KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[TwoCalories]

7 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Yeah but.. they don't look exactly like something made with 10 years of improvements in VFX technology.

Yeah, I will admit they're not as good as they looked when they first showed them off. But still better, IMHO.

[MechBFP]

7 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Yeah but.. they don't look exactly like something made with 10 years of improvements in VFX technology.

It is the massive glitchyness that bothers me, if that is completely gone then I don't think I'll be too perturbed. Although given our experience so far, I highly doubt it will be free of that.

[The Aziz]

As long as the animation gets smoother, the flame actually goes around the whole vehicle, not just around the currently visible edges and the back, and the mesh doesn't end like it was a solid material, I'll take anything.

[NH4Cl Enthusiast]

3 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

What Periple said, and to add an example of my own, you won't find a planet with the density of Earth in the same universe as a planet with the density of Kerbin. You're telling me these things obviously occur at the same time in our own universe?  None of your examples have any relevance to the problem of having Earth and Kerbin in the same universe. It's a ridiculous inconsistency. You're sorely mistaken if you think Kerbin can happen IRL.

It's easy though to justify, the less dense planet is obviously made of the same stuff the batteries and struts are. Those parts have the density of a sponge while having the structural properties of titanium. The game is riddled with inconsistencies if you look closely. I do agree it would be immersion breaking.

[Deddly]

5 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

So you're telling me Kerbin with its absurd density could exist in the same universe as Earth?

It can't exist at all, I think is the point. If the developers have already chosen to bend the rules on reality, who is any one of us to dictate where to draw the line? Interesting to see how diverse we all are in our thinking. 

[The Aziz]

But the new rules are consistent across the entire Kerbal universe. If I found a planet with the same gravity, roughly the same atmospheric pressure and height, but 10 times bigger, a yellow light would appear that something's off.

[Sans]

3 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I don’t know I think the effects look great. I don’t know why folks want KSP to be photo-real. 

I'm not this type of person. I really like kerbal style and it doesn't bother me. It's just the static aspect that visually stress me, I don't get the impression of speed. But I've take a look at the dev chat video and it looks better, so i hope that until the next update the shader is improved

[regex]

3 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I don’t know I think the effects look great. I don’t know why folks want KSP to be photo-real.

I don't want photo-realism. What I do want is more visual interest, more sense of motion, for the graphics to match the audio crackling.

[Strawberry]

Some more from the twitter

For my personal thoughts on em, I think they look good, I think theyre a good foundation, however I think they look too static. The overall structure doesnt change much but it does flicker, since these flickers are near instant it looks glitchy more then anything. Also as others have suggested, sparks from ablative things would be cool. Since science is like, 3ish weeks away, I wouldnt expect significant changes when .2 comes out from what we have seen.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Strawberry

[Chilkoot]

8 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I don’t know why folks want KSP to be photo-real. 

People want consistency.  An art director can't enforce insanely realistic propellant plumes, and then slap on cartoonish re-entry effects just because.

Cartoonish is a style and a design decision.  So is photoreal (ish).  You can't just haphazardly mash those two together and expect it not to be jarring and comical - in a bad way.

[Periple]

5 hours ago, Deddly said:

It can't exist at all, I think is the point. If the developers have already chosen to bend the rules on reality, who is any one of us to dictate where to draw the line? Interesting to see how diverse we all are in our thinking. 

It always bothers me when things aren’t consistent. Even if it’s a fantasy story, it should stick to its own rules. Having a universe that’s scaled down by a factor of 10 doesn’t bother me at all, but having one where the scale is 1:10 in one planetary system and 1:1 in another would most likely make me ragequit!

[Bej Kerman]

9 hours ago, Deddly said:

It can't exist at all, I think is the point

It seems it can in the Kerbal universe with their laws of physics. But then how would their laws of physics support that and a 1:1 Earth at the same time?

9 hours ago, Deddly said:

If the developers have already chosen to bend the rules on reality, who is any one of us to dictate where to draw the line?

The developers didn't just choose to bend the rules, it became a part of the game's style and breaking it would be equivalent to breaking an art style.

[Chilkoot]

Side note:  For the first time since EA release, the "last 30 day" reviews have swung into positive territory, currently sitting at 67% positive.   I tend to read through these reviews, and invariably the negative ones have been complaining about performance.   It looks like the huge performance bump in 0.1.5 is pressing the right button with new players.

Overall, the game is still sitting under 50% positive, but it will take time to push the meter up when there are already ~15k reviews on the system.  Hopefully once Science is released, players will take the time to update their reviews if they are having a positive experience (fingers crossed).

[Scarecrow71]

31 minutes ago, Chilkoot said:

I tend to read through these reviews, and invariably the negative ones have been complaining about performance.   It looks like the huge performance bump in 0.1.5 is pressing the right button with new players.

Performance is still a huge issue with me.  I had to turn the graphics settings way down to get anything over 15 FPS during launch, but when I use struts to keep things from wobbling all over the place, my performance takes a major hit.  I am hoping that the solution they implement for wobbling means I can cut the number of struts I have to use (knowing that I'll still have to use some, just not as many).

[TwoCalories]

New happenings happened!

So, what's your opinions on the changes and new features presented to us in this video?

I, for one, think the new tech tree is looking pretty sweet.

[Kimera Industries]

39 minutes ago, TwoCalories said:

So, what's your opinions on the changes and new features presented to us in this video?

I, for one, think the new tech tree is looking pretty sweet.

Agreed. Despite many people pointing out how "it's the same system" as KSP1, I think it's got a lot of subtle differences that are going to make things better than KSP1's flawed system. And, with the game at this early stage, improvement is very rapid and fluid, unlike KSP1, where official development is pretty much stagnant and everyone depends on mods for change. (Don't get mad at me for saying this. I may be wrong, and would love to see evidence against this.)

I thought it interesting just how much they seemed to point out that the new system will allow for new, interesting challenges on the forums. I also like how the very first node has liquid fuel engines and both basic decouplers. In the old game, the basic node only existed so you could get to the next node. With the new tech tree's parts as your starting pieces, I'll bet you could do a Mun or Minmus landing.

About pronunciations- I agree with them on Tylo, I've never heard it any other way. But... Mun? Pronounced muhn? I prefer the moon pronunciation, it adds a fun link to our solar system and seems like a very kerbal misspelling.

Poor Dres. They considered tier 4 to be "the hard stuff: Jool, Eeloo, Dres." At least they included it, but I for one consider a Dres mission much easier than a Duna mission- the farther distance and inclination are trivial compared to the Minmus level landing.

[Scarecrow71]

12 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

Despite many people pointing out how "it's the same system" as KSP1, I think it's got a lot of subtle differences that are going to make things better than KSP1's flawed system. And, with the game at this early stage, improvement is very rapid and fluid, unlike KSP1, where official development is pretty much stagnant and everyone depends on mods for change. (Don't get mad at me for saying this. I may be wrong, and would love to see evidence against this.)

Agreed.  What people are forgetting is that they still need to place Colonies and Interstellar on top of the current structure, which means that the tech tree isn't even finished at this point.  Starting with what they know from KSP1 and enhancing it for KSP2 is a great starting point, and I think they've left themselves enough leeway to be able to get the parts and such associated with the next milestones in there without breaking things.

Then again, I'm not one of the developers, so what do I know? 

12 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

I thought it interesting just how much they seemed to point out that the new system will allow for new, interesting challenges on the forums. I also like how the very first node has liquid fuel engines and both basic decouplers. In the old game, the basic node only existed so you could get to the next node. With the new tech tree's parts as your starting pieces, I'll bet you could do a Mun or Minmus landing.

As I was watching the video and hearing them mention challenges, the first 3 that I thought of were:

• Caveman.  KSP2 doesn't (at least not now) have part count or weight limits, but I'm sure someone will come up with a way to pull this off.
• Speed Run.  Fill out the entire tech tree as fast as possible (in-game time, not IRL time).
• Kerpollo.  1 launch per planet (well, 1 for Mun, 1 for Minmus, and then 1 for every other planet) and fill out the entire tech tree by the time you do your Jool-5.

And I am looking forward to doing these.

12 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

About pronunciations- I agree with them on Tylo, I've never heard it any other way. But... Mun? Pronounced muhn? I prefer the moon pronunciation, it adds a fun link to our solar system and seems like a very kerbal misspelling.

I have only ever pronounced it "Tie-low"; I never knew there was an alternate way to say it.

I pronounce it "Muhn" when identifying it as a celestial body...but then say "Moo-ner" when talking about doing missions (much like we say Moon and lunar IRL).  Interestingly enough, neither are correct if you follow the accurate way to pronounce words with the umlaut:

How to Correctly Pronounce the Umlaute ä, ö, ü | Expath

The one I didn't hear mentioned is Dres.  Is it "Drays" (like you'd pronounce place or face), "Dress" (like you'd pronounce, um, dress), "Drayz" (like you'd pronounce phase), or "Drez" (like you'd pronounce fez)?  I pronounce it "Drez", but I'm not sure if that's right?  Such an underappreciated planet...assuming it exists, of course.

12 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

Poor Dres. They considered tier 4 to be "the hard stuff: Jool, Eeloo, Dres." At least they included it, but I for one consider a Dres mission much easier than a Duna mission- the farther distance and inclination are trivial compared to the Minmus level landing.

I'm not sure why they consider Dres to be Tier IV.  Eeloo, Jool, and a return mission from Eve, sure.  But Dres isn't all that difficult to get to, nor to get home from.  It's like the mid-point of the outer Kerbolar system, tucked between Duna and Jool (or Eeloo, depending on when you leave Kerbin), and you don't need a gravity assist to get there.

But poor Moho doesn't even get a mention here.  I'd put Moho in Tier IV before Dres due to the dV requirement to get there and back.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Scarecrow71

[Kimera Industries]

4 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I pronounce it "Drez", but I'm not sure if that's right?  Such an underappreciated planet...assuming it exists, of course.

I say it "Drez" too. I've heard several youtubers say it that way, so I stuck with it.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Kimera Industries

[Chilkoot]

9 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

I say it "Drez" too. I've heard several youtubers say it that way, so I stuck with it.

Different cultures... I'd pronounce that one "Drayz", and if orbiting Jool, I'd be landing on "TEE-low".

It's an imaginary world, so even if Nate drops a "so mote it be" edict on pronunciation, you're still pretty free to say it the way you want without offending the natives (don't get me started on Newfoundland).

14 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Interestingly enough, neither are correct if you follow the accurate way to pronounce words with the umlaut:

How to Correctly Pronounce the Umlaute ä, ö, ü | Expath

100%.  After seeing Mun with the Umlaute, "Mün", I'd always pronounced it with that north-Germanic half-ee-half-oo.  Half of the fun of that body was the ambiguity and lack of clarity from the dev.  Nate dictating pronunciations kind of killed Santa on that one.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Chilkoot

[TwoCalories]

What the devs say, I consider canon. So, that would make Laythe pronounced like "Lay-TH", Tylo like "Tie-low", and Dres like "Drez". And in the dev interview, they confirmed that the Mun is in fact pronounced "Mun".

[Deddly]

8 hours ago, TwoCalories said:

And in the dev interview, they confirmed that the Mun is in fact pronounced "Mun".

They are wrong. 

[Kimera Industries]

@TwoCalories, I agree with you- I wasn't aware there was any controversy about Tylo or Laythe. And Dres, too. But I also agree with @Deddly about The Mun- despite what the devs have said, I always thought that in American English the "u" with an umlaut was "oo." But in German, it's close enough.

[whatsEJstandfor]

7 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

@TwoCalories, I agree with you- I wasn't aware there was any controversy about Tylo or Laythe. And Dres, too. But I also agree with @Deddly about The Mun- despite what the devs have said, I always thought that in American English the "u" with an umlaut was "oo." But in German, it's close enough.

My wife minored in German and, when she was teaching me German vowels, she described pronouncing ü as making a long-E sound with your tongue, but then shaping your lips to be a long-U. Incidentally, ü is often transliterated as "ue".

[stephensmat]

Just now, Deddly said:

They are wrong. 

I don't think that's a umlaut. I think it's a smiley face.

[Kimera Industries]

1 hour ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

My wife minored in German and, when she was teaching me German vowels, she described pronouncing ü as making a long-E sound with your tongue, but then shaping your lips to be a long-U. Incidentally, ü is often transliterated as "ue".

It was an interesting 30 seconds as I tried this out loud.

Still sounds closer to moon than muhn.

1 hour ago, stephensmat said:

I don't think that's a umlaut. I think it's a smiley face.

I always can't help but think: "Mun or bust? Looks like both today, buddy."