Love the game BUT..........

[KBMODIGITY]

I have been playing kerbal for a good 8 months now. Love the progress they made in the start of career mode. Even as the game is now, it is incredible. Every patch seems to make it better and better.

My thoughts and concerns though are about the rate at which patches come out and the content in them and the overall gameplay ability. I am sure I will get alot of negative feedback from posting this, but I feel I must speek my mind.

1. Yes the Squad team is limited. So I'm not expecting HUUGE patches every month. But look at the last patch, I believe it was around 70 MB in data, which took around 3-4 months. Yes it was an awsome leap and added much more to the game, but other companies add 1-3 GB of data in the same time with the same size team. Look at overkill and payday 2.

2. I dont feel the devs, although they do a great job, deserve a break as many have said in the forums after every big patch. They are living on the money that we have payed as kind of a stock in them making the finished product they promised to deliver. I don't know about you guys but no boss in any job i have ever had has said, "you did that last job great, take the next week off with pay!"

3. I feel too much has gone into honestly what i see as stupid junk. I read for weeks in the weekly about how the astronouat complex was getting redone. All it ended up being was a nice pic in the background that gets blurred out cause of astronaut selection. So why even bother. How about putting purpose to the stats of the pilots rather than a background picture that noone will notice anyways.

4. BIG ONE. OLDER SYSTEMS. I have a system that meets all the requirements for this game, yet like tonight had to reload 20 + times in i would say 3 hours because of crashes while reworking and launching my ship. I would rework, save, try to send to launch pad, game crashes. Reload select launch pad , select ship and crew, and say launch, ship messes up getting into orbit, if i stick around and watch it crash into the ground, or hit revert to anything,, game crashes.

( I am running no mods, have 4 gigs of ram, 2.4 GHZ processor, win 7 32 bit) According to squad that should be no problem.

The ship I am trying to get up is my interplanetary shuttle. It has around 580 parts I am guessing, so nothing too insane. many of the parts are struts.

Yes my comp is a good at least 7 years old, but if they say a comp with what ever specs as minimum can run it, then it should be able to run without crashing. Lagging is one thing, but to reload ever 5 minutes is another.

AS I said at the begining I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE this game, I just feel like things are a bit misprioritized at squad, I see more advertising than development for an alpha game (If i am wrong, look at the kerbal weekly and see how much was done for development than someone going here or there to talk about the game). I see more work on background graphics than gameplay. Gameplay is what us gamers want, the pretty graphics in the end to touch up are a nice detail, but overall we (or well at least I) dont care.

My final note is that at the rate i see this game progressing, it will be at least 2+ years before 1.0 comes out, please someone tell me im wrong but be able to justify reason i am wrong behind it.

[Hodo]

580 parts is insane!

My most complex ship is 200 parts. My average is around 100.

The SSTO VTOL I sent to Duna and Ike is only 121 parts.

I have a rig better than yours and I still wont think about building a 580 part ship.

[The Destroyer]

1: It may not be much, but it adds a lot into the game.

2: Hey, it's a big thing, and shouldn't they deserve a break once in a while?

3: It's not supid, it's a nice touch. I love the new complex backround!

4: That's really weird, I've never had that problem even with an ancient system.

580 parts is insane, and it's gonna lag until KSP get's more optimized.

[KBMODIGITY]

If you would like to see my design, not sure it will get into orbit yet, but most of those 580 pieces are struts, 12 alone are atomic rocket boosters, plus thier fuel tanks, plus the ratio of trying to get that into orbit, tell me where to send the ship file. It doesnt include my lander thats already in orbit, (POOR POOR JEB )

AND..

1.It doesnt excuse how other companies do more with the same size team.

2.Id love to have your job if you get to take a week break after every job you accomplish (have we heard any details of the next patch yet? its been almost 3 weeks, what are they actualy working on?)

3.Thats a personal thing. Id rather more gameplay than random pictures in the background that take 3 weeks to make.

4.all i can say is maybe ill reinstall. hopefully that will fix, id hate to lose my space stations that took me dozens of hours to assemble in sandbox. But to get rid of these crashes, its more than worth it. Then again, if it doesnt fix, what then? I lost it all for nothing.

[pluto101]

I'm not going to address the rest of your complaints in detail (some valid, most ignorant), but seriously? You've never worked a job that had paid vacation? Pretty sure 2 weeks a year is standard in the US (it's what I have), and internationally the standard is more like 4-6. Even beyond that, if devs are working 12-hr days before a patch release, then in every job I've worked that means you get the right to either overtime (if hourly) or time off (if salary). That kind of entitled attitude really gets at me.

If you've never worked in a paid vacation environment, then stop complaining about others' vacation time and start examining why you don't have any.

[Spyritdragon]

1. Thats Destroyers point. They dont do less. It just requires much less code to implement. The SAS rework added pretty much nothing. And, its an alpha were in - it includes lots of work going into bugs and optimisation.

2. Squad reserves the right to cancel development at anytime, i.e. they dont actually owe you anything. And theyre not necesarily taking time off, theyre just not working on the next update as strongly. Eachnof us pays a set fee of about 20 dollars, and thats what they have to work with. How they spend their profits is their choice.

3. They dont put purpose of the stats somply because they have none. And "why even bother": because many of us like it.

4. Copy your persistance file, so you can keep your stations :-)

[Crush]

1. Yes the Squad team is limited. So I'm not expecting HUUGE patches every month. But look at the last patch, I believe it was around 70 MB in data, which took around 3-4 months. Yes it was an awsome leap and added much more to the game, but other companies add 1-3 GB of data in the same time with the same size team. Look at overkill and payday 2.

Measuring software development progress in MB is like measuring aircraft building progress in weight.

2. I dont feel the devs, although they do a great job, deserve a break as many have said in the forums after every big patch. They are living on the money that we have payed as kind of a stock in them making the finished product they promised to deliver. I don't know about you guys but no boss in any job i have ever had has said, "you did that last job great, take the next week off with pay!"

Too much stress and pressure is counter-productive when you have a creative job.

3. I feel too much has gone into honestly what i see as stupid junk. I read for weeks in the weekly about how the astronouat complex was getting redone. All it ended up being was a nice pic in the background that gets blurred out cause of astronaut selection. So why even bother. How about putting purpose to the stats of the pilots rather than a background picture that noone will notice anyways.

One of these is done by a graphic artist, the other by a programmer.

4. BIG ONE. OLDER SYSTEMS. I have a system that meets all the requirements for this game, yet like tonight had to reload 20 + times in i would say 3 hours because of crashes while reworking and launching my ship. I would rework, save, try to send to launch pad, game crashes. Reload select launch pad , select ship and crew, and say launch, ship messes up getting into orbit, if i stick around and watch it crash into the ground, or hit revert to anything,, game crashes.

( I am running no mods, have 4 gigs of ram, 2.4 GHZ processor, win 7 32 bit) According to squad that should be no problem.

The ship I am trying to get up is my interplanetary shuttle. It has around 580 parts I am guessing, so nothing too insane. many of the parts are struts.

Yes my comp is a good at least 7 years old, but if they say a comp with what ever specs as minimum can run it, then it should be able to run without crashing. Lagging is one thing, but to reload ever 5 minutes is another.

A crash is not because your system is too weak. It is usually because of a bug. Try to reproduce the bug and file a report.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Crush

[AlamoVampire]

I doubt the OP knows anything of programming, otherwise he would not make such grandiose claims. This game looks simple but it isnt. I have a feeling there is a ton going on in the code to make this work right. Just because some dev houses make huge leaps in a patch does not mean Squad must. Also kerp in mind we are in an ALPHA state. Not BETA not a full product. Also they are under no obligation what so ever to give us a 1.0 product.

[sjwt]

1. Yes the Squad team is limited. So I'm not expecting HUUGE patches every month. But look at the last patch, I believe it was around 70 MB in data, which took around 3-4 months. Yes it was an awsome leap and added much more to the game, but other companies add 1-3 GB of data in the same time with the same size team. Look at overkill and payday2

A lot of the work with most patches is the coding, finding a bug, or implementing a major change might only be a few hundred K or even less, time has to be spent to QA any change, also Squad uses a version control system that allows them to be working on any and all versions, so work done during the 0.22 working phase might be on features for the 0.23 or even 0.60 Not a lot of the KSP is massive graphics. For a good example, sit down with a text file editor and try and write an essay that comes to 10Megs. Let me know when you are done. To give a good hint, the Bible is about 1.2megs in text.

2. I dont feel the devs, although they do a great job, deserve a break as many have said in the forums after every big patch. They are living on the money that we have payed as kind of a stock in them making the finished product they promised to deliver. I don't know about you guys but no boss in any job i have ever had has said, "you did that last job great, take the next week off with pay!"

The software/games industry is well known for not paying staff for the 60-80 hour weeks they can put in, and the 80-100 hour weeks they can work to reach a release, you may have bought the game, but unfortunately you are not the boss, and worse off you have no knowledge of the pay conditions or hours.

3. I feel too much has gone into honestly what i see as stupid junk. I read for weeks in the weekly about how the astronouat complex was getting redone. All it ended up being was a nice pic in the background that gets blurred out cause of astronaut selection. So why even bother. How about putting purpose to the stats of the pilots rather than a background picture that noone will notice anyways.

Unfortunately everyone has different expectations of what should and shouldn't be worked, and also resources will be used by Squad as they become available. Also note that even small changes you can't see can require a lot of code. See this post about how changing the end flight button effects more then a simple 2 second fix.

4. BIG ONE. OLDER SYSTEMS. I have a system that meets all the requirements for this game, yet like tonight had to reload 20 + times in i would say 3 hours because of crashes while reworking and launching my ship. I would rework, save, try to send to launch pad, game crashes. Reload select launch pad , select ship and crew, and say launch, ship messes up getting into orbit, if i stick around and watch it crash into the ground, or hit revert to anything,, game crashes.

( I am running no mods, have 4 gigs of ram, 2.4 GHZ processor, win 7 32 bit) According to squad that should be no problem.

The ship I am trying to get up is my interplanetary shuttle. It has around 580 parts I am guessing, so nothing too insane. many of the parts are struts.

Yes my comp is a good at least 7 years old, but if they say a comp with what ever specs as minimum can run it, then it should be able to run without crashing. Lagging is one thing, but to reload ever 5 minutes is another.

As each part is added the physics become s much more completed, think the Fibonacci sequence , First part is easy 1 caculation, Second part has 3 calculation, third part has 5, forth has 10 etc.. On the Fibonacci sequence the 500th number is 139423224561697880139724382870407283950070256587697307264108962948325571622863290691557658876222521294125, Thats a lot of caculations.

My final note is that at the rate i see this game progressing, it will be at least 2+ years before 1.0 comes out, please someone tell me im wrong but be able to justify reason i am wrong behind it.

I don't see why 2 years would be wrong, most good games take 3-5 years to be developed, as you add each little bit everything gets more complex, and counter intuitively as you ad more ppl the work required to move forwards increases as well at a relatively low number.

[Superfluous J]

Measuring software development progress in MB is like measuring aircraft building progress in weight.

Came here to say this. Well not this exactly but this said it better

I couldn't make it through the rest of the first post because of the complaint that the update didn't have enough megabytes of data in it.

[Maxwell Fern]

1. Yes the Squad team is limited. So I'm not expecting HUUGE patches every month. But look at the last patch, I believe it was around 70 MB in data, which took around 3-4 months. Yes it was an awsome leap and added much more to the game, but other companies add 1-3 GB of data in the same time with the same size team. Look at overkill and payday 2.

As a programer, I HATE to read this. Quantity has nothing to do with quality. Actually, it's often the other way around.

Would you prefer them to add a blank 1GB file in the update to make it feel more important to you ?

And yes, as it has been said before, people deserve a break once in a while and 580 parts for a ship is over-engineering.

[Sof]

Right now I think that a near 600 part ship would cause any computer problems.

[Lar-E]

I have no problem whatsoever with the 'work-in-progress' aspect of the game; that is one of it's (many) charms. Frankly, I'm not sure I even WANT there to be a finished product. Best $23 I've spent since... well, ever.

[jwenting]

As a programer, I HATE to read this. Quantity has nothing to do with quality. Actually, it's often the other way around.

Would you prefer them to add a blank 1GB file in the update to make it feel more important to you ?

And yes, as it has been said before, people deserve a break once in a while and 580 parts for a ship is over-engineering.

it's however common, sadly. Once worked for a software company using amount of code added per month as the main performance metric for their dev teams.

One cycle we did a major cleanup of the code, removing several hundred thousand lines of dead code and optimising more. In all the code base shrank by 20.000 lines that cycle, and we as a team were penalised for that, under the assumption we'd hit negative productivity (yes, not joking).

[JiWint]

Munbux XI has over 1000 parts

[Gnipu]

All of this is basically answered with one word: Alpha

This game can not be compared to any other game because it's still in alpha development. This means it haven't even reached beta stage yet, which is what you usually try out a game in - BEFORE it's released.

Alpha is what you payed for. If you expect the game to be consistent, optimized etc. - then wait until it's released.

[Sirrobert]

1. Exactly, the team is limited. They can only do so much in so much time. They are humans you know, not robots? Besides, it's not about the size of the data, it's about what it adds.

2. Nope. You did NOT buy a finished product. You bought an ALPHA RELEASE + any future updates. When squad finishes the game, than you will have a finished game. But if they tookthe money and stop working on KSP right now, than the current version is the game you have. They have 0 obligation to you to finish this game. The only reason they are working on it, is cause they want to.

3. Sometimes the smallest changes take the most time. There is no cheat sheet that says 10mb of code takes 1 week to make.

4. This is an ALPHA release. So it's not been optimized yet. That comes later, when all the features have been added. Otherwise they just have to keep optimizing. And 580 parts? That's freaking HUGE. Unless you have a supercomputer, that is going to lagg. No question about it

[Starwhip]

Look, all of those people who say that the developers are "slow" or "lazy" should boot up their computer, open up their desired programming language, and program their OWN Kerbal Space Program. Then they'll see how complicated a game like this is. Atmospheric simulations, real-time physics, I mean, it's friggin' rocket science, in its own way.

[-RanZ-]

Your number 2 point is kind of insulting... who are you to say when they deserve a break? I am guessing you know nothing at all about software development. I don't mean to be disrespectful but your rant makes you sound like you think you are entitled to something because you spent $20 for access to a game in alpha state... Sorry to burst your bubble but Squad owes you nothing.

[Whackjob]

Right now I think that a near 600 part ship would cause any computer problems.

4,300 parts. Ran slow, don't get me wrong, but that hard limit doesn't exist. Just runs slow.

Also, remember. Squad isn't a computer game company. It's an employee exercise for a company that has nothing to do with games. It's a side thing they didn't expect to be so successful. Remember, they have their actual jobs to do as well as plugging away at KSP. So in that respect, comparing their progress to an actual game company is silly. It's like saying, "I have no idea why your child does this poorly with Lincoln logs. My architectural firm would have had that cabin designed in like ten minutes, tops."

Edited November 5, 2013 by Whackjob

[Blackstar]

1. Yes the Squad team is limited. So I'm not expecting HUUGE patches every month. But look at the last patch, I believe it was around 70 MB in data, which took around 3-4 months. Yes it was an awsome leap and added much more to the game, but other companies add 1-3 GB of data in the same time with the same size team. Look at overkill and payday 2.

Soooooo... your point is that Overkill produces extremely bloated and inefficient software?

[PDCWolf]

1. Yes the Squad team is limited. So I'm not expecting HUUGE patches every month. But look at the last patch, I believe it was around 70 MB in data, which took around 3-4 months. Yes it was an awsome leap and added much more to the game, but other companies add 1-3 GB of data in the same time with the same size team. Look at overkill and payday 2.

Agree, their dev cycle is totally wrong for an alpha game. Look at starforge, starbound, and even space engineers. Hell, just look at freaking spaceengine, he's a single guy and updates take him the same time as squad, and he puts loads and loads of content.

2. I dont feel the devs, although they do a great job, deserve a break as many have said in the forums after every big patch. They are living on the money that we have payed as kind of a stock in them making the finished product they promised to deliver. I don't know about you guys but no boss in any job i have ever had has said, "you did that last job great, take the next week off with pay!"

Vacations are ok? yes. Vacations are well deserved because of the work? Not really.

3. I feel too much has gone into honestly what i see as stupid junk. I read for weeks in the weekly about how the astronouat complex was getting redone. All it ended up being was a nice pic in the background that gets blurred out cause of astronaut selection. So why even bother. How about putting purpose to the stats of the pilots rather than a background picture that noone will notice anyways.

This is mostly true. All updates up until now have been pretty much all hype and no content.

4. BIG ONE. OLDER SYSTEMS. -snip-

The problem is the part count, and it's a derivated problem. It comes from the fact that you need struts for everything because squad can't freaking make the joints stronger (A modder could, hey!).

Modders are basically saving the game. That's why I halted my progress with my part packs and stuff, I don't want to help a company that doesn't deliver stay afloat, even if it's just by halting the development of my non-crucial, small and badly done parts. I know of some -big- modders that think the same way, too bad they love the game and their work so much.

[pxi]

That's the thing, believe it or not, a good portion of software development, actually doesn't involve much typing. Instead, there is a lot of head-scratching, and research in terms of 'what do I want to do, what needs to happen to make that happen, and how exactly do I shoehorn that into a form that makes sense to the compiler, and ideally is elegantly efficient as well.'

Believe it or not, your IDE will not pop up Clippit to just hand you this information; 'It looks like you're writing a rocket sim...' style.

I've been down that road myself to some extent. For example, I spent weeks googling to discover unit vectors which I was able to implement in four lines.

[DChurchill]

Flame on. These kind of posts make me angry. These, and the "optimization" posts. What is it exactly that you expected from a game that was advertised as an alpha under development that you spent all of 20 bucks on?

I'm not a professional programmer, but I've written a ton of VB code, and I've spent weeks on pieces of code that visually amount to one textbox and a button. My head would probably explode if someone had the nerve to say to me: "That's it?"

And minimum requirements is just that. Squad can know absolutely nothing of what else may be eating up that's 4 gig of ram you have, or if you've got some malware, or a virus. Or even if you ram is 100% tested and compatible with the motherboard you have. There are lots of people here that have no difficulty running craft that big. Ask Whackjob what his system specs are and how big his craft are.

[csanders]

I'm sure squad could switch to rendering planets with uncompressed bmps, instead of using procedural generation. That should boost downloads from a few megabytes to a few terrabytes, and enter them into the "most productive software team ever" hall of fame.