Nate Simpson at Space Creator Day talks about KSP 2.

[cocoscacao]

17 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

A bit more technical depth on what they’ve got planned (remember the talk around metallic hydrogen a few years back?)

Yeah, those were fun, but even then, not everything was revealed (the biggest engine, described as white death or something). Plus I think such topics would dry out quickly. This game has a finite scope after all.

17 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

 Some more transparency on how the foundational work is driving progress on the milestones

That'd be really difficult to communicate. Pay attention to interview part where Nate mentioned restructuring of teams. You'll get a glimpse there.

17 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

 Info that might stifle some of the wilder-eyed speculation

This went bad with heat introduction.

17 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

better comms around the roadmap and how they were planning on delivering it this place might have been more liveable.  Look at how much better things have become since they announced For Science!.

Science... pardon, FOR SCIENCE! is just around the corner. I wouldn't promise even rough dates for the rest of the roadmap. How they were planning on delivering... You lost me with that one. Clarify pls?

Edited October 31, 2023 by cocoscacao

[PDCWolf]

31 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

This went bad with heat introduction.

The why is important there.

To stifle speculation about them not doing anything and even speculation about their capabilities as developers, they decided to let us know about a system that's a downgrade from its equivalent in KSP1, which they couldn't present in anything but the earliest concept, with line drawings. And then they went on an AMA with that dev, where they didn't pick any genuine questions and much less criticism about it live, as they left that as a homework for Nertea to post in the forum, with varying acceptance levels on those replies.

It went bad because they made the worst possible choices at every step of the way.

[cocoscacao]

10 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

To stifle speculation about them not doing anything and even speculation about their capabilities as developers, they decided to let us know about a system that's a downgrade from its equivalent in KSP1

You'll have to remind me why it is a downgrade... As for the reply, someone has to steer the boat. Whether they are capable devs or not... we can't do anything about it either way... so... what's the point again?

[Vl3d]

14 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

To stifle speculation about them not doing anything and even speculation about their capabilities as developers, they decided to let us know about a system that's a downgrade from its equivalent in KSP1, which they couldn't present in anything but the earliest concept, with line drawings. And then they went on an AMA with that dev, where they didn't pick any genuine questions and much less criticism about it live, as they left that as a homework for Nertea to post in the forum, with varying acceptance levels on those replies.

1. The new heat transfer system is not a downgrade.
2. If the devs were as transparent about the other systems that go in the game as they were with the heat transfer system, I would be overjoyed.
3. I just wish people put as much energy in having insightful discussions about possible gameplay improvements as they put in criticism of things that are not related to the actual game.

Edited October 31, 2023 by Vl3d

[Periple]

I think the thermal system is a good example of why they shouldn’t talk about their systems. The “it’s a downgrade” meme has already caught on, without any of us having seen how much difference removing heat transfer between parts actually makes in practice. (My guess: not a whole lot.)

(I also think it’s a classic case of a trade-off: simplifying the system made it a lot less computationally expensive, which makes it possible to simulate thermals for all craft and colonies whether focused or not, which makes it possible to support entirely new user stories — like heat management for a base that’s shadowed by a crater rim a part of the time. Dismissing it out of hand as a downgrade is clearly premature.)

[Strawberry]

33 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

as they left that as a homework for Nertea to post in the forum, with varying acceptance levels on those replies.

The they here is nertea? How dare nertea gives nertea homework!

[Vanamonde]

Quote

If you bring your car to the garage for an oil change and you expect to pick it up at the end of the afternoon, you'll probably ask them why it was delayed if it takes four days. 

This isn't equivalent. You didn't own the game before its release was delayed so they weren't obligated to give or return it to you by a certain time. I'm asking why it matters, just out of curiosity, why the game's release was delayed. It happened and nothing will retroactively change that, so what would anyone gain by finding out the specifics? 

[cocoscacao]

6 minutes ago, Periple said:

without any of us having seen how much difference removing heat transfer between parts actually makes in practice

The only time that effect was even noticable for me was a very steep reentry in which craft exploded, not due to heat, but part overstress.

38 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

It went bad because they made the worst possible choices at every step of the way.

Not a reply to you directly, just some of my thoughts in general since science... pardon, FOR SCIENCE! was announced.

A few members here was discussing whether go to a place, click a button was a good gameplay, or it should be more/less involved. I can honestly argue both ways, since both have pros and cons. After some thinking, I think science should be as simple as possible. Just a dumb progression system that forces you to utilize other gameplay mechanics and visit places as much as possible. This is what I expect from the sequel in that regard. If we're getting colonies and interstellar, I want to focus on those instead of half-baked points system.

Even in KSP 1, science felt like a gradual part introduction, rather than a major game mechanic. It's perfectly fine to stay that way here.

[Stoup]

53 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

This isn't equivalent. You didn't own the game before its release was delayed so they weren't obligated to give or return it to you by a certain time. I'm asking why it matters, just out of curiosity, why the game's release was delayed. It happened and nothing will retroactively change that, so what would anyone gain by finding out the specifics? 

Well, if the specifics of why it happened are because of an innate struggle that the development team faces, it'd help to know if we can expect to see those same kinds of troubles in the future. We're trying to learn how to temper future expectations by understanding how things have worked in the past, is the way I see it

[Periple]

54 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

The only time that effect was even noticable for me was a very steep reentry in which craft exploded, not due to heat, but part overstress.

I’m not even sure it matters at all in re-entry, I would expect that the flux from atmospheric heating is much bigger than flux between parts. They’re all going to get pretty toasty unless behind a heat shield, which renders the whole system moot.

The only scenario I could think of where it would definitely make a difference is a really specific one: attaching an ISRU to a fuel tank, and then attaching conformal radiators to that. The fuel tank would soak heat from the ISRU and the radiators (which cool only the part they’re attached to) would cool that.

That scenario can be dealt with through parts design.

[Lisias]

5 hours ago, kdaviper said:

Aren't companies legally obligated to provide their shareholders with correct information?

In the same way Companies are obligated by law to respect consumers rights. Now check what Apple and Google is doing.  Or even Unity Technologies…

Believing that just because someone printed some fancy words on a nice sheet of paper called "Law" will magically make things happen is naiveness. Laws need to be enforced to have some effect, and the sad true is that no one is enforcing such laws nowadays. 

Did you saw Unity disclosing to any of their shareholders they were going to pull a fast one over AppLovin? No? Neither do I. Do you are seeing anyone in jail or at least being prosecuted due this stunt? No? Neither do I. Kiss Sherman Act bye bye if nothing changes about it in the next months - once the first one manages to walk from such stunt, you can bet your pension funds more Companies are going to follow suit.

 

5 hours ago, Vl3d said:

IMHO this discussion and the interview is focusing on the wrong things. The really important stuff is what changes and innovations are going to be implemented for the game systems. This is where the energy of the community has been spent all these years: making mods to improve the game, coming up with new ideas and giving feedback. <…>

IMHO these subjects being explicitly ignored on the interview strongly suggests that changes and innovations are out of the menu for some time, as they are focusing on keeping their inner belongings  tight right now.

Whatever they wanna to announce, it was already announced so except by a little surprise or two they could had kept close to their hearts, there's nothing else to disclose other than "we are working to deliver what it was already promised". What I think it's perfectly reasonable.

 

15 hours ago, Periple said:

If you want the actual inside scoop, your best shot is to find someone who knows at a conference and buy them lots of drinks. Not saying how I know!

The next best one (and somewhat cheaper depending on how resistant to alcohol the dude is!  ) is to monitor Forums and similar channels for disgruntled workers/ex-workers venting about. The faster the post (as long it make sense, of course) is censored or watered down, the most probable the information is pertinent.

There's this old myth about one of my grand-grand-fathers. Brazil, about a century ago, was essentially an agricultural economy so the middle and upper classes were, almost entirely (salvo lawyers, physicians and politicians) farmers or something like that in a way or another. This grand-grand-father of mine had a Chicken Farm - and one big problem for Chicken Farmers were chicken theft, no one bothers to brand a chicken as they do with cattle, after all.

So when he had to travel, he hired the local chicken theft to keep his chicken's safe. It was some good money, but still better than losing the chickens - and you can bet your eggs  this guy knows how to prevent a chicken from being stolen, what was also good for him as he still could steal chickens from other farms (what was not exactly condone by my grand-grand-father, but since he ended up gaining an edge on the stunt over his competition, it was not condemned neither ).

The fact is that there're a lot of "chicken thieves" on the Game Industry (they are everywhere, but apparently they are more numerous here) - some of them pretty liquided by being crossed by someone else, and willing to spill the beans for cheap, or even for free, in reprisal. You only need to keep your ears open while walking on these channels. Sifting the wheat from the chaff, however, is a challenge by itself - it's more intuition than reasoning, an Art and not a Science - so, as usual, we always take them with a significant grain of salt.

Getting older has some advantages, indeed.

[mcwaffles2003]

On 10/30/2023 at 4:17 PM, Vanamonde said:

Just out of curiosity: the game was delayed, but what would anyone gain from knowing the specific reasons? 

a sense of closure perhaps?

[PDCWolf]

5 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

You'll have to remind me why it is a downgrade... As for the reply, someone has to steer the boat. Whether they are capable devs or not... we can't do anything about it either way... so... what's the point again?

5 hours ago, Vl3d said:

1. The new heat transfer system is not a downgrade.

3 hours ago, Periple said:

I’m not even sure it matters at all in re-entry

Well, the devblog has it right there, so you can compare the intricate system in KSP1, which worked to take into account the transfer between parts, and thus by nature the distance to heat dissipating parts, and also naturally by that simulation you'd have gradual buildup of unattended excess heat. Now literally nothing of that is taken into account. Also, re-entry is a single situation, and at the level of the simulated system it's just another heat intake point.

4 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

 This is what I expect from the sequel in that regard. If we're getting colonies and interstellar, I want to focus on those instead of half-baked points system.

Well, in my ideal world a sequel would present an evolution on most systems, otherwise what's the point? Also, whilst new features are really nice, Colonies and Interstellar have been done by mods, so they'll get compared to that when those arrive.  As far as we know, they haven't even bothered solving the sequential vs simultaneous dilemma for interstellar missions (which we know includes timewarping at least decades). Drop the ball is the name of the game for now.

4 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

This isn't equivalent. You didn't own the game before its release was delayed so they weren't obligated to give or return it to you by a certain time. I'm asking why it matters, just out of curiosity, why the game's release was delayed. It happened and nothing will retroactively change that, so what would anyone gain by finding out the specifics? 

Your biggest mistake is thinking prospective customers and refunders are not important, so let's rectify that: prospective buyers are the majority, even if you consider only the people who've bought KSP1 (5 million, vs not even 1 million who own KSP2 currently) as the only target demographic. This demographic limit we'll put in place so that we don't assume prospective buyers are infinite.

Now, to conceptualize why the power of prospective buyers on the product is clearly enormous right now, consider the following:

Both Lisias and my metaphor are equivalent. The people who will potentially purchase the game are the ones who have the most pull right now, the bosses in my metaphor, the mechanic's client in Lisias'. Why? because what they want in exchange for the game, is those people's money. Now, at this point a lot of people are surely crying "entitlement", but that's how capitalism works, and that's why customer integration has become so mainstream on almost every process, at a level or another.

In fact, as further proof of this argument, again consider this:

The people that already gave PD the money? In the eyes of PD they're completely worthless past their continued testing of the game and bug reports they may make. I'll rely on your job as a moderator to know this very well, as you know the people that were mad at the 20% discount were the ones who'd already paid, and the people who were mad that Nate "came down" (because they couldn't say it without being despective) to talk to refunders and the people "mocking him and his product instead of those supporting him" were the ones who'd already paid.

 

 

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, Stoup said:

Well, if the specifics of why it happened are because of an innate struggle that the development team faces, it'd help to know if we can expect to see those same kinds of troubles in the future. We're trying to learn how to temper future expectations by understanding how things have worked in the past, is the way I see it

"Past Performance Is Not Indicative Of Future Results"

[Superfluous J]

20 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Your biggest mistake is thinking prospective customers and refunders are not important

Correction: "prospective customers who will not buy the game unless they go into a ridiculously in-depth discussion of the day-to-day operations of the Studio for the past 5 years."

If the game's good, only a tiny, tiny fraction of the potential customer base will hold off buying the game because no one explained why it was late.

If the game's bad, only a tiny, tiny fraction of the potential customer base would buy it simply because someone DID explain why it was so late (and still bad, presumably).

 

[cocoscacao]

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

Well, the devblog has it right there, so you can compare the intricate system in KSP1, which worked to take into account the transfer between parts, and thus by nature the distance to heat dissipating parts, and also naturally by that simulation you'd have gradual buildup of unattended excess heat. Now literally nothing of that is taken into account. Also, re-entry is a single situation, and at the level of the simulated system it's just another heat intake point.

Fair enough. But simplification and downgrade are two different things. There's an explanation why it's being done. I don't hear the contra arguments on that. Yes, re-entry is a single situation, but can you name another where this thing actually matters? If not, then what's the point? If yes, please, name it.

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

Well, in my ideal world a sequel would present an evolution on most systems, otherwise what's the point? Also, whilst new features are really nice, Colonies and Interstellar have been done by mods, so they'll get compared to that when those arrive.  As far as we know, they haven't even bothered solving the sequential vs simultaneous dilemma for interstellar missions (which we know includes timewarping at least decades). Drop the ball is the name of the game for now.

You get totally new systems... Baked into the base game. Giving modders even more material to work with.

Edited November 1, 2023 by cocoscacao

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

Correction: "prospective customers who will not buy the game unless they go into a ridiculously in-depth discussion of the day-to-day operations of the Studio for the past 5 years."

If the game's good, only a tiny, tiny fraction of the potential customer base will hold off buying the game because no one explained why it was late.

If the game's bad, only a tiny, tiny fraction of the potential customer base would buy it simply because someone DID explain why it was so late (and still bad, presumably).

 

In principle what you say sounds right, but doesn't really fit 80% of the first game's playerbase not purchasing the sequel almost a year later, and the people that have still keeping it in mostly negative reviews. As I told another user before, get out of the forums, we're like 20 people posting in these threads, what we say and think here is not indicative of absolutely anything that may be reflected in the 30000 people that played the game at peak, or the rest of the 5 million that bought the first and aren't buying the second yet.

58 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Fair enough. But simplification and downgrade are two different things.

Not for me. Simplification is the opposite of simulation.

58 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

There's an explanation why it's being done. I don't hear the contra arguments on that. Yes, re-entry is a single situation, but can you name another where this thing actually matters? If not, then what's the point? If yes, please, name it.

Mining, where radiators could be too far from heat generating parts, causing heat to build up, is the first thing that comes to mind. Also funnily enough, building in extreme environments would work more realistically in KSP1, with skin vs core temperature interactions and part to part convection versus "lol you're touching water here's instant negative flux to your whole base" that the new system proposes. More importantly, where you'd place radiators matters so heat management becomes more of a challenge than the droolfest of looking at heat number and add the right amount of parts wherever to counteract.

58 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

You get totally new systems... Baked into the base game. Giving modders even more material to work with.

Systems they're charging me AAA price for, versus free mods.

Edited November 1, 2023 by PDCWolf

[MechBFP]

6 hours ago, Periple said:

I’m not even sure it matters at all in re-entry, I would expect that the flux from atmospheric heating is much bigger than flux between parts. They’re all going to get pretty toasty unless behind a heat shield, which renders the whole system moot.

The only scenario I could think of where it would definitely make a difference is a really specific one: attaching an ISRU to a fuel tank, and then attaching conformal radiators to that. The fuel tank would soak heat from the ISRU and the radiators (which cool only the part they’re attached to) would cool that.

That scenario can be dealt with through parts design.

Ya flux between parts is negligible the vast majority of the time (saying 99.9% of the time is not an exaggeration here), so not wasting time developing something that would only be noticed in the rare edge case is definitely the correct move on their part.

[Periple]

44 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

More importantly, where you'd place radiators matters so heat management becomes more of a challenge than the droolfest of looking at heat number and add the right amount of parts wherever to counteract.

The extensible radiators in KSP1 cool the entire craft, placement didn’t matter. It only matters for the radiator panels which would only cool the part they’re attached to. Your “droolfest” was already there.

[Pthigrivi]

9 minutes ago, Periple said:

The extensible radiators in KSP1 cool the entire craft, placement didn’t matter. It only matters for the radiator panels which would only cool the part they’re attached to. Your “droolfest” was already there.

Nertea's System Heat mod was much more interesting and way less janky than the stock heat system. Still that system was pretty niche and I wouldn't expect vanilla to behave that way. I mean we're not manually piping monoprop from the tanks to every RCS port. The tubing is just assumed. I have no problem with the game treating coolant lines that way. 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[Superfluous J]

5 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

In principle what you say sounds right, but doesn't really fit 80% of the first game's playerbase not purchasing the sequel almost a year later, and the people that have still keeping it in mostly negative reviews. As I told another user before, get out of the forums, we're like 20 people posting in these threads, what we say and think here is not indicative of absolutely anything that may be reflected in the 30000 people that played the game at peak, or the rest of the 5 million that bought the first and aren't buying the second yet.

To be frank, no I will not wade waist deep into the cesspools that are the KSP Discord or ANY game's Reddit. And I don't need to, as they're also tiny microcosms compared to the entire user base. These kinds of places always will be.

It perfectly fits that 80% haven't purchased the sequel, though. They're not buying it because the content of the game is not worth the money to them. It's not like the game's got any more content than it did when it was released, and it's still got a lot of bugs.

I only just bought the game last week and the original is one of my all-time favorites. I personally don't care one bit WHY there were problems, and did not base my decision to buy on whether or not they told us what those problems were. My reason to not buy it was entirely due to lack of content and no lack whatsoever of bugs. I feel now that the bugs have been squashed enough that the game loop can be enjoyable, so I bought the game.

[Periple]

Not that many people buy games in EA at the best of times. With BG3 I think total EA sales were around 10-20% of launch week sales? And unlike KSP2 its EA was received really positively.

I’m pretty confident that KSP2 will sell well when it is actually launched, assuming that the roadmap has been delivered at reasonable quality. If 0.2.0 meets expectations, the rough start will soon be in the rearview mirror; the mood has already shifted even in Reddit. 

 

 

[LoSBoL]

People tend to think they are part of a majority and some are thinking they can speak on behalve of a majority.

The majority however is silent, and you don't know what they are thinking because they are silent.

No discord, Reddit, steam or this forum have a majority of the playerbase, there are probably more than 100.000 sales, you won't find the majority on either of above platforms.

We don't know nothing 

[Vl3d]

12 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

People tend to think they are part of a majority and some are thinking they can speak on behalve of a majority.

The majority however is silent, and you don't know what they are thinking because they are silent.

No discord, Reddit, steam or this forum have a majority of the playerbase, there are probably more than 100.000 sales, you won't find the majority on either of above platforms.

We don't know nothing 

Mod installs and prestige speak for a large number of players.

[cocoscacao]

7 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Not for me. Simplification is the opposite of simulation.

Never mentioned simulation. Just downgrade and simplification. There's a difference. Downgrade is when you lose a certain functionality. Simplification is (usually) ripping out useless parts. In case of KSP 2, those parts would cost your CPU a lot, without any noticable effect.

7 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Systems they're charging me AAA price for, versus free mods.

Yes.