KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[Mutex]

Just now, Dakitess said:

I don't get it, Procedural Solar Panel were already avertised in DevNote and other communications, right ? So they are confirmed, nah ? Along the procedural radiators.

When were procedural solar panels advertised? Nate Simpson specifically said they're NOT doing procedural solar panels. Just radiators (and wings).

[Dakitess]

Damn, I sincerely thought I saw the proc solar pannels being advertised in the same video / dev note than radiators, and it made sense to me, haha, my bad !

Then, wow, I don't get why we would have proc radiators and not solar panels oO 

Edit, yeah, found that on the DevNote we are talking about, right below. Must say that I don't see how this answer is valuable, this is the exact same shapes, the exact same mechanism involved in terms of rotation, reaction to solar direction, etc, how could they pass on that ?... Really I don't get it. Developing a neat tool to shape radiators, that might cost some time, to only use it on... Radiators ? Raaaah, KSP2 is really a thing x)

Posted March 25, 2022

  On 3/25/2022 at 5:03 PM, siklidkid said:

Will Solar Panels be procedural too?

Seeing this question pop up in a few places. We don't currently have specific plans to add procedural solar panels for release, as solar gameplay wasn't blocked by the absence of a large-scale solution in the way that radiator gameplay was. As you get deeper into the progression, you've got a number of other power generation solutions that don't rely on sunlight (since many of the problems you're solving involve either being very far from a star or being in a situation in which solar intermittency is an obstacle). I'd love to hear the applications you see for big, interestingly-shaped solar panels. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Dakitess

[tstein]

1 hour ago, Dakitess said:

 I'd love to hear the applications you see for big, interestingly-shaped solar panels. 

When your current SP setup provides 98% of the power you need it is stupid to add another solar panel. Real engineers would make one slightly larger. No need to parametrize shape, just lenght woudl be enough.

[Dakitess]

Yeah. That, and procedural definitely does not mean "bigger", don't know why he is insisting on that. 

[Catto]

Maybe curvable ones for a solar semicircle i dunno

[Player from CN]

Spent 2 hours to land on Mun, due to in this short journey I met way so many bugs. Finally I have to do everything without SAS.

After I landed on the Mun, I found my rover shucked in to my rocket.

 

We paid a lot for KSP2, so I think private division should provide us a game to "play", not just use us as the free bug finder. 

[hansen]

KSP 1 is by far my favourite game. It actually motivated me to truly understand orbital physics, benefitted my understanding of the solar system, raised my interest for astronomy and the history of spaceflight, and helped me to better understand spaceflight, atmospheric flight and mechanics in general.

In fact, because of KSP 1 I travelled to quite a number of sights connected to the history of spaceflight, visited museums connected to the topic, read countless books and articles (taking away precious time from my actual profession in the social sciences, but promoting my interest in what is called science and technology studies), and raising my interest in paragliding.

Put short, KSP1 had an amazing educative impact on my life and I am thankful I had the opportunity to witness its development since about 0.16 (I just checked, my first post here was 2014, wow, time flies).

What KSP 1 was lacking was to go beyond the rather basic physics-gameplay, which already allowed extensive creativity in designing crafts and vehicles. Yet, in KSP 1 there was never a real purpose to do anything (although this is maybe an interesting comment on real-life spaceflight ;D). You can land on planetary bodies or put stuff in orbit, but there is almost nothing to explore, there is no purpose in bringing stuff and kerbals there. And in addition, building more complex crafts and objects made the engine ache, it has quite strict limits when coming to the part count, physics calculations etc..

A true successor for KSP 1 would, in my view, offer more particulary regarding

- actual things to explore and learn when visiting moons, planets and asteroids

- allowing construction of complex crafts, vehicles and buildings (ideally with tens or hundreds of thousands of parts)

I was hoping KSP 2 would offer that and would introduce the most important foundation for extending KSP 1, a new game engine.

Yet, we got a KSP 2 that to me looks like a visual mod that does not introduce any new gameplay opportunities. To the contrary, currently it allows even less gameplay possibilities than the original and reproduces bugs that are well known to probably all ambitious KSP 1 players.

For me this means that a true successor is further away than ever as there seems to have been no development on the foundation of the game (at least none, that lead to a true improvement of the issues of KSP 1) and there probably won't be any true successor for many years to come after this, so far, lost opportunity.

[The Aziz]

You know all you mentioned is planned to be added? Have you followed the development in the last 6 months? You know everything is on the update road map?

[hansen]

3 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

You know all you mentioned is planned to be added? Have you followed the development in the last 6 months? You know everything is on the update road map?

I know what is planned and on the roadmap. Yet, I'd say that there has been no major change regarding the game engine used and it already shows the characteristic problems that could be seen in KSP 1. The technical foundation for a true KSP 2, in my view, seems to not be there. And regarding the past communication of the developer/publisher not sure how trustworthy the promises are, to be honest.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, hansen said:

Yet, I'd say that there has been no major change regarding the game engine used and it already shows the characteristic problems that could be seen in KSP 1. The technical foundation for a true KSP 2, in my view, seems to not be there.

I disagree. The KSP2 engine clearly does a number of things that the KSP1 engine doesn't. The planet/terrain rendering is clearly entirely new, the way it partially unloads craft is new, the much faster load times (already at this stage!) when switching between VAB/craft/tracking station are new, the ability to thrust under warp is new, the ability to disassemble a craft into subassemblies and then reassemble it is new and indicates fairly big under-the-hood changes to construction. The aero model is also much improved although that could be iteration on the old system.

Moreover, if KSP2 really was just a re-skin of KSP1, then why would it have many of the issues that were -- with great difficulty and after a long time -- fixed/papered over in KSP1, and why are there major bugs in areas that work perfectly fine in KSP1? If you wrote it up from scratch on the same game/physics engine, I'd expect it to look more or less like this when it hits alpha -- you will get many of the same issues you did when you did it the first time in KSP1, the noodle rockets f.ex., and a raft of new ones in new code.

No, I'm pretty sure KSP2 is a total rewrite. It's just raw and needs to be finished.  It also doesn't look like it's years from done, I'd put it at about six months out with the current feature set.

[Chilkoot]

I wouldn't fret yet.  KSP 2 still has a lot of financial runway left - the publisher isn't going to pull the financial plug at least until the announced EA features are released, or they will face some serious backlash.

In fact, it's a fair bet that there won't be any real decision on KSP2's future until it's fully released for consoles and the sales numbers for a few quarters are in.  You can bet your booty the performance and crash problems will be gone by the time the console release comes out, as MS and Sony both have strict internal vetting regimens and retain the right to de-list non-performant and buggy software from their respective stores.

[RayneCloud]

Well, first off, let me stop any unity engine hate from showing up before it does... It's an amazing engine that's grown in ability by leaps and bounds. Let me direct you to Sakura Rabbit, https://www.youtube.com/@sakurarabbit6708 as an example. I've been with unity for a decade and it continues to push formed as a valid competitor to Unreal. Not every game needs to be coded in Unreal either, adn building an engine from the ground up would have put this games several years behind in development compared to where it is now.

 

 

 

1 minute ago, Periple said:

I disagree. The KSP2 engine clearly does a number of things that the KSP1 engine doesn't. The planet/terrain rendering is clearly entirely new, the way it partially unloads craft is new, the much faster load times (already at this stage!) when switching between VAB/craft/tracking station are new, the ability to thrust under warp is new, the ability to disassemble a craft into subassemblies and then reassemble it is new and indicates fairly big under-the-hood changes to construction. The aero model is also much improved although that could be iteration on the old system.

Moreover, if KSP2 really was just a re-skin of KSP1, then why would it have many of the issues that were -- with great difficulty and after a long time -- fixed/papered over in KSP1, and why are there major bugs in areas that work perfectly fine in KSP1? If you wrote it up from scratch on the same game/physics engine, I'd expect it to look more or less like this when it hits alpha -- you will get many of the same issues you did when you did it the first time in KSP1, the noodle rockets f.ex., and a raft of new ones in new code.

No, I'm pretty sure KSP2 is a total rewrite. It's just raw and needs to be finished.  It also doesn't look like it's years from done, I'd put it at about six months out with the current feature set.

It's the same engine, it's still Unity, just the most modern version of it. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, RayneCloud said:

It's the same engine, it's still Unity, just the most modern version of it. 

Yeah I know, I was using "engine" in the same sense I thought the OP was, i.e. to refer to the logic that makes KSP2 work, written on top of Unity. 

[Kerballlistic07]

I would say, in terms of silliness, there will never be a true successor. KSP 2 simply doesn't feel as silly as KSP 1. In terms of features and realism, KSP 2 will (hopefully) someday fit the bill. That's just my opinion.

[RayneCloud]

Gotcha

[hansen]

I was adressing the Unity engine being used for KSP 2, so it is the same engine and I remember it was announced somewhere around 2019 that Unity would be used again, and caused some scepticism among kerbonauts in my surrounding. In my oppinion, the better path would have been to either choose an engine better suited for the task (regarding physics calculations, precision, multithreading etc.) or develop a custom engine for KSP. They are already years in development, so I assume its unlikely there will be an engine switch. Just read this post here and it sums up my thinking, yet from a perspective with actual knowledge about programming: https://old.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/11cofvd/outlook_from_a_developer_long

btw, don't get me wrong, I would love to see KSP 2 succeed. Its just with the foundation they choose to use and the current state of the game that I highly doubt it will happen in the near or even far future.

Edited March 2, 2023 by hansen

[SimonTheSkink]

I think you underestimate the difficulty of making a game engine from scratch.

[Manul]

13 minutes ago, RayneCloud said:

Well, first off, let me stop any unity engine hate

It's not about Unity, it's about PhysX. Wobbliness, Kraken attacks, violations of momentum conservation principle, all this happens because PhysX is terrible at doing what is has to do in KSP 1 and 2.

[AlamoVampire]

5 hours ago, Dakitess said:

I don't get it, Procedural Solar Panel were already avertised in DevNote and other communications, right ? So they are confirmed, nah ? Along the procedural radiators.

Glad im not the only one who swears they saw procedural solar panels!

6 hours ago, tstein said:

HE seems to fail one of the basics of business... if your clients want it.. that is a feature on itself. Then the  main factor becomes the cost.

Im about to say a very unpopular thing but he did listen to some fans (or someone did) because multiplayer is a thing or rather will be, but where is my unpopular thing? Other fans are constantly ignored, as many if not more over the years have clamored and begged for mechjeb to be made stock but us autopilot fans get ignored. And before anyone says it automation in the background so does not come close to being enough to count. But my opinion is my opinion (but i am right about us being ignored about getting mechjeb or a feature equivalent thing getting added). Id say procedural fairings (mod) being made stock counts too because stock “fairings” are a nightmare in ksp1 and if matt lownes video that i referenced means anything they look worse now…

120503022023

[RayneCloud]

22 minutes ago, hansen said:

I was adressing the Unity engine being used for KSP 2, so it is the same engine and I remember it was announced somewhere around 2019 that Unity would be used again, and caused some scepticism among kerbonauts in my surrounding. In my oppinion, the better path would have been to either choose an engine better suited for the task (regarding physics calculations, precision, multithreading etc.) or develop a custom engine for KSP. They are already years in development, so I assume its unlikely there will be an engine switch. Just read this post here and it sums up my thinking, yet from a perspective with actual knowledge about programming: https://old.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/11cofvd/outlook_from_a_developer_long

btw, don't get me wrong, I would love to see KSP 2 succeed. Its just with the foundation they choose to use and the current state of the game that I highly doubt it will happen in the near or even far future.

An engine switch would destroy this project outright, as would any attempt to build a new engine from the ground up. This is very much the standard gamer "it would be easy!" kind of comment. No, it very much would not be. I am speaking from a decade of experience across 5 games. 

[JerichoFalls]

So why specifically the engine? I'm curious as to what your specific proposed engine alternatives are and what real benefits over Unity it would bring since the success apparently hinges on that.

Currently they use Unity, which has never been great for large worlds but it seems Intercept added custom 64 bit world space code to the engine based on the initial videos, but I may have read into that wrong and they are still using a moving origin. Usually when gamers mean they should switch engines, they mean to switch to UE5 since there was a lot of marketing targeted specifically at gamers for that release, so I assume this is the engine you are alluding to. But considering UE5 wasn't production ready when KSP2 was originally going to launch, it would have likely been on UE4 if they did change anyways. This would give you the same Nvidia Physx Engine (minus custom code from KSP1 - which may or may not work or be needed in UE) and the same 32 bit world space issue, and problems with KSP sized worlds.

But if for some reason (especially looking at how release went) they did switch to UE5 mid-production for something like 64bit world space, that feature only came out of experimental with 5.1 a couple months ago so there would likely be extensive teething issues during development. They would also need to learn and get Chaos Physics working from scratch as both Unity and UE4 use(d) Nvidia PhysX but UE5 uses Epics new engine (or port their custom one if there was). Not to mention they would still need to do everything that was done already for KSP2 in a new editor and language. People were already complaining about the delays to this year, I don't think the time needed for the change would've played out too well.

So with seeing how release went on an engine they are already familiar with, I'm curious why you think an entirely new production workflow on a new engine would help things? 

Edited March 2, 2023 by JerichoFalls

[hansen]

12 minutes ago, RayneCloud said:

An engine switch would destroy this project outright, as would any attempt to build a new engine from the ground up. This is very much the standard gamer "it would be easy!" kind of comment. No, it very much would not be. I am speaking from a decade of experience across 5 games. 

I think you are missing the point I made in the OP. KSP 2 breaks my heart because I think there won't be what I would regard a true successor solving the major problems of KSP 1. Yet, because the same engine was used with the same limitations, instead of starting anew with a different foundation, the same, at least similar problems arise. I am well aware an engine switch or the building of a custom engine is extremely unlikely and would take a lot of time (as you say). The wasted opportunity is what makes me sad.

[pandaman]

22 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

Glad im not the only one who swears they saw procedural solar panels!

Then you are mistaken.  They were asked about, yes, but ruled out by Nate.

As for ignoring our wishes, they can't grant them all.  At best they would be treated a suggestions.  Some will be impractical to implement and some just 'don't fit their 'vision' of what the game should include regardlessif how 'popular' a given suggestion is or how loudly we ask.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, hansen said:

I think you are missing the point I made in the OP. KSP 2 breaks my heart because I think there won't be what I would regard a true successor solving the major problems of KSP 1.

There's really no reason for that kind of pessimism. KSP2 looks perfectly fine for an alpha. It just needs work, and most of that work is perfectly straightforward -- optimize the assets here, replace a stinky algorithm there, tune this bunch of parameters until they feel right, put tech art to work on the cloud cover, and fix a mountain of bugs.

Save the heartbreak for later if they never manage to get there.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Guest

[Manul]

36 minutes ago, SimonTheSkink said:

I think you underestimate the difficulty of making a game engine from scratch.

Commercial developers do have a source access to the engine, that's why using Unity doesn's necessarily mean using PhysX as is. And without major changes to the physics engine the ultimate goal to slay the Kraken is unachievable.