Kerbal Space Program 2 is the sequel to the acclaimed space flight simulation game Kerbal Space Program from Star Theory and Private Division.
With the original Kerbal Space Program having become one of the most beloved games of all time and now bigger than ever, Kerbal Space Program 2 has been fully redesigned from the ground up to meet the demands of modern and next-generation space exploration, all while maintaining the monumental foundations of the first game. Build a space program, construct powerful spacecraft, design resource-gathering colonies, and much more to uncover the secrets of the galaxy. A plethora of exciting new features will captivate veteran and returning players, as well as usher in a whole new wave of Kerbonauts to the ingenious and comedic world that has entertained millions of players.
Key Features:
●Improved Onboarding: Kerbal Space Program 2 will create a whole new generation of space flight experts who will find themselves accidentally learning rocket science. New animated tutorials, improved UI, and fully revamped assembly and flight instructions allow novel players to quickly put their creativity to the test without sacrificing any of the challenge from the original game.
●Next Generation Technology: In Kerbal Space Program 2, the astoundingly inventive creations that KSP is known for will be taken to a whole new level. Players will be delighted and challenged by next-generation engines, parts, fuel, and much more. This new tech will not just create novel puzzles for players to solve, but will also enable new feats of space exploration within and beyond the original Kerbolar System.
●Colonies: Brand new to Kerbal Space Program 2 are colonies.. These colonies not only pose their own physics challenges, but also require resource gathering to build structures, space stations, habitations, and unique fuel types. Eventually, these colonies become advanced enough for vehicle construction, propelling deep space and beyond.
●Interstellar Travel: Next-gen tech, colonies, and systematic resource gathering all lead to a whole new level of exploration: interstellar travel. In Kerbal Space Program 2, these interstellar technologies pave the way to a host of new celestial bodies, each comprising new challenges and harboring new secret treasures. Among them: Charr, a heat-blasted world of iron; Ovin, a ringed super-Earth with relentless gravity; Rask and Rusk, a binary pair locked in a dance of death; and many more to reward exploration.
●Multiplayer/Modding: The technological developments made to the foundations of Kerbal Space Program 2 will build on the beloved modding capabilities of the original game, as well as deliver on the long-requested addition of multiplayer. Soon players will be able to share the challenges of deep space exploration. More details on these features will be revealed at a later time.
Eh. It became way too popular, and because of that I am not confident that some new dev team will not try to make it "streamlined" and "accessible", trying to please everyone which as we know is impossible.
Hopefully they have also looked at the existing mods and included some of those features out of the box. And no more kraken
Focus on bases and colonies sounds good
One Friday evening last December, employees of game designer Star Theory Games each received the same unusual recruitment message over LinkedIn. It struck them as bizarre for two reasons. One, it came from an executive producer at the publishing company funding their next video game. Two, it said the game—in the works for the previous two years—was being pulled from their studio.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision for us to make, but it became necessary when we felt business circumstances might compromise the development, execution and integrity of the game,” Michael Cook, the executive at Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., wrote in the message, which was reviewed by Bloomberg. “To that end, we encourage you to apply for a position with us.”
It was strange and disconcerting news to Star Theory’s employees. Normally, an announcement like this would be delivered in a companywide meeting or an email from Star Theory’s leadership team. The contract with Take-Two was the studio’s only source of revenue at the time. Without it, the independent studio was in serious trouble.
The LinkedIn message went on to say Take-Two was setting up a new studio to keep working on the same game Star Theory had been developing, a sequel to the cult classic Kerbal Space Program. Take-Two was looking to hire all of Star Theory’s development staff to make that happen. “We are offering a compensation package that includes a cash sign-on bonus, an excellent salary, bonus eligibility and other benefits,” Cook wrote.
When employees returned to the office on Monday, Star Theory founders Bob Berry and Jonathan Mavor convened an all-hands meeting. The two men had been in discussions about selling their company to Take-Two but were dissatisfied with the terms, they explained. The game’s cancellation was a shock, but the founders assured staff that Star Theory still had money in the bank and could try to sign other deals, according to five people who attended the meeting and asked not to be identified, citing the risk of litigation. Berry and Mavor encouraged employees to stick together and stay at the company.
The next few weeks were chaos, employees said. Take-Two hired more than a third of Star Theory’s staff, including the studio head and creative director. By March, as the coronavirus pandemic choked the global economy, any hope of saving the business appeared to be lost, and Star Theory closed its doors.
Even by the cutthroat standards of the video game business, Take-Two’s tactics were extreme. The company behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise is one of America’s largest publishers, with a market value of $15 billion. The stock is up 10% this year and trading near an all-time high, thanks to increased demand from people stuck at home. Take-Two cultivated a leading position in publishing through a mix of big-budget games developed in-house and by a tightknit group of studio partners. Publishers like Take-Two control a project’s financing, marketing and distribution, giving them a great deal of leverage over most developers they sign.
The swift demise of Star Theory and the events of its three final months, which have not been previously reported, highlight the frailty of those business relationships and the power dynamics within the industry.
Brian Roundy, a spokesman for Private Division, said the company contacted “every member of the development team” at Star Theory with an invitation to join the new studio, called Intercept Games. “More than half of the team is now at Intercept Games,” Roundy wrote. “In doing so, we are empowering our deeply passionate and talented team to focus on quality, and we are thrilled with the progress that they are making on the game.” Star Theory’s Berry and Mavor didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Patrick Meade, a senior engineer at Star Theory, said he turned down the job offer from Take-Two. He declined to discuss the events in detail but said he didn’t want to work for a big company where he wouldn’t have the same degree of influence or financial benefits if the game were a hit. “I was at a small studio, where the work I did had a massive impact on our success,” Meade said. “When I see myself at any large corporation, that is fundamentally not true.”
Berry and Mavor started their game studio in 2008 in Bellevue, Washington. They called it Uber Entertainment, later changing the name to Star Theory following the rise of a certain ride-hailing company. Early hits included Monday Night Combat, a cartoonish shooter that sold more than 300,000 copies, and Planetary Annihilation, a strategy game that raised more than $2 million on Kickstarter.
In 2017, Star Theory began working with Take-Two on its most high-profile project. Take-Two had purchased the rights to a popular flight simulation game developed by another independent studio and contracted Star Theory to make a sequel. The original game, Kerbal Space Program, allowed players to construct and launch rockets using realistic physics. It sold more than 2 million copies, was critically acclaimed and even led to partnerships with NASA and the European Space Agency. Gamers, like moviegoers, tend to flock to brands they know, so working on a well-liked franchise is a chance for a studio to increase sales and gain exposure.
The view inside Star Theory was that development on Kerbal Space Program 2 was proceeding smoothly, according to the people who worked on the project. A preview of the game on display at the Penny Arcade Expo in September left fans impressed, and Take-Two’s public enthusiasm for the title was rising, said Doug Creutz, an analyst at Cowen & Co.
Late last year, Take-Two agreed to extend Star Theory’s development deadline by six months to add new content to the game. That kicked off a new round of contract negotiations. All seemed well, said the people who worked on the game, until Dec. 6, when the project was pulled and the LinkedIn messages went out. At the hastily called staff meeting a few days later, the founders said in addition to sale talks, they had been trying to clarify royalty terms, which were unclear in their contract, they told employees.
Three of Star Theory’s leaders—Jeremy Ables, the studio chief; Nate Simpson, the creative director; and Nate Robinson, the lead producer—departed for Take-Two’s new studio immediately. Other staff mulled whether to go, torn between leaving and abandoning their colleagues or staying and risking their livelihoods, they said. One employee, who asked not to be identified, said they felt a mix of confusion and fury, adding that they’d never been put in this type of position.
The attempt at hiring away the development team came with business risks, both for the project and for Take-Two if word got out, said Creutz. “They've got a game they've got high hopes for, and they have now potentially injected an enormous amount of disruption into the development process,” he said. “You could be taking a reputational risk as well, if you want other studios to work with you and it appears that you play this kind of move when things don't go the way you want.”
About a dozen of Star Theory’s 30 employees wound up leaving for Take-Two’s new studio, while the rest stuck around in an attempt to save the business, they said. By January, the remaining team had a plan in place: Each employee would spend the next two months brainstorming new ideas and building prototypes. Then they would pitch the best ones to publishers at the Game Developers Conference in mid-March in the hope of securing a new deal, the five workers said. The annual conference is always full of publishers looking to make investments in indie studios with proven track records.
Then came the pandemic. The conference was canceled, leaving Star Theory with nowhere to take its pitches. Publishers, sensing an economic downturn, tightened their spending. On March 4, Star Theory shut down. Each worker received a month’s pay and two months of health insurance, said three former employees. A few joined their former colleagues at Take-Two’s Intercept Games.
Kerbal Space Program 2 remains in development at Intercept. The game had been set to come out this year, but the company said last month it was delaying the release until the fall of 2021. “With everything going on in the world today due to the Covid-19 outbreak,” the company said, “we’re facing many unique challenges.”
Damn.
So Take2 cancelled their existing contract with the team and then recruited a large part of these again now directly as part of T2 through Intercept Games as Star Theory was shut down hmm.
Just when you think Take 2 can't top their already very high level of shitty practices any more, they still manage to amaze you with their awful greed and shady actions.
All of those who moved to Take 2 are going to regret it in the long run, you can bet.
Who would value employees with no loyalty ? - is probably what they're going to hear at some point in time from a HR person.
Yeah from what it sounds like the original deal seems to have been considered but wasn't entirely without some problems and then Take2 just cancels the existing contract and starts recruiting most of the team which ultimately about half of them accepted but it's now under Take2 and their new studio and all the accompanying terms this entails instead of that original deal.
Due to Corona it wasn't easy to pitch the project either but development on Kerbal 2 continues although with a delay and possible uncertainty depending on how things go now that Take 2 has what I assume is almost full control over things.
As usual there's little in the way of comments but there's at least a bit giving some insight into how this happened and yeah it's tough for those who got laid off especially with the world-wide situation at the moment and for those who remained and took this new agreement anything could happen both to the developers and the plans for Kerbal 2 as well and what expectations that Take 2 has for the game and it's sales expectations.
I don't know much on these things but it's not a good situation and it was handled pretty terribly which as some posters on Era pointed out isn't the first time but it sucks for those affected by this.
I can see a need for the security of having a job and stability of remaining employed but then what's these new terms and agreements and how stable is this new studio and some of the developers if the project sees further delays or doesn't live up to publisher expectations which could be anything both from Take2 and their big sellers and also what the interest is in Kerbal 2 following the first game even if this is by a separate studio after T2 bought the rights to it and started work on a sequel but it'd still have a lot of fan interest and the first game did pretty well too.
(And then metrics like review scores and all sorts of things.)
Just when you think Take 2 can't top their already very high level of shitty practices any more, they still manage to amaze you with their awful greed and shady actions.
All of those who moved to Take 2 are going to regret it in the long run, you can bet.
Who would value employees with no loyalty ? - is probably what they're going to hear at some point in time from a HR person.
u are very wrong, people who hop every 2-3y a new job in same field earn a TON more then those silly loyal buggers waiting to hope they get a tiny raise every 3-5 years
job hopping is the nr1 way to increase salary, as u get to renegociate every hop with more neg experience under ur belt
Yep, sadly pretty common practise in game development, it's such a toxic environment. Surely there are some exceptions but poaching and negating contracts is very common, often against studios that are cash-strapped so they don't have the financial means to fight it.
Edit: The carl sagan impersonation intro video was cool. But I'm a carl sagan fan Didn't expect that.
-We don't control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life.
-Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. -G. Michael Hopf
Disclaimer: Post made by me are of my own creation. A delusional mind relayed in text form.
I haven't had any bugs, well game braking ones anyway so far. Just tiny ones that I didn't even notice as a bug in some cases (assumed I was doing it wrong at first).
But I only have like 6-7 hours into it, so not a lot of extensive testing.
For barebones: I don't feel its super barebones if you compare it to sandbox mode vanilla of KSP (KSP without any mods). Until they add the other game modes (science/career) of KSP hard to say if those modes would be bare bones.
For performance: its 'eh OK' for me. 60 - 165(vsync rate) depending on where I am in the world and what I am doing with what ship. But I am also on a 7900x locked at 5.6ghz, 32 gig ram and 4080 AERO overclocked, past the factory overclock it had.
Now if I do higher scale fast time warp, it can dip. But KSP did also.
Now I do not like the GUI pixel/dot matrix panel/older gauge screen emulation it has. I guess its suppose to reflect an 'old school' type 80-90's digital readout for space agencies, like a lower res gimbal screen like an old F-16 fly by wire one. But its slightly unaesthetic to look at to me.
-We don't control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life.
-Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. -G. Michael Hopf
Disclaimer: Post made by me are of my own creation. A delusional mind relayed in text form.
If I didn't had 1100+ hours on KSP 1, I would really enjoy spending an insane amount of time experimenting with rockets and orbiting/landing and especially crashing stuff on this early access ...
But ...
I am wondering what the heck did this whole dev team do for the past 4 years on this project to just deliver something that looks new but feels like KSP 1 v0.10 from 10 years ago.
Now I terribly miss all the rest, being science/career mode/missions/base building ... not even talking about mods, devs have being completely silent about how Mods will be supported for now. So I don't even know if I will be able to adapt Chatterer for KSP 2 right now.
I am sorry but I fear it will take another 4 years until KSP 2 matches KSP 1 features and PERFORMANCES !
Because holly cow, if I can get a solid 120fps locked while inside the VAB while building my rockets, I get only around 30-60fps once on the launch pad (4K all on max) and no DLSS or fancy frame generation to the rescue here.
On the plus sides, yep the game looks nice and it has some nice and handy vanilla additions like several useful indications on the HUD, trip planner to estimate delta V needed for each celestial body (on way or round trip), nice blueprint mode, etc...
UI style wise, I am not a great fan either, it looks cute but cheap at the same time.
Mods can't come soon enough
Music and sounds are gorgeous though.
Tutorials are awesome and quite funny and welcome for new comers and even kiddies.
In the end, I can't recommend the game for now at this 50€ price tag but I think it is a good base for a refreshing new Kerbal adventure.
I just hope devs will keep up the good work and deliver updates at a good pace, it is not like they have to reinvent the whole thing after all...
EDIT : One the most important thing is in though : Kerbal spirit !
The fun, the humor (in tutorial sequences) all is here and 100% respected ^^
Serious Rig: CPU : Ryzen7 9800X3D | GC : NVIDIA RTX 5080 FE | Mobo : MSI MPG Carbon X870E | RAM : 64GB DDR5 TridentZ5 Neo 6000 | Case : Fractal Define 7 XL | Cooler : Fractal Celcius S28 Prisma | PSU : Corsair RX1000 Shift | Monitor : LG Oled C2 42" 4K/G-Sync
Mobile Rig : Asus ROG751 JT | i7-4720HQ | GTX 970m | 16GB DDR3 \ G-Sync
Just for the LUL: PS4 Pro / Nintendo Switch / Wii U
$team, Orishit, Upay, PSN : Athlonic
I feel it was worth the $50..sort of. At least for Early Access⟨™⟩ level of content.
Would NOT recommend it to someone new, or wanting to pick up kerbal for the first time for that price. Get KSP one and wait for release, or get KSP1 and pay with it until you feel you want an EA copy for KSP2.
This is one of the very few games I can, at least if only self justify, I rather get EA and in my hands, than wait for 1.0 release. As it's such an in-depth game being able to give feedback and get hands on with it during it is better.
For everyone else, do not use my logic of why I got it, to decide if you want it.
If it was a graphics expansion for KSP for that price, Id vaguely consider buying it. The visuals are FAR better all around. And the planets and moons are exponentially less boring to orbit and land on.
The new building tools are nice, different, but nice. Just so use to the old ones is the grumble from me, and not the implementation of the new ones as they are far better (coloring, moving/rotating/translating parts).
-We don't control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life.
-Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. -G. Michael Hopf
Disclaimer: Post made by me are of my own creation. A delusional mind relayed in text form.
Ah that might be it and the difference of results. I dont do much crossfeed on my rockets other than first stage low altitude dump tanks on the side as boosters (that drop 1st stage when empty to keep main exit booster full). And I dont do planes at all in KSP.
-We don't control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life.
-Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. -G. Michael Hopf
Disclaimer: Post made by me are of my own creation. A delusional mind relayed in text form.
Time for a "Mun and back" mission ... Let's see how it goes
Oh, didn't saw this :
Quote:
Launch Day Notes
Known Issues with Recommended Workarounds:
Graphics settings default to “high quality” on first playthrough. If you are having framerate issues on initial load, access Settings via the ESC menu and select alternate quality settings.
Fuel flow and Delta-V calculations are currently undergoing optimization, but on day 1 of Early Access, high numbers of engines pulling from a common fuel source may impact framerate. If you’re having trouble achieving a desired framerate on your machine, consider using a smaller number of higher-performance engines on your vehicle. This issue is very high priority for us and will be addressed in an upcoming update.
The center of lift indicator does not yet update dynamically when you adjust a wing in the editor - to see the effects of a wing modification, you must first exit the editor to update the center of lift.
In KSP2, the arrow keys now pan the camera, rather than rotating it (right mouse button still rotates the camera). If you get the camera in an undesirable state, press the Home key on your keyboard to reset it to its default position.
Known Issues Being Actively Worked On:
Some parts from the original KSP aren't available-a few parts won't carry over — for example, the increased flexibility of the new engine plate system has reduced the need for bespoke compound parts like the Twin Boar and Mammoth engines. Also, the old patchwork wing parts have been supplanted by procedural wings. Other parts (for example A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.s) are still in development and will be added in future updates. And of course Science collection, future propulsion, and colony parts will be added alongside their respective feature updates.
There are still a few issues with our serialization code, and very rarely (especially when building high-complexity vehicles) your vehicle may collapse into an unrecoverable pile of parts on the floor of the VAB. The undo key may also break your in-progress build. For now, it’s a good idea to save frequently.
Trip planner – the trip planner occasionally displays inaccurate delta-v numbers for some destinations. All delta-v numbers in the VAB use vacuum specific impulse numbers, which affects their accuracy. This will be addressed in a future update. Delta-v numbers shown in the staging stack during flight dynamically reflect the current flight state.
Re-entry heating and thermal systems are offline - you'll have a brief window here at the beginning of Early Access during which you can re-enter any atmosphere without a heat shield. We’re still buttoning down our heat transfer, ablation, and occlusion systems. Vapor cone visual effects are also still in-progress.
No collision on trees or rocks - we're optimizing collision for these objects right now, and in the interest of maintaining good framerates we're going to complete that optimization work before letting you crash into these objects. For now, they're holograms. While KSC buildings ARE collideable, they are not yet destructible.
Framerate stutters/lag - we're continuing to work down the list of performance optimizations, from highest to lowest impact. As we push processes out of the main thread and continue to improve the efficiency of our physics, resource flow, VFX, and graphics systems, framerates should improve for all players.
Some UI elements can be challenging to interact with - we're still cleaning up the systems that give priority to different classes of information in the map view, and there are times when you need to click a few extra times to get a hold of the maneuver planner. Similarly, you may have some challenges associating selected parts with their data in the Part Manager. We’re making several changes to the current UI so you can expect this experience to improve over time.
This list is not exhaustive-we are tracking and working on a number of additional issues. If you have non-bug feedback during Early Access, please submit that feedback through the form in the launcher. If you've run into a bug (or think you have) please go to Private Division Support.
Serious Rig: CPU : Ryzen7 9800X3D | GC : NVIDIA RTX 5080 FE | Mobo : MSI MPG Carbon X870E | RAM : 64GB DDR5 TridentZ5 Neo 6000 | Case : Fractal Define 7 XL | Cooler : Fractal Celcius S28 Prisma | PSU : Corsair RX1000 Shift | Monitor : LG Oled C2 42" 4K/G-Sync
Mobile Rig : Asus ROG751 JT | i7-4720HQ | GTX 970m | 16GB DDR3 \ G-Sync
Just for the LUL: PS4 Pro / Nintendo Switch / Wii U
$team, Orishit, Upay, PSN : Athlonic
Signature/Avatar nuking: none (can be changed in your profile)
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
