Kerbal Space Program TWO, DOS, DEUX, ZWEI....

[Hellraiser]

The devs (they're called Intercept Games now after the whole Take Two employee poaching shenanigans) released a video that is a bunch of highlights from in-development stuff they show off internally on Fridays.

The game (or in-engine) footage starts at around 25 seconds in:



Mostly animation show off plus the new incarnations of celestial objects from KSP 1, some shader/lighting effect show off, and some previously shown but maybe not in-game new planets.

Saturn-like rocky rings are shown and while the planet was shown in CGI trailer and named as Ovin, I think, this is the first time it was shown running ingame (even if in a test scene). Some of the bodies we already seen and some not shown previously in their KSP 2 versions, such as I think Vall and Bop, Gilly or Pol, now with a nice impact crater on it adding character to the captured lump of space rock.

Definitely Laythe also in there but it seems very much a WIP, considering how much more polished all the other bodies look like. Expected better for Laythe after all the others.

Also got a brief scene from one of the tutorial animations showing how those look in motion.

There's also some new dome type in there on one of the colonies and blinking lights on a station.

 

[Prime Junta]

Massive podcast just dropped, with a ton of detail about KSP2.

http://forum.purdueseds.space/pspodcast/

Listening to it RN, with a lot to go, but I like what they're saying so far. They're clearly hardcore KSP fans and seem to be striking a good balance between playability/fun and realism.
- 3-body physics are in for Rask and Rusk, but not elsewhere; reason being that full N-body would complicate gameplay too much (I agree)
- Campaign gameplay is about building interplanetary and the interstellar infrastructure
- Automated supply routes are in, in connection with the above
- Interstellar transfers based on brachistochrone trajectories
- Top-tier, endgame"torchships" can accelerate at 1G for very long periods of time
- Moddability is a major focus, one example they're discussing is Reality Overhaul; they want to make it possible to do that more easily than in KSP1; also nods to a few prominent modders
- Performance is a major focus
- Solar sails, laser-driven interstellar craft, other spacecraft that are "not rockets" not in at release, but they'd like to do it as DLC
- Heat management is a big deal in mid/late game, lots of radiator options
- Simulations within the simulation to help design craft and missions, other ways to help design craft

 

[Hellraiser]

I saw the forum post yesterday about the podcast, but wanted to first listen to the whole thing first before posting.

Mostly it is things they already mentioned, the automated supply routes (fly once to "prove" the route/craft to set it up) was already mentioned in PC gamer I think.

The only really new thing mentioned is that colonies will have "development phases", by which they meant that early on you will ship inflatable habitats or components from elsewhere via rocket, where as later on the colony will have industrial capacity and will need raw materials to build more advanced facilities.

They mentioned the colonies being simulated in the background, although I wouldn't expect anything more complex here than basic resource consumption for food, power, water. The answer given to the question on life support mechanics etc. they gave is that there will be more of it compared to the first game, but I think just looking at the farming dome parts already visible in some images one could have guessed as much.

There's some mention that the placement of the new stars/solar systems is connected to tech progression, so my guess is that reaching the far off ones with a crew might need something like cryogenics or whatever.

BTW there was some dev blog post on animations and kerbal models which was not so interesting, except that it mentioned a video coming soon so I guess we'll see some actual new details in the near future.

I am mostly interested in the depth of the resources system and ISRU and also in how the science system changed. They mentioned there will be more science, but without providing any details. Same also goes to the power generation for colonies, which was mentioned as something that supposedly is going to be more detailed or complex than one would think, but without any examples.

Also has a mention of Nertea who made my currently favorite KSP near future mods.

 

[Hellraiser]

BTW new screenshots, apparently this was a test scene (explains the very flat ground) set up by one of the 3d artists to see how the colony parts look together in different light and what not.

The two pillar-like installations just behind the kerbals are for obtaining xenon, out of the atmosphere I guess. Look at the second to last screenshot, there's a kerbal on top of one for scale, the thing is huge.

 

[Twiglard]

- Moddability is a major focus, one example they're discussing is Reality Overhaul; they want to make it possible to do that more easily than in KSP1; also nods to a few prominent modders

- Performance is a major focus

This is BIG since Realism Overhaul has limitations in KSP. Scaling up the world adds imprecision with physics glitches (similar to Z-fighting but physical) and broken poles. KSP with RO leaks memory fast and after a few transitions between scenes (editor, main complex, flight, quickloads) I have to restart it (starts with 8-10 GB of RAM, ends with 23-ish). Restarting RO takes 3-4 minutes even when the data is fully cached into RAM. It's the worst problem with the game for me.

Then another performance issue is using multiple engines. Having 6-12 engines on RO craft makes the ingame time run 2-5 times slower. The RO plumes are all broken at low altitudes with multiple engines and I need to "disable collision" in SmokeScreen, which further tanks the framerate. I used to run an NK-33 booster on the later parts of the campaign.

Adding native n-body support means there won't be a need for Principia which has a bad UI (rendezvous, plan length, corrections) and a few critical bugs -- most notably tke scene transitions take longer later the ingame date.

RO is great given the campaign missions (stock barely has any and random missions are a grind), and actual complexity which stock KSP lacks. In fact I stopped playing KSP due to above aforementioned issues.

I didn't expect KSP 2 to address the actual RO issues. I'm hyped even despite the dev/publisher drama.

 

[Hellraiser]

Delayed to 2022

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.co...erbal-space-program-2-to-be-released-in-2022/

EDIT: The lead designer dumped some stuff to sweeten the news.

Kerbals are now visible through cockpit glass:



Also procedural terrain looks nice:

 

[Twiglard]

In some KSP 1 news, Principia now has a rebase feature so that the user doesn't have to recreate the plan after executing a burn. The bug that lead to wobbliness when entering the atmosphere looks fixed. The "feature" that leads to longer scene transitions as time goes on, remains unfixed. I'm waiting on that last one. Time will tell whether new regressions are worse than the old bugs.

Principia devs can't get any solid, stable version done without constantly jerking off with new math mumbo-jumbo. And I'd even settle for simple point-mass n-body stuff if it was more stable.

RP-1 still only supports 1.8.1 but it's the largest fix in years. The stutter is greatly reduced.

I'm going to do an RP-1 science mode playthrough with KCT disabled sometime after the fix. Honestly I'm bored of the underdeveloped, yet annoying management system.

 

[Hellraiser]

They finally hired a community manager for KSP2/Intercept Games, so since the end of January there's finally a weekly update on the new stuff. So far the updates are 50/50, got a boring video about Kerbals that tells you nothing, and some devblog from a producer or whatever that also told us nothing new, on the other hand they started showing off and explaining colony facilities in videos with some of the new and original music for KSP 2 (the music is majestic). Lead dev answers a bunch of stuff in the relevant threads.

The scenes in the videos are test scenes though and not actual ingame terrain.



New power generation modules for colonies! Your nuclear power options will progress from compact fission reactors to giant fusion tokamaks to next-generation Z-pinch fusion reactors. Yes, the radiator on the fission reactor opens and closes like an umbrella. Credit to Jonathan Cooper and Matt Reynolds for the fusion reactors, and special thanks to our friends Bob Palmer (RoverDude) and Alexander Martin at Squad for building the fission reactor.

More to come, but yes, ionizing radiation does have effects.

Colony fuel factories! From smallest to largest: Methalox Fuel Factory, Monopropellant Fuel Factory, Xenon Fuel Factory, Helium-3 Fuel Factory, and Metallic Hydrogen Fuel Factory. How does it work? LASERS, of course!

As others have said, there's an "easier" path and a "harder" path for building large colony modules. There's nothing (other than physics) stopping you from attempting to bootstrap a colony straight through Phase 1 and deep into Phase 2 by putting a ton of colonists, raw materials, and Phase 1 colony parts on an enormous lander. That's an area where I'm really looking forward to peoples' individual solutions to the interstellar colonization challenge. You'll be able to make some very ambitious colonizer ships that can essentially contain cities-in-a-box. But since you won't necessarily know what unique environmental challenges those colonists will face, you can either go full yolo and hope your design is flexible enough to work with whatever you stumble across, or you can send interstellar probes first to get a sense of what you'll be dealing with.

 

[Hellraiser]

Huh, I thought I posted some of the other show and tell vids dropped across the past few months but it seems I dindu post nuthin since february and a new one dropped today. Anyway Squad stopped/will stop updating the first game (final update to drop soon) to support the second one more and here are some of the things either squad or intercept did for the KSP 2:



Multiple colony power plants (wind, geothermal in addition to the nucular ones shown in the past) and road/runway sections for that space lego massive Some people are asking if wind turbines mean we get wind and actual weather, I fucking hope so considering clouds are in the game (their april fools joke was about new cloud parts and a cloud assembly building, then they showed the actual clouds a few days later):



Supposedly Jool's clouds look way more impressive, but that hasn't been shown yet (maybe during E3). Still hoping for proper weather and weather hazards. Eve, Laythe and Jool should have thunderstorms and massive cyclones.

Some new terrain in action:





And here's the most interesting part from the last video with actual gameplay footage, that otherwise mostly talks about UX stuff including tutorials:



Procedural wings, various improvements to the VAB editor, most notably proper parallel construction/design and nice ortographic/blueprint editing mode so that shit can get aligned correctly in the VAB with way less camera fiddling.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I love everything they're saying and I trust them not at all.

The game will suck, and I'll still buy it, and then KSP one can be ruined for me as well because I want the improvements from KSP 2.

Hopefully I'm wrong though.

 

[Burning Bridges]

There was a short moment when they had released the first version of the Moon (with the realistic look) when I liked the direction KSP was taking, but they did not build on the good ideas they had at the start and never improved the game.

The planets they show in the video are shit and don't look like anything in space, and only a complete retard would play this for the Kerbal memes.

 

[Hellraiser]

New dev vid, between devs talking (and the lead dev showing he is undergoing Kicinskification ) there are some shots of possible interstellar ship designs, but there isn't a whole lot in it.



The most interesting new things are:

Mentioning time warp and brachistochrone trajectory simulation as well as flip and burn planning for those long interstellar journeys. The time warp under thrust was mentioned in the past, but not the flip and burn (although the question is if this is just a KAC style alarm clock stop or automatic).

And some interesting bits about SCIENCE! consultants appear. For solving the constant thrust and time warp problem, putting it on rails, not having your PC melt and visualizing it ingame, they got to some Dr. Michael Dodd to help and the guy is actually described as part of their dev team in the position of a physics engineer apparently. I found him on linkedin and it seem he's indeed hired full time by them and before this his background is indeed in building physics simulation systems for academic/industrial purposes rather than games, he also has experience with using supercomputers for that. Seems he was doing gas and fluid dynamics, that sort of thing. I am eager to see what kind of approximation they come up with to make it not choke your CPU or GPU. Apparently he also made the collision system used in the game.

For general subject of "realistic" interstellar spaceflight they got the author of Centauri Dreams to help. Of course consultants are just consultants, but I figure at least some of his input actually makes it to the game, assuming it doesn't end up being vaporware.

The game is supposed to be released within the next 12 months after much delay, but no signs point to it releasing soon so far. Indeed they haven't even had a proper PAX appearance or something in a long time (although the c00f was also to blame for that). If they get delayed again this year with no proper precise release date announcement or media release ramp-up, I'm calling this definite vaporware.

 

[Hellraiser]

Delayed to early 2023*:

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/208209-release-date-update-from-the-ksp2-team/

*unless you take the fabulously optimistic take on this that technically that's still in Take 2's fiscal year 2022 which ends at end of March 2023 so there's no delay.

 

[Joggerino]

Release into early access alpha most probably.

 

[Hellraiser]

Release into early access alpha most probably.

I think they stated as much in the past way back when it was first announced, anyway PC first release mentioned now as well also implies it.

I guess UNITY is being a major bitch as usual, and they're trying to polish that turd with more optimization.

 

[Riel]

Release into early access alpha most probably.

I think they stated as much in the past way back when it was first announced, anyway PC first release mentioned now as well also implies it.

I guess UNITY is being a major bitch as usual, and they're trying to polish that turd with more optimization.

The promotional videos from the early days had plenty of feature bloat... They probably found the combination of so many features daunting to code.

 

[anvi]

It sounds impressive and lots of improvements. Not really what I was hoping to hear though.

 

[Hellraiser]

Apparently Space Frogs Rocket Lego 2 ain't vaporware, early access release on the 24th of February next year. No science, interstellar travel or colonies at first, just sandbox with new parts/features etc. in the Kerbol system. Although granted the planets do look way better and different with the new procedural terrain system giving more local level/small scale detail.

Here's a video with some more new footage of the game and also featuring one of my favorite modders who is now a dev - Nertea, the near future and far future tech mod packs guy.

The promotional videos from the early days had plenty of feature bloat... They probably found the combination of so many features daunting to code.

Considering the roadmap for early access they just released, this is no doubt the case.

tl;dr

They'll release what will be directly comparable with the KSP1 sandbox mode experience, so the improvements to the core of the game should be quite obvious.

Although I have to say this roadmap does make a lot of sense from a testing point of view. Let players break the fundamentals first, especially the stuff they'll sperg into existence with the new parts and remade solar system, refine/update the other systems in the meantime before they get released to EA, based on what gets fixed in EA builds. SCIENCE! in particular is something they could overhaul quickly once players start to get creative and rebalancing/fixing happens.

My gripe is that the colony building and resource/ISRU system will not come together. I guess we'll still need to land modules to expand the base, but besides the pretty space outposts and offworld VABs, what will the point? Besides testing the colony construction system I mean.

Also the steam page more blatantly cockteases something after multiplayer. 4th star system I guess? I doubt they have some big super secret feature hidden, they've already announced all the huge stuff people would want in a sequel.

 

[Joggerino]

Finally, it's been long enough.

 

[anvi]

Fucking trash. A generation of retard devs that can't release games anymore. Just releasing barebones shit piecemeal and reaping in the money from the pleb public.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

So you're telling me even with Take2 and Epic involved they still have to resort to Early Access?!
sigh

 

[Hellraiser]

So you're telling me even with Take2 and Epic involved they still have to resort to Early Access?!
sigh

Epic was involved how? As for Take2 and 2-3 years of delays, that is a valid point. Game was supposed to be in EA in 2020 or 2021 IIRC.

Also 50 bucks pricepoint is too much for EA.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Epic was involved how?

They're getting the cut from Epic's store front. That's what I was referring to. As in implying money isn't the issue here because they would be swimming in that 12% vs 30%. Take2 being this jumpy at a 2-3 year delay I mean you're one of the biggest publishers in the business and you're that paranoid about losing money on this?
Something is really wrong here. This game obviously needs more time in development its not ready.

 

[Hellraiser]

Epic was involved how?

They're getting the cut from Epic's store front. That's what I was referring to. As in implying money isn't the issue here because they would be swimming in that 12% vs 30%. Take2 being this jumpy at a 2-3 year delay I mean you're one of the biggest publishers in the business and you're that paranoid about losing money on this?
Something is really wrong here. This game obviously needs more time in development its not ready.

That much is or was obvious for quite some time, I mean they didn't attend a trade show or expo in a billion years and had so many delays, the development issues and dev switch did leak into the world, there's no proper gameplay trailer just some pre-alpha clips, which is also why it was looking more and more like vaporware. Not sure what return T2 expects from this, but given they are a big publisher I fully expected them to pull the plug on the whole thing if things continued like they were.

Although IIRC 3 years back or when they announced it they anyway mentioned or implied an early access release (or beta release) on PC first 6-12 months before other platforms. The thing is though I am quite certain that the completion/scope they had in mind then was no doubt a lot bigger, more like a beta probably.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

Sheeet