KSP2 Roadmap Suggestion, Resource Gathering Before Interstellar? (Please Read And Give Opinions!)

[Presto200]

I wanted to put this out into the community about the next major roadmap updates to see if anyone agrees. Obviously the team has a plan for what features should come when but they have also said they will be flexible based on what the community wants. Perhaps this can be a thread to show what the community wants first.

 

I am extremely excited for the colonies update and can't wait to see KSP2 finally achieve features that will separate itself from it's predecessor. It is my understanding from interviews and KSP2 development posts that the colonies update really only brings building colonies into the game. The only real purpose they will bring to the game is looking cool and launching vessels from whatever planet/moon you want in the Kerbolar system. That is all fun and good, honestly I would probably have hours of fun with that anyways if development stays on track with the current roadmap; However, this would also mean that the colonies wouldn't get any "True" functionality until after the interstellar update. 

 

Once the colonies update comes we will likely see a large gap between that and the interstellar update sense there is such a large amount of new mechanics and development that will need to go into new solar systems and how to get there. There was a 10 month wait for the first big update of KSP2 "For Science!", I understand that was to fix a lot of bugs on launch so I don't expect Colonies to take as long but I wouldn't expect it in the next 3-4 months. If we estimated an average of 6 months between each update that would mean we could get colonies around June or July, then interstellar around December or January of 2025, and then go back to resource gathering by Jun or July of 2025. Having a whole year between being able to build colonies and being able to utilize colonies in the way that I believe the devs want them to be used seems out of place to me. While I and many others are extremely excited for interstellar, I think we would also appreciate the colonies and their functionality being completely fledged out before going into the next "BIG NEW THING" for KSP2. To me it does not make sense to add construction of colonies, have a gap and add interstellar, then go back and add functionality to colonies.

 

Another point to make, sadly, is bug fixes. The colonies update will likely have some things to it that the community will have notes on what could be done better, of course these things can be addressed in smaller updates in between colonies and interstellar, but I think it would also be good to have the next big roadmap goal also be connected to colonies, making the focus of the development team "locked in" on getting these parts of the game perfect before moving on. If resource gathering is next on the list from colonies it would also allow them to add big "second thought"/"lesser priority" things to colonies seamlessly in addition to the exploration roadmap goal (similar to how For Science! added reentry heating). 

 

Lastly I would like to talk about integration of the resource gathering and transportation system from interplanetary to interstellar. Resource distribution on this large of a scale seems to me like a hard case to crack, I think there will be some errors in the first version that the becomes publicly available. I would personally rather have those struggles on interplanetary missions rather than interstellar ones in the first implementation of resource gathering. If we switched interstellar and exploration on the roadmap hopefully it would mean that the resource distribution systems can be perfected and easily ported to interstellar. I would rather have headache and be able to look at it as just a problem with the one feature of resource distribution rather than feel like its frustration with interstellar and resource distribution. 

 

Overall I love that the development team has been more open with communication and taking advice from their audience (Thank you for fixing wobbly rockets  ). I do wonder what the rest of the community thinks about this, and if the developers would consider changing such a big decision. Anyways much love to the devs and the community, I'm sure that we will be happy with whatever way development goes but I think it is something to consider. 

 

P.S. this could also mean that you could push the second new star system addition to come in the multiplayer update which could be fun to have the first looks of new territory to be with friends. Just a thought!

[Lowi_Sace]

The colonies aspect will indeed be very incomplete without resource gathering. I think that the DEVs chose this approach because the resource gathering system is very complex and far from done. The colony part is probably  way further in development then resource gathering. With resource gathering they need to define resources to a certain place for every planet and moon in the game. They also need to get the transport routes working from just surface to orbit to an interstellar scale. I also think de developers just want to get the core colonies and interstellar gameplay working well before expending it.

I am curios how players will be able to build colonies (and launch from them) without resources. Unlimited resources on colonies (like on Kerbin)? Processing raw resources from Kerbin and making parts out of it on location? or maybe with colonies we will get some simple version for gathering resources (like fuel production plants). We will see, it is a lot of speculating now, because we have little information about how colonies will work