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?

Looks like you'll get your wish! The Cornet was the first one he mentioned, and the Tuba was the third! 

13 hours ago, Nate Simpson said:

• Cornet Methalox Engine (new small extensible-nozzle orbital engine)
• Trumpet Methalox Engine (new medium extensible-nozzle orbital engine)
• Tuba Methalox Engine (new large extensible-nozzle orbital engine)
• S3-28800 Large Inline Methalox tank (longer version of large methalox tanks)

Here’s some video of those new engines in action. The Tuba has individually-swiveling mini-nozzles that might be one of part designer Chris Adderley’s coolest ideas yet (final parts built by Pablo Ollervides, Jonathan Cooper, and Alexander Martin):

[Spicat]

2 hours ago, Dakitess said:

Now we can officially read it, good, but that's not anything particularly... meaningful

I genuinely don't understand, what do you clearly want?

As I understand you, you want an apology? How's that meaningful to anything? Like soulless ones we got from others games?

Personally I don't really care about that, it's maybe a matter of opinion but I much more appreciate words on concrete things like those bugs they mention and screenshots/videos on new features.

And we already had acknowledgements of the type of "KSP2 is not what it is supposed to be right now" like the graphics dev diary:

On 3/10/2023 at 10:00 PM, Intercept Games said:

As many of you have noticed, KSP2’s performance isn’t amazing at the start of Early Access.

So I don't really get your complaint.

To be honest, all of those are words and actions are much more meaningful. I think the only thing that would make you happy is patch/update release because I don't think those dev post will ever satisfy you. So patience is the only option possible for now.

[Alexoff]

As I wrote earlier, the cyberpunk strategy works. You can promise to do something incredible, a really functioning world and so on, then release the game without all this, but with a bunch of bugs. Then the developers openly apologize and fix bugs for a year and add a new jacket and some new weapons. And voila - everyone is happy! Well, and that the gameplay of the game has not come close to what was promised earlier, almost no one cares. But the developers speak fluently and openly, thats important!

10 minutes ago, Spicat said:

I genuinely don't understand, what do you clearly want?

I can assume that he is looking forward to the game, roadmap implementation and patches. We already understood that Nate can express himself beautifully, that's why he was hired.

[PDCWolf]

Finally! A good update!

I seriously hope this is taken as a new standard regarding development updates and not a unicorn. This should pretty much act as an example set going forward on how to show the work, the progress, and the process. And I can only hope the 4 pages [until now] of positive comments and so far very little negative comments are more than enough to show the difference a properly worded, actual report on progress does versus PR speak and loose images.

It is important to understand that the way the updates are worded shouldn't be measured on a basis of just "how much information I want to give away" but rather "how intelligent do I believe my playerbase to be". Whilst ultra-angry posts can challenge that view, I believe we're all part of a pretty intelligent playerbase, and this dev update is much more on par with what I judge the playerbase's intelligence level to be. Said another way: Treating us like intelligent beings and not hype-babies has clearly net a much more positive response.

In fact, I have almost no critique.

Here's my feedback, presented as constructively as possible:

1. E-mail support directs users to create threads reporting bugs in the forum - Add tags to those forums reflecting at least a basic status of those bugs: Acknowledged, Fix in Progress, Unconfirmed, Unfixable, and so on. I think it's a good comprimise versus a fully open bugtracker. Unless the next update you talk about is a proper bugtracker in which case, blessed.
2. I still want at least an option for stars to behave properly on the presence of bright bodies. It seems the artistic direction is set in stone at this point (which by all means should be), but I'm not gonna stop asking for this.
3. The over-expanded engine exhaust has to be fixed, please, that's pretty much something every human with an interest in spaceflight knows is wrong the instant they see it. There's no concave curve. Here's some examples:

[Bej Kerman]

33 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

• I still want at least an option for stars to behave properly on the presence of bright bodies. It seems the artistic direction is set in stone at this point (which by all means should be), but I'm not gonna stop asking for this.

I'd say that can wait until after all the important issues are dealt with.

[Kerbart]

3 hours ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

Heck, all we had to do was listen to Nate in the first place.  Did anybody seriously think that they wouldn’t be working hard on the trajectory bug?

Nate has also been blowing a lot of smoke. The game that was delivered was a far cry from what was suggested to us pre-launch. What we learned was that IG was extremely skillful in saying one thing, raising expectations, and when those expectations were missed by a parsec or two amd you start combing through them with a legal brush, then yes, they never actually said that, but it sure as hell was no coincidence we thought that.

That has, not surprisingly, backfired in a spectacular fashion. Yes, they are saying they work hard on the bugs. Most of us like to believe those bugs are being worked on. But we've gone through two patches where those bugs were not addressed. Heck, we didn't even get the impression IG was aware of those bugs. But look what we spent our time on: grid fins! We know that's not true but that is the tone being played in the dev update and it's a tune the community is tired hearing.

No one here knows what goes on inside IG. Most of us probably assumed they were working hard. But after two patches the patch interval gets bumped to two whole months, without acknowledging that there are some major bugs that need fixing. Delaying the next patch "because we want to include features" says "we prioritize features over bug fixing". And yes, maybe that's not what we should be reading into it, but here's where IG's reputation of blowing smoke is now hurting them; the community has grown quite salty.

Hopefully the communication will get better from now on, but they've backed themselves in a serious corner by delaying bug patches instead of accelerating them. That patch needs to deliver, especially regarding addressing major bugs. Because I have doubts community support for the game will recover if it doesn't.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Kerbart

[Bej Kerman]

4 hours ago, Wyleg said:

Between "Shutting up and doing things better and "Apologetic crying about how bad things were" I choose former.

And you say there's no option to apologise and do things better?

Nigrum et album fallacia.

[Bej Kerman]

1 minute ago, Kerbart said:

But we've gone through two patches where those bugs were not addressed

Bugs were addressed. As for wiping out 100% of bugs and making a perfect piece of code, the devs are not robots.

[BechMeister]

11 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

@BechMeister

 

I dont think i have two wayfarer modules on K.G.01 - but besides that it seems pretty close xD

[Spicat]

29 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

The over-expanded engine exhaust has to be fixed, please, that's pretty much something every human with an interest in spaceflight knows is wrong the instant they see it. There's no concave curve. Here's some examples:

KSP 2 do have concave curved plume (even if those need some work because they are a bit too short to have the effect of a falcon 9), but it's a transitional effect between sea-level and the void of space. The "over-expanded" plume in space is, from my understanding, quite realistic (but we have few examples because you don't usually see big engine in space).

Here are some screenshot from over-expanded plume of the space shuttle (source from the thread below):

Spoiler

You may have a look on the discussion on the subject (with the answer of a dev on this):

And obviously the dev diary where they explain a bit (with the transitional effect) with some discussion in the comments:

[Mitokandria]

Thank you I really appreciate this style of update. This is all I really wanted out of these weekly updates. Looking forward to some sort of public facing bug tracker so we know what is and is not confirmed by the dev team or what needs more data.

[ninjaj03]

Score 1 for basic communication. Always preferred over fluff.

Can't wait to try the game again in June.

[The Aziz]

3 hours ago, rebel-1 said:

 When will we see at least some semblance of a completed game?

Around 1.0

[DunaManiac]

I'm encouraged that the team has been communicating more, which is what I asked for when the original "we're slowing down update cadence" dev diary came out. Based on these comments, this style of update has been much better received than the last ones. Hopefully it'll be a model for the future.

I hope that after this update there'll be a more regular release cadence, say, once a month. That would do a lot to improve faith in intercept: it shows that they can keep promises and reassures the playerbase that the game is not imminently about to be cancelled. I would even accept perhaps less substance if a regular release schedule was maintained.

[RocketRockington]

42 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

I hope that after this update there'll be a more regular release cadence, say, once a month. That would do a lot to improve faith in intercept: it shows that they can keep promises and reassures the playerbase that the game is not imminently about to be cancelled. I would even accept perhaps less substance if a regular release schedule was maintained

I wouldn't hold your breathe.  While the added transparency is nice...thank you to people like @PDCWolfand @Alexofffor being persistent enough to keep posting and getting through to the devs despite all the vitriol aimed at you.  This post is far more transparent - but it's also transparent how slow it's going, how long it's taking for issues to be addressed, how uncertain they are about fixing many of the major issues that shouldn't have even been in a release 3,4 months later.

I expect updates to keep this pace or slow down even further after this - especially if you can keep the community happy with just somewhat better status updates, a minimalist version of what a public bug tracker would actually be doing for everyone.

 This seems like the poster child of how much traction you can get out of lowering expectations to the basement first and the offering a tiny glimmer of hope.

[PDCWolf]

3 hours ago, Spicat said:

KSP 2 do have concave curved plume (even if those need some work because they are a bit too short to have the effect of a falcon 9), but it's a transitional effect between sea-level and the void of space. The "over-expanded" plume in space is, from my understanding, quite realistic (but we have few examples because you don't usually see big engine in space).

Here are some screenshot from over-expanded plume of the space shuttle (source from the thread below):

Those images depict low pressure MMH/NTO rcs systems on the Shuttle, which are really not even close to the stuff you work with on combustion. The ejected particles are much bigger, but really much slower. Chamber pressures are wildly different as well.

 

speaking of using books for reference: