KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[Periple]

Random thought, how would it work if it was at top center? Less eye movement than bottom left and it would keep the landing zone clear. It doesn't mesh naturally with the downward bias of our visual FoV though.

If the UI was customizable I'd try that for sure to see how it feels! 

[Astr0Guy5]

Well, I didn't want to bring this up, but i feel I must. It can't continue to be ignored by you people and these sorry devs. I use a computer with a 16:10 screen size, and every single time I play KSP2, there's these stupid black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. I loathe the fact that I must suffer like this with the passion of ten thousand suns. Nobody cares, instead they just blab on about how, "Oh, poor me, my widescreen is tooo wide, I can't play, this game sucks!" Yeah, well, some of us have bigger issues that we'd like addressed!!!

 

this is sarcasm on steroids in case it wasn't obvious, I have no problem with KSP2 or the devs

[Deddly]

14 minutes ago, Periple said:

Random thought, how would it work if it was at top center? 

It would be in the way for docking 

[Bej Kerman]

1 hour ago, Dakitess said:

Uh, like, "geographic coherence" (pardon my English though, it sounds very wrong xD) and the fact that axis are misaligned, forcing the user to correct the boresight (?) since it's diagonally positioned ? Having crucial information not directly close to the center cone of vision but rather on the side, forcing the user to switch from the craft to the data, at crucial moments ?

And that's worse than not being able to see the craft or the ground it's approaching, how? Again, the navball not being in the center of your vision is a non-issue in most cases, and in the case of users with poor eyesight, they can just pan the camera.

[Dakitess]

But... Do you really don't pan the cam in KSP1 so that you can see the bottom of your craft while also seeing all the information exactly where it's best to find them ?

Do we agree that this way, in a manner of... half a second, you actually get the very specific point of attention, which is the landing contact, at 2-4 centimeters to the very most crucial information which is the speed relative to surface, at the top of the NavBall ? With also the eventual residual drift thanks to the retrograde being pushed away and not strictly vertical, etc. To me it's the exact ideal position. We just need that little manual pan, which is very rapid, very adjustable, and not required for 90% crafts by default.

Because on my side I totally agree that there is something to do about the Stock KSP1 HUD, the centered navball can be a bit annoying and should be optimized in a way or another. No question about that. But I also find the bottom-left position worst in any aspect, and the landing scenario is definitely not an issue that make the center position prohibitive.

Maybe it was all about the console that can't do that so, for them, the centered NavBall is too annoying ? I might have missed that. Could be understandable, though I don't really see how console player are better suited with their pad rather than keyboard + mouse just like on a regular PC.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Dakitess

[PDCWolf]

1 minute ago, Periple said:

Random thought, how would it work if it was at top center? Less eye movement than bottom left and it would keep the landing zone clear. It doesn't mesh naturally with the downward bias of our visual FoV though.

If the UI was customizable I'd try that for sure to see how it feels! 

That'd take your peripheral out of the ground. Normally you'd be looking at the navball and (with a correctly placed camera), you'd have the ground and bottom of your rocket right above the navball. You can't do that with the navball on the top.

The following is all on the same screen, 1920x1080, 22" sitting at 40 centimeters from my face. I do not have any sort of visual impediment. The circling is approximate of course.

in KSP1, the Navball stays inside symbol recognition range for my peripheral vision.

In KSP2, looking at the same spot means I see more of the ground, but nothing of the navball.

Trying to fix that by searching for a new middle point, puts most of the craft outside my useful vision. EVEN with the bigger, wasteful, exploded, negative space, unreadable navball.

In KSP1, any combination of zoom and panning can get the craft visible whilst the navball remains in peripheral vision. In KSP2 you can't unless you artificially set it the camera in a way that just replicates KSP1 anyways and wastes a good 2 thirds of your screen on emptyness.

How is such a basic fact of reality something that remains in question is why I'm no longer responding to certain people.

[Deddly]

I think  the differing views are all about play style, screen resolution and UI scaling. Play on an old device on a low-resolution and that navball takes up a third of the screen. If you are used to trying to land really tall crafts, even a small navball at the bottom of the screen will get in the way. At launch, the navball likewise blocks the flames and all the interesting bits at the bottom of the rocket.  If you're into planes and like to line up nicely with the runway, it's difficult to do that from certain angles when the navball is in the way. Even landing a tiny, well-designed lander like the one in your picture just above my post, @PDCWolf, can be annoying for me because I'm looking for the shadow, not the ground, and that is often occluded by the navball in the middle.

I personally love having a navball being off to the side. But that's because of my personal play style and potato computer.  Everyone has their own preferences, their own  devices, their own craft and their own mission goals. So my own opinion isn't any more important than anyone else's.

EDIT: I also don't use the navball much when I'm close to the ground. I look at the change of altitude speed indicator at the top of the screen to know if I'm coming in too fast.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Deddly

[PDCWolf]

23 minutes ago, Deddly said:

Even landing a tiny, well-designed lander like the one in your picture just above my post, @PDCWolf, can be annoying for me because I'm looking for the shadow, not the ground, and that is often occluded by the navball in the middle.

I'm only answering to this part as the rest is really just part of your setup and personal preference. Save for landing in the middle of the day, the shadows will (depending on how you've turned your camera) approach from the edge of the screen first, and you can always rotate the camera to find it and put it in the axis you want it to follow. So on any time of the day other than noon, you'd have to specifically rotate the camera to leave it under the navball.

[Deddly]

Come on, guys. This is an open discussion, not a competition or intelligence test. 

Let's keep the personal comments out of it (some stuff removed)

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

I'm only answering to this part as the rest is really just part of your setup and personal preference. Save for landing in the middle of the day, the shadows will (depending on how you've turned your camera) approach from the edge of the screen first, and you can always rotate the camera to find it and put it in the axis you want it to follow. So on any time of the day other than noon, you'd have to specifically rotate the camera to leave it under the navball.

Well, it's all subjective. For me, the navball often gets in the way of the shadow, because I point the camera towards the sun so I know where the shadow should be. 

We're just different.

[Bej Kerman]

1 hour ago, Dakitess said:

But... Do you really don't pan the cam in KSP1 so that you can see the bottom of your craft while also seeing all the information exactly where it's best to find them ?

A. That's one more input the player needs to worry about now

B. Some people have motor issues like dyspraxia

C. Even discounting all this, your vertical field of view is effectively reduced

Yeah no, having to look left slightly beats this hands down, and again can be fixed rather easily for people who can't do with it there.

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

In KSP2, looking at the same spot means I see more of the ground, but nothing of the navball.

Being able to see the ground and having to look a tiny bit more away from the craft to see the navball is IMO better than not being able to see the ground at all just for the navball to be a tiny bit clearer. Especially in low resolution cases.

[Royalswissarmyknife]

18 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Being able to see the ground and having to look a tiny bit more away from the craft to see the navball is IMO better than not being able to see the ground at all

I sure need to see the ground when I'm launching rockets or maneuvering in orbit.

[Bej Kerman]

39 minutes ago, Royalswissarmyknife said:

I sure need to see the ground when I'm launching rockets or maneuvering in orbit.

Newsflash: KSP has planets, and if the presence of landing gear parts is anything to go off of, it's an important gameplay aspect.

I get you were trying to make some kind of joke, but the entire point of a joke is to have some aspect of truth to it.

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

Yeah no, having to look left slightly beats this hands down, and again can be fixed rather easily for people who can't do with it there.

So, zooming out slightly is out of the question?

[Bej Kerman]

38 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

So, zooming out slightly is out of the question?

Just to reiterate again, this is not "slightly".

[NH4Cl Enthusiast]

6 hours ago, Master39 said:

But if I'm landing, I need to see the ground, the obstacles, the slope. In KSP most of the landings happen on improvised surfaces. And yes, you need the navball for that, but other than the altimeter you don't need to focus to it too much, it's a high contrast tool, you can keep it in the peripheral vision while you focus on the much more important landing spot.

Being able to see where you're going is gonna be important enough to justify the compromise.

But if I'm landing, I need to see the heading, the velocity vector, the orientation of my craft. In KSP most of the landings happen on improvised surfaces. And yes, you need the camera view for that, but other than a quick glance of the slope you're landing on you don't need to focus to it too much, it's a visual aid tool, you can keep it in the peripheral vision while you focus on the much more important instrument data.

Being able to see a critical navigation tool is gonna be important enough to justify the compromise.

[Bej Kerman]

10 minutes ago, NH4Cl Enthusiast said:

Being able to see a critical navigation tool is gonna be important enough to justify the compromise.

You can see said navigation tool if it's off to the left as well. There is no compromise, being able to see it and the ground is simply better than only being able to see it.

6 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

In KSP2 you can't unless you artificially set it the camera in a way that just replicates KSP1 anyways and wastes a good 2 thirds of your screen on emptyness.

If you don't like wasting 2/3rds of your screen on emptiness, then how come with KSP 1's navball (in the case of low resolution monitors) you suggest wasting 2/3rds of the screen vertically? The top and bottom is where the action is happening, thus I posit to you that panning the camera in KSP 2 to put the vessel alongside the navball is less wasteful than panning the camera in KSP 1 to account for the navball.

Also you can just zoom in so less space is wasted. So just pan the camera then zoom in. Problem solved.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Bej Kerman

[cocoscacao]

I miss team's weekly updates. Yes, 0.2.0 is coming, but It'd be nice to see a short We're still kickin' post every now and then...

Edited November 14, 2023 by cocoscacao

[Stoup]

3 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

I miss team's weekly updates. Yes, 0.2.0 is coming, but It'd be nice to see a short We're still kickin' post every now and then...

What perfect timing!
 

Environments look nice, I wonder if they've finally fixed the over-glare of the sun on planetary surfaces as I've not seen too much of it in recent screenshots

Edited November 15, 2023 by Stoup

[Superfluous J]

In an attempt to talk about anything other than the navball, have you seen the new pictures posted?

I'm sure people will still complain about how game xyz is so much better and KSP sux and bla bla bla but I think these are BEAUTIFUL.

[regex]

39 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

I'm sure people will still complain about how game xyz is so much better and KSP sux and bla bla bla but I think these are BEAUTIFUL.

Yeah, the new screenshots looked amazing. I'm hoping we'll finally have unobtrusive tree LOD pop-in, but I'm not holding my breath.

[PDCWolf]

35 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

-snip-

Ah yes, the terrain turning into mipmapped mush at 100 meters, scatter as dense as the vacuum of space, and the cartoony clouds...

It reminds me of Space Engineers (2013, PBR and such a bit further down the line):

It's an amazing improvement over the stock KSP1 that released years ago, but so is Parallax, and these screenshots are not beating Parallax at its best.

[Superfluous J]

44 minutes ago, regex said:

Yeah, the new screenshots looked amazing. I'm hoping we'll finally have unobtrusive tree LOD pop-in, but I'm not holding my breath.

Pictures 1 and 2 actually made me think of you. It sure LOOKS like the trees go on forever.

[The Aziz]

4 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

and these screenshots are not beating Parallax at its best.

They found a solution for the low res terrain mesh yet? 

[Dakitess]

Mmh things are getting better, stock graphics might reach an honest level in a year or so. Won't be the KSP2 some of us actually were awaiting for, but it's improving.

Since the team is not really good at cherry picking and showing the best part of their game (...), we can assume theses are not some very situational improvement but rather a general upgrade and it does not seem to be completely ruined by artifacts and all.

Don't get me wrong, textures are still stretched, ground is still totally flat triangles with some scatters on it, there is not kind of physics tessellation, ni micro-topology. These are required for interesting rover session.

[NH4Cl Enthusiast]

10 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

You can see said navigation tool if it's off to the left as well. There is no compromise, being able to see it and the ground is simply better than only being able to see it.

-snip-

Also you can just zoom in so less space is wasted. So just pan the camera then zoom in. Problem solved.

"You can see the ground if you're zoomed out further as well. There is no compromise, being able to see the navball and the ground in a glance is simply better than only being able to see the ground.

Also you can just zoom out so you see more of the area around you. If navball gets in the way,  just pan the camera. Problem solved."

Look, nobody is arguing that not seeing the ground is better than seeing the ground. But the navball getting in your way seems to still be a problem for a very vocal minority and you do have the tools to avoid that, you just don't like the solutions. Just as I don't see your proposed solution as a real possibility and if you'd try it yourself you'd realise it's not as clever as you say it is. 

Reason why I'm continuing the discussion is that some people are setting their own preference as a gold standard and arguing pretty empty points to oppose those of us who find the left side positioning either unintuitive, jarring or flat out problematic due to sight problems (I'm in this category, yet my problems are very mild and it still causes issues). 

What I'm gathering from this discussion is that you like to see the ground. You can, but you need to zoom out and you don't like it. There are situations where the navball gets in your way and it's hard to find a camera angle where it doesn't and you're inconvenienced. But in such a scenario it's equally likely that any UI element gets in the way, you just cherry picked the navball in order to argue your point. It's fine though, both are valid points, no argument there but that doesn't change the fact that it's a critical navigation tool and at least a bunch of us consider the compromise of having it in the center and sometimes in the way worth it. It's just that the current solution to your problems is to just basically nuke the entire thing and make it almost unusable for at least a subset of players. 

I think the reason why this has become such an argument is that it's again one more issue in a long string of really bad design decisions and this one makes the gameplay very jarring for some people. For me it makes flying planes a bad experience, with landers it's bad but I can live with it and for rocket launches it's probably a bit better to be honest as it's pretty much a hands-off process anyway. As I said before this game was supposed to fix issues from KSP and in a game where you fly rockets, planes and moon landers and drive rovers and boats and ungodly amalgamations of all kinds, at the very least you'd imagine the controls and UI to be customisable to fit whatever it is you're controlling. 

Just as a sign of solidarity I'm coming over on your side of the argument and say that when driving a rover (or a boat which I don't usually do but if I did) I absolutely want to have the navball out of the way and instead would be nice to have like a regular compass (on the left corner of the screen, thanks) and maybe a minimap and maybe change the speed measurement from m/s to km/h or mph which make more sense for ground vehicles.  I'd also like to control which axis the SAS attempts to stabilise the craft in and easily configure which way in my craft is supposed to point forward and maybe have a ground radar sensor which would determine the point where I measure the ground altitude from and the list goes on of small QoL improvements that are gloriously either completely missing or in the case of the navball or the insanely bad pixelated font (which I will never stop complaining about) made worse for some people.