Similar games to KSA/KSP/you name it. :)

[Lisias]

I thought it would be better to create a new thread for discussing this subject, so I'm moving the discussion from the original one.

 Before my turn, the following games were mentioned:

• SFS 1 (and 2) - Spaceflight Simulator
  • 1 on Steam
  • 2 on Steam - unreleased at this time.
• Simple Rockets (Juno 1)
  • On Steam
• Juno (Simple Rockets 2)
  • On Steam

 

5 hours ago, Kerbart said:

The third one is Juno. Which is already on the market, but it is far more focused on tinkering and balancing numbers, which we hope KSA and SFS2 are not.

Well... Since we are talking about similar games....

If you are on mobile, there's two little games from Nooleus that I like to play:

• Space Agency - a 2D game where you launch thingies into a 2D mapped solar system.
  • Good sound effects, simple mechanics but fun if you need to burn time and you have your mobile with full battery.
  • This game is pretty old, I was playing it way before even knowing KSP existed
  • Something like SFS1, but for Android. And it ran pretty well on my Android TV device.
• Space Agency 2138 - a 3D successor for SA. Stylized graphics, somewhat kiddish but with a somewhat complex resources and economics engine.
  • You need to acquire raw materials and then build your parts
  • Still learning my way on it.

Their business model will disgust some people (in game shop, with some "game accelerations" being paid, but I managed to finish SA(1) without buying anything but the extra parts for fun).

• SA on Google Play
• SA 2138 on Google Play

 

Edited November 7, 2024 by Lisias
Better phrasing.

[Bej Kerman]

7 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Their space center shows a striking resemblance with the KSP2 one. I doubt that's coincidental.

 It definitely isn't coincidental.

[Lisias]

Just found this video....

Star Paws, this video is from early this year.

Apparently the russians also won this space race!

https://www.reddit.com/r/starpaws/

[magnemoe]

On 11/27/2024 at 2:33 PM, Lisias said:

Just found this video....

Star Paws, this video is from early this year.

Apparently the russians also won this space race!

https://www.reddit.com/r/starpaws/

They are using an Soyuz style launch system, the center hold down clamps is on top of the side boosters 
This would be fine if they used side boosters even srb like Atlas but they had to standardize on number of srb used. 
Idea is smart, if you support the top of the boosters there rocket will face max-Q you can make the bottom part lighter of the expense of making the pad more complex. 

But this rocket looks like an falcon 9 and for it and other 2-3 stage rockets from electron to Saturn 5 and Starship, its pointless. 

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

They are using an Soyuz style launch system, the center hold down clamps is on top of the side boosters 
This would be fine if they used side boosters even srb like Atlas but they had to standardize on number of srb used. 
Idea is smart, if you support the top of the boosters there rocket will face max-Q you can make the bottom part lighter of the expense of making the pad more complex. 

But this rocket looks like an falcon 9 and for it and other 2-3 stage rockets from electron to Saturn 5 and Starship, its pointless. 

Not going to argue about it, but... Are you really sure you are barking on the right tree?

Or attaching launch clamps on boosters:

Or sitting the whole freaking rocket on their engines' bells:

Neither KSP neither Star Paws are historically accurate simulators - heck, we are talking about  space frogs and astrokittens being kicked into orbit.

And, frankly, the Space Paws thingy is clearly trying to appeal to the graphical addicts niche of this already niche game market.

[Lisias]

moved from another thread.

(about Star Paws)

On 12/13/2024 at 1:23 PM, PDCWolf said:

Unless you have some new info for me, I can't look at that game and not smell a UE5 asset flip. The store page only promises you'll be able to build rockets, fly to space, and multiplayer.

Agreed, and believe it or not, it's the reason I'm prone to bet on this guys.

On the bright side, they are not over-promising. They are telling in advance exactly what the game is going to be and it's feasible. And, speaking frankly, what was KSP¹ at the first releases?

On the not that bright side (for me), it appears to be something like a "modelling dough" style of game, relying heavily on procedural parts like Juno. But with some characters that you may attach to - but, on my personal point of view, the cat's appearance  is damn close to trigger an uncanny valley syndrome on me.

As a matter of fact, it's also the reason I'm not a huge fan of too much realistic looks on KSP¹ itself. I don't like to crash my planes the way I do on a way that would look too realistic, I still get the chills when I remember this (I probably should replace the GPWS voices....)

In a way or another, KSA at this point is still less than that. And I agree with you that I'm not jumping ship on anything but concrete products from this point.

Additionally... We may not be their intended audience anyway. Given the current state of affairs in the World, they are probably focusing on VK Play for incoming.

In a way or another, be by using Unreal, be by using a custom engine, both departed ways for good from the KSP¹ ecosystem. Migration will be somewhat painful for people that like mods.

Edited December 15, 2024 by Lisias
Posting when sleep deprived is rarely a good idea.

[Bej Kerman]

54 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Agreed, and believe it or not, it's the reason I'm prone to bet on this guys.

Expect Star Paws to cease development when the college/university students making it get their grades back.

57 minutes ago, Lisias said:

on my personal point of view, the cat's appearance  is damn close to trigger an uncanny valley syndrome on me.

Very much typical when you make a cat model stand up and apply a dancing animation to its rig that was designed for human models.

58 minutes ago, Lisias said:

In a way or another, KSA at this point is still less than that.

Depends on your reference frame. You can also see that Star Paws is a jumble of royalty-free assets and code found lying besides the road, while KSA is making genuinely interesting technical advancements in how terrain is loaded and how physics between multiple vessels will be handled. Unlike KSP 2 and Star Paws, changes to the KSA repo are also readily available to read, which is a +1 on the transparency front. At this point, one only follows Star Paws for the sake of seeing something release, even if it's mediocre and does nothing unique on the technical or gameplay fronts.

[Lisias]

20 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Depends on your reference frame.

Show me a game, or shut up.

One of the worst things about KSP2 was how "influencers" helped to sell the hype about the game. Really, this only added gas to the fire. Hell, had they spent the money hiring good coders they could had a chance.

Users don't want to see source code, this is something to be shown to code geeks. Users want to see a game running on their machines, at least most of them since KSP2's demise.

KSP¹ was made over MIT assets, damnit (see the LegalNotice.txt on every KSP release):

Spoiler

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You see, Star Paws have more in common to KSP¹ than KSA at this point. Thanks for pinpointing one of the reasons.

This insistence on how grandiose KSA is going to be is not different from the insistence on how grandiose KSP2 was going to be.

Only madmen expect different outcomes by repeating the same actions.

May I suggest to Rocketwerks to depart from the ways used by KSP2? It would help a lot to dissipate the distrust the user base has at this moment to anything remotely similar to KSP2 (in appearance and in M.O.).

[Bej Kerman]

37 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Users don't want to see source code, this is something to be shown to code geeks. Users want to see a game running on their machines, at least most of them since KSP2's demise.

A sizeable portion of those users are volatile, hypergolic lunatics.

17 minutes ago, Lisias said:

This insistence on how grandiose KSA is going to be is not different from the insistence on how grandiose KSP2 was going to be.

"[insisted] on how grandiose KSA is going to be" I never did that. I'm simply comparing the technical improvements KSA's BRUTAL framework has already made over KSP 1 re: multiple parallel physics simulations, impressive terrain rendering, done in the name of being more robust than KSP 1... to this Unity/UE5 asset flip shovelware you're hawking. I care more about what HarvesteR and other KSP veterans are doing with KSA/BRUTAL under a studio that has already established itself, than a simple KSP/JNO clone that's probably being made by college students and published under a name that probably won't publish anything again. I can practically imagine their project brief. "Pick a mascot that carries widespread appeal". The answer is obvious: cats!

Right now, KSA has more in common with SpaceEngine or Celestia than KSP 1, the former examples being planetariums, the formermost being able to handle terrain on a human-ish scale and interstellar/intergalactic distances. I concur that Dean was probably a bit silly in dashing to the KSP subreddit to tag his currently WIP framework as a Kerbal killer. Right now, BRUTAL isn't meant to be a KSP competitor, it's meant to be a framework that's up to the task of doing things that upset Unity when applied to KSP-like gameplay, which matters to me more than this shovelware you're trying to drum up sales for.

[PDCWolf]

10 hours ago, Lisias said:

moved from another thread.

(about Star Paws)

Agreed, and believe it or not, it's the reason I'm prone to bet on this guys.

On the bright side, they are not over-promising. They are telling in advance exactly what the game is going to be and it's feasible. And, speaking frankly, what was KSP¹ at the first releases?

I don't want to criticize too much (and believe me I could write a hell of a corporate report) because even if I don't like what I see, it's still a dude making a game. But I can't wipe the smell of asset flip off my nose, and I don't mean asset flip as "poor guy can't model and downloaded some assets from the store", but asset flip as "wishlist conversion scam asset flip". And in case you aren't informed of those, that's what a lot of games you see advertised as "wishlist now" are:

You show off this new, interesting concept of a game, or this re-take on something existing but better because 'reasons', and the only thing that ever faces the customer is media about it. They don't get to interact with the devs, they don't get a forum or a subreddit to discuss, the steam page is only TBD, the game is never talked about officially by whoever is making it, so promises are kept to a minimum. The only thing officially posted is  just promotional material wherever you find the game. Then, months down the line, IF the game got enough wishlists, that's when the effort starts, and it's an effort measured against wishlists.

There have been a ton of games made like this, and it's basically how PlayWay lives and eats.

Of course pinning such a thing on what appears to be a single guy seems like a lot, specially because those things work better when you can shotgun quick prototypes of game ideas and make trailers with flipped assets to disperse around to see what sticks. But that's what I smell here. You go to steam and it's this very generic text about "you can launch rockets and execute maneuvers" being touted as "features" when it's the literally most basic gameplay loop. You go to twitter and it's clearly spammed videos reuploaded again and again on every follow-farm campaign, and so on.

Then you look in detail and see that the trailer has a level of detail that not only can't the game reflect, but neither can the concepts. Then you actually get an explanation about it...

So yeah, if the dev happens to read this, ignore all of it, call me dumb, and go on to prove me wrong.

---------

Now this is very different to what I see from KSA. KSA hasn't shown gameplay yet, but it's shown what for me is the right thing to show if you're aspiring to be the next KSP: "Here's how we did this so we can provide moddability." "Here's how planetary detail is loaded on the fly without any hitching", "Here's a video of 150 elements being simulated by the integrator at the same time", and so on. They're showing me foundations, and for a game like this, foundation is everything. If StarPaws lags anything like FlyOut, or is as shallow as it is, I'm gonna do just like FlyOut and not get it.

 

 

 

[Bej Kerman]

32 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

I don't want to criticize too much (and believe me I could write a hell of a corporate report) because even if I don't like what I see, it's still a dude making a game. But I can't wipe the smell of asset flip off my nose, and I don't mean asset flip as "poor guy can't model and downloaded some assets from the store", but asset flip as "wishlist conversion scam asset flip". And in case you aren't informed of those, that's what a lot of games you see advertised as "wishlist now" are:

You show off this new, interesting concept of a game, or this re-take on something existing but better because 'reasons', and the only thing that ever faces the customer is media about it. They don't get to interact with the devs, they don't get a forum or a subreddit to discuss, the steam page is only TBD, the game is never talked about officially by whoever is making it, so promises are kept to a minimum. The only thing officially posted is  just promotional material wherever you find the game. Then, months down the line, IF the game got enough wishlists, that's when the effort starts, and it's an effort measured against wishlists.

There have been a ton of games made like this, and it's basically how PlayWay lives and eats.

Of course pinning such a thing on what appears to be a single guy seems like a lot, specially because those things work better when you can shotgun quick prototypes of game ideas and make trailers with flipped assets to disperse around to see what sticks. But that's what I smell here. You go to steam and it's this very generic text about "you can launch rockets and execute maneuvers" being touted as "features" when it's the literally most basic gameplay loop. You go to twitter and it's clearly spammed videos reuploaded again and again on every follow-farm campaign, and so on.

Then you look in detail and see that the trailer has a level of detail that not only can't the game reflect, but neither can the concepts. Then you actually get an explanation about it...

So yeah, if the dev happens to read this, ignore all of it, call me dumb, and go on to prove me wrong.

---------

Now this is very different to what I see from KSA. KSA hasn't shown gameplay yet, but it's shown what for me is the right thing to show if you're aspiring to be the next KSP: "Here's how we did this so we can provide moddability." "Here's how planetary detail is loaded on the fly without any hitching", "Here's a video of 150 elements being simulated by the integrator at the same time", and so on. They're showing me foundations, and for a game like this, foundation is everything. If StarPaws lags anything like FlyOut, or is as shallow as it is, I'm gonna do just like FlyOut and not get it.

The two saddest pieces of footage here have to be the capsule spinning on top of a rocket in a manner that defies basic rigid body physics and a cat shooting a gun that explodes Blender Default Cubes^TM everywhere. Can't really compare it to KSP, HarvesteR wasn't faffing round making Kerbals dance and cubes explode, and he got physics working convincingly well by 0.7.3 so Lisias comparing this glorified college project to KSP is somewhat lost on me. I honestly wouldn't put it beyond this development team (if it is a team) to be receiving a chunk of its creative input from ChatGPT.

[Lisias]

 

3 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

I don't want to criticize too much (and believe me I could write a hell of a corporate report) because even if I don't like what I see, it's still a dude making a game.

As a matter of fact, I was wishing to have it criticized by you. You know how to criticize something, and are someone worthing of being listened.

 

3 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

and I don't mean asset flip as "poor guy can't model and downloaded some assets from the store", but asset flip as "wishlist conversion scam asset flip".

Hummm... I didn't thought of that. I did some research on them, found some tweets but - yellow flag enough - found that their subreddit was banned on reddit.

 

3 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

You show off this new, interesting concept of a game, or this re-take on something existing but better because 'reasons', and the only thing that ever faces the customer is media about it. They don't get to interact with the devs, they don't get a forum or a subreddit to discuss, the steam page is only TBD, the game is never talked about officially by whoever is making it, so promises are kept to a minimum. The only thing officially posted is  just promotional material wherever you find the game. Then, months down the line, IF the game got enough wishlists, that's when the effort starts, and it's an effort measured against wishlists.

https://x.com/StarPaws_game

Looking on the twits, some of them may corroborate your thesis, but others still gives "hope" of being also a simulator already in development. Perhaps something like Space Agency 2138 for Android?

 

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Can't really compare it to KSP, HarvesteR wasn't faffing round making Kerbals dance and cubes explode, and he got physics working convincingly well by 0.7.3 so Lisias comparing this glorified college project to KSP is somewhat lost on me.

Wow.. How a change... I stil remember your saying:

Spoiler

On 3/24/2023 at 5:21 PM, Bej Kerman said:

Why is it odd? You're looking at the first patch of KSP 2. I think people's expectations need checking. People were happy to forgive Harvester for what came of KSP 1 despite single-person teams having achieved much better things.

On 5/14/2024 at 8:58 PM, Bej Kerman said:

Again, even Intercept identified these problems with HarvesteR's game despite their own issues and I don't feel like I have to cross my fingers for the Rocketwerkz team to avoid the wealth of problems KSP 1 had as they work on their competitor.

Quote

I'm fairly confident this is just wishful thinking to justify HarvesteR's ideas being mediocre.

 

On 5/23/2024 at 2:43 PM, Bej Kerman said:

HarvesteR, HarvesteR, 0 experience before KSP.

I find interestingly amusing the change that happened between May 24 (your last post about @HarvesteR before the silence about him) and the first one:

Spoiler

On 5/24/2024 at 9:36 AM, Bej Kerman said:

Let's run through the logic you're using:

KSP 2 has flaws = let's lynch the developers

KSP 1 has flaws = let's praise Harvester for all the mods he didn't make

Suppose the library of mods for KSP 2 grows which is inevitable for any game, I don't suppose you'll do a heel-turn and decide that Intercept wasn't so evil actually. Or is Harvester the only developer in the world who is allowed to take credit for mods that fix his game.

As I said, people are attached to an ideal fantasy where an underdog team does a better job than a studio they vilify, and aren't ready to face the reality that Harvester already had a shot at making a space game and made a dog's dinner out of it, and now he's busy on a pitifully unambitious game because it's a more realistic target for him than doing KSP 1 but better.

Quote

and your best bet if you really want to respect KSP 1's legacy is to just follow what Harvester is doing (I.E. Kitbash, the Rocketwerkz space game)

 

It's almost as you were a different person on May 24. Or perhaps had a different employer?

Glad to know that you are capable of listening to people, after all.

 

3 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Now this is very different to what I see from KSA. KSA hasn't shown gameplay yet, but it's shown what for me is the right thing to show if you're aspiring to be the next KSP: "Here's how we did this so we can provide moddability." "Here's how planetary detail is loaded on the fly without any hitching", "Here's a video of 150 elements being simulated by the integrator at the same time", and so on. They're showing me foundations, and for a game like this, foundation is everything. If StarPaws lags anything like FlyOut, or is as shallow as it is, I'm gonna do just like FlyOut and not get it.

What I'm seeing from KSA, right now, it's a very capable and with a good reputation Studio hiring in mass the very people that turned KSP¹ into a mess and then gone to develop KSP2, that by itself turned into a worse mess.

I get that KSP2 was a Management problem, and that should not fully reflect on the dev team. However, it's naïve to think that the brass is responsible for every single problem and mistake.

I had seen bit rotting infesting KSP¹ guts since 2018, and how the rotten code was covered by a nice paintjob. I had seen a lot of good decisions and ideas being screwed up by terrible decision making and lack of judgment on the development side. And from people supporting them. Only madmen expect different results from the same people doing the same things.

I do believe in Dean Hall intentions and competence. But such thrust is not shared into some people around him right now. I hope, I really hope to be right on the former, and to be utterly wrong on the later. But, right now, I'm choosing to hope for the best but expect the worst (are we going to drop the bomb or not?) - I'm not listening to words anymore, I want a game on my rig and then I will reevaluate.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited December 14, 2024 by Lisias
(sigh) Moar tyops...

[PDCWolf]

44 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Hummm... I didn't thought of that. I did some research on them, found some tweets but - yellow flag enough - found that their subreddit was banned on reddit.

https://x.com/StarPaws_game

Looking on the twits, some of them may corroborate your thesis, but others still gives "hope" of being also a simulator already in development. Perhaps something like Space Agency 2138 for Android?

The more I look at their twitter, the more I smell foul. Every reply they have is to a wishlistwednesday/trailertuesday/followfridays campaign ran by accounts that are completely unheard of, except for indie bandits. Every other reply that's not to a campaign like those is a tweet by itself of the same videos... and if you go back far enough, you'd just realize it's a rotation of the same videos over and over and over and over, showing little progress since september 20 when that account started posting.

Edited December 14, 2024 by PDCWolf

[Bej Kerman]

9 hours ago, Lisias said:

Glad to know that you are capable of listening to people, after all.

(Conversely, it's great to see you've developed the gall to criticise KSP 1 devs )

I have to give him some credit, KSP wasn't a plain copy of its inspiration, Orbiter, and it wasn't an open-and-shut case of assetflipitis, and its physics worked on a basic level - especially in the teasers and gameplay footage that's meant to show the game's good side. If a naff pun, a cat rig being worn by a human animation and spaffing default cubes everywhere, and a physics bug resulting in a capsule spinning on top of a rocket in an obviously impossible fashion, is Star Paws' good side, I don't want to see actual gameplay. And those videos are considered good enough to repost every week. I can't imagine an asset flip so broken that over the course of an 8 month media campaign, the developers could not get more footage of rockets launching and not suffering physics bugs. Or these developers simply don't give a... crap  

Either way, I feel bad for for the two people who wishlisted it and never found out about KSP 1/2 or JNO.

 

And, of course, the way those uncanny cats dance just brings my liquid to a boil

[Lisias]

12 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Every other reply that's not to a campaign like those is a tweet by itself of the same videos... and if you go back far enough, you'd just realize it's a rotation of the same videos over and over and over and over, showing little progress since september 20 when that account started posting.

I gave a more thoughtful look on this youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/@StarPaws-game

The oldest video on this channel have almost a year - so unless he have access to some privileged information I don't think he's trying to leverage the KSA announcement. If this is a scam, it's an original one.

Granted, there's only 4 featured videos there. Most of his communication was made on shorts, with a somewhat sui generis sense of humour. I don't think that all that short would have a good reception on this Forum, however. You appears to be right on the money, it's (or at least, was) a lone dude trying his luck.

The enervating thing on YouTube shorts is that we don't have a timestamp on them.

I think that he may had decided to get some P/R help exactly on September when the twitter/x account was created.

I don't think his project was incepted as a scam, however. Scammers try to pass an image of professionalism and trustworthiness - this guy is essentially mocking himself half of the shorts.

Not saying this may not became one, however. It will depend of whoever decided to fund/help him -  at least since September. The following tweet:

says "our", not "mine". And, agreed, the visual language is completely unrelated to the videos published until the moment. This shot makes the game pretty near the visuals presented by Space Agency 2138.

Well, we will need to wait and see. I still hope this dude is serious on the project, and that he manages to get at least a minimum level of success to make the endeavours minimally profitable somehow. Legally, ethically profitable.

Edited December 15, 2024 by Lisias
The day they outlaw tyops will precede the day I will go up the river...

[PDCWolf]

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

The enervating thing on YouTube shorts is that we don't have a timestamp on them.

You can replace the short url with a normal youtube video url and swap the IDs over to the normal url, and it'll load like a normal video. Last short was posted October 18, first short was posted August 22.

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

I don't think his project was incepted as a scam, however. Scammers try to pass an image of professionalism and trustworthiness - this guy is essentially mocking himself half of the shorts.

Remember that "Scam" is insofar as you consider not getting any game if he doesn't get enough wishlists as a scam. Legally it'll never be a scam, it's just incredibly disingenuous to measure interest like that and pivot completely from an idea delivering nothing after making people wishlist your game... Specially when you add messages like "it's in alpha" and create trailers and stuff. However legally speaking you'd be using a steam feature (and a fee of $100) as a market sounding investment.

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

Well, we will need to wait and see. I still hope this dude is serious on the project, and that he manages to get at least a minimum level of success to make the endeavours minimally profitable somehow. Legally, ethically profitable.

Same.

[Empiro]

I enjoyed Mars Horizon for a while. I don't think there's many space agency simulators that focuses on the business and research aspects.

The rocket building was just a tad too simple, and the minigames got tedious after a while. However, it was overall an enjoyable play and I definitely recommend it when it goes on sale.

[Mr. Kerbin]

21 minutes ago, Empiro said:

I enjoyed Mars Horizon for a while. I don't think there's many space agency simulators that focuses on the business and research aspects.

The rocket building was just a tad too simple, and the minigames got tedious after a while. However, it was overall an enjoyable play and I definitely recommend it when it goes on sale.

You can actually skip those.

I did.

[LazyTiger0203]

there is a 2d ksp clone called "space flight simulator". i dont think it has eva yet.

 

there is also a sequel that is 3d

[Mr. Kerbin]

On 11/6/2024 at 7:08 PM, Lisias said:

SFS 1 (and 2) - Spaceflight Simulator

• 1 on Steam
• 2 on Steam - unreleased at this time

 

20 minutes ago, LazyTiger0203 said:

there is a 2d ksp clone called "space flight simulator". i dont think it has eva yet.

 

there is also a sequel that is 3d

I remember SFS. I actually did some of my own modding to add Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Was my second space game, after Universe Sandbox 2.

[LazyTiger0203]

i actually first heard of ksp in a yt video that was a iceberg of sfs

it said that sfs was a 2d ksp clone

[Fizzlebop Smith]

On 12/13/2024 at 10:01 PM, Bej Kerman said:

A sizeable portion of those users are volatile, hypergolic lunatics.

"[insisted] on how grandiose KSA is going to ,  I never did that. I'm simply comparing the technical improvements KSA's BRUTAL framework has already made over KSP 1 re: multiple parallel physics simulations, impressive terrain rendering, done in the name of being more robust than KSP 1... to this Unity/UE5 asset flip shovelware you're hawking. I care more about what HarvesteR and other KSP veterans are doing with KSA/BRUTAL under a studio that has already established itself, than a simple KSP/JNO clone that's probably being made by college students and published under a name that probably won't publish anything again. I can practically imagine their project brief. "Pick a mascot that carries widespread appeal". The answer is obvious: cats!

Right now, KSA has more in common with SpaceEngine or Celestia than KSP 1, the former examples being planetariums, the formermost being able to handle terrain on a human-ish scale and interstellar/intergalactic distances. I concur that Dean was probably a bit silly in dashing to the KSP subreddit to tag his currently WIP framework as a Kerbal killer. Right now, BRUTAL isn't meant to be a KSP competitor, it's meant to be a framework that's up to the task of doing things that upset Unity when applied to KSP-like gameplay, which matters to me more than this shovelware you're trying to drum up sales for.

Attempting to diminish Star Paws in the disingenuous manner was essentially seeking to establish KSA as superior endeavor.

There is not need to state this explicitly.. it is implicit in volume of negativity injected into KSP related discussion while reserving lip service to a game that is as of yet untested.

While I am excited to see what KSA might become,  I'm not a huge fan of the RW gane I've played, but maybe this one will be different.

Also.. I'm pretty sure BRUTAL could never compete with KSP. 

I know you said , "it's not meant to be a KSP competitor" ... but that's because it CANT. It's a custom developement utility not a game.

It also cannot be a competitor to UNITY or Unreal because it is proprietary & in-house.

In house? Non commercial things cannot by definition be in competition with anything outside the company infrastructure, without licensing of some sort.

KSA ... however, will one day be a KSP competitor.

 

 

[Bej Kerman]

On 1/19/2025 at 3:34 AM, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Attempting to diminish Star Paws in the disingenuous manner was essentially seeking to establish KSA as superior endeavor.

There is not need to state this explicitly.. it is implicit in volume of negativity injected into KSP related discussion while reserving lip service to a game that is as of yet untested.

While I am excited to see what KSA might become,  I'm not a huge fan of the RW gane I've played, but maybe this one will be different.

Also.. I'm pretty sure BRUTAL could never compete with KSP. 

I know you said , "it's not meant to be a KSP competitor" ... but that's because it CANT. It's a custom developement utility not a game.

It also cannot be a competitor to UNITY or Unreal because it is proprietary & in-house.

In house? Non commercial things cannot by definition be in competition with anything outside the company infrastructure, without licensing of some sort.

KSA ... however, will one day be a KSP competitor.

All I can say is that the technical-oriented developments of BRUTAL and KSA right now are still more exciting than yet another broken asset flip made with Unreal. 

[Lisias]

On 1/19/2025 at 12:34 AM, Fizzlebop Smith said:

KSA ... however, will one day be a KSP competitor.

Assuming, of course, that the real objective would not be licensing the game engine to a future KSP project...

You see... Second places sometimes ends up winning the Championship (see Formula 1).

[Lisias]

Moving from another thread, to avoid derailing that one (I wish I would remember doing it more times... )

 

On 1/29/2025 at 4:30 AM, Skorj said:

While all we have to go on for RW/KSA is what they say about themselves, at least what they're saying looks like good project management.  I think they understand how to do it right, assuming they aren't just BSing us (and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt).  So far they seem to have what it takes to deliver a worthy successor to KSP (and I'd love it if they ended up using the Kerbal IP for it).

I don't think they will be the KSP's successor, in the same sense Terrahawks wasn't the successor of Thunderbirds, It's very interesting to read about Gerry Anderson and what he used to think about his legacy, in special Thenderbirds.

The game mechanics could be the same, but the characters and lore will not (as Terrahawks and Thunderbirds), and this can be a problem: I think they will reach only a fraction of the audience that KSP¹ had.

You see, I don't see engineers and other STEM professionals spending their time with cute little kittens, IMHO the expected audience (for the most part) for KSA will be kids and teenagers and young people still trying to figure out what to do with their lives. Without STEM professionals playing the game, you will not have high skilled people inspiring youngsters and luring them into the career - and so we will have essentially a purely Entertaining Product where good looks and easiness to play will drive the development (like KSP2, I think).

This does not means that KSA will fail (au contraire) neither that it will be a "bad game" (encore plus le contraire). It just means that people expecting a KSP¹ successor will frustrate themselves - KSA will not drive the same people that KSP¹ managed to drive, so the community will be different, and so the game itself.

A game is just.... a "game". It's the people around it that elevates it into a form of art, or even a cultural phenomena. And I really doubt that kittens will draw the same audience as Kerbals. Part of them? For sure. All of them? Not by a mile. At least the ones that could reproduce - at least partially - that thriving community that KSP¹ enjoyed until the 1.3.x era? Debatable, and my opinion is "no".

And so RW will need to pay influencers to do that job, what will increase the costs and pressure the profitability of a game that it's already on a niche, where profits are... a challenge (and I will not even touch the development costs (and risks) of pulling a whole new game engine from the hat).

 

On 1/29/2025 at 4:30 AM, Skorj said:

So far they seem to have what it takes to deliver a worthy successor to KSP (and I'd love it if they ended up using the Kerbal IP for it).

I have some weird ideas about that, but they would be pure speculation at this time.

 

On 1/29/2025 at 4:30 AM, Skorj said:

 After all, all the project really needs are 3 requirements IMO:

From the technical point of view, yes. Now allow me to give my 2 cents from the social/human/customer point of view:

On 1/29/2025 at 4:30 AM, Skorj said:

1. A solid moddable base engine for a rocket sim, one that isn't the crashtastic mess of KSP1. 
2. Updated graphics.  I don't think they need "modern" graphics, in the sense of hundreds of people cranking out super-detailed art assets (we can live without Kerbal/Kitten shoelace physics), but a step up so that stuff like volumetric clouds and good exhaust plumes are natural to do in the engine.
3. Some sort of actual progression system, rather than just a sandbox with random missions.  Colonies building towards interstellar was just one way of many to do that.

1. The crashtastic mess of KSP¹ didn't prevented people from liking and investing on the game. KSP2 were created with solid  foundations from the software development point of view, and it failed.
   • Besides, being totally custom, they (RW) will have a huge inertia while attracting new talents to develop new content:
     • people that had modded other games will resent the new engine;
     • professionals that would be interested on the Scene will be less inclined on investing their time, or will charge more;
     • STEM professionals looking into a hobby will think twice, as any knowledge they would acquire will not be useful anywhere else.
   • So, in the end, RW willl have to fund everything in a way or another, including modding - adding still more strain into the profitability of the game.
2. There's a serious movement on part of the industry advocating exactly the opposite: simpler graphics are better.
   • Easier to mod; more people will be modding the game.
   • Will run well on cheaper hardware - and I really need to talk about what the future reserves to us in the Economy?
   • Easier to maintain.
   • tl;dr: simpler (but still atractive) graphics have more chances to lure a larger audience.
3. On that, I couldn't agree more!

 

On 1/29/2025 at 4:30 AM, Skorj said:

 Only number 1 is actually hard IMO, the rest is just run-of-the-mill game design any competent game studio could deliver.  And 1 isn't a problem to be solved by throwing a large team at it, but by a small team of the right people.  There's no point in ramping up funding for the full project until 1 is proven. 

IMHO, no. The number 1 is only technically (and financially) challenging.

What's really, really, really hard is to build a large and long stand fan base (or Community) around it.

If it could be so easy, Gerry Anderson would had managed to score a Thunderbirds sucessor. He didn't, and he was somewhat bitter about it: he enjoyed the thing, but he wanted to do more than that and besides having some interesting works in the portfolio, he never really managed to score a Thunderbirds sucessor - and he was the dude that created the whole thing.

We don't really know neither understand how things became a cultural phenomena - all we can do is to mimic what manages to get there in order to maxminize some profits for some time, see what the Music Industry is doing nowadays: they are investing on collecting IP from the great musicians of the past now, it's cheaper and more effective that trying to fund copycats that most of the time (save some honorable exceptions) just can't linger enough.

 

On 1/29/2025 at 4:30 AM, Skorj said:

I'm excited for the future of some sort of KSP successor because RW seems to be doing just that.  Of course, we'll see.

I'm considering exactly the opposite: that whatever future KSP may still have, may be related exactly to what RW is doing now - where KSA would be a important sidekick on the screenplay...

Edited 8 hours ago by Lisias
Yeah... Tyops...