Calvinball? More like Spherical Hydrogen Tank-Ball!

[Stephensan]

39 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

This week’s challenge: Score a Goal! That’s right, those big spherical hydrogen tanks are about to be kicked, dunked, and spiked across the Kerbolar system! There will be extra (imaginary) points for style:

• Primary gooooooooooal: Use a crewed vehicle to roll an uncontrolled spherical hydrogen tank under the KSC bridge
• Secondary goooooooooooooooal: Deliver a spherical hydrogen tank to the surface of the Mun and knock it through a Mun arch
• Jeb-level goooooooooooooooooooooal: Roll a spherical hydrogen tank into the Mohole on Moho
• Val-level goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal: After scoring the goal on Moho, dunk a second hydrogen tank from the same vehicle into the center of the KSC communications dish

We are counting on you to perform some ludicrous displays. We don’t want to see anybody walk it in.

kind of a blowout mission to do this week..

this requires a lot of precision and a lot of understanding of what funky ksp 2 game mechanics. let alone time.

 

1 hour ago, Nate Simpson said:

Wobbly rockets are sometimes fun and funny. A big part of what originally got many of us hooked on the original KSP was the silliness and emergent problem solving that came from playing World of Goo with rocket parts. Broadly, we see this as part of the Kerbal DNA, and want to preserve it in some form. Whether that means limiting wobbliness to certain types or sizes of parts, or relegating certain behaviors to player settings, is the subject of ongoing internal discussion. We of course are following community conversations with keen interest, and this is an area where Early Access participants can have a significant impact on the 1.0 version of KSP2

It could just be a research thing, where you can easily create a couple of extra lines (not code I'm talking about tech tree lines) t that can go "deep" into the tech tree and "slowly" adds more rigidity to parts. It would require more materials to make it less wobbly or more rigid and you can just click a "scaler" that makes the entire rocket cost more or less, fewer materials.. Things can be categorized like "fuel tanks" "structural" "Pods" "Colonies" "XYZ ABC" etc.

Due to not having "time" and watching your rockets build slowly (i wish) just making it cost more materials and some additional research points doesn't seem like such a bad idea/plan, keeping the "kerbal" way while also adding the want/need to push further for more stable and "larger builds".

So starting off rockets can still be quite wobbly, but the people that dare go larger CAN but have a higher chance of wobbliness without upgrading anything. It makes sense from a logical stand point that while you progress further in the tech tree, the stronger your rockets are.. It creates a fine balance of "expensive but will never fall apart" and "should i cheap out on this build" etc. For me it creates a lot of ideas of what you can "do".

and then it can just be simply turned off with a setting to ONLY have the strongest stability when it's disabled.. And starting wobblyness will depend on the overall difficulty of the save with a slider, and a "on and off" button

I doubt that there needs to be a forced level for each thing, and COULD be optional for the insane players that want REALLY wobbly rockets.

(think about the content)

"I played ksp 2 on the hardest difficulty with zero stability upgrades"

No idea how much extra work that can/could add to adding new "tech tree" points where structural stability is getting stronger and stronger depending on what tech level you are at.. but that's just an idea I'm throwing out in the wind.

This COULD probably also help create alot of modders aswell wanting to add income and the sorts into the game making it even more of a "positive feedback loop".

 

[Kerbin Launch Coalition]

58 minutes ago, Warshawski said:

Hello Nate!

I've been playing KSP since the first public release, and really enjoyed it - to this day I still play KSP1, usually with the RO modpack installed. I have so far enjoyed 2, but I am currently waiting for more content before diving back into it. (Can't wait for science!)

If I might make a suggestion that would perhaps blend the community's desire for non wobbly rockets while still allowing for some wackiness, why not tie those (somewhat) wobbly joints to decouplers?

Say you've got a rocket stack - maybe something like an SLS, for a reference - and you slap it together with a couple of decouplers for the boosters. If it's possible, we could have that core stage welded into one physics entity, unaffected by wobble, but the decouplers still utilize joint physics, and thus the boosters can wobble. So an actual Node connection should be as solid as steel (or aerospace grade aluminum) but lateral decouplers could be subject to wobble. Just a thought!

Thanks for the dev team's hard work!

Either that or why not just scrap the whole notion of 'a stack of tanks' and just implement a procedural tank system. Where you start off with whatever width and just stretch it to fit the needs it the vehicle. I mean it's not like United Launch Alliance, for their Vulcan rocket get six individual tanks and just 'stack them'. It's a single, monolithic part. As such it would surely be treated by the Unity physics engine as just a single physics entity removing the issue with attachments and such. I mean, that could be me being idealistic or naive but why not, procedural tanks have existed for quite some time in KSP1. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Kerbin Launch Coalition said:

Either that or why not just scrap the whole notion of 'a stack of tanks' and just implement a procedural tank system.

That's not going to happen, they only implement procedural parts when there are a lot of parts that all look pretty "samey".

[Pat20999]

• Wobbly rockets are sometimes fun and funny. A big part of what originally got many of us hooked on the original KSP was the silliness and emergent problem solving that came from playing World of Goo with rocket parts. Broadly, we see this as part of the Kerbal DNA, and want to preserve it in some form. Whether that means limiting wobbliness to certain types or sizes of parts, or relegating certain behaviors to player settings, is the subject of ongoing internal discussion. We of course are following community conversations with keen interest, and this is an area where Early Access participants can have a significant impact on the 1.0 version of KSP2
   
• Nate Simpson actually said this, I live in SO Much pain!
• The whole community actually said wobbly rockets aren’t fun just give us temporary autostrut and the real stuff can wait until it’s fixed.

[Stephensan]

6 minutes ago, regex said:

That's not going to happen, they only implement procedural parts when there are a lot of parts that all look pretty "samey".

problem is i would love to have it due to part counts.

that can easily cut a build into 1/3 the size in parts for fuel tanks or structural etc. we can get huge builds with smaller part counts overall.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Stephensan

[leopardenthusiast]

2 minutes ago, regex said:

That's not going to happen, they only implement procedural parts when there are a lot of parts that all look pretty "samey".

An entire category of parts that are just variously-sized cylinders that hold fuel sounds pretty samey to me.

[ShadowDev]

Cannot wait for the next update. I understand how complex this game is so a few extra days wait is not a big deal. keep up the good work. 

16 minutes ago, Stephensan said:

it could just be a research thing, where you can easily create a couple of extra lines (not code I'm talking about tech tree lines) t that can go "deep" into the tech tree and "slowly" adds more rigidity to parts. It would require more materials to make it less wobbly or more rigid and you can just click a "scaler" that makes the entire rocket cost more or less, fewer materials.. Things can be categorized like "fuel tanks" "structural" "Pods" "Colonies" "XYZ ABC" etc.

Due to not having "time" and watching your rockets build slowly (i wish) just making it cost more materials and some additional research points doesn't seem like such a bad idea/plan, keeping the "kerbal" way while also adding the want/need to push further for more stable and "larger builds".

So starting off rockets can still be quite wobbly, but the people that dare go larger CAN but have a higher chance of wobbliness without upgrading anything. It makes sense from a logical stand point that while you progress further in the tech tree, the stronger your rockets are.. It creates a fine balance of "expensive but will never fall apart" and "should i cheap out on this build" etc. For me it creates a lot of ideas of what you can "do".

and then it can just be simply turned off with a setting to ONLY have the strongest stability when it's disabled.. And starting wobblyness will depend on the overall difficulty of the save with a slider, and a "on and off" button

I doubt that there needs to be a forced level for each thing, and COULD be optional for the insane players that want REALLY wobbly rockets.

(think about the content)

"I played ksp 2 on the hardest difficulty with zero stability upgrades"

No idea how much extra work that can/could add to adding new "tech tree" points where structural stability is getting stronger and stronger depending on what tech level you are at.. but that's just an idea I'm throwing out in the wind.

This COULD probably also help create alot of modders aswell wanting to add income and the sorts into the game making it even more of a "positive feedback loop".

 

I like this idea

[Vinhero100]

1 hour ago, Nate Simpson said:

 

• Wobbly rockets are sometimes fun and funny. A big part of what originally got many of us hooked on the original KSP was the silliness and emergent problem solving that came from playing World of Goo with rocket parts. 

its so over 

[ShadowDev]

17 minutes ago, Kerbin Launch Coalition said:

Either that or why not just scrap the whole notion of 'a stack of tanks' and just implement a procedural tank system. Where you start off with whatever width and just stretch it to fit the needs it the vehicle. I mean it's not like United Launch Alliance, for their Vulcan rocket get six individual tanks and just 'stack them'. It's a single, monolithic part. As such it would surely be treated by the Unity physics engine as just a single physics entity removing the issue with attachments and such. I mean, that could be me being idealistic or naive but why not, procedural tanks have existed for quite some time in KSP1. 

I hate this idea. its a half assed way to do something and removes tons of creativity aka juno.

[Saaur]

Animations are nice, but is there any chance we could get working lights on EVA suits?

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, leopardenthusiast said:

An entire category of parts that are just variously-sized cylinders that hold fuel sounds pretty samey to me.

Yes, and this was pointed out to them when the assertion that "samey parts get the procedural treatment" was made. No response was given to pointing that fact out.

[Alexoff]

17 minutes ago, Saaur said:

Animations are nice, but is there any chance we could get working lights on EVA suits?

It would also be nice to get a personal chute

[Nate Simpson]

1 hour ago, regex said:

I certainly hope interacting with this system is purely optional. While systems like this are fun sometimes, they're tedious at others, and I'd prefer to drive my own space program rather than have you guys dictate the direction it goes in order to get better replayability and challenge potential.

Thanks for the update.

It is entirely opt-in. You can just go and explore at your own discretion if you like, and you'll collect Science the same way that you did in KSP 1. The mission system just adds interesting additional goals for those who want them.

 

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

It is entirely opt-in.

Is it "opt-in" in the sense that once I opt-in I have to follow those missions? Is it "opt-in" where I can pop in to grab an interesting mission if I'm not feeling particularly driven on that particular day? Iis it "opt-in" in that it provides a series of mission chains that I have to do in succession? Like what are we talking about here? "Opt-in" implies that I'm activating a feature rather than using it when and how I want.

E: I'm guessing it's just extra pop-in an grab missions kind of thing based on your comment. Alright.

Edited June 16, 2023 by regex

[Mattybraps01]

I think a great solution to the wobbly rocket problem would be to have a small series of intentionally unstable “found on side of road” parts that is hilarious for early stages of the game. This ropes in new players for the explosions but still inspires you to improve your rocket design. As you acquire new parts, the rigidity quickly diminishes, and is only present in the edge cases you've mentioned (long cantilevers, etc). This inspires players to move past the parts that are introduced at the start of the game into the larger and more powerful parts. The unstable parts would still be great for small-scale crafts.

[RocketRockington]

[snip]

Also this was not the update on science I was hoping for after Nestor's words last week.

Oh well - Rule #1 of KSP2 club is always expect disappointment.  No exceptions.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Vanamonde

[gussi111]

Wouldn't it be the best if they made joints completely rigid at this stage of the development and think about re-adding it in some much less interfering way sometime in the future when the game is more stable and doesn't have that many bugs, maybe it would also improve performance by a little bit?

[The Space Peacock]

Another great and transparent upnate Nate, but i do have some notes and concerns i'd like to share with the teams about this one:

 

First, on 'wobbly' rockets. While i am really glad to see the teams view seems to mostly line up with what the majority of the community wants, i did want to point out this;

1 hour ago, Nate Simpson said:

Wobbly rockets are sometimes fun and funny. A big part of what originally got many of us hooked on the original KSP was the silliness and emergent problem solving that came from playing World of Goo with rocket parts. Broadly, we see this as part of the Kerbal DNA, and want to preserve it in some form. Whether that means limiting wobbliness to certain types or sizes of parts, or relegating certain behaviors to player settings, is the subject of ongoing internal discussion. We of course are following community conversations with keen interest, and this is an area where Early Access participants can have a significant impact on the 1.0 version of KSP2

To be quite frank: wobbly rockets should not be a thing, under virtually any  circumstance. This sentiment of wobbly rockets being a core part of the KSP experience is in essence a glorification of a bug that got accepted by the community over time, born out of nostalgia. I want to remind the team that KSP2 can, and should, be its own distinct work. There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep features that made the original so beloved, but you really shouldn't be afraid to do away with features that just dont fit into the vision for KSP2. If you keep wobbly rockets now, you risk having to have to  come back on that decission once builds start to exponentially increase in size, which will  eventually happen as big features like colonies and interstellar get added. To illustrate, here is a space station i made consisting of 1K parts, with no struts attached. The results speak for themselves:

In my personal view, a craft like this should not require 100's of struts eating up the partcount just to prevent it from folding in on itself. Autostrut isnt the answer either, and i agree that it should only be applied as a last-ditch effort. I believe any and all craft that have a part tree comprised of same-sized parts and appropriate adapters between different sized parts, even radially, should stay perfectly rigid in any situation. This also means that rotated or offset parts should have no effect on rigidity as long as they comply with the above rule.  Same applies to docking ports. The only exceptions where wobbly-ness should be applied are crafts consisting of a stack of mismatched and differrently sized parts, or boosters under thrust that are connected to the main rocket using insufficiently large radial decouplers/ibeams/trusses. Concerning wings, you said:

1 hour ago, Nate Simpson said:

Wings should not require struts to stay rigid

i agree with this, but i dont think wings themselves should be completely rigid. Long wings with a thin root thickness should have some flex to them, but it should be applied to the wing itself rather than its joint.  My views on this are based on how rockets and aircrafts behave in reality; even the craziest of rocket designs usually dont have any  flex to them as long as they are pressurised, even in extreme situations (like Starship doing flips going above mach 1 with 2 holes in its side recently). Jetliners and gliders with long wings on the other hand, do allow for some flex in their wings. i don't see any reason why this should be different in KSP2. While i understand there is a certain nostalgia about this whole topic, do not forget that it is ultimately still a bug that should be eradicated if you truly want to 'slay the kraken'.

 

Secondly, i wanted to say a few words about the decision to reintroduce Biomes for Science Mode:

1 hour ago, Nate Simpson said:

along with the assignment of Science biomes to all Kerbolar celestial bodies

as someone who has completed nearly all science experiments in all possible situations in KSP1,  please  implement this differently from the way KSP1 did. Biomes in and of itself are not a bad thing, but if you allow players to do each science experiment in every biome to gain science, it quickly becomes a chore rather than a joy. Having to biome hop from one bland, boring terrain to the next that looks virtually identical just to do the same experiments, both makes the process extremely boring and too easy. You are probably well aware of the fact that the tech tree in KSP1 was easily completable without ever leaving the Kerbin system in KSP1, which was a direct consequence of this issue. For starters, each biome should be unique and provide the player with a distinct feature of the celestial body. Good examples of this are Oceans, Beaches, Mountains,  Craters and points of interest like the Mohole and Dres canyon. Bad examples of biomes are Lowlands, Midland, Highlands and patches of regular non-outstanding terrain/ocean that were just given a different name. A much better system for biomes would be a mix of microbiomes and larger visually/scientifically interresting biomes. For example: Ice Geysers, Volcanoes, Rock/Ice formations, Icebergs, Fissures, meteorite remains and similar small-scale surface features would make for great micro biomes. Examples of good 'mayor' biomes include (as mentioned before) Beaches, Oceans, Rivers, Craters/Crater rims, Regolith Patches, Mountains, Plateaus, Poles/Ice caps, Ancient River Deltas,  Basaltic Plains/Mares, (Salt) Flats, Canyons/Cliffs, and all the one-of-a-kind point of interests. There is one big caveat with these though: all of them should only be able to provide science once. Naming different craters and having each be a different biome does not make a lot of sense in the context of science gain and quickly inflates the possible science gain from any given body. Entering a new location with the promise of a new biome, just to have it be one you've previsouly visited but with a different name, was one of the biggest dissapointsments and sources of tediousness with the KSP1 biome system.

Another change from KSP1 that would tremendously increase the fun to be had in science mode is assigning each biome/situation with its own specific set of experiments instead of just allowing all of them. An example of this would be to have for example a Regolith Patch biome have experiments like 'regolith composition analysis', 'surface sampling' and 'test kinetic deformation', while a biome like the Crater could have 'Analyse Ice composition', 'measure light level' and 'Collect Meteorite Sample' as experiments. Some of these experiments could be made to randomly fail, forcing the player to move to a different closeby location where they have more luck (eg Ice might not be present in every crater). Some experiments could also be mutually exclusive; if already collected a meteorite sample from a 'Meteor Remains' microbiome, the experiment wouldn't be available in the Crater biome anymore. I understand that this would make for a very complex and intricate science system, but it would greatly improve the diversity of collecting science, balance science gains on any particular body, and break with the monoty of just performing the same experiments in the same situations over and over again. And implementing science in this manner also opens up what i think is a huge possibility:

Abandoning science points entirely, and instead directly connecting branches of the tech tree doing experiments in specific situation. To illustrate this, lets look at a theorethical 'ground parts' tech branch in the tech tree; to unlock the first basic landing legs, you could simply have to recover a vessel after a flight on Kerbin. To unlock the next, you might have to either collect a surface sample or perform a rock analysis on a regolith patch, basaltic planes or salt flats biome biome on the Mun, Minmus. To unlock the next legs and/or wheels, you could either have to do the same thing but on a more difficult body to reach (like Ike or Gilly), perform a more advance experimenton the previous bodies, or collect Data from more biomes, and so on for the next level of tech in the branch. Having the tech tree work in this way adds a fun challenge while still alowing the player some freedom to choose how they go about aquiring a new part. It would also greatly compliment the new Mission system!

Discovering different biomes was another one of KSP1s more lackluster aspects of science mode. This could very easily be remedied by having a family of parts that tell you which biomes ,are near, in what direction they are, and display the current biome on the HUD. these could be either different parts that each provide their own function, or one part for different tech levels that progressively adds more feauters. Another really handy feature to have would be a notification when the players enters a biome/situation where new science is available for the experiments that are present on the craft (could also be done with a dedicated part, or just be an option in the settings)

Finally, a quick word on this sentence:

2 hours ago, Nate Simpson said:

An all-new Science collection and transmission system

The way KSP1 required you to bring back most experients, sometimes even multiple times, for full science gain was not only annoying but also not very realistic. For the sake of gameplay,  most science experiments in KSP2 should be a 'do it once and you're done' kinda thing, where transmitting the experiment gives you all science immediately. The exception to this would be surface samples and/or colected rock fragments, which would have to be returned to either Kerbin or a Colony/Space Station with processing facilities. This would greatly encourage the usage of science probes, and add some much needed functionality to space stations (and not in the 'put your science here and we'll double it' way). If you really want to add science experiments that cant be completed instantly, having some experiments that require time to complete would be a much better hands-off way to do it. Collecting data on a planets upper atmosphere for low orbit for example could be an experiment that requires ~a month of in-game time or so to complete, and would require you to do nothing more than place the science experiment in low orbit, start it, and come back later once you get the notification that it's finished. 

 

 

Sorry for the ted talk, this got a bit out of hand! This is the first time i've shared so much feedback under a dev post, so i hope i've done so in a respectful and comprehensive way. I did this because i really feel strongly about these features in particular and believe i am somewhat qualified to share my opinion on them. I truly believe that if even some of this advice is taken to heart, it could lead to a better science mode  especially than anyone could have ever expected. However you may choose to tackle these issues tho, i wish the teams the best of luck with them and can't wait to see what they come up with!!

[KincaidFrankMF]

3 hours ago, Nate Simpson said:

We would like to move away from autostrut, or any other band-aid solution that involves hidden settings that automatically apply additional joints to make a vehicle more rigid. Whatever solution we arrive at, we’d like it to be predictable and transparent to all users. If over the course of Early Access we find that some form of autostrut is still necessary to allow the creation of ambitious vehicles, we’ll revisit this requirement

I like the overall design philosophy here, but there are a few problems that (currently) only autostrut can fix. Particularly adjacent parts that logically should be welded together, but which the core KSP "attach one part to one other" approach makes impossible. So everything flops around wildly because we can't tell the game *these things are attached*. 

If the VAB included a simple option to glue two adjacent parts together, that would fix an awful lot and be a massive step up on the original game.

[SethM]

when do we get eva chutes?

in ksp 1 they were a lifesaver

p.s.  only 4 days till next patch!!!

Edited June 16, 2023 by SethM

[Strawberry]

Wha, why is everyone acting like there word on wobble has radically changed all of a sudden??? Literally like the fourth dev post "We've also begun some investigations into improving the current wobbly rocket situation, and we should have more to discuss on that subject soon. ", like that line has been repeated like five times now, also the first ama "If a rocket is skinny and made of many stacked parts, it should wobble. Larger scales, no.".  I could name more but I dont feel like dredging through more forums text. Like nothing we've heard here is a sudden shift thats out of nowhere.

[Nate Simpson]

12 minutes ago, The Space Peacock said:

 

Sorry for the ted talk, this got a bit out of hand! This is the first time i've shared so much feedback under a dev post, so i hope i've done so in a respectful and comprehensive way. I did this because i really feel strongly about these features in particular and believe i am somewhat qualified to share my opinion on them. I truly believe that if even some of this advice is taken to heart, it could lead to a better science mode  especially than anyone could have ever expected. However you may choose to tackle these issues tho, i wish the teams the best of luck with them and can't wait to see what they come up with!!

Great comment. This is my favorite kind of feedback, thorough and well-argued.

[Strawberry]

Re: Wobble, I dont want to see it completely gone, that just sounds boring, nor do I want a slider, as that seems pretty micromanagey. Personally, while I dont think theres gonna be a silver bullet here, maybe one thing that could help is a minimum amount of wobble. If the game detects that the joint wobble force is below (insert number here), the part doesnt wobble. This prevents the quantum wobbles that tears apart large space stations, while still allowing said space station to wobble when you strap 20 mammoth engines to the back of it. This could scale with part size of course. The quantum wobble effect just isnt all that realistic, and it also leads to bugs like the changing orbits bug, this is one of those changes to where I really just dont see a downside for it. 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Strawberry

[MidwestB]

Hello!  Reading these updates the last few weeks has been great.  Really appreciating the insights.

The changing orbits and shifting trajectories on SOI changes are the things keeping me from purchasing the game currently.  I don't mind if science is way later, I just want to go see places like Dres' rings or Vall's ice canyons.  Been playing KSP1 since 0.16, when there was just Kerbin, the Mun and not much else!

 

Last week it was mentioned that the orbit changes are due to an aggregation of wobbles.  Do the devs have a tool to see the forces, or acceleration of a craft in orbit?  Can they see these values for a craft while it's orbiting?  

It seems like analyzing these values would help get to the cause for orbits changing/how the wobbliness is causing it.  What direction is a force acting to cause the orbit to change?  Is it a drag, normal, or anti-normal force?  Is it random or oscillating?  Is it stronger in one direction, and if so why?

Is there a way to help figure it out better?  I'm tempted to get the game to try helping look into it more/experiment with it.

It seems like a really interesting problem to solve and I hope there is a write up about it once it's cracked!

[Meecrob]

7 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

 

Could you expand on the wobbly rockets issue? The replies are because your answer was vague.