KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[cocoscacao]

2 hours ago, VlonaldKerman said:

maneuver system which can accommodate constant-thrust trajectories

Whaddaya mean by that?

2 hours ago, VlonaldKerman said:

Right now I wouldn’t expect top-tier optimization, but it’s disheartening to hear about the copy-paste physics, the rocket wobble, and the dubious nature of the other roadmap features/systems.

Maybe not top tier, but this game will have to have some serious optimizations. Having several colonies and vessels zipping around will require some serious computational power. I'm still in the dark how that's gonna be achieved. Burning under time-warp is an indicator that physics is not copy pasted. I hope they address wobble properly. Actually, I hope for a full post on why that was incorporated in the first place. I can't comment on roadmap, since we're not there yet.

[Periple]

9 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

I hope they address wobble properly. Actually, I hope for a full post on why that was incorporated in the first place.

I don't expect to hear more about that decision than we have so far unless they intend to change it. Nate said that he thinks wobbly contraptions are part of the kerbal experience, the issue is just that there's too damn much wobble right now. 

It's legit to disagree with him on that point but it won't mean much -- he is the creative director so it's his call!

[Bej Kerman]

2 hours ago, VlonaldKerman said:

does Elite 2 have more features and mods than the new one, to the point where you can essentially turn Elite 2 into the new one with better performance and fewer game-ending bugs?

KSP with mods is the joke people say about awful games. "It's like all 50 developers were locked in different rooms". Good luck fixing things when you have to go through 50 modders to find out why the game does not launch at all.

[VlonaldKerman]

26 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Whaddaya mean by that?

Trajectories which involve accelerating for half of the journey and then decelerating for the other half to save time. This is why they reworked maneuvers to show your actual trajectory through the duration of the burn, as opposed to approximating it with instantaneous impulses like the first game.

26 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Maybe not top tier, but this game will have to have some serious optimizations. Having several colonies and vessels zipping around will require some serious computational power. I'm still in the dark how that's gonna be achieved

Totally agree with you there. My impression is that there are some fundamental changes to the way KSP 1 loads and keeps track of vessels that can be made, along with several other changes, to reduce the compute load. This is why “reworked core systems” are so important, and why the ambiguous status of those systems is concerning. I made a whole thread about this at one point- maybe I’ll find it and link it here.

29 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Burning under time-warp is an indicator that physics is not copy pasted

Yes, that is true. However, I think data miners found that the physics engine is just a modified version of the default unity one, with some minimal modifications. I don’t know how to interpret that, but all it takes is for you to play the game and you can feel that the physics system has some of the same old quirks. So it’s not very changed, most likely.

31 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

I hope they address wobble properly. Actually, I hope for a full post on why that was incorporated in the first place

Rocket wobble is an unintended consequence of the physics system from KSP 1, which depends on non-rigid joint connections between parts which is stored as a linear sort of tree diagram. So it wasn’t explicitly incorporated; it’s just a result of mostly copy-pasting KSP 1 physics, as I understand it. In his new game, HarvestR, the OG creator of KSP, uses a different physics system with rigid joint connections, because he saw it was a problem in KSP 1.

[The Aziz]

2 hours ago, VlonaldKerman said:

don’t know much about Elite- does Elite 2 have more features and mods than the new one, to the point where you can essentially turn Elite 2 into the new one with better performance and fewer game-ending bugs? Because that would be essential for it to be analogous.

If you mod KSP1 hard enough, it will slow down to a crawl, regardless of how much power you have in your rig. You can't just go out and measure performance of a modded game because on every instance you may get different results. As for fewer bugs, ehhhhhh, I'd redirect to KSP1 bug tracker but nobody will bother so I won't either.

16 minutes ago, Periple said:

Nate said that he thinks wobbly contraptions are part of the kerbal experience, the issue is just that there's too damn much wobble right now. 

Once again I will say that yes he's right. If you build something "Kerbal" enough, you can't expect everything to be as stable as a rocker powered stick. (Otherwise we would have crazy contraptions in Earth orbit and beyond because our engineers wouldn't have to worry about structural stability) But also yes, there's a lot of room for improvement.  So it's a double edged sword, and it's only up to you to decide which side you're going to use.

[VlonaldKerman]

11 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

KSP with mods is the joke people say about awful games. "It's like all 50 developers were locked in different rooms". Good luck fixing things when you have to go through 50 modders to find out why the game does not launch at all.

I’ve rarely, if ever, had severe difficulty with KSP mods, even with 100+ mods in one install. The only issues I’ve had are version issues or mod intercompatibility issues.

There was that one time in modded KSP that the KSC teleported into space in front of me and I crashed into it… oh, wait…

@The Aziz Certainly there are performance and stability issues with modded KSP- that is the sole reason why KSP 2 exists! To provide a polished version of a modded KSP experience with better performance and fewer bugs. But, as someone who uses tons of mods in KSP 1- I find it bareable, which I cannot say about KSP 2.

With respect to wobbly rockets, there is another thread about this in which someone proposes a system with rigid joints + instability and joint failure which would punish bad designs but without the unrealistic and tedious effects of rocket wobble. I think it’s an interesting suggestion.

[The Aziz]

27 minutes ago, VlonaldKerman said:

I’ve rarely, if ever, had severe difficulty with KSP mods, even with 100+ mods in one install. The only issues I’ve had are version issues or mod intercompatibility issues.

Meanwhile I never knew if my Kopernicus game would load at all, and if it did, combined with KW Rocketry and a bunch of other stuff, trying to test something was damn near impossible and I spent more time watching loading screen between VAB and launchpad, than I did flying or building. With mods your performance is a lottery, your mileage may vary and there's no reliable way of predicting the final result. That's why I dropped that save soon after conquering (as in, recreating Cassini) Sarnus.

28 minutes ago, VlonaldKerman said:

With respect to wobbly rockets, there is another thread about this in which someone proposes a system with rigid joints + instability and joint failure which would punish bad designs but without the unrealistic and tedious effects of rocket wobble. I think it’s an interesting suggestion.

I'd rather have it wobble to tell me there's something off with my design, and that I can fix it (if Kerbal construction comes) in a minute with a bunch of struts in orbit - if of course I manage to get through the wobble; than see it snap and leave me with nothing the second it happens.

None of that of course has anything to do with KSP1 player count.

[cocoscacao]

1 hour ago, Periple said:

Nate said that he thinks wobbly contraptions are part of the kerbal experience, the issue is just that there's too damn much wobble right now. 

To be fair, I cannot think of other way of representing that player did a horrible job with design. My major gripe with wobble is that it becomes a big problem when you dock multiple vessels together. This is present in KSP 1 as well.

And just to stay on topic, and give the forum moderators a hard time... Damn! KSP 1 player count really halved after KSP 2 release... 

[Bej Kerman]

1 hour ago, VlonaldKerman said:

I’ve rarely, if ever, had severe difficulty with KSP mods

And your mods list is exactly the same as everyone else's? KSP 1 is dependant on mods for basic things. Burn in warp, tolerable VAB camera, etc. Getting a game to run and have basic features should never be a case of throwing darts at the wall with the lights off, trialling different mod loadouts to see what runs bearably. Squad effectively dumping these things onto the modders to deal with is pathetic, and the fact the devs of KSP 2 are trying to change that is honorable, even if they undershoot (they are only human, and it seems half the forum would rather them live in a cave over mishaps). 

[Alexoff]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

Squad effectively dumping these things onto the modders to deal with is pathetic, and the fact the devs of KSP 2 are trying to change that is honorable

What are they trying to change? They promised to make mod support even better, and if they had the strength for this part of the game, many of us would have put the same mods in KSP2 that we had in KSP1 long ago. It's just one of the undone but promised features.

[Bej Kerman]

11 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

What are they trying to change?

I can use Ion engines, a bare basic feature of the game, without tacking crap on to make up for dev laziness. What possibly did Intercept change there?

Edited August 15, 2023 by Bej Kerman

[Stephensan]

As of 8/15/23 on steam only related users

 

Avg was 3200~ or so player was constantly on, and after the release of KSP 2 went to on avg went to 2,627.... peaks are lower, avg playing is lower, growth is lower, KSP Reddit activity is slower etc... i can infer that based on what i have seen by my own eyes it has effected ksp 1 playerbase..

 

so an overall net loss of steam users either going modded or leaving the game of 573.. this can be people going to modding, stop playing the game, people switching to ksp 2 etc.

ksp 2 on the other hand

avgs has been steadily decreasing since June or just generally going steady flat on active users playing.

Jun 22 due to an update (interesting) was the highest Steam recorded record since the release of the game since April 30th of 759 players peaks... and lows of under 100's in the ultra low 90's is rare but ultra low 100's lows is very common now.. we can only assume its the same way for other platforms based on this little bit of information.

 

we can assume with steam users only that we can see a peak of once again of additional 450 players on the peak scale, and if on other platforms it will be the same with an increase. however it seems that there is far more players talking about ksp 2 than actual users overall playing, in general, the userbase is hopeful to see what is in store for the entire of August 22nd update but the userbase is starting to lean of "where science update/where re-entry effect-heating effects" now that most all major issues besides the wobbliness has been addressing in some way or another.

 

don't care about peoples argument "it doesn't show the entire use base" if anyone brings that up... Just showing what steam as of right now, my thoughts of whats going on, and showing how much ksp 1 has been effected since ksp 2 release.

[Alexoff]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

I can use Ion engines, a bare basic feature of the game, without tacking crap on to make up for dev laziness. What possibly did Intercept change there?

Almost all the development of KSP1 after 1.1 was the implementation of user mods into the game. In KSP2, a few more pieces were added. This is due to the fact that the community comes up with and creates something new faster than the developers. And if the developers of KSP2 could do what they promised in early access, someone would already be using RSS/RO. But the game in its current state will not withstand such a number of mods, it is very unstable in stock. But of course, the ability to warp with ion engines is a top feature, probably all the forces went into it, because electricity is still infinite and is not wasted on anything other than ion engines.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Alexoff

[Bej Kerman]

4 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Almost all the development of KSP1 after 1.1 was the implementation of user mods into the game

None of those mods were essential like the example I gave you.

[The Aziz]

"implementation of user mods" it sounds so simple, they probably scrolled through ckan and picked things at random, right?

I'd very much like to see a team of few dozens come up with something that the community of thousands hasn't yet in some form.

The There's a A Mod For That™ phrase didn't come out of nowhere.

[Alexoff]

8 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

None of those mods were essential like the example I gave you.

You also forgot to tell us about the button that turned the whole gameplay - dV!

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

I'd very much like to see a team of few dozens come up with something that the community of thousands hasn't yet in some form.

This is easy to see in KSP2. I think it's easy to see why

[LoSBoL]

13 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Almost all the development of KSP1 after 1.1 was the implementation of user mods into the game. In KSP2, a few more pieces were added. This is due to the fact that the community comes up with and creates something new faster than the developers.

Nope, this was due to the fact that the philosophy changed, KSP1 was a nerdy 'figure everything out yourself' game which was lacking just about everything to make it accessible for new players. That philosophy changed when Take2 took over the franchise and a lot of QOL features which were missing were added.  Off course these QOL features were already created by modders and 'therr was a mod for it', they were missing features in the original, mostly because of design philosophy. 

[Klapaucius]

I fit into the category of someone who has stopped KSP1 after KSP2 started (but have now pretty much dropped all of it).  Here are my reasons:

 

1.  KSP1 was decling for me anyway in the year prior to KSP2s release. Mainly this was because I always enjoyed the community aspect, particularly the challenge page.  And what I was finding was that not many new challenges were being put forward, and when I put forward my own, I got almost no takers--which had almost never been the case before.  I tended to get good responses to most (not all of course) of my challenges, but suddenly no one was interested.  It seemed a lot of the folks I saw regularly on the forums I frequented drifted off--I have a feeling real life (as in the pandemic) probably played a role.

 

2.  I was super-keen to be in on the early development of KSP2 and see how it progressed. So, I initially invested a lot of time and effort despite the challenges of bugs.  My builds took a bit of a different tack--still weird, but also some replicas (Wright Flyer, Santos Dumont's 14Bis) which I had never done in KSP1.  The KSP2 Builds page started taking  up the mantel of the wonderful KerbalX.  But... the community over in KSP2 land has turned toxic.  I get there is a lot to criticize, and I have had my share of frustrations and rage quitting moments, but the forums are generally full of the same arguments and counter arguments ad nauseum.  It is exhausting.  Occassionally I still open the forums and comment (like today) but for the most part, I am tuning out.  I think my KSP days may be reaching an end.  It is just not fun anymore.  Perhaps unfairly my experience with KSP2 and the forums has put me off all of it.

 

I wish I could find some way to recreate the vibe just after the release of Breaking Ground.  It was the best time gamewise and community-wise.  

[Infinite Aerospace]

On 8/14/2023 at 8:21 PM, Alexoff said:

KSP2 updates are very small. An announcement of a patch release date, an AMA, or a keybind picture doesn't say much about the state of the game's features. For example, I don’t understand at all what science will be like. If it is just a remake of KSP1, then it's pretty sad.

That final part is something I've alluded to a few times, both on here and Discord. How can we not, at this stage have the faintest idea what what science mode is going to like in KSP2?

 

Unfortunately I'm not sure it'll be any better than KSP1 at this point, the game is a prettier, slightly refined KSP1 experience at this point, it's done little in the grand scheme of things to set itself apart from KSP1.

 

But yeah, we don't have a vague timeframe of when to expect science and progression, or what those features are going to look like. Which is, concerning IMO.

[PDCWolf]

9 hours ago, The Aziz said:

"implementation of user mods" it sounds so simple, they probably scrolled through ckan and picked things at random, right?

I'd very much like to see a team of few dozens come up with something that the community of thousands hasn't yet in some form.

The There's a A Mod For That™ phrase didn't come out of nowhere.

Funnily enough, if you remember, they did hire the mod developers to bring their creations into the game. The only thing you could say they took without doing that is the kerbal inventory.

[Pthigrivi]

Ive taken a few days to think about my approach to this forum. I certainly don’t come to a forum about space frogs to feel annoyed and exasperated. Vanamonde recommended blocking folks which isn’t crazy, but in 25+ years on the internet Ive never blocked anyone and Ive been to places where what passes for casual opinion would curl the hair of any decent person. In those places though, where bad-faith among worse conduct is commonplace, I have the ability to interrogate motive. This allows you to undo bad-faith by untying false pretenses and lay bare another’s true feelings where they may be examined under the light of day. Bad ideas wither quickly under genuine scrutiny. Being about a specific GA product this board requires a different set of rules for conduct which is completely reasonable and understandable. Its a funny problem though because bad-faith is difficult to define and combat as point of moderation because it’s designed not to break explicit rules, and yet we are not allowed to dig deeper into what a poster genuinely means when their intent is be deliberately disruptive in order to draw attention. What to do? 
 

I suppose its best to focus on positive reinforcement. Respond to posters who are genuinely interested in an improved game and utterly ignore posters who aren’t until they change their approach. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[Periple]

2 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I suppose its best to focus on positive reinforcement. Respond to posters who are genuinely interested in an improved game and utterly ignore posters who aren’t until they change their approach. 

It’s not a block list, it’s an ignore list. I ignore a lot of people even though I often peek at their posts. It’s a reminder to me that engaging with them is most likely futile. I also take them off ignore if I see them posting something that suggests that this has changed. There are 27 people on it now!

[caipi]

On 8/8/2023 at 1:36 PM, VlonaldKerman said:

Any thoughts or explanations for this? I wouldn’t have guessed that KSP 1 was affected by the KSP 2 launch.

I can only speak for myself here. I played a bit of KSP1 again before the KSP2 EA release. I (tried to, I should say) played KSP2 for about 3 or 4 weeks, then decided to return the game on Steam for various reasons, not just the bugs. Just didn't like so many things about KSP2 (wrong place to get into here). For me, KSP2 will likely be a stillbirth. I tried to return to KSP1, but it's just too tragic for me at this point, even with all the super awesome mods out there (and there are quite a few planet packs I'm super hyped about and haven't tried yet even though I desperately want to). But playing KSP1 just reminds me of all the hopes I had for KSP2, of the wasted potential and the tragic state it is in. I just cannot play KSP1 at the moment without thinking of KSP2. And that makes me sad.

But for what it's worth, I'm not reflected in the steamdb user stats. Not just because I used to start KSP directly, but also because I bought KSP via the Squad website (back in 2013 or 14?) and not via Steam.

[Dakitess]

On 8/15/2023 at 10:55 AM, Bej Kerman said:

...don't have opinions differing to mine? No, pass. It looks stellar, spectacular and awesome.

[snip]

Mmmh... And it's my bad indeed since I don't like being told what to think or say either. Don't know how to rephrase it more conveniently, just like I don't sincerely know how it can theses graphics can be consider as "insert superlative here" when it's objectively (nah ? Let's be honest) not "superlative by any means", while it can totally satisfy enough some players of course.

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

On 8/15/2023 at 8:38 PM, Alexoff said:

Almost all the development of KSP1 after 1.1 was the implementation of user mods into the game. In KSP2, a few more pieces were added. This is due to the fact that the community comes up with and creates something new faster than the developers. And if the developers of KSP2 could do what they promised in early access, someone would already be using RSS/RO. But the game in its current state will not withstand such a number of mods, it is very unstable in stock. But of course, the ability to warp with ion engines is a top feature, probably all the forces went into it, because electricity is still infinite and is not wasted on anything other than ion engines.

What was promised when by the devs?