The Purely-For-Fun Speculation Thread of KSP2's Future

[Stevie_D]

Yep, right now we're all quietly wishing we were sat around a little campfire together, clinking our mugs in comradery, sharing sympathies, telling tales of our fun times in KSP, our hopes and dreams for KSP2, our bitterness towards corporate greed, our continued bemusement at how Bill ever graduated to become an Engineer in the first place...

...but how about a little light-hearted positive speculation about the future? Based off of what we know.

What we know...

• Most of the people working on KSP2 have been laid off and Intercept's office studio closed.
• Nate hasn't been laid off, and perhaps a few key individuals that he said he can't live without.
• Corporate / Private Division / The devi... *cough* .. I mean Take 2, says it continues to "support" KSP2 (but the word "support" does not mean development! Support could be as simple as keeping the game online in its current form, indefinitely.)
• Private Division / Satan's Arseho... *cough* ... I mean Take 2, are unlikely to sell the game as it is to another company.  At best they would sell the rights to the Kerbal franchise later down the line.

So what do you think the future holds, if KSP2 isn't cancelled? Serious or funny.

Me, personally, I have a picture in my head...

Well, it's rather a dim picture, because you see it involves a dimly-lit janitor's closet in Private Division's Headquarters. It USED to be the janitor's closet, but that was the best space PD's budget could allocate for an office for KSP2's continued development.

It has a (obviously) yellow POST-IT note covering the Janitor's door sign, reading "KSP 2 DEV STUDIO"
One tiny light-bulb barely illuminates the room.
Nate's desk is an upturned bucket with a second-hand laptop on top of it as he squats on the floor to work.
He complains whenever Nertea's butt rubs up against his face whenever they shift in their positions.
Nertea gets a -proper- desk, you see, because he's the talent. He's currently busy making every-single-art-asset for the game... until the end of time.
He has to, his ankle is chained to a pipe.
Matt Lowne is tied up in the corner, gagged. His pennance for daring to speak out against the devs, PD, and Take 2.
His head is held in place by wooden stakes in the wall. His eyes held open by those same restraints in A Clockwork Orange. He's forced to stare at a poster of Scott Manley all day long.
Roverdude's skeleton is in the other corner... "Coding." The bones of his arm and index finger rise as the water pump it's attached to fills a tank and then falls to hit the keyboard every thirteen seconds when the water spills over.
Meanwhile, back on these forums, our new community moderator "AI_Dakota" keeps repeating the same message to every post with "I can promise and guarantee that the game is still being worked on and development continues. Is there any other way I can help you today? Please rate this AI_bot experience if not. For customer support on this AI_bot, please email [email protected]"

Edited May 3 by Stevie_D

[gussi111]

I wasn't really keeping up with the news, the studio closed?!

[HebaruSan]

55 minutes ago, gussi111 said:

I wasn't really keeping up with the news, the studio closed?!

The entire first page of posts is about it, if you're interested:

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/119-ksp2-discussion/

[Codraroll]

Heh, here's a purely-for-fun speculation on KSP2's past. As in, at some point at the end of April, the present year.

"Mister developer," the auditor from Take-Two's head office asks once the KSP development team has settled in the big meeting room. "It has been a while since your last update. The head honchos want to know how the development of Kerbal Space Program 2 is going."

"Oh, it's going, uh, great!" says the lead developer. "We're working on a way to make coast lines look a lot better! See here!" He nervously puts some comparison pictures on the big monitor at the end of the table. "And we think we're closer to finding out how to implement thermal loads, and we've made rocket exhaust look prettier, and there's clouds ..."

"Clouds?" asks the auditor, raising an eyebrow.

"It's kind of a big deal to the fans. And we've got somebody really talented working on-"

"Will prettier clouds sell more copies of the game?"

"Uh, it's nice to have, at least. Oh, and we're tracking down that dastardly bug that makes landed craft fall through the terrain ..." the developer visibly shudders from the stare the auditor gives him.

"How about the features that the consumers are actually waiting for?"

"Uh, you mean the decaying orbits problem? We-"

"I mean the new planets. New star systems. Interstellar travel. Colonies, mister developer. Are you making the kind of features that would make this game a worthwhile purchase?"

"We have some new 3D models of orbital colony modules."

"Do they work?"

"They don't explode 35 seconds after being placed anymore. We spent four months figuring out what-"

"Are they usable in game? Can you demonstrate to me how this colony would work for the player?"

"Ah, we have a flowchart here. See, the players input would be-"

"I mean, not the concept. The implementation. Open the debug menu and place a colony in-game. Show me what a player can do with it."

"Uh, it's just a 3D model for now. We haven't started on the implementation itself yet."

"And why is that, mister developer?"

"Uh ... well, you see, we kind of worked off the code base on KSP1, where colonies weren't implemented, and when we got the same code running in KSP2, and colonies didn't work there either, and after that, we sort of changed focus to work on engine exhausts instead."

The meeting room is silent for 36 seconds, until the colony 3D model placed in the game explodes violently and the game crashes to desktop.

"So you haven't even started yet, is that what you're saying?"

"We have some new concept art of a fusion rocket ..." the developer nervously opens Blender, but gives up when the auditor glares at him again.

"How about the new star systems?"

"Ah, I can tell you a bit about those. See, Kerbal Space Program was coded to have the Sun at the origin of its coordinate system. Everything in-game happens in relation to the Sun. Everything orbits the Sun. Every planet needs the Sun as a central body. So if you want more star systems, you have to make a new coordinate system."

"How is progress on that front?"

"Uh, to start with, we copied over the code from Kerbal Space Program 1, and made that work okay-ish except for a few bugs, and now we realized we would have to start anew if we want more solar systems, because we're under the exact same limitations as the previous game. So we went to work on clouds instead."

"So you're saying that, essentially, you have spent five years trying to make an inferior copy of Kerbal Space Program 1, with prettier graphics, without getting even a little closer to making it possible to add the features that were the whole reason why players wanted a sequel in the first place?"

"Uhh ... we have some nice concept art too! We have many ideas!"

"How close are you to bringing those ideas to reality?"

"If you give us, say, five more years, and a hundred million dol-"

The auditor gets up and leaves. Ten minutes later, the building's power goes out.

[mattinoz]

Crazy speculation no-evidence but the timing works,

But here goes....

Aquired by Apple as part of gaming push. 

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

On 5/3/2024 at 11:55 PM, gussi111 said:

I wasn't really keeping up with the news, the studio closed?!

Oh boy, you’ve a lot to catch up. 

[Uuky]

I guess the project will go on for a little bit with a skeleton crew in private division.

I mean real skeleton devs. Undead devs. 

From there they will try to keep the project afloat, but that ship has sailed. That ghost ship has sailed. All skeletons end in a closet October 31st, 2025, for Halloween. 

A band of modders will gather and swear to finish the game. They form the community of the Kerbal Space Ring.

They update the game unofficially. Correcting bugs and adding features. Players take notice. 

Take 2 takes notice too and ask Lazarus Studios to resurrect the project using the modders' work..

Miracle happens.  Lazarus Studios managed to rebuild the game, part after part. The game is called KSP2 Redemption and feature a story arc about corporate black holes. Game is a success.  Multiplayer becomes popular, soon Kerbal: Online allow 30 players to play and build craft all together. Huge success too.

Such a success it becomes a TV reality show  "Survivor: Kerbal" where 10 experts in aeronautics must build a rocket, a plane, a rover , a boat or whatever strange craft to escape an island using  parts found in a junkyard while doing some physical games granting them rewards, like a wrench, some duct tape or a hammer.

 

[LittleBitMore]

I think the actual thing that's happening is an elaborate April Fools prank, but after some internal disputes regarding the April Fools prank contract made with a subsidiary company, Take Two pulled the contract, made dozens of April Fools technicians jobless, and gave it to someone else (which is why it took so long to ship)

Edited May 5 by LittleBitMore

[kerbiloid]

Then comes Bethesda and buys all Intercept things, like they did it to the Interplay things.

And a little later they release a first-person Kerbal spaceshooter on Fallout 4 engine, with green video filter and same green text monitors for kOS/uOS.

Your first mission is to collect all parts of the Delta IX space rocketplane, lying by the side of the road, occupied by the deathclaws and supermutants.
This increases your K.S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, and gives you a Junk Master perk, and the Scientist skill.

Spoiler

Next, you must assemble it. You get the Engineer skill.

By testing it in air, you become a Pilot.

Then you fly to the (flat) Moon from the Project Lunar and back, but doing it kerbally.

Then you realize, that you are already in the realm of Nexus, and open the Nexus techtree node, starting development of the huge Convair Nexus rocket in Kerbal style.
As it's really large, you have to gather all tin cans and kitchen stuff from a half of the whole wasteland.

Now you can start building a pulse nuke Orion, as Fallout is first of all a nuke-is-fun game.
The hardest part of it is to pull that huge silo steel door from the Fort Constantine to use it as a pusher plate.
You need either Charisma, or slave collars to motivate a thousand of the Wasteland dwellers to help you.

Now you can put the Kerbal Fallout Orion on your Fallout Kerbal Convair Nexus, and start to other planets.

Edited May 5 by kerbiloid

[cocoscacao]

Ubisoft will acquire the IP, and add radio towers that kerbals will have to climb, to reveal where on Kerbin they can mine resources.