KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[PDCWolf]

35 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Kinda forgotten to write a reply, but other correspondence reminded me.

It all kinda falls on expectations. Would you say that Half-Life 2 and Ubisoft's Prince of Persia trilogy we're good? From game mechanic standpoint, yes... As sequels to their original games? Nooooooooooooooooooo... 

Half-Life 2 was amazing for the time, it also was one of the most expected games of its era whilst still being retro-compatible enough thanks to its wide array of settings. It got a 96 on metacritic and an almost ubiquitous 100/100 from multiple publications. It was another momentous genre-defining game like the original.

Half-Life being a super linear shooter meant the sequel was well received as just that again and a continuation of the story. In fact, I did say this before: Singleplayer shooters can get away with little to no evolution as what you want from them is a continuation to the story and to shoot some new stuff. The only thing that went wrong with HL2 was the multiplayer component, but that's because the prequel's was such a globally acclaimed giant that it's still alive to this day (and I'm confident there's at least an order of magnitude more players from third world countries that are not on Steam for reasons).

As for Prince of Persia, I only ever played the DOS/Sega original, and a demo for Prince of Persia 2 on DOS, so can't talk about the trilogy.

 

[Vl3d]

11 hours ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

KSP - simply flying around Kerbin enjoying the landscape is great, let alone building up a bit of a base somewhere and then going for a drive.  KSP2 is great already in this respect - with the exception of the Mün, which is kind of blah, the CBs I’ve been to have been plenty engaging.  Especially Laythe in 1.5.  Sunsets and sunrises are really pretty

The vistas and discoveries are what I play the game for. The engineering is what makes the journey interesting.

Last night I landed for the first time on Eve in @blackrack's Patreon mod (with Parallax, without bubbles). OMG I'll remember it for years to come. I will dream of those visuals. Can't wait to get home and send probes to Jool and Duna to check out the storms.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Vl3d

[cocoscacao]

7 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Half-Life 2 was amazing for the time, it also was one of the most expected games of its era whilst still being retro-compatible enough thanks to its wide array of settings. It got a 96 on metacritic and an almost ubiquitous 100/100 from multiple publications. It was another momentous genre-defining game like the original.

And I completely disagree there. I still play HL 1 to this day (mostly mods), while I've barely finished the second game when it came out. First one was genre defining, second one was a chore.

[Periple]

6 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

And I completely disagree there. I still play HL 1 to this day (mostly mods), while I've barely finished the second game when it came out. First one was genre defining, second one was a chore.

I really liked both of them!

[cocoscacao]

1 hour ago, Periple said:

I really liked both of them!

I'm straying off topic here, but in HL 1, you're a clueless nobody in super a interesting impression of a secret lab, gradually uncovering what's happening. In 2, you're a messiah in Eastern Europe. Both setting, exposition (?) and gameplay were completely wrong and uninteresting.

Same goes for Ubisoft's Prince of Persia. In the original trilogy, you were just one man, going through interesting places, careful with each enemy encounter. Enemies were cool too. PoP 3D especially captured this sensation well. Sands trilogy is zombie hack and slash. At least it has good gameplay, but it missed the point.

[PDCWolf]

2 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

And I completely disagree there. I still play HL 1 to this day (mostly mods), while I've barely finished the second game when it came out. First one was genre defining, second one was a chore.

I mean, if you wanna discount actual genre defining things like gameplay modernizations, the engine being the literal most popular piece of software (along with the prequel) for decades, to the point of still being relevant, the episodic structure, drivable vehicles (not the first game but still an evolution over the prequel), the AI being one of the most detailed, the size of the maps, the inclusion of physics puzzles, the grav gun and its need for a highly interactable world, and probably a lot of stuff I might be forgetting.

You're free to not like it. That it was genre defining, and thus a lot of its new tech we even take for granted on shooters nowadays, is not even up for discussion.

[cocoscacao]

50 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

That it was genre defining, and thus a lot of its new tech

Tech breakthrough, is not the same as genre defining. Getting back on topic, suppose IG ditches Unity and develops an engine designed for massive physics computations for KSP 2, and then proceeds with what they have planned now. You don't seem happy with the path they are taking, so would you be happier if underlying tech is different? Probably not, as you don't care what's underneath a product. No one does.

Edited November 3, 2023 by cocoscacao

[PDCWolf]

2 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

Getting back on topic, suppose IG ditches Unity and develops an engine designed for massive physics computations for KSP 2, and then proceeds with what they have planned now. You don't seem happy with the path they are taking, so would you be happier if underlying tech is different? Probably not, as you don't care what's underneath a product. No one does.

Except what's underneath is what most people cared for, or didn't you hear the constant questioning for the "reworked core systems" or "the new codebase"? People didn't expect a comical repeat of picking an amateur engine and filling it again with technical debt, being badly stretched and with a new coat of paint.

So far, KSP2 has failed to evolve on any aspect, other than the atmospheric graphics.

2 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

Tech breakthrough, is not the same as genre defining.

Except a lot of the stuff in your modern average shooter can be traced back to HL2, and those that go back further, to HL1. If your everyday shooter nowadays including physics and environments ready for you to exploit them is not enough of a clue, then you really have no clue what genre defining means.

 

[cocoscacao]

4 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Except a lot of the stuff in your modern average shooter can be traced back to HL2

Such as? New physics engine? Sorry, that's not genre defining.

[Wheehaw Kerman]

9 hours ago, Vl3d said:

The vistas and discoveries are what I play the game for. The engineering is what makes the journey interesting.

Last night I landed for the first time on Eve in @blackrack's Patreon mod (with Parallax, without bubbles). OMG I'll remember it for years to come. I will dream of those visuals. Can't wait to get home and send probes to Jool and Duna to check out the storms.

You know, I have never bothered much with mods, Parallax included.  I might install it this weekend and see what all the fuss is about.

But my stock dinosaurism aside, yeah.  My saves are littered with plaques labelled “[Kerbname] Lookout/Vista/Mountain” that I had Kerbs climb especially for the view.  The game really triggers the old sensawundah.

[AtomicTech]

9 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

The game really triggers the old sensawundah.

The what the in deep-fried Kentucky hell now?

[Vl3d]

2 hours ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

You know, I have never bothered much with mods, Parallax included.  I might install it this weekend and see what all the fuss is about.

But my stock dinosaurism aside, yeah.  My saves are littered with plaques labelled “[Kerbname] Lookout/Vista/Mountain” that I had Kerbs climb especially for the view.  The game really triggers the old sensawundah.

I mean... judge for yourself.

Spoiler

 

Edited November 3, 2023 by Vl3d

[Wheehaw Kerman]

2 hours ago, AtomicTech said:

The what the in deep-fried Kentucky hell now?

Sense of wonder, but pronounced with a cheesy accent :).

[The Aziz]

5 hours ago, Vl3d said:

I mean... judge for yourself.

  Hide contents

 

Unfortunately for this mod(s), the majority of bodies in the system are atmosphereless, so fancy clouds won't save them, neither will dense scatter (that cuts off in 50 meters) when the worlds are still as blocky and pointy and boring as they are.

But somehow that always is ignored in these discussions, I wonder why

[Vl3d]

9 hours ago, The Aziz said:

But somehow that always is ignored in these discussions, I wonder why.

I've never ignored it. The terrain has been and is terrible in both games. But if you think about it, not even Starfield delivered in this respect.

@Gameslinx is a wizard for his work on Parallax, he built on the PQS foundation - but you can only do so much with textures and scatter.

What KSP really needs is a lot of hand crafted points of interest and terrain features on top of the CBT system. It takes a lot of manual work to make really interesting planets. But the fact that there are only a small number of celestial bodies gives me hope that the artists can build on top of the the procedural foundations.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Vl3d

[The Aziz]

Terrain is miles ahead in KSP2. I can hardly remember stopping by to take screenshots of the surface in KSP1 because I liked the surroundings. Maybe few times at most. I frequently do that in KSP2.

Then again, 14 out of 17 bodies in the system are barren wastelands.

[Vl3d]

5 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Terrain is miles ahead in KSP2. I can hardly remember stopping by to take screenshots of the surface in KSP1 because I liked the surroundings. Maybe few times at most. I frequently do that in KSP2.

Then again, 14 out of 17 bodies in the system are barren wastelands.

Yeah but it's not this now, is it?

[The Aziz]

And you suppose that's how the game is going to look like in the future?

Aside from the last one because you can find those already.

[cocoscacao]

I honestly can't play ksp 1 without parallax mod. I hope something similar is on the way. 

[Dakitess]

My guess is that we won't ever have anything close. We won't get any proper scenery that are really worth the proud message "dang look at what I find, the perfect spot to settle, it's at this coordinates guys, and here are some crazy screenshots !".

This is exactly why the trailer gave me the thrills, the feeling : ok now we will have a beautiful aesthetic KSP, this is what is the most exciting and what was the most lacking in KSP1.

But we rather have a very shy update, and even it if will surely improve, maybe get 3 times as beautiful as it's right now, the tone is clearly that it will remain mostly boring and technically out dated graphics. No really impressive and sharp canyon with appropriate textures and not stretched ones, no real river with good looking flowing water, no epic massive mountains (appropriate texture and no strteched one bla bla), no micro-topology, no proper dense scatters, and this is the very basic, then we could think of fancy places, very specific one, but instead will actually just get theses very specific places with lazy integration in the environment, texture / ligtning / shading not matching, like a very abrupt and arficial cave, a vary rough and dumb lava crater, a weird bones field in the water with weird looking artifacts, etc.

And not AA yet.

It will improve. No doubt. It's necessary, and it's a good thing. It might even got to something correct with enough time. But it won't set appart from KSP1, just a tad better, no real scenery, nothing that will set KSP2 in the actual decade. Let's hope it will bring enough nowadays technologies so that modders will have fun trying to make it truely worthy.

[cocoscacao]

5 minutes ago, Dakitess said:

We won't get any proper scenery that are really worth the proud message "dang look at what I find, the perfect spot to settle, it's at this coordinates guys, and here are some crazy screenshots !".

It isn't just about aesthetics. Rovers became a proper challenge. 

[Vl3d]

Who remembers this? Unfortunate I was not there for it. How was the KSP1 0.22 launch?

 

[AtomicTech]

On 11/4/2023 at 5:23 AM, Vl3d said:

Yeah but it's not this now, is it?

The majesty of God's creations... 

[The Aziz]

9 hours ago, Dakitess said:

his is exactly why the trailer gave me the thrills, the feeling : ok now we will have a beautiful aesthetic KSP, this is what is the most exciting and what was the most lacking in KSP1.

Remember the big text at the bottom in the trailer? I'll remind you

I rather remember what I've seen in many prerelease footages, it was impressive enough, considering...
 

9 hours ago, Dakitess said:

But we rather have a very shy update, and even it if will surely improve, maybe get 3 times as beautiful as it's right now, the tone is clearly that it will remain mostly boring and technically out dated graphics. No really impressive and sharp canyon with appropriate textures and not stretched ones, no real river with good looking flowing water, no epic massive mountains (appropriate texture and no strteched one bla bla), no micro-topology, no proper dense scatters, and this is the very basic, then we could think of fancy places, very specific one, but instead will actually just get theses very specific places with lazy integration in the environment, texture / ligtning / shading not matching, like a very abrupt and arficial cave, a vary rough and dumb lava crater, a weird bones field in the water with weird looking artifacts, etc.

That what you describe is usually handcrafted, at scale reaching some dozens kilometers at most. Forgot we're dealing with literal planet-sized bodies? Nobody's going to do that by hand, ever.

[PDCWolf]

56 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

That what you describe is usually handcrafted, at scale reaching some dozens kilometers at most. Forgot we're dealing with literal planet-sized bodies? Nobody's going to do that by hand, ever.

Nitpick, but 10th-of-a-planet sized bodies

Still, even through procgen you can create beautiful stuff, like on Space Engine, which is now 13 years old.