Does Update v0.2.2.0 Indicate Anything about KSP 2's Future?

[dprostock]

24 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Someone else already replied but yeah, people are not being negative when they say everyone went home in May when the notice showed up. Whoever made this patch is either absorbed by PD, has the highest possible levels of trust with higher ups, or is whoever will keep developing the game going forward (which please don't latch on to give yourself false hopes).

They sold about 500.000 units, that's 25.000.000 dollars. However, there might be many refunds. The most conservative estimates for the budget hover around 50 million USD.

Ouch.............................

That makes it serious when it comes to finding a buyer.

The potential investor should pay the bills, allocate resources for two years (at least) to achieve a viable commercial product, and with the con that it has already been acquired by 500,000 users of doubt that they will be willing (or maybe not) to pay again for the same thing with corrections. 
Another $50M in total? And what would be the return? What will the market be like in two years?  

 

[R-T-B]

10 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

The launcher is removed because it requires infrastructure, and infrastructure requires people, people who are now no longer hired that worked at studios and labels that don't exist anymore.

This would only make sense if the KSP1 launcher was also removed, as it is nearly identical.  And it's not.

[Kerbart]

It's fun to speculate. Everyone does it. At this point there's little harm in it.

The best answer though, is to take everything that we know is factually true and extrapolate from there. Of course, the outcome isn't very popular so it's a response few (certainly not me) will hand out.

[PDCWolf]

51 minutes ago, dprostock said:

Ouch.............................

That makes it serious when it comes to finding a buyer.

The potential investor should pay the bills, allocate resources for two years (at least) to achieve a viable commercial product, and with the con that it has already been acquired by 500,000 users of doubt that they will be willing (or maybe not) to pay again for the same thing with corrections. 
Another $50M in total? And what would be the return? What will the market be like in two years?  

 

KSP2 has burned all goodwill with possible customers. It is a tainted product and I doubt anyone would ever be interested in picking up where it is, because the people in charge of those decisions aren't dumb, and they know the game needs a rewrite from scratch.

44 minutes ago, R-T-B said:

This would only make sense if the KSP1 launcher was also removed, as it is nearly identical.  And it's not.

IG never touched KSP1's code, they don't work with it, it's not theirs, they don't know anything about it past "looking" at some things.

[R-T-B]

3 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

IG never touched KSP1's code, they don't work with it, it's not theirs, they don't know anything about it past "looking" at some things.

Yes, being a modder in the community I'm well aware of this, but that's irrelevant to the fact they put a nearly identical launcher in the first game, which requires identical services.  And it's still there.  That's my point.

Edited June 13 by R-T-B

[PDCWolf]

8 hours ago, R-T-B said:

Yes, being a modder in the community I'm well aware of this, but that's irrelevant to the fact they put a nearly identical launcher in the first game, which requires identical services.  And it's still there.  That's my point.

If I work on finances and you work in HR, I'm not gonna tell you who to hire. In fact... it's closer to "If you work on Apple and I work on Samsung". IG has literally nothing to do with KSP1.

[MarcAbaddon]

13 hours ago, R-T-B said:

This would only make sense if the KSP1 launcher was also removed, as it is nearly identical.  And it's not.

Not yet. Could still be coming. The only reason they did it in KSP 2 at the exact moment they did was because they also released a bugfix.

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, MarcAbaddon said:

Not yet. Could still be coming. The only reason they did it in KSP 2 at the exact moment they did was because they also released a bugfix.

Categorically incorrect.  The launcher won't be removed from KSP1 because IG has nothing to do with KSP1.  And TT could care less about a launcher developed for a game they didn't develop themselves.

[dprostock]

14 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

KSP2 has burned all goodwill with possible customers. It is a tainted product and I doubt anyone would ever be interested in picking up where it is, because the people in charge of those decisions aren't dumb, and they know the game needs a rewrite from scratch.

 

Not necessarily. Do you know the Enigma encoder machine from Germany used during WWII?
Someone coded it in VB6, creating the machine application where you pressed buttons. At the same time, he released the source code.
Various applications could be developed by reusing the code already written on the rotors and pegboard. An interesting application is that you typed the message, pressed a button, it was encoded with the Enigma and it was passed to Morse effortlessly. And vice versa. 

That is why I do not think we have to start from scratch, but we have to access what has already been written and talk to those who participated. Documentation is very important, whether written or transmitted verbally. 

[Grenartia]

On 6/12/2024 at 10:37 AM, Infinite Aerospace said:

I don't think that last roadmap step (no not the dating sim) was ever something that would feasibly work in a simulation type game like Kerbal Space Program. I think it was placed there because the people at Intercept thought it was what people wanted and hoped to have enough to perhaps get something working.

To be fair, the opportunity to build and fly planes and rockets with my friends and girlfriends was (and still is) very appealing. Also, the existence of DMP and LMP show that it isn't entirely impossible. 

It could have even been done well, if KSP2 had been built from the start with multiplayer in mind, and not had KSP1's code as its backbone. 

[PDCWolf]

5 hours ago, dprostock said:

Not necessarily. Do you know the Enigma encoder machine from Germany used during WWII?
Someone coded it in VB6, creating the machine application where you pressed buttons. At the same time, he released the source code.
Various applications could be developed by reusing the code already written on the rotors and pegboard. An interesting application is that you typed the message, pressed a button, it was encoded with the Enigma and it was passed to Morse effortlessly. And vice versa. 

That is why I do not think we have to start from scratch, but we have to access what has already been written and talk to those who participated. Documentation is very important, whether written or transmitted verbally. 

Nope. This is just grossly misjudging how bad KSP2 was.

Whoever picks it up needs to:

• Rebuild the PQS system (remember cbt? yeah).
• Rebuild whatever was built after the firing of the multiplayer engineer, as they very probably had dropped the idea already on account of not having someone working on it.
• Rebuild the save serialization and loading system, as KSP2 would die if you had many saves.
• Rebuild the scene logic system, because the game would also die if you had too many ships even when unloaded, even if you were in the KSC/VAB/SPH.
• Completely unscrew the orbital calculations. Orbital decay, like many things, was fixed with a bandaid that applies the fix after loading, because orbital decay is still right there.
• Completely restart any progress they might've had on multithreading, which was little, but it also means anything not done still needs to be multithreaded.
• They'll still get the wobble+autostrut+everything simulated timebomb.
• They'll inherit and have to work under their very basic, lower-than-mediocre feature design, like the heating system.
• They still need to fix (and very probably rebuild) the fuel calculation and flow priority system to fix the delta V indication and how having too many fuel tanks and engines kills performance.
• They'll need to fix or rebuild the coordinate reset for rovers, as now all they do is ignore physics for a couple frames upon coordinate reset when you drive more than 2.5km.
• They'll still be stuck on unity.
• EDIT (as another thread reminded me): They'd need to figure out interstellar and the Rask/Rusk system, which our professional developers never bothered explaining how they were gonna work.

KSP2 is better where it is. Dead. It was a bad project, badly started, badly designed, badly followed up, and then received bandaids upon bandaids passed as "fixes." The community should, if anything, hope for a KSP3 done by the correct people and pursuing the correct stuff, and not a hacked-together "muh linear precursor spacerace story" dumbed down game with barely any work put into anything but visuals, and hopefully with a UI designed by professionals.

Edited June 13 by PDCWolf

[dprostock]

2 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Nope. This is just grossly misjudging how bad KSP2 was.

Whoever picks it up needs to:

• Rebuild the PQS system (remember cbt? yeah).
• Rebuild whatever was built after the firing of the multiplayer engineer, as they very probably had dropped the idea already on account of not having someone working on it.
• Rebuild the save serialization and loading system, as KSP2 would die if you had many saves.
• Rebuild the scene logic system, because the game would also die if you had too many ships even when unloaded, even if you were in the KSC/VAB/SPH.
• Completely unscrew the orbital calculations. Orbital decay, like many things, was fixed with a bandaid that applies the fix after loading, because orbital decay is still right there.
• Completely restart any progress they might've had on multithreading, which was little, but it also means anything not done still needs to be multithreaded.
• They'll still get the wobble+autostrut+everything simulated timebomb.
• They'll inherit and have to work under their very basic, lower-than-mediocre feature design, like the heating system.
• They still need to fix (and very probably rebuild) the fuel calculation and flow priority system to fix the delta V indication and how having too many fuel tanks and engines kills performance.
• They'll need to fix or rebuild the coordinate reset for rovers, as now all they do is ignore physics for a couple frames upon coordinate reset when you drive more than 2.5km.
• They'll still be stuck on unity.
• EDIT (as another thread reminded me): They'd need to figure out interstellar and the Rask/Rusk system, which our professional developers never bothered explaining how they were gonna work.

KSP2 is better where it is. Dead. It was a bad project, badly started, badly designed, badly followed up, and then received bandaids upon bandaids passed as "fixes." The community should, if anything, hope for a KSP3 done by the correct people and pursuing the correct stuff, and not a hacked-together "muh linear precursor spacerace story" dumbed down game with barely any work put into anything but visuals, and hopefully with a UI designed by professionals.

We will have to wait until July to see if anyone talks. I was seeing on Reddit that it was said that developers were hired who were paid for months without having defined tasks. 
 

[betaking]

14 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Nope. This is just grossly misjudging how bad KSP2 was.

Whoever picks it up needs to:

• Rebuild the PQS system (remember cbt? yeah).
• Rebuild whatever was built after the firing of the multiplayer engineer, as they very probably had dropped the idea already on account of not having someone working on it.
• Rebuild the save serialization and loading system, as KSP2 would die if you had many saves.
• Rebuild the scene logic system, because the game would also die if you had too many ships even when unloaded, even if you were in the KSC/VAB/SPH.
• Completely unscrew the orbital calculations. Orbital decay, like many things, was fixed with a bandaid that applies the fix after loading, because orbital decay is still right there.
• Completely restart any progress they might've had on multithreading, which was little, but it also means anything not done still needs to be multithreaded.
• They'll still get the wobble+autostrut+everything simulated timebomb.
• They'll inherit and have to work under their very basic, lower-than-mediocre feature design, like the heating system.
• They still need to fix (and very probably rebuild) the fuel calculation and flow priority system to fix the delta V indication and how having too many fuel tanks and engines kills performance.
• They'll need to fix or rebuild the coordinate reset for rovers, as now all they do is ignore physics for a couple frames upon coordinate reset when you drive more than 2.5km.
• They'll still be stuck on unity.
• EDIT (as another thread reminded me): They'd need to figure out interstellar and the Rask/Rusk system, which our professional developers never bothered explaining how they were gonna work.

KSP2 is better where it is. Dead. It was a bad project, badly started, badly designed, badly followed up, and then received bandaids upon bandaids passed as "fixes." The community should, if anything, hope for a KSP3 done by the correct people and pursuing the correct stuff, and not a hacked-together "muh linear precursor spacerace story" dumbed down game with barely any work put into anything but visuals, and hopefully with a UI designed by professionals.

long live KSP3! Hopefully it's not a mobile game cashgrab.. though I doubt TT would be willing to sell any IP that could even possibly be profitable, nor make serious investments in an IP that had failed like this when they can just pump out a paintjob for GTA Online.

Or Harvester gets to make his 190X's-192X's Kerbal Aeroplane game!

Edited June 14 by betaking

[Scarecrow71]

19 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

They'll still be stuck on unity.

I sincerely hope that if the IP gets sold, or if TT decides to gift this mess to another developer under their umbrella, that the next group of developers is smart enough to scrap Unity and use Unreal (or some other engine far better suited to this kind of game).

[PDCWolf]

10 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I sincerely hope that if the IP gets sold, or if TT decides to gift this mess to another developer under their umbrella, that the next group of developers is smart enough to scrap Unity and use Unreal (or some other engine far better suited to this kind of game).

At least if they go for Unity a third time we can start posting Vas' definition of insanity memes.

[K^2]

6 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Unreal (or some other engine far better suited to this kind of game)

Nothing out there is better suited at the moment. Custom's better, sure, but we aren't going to see that kind of an investment. Unreal's the only one that does most of what you need for a space exploration game out of the box. Unreal 5.4 has origin relocation, support for procedural vegetation, LoD tiles, and a bunch of authoring tools built in. On top of it, Chaos physics is far more stable than anything you can put into Unity, and the multiplayer, while requiring work, gives you at least the starting point that's solid. These latter aspects could be mediated in other engines, but it's still easier in Unreal.

Intercept has spent at least half of their dev time building things that Unreal just does for you. Granted, many of these features weren't ready in 2020, so the Intercept's choice of going with Unity wasn't as silly then, but anyone else not picking up Unreal for KSP2 now would be just inexcusable.

[James Kerman]

Thread temporarily locked for moderator review.

[Vanamonde]

Everybody's so angry lately.

Some comments removed, thread re-opened. Please don't take you anger out on each other. 

[Ashiepoppy]

19 hours ago, K^2 said:

Nothing out there is better suited at the moment. Custom's better, sure, but we aren't going to see that kind of an investment. Unreal's the only one that does most of what you need for a space exploration game out of the box. Unreal 5.4 has origin relocation, support for procedural vegetation, LoD tiles, and a bunch of authoring tools built in. On top of it, Chaos physics is far more stable than anything you can put into Unity, and the multiplayer, while requiring work, gives you at least the starting point that's solid. These latter aspects could be mediated in other engines, but it's still easier in Unreal.

Intercept has spent at least half of their dev time building things that Unreal just does for you. Granted, many of these features weren't ready in 2020, so the Intercept's choice of going with Unity wasn't as silly then, but anyone else not picking up Unreal for KSP2 now would be just inexcusable.

My guess is that TT2 demanded they stick with KSP1's source code and Unity just to save time and costs.

[K^2]

1 hour ago, Ashiepoppy said:

My guess is that TT2 demanded they stick with KSP1's source code and Unity just to save time and costs.

I don't know if T2 would have pushed hard against using Unreal if a strong business case was laid out. Problem is, Intercept was built from a bunch of Unity devs who likely wouldn't have been recommending Unreal.

Edited June 15 by K^2

[Lisias]

On 6/15/2024 at 2:23 PM, Ashiepoppy said:

My guess is that TT2 demanded they stick with KSP1's source code and Unity just to save time and costs.

It was a bit more convoluted than that, but you didn't missed the bull's eye for too much.

Initially, still on the Star.Theory times, Nate convinced the boss that it would be worth the extra effort to really improve the game instead of just patching up bugs, add some visual features and launch whatever comes out of the oven as KSP2.

They** bought it, the idea of having interstellar exploration, colonies and multiplayer was appealing.

But then, they came with the order to use the current KSP¹ source code as basis, instead of starting from scratch - but didn't rolled back to the original idea of a minimalistically improved KSP2. So they had to shove the new ideas they brought into the table using the old codebase that was not technically sound to take this hit.

And the rest, frankly, is just consequence.

=== == = POST EDIT = == ===

** They == Star.Theory . As far as I know, TTI just didn't involved themselves on the development at all.

Edited June 16 by Lisias
POST EDIT.

[ColdJ]

17 hours ago, Lisias said:

Nate convinced the boss that it would be worth the extra effort to really improve the game instead of just patching up bugs, add some visual features and launch whatever comes out of the oven as KSP2.

Just from a laymans point of view, having seen the @ShadowZone explanation video. The original premise was to fix the codebase and then once stable, make it prettier. Once this was done they could have one thing at a time added more features. The modding world has proved that far more can be done than just the base version of KSP1. If they weren't so much into "It's mine, mine, bwahaha" and wanting to take others ideas without even acknowledging them, let alone remunerating them. Then base KSP 2 could have been done within the original time frame and budget, then they could have added, DLC like with KSP1 over time and made money rather than throw it into a money pit. Players would have been happy, and given a steady stream of extra content over time, would have remained enthusiastic and in so doing by word of mouth increased their player base and in so doing their revenue.

So the combination of trying to throw in grand features without fixing the base first (Much like taking a car that you never got serviced in over a decade and adding a body kit to make it look snazzy, then trying to to race it at a track day) and listening to an enthusiast rather than programmers, ultimately led to the mess we ended up with.

Oh and just to add, a large amount of the fixing needed has already been highlighted by the community for free, which if taken notice of would have saved them time. The difference between working with your customers rather than just treating them as bank accounts to raid.

Edited June 16 by ColdJ

[PDCWolf]

19 hours ago, Lisias said:

It was a bit more convoluted than that, but you didn't missed the bull's eye for too much.

Initially, still on the Star.Theory times, Nate convinced the boss that it would be worth the extra effort to really improve the game instead of just patching up bugs, add some visual features and launch whatever comes out of the oven as KSP2.

They bought it, the idea of having interstellar exploration, colonies and multiplayer was appealing.

But then, they came with the order to use the current KSP¹ source code as basis, instead of starting from scratch - but didn't rolled back to the original idea of a minimalistically improved KSP2. So they had to shove the new ideas they brought into the table using the old codebase that was not technically sound to take this hit.

And the rest, frankly, is just consequence.

From ShadowZone's video I understood more or less the same as ColdJ:

StarTheory's original pitch was to put a coat of paint on KSP1's code. Then they re-pitched that they could make a better, bigger sequel with more funding and time, whilst still reusing a lot of KSP1 stuff. However T2 turned them into a subsidiary to further secure their money and then didn't allow them to contact SQUAD or its former employees, or tell new hires that they were gonna work on KSP2.

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, ColdJ said:

Just from a laymans point of view, having seen the @ShadowZone explanation video.  <....>

58 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

From ShadowZone's video I understood more or less the same as ColdJ: <...>

Dear sirs, I want to kindly and friendly remind you about a thing called the Art of Synthesis: simple clarification of facts, without finger pointing.

The dude (correctly) guessed the problem, but didn't managed to pinpoint the ones responsible for it. I made the smallest answer possible that would explain the situation, avoiding personal bias and opinions (being them mine of from ShadowZone).

I assumed that if the correspondent was interested and wanted more information, I could expand the argument pinpoint the ShadowZone video and letting them taking their own conclusions, and perhaps after it engaging on a healthy discussion about the subject.

I'm not trying to deny your arguments, they are correctly grounded - but they are not exactly the answer for what the original argument was.

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Dear sirs, I want to kindly and friendly remind you about a thing called the Art of Synthesis: simple clarification of facts, without finger pointing.

The dude (correctly) guessed the problem, but didn't managed to pinpoint the ones responsible for it. I made the smallest answer possible that would explain the situation, avoiding personal bias and opinions (being them mine of from ShadowZone).

I assumed that if the correspondent was interested and wanted more information, I could expand the argument pinpoint the ShadowZone video and letting them taking their own conclusions, and perhaps after it engaging on a healthy discussion about the subject.

I'm not trying to deny your arguments, they are correctly grounded - but they are not exactly the answer for what the original argument was.

I'm not entering the argument, I'm just trying to clarify if I misunderstood SZ's video, because what you write is certainly different.