Do you feel KSP is ready for 1.0?

[KerBlam]

I've come to terms with it.

I purchased KSP when it went Beta, thinking 'Great, it's going to be fun watching this progress through the Beta versions on it's way to becoming complete' and fully thinking that Squad would wait until Unity 5 was released before they 'went gold'.. So for me the sudden rush was a bit disappointing, because I feel that a lot more could be improved on and polished and I really love being privy to that process. I'm a dork for stuff like that.

I think KSP is fantastic.. It's helping me live out my frustrated inner-childs dream of space travel, and teaching me stuff that I really probably don't need to know, but I'm happy to learn anyway.

So... provided that SQUAD maintain their promise that KSP will continue to be improved upon after 1.0, and that it will one day receive the 64bit love of U5. Not as soon as I would have liked but I just have to deal with it. I'm happy.

Go for Gold KSP!

And keep being awesome KSP community.

[FlowerChild]

Those of you who are quick to blame the testers, consider that bugs have been noticed and yet persist in the KSP stock game for multiple releases. Indeed, bugs have been fixed by modders and yet remain in Stock KSP. Please don't assume the testers are incapable.

I'm also confused by this one Nathan. Can you present an example of someone that is "blaming" the testers here?

Again, I'm in a situation where I'm getting the impression that this is directed at me given I've been representing the point of view that I don't think that Squad's usual testing procedure is sufficient to handle a release of this magnitude, but that's no way blaming the testers for it, more implying that they may be being handed an impossible task here.

I'm also well aware of the number of bugs modders fix

[TwistedMexi]

There's no financial motivations or limitations hampering the team.

That's good to hear, but with that considered that means there's not a whole lot of reason to release immediately. If you're uncomfortable being an early access game, I can understand that. You don't have to release another Early Access version, but with as many core changes as you guys are making, isn't it fair enough to just ask for a release candidate? Give your community a week, just a week for feedback, so some bugs can get ironed out before you "go live." Without financial burden, I can't think of a good reason for you guys to not take this simple small step. It can only help. I understand you have the experimentals, which undoubtedly help, but experimentals have never stopped (all) bugs from making it to the public before.

Let the community help. I don't think that's asking too much.

[SorryDave]

If the game has reached scope completion then it should be ready for release. I do not think SQUAD should wait for a unity release, unless it lines up with their release date.

They plan to address the bugs and balance in this next release, and with any luck will. SQUAD has made improvements to bug tracking and to the internal QA process.

I just hope QA gets more time than a couple weeks to work the game, especially if rebalance is part of the release.

[Bill Phil]

I've found that many people have confused "Scope Complete" and "Feature Complete". We JUST got to scope complete, meaning it's all there in one form or another. Feature complete is that everything in the plan is done. It just seems like the jump from Scope to Feature Complete is coming on too fast...

[basic.syntax]

We may have a different impression of the amount of work or challenge in delivering the list of features in HarvesteR's goal setting post for 1.0, than they do.

• Aero seems to me the biggest feature, occupying the first three bullet points. But it is a big change to an existing feature.
  
• Deep Space Refueling is a large feature, but according to Maxmaps squadcast comments, they aren't re-inventing the wheel, it will be based on (not a direct port) of the Karbonite mod.
  
• Economy and parts balancing will consume copious amounts of someone's favorite beverage, and could result in headaches and some hair loss, but again, this is reworking what we already have.
  

So, if the added stuff is not as huge as creating a contracts system, kerbal skills, and upgradeable/destructible buildings - that does seem to leave room over the next couple months, for time to hammer on the features and shake bugs out of them. Devnote Tuesdays will tell us the tale.

Of beta and beyond, HarvesteR wrote: (selectively quoting)

"Scope Complete means ... KSP now has all the features we considered vital to be in the game that we designed so many years ago"

"No more groundwork, no more laying down infrastructure."

"we’ll be focusing on creating content, on using the tools we’ve built"

"Beta essentially means we’ll be working a lot more on stability, usability, performance, balance, aesthetics, all the while still throwing in little and some not-so-little things we hope you will enjoy."

"...all features are judged in a big-picture perspective, and how it affects the game experience for everyone, and sometimes even what would seem like fun ideas are going to fall outside the scope of the game, or just be plain too much to take on."

[Yellowburn10]

This is a little off topic, but I have a question about the new aero. Will the new lift model calculate lift for ALL parts, not just wings? Go fast enough with anything and it will lift up from a slight tilt? I know before it only calculated lift for wings and the fuselage for mk2 parts, but I haven't seen much evidence that this has changed for 1.0.

[Brotoro]

Hmmm... I've been reviewing the thread, and I'm confused by Maxmaps' claim that

"...reentry heat is something we can hammer out in half a day with Mu's new drag model. To call it dope would be an understatement."

If Squad is going to add reentry heating, don't we also need a lot of new heat shield parts in various sizes (not to mention those cool inflatable heatshields to protect large payloads)? Also, whatever interface changes are needed so that we can monitor the temperature of the parts of our ships to see what's overheating, etc.

How are they going to knock that all out in half a day?

[Superfluous J]

Addressing some comments that KSP .90 is "like an alpha." If KSP were "alpha" quality, we would be playing (actually, not enjoying playing) with un-textured cylinders labeled "fuel tank 1" attached to "engine 1" that silently rise from a big X start position, on a flat green plane, up through the big blue sky, toward the gray sphere labeled "Try to land on this without bouncing off." (If we are lucky, because the day before, the cube-space we play in was 50% gray on all sides, and you couldn't see the gray sphere, because of it.)

Not quite. "Alpha" does not mean "No art assets at all ever" and adding a single art asset to a program does not make it go from Alpha to Beta.

Alpha is when you're adding features. Which they're doing in the upcoming release. They have yet to have a major release where they did not introduce a major feature. The closest they got was 0.23.5 and that wasn't a major release.

Beta starts when all major features you want in the finished game are present, and you're squashing any bugs that made it through Alpha (usually any that don't cause the game to be completely unplayable), and adding content and balance to the features you put in in Alpha. That's what Squad announced they would be at when they released 0.90 and one could argue that they made it. I think ISRU counts as a major feature but I'd be willing to let that slide and say okay, it was tacked on at the end and so no bigs. Same with Female Kerbals. In the vast scheme of things its an important graphical thing but it's just a graphical thing.

Released is when all major bugs are fixed. The game should VERY rarely crash and you should have no memory leaks. Everything should work the way they intend it it to. GUIs are tight. Every aspect of the game is balanced not just internally but with every other aspect of the game. Art assets are fantastic and polished. Brand new players can take the game, go into a locked room with no Internet access, and play it and have hours upon hours of fun with no outside help whatsoever - provided that player is of course interested in the game's concept and design. I truly hope that KSP will have all of these things on the very next version. If they do, I will be the happiest guy in the community, or at least in a 1000-way tie for first in happiness along with a lot of you. I strongly suspect that many of these will not be reached, and this is my concern.

One very important thing that I've personally not made clear, though... The list of upcoming features makes me giddy with excitement and I can't wait to play the game, be it version 0.27, 0.91, 1.0. It can be Alpha, Beta, or frickin' Omega and I personally don't give a care, so long as I can keep playing and enjoying it.

[Jarin]

2) Changing version numbers won't make money magically rain from the heavens.

Whether that's true or not, it doesn't change that belief being the reason behind nearly every previous premature release from early access. I want to believe that Squad will be smarter about things (I really really do; this isn't sarcasm, I'm trying very hard to trust Squad here) but I'd be willing to bet that the majority of complainers here in the thread have been burned by early-access "release" before, so brushing it off as hysteria is rather rude. We've seen it time and time again. Including the extensive promises of post-release support and development.

[razark]

How are they going to knock that all out in half a day?

Shhh.

Don't ask questions. Simply rely on blind faith that the devs will do what they say they will.

[Unabled]

The more I think about it, the more it seems like there's a lot of people that aren't ready to let go of the "early access" magic of KSP -- that somehow when it is "released" that things will change. *shrug*

I don't think this is the case at all. *sigh*

It's certainly not the case for me.

I am looking forward to the final stretch of KSP development, and to me it looks like Squad is trying to expedite the process a bit. I can imagine putting out patches in the manner they

have been is very time consuming, so they figure they would push for as much as they could to reach 1.0.

Do I agree? Well, I trust that they know what they are getting themselves into with this and they obviously think they can pull it off, so more power to them.

It does concern me however. I'm concerned that KSP will be a 'rushed' release lacking enough polish to cause people to skip it.

KSP has rekindled my love for all things Space and has broadened my perspective on everything. I follow all the latest space & science news, joined the Planetary Society, and the beauty

is I understand and appreciate all of it.

I'm not worried about KSP going 1.0, I know nothing for me will really change understand Squad will keep updating the game for a time.

I'm not worried about my own KSP experience though, I am worried about others'.

To put things into perspective, I'll share my experience with two recent games:

Endless Legend

This was an Early Access game that runs on Unity(sound familiar?), I'm not sure for how long but it caught my attention. I did not want to purchase it because I was becoming fed up with all the early access titles saturating the market, but I followed it. The beautiful aesthetic caught my eye. Endless Legend is a gorgeous game to behold, but I still didn't know what it was all about.

I forgot about it until it was later released to glowing reviews and that sold me on it. I'm glad I didn't pass this up; it runs smoothly, loads quickly, and just is an overall wonderful experience with the senses.

Rome Total War 2

Not an early access game, but I think one that was released too early. I bought this without really paying attention to the reviews just because I enjoyed the first Rome so much and Shogun 2 wasn't too bad either. That was my big regret as it was a horrible mess at launch. The poorly optimization, graphical glitches, and confusing mechanics/design drove me away. I haven't been back and could care less to try again even though I hear it's better now.

Do I think KSP will be like this? No it's already far beyond that mess and a lot of Early Access games, but it still needs a lot of Polish.

I have a nephew who loves all manner of open world sandbox games: Minecraft, Space Engineers, and others. I thought: Great!

I was led from Minecraft straight into KSP, maybe I can get him interested in KSP so he can learn some things? Get him interested in a career path maybe?

Well. That was Summer of last year and to date He hasn't broken 20 hrs in KSP; the least hours of all 6 open world building type games he has.

This confuses and concerns me.

This is also not the first and only time this has happened. I have two cousins with similiar interests as me in these types of games and even when I bought KSP

for them, offered help and Scott Manley videos, neither have accumulated many hours.

Bottom Line

My concern for KSP comes from it being not as cleaned up and beautified as is mostly expected for a release, and having potential buyers skip it because of that.

KSP is not just a game, but an experience that I truly wish everyone could have.

For all of us, KSP is great, but for those unaccustomed it seems KSP is just not quite there yet.

I hope I haven't destroyed my family's ability to enjoy KSP by introducing it too early, and I hope Squad will not destroy potential new players ability to enjoy it by doing the same.

You only have one shot at a first impression, make it the best one possible.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Unabled

[Brucey]

I voted 'no' for the same reasons cited multiple times above. Although I don't suspect Squad is having actual financial problems, I would be surprised if money were not at the root of thier decision to go full release. I guess we'll know for sure when 1.0 comes out if they decide to raise the price of the now "completed" game.

I haven't played ksp since .25 since the added features from .90 pushed my setup over the RAM limit and forced me to sacrifice some of my mods. I guess I'm waiting for some kind of announcement that they've addressed memory issues before I get into it again. So seeing an announcement like this is disappointing to me, now I question if memory optimization/64 bit support will ever happen.

[NathanKell]

I'm also confused by this one Nathan. Can you present an example of someone that is "blaming" the testers here?

Again, I'm in a situation where I'm getting the impression that this is directed at me given I've been representing the point of view that I don't think that Squad's usual testing procedure is sufficient to handle a release of this magnitude, but that's no way blaming the testers for it, more implying that they may be being handed an impossible task here.

I'm also well aware of the number of bugs modders fix

It was not in the least directed at you; in fact the one comment of yours I saw regarding testers (that 1.0 will be a heavy load) seems entirely correct. I more meant this, and various others' comments here and on the article:

The ones they have now (which I believe do the job for free) just don't seem to be cutting it.

which I thought grossly unfair, and wanted to address.

[Corw]

I know the Early Access environment has so far been... well, not great.

OK, this is one thing I do not understand (actually, more, like string theory and... never mind).

What is so wrong in "Early Access environment" and what will change by going into release? What is the "Early Access environment" anyway? Is it some technical/legal thing with Steam or something maybe? I know I might be silly, but I have to ask.

Cause if it is just the arbitrary name they want to call (alpha, beta, release, 2nd coming of Raptorjesus) it still makes no sense.

[eddiew]

One very important thing that I've personally not made clear, though... The list of upcoming features makes me giddy with excitement and I can't wait to play the game, be it version 0.27, 0.91, 1.0. It can be Alpha, Beta, or frickin' Omega and I personally don't give a care, so long as I can keep playing and enjoying it.

Lol, that's very well put actually The new features do look cool, I'm excited to get my hands on them, and I'll be really happy if the bugs are fixed... but I just wish there was an official 'we think the bugs are fixed' release before it actually goes live.

I dunno, maybe it's because so many people have followed the development of KSP for so long; we feel responsible, somehow, if it goes to full release and then gets slammed in reviews because of memory leaks, wandering orbits, and random disassemblies. There will only be one chance to get good reviews... Right now, everyone's forgiving because it's not expected to be perfect, but if Squad jump the gun, KSP could launch, flop, and vanish into obscurity with a bunch of official reviews that sum to 'lol, it's still alpha' :/

We don't want it to fail, Squad, please consider testing this next version on your loyal community first

- - - Updated - - -

What is so wrong in "Early Access environment" and what will change by going into release?

Pretty sure it just means you can't demand a refund if there are game breaking bugs that prevent progression. A released game has to at least 'work' even if it's bad quality. A pre-release game can be as flakey as you like, can crash every 30 minutes, can have a massive blocking error that stops you getting past the first scene; and buyer beware.

[Jacke]

We may have a different impression of the amount of work or challenge in delivering the list of features in HarvesteR's goal setting post for 1.0, than they do.

• Aero seems to me the biggest feature, occupying the first three bullet points. But it is a big change to an existing feature.
  

The new aero drag *and* lift model is not so much a change of an existing feature as the complete replacement of an existing feature.

That's a lot of significant work that will touch on all parts as well as the overall vehicle, rocket or plane. Squad appears to be doing it right and covering sonic effects (thus the comment on the relative simplicity of adding re-entry effects which are sonic phenomena), but it's still removing the old aero model and creating a new one. To get the true scale of that work would need comment from ferram4 or someone who's worked with him a lot on FAR, but from my knowledge of real world aero, it's going to be a big, big project.

That alone would be a significant alpha/beta release, but Squad says they're going to pack in more--and getting that stuff is good. More power to Squad if they pull it off with just the usual level of new bugs and degradation to the code that we've seen in the last few releases, but I think it's going to be a bear. Easily expect to see one or two point releases to deal with then in the month after release. Those would better to be numbered as 0.91.1 and 0.91.2 than 1.0.1 and 1.0.2.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Jacke

[FlowerChild]

It was not in the least directed at you; in fact the one comment of yours I saw regarding testers (that 1.0 will be a heavy load) seems entirely correct. I more meant this, and various others' comments here and on the article:

which I thought grossly unfair, and wanted to address.

Thanks for the clarification. I hadn't noticed that, and yes, I do agree that we shouldn't be blaming the testers for the massive workload.

What is so wrong in "Early Access environment" and what will change by going into release? What is the "Early Access environment" anyway? Is it some technical/legal thing with Steam or something maybe? I know I might be silly, but I have to ask.

Just my own interpretation here, but I get the impression it was an acknowledgement that many gamers are getting burned out on early access games in general and the many disappointments that come along with them, so I didn't take it as a comment directly related to KSP.

Edited January 26, 2015 by FlowerChild

[basic.syntax]

@ Jacke -

HarvesteR details what we can expect, in his Overhauled Aerodynamics article. He says it is a significant amount of work, but I am meaning - that the game has Aero in it to begin with, however unrealistic it may be. I believe the work would take much longer, if they were coding in Aero for the first time.

The main goal of a new drag model then, is to allow the game to properly simulate payloads being protected from the airstream by a cargo bay or fairing, and nose cones properly reducing the drag of parts stacked behind it.

We are implementing a new system already, which is a solution we had planned for quite a while already, but so far hadn't had enough time to attempt. It's a large-ish implementation, but it should give us a new drag model in which parts can be obscured by others, and in which pointy objects will be able to fly faster than flat-faced ones.

This level of realism is what we are aiming for. It's not going to be an intricately realistic flight model, but it should at least be accurate enough to portray the important effects which are currently missing from the game.

[Superfluous J]

which I thought grossly unfair, and wanted to address.

I thought you meant me. I typed that quickly and poorly, but it's hard to fully elucidate what I meant. Let me try again.

No QA process (which includes the Testers, their support structure and reporting capabilities, and the developers) should have allowed that memory leak through. One of 2 things happened:

1) The testers did not find it. Either they are not trying hard enough or there are not enough of them. I have no eye into the process but I've done enough work with computers and software (professionally) to be happy guessing that there are not enough of them. Whatever the cause, though, they did not find the problem so therefore the current QA system is not cutting it. I very poorly wrote that the TESTERS weren't cutting it and for that I am sorry.

2) The testers found it, but Squad decided it was okay to release anyway. This is worse, for a game supposedly in the phase of development where bugs are squashed to let a new bug like this go reported but unfixed.

Again, I did not mean to make the testers (especially those who do this for free. I've done that too and while it was very thanked by the devs it felt thankless from the community sometimes) seem incompetent or sloppy. I meant to point out that SOMETHING is wrong. Maybe it's been taken care of and I don't know about it (I don't expect them to say, either. I understand the need to keep SOME things secret) but "We're throwing in more stuff than ever before AND fixing all the bugs that have crept in over the years that we've previously ignored, and the game will be ready for release, we promise!" sounds...

Well it sounds improbable. :/

[Jovzin]

I voted no.

And the result is. Memory leak bug.

Sorry but it is really bad that the game memory is rising whit each swap from VAB/SPH to launch pad. For example I am trying to test one rocket. Built it in a VAB , place on launch pad and launch it. I see some errors. So I click on reverese to VAB , make som changes and launch again. Do it a few times like 4-5 times and I see that from initial 2,0GB memory usage, it raised to 2,4GB.

This is without mods. Add some mods and you can play for 1 hour only, till you got this memory limit. This really needs fixing. As for me this is a massive game breaking bug.

[magnemoe]

As I see it bundling all the features in the list and then release will be an bug heaven. I say it would be smarter to do an 0.95 who is the real beta, that is every features, only balance and bugfix before release. Then do the final version.

And yes its lots of stability issues, yes it hit us pro players who make massive ships and stations far worse than noobs.

Then is ETA for unity 5.0, it might be too far off and too much work to port too.

[Janos1986]

To me KSP still feels incomplete, so I vote no. But bugs, memory leaks and assorted krakens are not my point.

I'm playing KSP, and I'm having a blast, because I modded the hell out of it.

Leaving bugs and technical issues aside, too many mods are needed to add depth/accuracy/meaning to the game to call it "done".

Career mode is too dull IMO, the fund/management part is almost irrelevant unless you play in Hard mode, where it only gets grindier.

It needs more content, more challenge, more purpose, things that are now only provided by third party mods.

Going gold is basically saying "we're going to patch the game from now on for the occasional bugfix here and there, some marginal feature every semester/year, but the core content you'll get from us it's all here".

And I think Squad could achieve more than this.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Janos1986

[Jacke]

@ Jacke -

HarvesteR details what we can expect, in his Overhauled Aerodynamics article. He says it is a significant amount of work, but I am meaning - that the game has Aero in it to begin with, however unrealistic it may be. I believe the work would take much longer, if they were coding in Aero for the first time.

The only thing they keep from the old aero is that there's drag, lift, and and angular torques acting on the craft. The code to calculate all those values will be almost completely different from whatever was in the old aero, especially the drag and somewhat the lift. The new code has to calculate drag as not some fraction of the mass of the craft but based on the size and shape of craft. Lift has to be revised for wings and now included for other large parts as well. The torques (pitching, yawing, rolling, including that of control surfaces) will have to be revised too. Values will have to be determined for individual parts as well as handling the effect of the whole craft, shape, stuff like area rule too.

Almost nothing of what came before can be used. There will likely be revisions in the performance models of rockets and jets. Rockets and jets will fly differently. Delta-V values are going to change for bodies with atmospheres.

I suspect this project was underway before 0.90 released. It is massive. And it is equivalent to putting in a whole new major system. Expect a lot of issues with it. Learning to fly with new aero alone will be significant and that's without any problems.

[NBZ]

As another commenter stated, I also suspect this "release" is purely to boost sales.

The poll therefore needs another option: No, and I am willing to pay again for it to stay in beta.