Where is Nate?

[Izny]

2 hours ago, DeadJohn said:

You are arguing with someone else even though you quoted me. I never mentioned kids or college.

oh, i thought you had hivemind issues XD

[dprostock]

Nate Simpson was an end-to-end fiasco. If he loved the KSP so much, why did he decide to include the wobbly rockets? ( Shadowzone video 13:50 )  Didn't he taste the product for which he was responsible, which he said he spent hours playing? His delirium is visualized by maintaining so much secrecy, lest someone question the disaster he was carrying out, and that this was an end user, he could not silence him and expel him. Unless his name was Scott Manley, for example.

I wish I had seen the explanations for the poor quality of Early Access, obfuscating with those who questioned the crap that had come out. 

Barely a few weeks have passed and we are already beginning to see the questioning of his leadership, without naming names. I don't want to imagine what will be said when everyone cashes their paycheck after June and the relationship with the studio is definitively severed. 

In 2021 I argued that it was a Bernard Madoff-style scam, well, I was wrong. Dennis Muilenburg was in charge.

[Lisias]

9 minutes ago, dprostock said:

Barely a few weeks have passed and we are already beginning to see the questioning of his leadership, without naming names. I don't want to imagine what will be said when everyone cashes their paycheck after June and the relationship with the studio is definitively severed.

By that time, they will create a worst problem so we worry about it, completely forgetting them.

[Meecrob]

19 hours ago, dprostock said:

Nate Simpson was an end-to-end fiasco. If he loved the KSP so much, why did he decide to include the wobbly rockets? ( Shadowzone video 13:50 )  Didn't he taste the product for which he was responsible, which he said he spent hours playing?

See this is the exact problem. Nate likes KSP, but he is not that experienced at it. KSP is my favourite game, and has been pretty much since I picked it up over a decade ago. My opinion of the game has remained relatively constant for this time period, however, my skill level has not. If you had've asked me at 1000 hours "what would you do to the game to improve it?" you would get a wildly different answer than if you asked me at 5000 or 10000 hours. This is evidenced in the whole "no maneuvers in a different SOI" problem. Anyone wanna bet that Nate waits til he gets within the SOI before he changes inclination? At 1000 hours, I did too. The thing was, at 1000 hours, I was being inspired by players who were way better than me, I wasn't in charge of the sequel.

 

[Izny]

Did nate ever rendevous and dock in orbit without mechjeb?

THAT's the question

[Pthigrivi]

Sorry, I posted this in the wrong thread but its kind relevant here too. 
 

Spoiler

Thanks SZ, great video and I really appreciate all the digging you and Matt Lowne have done. A lot of the fixation on Nate seems like wanting to yell at the manager of a  restaurant because the food isn’t great, without realizing  you’re at a chain restaurant and the foods not great because of bad ingredients and bad policy dictated by corporate. You should be yelling at upper management, but they aren’t there or visible to you so you take it all out on the highest up person you’re aware of. I think K^2 is one of the few people here with the relevant experience to understand the dynamics here.

Its pretty obvious T2 surely did want to make money on KSP but never really understood the product because no one apparently paid any attention to the existing community. It was widely understood that KSP1 while incredibly compelling as an idea was a bit of a cobbled together mess with a lot of fundamental flaws and tech debt in the base code and really couldn’t be brought forward without major re-writes. I know issues with axial tilt, acceleration under warp, and multiplayer were widely known to be practical dealbreakers on this forum going back to 2017. Im actually really happy Nate by force of his shear enthusiasm was able to convince them that for KSP to succeed it needed a bigger budget really big changes. Had KSP2 been released in 2020 as a half-baked reskin I think the result would have been just as disastrous as what happened in 2023. 

Now I personally am not as convinced that multiplayer KSP would be as enduringly fun as folks think. I think the version of multiplayer KSP that might be fun is basically kithack model club—making cars and planes and other vehicles and racing and smashing them about with friends in real time. For reasons that have been discussed many times on this forum this doesn’t really work in space because of time-warp. Its not that there aren’t solutions to how people move through time, its that inevitably you are for the most part not existing in a real-time experience with your friends. You’re talking about a much slower, much less interactive cooperative game.

That leads me to believe that if KSP2 was actually to work T2 aught to have brought on the KSP1 team much earlier and started with a ground up rewrite, understanding it was going to take 5-6 years and 40-60 million. Its not just the code though. KSP was always a fun sim but its a terrible game. If they really wanted to compete with Minecraft and roblox they needed the fundamentals of science, progression, colonies, and most importantly resources.  Thats what creates the fundamental loop of fly-gather-build-fly and a dynamic set of non-proscriptive, player driven goals. If all you could do is fly around and build the Taj Mahal minecraft would been forgotten in 2009. Its the free and open crafting system that makes it the slightest bit interesting. With one generic ore and the inability to build off-world KSP would never be the kind of open and expansive free-flowing building game it needed to be. I think multiplayer and interstellar should have been considered as they re-wrote the code but the initial release really needed to include that fundamental core game loop to be something new and compelling enough to warrant a sequel. 

 

 

Edited May 28 by Pthigrivi

[LameLefty]

1 hour ago, Izny said:

Did nate ever rendevous and dock in orbit without mechjeb?

THAT's the question

Mechjeb is great at planning the plane matching and rendezvous maneuvers and in automating the burns (after you've done it all by hand and eyeball a few dozen times, it gets old) but Docking Port Alignment Indicator and flying the prox ops and docking manually is where it's at if you want a sense of accomplishment and if you really want to minimize monoprop usage. 

 

[Meecrob]

3 hours ago, Izny said:

Did nate ever rendevous and dock in orbit without mechjeb?

THAT's the question

I bet he did once or twice to say he did, then used mechjeb because docking is the opposite of instant gratification.

 

2 hours ago, LameLefty said:

Mechjeb is great at planning the plane matching and rendezvous maneuvers and in automating the burns (after you've done it all by hand and eyeball a few dozen times, it gets old) but Docking Port Alignment Indicator and flying the prox ops and docking manually is where it's at if you want a sense of accomplishment and if you really want to minimize monoprop usage. 

 

see, this is what I'm getting at when I say people are inexperienced*. People start using mechjeb after a while because "it gets old." The first time your docked, you did, dock, yes, but you were absolute garbage at it. So was I, So was everybody else. You don't get good at it all of a sudden either. I mean Matt Lowne still uses the beginner way, doesn't he? Think of it like working out or learning an instrument; you have to push past the point where your brain says "ok I get it, but this is not 'fun' anymore." You have to practice until it is almost a reflex. I've done thousands of dockings and I still screw up, but the one thing I never think its boring. I'll throw together a video to show you what I mean. You can make it interesting, I promise.

*Edit: If you are inexperienced, you may be missing out on fun you never realized was there.

Edited May 27 by Meecrob

[Scarecrow71]

7 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

I mean Matt Lowne still uses the beginner way, doesn't he?

And so do I.  I use MJ to get the rendezvous and zero out acceleration, but then I just point the two docking ports at each other and slowly fly in.  Nothing wrong with that method.

8 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

I've done thousands of dockings and I still screw up, but the one thing I never think its boring.

Keep in mind that your experience is not going to be the same experience anyone else has.  Your mileage will vary.  How you play the game is not how anyone else will play it.  I will never dock entirely manually.  I will always use MJ to some degree/extent.  You do you.

9 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

*Edit: If you are inexperienced, you may be missing out on fun you never realized was there.

For my own experience...no, it is not fun to sit and fiddle with the controls for hours just to get docked.  Nobody in real life would ever try to do this manually.  That is why we have computers.  Crashing when docking after spending an hour or more just lining it up isn't fun.  Not to me, anyhow.

[Meecrob]

8 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Nothing wrong with that method.

Nothing wrong at all. Unless you are in charge of making KSP2. I really don't care how anybody plays. I do like to point out to people who enjoy using mechjeb that yes, docking like mechjeb is boring, but you go play the game how you want to. My point is that somebody who most likely uses mechjeb to dock was in charge of KSP2. This is like if someone who uses all the control aids in MSFS was in charge of the whole game. I'm not saying they are playing the game wrong. I am saying that they will never know the joys of shooting an instrument landing approach since it is way outside their comfort zone.

 

 

14 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

For my own experience...no, it is not fun to sit and fiddle with the controls for hours just to get docked.  Nobody in real life would ever try to do this manually.  That is why we have computers.  Crashing when docking after spending an hour or more just lining it up isn't fun.  Not to me, anyhow.

Yeah, lol, I know. Calm down, I said I was making a video. Obviously its not fun for you or you would do it

Edited May 27 by Meecrob

[LameLefty]

26 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

ee, this is what I'm getting at when I say people are inexperienced*. People start using mechjeb after a while because "it gets old." The first time your docked, you did, dock, yes, but you were absolute garbage at it. So was I, So was everybody else. You don't get good at it all of a sudden either. I mean Matt Lowne still uses the beginner way, doesn't he? Think of it like working out or learning an instrument; you have to push past the point where your brain says "ok I get it, but this is not 'fun' anymore." You have to practice until it is almost a reflex. I've done thousands of dockings and I still screw up, but the one thing I never think its boring. I'll throw together a video to show you what I mean. You can make it interesting, I promise.

*Edit: If you are inexperienced, you may be missing out on fun you never realized was there.

 I have over 2,000 hours in KSP 1 going back to March 2013. I run campaigns with dozens of stations, probes, refineries, fuel tugs and transfer stages. I am not "inexperienced" and when I'm trying to manage as many craft at a time as I do, I am not going to fly every one of hundreds of  ascents, transfers and rendezvous manually.  

But hey, you do you. 

[Meecrob]

6 hours ago, LameLefty said:

 I have over 2,000 hours in KSP 1 going back to March 2013. I run campaigns with dozens of stations, probes, refineries, fuel tugs and transfer stages. I am not "inexperienced" and when I'm trying to manage as many craft at a time as I do, I am not going to fly every one of hundreds of  ascents, transfers and rendezvous manually.  

But hey, you do you. 

You are inexperienced at docking. You admitted you let mechjeb do it for you. There is no way around it. That has nothing to do with your experience in all other areas of the game. This also does not mean that I am more experienced than you at "campaigns with dozens of stations, probes, refineries, fuel tugs and transfer stages." Lower your defenses, lol.

My point [snip] is that Nate is less experienced at KSP than what a reasonable person would expect his level of experience would be for being in charge. @Izny asked if Nate used mechjeb to dock, and I thought docking would be a good example to use to explain my point, so I went with their example. I am NOT here to dump on people's docking skills/preferences.

That out of the way, I've finished the video I was talking about. This mission was fun to perform because of the docking, not in spite of it, as it was a challenge. That's the whole point of this game right? Challenges? I think the guy in charge should agree with this sentiment, rather than say "pfft, docking is challenging, I'll mechjeb it"
 

 

Edited May 27 by Vanamonde

[LameLefty]

50 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

You are inexperienced at docking. You admitted you let mechjeb do it for you

LOL, read again. I use Docking Port Alignment Indicator and fly every proximity approach and docking manually.  Try again.

Also, I learned all the math and theory of orbital mechanics earning my aerospace engineering degree literally 34 years ago. Try a third time.

Or don’t.  I don’t care - I’ll be disregarding your further efforts to kerbalsplain a topic I mastered before you were likely born yet.

[Skorj]

3 hours ago, Meecrob said:

see, this is what I'm getting at when I say people are inexperienced*. People start using mechjeb after a while because "it gets old." The first time your docked, you did, dock, yes, but you were absolute garbage at it. So was I, So was everybody else. You don't get good at it all of a sudden either. I mean Matt Lowne still uses the beginner way, doesn't he? Think of it like working out or learning an instrument; you have to push past the point where your brain says "ok I get it, but this is not 'fun' anymore." You have to practice until it is almost a reflex. I've done thousands of dockings and I still screw up, but the one thing I never think its boring. I'll throw together a video to show you what I mean. You can make it interesting, I promise.

This seems an odd take to me, but maybe I misunderstand you.  The "beginner way" is to use mods to make it easier, or do it for you.  In any field, the expert way is to find the least-effort way to safely and reliably do a task with no preconceptions about any "right" way.  To me, expert docking is when you line things up so well on the way in that you don't need lateral thrusters, just come straight together burning late to slow down, flip and bang docked.  When that actually works, it's high skill and low effort and not much time to be saved.  And certainly no fussing about with alignment indicators.  

Are you calling it the beginner way to switch control briefly to the target ship and line up the docking port?  That's the least-effort way, though. Maybe you're saying you like to do "docking challenge runs" and do things the hard way just to spice things up?  I get that, though I prefer my pointless self-imposed challenge elsewhere in the game, and letting docking be quick and easy.

Anyhow, my point is that doing things the vanilla-game easy way is the default mode of mastery, and changing where the game's challenge lies is a subjective, personal thing and not a requirement of being an expert.

[Meecrob]

3 hours ago, LameLefty said:

LOL, read again. I use Docking Port Alignment Indicator and fly every proximity approach and docking manually.  Try again.

9 hours ago, LameLefty said:

Mechjeb is great at planning the plane matching and rendezvous maneuvers and in automating the burns (after you've done it all by hand and eyeball a few dozen times, it gets old)

My apologies, I said "docking" when I meant to say "rendezvous".

I was referring to how you said "after you've done it all by hand and eyeball a few dozen times, it gets old." You use mechjeb to get your rendezvous. Therefore you do not do it yourself. Therefore you are not current in rendezvous (to use aviation terminology).

This is not a judgement of your skill in KSP. I am not experienced with spaceplanes. Nobody cares!

My point was to get to the fact that Nate Simpson who was in charge of KSP2 is not experienced at KSP to the level one would think necessary to lead development. The example of docking was brought up and I went with it. I really don't care about docking, especially after this thread.

 

2 hours ago, Skorj said:

The "beginner way"

I'm referring to how Matt Lowne does it. I was trying to get the point across that docking style has nothing to do with a player's skill in KSP, but that got lost in the noise.

 

Edited May 27 by Meecrob

[Vanamonde]

More personal remarks removed. Keep it polite, please. 

[Meecrob]

9 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

More personal remarks removed. Keep it polite, please. 

Uh-oh, the cops!

Sorry, I'll play nice.

[Superfluous J]

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Now I personally am not as convinced that multiplayer KSP would be as enduringly fun as folks think

I'll go so far as to say it's a terrible idea and any attempt at a future KSP should boldly state "We're not doing multiplayer and we're not sorry."

[Scarecrow71]

35 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

I'll go so far as to say it's a terrible idea and any attempt at a future KSP should boldly state "We're not doing multiplayer and we're not sorry."

I couldn't agree with this more.  Multi-player is great in FPS games like Halo or CoD.  But in a spaceflight game?  Not so much.

The biggest issue is time warp.  Specifically, how do you handle one player needing to warp ahead to some window while at least one other player doesn't.  You could turn it off, but then you've got one player who just leaves the server and you hope they come back to finish their mission at some point.

[Jacke]

44 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

I'll go so far as to say [multiplayer is] a terrible idea and any attempt at a future KSP should boldly state "We're not doing multiplayer and we're not sorry."

If everyone is crew in the same spacecraft, then multiplayer could make sense.  But as one player is going to have control of the spacecraft, one player is going to have control of the Time Warp.

Having all the players as equivalent to the single player in KSP with all the functions of designing, building, launching, and flying spacecraft is far more complex even just to figure out functionally.  To implement in the context where Time Warp is wanted means there has to be a way to Time Warp the multiplayer game.  Which may lead to design features some consider...unnatural.

[Yaivenov]

13 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I couldn't agree with this more.  Multi-player is great in FPS games like Halo or CoD.  But in a spaceflight game?  Not so much.

The biggest issue is time warp.  Specifically, how do you handle one player needing to warp ahead to some window while at least one other player doesn't.  You could turn it off, but then you've got one player who just leaves the server and you hope they come back to finish their mission at some point.

The simplest implementation would be a co-operative/limited multiplayer style with guest players tied to the host's instance, but able to look around and take control of specific kerbals or craft within the physics rendering area.  Time warp is controlled by host and use is deconflicted through player communication.

Edited May 28 by Yaivenov
Typos

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I couldn't agree with this more.  Multi-player is great in FPS games like Halo or CoD.  But in a spaceflight game?  Not so much.

The biggest issue is time warp.  Specifically, how do you handle one player needing to warp ahead to some window while at least one other player doesn't.  You could turn it off, but then you've got one player who just leaves the server and you hope they come back to finish their mission at some point.

I mean I do think KSP multiplayer is possible but aside from a few folks mashing it up around KSC—that is actually playing the game, traveling to other planets together and cooperatively building stations and colonies together—you absolutely need colonies and resources working as game elements first. Its also important to understand you’d very rarely be occupying the same space and time as your friends. It be more like a months and years long group  bonsai project than typical multiplayer muckabouts. 

Edited May 28 by Pthigrivi

[Skorj]

I believe the main reason people want multiplayer is air-to-air combat.  The planes people aren't on these forums much, but they're a significant chunk of the community. 

Technically, multiplayer is relatively easy for two cases: each player in their own physics bubble, or everyone together with at most one person controlling a craft, e.g, everyone running around on the surface setting up colony buildings, which I personally think could be great fun.

I don't think time warp is the problem people make it out to be.  As long as the game has a properly intgrated and full-featured alarm clock system, as it should in any case, then each player can just have an alarm for when they need to do something, freeing anyone to timewarp between alarms.   Sure, you'll have the problem you always run into in games with both a ship design part and a "normal gameplay" part, but groups of friends have navigated that since the dawn of gaming. 

It's the air-to-air combat part that you'd have to design for from the start, but I think as long as joints were done KitHack-style, it's a solvable problem.  One advantage of KSP is any weapons would be physics projectiles in the game, not hitscan, which gives a lot of design flexibility for handling them.  I think people would be delighted even if guns in particular were laggy and didn't work so well, as that's far from the core of KSP gameplay.   Just put some hooks in for mods to make missiles that work smoothly seeking their targets, and that's all modders need.  Plus of course plane parts as a whole could wait until the rocket game was stable, but you'd want to accommodate them in your engine design from the start.

Honestly, I think the bigger challenge for colonies and the game as a whole is making a fun progression system, one that allows for very flexible play while providing clear objectives for new players.  Get that right at release, and the game would be quite successful IMO. 

Edited May 28 by Skorj

[Izny]

11 hours ago, Meecrob said:

My point [snip] is that Nate is less experienced at KSP than what a reasonable person would expect his level of experience would be for being in charge. @Izny asked if Nate used mechjeb to dock, and I thought docking would be a good example to use to explain my point, so I went with their example. 

 

Exactly. So let's not make this into a mechjeb yes/no trainwreck. all we want to know if mr leader did really care about the game, or just about the pixels. 

valid question, if you ask me.

[Meecrob]

23 minutes ago, Izny said:

Exactly. So let's not make this into a mechjeb yes/no trainwreck. all we want to know if mr leader did really care about the game, or just about the pixels. 

valid question, if you ask me.

Lol I said I bet he did it manually a few times to do it, then used mechjeb. I bet he says the same as others in this thread, that it gets repetitive.