You promised us communication, where is it?

[Alexoff]

Honestly, I envy the community manager of KSP2. Writing several vague messages a week and getting a good salary for it - isn’t that a dream?

[Stoup]

47 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

And we won't know 2 days before sci update, judging by the way comms were done so far. I also don't buy that "You're gonna love 1.5 update".  Well, duh. I love every update. Such statement doesn't give off any info. I've tuned out mostly. I understand they don't want to over-promise/under-deliver, but I also don't see the point for so much secrecy. The latest two pics were that crane thingy and the ring. No description what they're supposed to be. Why?

I have to call a spade a spade on this one and say that it seems to me the reason there's no context behind those images is because they love to rely on speculation to drive hype and therefore interest

I think this is bad, because hype build-up is a huge part of what's burned me about KSP2

Edited September 14, 2023 by Stoup

[Spicat]

1 hour ago, DunaManiac said:

That's a step in the right direction, but it isn't a panacea. It's good that some stuff ends up on there, but there's also a lot of important information that's left out: like that post @Snips linked. Ultimately it isn't really a substitute to the amount of dev engagement that discord gets as opposed to the forums.

What Snips linked wasn't a message posted on the IG server but on the ksp2 Modding server.

Also, they did post about it on the forums, but the same as for discord, it's in the mods section:

 

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, Stoup said:

I have to call a spade a spade on this one and say that it seems to me the reason there's no context behind those images is because they love to rely on speculation to drive hype and therefore interest

I have spent way too much time on these 6(?) images thinking about each one if that is maybe already ingame or just the state in the 3D design software. Some of them are easy, like the crane or ring station which are obviously not in the dev-branch of the game yet. But I am still not sure about the "shiny hollow asteroid" thing or the mountain with the clouds. They very well could only be some Blender/Houdini renderers.

But to be honest. Please don't be to harsh with devs otherwise a CM will close this thread. And honestly I think this thread is productive.

[DoomsdayDuck555]

I think that there are a few levels of communication that exist with games

 1. Lowest, the occasional update with very little information

2. low frequency - regular, but pretty spaced out

3. High frequency - very often, with little real information

4. highest - the best, with regular in depth and fully transparent updates consolidated in 1 platform

 

ksp 2 seems to be mostly low frequency, irregular, and full of “nothing” with words like “we hope to” and “we want” which drives up hype and ends up crashing when that doesn’t get added for years. We should be getting updates that give transparent views into the actual progress of the team rather than future goals.

[The Aziz]

3 hours ago, DunaManiac said:

It's like they're trying to act like an indie team when in reality they're backed by an enormous conglomerate.

Enormous conglomerate would do literally what people fear here, complete radio silence for months and only pop up for patch notes and back to nothing. You want that?

Also, this thread is turning, unsurprisingly, in the same direction as every other before it so I'll take my leave. Don't stand up.

[Alexoff]

8 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Enormous conglomerate would do literally what people fear here, complete radio silence for months and only pop up for patch notes and back to nothing.

Well then, maybe the game will be from a large conglomerate, in the form of a full release and with an official apology?
All these years, the KSP2 PR campaign has been tossing from side to side, and long silences have also taken place.

[didkodidko]

For me, it's not the lack of communication, but the disrespect to community of engineers, pilots  and scientists (like.me and most of us). We're treated like toddlers... All the information except release notes is vague.

 

Start sticky at least for the progress over the most pressing matters like potato struits, different parts acceleration, potato collisions, unstable orbits (by the way this a problem with kopernicus scalling too- never solved), potato symmetry, potato wing editor (it does.not represent correctly the link between the parameters in the editor and the attitude of the wing) and total mashed potato airmodel, PID setting on the air surfaces are also tuned by a fish.

 

Like the things that actually makes the game unplayable.

 

Cheers engeneers

Edited September 14, 2023 by didkodidko
forgot.to.compe

[Bej Kerman]

42 minutes ago, didkodidko said:

For me, it's not the lack of communication, but the disrespect to community of engineers, pilots  and scientists (like.me and most of us)

If said community treats anything less than inviting everyone to live in the development studio as a disservice...

[RocketRockington]

5 hours ago, running_bird said:

If they are still in the "design phase" for science this will probably cause a huge outcry (maybe also from me) why they don't have a design document about it yet, after all these years.

Given some of Nertea's answers, it does seem like science mode is still being designed and has a lot of open questions, though they're in the sort of time-wasting mode where they're behind so they're implementing as they design - and then having to waste time changing the feature as they redesign it.  Once you get into that mode where you're trying to catch up to where you claim to be you can end up being even more inefficienct than you were when you got yourself into that hole.  I expect that KSP2 has been in that state since at least 2019.

[RocketRockington]

4 hours ago, Stoup said:

I have to call a spade a spade on this one and say that it seems to me the reason there's no context behind those images is because they love to rely on speculation to drive hype and therefore interest

Also because when concrete details are given, people find out how dissappointing the result is - like the new heat design - and not only do the high-flying dreams they had when things were vague get subverted, but they know that they're getting  KSP1 except worse systems

[Pthigrivi]

46 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

Also because when concrete details are given, people find out how dissappointing the result is - like the new heat design - and not only do the high-flying dreams they had when things were vague get subverted, but they know that they're getting  KSP1 except worse systems

I dont know I think the heat system sounds about right. As does just about everything else they’ve said about science and colonies. Obviously we’ll have to wait and see. So.. I guess just wait and see?

[RocketRockington]

28 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I dont know I think the heat system sounds about right. As does just about everything else they’ve said about science and colonies. Obviously we’ll have to wait and see. So.. I guess just wait and see?

Given that your position, as I've seen it on this forum, is pretty reliably 'the devs have made the right choices' and yet the game has fewer players than devs at some times of day and is running a mostly negative review rate on steam, I find it hard to give your stance.much credence, but of course that's just my opinion.

[Strawberry]

1 hour ago, RocketRockington said:

Given that your position, as I've seen it on this forum, is pretty reliably 'the devs have made the right choices' and yet the game has fewer players than devs at some times of day and is running a mostly negative review rate on steam, I find it hard to give your stance.much credence, but of course that's just my opinion.

I dont think you can credit the low player counts to the conceptual design of systems that arent in game yet, like no ones going to go “you know id love to play ksp2 but man i disliked that nertea dev blog about something not in game so now i wont”

2 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

Given some of Nertea's answers, it does seem like science mode is still being designed and has a lot of open questions

We’ve known for a few months that all the art assets for science are done, this means that the basic design of all the science parts have been done for a few months. Honestly we know more about science, its just that we know in broad strokes itll be like ksp1 science (do experiments, get tech points, repeat), but the main differing will be in the specific experiments themselves. The only thing where knowledge is iffy is what the experiments will be, but besides that we have a pretty firm grasp of what science will offer.

[RocketRockington]

13 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

We’ve known for a few months that all the art assets for science are done, this means that the basic design of all the science parts have been done for a few months. Honestly we know more about science, its just that we know in broad strokes itll be like ksp1 science (do experiments, get tech points, repeat), but the main differing will be in the specific experiments themselves. The only thing where knowledge is iffy is what the experiments will be, but besides that we have a pretty firm grasp of what science will offer.

You believe that just because some assets are finished, or even significant work toward a feature is done, doesn't mean the design isn't changing particularly if the designers are talking in 'nice to haves' and 'maybes'?   That's... optimistic.

By now, if the feature was even alpha, the designers should have all tuning by and large in and being tweaked, and they would be playtesting the system.  They would be able to give us communication like the Friday Factorio Facts, (eg:  https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-375 - this is for a DLC that's still a year away) and not like they were  housewives speculating on the weather 3 months from now.

The way Nertea talks about it, it sounds more like its in pre-production, even though yes, some assets and even UI is done for it - it just means the artists have done speculative work - either because they had time, or because IG was trying to pretend it was further along than it actually is.

That factorio blog is the standard of good clear communication on what's coming.  What IG is currently doing is the absolute opposite, and @RayneCloud is right to call them on it

Edited September 15, 2023 by RocketRockington

[Infinite Aerospace]

11 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

And we won't know 2 days before sci update, judging by the way comms were done so far. I also don't buy that "You're gonna love 1.5 update".  Well, duh. I love every update. Such statement doesn't give off any info. I've tuned out mostly. I understand they don't want to over-promise/under-deliver, but I also don't see the point for so much secrecy. The latest two pics were that crane thingy and the ring. No description what they're supposed to be. Why?

To be fair, whilst I agree communication is an issue at the moment Chris (Adderly) did go back and revisit a lot of the questions for the AMA, including a fair few regarding science. I think he said he's gonna do a video / blog on the topic.

[RocketRockington]

1 hour ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

To be fair, whilst I agree communication is an issue at the moment Chris (Adderly) did go back and revisit a lot of the questions for the AMA, including a fair few regarding science. I think he said he's gonna do a video / blog on the topic.

And that's great but his answers were mostly vague.  The only concrete thing there was that there's an 80m colony part.  Oh and there will be a tech tree and science points!  Big whoop.

Seriously, real this word salad about science :

Are you able to tell us 'something' about science and career modes, there's been an alarming lack of any real information regarding the two.

Well! Science mode is cool. It is designed to be a progression-based mode that takes the aspects of KSP1’s Science mode that we like and build upon them to create a solid progression experience that has higher level of agency and approachability. You can expect the return of the experiment loop, with changes, and the inclusion of a very different mission paradigm from Career.

One of the fiddlier aspects of the last few months has been taking our full set of concepts from KSP2 1.0 and figuring out how they break down into the early access structure.

Complete nothingburger.  Not that it's his job to communicate with us anyway - but pointing out his comms as meaningful just shows off that nothing that matters has been said recently.

At this point, we should have a good picture of what science mode will be, if they were at all committed to transparency as they claimed - both how far off it is, what it will contain. 

That we dont either means science is even less done than many people expect, or that they just don't want to share details of something destined to be disappointing, and transparency is meaningless to them.

[DunaManiac]

12 hours ago, Spicat said:

What Snips linked wasn't a message posted on the IG server but on the ksp2 Modding server.

Also, they did post about it on the forums, but the same as for discord, it's in the mods section:

 

Ah, my apologies. I suppose I was mistaken but I think the broad point is still correct. But it also shows that there is another problem: a lot of information that is shared on both discord and the KSP forums just ends up getting buried. Even that nertea follow up, even though I appreciate it, was buried somewhat in the AMA and some could've easily missed it.

[Stoup]

33 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

That we dont either means science is even less done than many people expect, or that they just don't want to share details of something destined to be disappointing, and transparency is meaningless to them.

That's honestly the impression I've gotten of the fact that they're extremely vague about science details: it feels to me they're afraid people will be very upset that it will wind up being more similar to KSP1 than people are anticipating.

And if that weren't the case, I can't think of many reasons why all the details of at least how it's planned to work aren't being shared.

To avoid just dumping on them, I'll say that this feels again to me like another good example of what they could do to actually improve communications: to be honest about what stage of development science is actually in.

If it's still in design, don't be afraid to just let us know. We're going to draw that conclusion from evidence anyway, there's no service acting like it's not the case

[Periple]

11 minutes ago, Stoup said:

That's honestly the impression I've gotten of the fact that they're extremely vague about science details: it feels to me they're afraid people will be very upset that it will wind up being more similar to KSP1 than people are anticipating.

If that's the case, why would they pre-emptively disappoint everybody by talking about it? Better to shut up, release it, and let the chips fall where they may.

And if it's not the case, why try to describe it to a public that's not receptive to anything they say? Once again, better to shut up, release it, and give everybody a pleasant surprise.

11 minutes ago, Stoup said:

And if that weren't the case, I can't think of many reasons why all the details of at least how it's planned to work aren't being shared.

I think it's pretty obvious — the mood right now is such that anything they say will be used against them. Game systems are especially tricky because really often something that sounds fun on paper, isn't, and conversely, changes that sound bad on paper actually improve the experience (or have other benefits). Look what happened with the dev update on heating — a bunch of people immediately started screaming about dumbed-down streamlined systems that totally ruin the experience, without ever having actually experienced how it works in practice and in which situations it even makes a noticeable difference. (My suspicion is, "almost none." As in, if you did a re-entry with the old thermals and the new thermals and asked the player to guess which is which, most players wouldn't be able to tell. While on the upside it makes it much easier to compute equilibriums and handle high time warp factors.)

11 minutes ago, Stoup said:

To avoid just dumping on them, I'll say that this feels again to me like another good example of what they could do to actually improve communications: to be honest about what stage of development science is actually in.

If it's still in design, don't be afraid to just let us know. We're going to draw that conclusion from evidence anyway, there's no service acting like it's not the case

And if they say it's deep in production and close to QA, many of you will loudly say "LIES!" and hate them even more.

Summa summarum, I think it's pointless of them to even try to talk to the fans right now. Get the game right first, release a solid roadmap update or two, however long it takes, then start communicating again. The fans are going to vent their outrage regardless of what they say.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Periple

[Stoup]

Yeah, I do agree that that seems to be the way things are. I suppose it's pointless to just lament that I wish things were different, so all I feel that I, at least, can do is to make it as clear as I can what I think would help improve the way things are. I won't always correct, but positive sentiment won't grow from lack of effort 

[Kerbart]

Maybe they found another platform to communicate on. Slack, Mastodon, threads… the current ones are actually used so they’re less prederred.

[Meecrob]

I think we need to face facts...nobody there knows how to communicate properly. Its not that they are making a choice not to, they literally have no idea what honest, up front status updates are.

You guys seem too afraid of calling something and missing it, you won't say anything. The solution is easy: be honest. No hype. I promise you the complaints will drop once we feel like we are being talked to, not sold on some snake oil.

[Periple]

1 minute ago, Meecrob said:

You guys seem too afraid of calling something and missing it, you won't say anything. The solution is easy: be honest. No hype. I promise you the complaints will drop once we feel like we are being talked to, not sold on some snake oil.

The problem is that right now a lot of you are interpreting everything they say as hype and snake oil! It doesn’t matter how honest they are because you still won’t believe them!

[Meecrob]

You don't get that they have said basically nothing...like isn't that why this thread was created?

And you seem to be purposefully missing my point. I don't feel like they are talking to us like Devs, I feel like I'm being sold something. "Oh, I promise it will have X feature soon!"

Edited September 15, 2023 by Meecrob