Introducing For Science! - Major Content Update Out in December

[Vl3d]

On 11/9/2023 at 3:31 AM, regex said:

If you total the times they equal the time at the top of the experiment page above the Transmit All button, just like the power requirements and science returns are totaled as well. That doesn't mean that experiments won't (potentially) take time, it's just that the time shown is most likely the time needed to transmit.

The question is.. if Allow Partial Transmission will still be a thing or if the power requirements of scientific experiments are a hard limit.

[Wheehaw Kerman]

On 11/13/2023 at 2:39 AM, LittleBitMore said:

this is gonna be so rad I can't wait

It’s going to be an improvement to be sure, but as our collective reaction to the EA demonstrated, unrealistic expectations lead to disappointment and the forums turning into a ball pit full of rabid chimpanzees with anger management issues.

I’m sure there will be bugs and rough edges and For Science! v2.0 is ultimately going to prove to be a rough draft that’s going to be polished as a result of a whole bunch of screeching and flinging of balls and other stuff.  So I’m not letting myself get too hyped.

Still can’t wait.

[LittleBitMore]

4 hours ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

It’s going to be an improvement to be sure, but as our collective reaction to the EA demonstrated, unrealistic expectations lead to disappointment and the forums turning into a ball pit full of rabid chimpanzees with anger management issues.

I’m sure there will be bugs and rough edges and For Science! v2.0 is ultimately going to prove to be a rough draft that’s going to be polished as a result of a whole bunch of screeching and flinging of balls and other stuff.  So I’m not letting myself get too hyped.

Still can’t wait.

eh, honestly I don't need to expect much to be excited, the fact there's gonna be a tech tree and sense of progression at all is insanely exciting to me, even if I ignore all the other interesting things that'll come with the science update

[Chilkoot]

On 11/21/2023 at 10:43 AM, Wheehaw Kerman said:

I’m sure there will be bugs and rough edges and For Science! v2.0 is ultimately going to prove to be a rough draft that’s going to be polished as a result of a whole bunch of screeching and flinging of balls and other stuff.

I'm less worried about rough edges with the For Science! update than what we've seen of the fundamental gameplay loop it introduces.

My concern is that the new "Science Mode" will be more of an update to KSP 1's science mode, and not a fundamental re-imagining, which is what it badly needed.  The recent presentation with the same-y parts and tech tree didn't instill a lot of confidence that the old science paradigm was burned to the ground, and a new, better one built from the ground up by experienced gameplay designers.

We saw the effects of a sacred cow mentality already with the rehash of the solar (Kerbolar) system, and I'm worried the same "don't touch anything" mindset will prevail through Science mode and beyond.  Nate being a huge fan of KSP 1 is great, but whether he's been able to let go of KSP tropes enough to design something new and better is still an unknown.

I'm still very hype for science mode, but have tempered expectations for very different reasons.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Chilkoot

[MechBFP]

55 minutes ago, Chilkoot said:

I'm still very hype for science mode, but have tempered expectations for very different reasons.

Ya, I would be VERY surprised if it is significantly different. They have had more than enough trouble just getting the same features up and going in a reasonable timeline, I really don’t think they have a lot of runway to innovate on much of anything unfortunately. 

As always, I hope I am pleasantly surprised. 

[Kerbal2023]

On 11/21/2023 at 4:43 PM, Wheehaw Kerman said:

It’s going to be an improvement to be sure, but as our collective reaction to the EA demonstrated, unrealistic expectations lead to disappointment and the forums turning into a ball pit full of rabid chimpanzees with anger management issues.

I’m sure there will be bugs and rough edges and For Science! v2.0 is ultimately going to prove to be a rough draft that’s going to be polished as a result of a whole bunch of screeching and flinging of balls and other stuff.  So I’m not letting myself get too hyped.

Still can’t wait.

KSP2 is back on my "to be gotten" list. But I'll give it a year or two to mature.

[InfoJunkie]

I booted up the game for the first time in 8 months last night to see how it is. I only made a simple rocket to test FPS on my new 4090, but it only dropped to ~90 during the most taxing part of liftoff (>120 everywhere else), so that's promising. I'm not a sandbox guy, so have been waiting for the objective game modes to be released to play. Can't wait!

[Pawelk198604]

That update is scheduled to be released in December, but which day of December? it's has 31 days you know  

[Brody.mack]

12 minutes ago, Pawelk198604 said:

That update is scheduled to be released in December, but which day of December? it's has 31 days you know  

They released the date this week. It's coming on December 19th!

[Cytauri]

On 10/21/2023 at 7:54 AM, nestor said:

Mun Landing is the name of the tech tree node.
 

We will be sharing more info on the tech tree leading to the release.  Same with other Exploration Mode systems. 

I'm glad you are on the KSP 2 team along with all the other members. You guys made me feel more hopeful for this game!

[Kerbart]

On 11/22/2023 at 2:23 PM, Chilkoot said:

My concern is that the new "Science Mode" will be more of an update to KSP 1's science mode, and not a fundamental re-imagining, which is what it badly needed.  The recent presentation with the same-y parts and tech tree didn't instill a lot of confidence that the old science paradigm was burned to the ground, and a new, better one built from the ground up by experienced gameplay designers.

This is my biggest disappointment in the game, and it became clear very quickly after EA that this was the case. In the various hype videos during development of the game we saw all kinds of claims and spreadsheets. But it's getting clearer and clearer that this was merely revamping how much points research costs per node and what node connects to what. I've already gone through all the stages of grief regarding this and I've come to accept it. Taking two years to populate such a spreadsheet is along time but it does shine a light on the popular question what went on for five years during development and that answer is "very little, just very slow work."

And maybe it won't be so bad because the process of collecting science is not grindy.

[Superfluous J]

I think that the fact that collecting science isn't the end goal of player progression is enough of a major change. Sure it'd be nice if it was totally different from KSP1, but if it's simply easier than KSP1 to perform (but not achieve of course) and is there just to unlock the new gameplay? Sure let's see what that's all about.

[Deddly]

Science mode looks much better. I feel I'm goimg to miss funds, though.

[Cytauri]

53 minutes ago, Deddly said:

Science mode looks much better. I feel I'm goimg to miss funds, though.

Wait, they aren't adding career mode?

[Superfluous J]

42 minutes ago, Cytauri said:

Wait, they aren't adding career mode?

They're not adding either mode, actually. it looks like the 2 modes will be called "sandbox" and "exploration"

"Exploration" will be the progression mode.

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

52 minutes ago, Cytauri said:

Wait, they aren't adding career mode?

There’s quite bit to catch up with 

 

[Deddly]

5 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

They're not adding either mode, actually. it looks like the 2 modes will be called "sandbox" and "exploration"

"Exploration" will be the progression mode.

Yeah, but "Exploration Mode" seems to be akin to Science Mode in KSP1. It's much improved, but there aren't any funds involved, as far as I can recall. I'd be delighted to be wrong. 

[Bej Kerman]

9 minutes ago, Deddly said:

It's much improved, but there aren't any funds involved, as far as I can recall. I'd be delighted to be wrong. 

Funds won't work given the colony gameplay. It makes more sense to just have resources.

[Kerbart]

24 minutes ago, Deddly said:

Yeah, but "Exploration Mode" seems to be akin to Science Mode in KSP1. It's much improved, but there aren't any funds involved, as far as I can recall. I'd be delighted to be wrong. 

Funds and science where just two independent currencies taht were generally earned through grinding. It's tempting to assume that science experiments are set up in such a way that the game promotes exploration over grinding, and that missions provide the challenge of building craft with limited resources.

Of course most people here had wild expectations of completely revamped research (tech tree) which turned out to be a disappointing carbon copy of the KSP1 system, so there's that. But assuming there is some improvement and a reason this took years to develop, that's what we'll all be anxiously awaiting with the for science release.

[Quasar2007]

9 hours ago, Deddly said:

Science mode looks much better. I feel I'm goimg to miss funds, though.

And the building upgrades.

[Cytauri]

9 hours ago, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

There’s quite bit to catch up with 

 

Money is a huge part of space exploration. How could they not add it? NASA (if funded right) would have been on the Moon again in the late 80’s. Funding limits what you can or cannot do. I guess we will have to think that the Kerbals don’t need money and sorted out world peace. Maybe KSP 1 is set in the equivalent time period of the 1960s to 2010s and KSP 2 is set in a more futuristic time period of the 2300s or something like that. You can kind of see this as the new spacesuits look way more far-future like.

[Kerbart]

22 minutes ago, Cytauri said:

Money is a huge part of space exploration. How could they not add it? NASA (if funded right) would have been on the Moon again in the late 80’s. Funding limits what you can or cannot do. I guess we will have to think that the Kerbals don’t need money and sorted out world peace. Maybe KSP 1 is set in the equivalent time period of the 1960s to 2010s and KSP 2 is set in a more futuristic time period of the 2300s or something like that. You can kind of see this as the new spacesuits look way more far-future like.

Windtunnel testing is also essential for building rockets and yet the game doesn't have it. "But aerodynamics are not really modeled into the game so it doesn't matter" "And neither are financial economics."

One doesn't need Gene Roddenberry style utopias to explain the lack of money; the Kerbals have funded their space program well enough that it's not a thing to worry about.

We'll have to wait and see what the missions entail but I suspect that constraints regarding size and weight (and indirectly, cost associated with it) will come from there.

[Kerbal410]

that science part resembles a portion of the Voyager 1/2.

related, any plans for atmospheric science parts?

unrelated, any plans for an xl engine adapter similar to the Saturn V?

lastly, I've encountered a bug in which the mk3-size 3 isn't visible (I can click to place it but I can't see it, only the nodes) I do not know if it is visible on launch, I just don't like using parts I cannot see in editor.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Kerbal410

[Bej Kerman]

On 12/1/2023 at 5:52 PM, Cytauri said:

Money is a huge part of space exploration

Trying to avoid getting too political, but the Kerbals probably aren't dealing with rich Kerbals hoarding everything (+ bad funding decisions and space-disinterested presidents in NASA's case). Money and war was a huge part of HUMAN space exploration, and humans are known for making crap decisions and needing aggressive or spiteful motivations for anything.

It's also known that money is not going to mesh with interplanetary colonies as well as resources will. It makes a lot more sense to manage a physical thing that colonies will need to build things out of than an imaginary unit.

[Wheehaw Kerman]

16 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Trying to avoid getting too political, but the Kerbals probably aren't dealing with rich Kerbals hoarding everything (+ bad funding decisions and space-disinterested presidents in NASA's case). Money and war was a huge part of HUMAN space exploration, and humans are known for making crap decisions and needing aggressive or spiteful motivations for anything.

It's also known that money is not going to mesh with interplanetary colonies as well as resources will. It makes a lot more sense to manage a physical thing that colonies will need to build things out of than an imaginary unit.

Or, you know, a bunch of fanatics going full totalitarian, running the economy into the ground through central planning, failing to meet the Kerbs’ basic needs,  disregarding their Kerbal rights, chucking the dissidents into camps and inefficiently redistributing what little surpluses got generated into running nightmarish surveillance states and propping up  dictatorial regimes across the developing world… And I’m writing this as a huge Soviet spaceflight history nerd and possibly the biggest fan of the Making History Soviet parts in the community.  Nice space program, shame about the political system,  2/10, swipe left.

Don’t get me started on the two remaining Kommunist regimes out there, either.  

If there’s one thing that looking at technological and scientific progress and economic growth across history teach us, it’s that they drive political change (and that the twentieth century’s experiments in utopian authoritarianism were utter failures).  What our governance arrangements are going to look like in a couple of centuries I do not know - I expect they’re going to be different, but I am not going to trust anybody who tells me they have this one simple political trick they want to try, especially if mass Kerbal rights violations are involved.

I think you’ve put your finger on why I love KSP - it’s a cartoon of a sort of future we could have had, and might still get if we become better.