Kerbal Space Program 2: Check your Stagin' Boogaloo - Looks like they plan to implement Nuclear Pulse Propulsion...

I kinda wanted fancy graphics.

The performance problem isn't really the graphics though, it's down to the usual Unity garbage traps as a result of the release being rushed out.
Dataminers have found there's actually quite a lot of work done on almost all of the "roadmap" features, so it looks like the plan was to release it feature-complete and this early access bullshit is publisher interference. So in duct-taping something semi-playable together they haven't had time to tune physics performance and have had to rely on resource-chugging shortcuts (you may have heard about how every single light on the runways are a 600 tri Unity default plane instead of a simple quad).

It's all fixable, so whatever. My disappointment hasn't deepend much more than where it was when I found out about the roadmap. It's a shitshow of a launch and they don't have any of the excuses KSP1 had initially, but I mainly just wanna play the game eventually so I wouldn't mind if people chilled out a bit.
 
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I'm like 99% sure that KSP2 only exists because TakeTwo bought the rights from Squad, but Squad still has existing contracts with KSP1. So TakeTwo in their scumminess contracted an entirely different studio (contracted, not hired, can't confirm this but makes sense) to make a sequel that is completely separate from Squad, so as to make as much money from their investment without any cut going to Squad.

It's just corporate scum, kicking Squad out of the picture to make as much as possible. That's why it costs so much, and that's why they released it in such an unfinished state. Add to this the EULA that is copy pasted from GTA V, that literally says any modder that makes a mod DOES NOT OWN THEIR MOD (because DOTA happened) and you get a shitty 'sequel' that is just for corporate pocket lining.
 
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Epoch said:
I'm like 99% sure that KSP2 only exists because TakeTwo bought the rights from Squad, but Squad still has existing contracts with KSP1. So TakeTwo in their scumminess contracted an entirely different studio (contracted, not hired, can't confirm this but makes sense) to make a sequel that is completely separate from Squad, so as to make as much money from their investment without any cut going to Squad.
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The whole development cycle on KSP2 seems fucked, from what I can remember. First it goes to Star Theory, with Squad sticking to updating the original. Then it gets delayed to 2021, Corona happens, Take-Two goes and makes a new studio (Intercept Games) and shifts some of the Star Theory devs, but not all, into it. Then it gets delayed to 2022, then delayed to 2023. It's no wonder the game launched in a bad way, there's probably been two or three years of T2 trying to push this thing out the door while the devs are getting shuffled around and just can't get the shit to work properly.
I imagine it'll iron out the issues in a year or so, but with so much fuckery going on, it's no wonder it had such a shit launch. Making it a $50 Early Access title was probably the last resort to keep this thing from getting delayed a fourth time.
 
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I watched Stratenblitz75 on-and-off trying to do a Jool 5 over the weekend, he streamed a bit over 30 hours so you got to see most of everything. Visually the game looks great sometimes, but the amount of technical problems I saw him have when I was paying attention was wild. From what I saw it really looks like they never tested much outside of Kerbol with how broken maneuver nodes and trajectories are. There's also weird shit like debris not being targetable.
 
Epoch said:
I'm like 99% sure that KSP2 only exists because TakeTwo bought the rights from Squad, but Squad still has existing contracts with KSP1. So TakeTwo in their scumminess contracted an entirely different studio (contracted, not hired, can't confirm this but makes sense) to make a sequel that is completely separate from Squad, so as to make as much money from their investment without any cut going to Squad.
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There was some major fuckery involved early on. Take Two gave it to star theory as said then for reasons pulled the game from and gave it to a brand new studio staffed with a lot of people from star theory.
Mr.Miyagi said:
I imagine it'll iron out the issues in a year or so, but with so much fuckery going on, it's no wonder it had such a shit launch. Making it a $50 Early Access title was probably the last resort to keep this thing from getting delayed a fourth time.
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I have zero faith theyll get it to even half of what they promised. Some bug fixes and an update or two and that will be it, nothing past 2023. For example, theyre already deleting past PR;

Developer Insights #4 – KSP2 Engineering – Kerbal Space Program

web.archive.org web.archive.org


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It truly is amazing to see the gymnastics the fanboys on the ksp forums perform to cope with how dogshit this game is. You would think KSP2 is some Triple A mmo meant to rival WoW by how those people talk about development time and complexity. There really is genuinely little to KSP, its a very simple game; theres almost no animations, next to no voice work, no complex set pieces, no complex gameplay mechanics or scripting aside from the physics simulation(which isnt all that extensive) yet even without having to deal without that they still have next to nothing to show after 4 years and the fanboys excuse it.

These scummy fucks :story:

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74164978231 said:
There really is genuinely little to KSP, its a very simple game; theres almost no animations, next to no voice work, no complex set pieces, no complex gameplay mechanics or scripting aside from the physics simulation(which isnt all that extensive) yet even without having to deal without that they still have next to nothing to show after 4 years and the fanboys excuse it.
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You're not wrong* but KSP2 is trying to do more and it requires everything to be rebuilt in an integrated way. Like the physics for example, what Unity gives you isn't deterministic which makes physics-based multiplayer completely impossible except at very small scales so you need to roll your own solutions. If it's not fundamentally a physics game or there's not a lot going on you can get away with hacky workarounds, but guys going through the files have reported that the mod support is looking robust and is integrated everywhere so that's not something they can half-ass.
Time will tell though, it might all be bullshit and I don't give enough of a fuck to look myself.

*(I'd disagree on the complex set pieces as far as the sequel goes though; I've done a bit with planet sim stuff and scaling planetary terrain with complex atmospheres, seas and volumetric clouds ain't at all trivial--not that it's at a state where you can give them full credit yet, the water is borked and they've done weird shit to keep you away from gas giant clouds)
 
What a shitshow. Can't say I'm "disappointed" because I had no expectations to begin with, but it's still sad seeing KSP will probably never receive the sort of sequel it deserves.
 
CaptainAutism69 said:
Did the devs even give a 'sorry not sorry' response like the devs of Blood Bowl 3?
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There's a pinned "We hear your complaints and issues and are currently working on a patch to be released in the coming weeks" thread on the Steam forums. Think they might have given some details on the patch on their forums or Twitter, but it's probably a serious work-in-progress. I don't think they'll do any "Addressing the community"-style bits like Cyanide did. Though, I'd say Cyanide's was more warranted, since BB3 seems like a real clusterfuck.
 
Mr.Miyagi said:
There's a pinned "We hear your complaints and issues and are currently working on a patch to be released in the coming weeks" thread on the Steam forums. Think they might have given some details on the patch on their forums or Twitter, but it's probably a serious work-in-progress. I don't think they'll do any "Addressing the community"-style bits like Cyanide did. Though, I'd say Cyanide's was more warranted, since BB3 seems like a real clusterfuck.
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Cyanide's was a big middle finger to the whole community and a lesson in how *not* to do PR.
I guess KSP2 will be finished in a decade...
 
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CaptainAutism69 said:
Cyanide's was a big middle finger to the whole community and a lesson in how *not* to do PR.
I guess KSP2 will be finished in a decade...
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Oh yeah, I just mean that Cyanide had to say something due to the problems and their community being more niche and tight-knit, while KSP2 is more passable and has a much larger fanbase willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. The actual response was shit, though. Echoes of EA's "sense of pride and accomplishment" bit.
 
My Kerbal experience began with launching my rockets up into long trajectories like an ICBM would take, and ended with me giving up because I installed the real life mod and couldn't figure out why they were constantly blowing up. I bought an introductory book on rocket science and it's pretty useless for explaining things like the order in which to do so stuff, but it's fascinating for its descriptions of how you "sail" in space.

I never really appreciated before that you don't point a rocket in a direction and you don't consciously choose to orbit things, on the contrary, you are ALWAYS in an orbit you might say, about something. If you're too slow you'll eventually fall in and if you're too fast you'll escape that orbit but then start orbiting the next biggest object (escape Earth and start orbiting the Sun, escape the Sun and start orbiting the galactic center, etc.). It is totally surprising to me that you could point a rocket in the direction of Pluto, it takes off at great speed, and then falls back into the Sun (because now it doesn't have Earth to tether itself to). In contrast to any other sort of locomotion, spaceflight basically comes down to choosing when to burn the thrusters to change direction or speed to change an orbit, like, you don't really pilot the craft, you just choose the orbits you shift between with a resource limitation on how much of that you can do.

Apparently Kerbal has space industrialization mechanics like building bases and producing fuel to set up refueling stations on more distant worlds, but it doesn't have any orbital shipyards, right? When I got the game I thought it was just going to be launching missions to land on things. Having refueling stations gives an incentive to build up a whole network of logistics.
 
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Devs have left some "we know we fucked up, we'll try our best to make it up to you"-style comments on those launch day youtube videos as well and it at least sounds sincere.

Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
Apparently Kerbal has space industrialization mechanics like building bases and producing fuel to set up refueling stations on more distant worlds, but it doesn't have any orbital shipyards, right? When I got the game I thought it was just going to be launching missions to land on things. Having refueling stations gives an incentive to build up a whole network of logistics.
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You can place some structural parts with a kerbal (they'll be marked as parts which can go in inventory) and there's mods that let you add part racks to a craft and build whole vehicles out of lightweight struts and stuff in EVA, or assemble a rover on a surface or whatever.
Refuelling is pretty late-game and kinda optional, but the signal transmission mechanic motivates this too since you'll need a relay network of satellites to receive science or control probes over longer distances. I really like that feature.

I've been dipping in and out of KSP from the beginning but I'm on my first serious attempt at conquering Career mode now and it rules. I have no idea why people always jerk off about preferring sandbox mode; science and funding adds so much in terms of meaningful planning and multi-objective missions when you save up a bunch of related contracts.
 
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Involuntary Celebrity said:
Devs have left some "we know we fucked up, we'll try our best to make it up to you"-style comments on those launch day youtube videos as well and it at least sounds sincere.


You can place some structural parts with a kerbal (they'll be marked as parts which can go in inventory) and there's mods that let you add part racks to a craft and build whole vehicles out of lightweight struts and stuff in EVA, or assemble a rover on a surface or whatever.
Refuelling is pretty late-game and kinda optional, but the signal transmission mechanic motivates this too since you'll need a relay network of satellites to receive science or control probes over longer distances. I really like that feature.

I've been dipping in and out of KSP from the beginning but I'm on my first serious attempt at conquering Career mode now and it rules. I have no idea why people always jerk off about preferring sandbox mode; science and funding adds so much in terms of meaningful planning and multi-objective missions when you save up a bunch of related contracts.
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From what I've heard it was fuckery from higher ups that made them rush the game out, not their own wishes.
 
74164978231 said:

Oh man look at that.
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Kinda sounds like the technical director might have deserved to go tbh: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.co...er-insights-18-graphics-of-early-access-ksp2/
And if the other cuts were to corporate and publishing positions, y'know, whatever (and I haven't heard anything different re:kerbals yet).

The Cock and Ball Torture update sounds promising, not just for performance reasons:
I'm pretty surprised they weren't using HDRP already, I'd assumed that was half the point of the sequel.
 
Involuntary Celebrity said:
Kinda sounds like the technical director might have deserved to go tbh: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.co...er-insights-18-graphics-of-early-access-ksp2/
And if the other cuts were to corporate and publishing positions, y'know, whatever (and I haven't heard anything different re:kerbals yet).

The Cock and Ball Torture update sounds promising, not just for performance reasons:
I'm pretty surprised they weren't using HDRP already, I'd assumed that was half the point of the sequel.
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You know, completely re-doing the terrain system is something they should have done before they shipped the existing system. This is just piss poor management and is a waste of time and money since they are essentially starting over. The fact that they are also going to move to HDRP is just more wasted time and money, since they will have to re-do all the shaders (I assume, I'm not familiar with Unity's rendering).

This is just awful, you don't wait until after you launch the game to do such massive changes to core systems, that will only cost your more money, and cause even more issues.
 
Can you do solar sails or laser propulsion in Kerbal or Kerbal 2? Maybe not real interesting since their gimmick is being extremely low acceleration but constant acceleration things (work your way up to incredible speeds for very long distances).
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
Can you do solar sails or laser propulsion in Kerbal or Kerbal 2? Maybe not real interesting since their gimmick is being extremely low acceleration but constant acceleration things (work your way up to incredible speeds for very long distances).
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photon sailor mod for both. I haven't tried it.

I dunno what the acceleration is like but I know Realism Overhaul has realistic ion thrusters (you will need another mod as well though to do the multi-IRL-day-long burns if you are an impatient andy) so hey, maybe that's a setting

Epoch said:
You know, completely re-doing the terrain system is something they should have done before they shipped the existing system.
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yeah my guess is that's why they fired the tech director bro

They did inherit the project from grifters but ya they would have been better off starting from scratch back then, clearly. I'd also thought that was kind of the whole point.

HDRP upgrades are very variable depending on the project. Sometimes it's one click, sometimes you're fixing shit for days. This game has fancy shit but it depends on their workflow and talent on staff. Fundamentally I don't think it's a massive deal (and big refactorings sometimes are just kind of a thing you sigh and do in corporate gamedev anyway) but this might be motivated by deeper stuff they want--like I read a comment from someone involved in publishing the CBT research that they got help from a Unity staff member to do some low-level engine optimisation shit at one point--so I think it's likely a good move.
 
I'd really like it if Kerbal had actual terrain on Earth, since a million hours of early game are going to be spent looking at it as you blow up repeatedly, but I can see why it wouldn't, because even at a reduced scale Kerbin is too large, probably, to have anything like that at all. But I've still thought, maybe it could have a few things (in RSS mod) like some shitty 3D polygon that's meant to outline a city, some wonders, and copy-paste endless forest, tiny bit of topology.

Basically I want to ooh and ah at things like the Sahara, Himalayas, big ass hurricane clouds, and the night lights of the world as I soar over them.
 
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