K.E.R.B. Report Update

[Flush Foot]

On 4/1/2024 at 7:36 PM, KincaidFrankMF said:

That sounds AWESOME. I've just started a playthrough based on this -> https://youtu.be/UKbWx-bTOw0?si=bD_Sd9QOdEjK8ojX but haven't got far enough to see how the bases work. Wonder if it would be compatible...

Great… between this conversation, that video, and the ensuing surge of KSP 1 videos in my YouTube recommendations (many of which feature mods) I am starting to get that itch again (despite being mostly content with vanilla KSP 2)

[PDCWolf]

On 4/2/2024 at 2:33 AM, Superfluous J said:

 I'm stating facts.

On 4/2/2024 at 2:33 AM, Superfluous J said:

To also be clear: Of course I want a perfect game delivered 12 months ago with no bugs and a $10 price tag. However I live in the real world and understand that in the vast majority of cases I will never ever get what I want. So, I determine if what is offered is worth what I'm willing to pay and if it is, great. If not, oh well maybe I'll leave a bad review and then I'll move on.

Ah yes, love the hyperbole. Also, you can clearly check that I'm a man of my word: i said that if FS! failed to deliver, I'd no longer have any hope or playtime for this game, and that's exactly what happened. I booted FS! a couple times to see what it was about, the game is still bad, and broken, science is a bad streamlined copy of KSP1 and now I post here with weeks or months inbetween right as I said I would. That you still have to strawman my posts  as some sort of angry, rabid hater wanting change is funny, specially when I didn't ask for anything to change since before For Science! because that update showed me this project is hopeless.

On 4/2/2024 at 2:33 AM, Superfluous J said:

Complaining about obvious things over and over is such a useless exercise it frustrates me that so many enjoy it. Talk about twisting your brain into a torus, that's the idea that after the first 300 times, the 301st complaint will make some sort of difference.

They're clearly not obvious for the devs, given how many remain unaddressed (can't address anything if you don't communicate), that's exactly why the community feels unheard. Very little people posts here anymore thinking the devs are gonna read their feedback unless it's a bug. That's as evident as checking the suggestions subforum and seeing the only people suggesting stuff is new users.

Expectations remain unaddressed and unmanaged past the roadmap and some handwavy answers at the AMAs and will remain so until the devs decide to man up and come out with serious talk about the final shape of KSP2, so the people wanting something different can move on if they haven't yet.

Edited April 3 by PDCWolf

[steveman0]

I don't get the perspective that the goals for KSP2 are unclear. The design/creative direction for KSP2 are abundantly clear to me. They aim to bring the challenge and wonder of spaceflight introduced in KSP1 to a wider audience by providing better tutorials and inspiring goals through the mission system towards the notions of interstellar travel and collonization.

I don't know what people are expecting them to do with more interviews or explanations on the front of these core aspects. They've already communicated those plans. There's only so much they can say before they just rehash existing interviews that everyone here already watched or read long ago.

The specific functionality and nuanced mechanics within these systems can't be presented until they have something developed to present. This all takes time. I agree it would be nice if they shared more looks behind the curtain, but that's just not how they operate. At best I expect you'd get a "we're working on it / it's not done". It's hopeless to demand communication on functionality that doesn't exist.

Why it is taking that long and what delays they are facing are perfectly reasonable questions to ask though. They do seem slow and I suspect because much of the focus is on core engineering work that generally doesn't attract as much interest to publicize those efforts. It's in their best interests in damage control to communicate these delays. It's strange to me they decided to enter Early Access but to insist on keeping significant project challenges under wraps especially when charging a price that is likely very near release price despite an apparent multi-year additional development roadmap to finish.

[mc04]

23 minutes ago, steveman0 said:

I don't get the perspective that the goals for KSP2 are unclear. The design/creative direction for KSP2 are abundantly clear to me. They aim to bring the challenge and wonder of spaceflight introduced in KSP1 to a wider audience by providing better tutorials and inspiring goals through the mission system towards the notions of interstellar travel and collonization.

I don't know what people are expecting them to do with more interviews or explanations on the front of these core aspects. They've already communicated those plans. There's only so much they can say before they just rehash existing interviews that everyone here already watched or read long ago.

The specific functionality and nuanced mechanics within these systems can't be presented until they have something developed to present. This all takes time. I agree it would be nice if they shared more looks behind the curtain, but that's just not how they operate. At best I expect you'd get a "we're working on it / it's not done". It's hopeless to demand communication on functionality that doesn't exist.

Why it is taking that long and what delays they are facing are perfectly reasonable questions to ask though. They do seem slow and I suspect because much of the focus is on core engineering work that generally doesn't attract as much interest to publicize those efforts. It's in their best interests in damage control to communicate these delays. It's strange to me they decided to enter Early Access but to insist on keeping significant project challenges under wraps especially when charging a price that is likely very near release price despite an apparent multi-year additional development roadmap to finish.

they had six+ years to do 'core engineering work' and came out with a sim that at best functions about the same as the original. it is what it is at this point. if they really wanted to bring it to a wider audience they would've done far better as an expansion or remaster.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

0

1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

I don't get the perspective that the goals for KSP2 are unclear. The design/creative direction for KSP2 are abundantly clear to me. They aim to bring the challenge and wonder of spaceflight introduced in KSP1 to a wider audience by providing better tutorials and inspiring goals through the mission system towards the notions of interstellar travel and collonization.

I don't know what people are expecting them to do with more interviews or explanations on the front of these core aspects. They've already communicated those plans. There's only so much they can say before they just rehash existing interviews that everyone here already watched or read long ago.

The specific functionality and nuanced mechanics within these systems can't be presented until they have something developed to present. This all takes time. I agree it would be nice if they shared more looks behind the curtain, but that's just not how they operate. At best I expect you'd get a "we're working on it / it's not done". It's hopeless to demand communication on functionality that doesn't exist.

Why it is taking that long and what delays they are facing are perfectly reasonable questions to ask though. They do seem slow and I suspect because much of the focus is on core engineering work that generally doesn't attract as much interest to publicize those efforts. It's in their best interests in damage control to communicate these delays. It's strange to me they decided to enter Early Access but to insist on keeping significant project challenges under wraps especially when charging a price that is likely very near release price despite an apparent multi-year additional development roadmap to finish.

The faith was damaged when people were asking about bugs that were archived without official commentary on the forum. (Official Forum)

When we started to notice the simplification we asked "what, are you *dumbing (I prefer simplify) these features down?"

Something Like - KSP2 will be a massive undertaking that builds upon the foundation of its namesake

-Wobbly Rockets

You don't find them charming?

-Uh.. Wait. I don't think occlusion exists anymore.

Crickets

Wait.. planned resource no comNent?

CricketS

Something Like

These feature are function of bringing the game to a wider audience and making the franchise more approachable (bc all of those we promised to be true to, will but it anyway).

- What!!

Crickets

Avoid 

Deflect

AmA -- That's um.. yea

Silence

Official Statement

"Reduced communication commitment"

- Anniversary 

Video Drop

- Were Still Waiting 

April Fools.. or not?!?

 

Edited April 3 by Fizzlebop Smith

[Scarecrow71]

4 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Very little people posts here anymore thinking the devs are gonna read their feedback unless it's a bug.

Very few people here believe the devs are going to read their feedback, even if that feedback is about bugs.  This is evidenced by the KERB reports removing topics, as well as bug reports that end up in the archive without explanation as to why when the bugs continue to persist.

4 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Expectations remain unaddressed and unmanaged past the roadmap

Expectations remain unaddressed and unmanaged in spite of the roadmap.  We are concerned that roadmap features are either going to be implemented without being fully featured OR that they won't be implemented at all.

1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

I don't get the perspective that the goals for KSP2 are unclear. The design/creative direction for KSP2 are abundantly clear to me. They aim to bring the challenge and wonder of spaceflight introduced in KSP1 to a wider audience by providing better tutorials and inspiring goals through the mission system towards the notions of interstellar travel and collonization.

The goals were made clear with the roadmap.  The creative direction isn't an issue here.  What is an issue is the actual implementation of the game, which is still very much lacking in anything resembling a sequel.  Yes, we have better music and graphics.  But gameplay is simplified compared to KSP1, stock/core gameplay features are still broken, and we have no clue where development is at due to the lack of communication.

1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

I don't know what people are expecting them to do with more interviews or explanations on the front of these core aspects. They've already communicated those plans. There's only so much they can say before they just rehash existing interviews that everyone here already watched or read long ago.

How about telling us where they are at in the development of the next roadmap feature?  Or with resources?  Or how about they tell us exactly what additional feedback they want from the community on all of those bugs that they need more feedback on?  Or what about the ones that are still being "researched" since launch?

1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

It's hopeless to demand communication on functionality that doesn't exist.

It's also in bad faith to claim this is an EA where those of us who paid for the game were told to submit feedback and that the devs would keep us in the loop only to go radio silent and keep up the whole "we're working on it" charade over the state of the game.  Keep in mind we are 6+ years into development, with 1+ of that since launch.  And we have 1 roadmap feature and a host of gameplay bugs.  Why the secrecy?  Why the silence?  Why not be honest with what the frak is actually going on?  We aren't a group of people simply waiting to purchase a product.  We've already given them our money; we should at least be given the courtesy of honesty here.

1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

Why it is taking that long and what delays they are facing are perfectly reasonable questions to ask though. They do seem slow and I suspect because much of the focus is on core engineering work that generally doesn't attract as much interest to publicize those efforts.

As far as this community goes, I wholly disagree.  We ARE interested in the engineering and core loop fixes that they should be working on.  Heck, we've been asking for this exact kind of communication for more than a year.  We want to hear exactly what bugs are being worked on (KERB reports), where they are at with working on them, and what troubles they are facing with getting them fixed.  At the same time, I'd also like to know why they exist in KSP2 but not in KSP1, and why they haven't chosen to look at the code for KSP1 and figure out how to reverse-engineer that as far as fixing these bugs goes.

[The Aziz]

13 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

bug reports that end up in the archive without explanation as to why when the bugs continue to persist.

Jesus Christ.

 

I remember bringing this link up before and it was, as usual, very much ignored.

Why should the devs even care about talking if their words hit a wall?

[Spicat]

14 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

The faith was damaged when people were asking about bugs that were archived without official commentary on the forum. (Official Forum)

3 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

This is evidenced by the KERB reports removing topics, as well as bug reports that end up in the archive without explanation as to why when the bugs continue to persist.

Bug reports under a certain amount of upvotes are archived each update (not counting hotfixes).

It's to not have 70 pages of outdated bug reports and to assure that those bugs are still happening, they get dearchived as soon as there is a new bug report about it (even if it's just a small sentence saying the bug is still happening with the link of the old bug report).

We can't just check that each bug report are still happening after each update (even if we try), this would take a riduculous amount of time, more so of being mostly impossible for bug reports that don't have enough information or that we just can't reproduce (like dependant on specs for instance).

[Scarecrow71]

43 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Jesus Christ.

 

I remember bringing this link up before and it was, as usual, very much ignored.

Why should the devs even care about talking if their words hit a wall?

 

37 minutes ago, Spicat said:

Bug reports under a certain amount of upvotes are archived each update (not counting hotfixes).

It's to not have 70 pages of outdated bug reports and to assure that those bugs are still happening, they get dearchived as soon as there is a new bug report about it (even if it's just a small sentence saying the bug is still happening with the link of the old bug report).

We can't just check that each bug report are still happening after each update (even if we try), this would take a riduculous amount of time, more so of being mostly impossible for bug reports that don't have enough information or that we just can't reproduce (like dependant on specs for instance).

Neither of these addresses the fact that bug reports are being archived without explanation, apart from stating "We don't want them lingering".  What good does it do to even submit a bug report if it isn't looked at?  And, correct me if I'm wrong, but we were told to submit bug reports, and that the devs would look at all of them and provide feedback on them all.

Now, if you want to keep archiving stuff without explanation, eventually we'll stop submitting stuff.  Which I'm beginning to believe is what you guys want in the first place.

[steveman0]

2 hours ago, mc04 said:

they had six+ years to do 'core engineering work' and came out with a sim that at best functions about the same as the original. it is what it is at this point. if they really wanted to bring it to a wider audience they would've done far better as an expansion or remaster.

As I understand the history, it isn't safe to assume they do have 6 years worth of usable development work. In how the project changed hands, a portion, perhaps even a significant portion, of the codebase may have needed to be redone. We don't know and likely never will. We just know that more engineering work is clearly required and they continue to work on it.

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

As far as this community goes, I wholly disagree.  We ARE interested in the engineering and core loop fixes that they should be working on.  Heck, we've been asking for this exact kind of communication for more than a year.  We want to hear exactly what bugs are being worked on (KERB reports), where they are at with working on them, and what troubles they are facing with getting them fixed.  At the same time, I'd also like to know why they exist in KSP2 but not in KSP1, and why they haven't chosen to look at the code for KSP1 and figure out how to reverse-engineer that as far as fixing these bugs goes.

Yes, I suppose many here would find it interesting, but still no one takes much pleasure in spending time talking about how they are further behind than they want to be. I can't blame them for wanting to keep focused on getting the work done so that when they have something good to share that can be the focus. It isn't good for anyone's morale either to have another post with minimal updates. Even in this thread some of the complaints that have come up have been that npt enough of the Kerb changed between weeks. Is it really that useful to make a post that is just "no significant news this week"?

[Spicat]

32 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

We were told to submit bug reports, and that the devs would look at all of them and provide feedback on them all.

That's not the case. They just can't look at every single one of them, and the word "look" is an understatement of the amount of time needed to check a bug report.

So the explanation to why they are archived is to have a list of bug report up to date like I said.

That doesn't mean they don't look at any of them, but that's why the upvote system is important, to let them know what bug need to be looked at (and fixed) asap. It also doesn't mean that bug reports with single digit upvotes don't get looked at. For instance, Anth seems to look quite a lot to the list of bug reports, but obviously it takes time to report a bug internally (from what I understand, it needs to have a 100% reproduction by ideally creating the condition from scratch (so not from a user save/craft file) which is sometimes impossible when a bug report has not enough information even more when it's an anonymous bug report), so they can't manage the hundreds of bug report from the KERB. Their main work is managing their internal list (which is not only on this version of the game obviously).

[Scarecrow71]

27 minutes ago, steveman0 said:

Yes, I suppose many here would find it interesting, but still no one takes much pleasure in spending time talking about how they are further behind than they want to be. I can't blame them for wanting to keep focused on getting the work done so that when they have something good to share that can be the focus. It isn't good for anyone's morale either to have another post with minimal updates. Even in this thread some of the complaints that have come up have been that npt enough of the Kerb changed between weeks. Is it really that useful to make a post that is just "no significant news this week"?

I think the issue is less "We have no new updates this week" and more "Why don't you have any new updates after 6+ years of development".  That's the problem.  After 6+ years in development, and after 1+ year in EA, and all the bug reports...they have nothing new to report.  4 months post For Science, and nothing new.  A lot of the bugs are still being "Researched" or "Need More Information".  After all this time.

1 minute ago, Spicat said:

That doesn't mean they don't look at any of them, but that's why the upvote system is important, to let them know what bug need to be looked at (and fixed) asap. It also doesn't mean that bug reports with single digit upvotes don't get looked at. For instance, Anth seems to look quite a lot to the list of bug reports, but obviously it takes time to report a bug internally (from what I understand, it needs to have a 100% reproduction by ideally creating the condition from scratch (so not from a user save/craft file) which is sometimes impossible when a bug report has not enough information even more when it's an anonymous bug report), so they can't manage the hundreds of bug report from the KERB. Their main work is managing their internal list (which is not only on this version of the game obviously).

This would be an easier pill to swallow if the search function worked properly.  How many bug reports do you merge per day that could be alleviated if the search function was appropriate?  And don't tell me it is; I have issues trying to find anything in the bug reports subforum.  So if people can't find specific bugs to upvote, how can they upvote them?  And on that note, how many people simply don't come to the forums any longer because the vast majority of the communication is on Discord, or Facebook, or Instagram?  How many people do you think would upvote bug reports if they could do so through the launcher, or from X?  And how many people do you think have just stopped looking at the bug reports because they feel, as I do, that the bugs just aren't being worked on?

I'm not saying there is a one-size-fits-all solution here.  Only that the solution that is implemented seems to discount anything actually happening here on the forum.

Edited April 3 by Scarecrow71

[Fizzlebop Smith]

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“**Your feedback will be crucial** in helping to make KSP 2 the best it can be, and we want to hear about everything that is important to you. Are the tutorials effective and are there enough of them? Have the user interface changes made a meaningful impact? Is the localization accurate?

**Most importantly**, we want players to play for thousands of hours. **What will keep you playing?** During Early Access there will be a form on the KSP website to submit detailed feedback. It can also be accessed from the game’s launcher and the Steam page.

You can follow the development progress through our various social channels: the KSP subreddit, the **official KSP forums**, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Facebook.

 

Taken from KSP2 steam page

[mc04]

3 minutes ago, steveman0 said:

As I understand the history, it isn't safe to assume they do have 6 years worth of usable development work. In how the project changed hands, a portion, perhaps even a significant portion, of the codebase may have needed to be redone. We don't know and likely never will. We just know that more engineering work is clearly required and they continue to work on it.

I've seen this claim numerous times, but never a hint of an actual source or even credible rumour that somehow lost a significant amount of work. as far as I can tell this was invented after the fact as an excuse for the state of the game.

as for ongoing work, discussions of that always seem to center around fixing bugs/adding features/"optimization" and little to nothing about what they might do to mitigate the consequences of the choice to replicate ksp1's physics system and the limitations it imposes. given the response to the flaccid noodle rockets and the general trend of simplifying/cutting anything viewed as complex or problematic, idk if they even plan to do anything about it. especially since real fixes would likely mean rebuilding large parts of the simulation.

[Spicat]

27 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

This would be an easier pill to swallow if the search function worked properly.  How many bug reports do you merge per day that could be alleviated if the search function was appropriate?  And don't tell me it is; I have issues trying to find anything in the bug reports subforum.  So if people can't find specific bugs to upvote, how can they upvote them?

Oh believe me I'm probably the best placed to agree to that lol. (You can try to look at how to search: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/222806-bug-reporting-guidelines/, but even for us it's pretty clunky)

That will probably stay like that unfortunately just because the forum is based on a software that is limiting them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invision_Community 20 years old stuff). That's why we can't order by upvotes. And they won't completely change the forums software when the community has used it for years and it works.

I know that Dakota tried to make a new version for the bug report list but I don't know how far he succeeded.

For the upvotes, to compensate for all that, I try to "advertise" the ones that I find important (when I see some people complaining about it on reddit/youtube/twitch/discord/forum or other platform) on the discord where a lot of people are casually looking. Other people also do that so that help.

We're also here to merge the bug reports (Starting to know them by heart) and thus do the search for you.

Edited April 3 by Spicat

[Flush Foot]

31 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

This would be an easier pill to swallow if the search function worked properly

4 minutes ago, Spicat said:

Oh believe me I'm probably the best placed to agree to that lol

Suggestion:

1. https://www.google.com
2. String: 'what you want to look for' https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/144-ksp2-bug-reports/
3. Let Google (at least try to) look for candidates rather than the built-in "Search"
4. Profit?

[The Aziz]

14 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“**Your feedback will be crucial** in helping to make KSP 2 the best it can be, and we want to hear about everything that is important to you. Are the tutorials effective and are there enough of them? Have the user interface changes made a meaningful impact? Is the localization accurate?

**Most importantly**, we want players to play for thousands of hours. **What will keep you playing?** During Early Access there will be a form on the KSP website to submit detailed feedback. It can also be accessed from the game’s launcher and the Steam page.

You can follow the development progress through our various social channels: the KSP subreddit, the **official KSP forums**, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Facebook.

 

Taken from KSP2 steam page

Looks like all of this is true. Dakota says he reads our feedback, and in fact posted few megathreads on things like tutorials, interface, missions etc. And the feedback page is indeed present in the launcher (which, conveniently, some people have turned off so they're not aware of such thing even when it's put under their nose)

As for the forum search, I found out that a single keyword most often works better. If I have a problem with Jool not causing an eclipse, I type "Kerbol" or "sun" in search box in bug reports subforum. If nothing pops up, I fill the report. If something pops up, I fill the report regardless because why wouldn't I? It's more info, potentially crucial. Don't get the "I can't find it so I won't report". The Bug Hunters (are doing their part!) are probably better acquainted with the existing reports than we are anyway and may know if something is a duplicate.

[Dakota]

I've admitted before that the K.E.R.B. is not a perfect system. Upon launch last year, there were like 5 avenues for bug reports and no workflow for actually processing them for internal use.

The system we have today was built as a stopgap between then and some point in the future when we can either do K.E.R.B 2.0 or some other new system.

It has its problems, but the high quality bug reports submitted have helped production a TON during the bug fixing process. I hear your concerns and am working on it!

 

also yes the search sucks, can't do much about that...

[The Aziz]

Am I the only one without problems with search? At least, major problems?

[Flush Foot]

3 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Am I the only one without problems with search? At least, major problems?

1. KSP 2 "home page"
2. Click Bug Reports
3. Click on Search-bar (top-right)
4. (Maybe this is my problem...) Toggle filter to "Bug Reports" [from these forums]
5. Enter search-term(s)
6. Search

"These forums" to me read like "will search through ALL forum posts", but maybe/apparently not:

[Spicat]

3 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

(Maybe this is my problem...) Toggle filter to "Bug Reports" [from these forums]

Yes, don't check that filter, it searches in the wrong category.

1. Go to https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/144-ksp2-bug-reports/
2. Search in the box here (check that "These Forums" is checked) 

For more info see the "How to search the forum for existing bug reports" in https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/222806-bug-reporting-guidelines/

[Dakota]

6 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

1. KSP 2 "home page"
2. Click Bug Reports
3. Click on Search-bar (top-right)
4. (Maybe this is my problem...) Toggle filter to "Bug Reports" [from these forums]
5. Enter search-term(s)
6. Search

"These forums" to me read like "will search through ALL forum posts", but maybe/apparently not:

ahh uh

don't trust this.

[The Aziz]

38 results.

[Scarecrow71]

40 minutes ago, Spicat said:

For the upvotes, to compensate for all that, I try to "advertise" the ones that I find important

And that's the problem with archiving things without an explanation.  Just because it's not important to you doesn't mean it's not important to the rest of us.

[Flush Foot]

That was the realization I came to when posting here too... @Dakota @Nerdy_Mike, any chance of hiding that cursed "faux bug reports" selector?