KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, VlonaldKerman said:

I partially agree with this but also partially disagree:

I suspect that T2 knew they were forcing the game out in an uncooked state. Development was evidently proceeding at a snails pace, never mind whatever happened when they thought they were a year away from release in 2019, who knows about that. T2 execs were probably growing frustrated, and I would even hazard reasonably so, so they figured that a poor release and the ensuing ****storm would light a fire under the devs.

However, I think this was probably a miscalculation. Whatever development issues there were, they should have been upfront about them. The community would probably react comparatively well to that, especially if the problems are technical in nature and not due to bad management or laziness. However now it is too late to do that, because it’s obvious that they misled people from 2019-2022/23 about how advanced the game supposedly was, and they charged $50. But they can’t cop to that, so the frustration festers and stews. So it was a miscalculation.

Yeah I mean who knows. I'm just guessing and so is everyone else. In the end it doesn't really matter at this point. So much of what they developed is actually really clever and there have been a number of fundamental changes to KSP's architecture that could be wildly advantageous and fun like axial tilt and being able to work on multiple subassemblies in the VAB. I also love a lot of the UI changes. They're all just buggy as all get out, which I totally understand takes the gloss off the whole thing. Did I hear right that they're currently doing a major overhaul of the PQS system? It's a lot of work. As I've said I personally would have prefered they'd had more time to get all that polished up, so if after Science is released or next march or next summer the game is looking and performing much better I'll be happy. No Man's Sky was also a huge debacle when it came out but over time and with perseverance they turned it into a pretty great game. That's all I can hope for with KSP2. 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[regex]

3 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

There's also the very basic fact that if you don't mess with the hornets they won't sting (not sure how this saying translates to English), what part of the community is doing is a response to what they get.

I'm also not sure which threads you happened to visit but it is very obvious that if people are posting evidence of users harassing others, coming at them with "we have a very tight code of conduct" in their faces is not gonna be well received.

Dakota was also saying they'd look into the issue, so I guess the smart choice would be to simply not engage with Reddit at all since there is clearly zero good will there. But then, I'm not a CM or a game developer for some very good reasons.

[Pthigrivi]

7 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Black holes don't work, it's why people asked for a bug tracking forum: if I say A is bad and don't hear anything back, then I assume nothing happened. A lot of people will say A is bad, not hear anything back and move on to another game, I'm sure that if the goal really is to see a good KSP2 somewhere down the line, then you'll easily understand how important is to receive a response when you knock (and in some cases kick) a door.

Bugs got their subforum now, with upvotes and bug hunters engaging the community. Now we need CM/PR/Devs or whoever it is to engage the community as they should about the complaints that are not bugs.

Yeah for sure the first section is completely legit feedback. Im sure they'd like to improve the communication pipeline on bugs. Unfortunately if by 'other complaints' you mean go back in time and release the the game earlier and in a better state they may not be able to help with that. 

[The Aziz]

32 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Your idea of fun is irrelevant to the comparison. Now, for your message and the following:

The physics and even more so the system level simulation that goes into premium products like PMDGs aircraft or a proper study model  is infinitely more complex and demanding than whatever basic on-rails scaled space planetary and patched conics+rigidbody interaction KSP needs. Whilst also still including this-gen graphics. It's not an apples to oranges comparison in sofar as they're a comparison of hardware required for (in one case) much more complex and intense simulation. Being different genres doesn't mean one gets a pass for being hilariously unoptimized.

A lot of that complex and intense simulation was present in MSFS 2002, the first one I played. Hell, I'd say it was even more of a simulation, as it was quite hard for me to fly anything other than a small Cessna.

But does it simulate the results of plane crash? Can I turn my plane into a fireball as it breaks into million pieces? Instead of fade to black the millisecond I touch the ground? No? Didn't think so.

As for the genres, nobody said that. But KSP, unlike FS has one thing that sort of permits lacks of optimization, which is somewhat normal in other games that have that in common. At least for a time.

[Vanamonde]

Some excessively personal comments have been removed. Please keep the discussions polite. 

[Periple]

2 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Management?

Can you be more specific?

2 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Of course, it is difficult, it seems there was no one who would take on such responsibility.

That was a very funny joke! There is an entire subforum here for development updates and other stuff from the studio, as well as the Discord tracker for posts from them, community managers often commenting on things, and so on! 

[MechBFP]

Just now, Periple said:

That was a very funny joke! There is an entire subforum here for development updates and other stuff from the studio, as well as the Discord tracker for posts from them, community managers often commenting on things, and so on

As I said before it is best to just not engage with purposefully bad faith arguments.

[PDCWolf]

57 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

A lot of that complex and intense simulation was present in MSFS 2002, the first one I played. Hell, I'd say it was even more of a simulation, as it was quite hard for me to fly anything other than a small Cessna.

But does it simulate the results of plane crash? Can I turn my plane into a fireball as it breaks into million pieces? Instead of fade to black the millisecond I touch the ground? No? Didn't think so.

As for the genres, nobody said that. But KSP, unlike FS has one thing that sort of permits lacks of optimization, which is somewhat normal in other games that have that in common. At least for a time.

I do vividly remember one of the early MSFS having your plane disintegrate into parts on crash (only the default cessna and extra 300). However, your argument is still missing the semi-soft-body physics that go on to simulate wing flex and its effects, the simulation of aerodynamics on lift and drag and the interaction of mechanical elements on the wing with the flow (which is simulated, unlike KSP).

Breaking joints and shooting off rigidbodies (or outright disappearing them if the crash is hard enough) hardly counts as "simulating the results of a crash". It seems there's an epidemic of overstating how taxing or impressive rigidbody physics are.

Edited August 11, 2023 by PDCWolf

[Yakuzi]

14 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

we don't know how far ago they started development, but it could be as early as 2017

We do know. Work on KSP2 started in 2017:

Quote

In 2017, Star Theory began working with Take-Two on its most high-profile project. Take-Two had purchased the rights to a popular flight simulation game developed by another independent studio and contracted Star Theory to make a sequel.

Source

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, regex said:

Dakota was also saying they'd look into the issue, so I guess the smart choice would be to simply not engage with Reddit at all since there is clearly zero good will there. But then, I'm not a CM or a game developer for some very good reasons.

It's exactly the problem I mentioned, you can't tell the people that present clear evidence that you'll "look into it". No, the time for looking at it is clearly behind, specially on real time communication.

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah for sure the first section is completely legit feedback. Im sure they'd like to improve the communication pipeline on bugs. Unfortunately if by 'other complaints' you mean go back in time and release the the game earlier and in a better state they may not be able to help with that. 

They can't go back in time, and they can't magically work faster, so nobody wants that, but at least don't tell people to their faces that "velocity is good" and the feedback is "overwhelmingly positive". Own up the reality of your product, do not blame your community and berate them.

6 minutes ago, Yakuzi said:

We do know. Work on KSP2 started in 2017:

Source

Thank you.

Edited August 11, 2023 by PDCWolf

[regex]

On 8/12/2023 at 2:14 AM, PDCWolf said:

They can't go back in time, and they can't magically work faster, so nobody wants that, but at least don't tell people to their faces that "velocity is good" and the feedback is "overwhelmingly positive". Own up the reality of your product, do not blame your community and berate them.

It genuinely feels like no answer will be good enough. From my point of view the team has acknowledged the state of the game and are trying to move forward, and Dakota is looking into making changes with the modding team on Discord (no apology forthcoming but given the actual hostility and complete lack of good will on Reddit, I don't exactly blame them). What would be better, Nate coming out and literally saying "the game is [snip]"?

Edited August 13, 2023 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator

[The Aziz]

48 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

It seems there's an epidemic of overstating how taxing or impressive rigidbody physics are.

Same could be said for the complexity of aerodynamics in plane sim, depending on which side you're biased towards. So I'll leave that here.

[Alexoff]

1 hour ago, Periple said:

Can you be more specific?

All management. What's the difference, no one has ever made excuses to us and is unlikely to

1 hour ago, Periple said:

There is an entire subforum here for development updates and other stuff from the studio, as well as the Discord tracker for posts from them, community managers often commenting on things, and so on!

How do they comment? That they are proud of their game and their team? Someone somewhere took responsibility for the shortcomings? Can I have a specific example?

 

In fact, communication with developers is extremely limited. No one answers serious questions, questions are chosen for a long time at the AMA, only the most convenient ones remain. There are strict limits - you can constructively discuss on the forum what can be done with this or that object in the game, for example, resources or multiplayer, although there are no guarantees that one of the developers will read it. And it’s too late to do this in 2023. You can praise the developers and be patient. We need to look for bugs. Everything else is reprehensible, and the appearance of white knights in the topics does not lead to the removal of offtopic, but to the closure of these topics.

[PDCWolf]

On 8/12/2023 at 2:29 AM, regex said:

It genuinely feels like no answer will be good enough.

There will always be people for which nothing is enough, it is not good to extrapolate that to a whole group of players.

On 8/12/2023 at 2:29 AM, regex said:

From my point of view the team has acknowledged the state of the game and are trying to move forward.

We have differing viewpoints then. I could make a list of the stuff that I feel remains unaddressed, though at this point in the discussion I don't think it'd do much.

On 8/12/2023 at 2:29 AM, regex said:

Nate coming out and literally saying "the game is [snip]"?

Do you want me to write it for them? mind you that the following might contain satire. I'll leave it to the reader to decide which part is humor and which my real hopes.

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

Same could be said for the complexity of aerodynamics in plane sim, depending on which side you're biased towards. So I'll leave that here.

Except that's factually wrong.

 

[Strawberry]

2 hours ago, Yakuzi said:

We do know. Work on KSP2 started in 2017:

Source

For clarification,  just because work started in 2017  does not mean development work started in 2017, big company projects can often spend 1-2 years just hiring and getting the team prepared before beginning serious development work.

[PDCWolf]

16 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

For clarification,  just because work started in 2017  does not mean development work started in 2017, big company projects can often spend 1-2 years just hiring and getting the team prepared before beginning serious development work.

Then announcing a full release for 2020 makes no sense. It makes much more sense to assume they started the hiring process before the buyout, considering Star Theory already had almost 10 years of "experience" under their belt by the time they got the title. There's also the size of the project, where right now they haven't surpassed the work of a single person in his spare time after work.

[Yakuzi]

35 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

For clarification,  just because work started in 2017  does not mean development work started in 2017, big company projects can often spend 1-2 years just hiring and getting the team prepared before beginning serious development work.

Your post doesn't clarify much. Hiring the necessary talent, requirements engineering , financing, etc are part of the planning phase of software development. Additionally, Take-Two outsourced KSP2 to an existing studio that would likely have most of the needed experience in-house to produce the desired product.

Could you clarify what this "serious" development work is you're talking about?

Edited August 11, 2023 by Yakuzi

[Alexoff]

In 2003, the HL2 beta leaked into the network. In 2004, the world saw a completely different game. Is it then possible to assert that HL2 was made in a year? If so, then I bow my head to Gabe's team.

[Strawberry]

48 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Then announcing a full release for 2020 makes no sense. 

Yeah the first announcement was stupidly optimistic and undeniably a bad call.

47 minutes ago, Yakuzi said:

Could you clarify what this "serious" development work is you're talking about?

Sure! With small indie projects that get started by like, one guy, (like ksp1), it takes little time for a team to get into action actually implementing the game as generally speaking these groups consist of a few people who already have a clear vision for what they want to do and whose going to work on what. Any new game by a larger studio will have to spend much more time hiring people, getting a clear vision of what they want to do, etc etc, meaning it can take close to a year if not more of massively slowed down development because of these things. 

For example, we do know take two purchased ksp may 2023, it is possible they already had firm plans of who they wanted to work on a sequel before the aquisition was set in stone, but i personally doubt this. Regardless actual contracts upon who would work on what would likely not be signed until after this point.
 

Once this whole process finishes, you then actually have to get a team. While some people came from star theory games, a lot of people were freshly hired. For example, Nate Simpson wasnt set as the creative director of ksp2 until July 2017 (and he was already working beforehand for uber), the principal engineer under star theory wasnt even hired until october 2017.
 

I dont feel like elaborating but i feel like i get my point across, with these relatively larger team projects, a lot of the early period is just hiring new people and developing work flows for said people. My overall point here is that saying that ksp2 was in development for 5 years and in that time ksp1 finished in that time (while not made in this thread, will get made elsewhere) misses out lots of the finer details.

The process of setting out the legal framework and doing onboarding for a relatively larger project like ksp2 (and then of course having to do it again when intercept came into play), will slow down development massively.  To say the game started development in 2017 when the principal engineer didnt even get hired until 2 months before the end of the year is misleading at best.

[Yakuzi]

13 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

snip

Everything you describe above is part of the development cycle. Again could you clarify what "serious" development work is?

[Strawberry]

2 minutes ago, Yakuzi said:

Everything you describe above is part of the development cycle. Again could you clarify what "serious" development work is?

When a development team gets into an actually decent pace for making the game.

[Concodroid]

What was promised from KSP 2 and what we got from KSP 2 are two different things. That is undeniable. What's also ridiculous is the sheer amount of time that the game has taken - which would be excusable if the game was what was advertised... but it isn't.  Everything is rough around the edges, and it's severely light on features and parts.  However...

All this is fixable. It is possible for KSP 2 to turn into the game that we waited for (and paid for...). But it will take some time... and effort. 

What you need to do is make a public announcement / apology. "Hey, look, we know this isn't what you expected. But we promise we'll make it right, and here's how we'll do that." Having just checked the twitter account, it looks like before I finished typing this up, they posted something like it. Must've read my mind! 

Next, you start looking at and understanding what the community really wants. For example, I'm a visuals guy, I make animations in blender - specifically, exclusively, Kerbal (AI) Aircraft Dogfights. I animate almost nothing else. (Side note: one of my art pieces got retweeted by the official ksp twitter account. High point of my career so far. Thanks guys!)

I bring this up because there's a whole community of us that do this and things like it... and none of us can really understand the art direction KSP 2 took. It's too cartoonish. While this may at first glance fit the style of KSP's parts, it's evidently not what players really wanted. How do I know this? Some of the most popular mods in KSP 1 are graphics mods - scatterer, parallax, tufx, eve - and they target photorealism.  I completely understand that it's still early access, obviously; but the core idea behind KSP 2's art direction just seems to be... wrong. I mean look at the trailers, they aren't cartoonish. I mean the kerbals are, but they're always cartoonish, even when I path trace them 


The main focus shouldn't be on adding new features not present in KSP 1; rather, on feature parity with Kerbal 1. Only then should you try and add new features like multiplayer and space VAB and all that stuff. 

For help with this, maybe try contacting some modders. Sometimes I feel modders know the game better than the original devs do, because of how much harder it is for them to actually add something new to the game. Heck, Asobo did this with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 - which, as I recall, launched in a similar state, bad performance, light on features, many, many glitches... although that game had the greatest graphics in any game at that time to fall back on, so a lot of people could give it a pass for that lol. But Asobo pulled it around, pulled a No Man's sky, and fs2020 right now is in an incredible state. And they're working with modders in an official capacity to add new things to the game, and fix existing bugs! It's awesome.

But the biggest thing is communication. You need ONE place where you can communicate with Kerbal 2 players freely, and answer (most) questions. Trying to split it between the forum, the discord, and the subreddit doesn't seem to be working. 

I believe the KSP 2 devs can pull a No Man's Sky. Have a singular focus on what you need to achieve. Contact the modders, the subject matter experts, the animators and visual effects people (hullo!), and turn KSP 2 into the game that it was always meant to be. 

[Alexoff]

1 hour ago, Strawberry said:

When a development team gets into an actually decent pace for making the game.

From this, I can assume that the real development began in the fall of 2022. Then the leadership of T2 plunged into the shame of the GTA3 remaster and IG abruptly stopped posting news every two weeks on this forum. I think T2 told IG that it's time to start giving all the best and the second such shame cannot be allowed. About a month later, IG announced that the full release was being delayed indefinitely, it suddenly turned out that many parts of the game had not even begun to be made. Only after that we began to see some gameplay videos, and not just videos from the editor. And before that, there was a chaotic development, most likely the managers came up with another grandiose concept that the recently hired developer could not implement, after which the concept was reworked, and the developer was most likely fired. His/her work either tried to somehow clean up the new employee, or she remained unfulfilled. Can this be called development? I hope full development is at least underway now...

[Pthigrivi]

Again, what is the actual point of this endless conversation we have over and over and over again in 2/3 of every thread on this forum? What do you actually want to happen to fix this for you? 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Pthigrivi