Being a better Alpha tester.

[Rassa Farlander]

Ok so this an Alpha game in development. So I believe we are all, in a way, considered its "Alpha Testers" Im also customer and bought the game, but in a way its like an investment, and I want to see the best KSP possible, so Ive been wondering something as of late:

How do I be a better Alpha Tester for KSP?

I play the game and am somewhat active on the forums(nothing really constructive however) so what can I do? Where do I go from there?

Also if Im mistaken in my assumption of being Alpha Testers, please tell me, and Ill hush up

-Rassa

[OtherDalfite]

We are supposedly alpha testers, just a very toned down version. The best way to be one is in my opinion, try and break the game. Doing things that you wouldn't normally do (so long as you aren't messing with code or such, if you want to actually test, play stock only. If you want to play, do mods). Doing things out of the ordinary is probably the best way to bugtest or doing simple things through complication. Even if it seems weird to try and do that, remember that someone on Earth is trying something similar or will in the future.

[regex]

How do I be a better Alpha Tester for KSP?

• Report bugs in the Support & Bugs forum.
  
• Make suggestions in the Suggestions and Development Discussion forum.
  
• Don't crap up General KSP Discussion with whine threads.

[Kyarao]

Alpha stage of game development is for pumping lots of features into the game very quickly, as well as improving features that are already in the game.

Beta should pretty much be the full game+tons of bugs and not very optimized. Beta testers do everything under the sun to break the game. At this point, a good beta tester records EVERYTHING from cpu load to current activities in game. They suggest potential optimizations and report all bugs no matter how small.

After release comes the patching phase. I hate patches that add features. All that does is indicate that alpha development was inadequate. Patches are for fixing bugs and making further optimizations.

Typically a small team should be devoted to the patches and updates. The bulk of a development team should start working on the next big thing. Either KSP 2 or an entirely new and different game.

[UbioZur]

SQUAD have a team of tester who test the game intensively the way SQUAD want and the way they thing the game will be played. That is the Q&A part of the development.

As a player of an early access your goals are:

- play the game the way you want to play it (certainly different from the vision SQUAD had), and if you encounter any bugs, follow that guide line (isolate the bug, find how the dev can reproduce it, report it with all the info)

- Keep playing, and when you have idea on how to improve a feature or the game, let the dev know with the suggestion forum, Make sure to research if it has been suggested before or already confirmed/denied by the dev (and that is is not in the what not to suggest list)

- If you have any art skills (writing, drawing, speaking, videos etc...), use the forum blog or other to share the story of your space program. Every one love to hear what is going on with other space program.

- Share the love, talk about ksp. As simple as it sound, but the more people share their love of ksp, the easier it is for the dev to stay motivated. Developing such a game with a small team is very stressful, and they work hard on it, so all those story of player space program, all those fan arts and magazine review does keep the dev motivated, because it really show them that the player are behind them.

[AntonioAJC]

• Don't crap up General KSP Discussion with whine threads.

^ Pretty much what you have to do in order to support the game and not make the gods (gods = the developers and mods) sad and angry.

As he said, post bugs in the bug section with info like your version and some screenshots to go with it, also, try to duplicate the bug. Make a suggestion in its section if you feel like it, beware though, people have already made some and there's a sticky thread at the top saying WHAT NOT TO SUGGEST.