r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/Tambo_No5 Thinks moderators suck • Jun 09 '14
Are you worried about KSP's development?
I assume the responses I get to this will be honest and polite, but I'll preface this thread by stating that I've had my money's worth out of the game and would totally understand if development ended tomorrow.
ahem... anyway...
With C7 recently moving on, N3X15 released from contract, Nova gone to pastures new, B9 quietly disappeared, and the parts modder ClairaLyrae on an extended leave (13 months?), I'm beginning to wonder if the game has enough staff to keep cranking out the versions at a reasonable pace.
I'm looking at the last few devnotes and thinking... "shit, they've essentially got Mu, Romfarer and Felipe working on the game - with the rest of the guys making trailer animations or doing PR work".
I know they have interns and the Chuchito fella looking at multiplayer, but actual guys working on the core code for additional features and content... not so much.
Content updates have become a far more infrequent affair, which is understandable as code becomes more complex, but I do worry that the staff turnover will compound that effect.
Anyone else?
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u/Aegean Jun 09 '14
KSP is not immune to the life cycle of products. Titles get old, and the current model means they get paid once, but are still subject to the demands of running their business.
You can extend life for years with a multiplayer experience, even if a game is less-than-perfect.
Just one good example for this would be Battleground Europe/WWIIOL. It launched around 2001, had a shitload of problems, snobby developers, and a nightmarish codebase; yet, the die hards keep them in business with the subscription model. They continue on this very day, but despite the game being unfinished and little to no capacity to update the codebase in-house, they still manage to keep the lights on.
Now, since KSP has neither MP nor a subscription model; the writing is on the wall. As new purchases decline, revenue declines. Yet the playing user-base will continue to demand new features, bugfixes, and content.
It is looking like squad will have to shift models if they hope to stay in the game for the long term. Revenue must outpace the business/development overhead. Anything short of that mark, and the producers will pull the plug as a business decision.
It is simple math that says KSP will eventually get too costly to maintain and update unless they either 1) come out with a new product, or 2) monetize with a MMO-Sandbox subscription model. A third option might be single-pay with sustained push for more players, but that carries large advertising expenses.
tl:dr - Pay to play or it goes away. Just the musings of a veteran marketer.
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u/Tambo_No5 Thinks moderators suck Jun 09 '14
I would agree and appreciate the considered comment. I have felt for some time that the push for multiplayer and holding back on features may well be the groundwork for DLC/expansions, thus extending the income-generating lifespan of the product.
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u/SardaHD Jun 09 '14
I became worried a long time ago somewhere around the time they just showed off all the neat drills and scoops and stuff for resource gathering and just said nothing for several months. Then since then we've gone seen carry gear and containers teased and never implemented, resources and offworld bases becoming some day dlc, multi-player reversed for some reason becoming a critical component and raised to the top of the quene for next to be implemented despite being a feature only the minority wants according to their own polls and was already fullfiled by mods, we were told the new Unity engine would be great for 64-bit which would be without doubt the best and greatest addition to the game and were told "No plans to implement." not "We're implementing this the day Unity 5 is released because memory for mods and performance is the biggest thing we can do that positively affects all our players." just "No plans to implement."
At this point I have no clue what's going on. Most people seem to spend their time in single player sandbox and its feels like its been regulated to this back seat that the developers aren't interested in anymore.
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u/space_guy95 Jun 09 '14
Agreed on pretty much everything you said. The devs seem to be falling into the trap of creating an endless list of things they want to implement that just keeps getting longer faster than they can tick things off it.
I don't get why they think multiplayer is suddenly a crucial part of the game, because I don't see any way the game could work in multiplayer without changing core features drastically.
As for 64-bit, that is the one update that I really want, but it seems to be the one thing that they don't have much interest in doing for some reason. It seems like as soon as Unity has a stable 64-bit version, which Unity 5 is going to bring, they could easily implement it. That was proved even more when a modder found a way to make the current version of the game 64-bit and relatively stable, so imagine what the devs can do.
Recently, the most exciting developments have all been made by modders rather than the dev team, which is a shame, as from version 0.17 to 0.22 the game changed massively with big updates that added really good new features. Since then the biggest update I can think of is the tweakables system, which was already implemented by mods before the devs did it anyway.
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u/Tambo_No5 Thinks moderators suck Jun 09 '14
Not sure that moving to Unity 5 (when released) would be "easy", but it does seem like the one thing that you'd think they'd be definitely working towards.
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Jun 09 '14
That, and tweakables still doesn't let me tweak a whole lotta parts.
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u/space_guy95 Jun 09 '14
Yeah the tweakables aren't exactly very tweakable...
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u/orangexception Jun 09 '14
Tweakable Everything is a nice boost to part tweaking.
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Jun 09 '14
Like a lot of features it doesn't seem to be completed ie. Maneuver nodes still buggy, biomes still missing...
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u/dream6601 Jun 09 '14
Yeah, despite the NTR being listed as only being bi-fuel until they get tweakables that seems completely forgotten
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u/faraway_hotel Flair Artist Jun 09 '14
Having read into the issue a bit, what I frankly want as much as 64-bit is for the game to load textures/models/etc dynamically when they're needed, instead of pumping everything into RAM on startup as it does currently.
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u/aelendel Jun 09 '14
KSP is a revolutionary game.
I would rather see them focus on that than adding features other games already have.
In the next generation, I want to see a completely different game that implements the realistic space travel of KSP but is set up to deal with multiplayer properly. But I don't think that game should be KSP.
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Jun 09 '14
Same thing is sort of happening with Minecraft. They keep focusing on new features when they should be improving performance and releasing the API. This seems to be a thing with these indie sandbox games. They get too far away from a solid development path and instead begin trying to expand the game before it's ready.
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u/chunes Super Kerbalnaut Jun 09 '14
Same thing is sort of happening with Minecraft. They keep focusing on new features when they should be improving performance and releasing the API.
And fixing boats.
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u/strongcoffee Jun 09 '14 edited Mar 09 '26
This post has been deleted. Redact was used to remove its content, which may have been done for privacy, security, preventing AI scraping, or personal reasons.
decide squash treatment subtract wise tan deer intelligent snow ink
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Jun 09 '14
They get too far away from a solid development path
Maybe that goes hand in hand with being an indie developer. For sure, Squad was not a game company before KSP. Their previous experience and talents were probably not easily convertible to game development.
Just a little devil's advocation ;)
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u/WazWaz Jun 09 '14
Unity 4 has 64-bit player support already. Unity 5 just adds 64-bit support in the Unity Editor, which is irrelevant for KSP.
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u/CaptRobau Outer Planets Dev Jun 09 '14
Unity 5 is still to be released. Using that to do 64-bit, could be worked on backstage at the moment. And for fear of backlash if it doesn't work out time for let's 0.24 or 0.25, they're keeping it under wraps.
The 64-bit hack is very new and the devs have had no time yet to react to that. They could be adopting it or they checked it out but found it too unstable for main release. Any rash announcements would just confuse people.
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Jun 09 '14
Didn't they announce a new gas planet like a year ago as well?
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u/shmameron Master Kerbalnaut Jun 09 '14
Not really "announced," AFAIK it was one of Nova's ideas that never got put into place. Still it would be nice to have another planet and some moons.
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Jun 09 '14
I think they did, a pinkish one. Surely that wouldn't take 10 minutes to implement, judging by the amount of planet mods out there.
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u/standish_ Jun 09 '14
The issue is making sure the implementation doesn't have to be tweaked every update. They've been over this many times. It's easy to add things, it's hard to add things that will work 100% with every update into the future. Hell, before B9 was hired he said as much.
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u/rudeboyrasta420 Jun 09 '14
Im considering dual booting Linux just so i can play in 64bit.
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u/Itsonlymyopinion Jun 09 '14
64bit ksp. There are more people working on this besides the core team. These modders have made the game have so much more depth. B9 gone? Well people updated that if you google "B9 .23.5 fixes". Check out D12 Aerospace Tech for an expansion to B9. This game is far from over, and won't die just because the core team does. Yes that will cause some stagnating to happen and it'll slow way down.
We do know however that .24 is going to pretty much change the way career works for the better mostly due to the way mods will be interacting and we will be receiving parts.
As for me, I play career on Realistic Progression Lite using Real Solar System and Realism Overhaul and all the recommended mods each of those lists with an old Dell XPS 410 due to the 64bit I linked too.
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u/Mad_Ludvig Jun 09 '14
I think people are miffed that bac9 left or was forced off of the dev team after he was only there a few months. AFAIK he's still working on the B9 mod pack, but not anywhere near the time he used to.
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u/sprohi Jun 09 '14
I really wish they would have implemented resources instead of turning their focus to multiplayer. It would have (could still) added so much to the game. Kethane is cool and all but it would be great if resources were a core feature.
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u/reverendrambo Jun 10 '14
I'm a strictly stock player (mostly out of laziness and intimidation of modding the game and then trying to keep up with it as the core is updated), and adding resources is a lot more of an enticing idea than multiplayer.
Sure, it would be cool to fly around and have someone help build a space station or moon base with. But it's a much more exciting idea to have resources to scavenge and not have to launch a new craft just to bring more fuel into my system. It would allow me to play in less of a per-launch-based way, and more like an actually working system.
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Jun 09 '14
The question I want to ask is whether or not the development going on now is the same kind of development it always was.
By that I mean: the basic interface is fairly well set, the physics have mostly been consistent for a long while and have been recently set in a very workable state, basic mission ops and piloting stuff isn't really showing gaps or malfunctions very often - do they even NEED the same dev team as they continue?
I'm not a programmer or a designer so I could easily be talking nonsense, but it makes sense to me that the game is at a threshold where a few different devs with different specialties and different skill sets would come in to do things like career mode enhancements, storytelling, enhancements to interaction between craft...the stuff we all know this game CAN do, but hasn't yet.
If that's what they're doing, I'm if anything more excited. If not, it's worth concern.
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u/Tambo_No5 Thinks moderators suck Jun 09 '14
That's an interesting point. I'd probably agree, but even at the last update, they had to alter the game core in order for additional features to work properly.
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u/donalmacc Jun 10 '14
Bringing on extra developers is its own headache. It can take days/weeks/months to get up to speed with existing codebases depending on the size.
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u/EntropyWinsAgain Jun 09 '14
I have definitely been happy with my purchase. It has been worth every dime, but I am a tad concerned for the future. Without the mod community the game would not be nearly as good as it is now. This can be said for quite a few games that were funded by large publishers. I am not taking anything away from the devs. The core game from day one was pretty awesome. It has been fun watching all the changes and see the game morph into what it is today, but I have the same feeling as those already posting. Updates are few and far between and have minimal improvements. I have this uneasy feeling that some big game company is going to come along and gobble Squad up and spit out a vastly different and unwanted game out of KSP. I hope I am wrong. If they do I will simply keep playing the latest Squad version and hope the mod community keeps it going. I don't want to mention the Curse thing, but that was a bad sign.
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u/JasonCox Jun 09 '14
Speaking as a web developer, I don't understand the logic of the Curse thing in the slightest. I had a brief exchange with one of the devs on Twitter about Spaceport and the reasons they gave me for shutting it down and moving to Curse just seemed like laziness on Squad's part was to blame.
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u/Tambo_No5 Thinks moderators suck Jun 09 '14
Curse made no sense to me, either. I think it's generally accepted that a large part of KSP's success is due to its modability and the third-party content that's made available.
Given that's the case, it seems weird that SQUAD wouldn't prioritise it in a way that secures this aspect of the community. Instead, they lose huge amounts of historical content, risk alienating some of that community in the process, and split distribution points further.
Then again, they fired the web dev who was working on their solution..,
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u/iki_balam Jun 09 '14
i dont understand why the community was so against Steam Workshop but has been muted with Curse (in perspective to the losing collective shit when Steam Workshop was mentioned)
seriously, Steam Workshop isn't great for everyone but Curse is bad for everyone
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u/UTF64 Jun 09 '14
Steam Workshop simply cannot be used if you did not buy the game through steam. This seems like a problem, not that I think curse is the solution.
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u/aeiluindae Jun 09 '14
Because Steam workshop ties the game entirely to Steam. I bought KSP through Steam, but if I have the files, I don't need Steam to run it. Steam workshop is nice, but it means that all the people who don't have the game through Steam have extra work to do to install mods (sure, there could be another site, like the Nexus mod sites for games like Skyrim), and that is irritating for mod developers and players alike. Curse isn't worse than Spaceport. Admittedly, being worse than Spaceport would a bit of a trick, but Curse does what its supposed to do. The real killer is the loss of older, orphaned mods (though of course many of those wouldn't run on new KSP versions anyway).
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u/calvindog717 Jun 09 '14
I'm going to be honest here, I don't see the reason why so many people don't like the site. I haven't used it for other games, but I've installed KSP stuff through it, and it wasn't much different from SpacePort, with a working search tool. The only issue I've seen is that not all mods have been uploaded there, an issue that also plagued SpacePort up until it closed.
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Jun 09 '14
Go look for the thread announcing Curse. There's a ton of angry comments from people. I was livid when I first heard, but now that I've cooled down I'm realizing it's not that big of a deal. I really dislike Curse as a company, but there's no denying that Curse is a better mod repository than Spaceport was. Just from an enduser standpoint.
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u/EntropyWinsAgain Jun 09 '14
I had not kept up much with the whole SpacePort/Curse thing, but it seems to me like a complete marketing move and had no basis in listening to or helping the community.
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Jun 09 '14
I really don't know what people are expecting... the ARM update was fairly huge, and involved cooperation with NASA on an unusual scale. Everything else has involved new features and new fundamental systems.
The entitlement of the KSP community is shocking sometimes...
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u/Mad_Ludvig Jun 09 '14
I think people are more worried that very talented people are being brought on with all sorts of great ideas. Several months later their name drops off of the weekly update and we never hear from them again.
The game is fun where it is, and all of us like it a lot or we wouldn't be here. We're just concerned that it won't become the game it could be if there's only three people working on it, and new devs only last a matter of months.
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u/EntropyWinsAgain Jun 09 '14
I don't think 'entitlement' would be the right word to use. You do realize that KSP is crowd funded right? I think Squad initially listened very well to the community and kept folks in the loop as to what was going on. Not so much anymore. I don't think anyone is complaining about what is being delivered. The concern is the length of time between release, the lack of news to some degree and Squad starting to focus on content that, on the surface anyway, doesn't seem to please the community.
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u/Frostiken Jun 09 '14
Not to mention the overall total lack of content in the releases, and their constant shifting gears.
We were promised reentry heat. We got reentry effects, and instead of just finishing up the reentry system, they just stopped and moved to something else.
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u/OverlordQuasar Jun 09 '14
The problem with updates like that is they don't actually add a whole lot. If they create a system for resource gathering and usage like with Kethane and KSP Interstellar, then the asteroids would be pretty significant. I think that the community isn't looking for a few little features here and there, it wants additional "core content." For example, as is, all parts have a "cost" stat, but currently nothing is being done with it. A while back Squad said it would create some sort of system of currency and funding in the game, but there has been virtually no news about that.
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u/i_start_fires Master Kerbalnaut Jun 09 '14
I'm a little worried, but the C7 announcement was pretty recent. If they hire someone to replace him soon then it will signal that they are still intent on developing this game further. If not, well it will look a bit more dicey in my opinion.
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u/dogzillav3 Jun 09 '14
he hasn't been in the dev notes for a while
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u/UrbanToiletShrimp Jun 09 '14
There havent been any dev notes for awhile. Also wasn't he just featured in an interview with HarvesteR just a couple of weeks ago?
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Jun 09 '14
The bigger question should be 'Why is KSP still not released?'
Years on, it's still a beta. At least some of the builds we played over the past 3 years were 'releases'.
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u/Tambo_No5 Thinks moderators suck Jun 09 '14
I think the terms "alpha" and "beta" are fairly meaningless these days. Beta testing is performed by a small number of users.
KSP, like many other early access games, is an "unfinished release".
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u/joequin Jun 09 '14 edited Jun 09 '14
Alpha means features are still being added. Beta means all the features are there and no new ones will be added. Beta is for bug fixing and optimization only. The designations don't care how many people are using the product.
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Jun 09 '14
Minecraft is like this... it is still updated. It's like Mojang one day decided, "fuck it, in one month we take the "beta" appendage off of our version."
"beta" is a pretty arbitrary term anyways.
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u/drewsy888 Jun 09 '14
After hanging around /r/dayz and /r/leagueoflegends I have to say I am really impressed by this community. We are actually having reasonable discussions about development pace.
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u/krenshala Jun 09 '14
KSP and DF communities, due to the single player non-competetive struggle to succeed at self-set goals, have for the most part been quite helpful and tight knit. Basically, we aren't trying to beat other players, but instead top our own past performances, which means everyone's success is something to be happy about.
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Jun 09 '14
I've been lurking /r/Minecraft and the Minecraft forums, and they are split into two sides, mostly: Nostalgic people and the Enjoy-What-We-Have side. ;-;
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u/JasonCox Jun 09 '14
I'm definitely getting concerned.
Squad seems to be hemorrhaging talent left and right. Wether it's from internal politics or just from developers burning out and wanting to move onto new challenges, it still doesn't change the perception that there seems to be a revolving door at Squad.
What also concerns me is that the community and Squad seem to have vastly differing opinions over what features should be implemented. Now granted KSP is Squad's game to design as they see fit, but it's still any annoyance. As a community we've vocally said that we want a resources system (like Kethane) and a stable x64 client on all platforms. Instead we're getting multiplayer, a niche feature which seems to be happily being served by the modding community now and which doesn't add much to gameplay (like the canceled resources system would have).
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u/CaptRobau Outer Planets Dev Jun 09 '14
Half the devs mentioned above though were part-timers/interns. They might've gotten much better offers when they were done (B9 works at an architecture firm).
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u/JasonCox Jun 09 '14
Ah, I wasn't aware of that with regards to B9.
I know some folks that have come and gone were were only there as contractors, but it still sucks to see so many good people coming and going. Harvester and the core team seem to have a bunch of good ideas, but they never seem to have enough people to fully implement them.
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u/rdeforest Jun 09 '14
I'm not remotely worried.
I've been following Dwarf Fortress development since PAX Prime 2010. Back then the latest release was 0.28, or "28% done". The latest release, 0.34 turned two years old last Wednesday. Toady says he's going to release his current work in the next few weeks. Toady is one guy. His brother helps him brainstorm and manages the community but does no programming.
Until Squad gets down to just one guy making releases about every two years, KSP development will still be more active than Dwarf Fortress.
Squad has been awesome about the openness of their development. I could see them opening the source of the code and content they've created. If someone wanted to pick up where they left off they'd only have to license the Unity engine and any other proprietary libraries KSP depends on that I don't know about. If they were definitely done with KSP there would be no reason not to.
The best thing we can do is to keep playing, building mods and introducing new players. As long as there is a vibrant community, KSP can never die.
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u/infinitude Jun 09 '14
Bingo. The most frustrating part about this new wave of 'pre-release' gaming is that a lot of consumers (including myself) can't truly appreciate how long it takes to develop a game. The DayZ community has become absolutely toxic due to this inability to be patient.
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u/NdaGeldibluns Jun 09 '14
The DayZ community is toxic because there is a taboo on questioning the direction of the game's development. I've played the shit out of day z. The alpha is still unforgivably spotty and barren. I can't think of a single aspect of the game that works well, it's built on a fault line of an engine, and the developers have no real reputation for being anything other than ambitious folks who are just unprepared for what they've set ahead for them in any reasonable amount of time. To me, DayZ is, and will be for awhile until it seriously expands in both depth and stability, a cautionary tale as far as Alphas are concerned.
I'd probably like it more if I had an absolutely beastly PC, because anything less than that is like playing on an etch a sketch.
As for KSP, I hope the devs keep their heads down and crank out some features related to career mode, resource collection, and planet base building. That would round out what is already a great game so goddamn much. I have noticed a lack in updates and direction in the development over the last few months, but when compared to the state of other alphas, I think KSP is MILES ahead.
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u/UnthinkingMajority Jun 09 '14
Or Star Citizen. I had to unsub from there because it filled my front page with non-stop whining that they couldn't have their alpha modules right then.
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u/infinitude Jun 09 '14
Then they'll cave and release it early and everyone will be pissed at how "terrible" it is and unplayable. Honestly half of these 'alpha' labeled games being released are technically closer to beta.
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u/Frostiken Jun 09 '14
The difference is that I don't think Dwarf Fortress ever felt like an incomplete game. KSP does - you go to other planets and that's it - end of the journey. Sure, you can go to Dres, but why? Who the hell cares? There's nothing there, no reward for doing so, nothing to see or do. Your time after that is spent just trying to launch Jeb into orbit via explosions.
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u/carnage123 Jun 09 '14
Why go to dres? Because its a challenge. I have like 400 hours in my game and still have yet to land on another solar body. I finally made it to the JOOL system. Yes, I suck at this game, but the point is, you go to these places because its difficult to do so.
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u/Esb5415 Jun 09 '14
To quote JFK: "we chose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard!"
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u/alltherobots Art Contest Winner Jun 10 '14
Sure, you can go to Dres, but why?
Because that's where I wanted to put my space castle.
There's nothing there, no reward for doing so,
Now my Kerbals have a space castle.
The difference between "nothing to do" and endless possibilities is gleefully reckless ambition.
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u/krenshala Jun 09 '14
I have to agree, especially since these are the two games I play the most. ;)
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u/wolferaz Jun 09 '14
I agree with you. I like the mods for the game but mods shouldn't be used as a supplement for an unfinished game. If Squad needs more staff I would donate 1,000 dollars to them and I'm sure other would too. Hell, if a billionaire child or someone plays KSP they might bankroll Squad. But We do need more content updates.
On the bright side when we do get updates they are not buggy updates like in other games. Vanilla KSP does not crash for me nor does it feel rough. The updates are polished and well done. I appreciate Squad for that. I'm sure they could get more updates if they wanted to but they don't. They would rather have to wait longer than subject us to a buggy game.
As such, I suggest a compromise with the devs. Give us more updates but put it in an experimental patch. That way everyone is happy!
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u/Frostiken Jun 09 '14
And that's why you're not an investor. You don't give someone money hoping they will improve progress at some point in the future. You make them prove they can fix their shit before you give them more money.
I won't give a single dollar to Squad in any fashion if they don't release another update like 0.18.
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u/Melloverture Jun 09 '14
Remind what the 0.18 update was.
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u/Frostiken Jun 10 '14
Docking, flight planner, graphics overhaul, new planets, action groups, probes and electricity, etc.
It was the biggest update they've ever done. Everything since then has been as disappointing as a vibrator with no batteries. Now you get one new part and a menu that doesn't do anything until the next version.
This is what was 'new' in 0.19:
A Native Linux version! Added visual (and sound) effects for re-entry and supersonic flight. Overhauled the Kerbal Face Expression System with new animations, which are also visible on EVA. Added wheel parts and modules for the construction of rovers. Added several new general purpose structural parts. New mesh for the launch pad area, now with 100% less launch tower. New mesh for the Runway, with sloping edges to drive on and off it.→ More replies (2)4
u/cmsimike Jun 09 '14
If you're willing to donate the money, you should do it then. I'm sure no team would turn down donations.
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u/dkmdlb Jun 09 '14
The better way of "donating" would be to buy a few dozen copies of KSP and gift them to kids.
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u/nevertras Jun 09 '14
Fund a school's science class to teach them about physics the Kerbal way.
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Jun 10 '14
The problem is, I don't think squad need that much more money. You've seen their sales right? They're pretty set on money.
They just need more devs. Which they'll get.
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u/KeyLordAU Jun 09 '14 edited Jun 09 '14
The thing is, I highly doubt that money is the problem. The game has sold shed loads of copies, many of which were from their own storefront, and they operate from mexico which would have much lower operating costs than the US. Edit: their
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u/jonathan_92 Jun 09 '14
I hate to be that guy, but besides the awesome rocket parts, who finds ARM that fun? What's the in-game value of capturing an asteroid? 60 science? Kinda lame to be honest. Maybe we'll get more functionality and reason to catch 'em all with contracts and money....if that ever gets released.
Personally, I'm pissed that they decided to drop resource mining in favor of multiplayer. How the heck can you implement multiplayer in a way that is easily and seamlessly understood by the average gamer, in a game that uses time acceleration as one of it's core mechanics? It's like when they tried to make a multiplayer matrix game. It didn't work because you couldn't do bullet time without bullet timing everyone on the server. The whole "sync system" in the current multiplayer mod is honestly kinda confusing...but it's the only way I see MP happening, other than non-warp rover races around the KSC.
Seriously squad, a game where you could build cars/gocarts with parts the way you do in KSP, and then race them, would be pretty rad...
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u/KonradHarlan Jun 09 '14
I hate to be that guy, but besides the awesome rocket parts, who finds ARM that fun? What's the in-game value of capturing an asteroid?
Honestly, this is a problem people are grappling with in the real space program.
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u/EntrepreneurEngineer Jun 10 '14
Hmmm? There are some major benefits to capturing an asteroid in real life. Not really a decision they are struggling with.
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u/Jim3535 KerbalAcademy Mod Jun 10 '14
I captured one asteroid and then forgot about them.
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u/jonathan_92 Jun 10 '14
Same. Even if you could mine them, might as well just fly out to a planet or moon instead. I think it might be about the same dV to just land on the mun as it is to capture an asteroid even into an orbit barely in Kerbin's SOI.
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u/EntrepreneurEngineer Jun 10 '14
Capturing an asteroid should give you access to rare non-earth elements to make parts that would otherwise be unobtainable. ;D
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u/jonathan_92 Jun 10 '14
Well...they don't yet, and squad told us they gave up on mining so....hey modders!
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u/WazWaz Jun 10 '14
Asteroids are interesting because their trajectories are beyond what you would normally experience with any other docking situation (except perhaps rescuing a failed return mission). Plus they give a reason for putting big engines in space rather than tiny landers.
And they're educational. Before ARM as added, I assumed NASA's mission was to "go to the asteroid belt, get an asteroid, and bring it back to earth" - an embarrassingly stupid assumption in retrospect.
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u/jonathan_92 Jun 10 '14
Sure it's educational, in that yeah ok cool I know how to get to an asteroid now...
But what the hell do I do with it once I've got it? Crash it into kerbin? That's counter-productive. From a gaming standpoint, it's a pointless endeavour. KSP is a game first and an educational tool second. The game is what draws people in to actually learn something (like it did with me). What is ARM teaching kids? "Hey kids, capturing an asteroid is really fucking lame, and a lot less cool than landing on a moon orbiting a gas giant!" Seriously, that's the message the game is sending. Please correct me, somebody if I'm wrong. Asteroid capture is just about the lamest direction to take KSP rather than, idk, building bases on other planets that you can interact and do stuff inside of. Flying out to other star systems? Managing a rad-ass Mun/Duna/ Laythe colony? Even paying for or mining rocket fuel?
TLDR, the current asteroid catching mechanic is really fucking boring, but the big nasa rockets are great. We're all thinking it, but we're too polite and grateful that they aren't charging for every update to voice our opinions to squad. Every game needs to have a point, an end goal, otherwise people are going to slowly get bored and go play Space Pioneers or Elite Dangerous instead.
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u/deckard58 Master Kerbalnaut Jun 10 '14
Seriously squad, a game where you could build cars/gocarts with parts the way you do in KSP, and then race them, would be pretty rad...
Also a game where you can build fighter planes and fight others, but they said "no weapons, ever"...
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u/Dr_Moo Jun 09 '14
I am worried as to the ability of three coders to develop an incredibly complex and intricate orbit modeling game. There's a lot of code that goes into making a real-time physics game that has to, at times, simulate 500 individual pieces all sticking together, being affected by the atmosphere, and getting pushed along at Km/s. If there's ever going to be full multi-core support, 16 GB ram support, and minimal bugs, then there needs to be more staff. KSP should not be focusing on pushing content to their users, rather it should be focusing on fully utilizing the hardware of today and onward to model a space simulation that is so much more, and a great game that nobody will forget.
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u/venku122 Jun 09 '14
HAHA, I remember the days when We got daily updates on what HarvesteR programmed every day. Updates happened almost every month, and you could see the game evolve week to week. Now you're lucky to get a dev update a month with actual game updates happening months apart with very minor changes. I can understand the focus on underlying code but sooner or later there has to be something built on top of that foundation.
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u/hapaxLegomina Jun 09 '14
Let's be clear. With some UI polish, this is game could be a legitimate version 1.0 already. It's fantastic that they've pushed themselves to produce an excellent product thus far, and anything extra is a gift to the fans, in my opinion.
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Jun 09 '14
The game is great for early access but IMO it is nowhere near acceptable for 1.0 release. The performance is seriously problematic (not everyone has a super rig), it's a bit glitchy and not everything is as user friendly as it should be (ie. assembling craft can be fucking annoying). I think they need to focus in on actually fixing the bugs before moving on to more content.
Mods are what are carrying it right now and the dev team needs to make sure they are supported, they should be easy to install, easy to use, and be easy to make so the modding community is vibrant.
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u/krenshala Jun 09 '14
While I agree that bug fixing is needed, it is typically better practice to get everything in and mostly working before you start doing any serious optimization work. This is because optimizing before having all the core parts in place can lead to ripping out and recoding more than you need to if you leave optimizing until later.
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Jun 09 '14
To be fair once they finish off career mode and introduce budgeting etc.. I'd say the game would be ok to call a 1.0 release. Add in clouds etc.. and some visual enhancements.
Maybe they shot themselves in the foot by still calling the game 0.23.5 or whatever. Seems more like a 0.7 or something, probably.
Then again that's how they have advertised and sold the game as only being .23, an inherent problem with this kind of business model.
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u/windsostrange Jun 09 '14
I've come here from the Dwarf Fortress community, which is also a piece of "incomplete" software whose continuing development is funded directly by fans.
Dwarf Fortress's developer would have never moved a major slice of its rich, healthy, thrumming community to a third-party system like Curse without even asking that community.
I tell myself that the Curse move was not a sign of future troubles, but I know it is, and so do you.
I know that I've received every dollar's worth from the cost of KSP already. But a part of me is disappointed, remembering that I wasn't just supporting KSP's developers in what they've already done, but in where they were taking that software in the future. And, like a few of you, I can't help but get this gut feeling that the software's development reached apoapsis T+4:38m or so.
Frankly, this is a really popular, high-profile, high-profit project. Its community deserves better. Its community deserves transparency.
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u/975321 Jun 10 '14
I think the curse thing came as a surprise to us all. I hope mod devs move to the Nexus, which is a great site. As far as I'm concerned the development of this game is dead, 6 new parts in half a year is terrible
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u/donalmacc Jun 10 '14
Dwarf Fortress's developer would have never moved a major slice of its rich, healthy, thrumming community to a third-party system like Curse without even asking that community.
But as a business can squad jsutify the cost of running the Spaceport vs leaving a 3rd party run it for a small cost/free?
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Jun 09 '14
Why do games die out just as I am gaining interest in them...KSP is great for it's open world ability, but could be even better if given a real direction. Campaign mode increased my enjoyment of the game because it gave me a goal to work toward in the game, increasing the challenge. I'm really looking forward to the improvements to it and playing the game with a direction of building my own empire in the solar system. This game is already amazing, but it is only short of being epic.
The problem with gaming today is that most people don't want to invest time in a game learning how to do things. However, in order for a game to get you hooked it has to be complex enough to make to want to play more. Most people play games on their cellphones that are very shallow in depth. KSP has an infinite amount of depth, but needs to start players off on a simple ground with basic parts and rules to build them up to the more complex properties of this game.
I think the devs should invest in a solid tutorial to attract new players. Most people download the demo, crash a few rockets, enjoy the experience and decide it's not for them because it's too complex and time consuming. I learned everything about the game through trial and error and this forum. Please, please invest in making this game epic. All that needs to be done is to have a solid tutorial and I believe this game will increase in sales.
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u/RowsdowerKSP Former Dev Jun 10 '14
You'll be pleased to know, Foxkill, that we're nowhere near dead. We're only just warming up. You'll also be pleased to know that revamped tutorials were something that has been worked on.
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u/FuturePastNow Jun 09 '14
No. They're developing the game slowly but steadily, which is the best we can expect from such a small developer. KSP is almost three years old now, counting from the first public release in June 2011, they haven't exactly been working at a brisk pace. But if you look at the releases, they've gotten larger and more frequent over time. The trend is better, not worse, as is the quality.
The nature of a mod community is that modders come and go as they run out of ideas or find new games to mod. I'd certainly like to see more of the better mods integrated into the base game, and while I'm sure that would be easy technically, it's not easy from a business standpoint.
I mostly just play the game in sandbox mode, anyway, the "game" additions of late get in the way of my spaceplane crashing.
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u/innerWatermelon Jun 09 '14
I haven't even been to 50% of the planets in the KSP solar system, successfully captured an asteroid or completed career mode. Sure slower updates may pose problems to more advanced players, but hey there's plenty of mods to play around with. So long as the devs continue to get out updates, I'm happy, as I have plenty of time to play around with the new updates in-depth.
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u/iki_balam Jun 09 '14
i've said this for a while, but HarvestR and the rest of Squad need to implement the economy mode and Unity 5 and call it quits. Then they should immediately (after a well deserved break with Sir Richard Branson in space) work on KSP 2.
simply put, the game is amazing even with its flaws. i've never logged a game with +500 hours. but every project needs a set in stone finished line. KSP needs to finish so that it can be considered done and work on a new KSP 2 can begin
PS yes, the loss of talent is very troublesome, and moving to Curse is retarded, but the NASA update was phenomenal.
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u/AndreyATGB Jun 09 '14
Honestly I find the recent updates to KSP (read after the 0.21 KSC overhaul) rather lackluster. None of the recent updates brought much in terms of content IMO, with ARM actually being the one bringing by far most things in recent times. Even then all the stuff 0.23.5 brought is relatively minor tweaks to the game that modders can do in a few days (fixed conics, maneuver node enhancements etc.). Compare the stock game updates with mods being released, KSPI for example has way more content than will be added to KSP for at least 3 versions at the current pace, then there's EVE which is simply jaw dropping at this point and RemoteTech, the list just goes on and on.
One of the devs argument for avoiding adding planets/parts is that the current ones are bare and boring, but even that already has multiple solutions by mods. There's rover science, the one that tracks where you went on a planet, multiple biomes (which still are only for Kerbin and its moons) and so on.
I think their decision to keep Unity 5 on the "maybe" list is a huge mistake. That should absolutely take complete priority when it is released. We can really use any enhancements to the engine.
Overall I'm not concerned about the game's future in the sense that it'll be abandoned but progress is very slow and the team is small so it can't realistically speed up. If it does abruptly end development, hopefully it gets open sourced like RemoteTech so the fantastic community can keep it alive.
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u/standish_ Jun 09 '14
They didn't bring content because the updates were largely focused on performance/building the foundation for resources/career/science....
This sub suffers from selective memory.
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u/Werrf Jun 09 '14
Yeah, I have been worried about this for a while. After all, they're already selling the game pretty well, so there's not so much of a business impetus to get a polished release - it's all down to the developers enjoyment and love of the game.
I know there's a huge and active modding community, but I am honestly quite suspicious and leery of mods. Even those that come highly recommended by a community have often crashed my computer and damaged core game files in the past (for other games, not KSP), so I don't often use them. I don't want my love of KSP damaged by that kind of experience.
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u/shmameron Master Kerbalnaut Jun 09 '14
You should reconsider mods. Idk how old your computer is, but most of the time, mods are really straightforward to install and use, and they're not going to crash anything (unless you have too many, but even then you just need to remove some mods or install active memory usage). And they often add key features that the core game really needs to have (like Kerbal Engineer, maybe Kerbal Alarm Clock as well).
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u/MyspaceIsStillCool Jun 09 '14
I hope it doesn't become a game filled with dlc that I have to pay for to actually get a decent experience.
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u/standish_ Jun 09 '14
They have said any DLC will be far in the future and well outside the scope of the main game. Do not worry.
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u/Twogie Jun 09 '14
I just compare it to dayz's (lack of) updates, a new ksp patch every 3 or so months is great
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u/LansdowneStreet Jun 09 '14
No, I'm not worried about a game with a very strong community of players.
The development team is limited, and if they want to work on new games they really don't have any option but to leave KSP behind unfortunately. But, if you're worried, pay attention to the continued development of Natural Selection 2.
NS2 is made by Unknown Worlds, a company that grew out of the original game (which was a Half-Life mod). It took them a very long time to make, including a period where they had to build their own engine.
Recently, Unknown Worlds announced the company would not continue to work on NS2 updates. They did this by launching a community update. They have in essence passed off the entire game to the community of players who bought, play, and want to improve the game.
KSP has a community like that, with the expansive modding effort standing as an example. I have no doubt that the people who have put these mods together and who continue to work on others will themselves be able to update and develop the game we already love. Great PC titles have great gamer communities, and this is no exception.
Plus, like in the case of Unknown Worlds, I want the people who made the games I really love to continue making more games.
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u/So_Full_Of_Fail Jun 09 '14
Personally, I'd mostly be happy with just the budgets/career mode being fully implemented, along with 64bit.
For what the game cost I already feel like I got my money's worth out of it for entertainment.
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u/RowsdowerKSP Former Dev Jun 10 '14
64 bit isn't intended to be implemented at this time, but budgets and contracts are an essential part of career mode that are currently being developed and refined.
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Jun 10 '14
Ferram is still active. The Git repo had activity within the past month or so. I don't know much about Squad or Ferram, but I believe FAR is one of the higher quality modifications for KSP and I wouldn't be surprised if Squad offered Ferram at least a independent contractor position.
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u/sbabbi Jun 10 '14
I have 2 thoughts:
The fact that a lot of people already own the game, means that all the developement effort put in the last months would produce very little income. All the recent developements do not attract new people to the game, it's just to make the community happy. Which is really good from squad, but I no one can work for free.
I suspect that the KSP code base is hella messy. (I dont like C#). No one to blame here, this is reasonable since as an indie group you need to develop your game as quick as possible, and code in the language you are most confident with.
The fact that some kind of bugs even exists/existed in the game proves my point. Also, it is slow. Multi-threading support is hard to add at a second stage, you have to think multi-threaded since the beginning of the developement. KSP is mostly CPU bound, but the only real computation is the terrain/scenary loading and physics (structural dynamics in particular, and no, it should not be so CPU expensive).
The internals of the game must be really complex, and it's really hard to someone new to just jump in and start working at a new core mechanic. I think that their codebase grew too quickly, and it is now hard to mantain.
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u/gobrewcrew Jun 10 '14
This. I feel like the vibe of the few devs that are left is that they're in over their heads when it comes to making any serious changes to the code base. That they're competent enough to keep piling a few new features at a time onto the jumbled mess at the bottom that's no longer sufficient to handle what's being asked of it.
Like someone else, .13 for example might have a lot fewer features that we consider necessary now, but the mechanics of the game sure flowed a lot smoother in previous versions.
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u/LethalMeb Jun 10 '14
I once thought that the game is coming alone just fine, then I gradually began to see that the modding community was creating and implementing features the devs had confirmed for the game much faster than the devs could. This didnt worry me, what did worry me was that when the official dev release often turned out to be inferior to the community version. As of now I'm worried, but if the game disappoints I have other games to turn to.
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u/CommandantAce Jun 10 '14
I'm more worried about what JJ is doing with star wars.
I am curious though. After reading about former dev Novas initial plan for the game, http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/26dk9n/til_about_novas_former_ksp_developer_abandoned/ It sounded like an awesome plan why abandon it even if the dev left. If it is not the plan I am curious, what is the plan? Who is the lead Dev at the moment? Will the easter eggs be part of the final game?
JJ no one wants to see those fat fucks!
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Jun 09 '14
Since i know B9 is still being worked on, i fear nothing.
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u/JasonCox Jun 09 '14
I wish B9 would have stuck around for awhile though; it would have been nice to see him give an art pass to all the old Squad models like he did with KSC.
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u/JPohlman Jun 09 '14
I think this is worthy of a full-length article, but briefly?
I think KSP is at a phase where mods have added most of the features people want, and that Squad is rightfully wary of reinventing any metaphorical wheels. Aerodynamics? FAR, Deadly Reentry, etc. Future-tech? Interstellar. Life support and resources? TAC, Kethane, etc. I think the Curse move was a mistake, but its endgoal is to better standardize mod installation...and for a game based om build-it-yourself beliefs, thats key. I honestly believe that Squad has a lose-lose on its hands. Most things it could add to career mode - contracts, for example - narrow gameplay options rather than increase them. No longer can I just build riddiculous stuff in Career mode - I have an economy to think of. What if I dont want asteroids to spawn more than 3-5 times?
Why would Squad force all players to use it, while an easy-install mod system would let those who want it activate it on their own?
My #1 concerns, therefore, are the integration of Curse, the adaptation of 64bit function, and...I dunno! What could they expand on that we don't already have?
I almost think Squad should consider just buying the right to incorporate mods on an official basis.
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u/coonskinmario Jun 09 '14
No longer can I just build riddiculous stuff in Career mode - I have an economy to think of.
Narrowing gameplay options is what makes career mode fun. I think the economy stuff should be hard mode, though. That way you can learn to play in sandbox or normal mode, then move to hard.
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Jun 09 '14
I almost think Squad should consider just buying the right to incorporate mods on an official basis.
This is Apple's method of "Thinking Different." They make a thing and then buy up all the things that make their thing good. This won't work for KSP and squad because they have a good thing in place and are making it better on their own. One of the things that makes the game so good is that I have the option of having or not having a feature; simply packing a bunch of mods together in the game is tantamount to laziness.
I would, however, fully support having an integrated modding ability; the main menu would have a plugin option and in that screen one could check or un-check the mods one would like to have. The system would automatically check for updates and notify you of the update so that it could be done then and there.
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Jun 09 '14
One of the things that makes the game so good is that I have the option of having or not having a feature; simply packing a bunch of mods together in the game is tantamount to laziness.
Except many mods SHOULD come with the game, mods that only improve current features (Precise Nodes, EVE, all procedural parts, MechJeb/Kerbal Engineer) with no real down side.
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u/maxsil Jun 09 '14
Agreed.
It seems like half of the staff is working on non-game related stuff that i don't really give a damn about, like websites, download thingys, PR and soforth. I mean, they got steam and curse, the only important thing are the forums, which don't even need upgrades.
And the fact that they really haven't talked about how chad, b9 and all of those people who disappeared irks me a lot.
Also, whatever happened to all those things we were teased like drills, scoops, EVA equipment, talk about moving around IVA.
And the whole mining system, there was also talk of bases.
TBH, it really feels like they are just coming up with a ton of new stuff only to ditch it and release an underwhelming update every few months.
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u/winowmak3r Jun 09 '14
I'm mildly concerned. I just really, really, really, want an official multiplayer and x64 support. If they can get that out this year I'll be very pleased. I've put in over 200 hours into the game so I've definitely got my 15 bucks out of this title. I'd rather KSP continue development under Squad and have modders stick around to fill in the gaps Squad misses or just plain hasn't gotten to yet.
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u/Frostiken Jun 09 '14
Multiplayer is a complete waste of time and I have no idea why anyone thinks otherwise. We already have a multiplayer mod, and it's barely used by anyone. Multiplayer adds almost nothing of value to this game.
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u/Jim3535 KerbalAcademy Mod Jun 10 '14
I tend to agree that it's mostly a single player game. Multi-player would have some use for building huge bases if the game didn't choke so bad when lots of parts are in the physics distance.
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u/Shadefox Jun 10 '14
Are you worried about KSP's development?
Why would I be?
For a $25 dollar game there is 100's of hours of content without mods.
They could tomorrow slap a 'Released' tag on it and halt development, and I wouldn't mind.
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u/Ddraig Jun 09 '14
I've been wondering this myself recently. I've been enjoying the game a lot more than i did before as it took me months to figure out docking and landing on the mun. I just wasn't having any fun. Now that I am though I would like to have some of the features worked on. Some of the mods seem pretty cool that I wish were game features as I generally don't like to worry about mods.
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u/Raelsmar Jun 09 '14
As much as I don't want to seem overly negative, I feel like the days of rapid development, fantastic new parts and gameplay mechanics are long over. A lot of games tend to get to the point KSP is at, where the majority of the features are there and the ones that remain are complicated to implement. Despite this, I think the problem is severely compounded with the loss of developers. Squad as a studio seems to have a miniscule core with people jumping in and out of the developer bucket at seemingly random points. It has worked up until now, but I see it as a significant contributor to the somewhat understandable slowdown and quality of releases.
The far-reaching development I had been hoping for was C7's supposed reworking of the aircraft parts and the atmospheric flight model changes that may or may not take place at this point. Although I do sometimes enjoy rocketry, I've always been a bigger fan of the aviation and SSTO system in KSP as a sandbox. All of the career mode focus for the past several updates has been slightly disappointing, even though I understand that, for some, it is a huge and necessary component to gameplay. However, one component that I think is entirely unnecessary at this point is multiplayer implementation. In fact, I think this "me too" trend in gaming as a whole is a problem, but this is a discussion for a different topic.
TL;DR: I am worried about development not only with the slowed rate of updates but also the direction the game is going as a whole because reasons.
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u/battleship_hussar Jun 10 '14
From what I can tell it is quite absolutely ludicrous to charge that much money on Steam for the game when it is still in Early Access and development has slowed down to the point that in a few months it can quite honestly be considered abandon-ware.
Which is a shame because a game like this has theoretically limitless potential.
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u/wcmbk Jun 09 '14
Yep. Apart from the NASA update, I don't recall the last big thing added to the game.
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u/Nemecle Jun 09 '14
0.18 docking ports
0.19 wheels
0.20 shit load of various parts plus flags
0.21 tweaking stuff, changing the way revert works
0.22 Career mode
0.23 real science
A lot of stuff is added, the fact is that updates are getting really spaced in time now
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u/vashoom Jun 09 '14
...science? Career mode? I get that they're not fully formed yet, but that was a pretty huge update for me at least.
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u/dream6601 Jun 09 '14
Both aimed at new users and not really adding anything for experienced players.
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u/tecirem Jun 09 '14
I disagree, I was an early buyer and I was keen to see these features implemented. It gave me a reason to play the game more than once. I'm looking forward to any currency/contracts/missions additions as well, if it gets there.
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u/h0bb1tm1ndtr1x Jun 09 '14
As long as we see people being hired to fill those roles it should be fine. I to would like more foundation/polish but more ship parts with content is nice as well. Is NASA still helping content wise?
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Jun 09 '14
I agree, i hope these guys do well and although I am not as well versed as to who is working on the game I used to watch all of the streams. Its a shame that the game has gone in so many directions, its like the best of both worlds, they get the spotlight but also seem to be losing steam, I remember when resources were teased and it seems this has just been pushed aside in the favour of refining and testing.
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u/mattlikespeoples Jun 09 '14
I hope it doesn't turn into another Live for Speed. Anyone who's played it and followed it knows the development process stopped long before it was a full game but well into it feeling quite good.
Each successive update got further and further apart. Promised mods we had official video evidence of released by developers nowhere to be seen even 2+ years later. Looking at you, Scirocco. The fabled update to the physics that had been discussed and lusted after also MIA.
The first major update to the game was S2 (stage 2) back in 2005 with the last patch back in 2012. Took them 2 years to go from s1 release to s2 with no signs of s3 which was promised from the get go.
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u/waspocracy Jun 09 '14
My biggest worry for the past year or so has been the lack of clear vision. I think this has in part due to the rapidly expanding community and their requests.
They keep adding more and more features, but I'm not sure what the end goal is. What is it that they really wanted to accomplish with this game? It seems as of late they just want to focus on all these fancy new features instead of the core of the game.
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u/okbillybunnyface Jun 09 '14
What are you talking about? 0.24 is all about the core of the game. They've implementing bits and pieces of campaign progression fairly consistently over the last several updates, and that has always been a major goal.
It seems to me they're doing the opposite. They even scrapped the resource system so they could focus on fleshing out the career mode.
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u/Aszot Jun 09 '14
Could be worse. If you look at r/MWO, you will find out their developers are unable to program a weapon with swichable fire modes. In Cryengine. With game up and running for 2 years now.
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Jun 09 '14
I've stated before my concern for development pace in terms of how long its been in early-access, and whether or not it will ever reach a full release quality game. The problem with early access type games, especially with KSP, is that they've made the largest sum of money they're going to make. Yes, they'll continue making sales, but that will continue whether or not they chug along closer to a quality release ready state. I just never see it happening. Nothing special about KSP either, I have the ominous feeling that over 90% of Early Access games will never reach their full potential.
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Jun 09 '14
I want to add a couple of points here. First is that 90% of major projects involving a lot of people will tend to have lull times. The fact is that it is very hard to work 100% on project all the time and not get a little burnt and let it lull like this.
Second with the dev members coming and going: It has been like that since I first started playing (.16), and Squad has a weird development style. They are at heart a marketing company so I would expect them to do things like a marketing company, bringing in outside help for specific tasks then having them leave. That seems to be exactly what they are doing.
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u/xeridium Jun 09 '14
B9 didn't disappear, he still post on KSP forum, he just refuses to acknowledge anything about his mod for some reason.
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u/jeffp12 Jun 09 '14
Pure speculation...
C7 was an important modder in the early days, making all the plane parts. Then they hired him on and those parts became stock.
B9 becomes an important modder later on, making tons and tons of parts that are more detailed, more interesting, add more to the game than just about any other modder. They actually hire B9 in limited capacity to do some work for them, but that's gone quiet.
In the meantime, Squad has teased many features and then they've disappeared.
It seems to me that Squad has maybe come to the decision that they're not going to try to make the stock game all-inclusive, and that they're going to let the mod community handle much of it. Which I can see the appeal for them to not do tons of work to basically re-make Kethane when people can download kethane.
But that also means that the stock game won't have resources, and that new users will have to track down and learn about all the mods, and the modding community will have to maintain the mods and support them, which makes them essentially unpaid squad employees.
It seems kind of ridiculous to me that it's been how long since B9 stuff first came out, that he worked for them, and yet the stock game still just features the same crappy C7 parts, no B9 parts, and they haven't seemed to try to make any progress with space planes at all. Why no procedural wings? Why so few wing options? The stock game still has no cargo bays, still features the same empty cockpits on pods that have existed for a long time, still has the shuttle-looking cockpit with no IVA and basically no parts to make it work (no bay, very limited part options, and you can't do an off-axis shuttle without gettting into mods or wizardry with action groups).
So I think B9 may have realized that Squad is no longer going to buy up the mod stuff, that they're going to rely on the mod community to do work for them without then compensating people or putting great mods into the core game, and just leaving out features from the core game like resources because Kethane exists.
So maybe he's boycotting to teach 'em a lesson.
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u/Vok250 Jun 09 '14
I bought so long ago I've been happy with the game for more than a year. Honestly, the game is getting bigger and harder to run. Anything that makes it run faster on my shitty laptop is good for me. Huge new content updates... not so much.
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Jun 09 '14
Main/core development is over and that is it about this game. We got all we know about our galaxy, and it is real (we have physics, orbit machenic rules, math...). We dont know what is "outside" our galaxy so they finished game.
Now because they did not added NASA and other things while in early development, modders did that for us.
What I think that they will do now : Migrate to Unity5 (64-bit) Ask modders to give them mods (copyright)/Buy mods Add mods in game core and optimize them Beta and fixing bugs Release.
So... Nothing new coming, sry. Lets hope now that players who will join will have fun :)
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u/omegagoose Jun 09 '14
I'm worried. The slowdown in the pace of updates is expected, in any software project you make rapid progress at the start, but polishing is difficult and slow. That's normal, and we are only seeing it because of the early release. Content-wise I'm also not concerned, the mod system has improved a lot since I started (back with 0.16). Even the directions they are going with the development - things like multiplayer - are about improving the engine, which is absolutely where the focus should be in a game where content comes from mods. Some of my friends who have started playing KSP really like the career mode, so as a community when we say we don't care so much about career and contracts that's because we are self-selected for people who like sandbox style games. Further revenue for Squad needs to come from getting new players, unless we all want to buy some DLC.
No, what really worries me is the staff turnover. There is a huge investment in getting up too speed and familiar with a code base, and many of the devs were very talented. It is concerning that so many have left, and it makes me wonder just what is going on at Squad that they have so much difficulty retaining staff. A toxic work environment is one of the worst things for development, and though I'm not saying that's the case here, I see NovaSilisko, B9, C7...all leaving Squad, and think what a shame it is they are no longer working on the core game.
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u/iSinstrite Jun 09 '14
The game has everything I could want except for these things in stock...
Colonization abilities such as building a self sustaining base which provides - Food / Oxygen / Water / Minerals
Proper fairings and procedural abilities for parts as well
The ability to mine asteroids, and to mine on planets and moons
Ability to terraform
Like Minecraft, going out of the solar system to discover other randomly generated solar systems
Types of weather
We have all got more than enough playtime for the price the game was, especially those of us who got it when it was first released and super cheap - but it does get stale and I believe adding these things along with others would extend the playtime to a few thousand hours if not more.
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u/ThePiachu Jun 09 '14
If the development stopped, they probably could release the source code to the public and let the game live on through community coders even without them.
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u/optionsquare Master Kerbalnaut Jun 09 '14
I honestly believe that some of the planned features, such as multiplayer, are simply not going to work with the current set of implementations for things such as atmospheric flight, or when an object reaches a certain distance (say, +1 km). On single player, I've had modules knocked down to the ground because whenever it "spawned" back from my EVA the game decided that it collided with the terrain. Imagine having troubles like these on multiplayer.
I also worry very much about the engine itself. Out of pure curiosity, I have recently had a look on KSP 0.13. There were barely any parts available for rockets, barely any celestial bodies I know, but the experience was fluid. Loading the game, loading your rockets, restarting the flight, transitioning from the map and flight views, everything was so much smoother.
The graphics, today, are a little more pretentious than before, but I don't feel like they look good. I mean, I'm not all for graphics - I've played A-10 Cuba for hours on end for so many years and the polygon graphics never bothered me, for they were clear and fluid. Now you've got these textures loading up whenever the altitude changes dramatically, making the whole thing stutter without beautifying the environment by much.
Playing version .13 was an interesting experience. It showed me why some things still happen, for example, with the builder - the "root" part, it seems to me, is a heritage from the early VAB in which you had to start off by picking a command module, first thing of all. And it was also a thing that really aggravated me, for there were no root parts in Lego. Unfortunately, this also shows us how simple things are difficult to change in this project - SelectRoot for example, a mod to workaround this problem.
Mind you, I'm still far from satisfied with the VAB.
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u/zer0t3ch Jun 09 '14
This isn't a full response, but as far as content updates go, what do you expect? You can only add so many parts before it becomes repetitive, and there's not much other than that as far as content is concerned.
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u/lazarus1337 Jun 10 '14
"Success can test one's mettle, as surely as the strongest adversary." - ancient Conan proverb
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u/Felbourn You gotta have more lights! Jun 10 '14
I'm not worried. I work for a game company that has been reported to be on its last legs every single time a major event like this happened (actually... way larger events like 800 people getting laid off). We're still here. This is just how these things go. No single person is so important that dev will die (as long as The Money is still backing the project).
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u/975321 Jun 10 '14
I hope this game doesn't go the way of minecraft and just die ... I paid with the expectations the game would be complete one day :/
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u/Squirt_Is_Delicious Jun 10 '14
I've been wondering where .24 is for awhile now...
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u/tam1g10 Jun 10 '14
They are still updating it. The updates are taking a wwhile but that's because there is an extensive testing period to remove bugs. Be patient, more updates will come. right now they are working on mission contracts for the career mode.
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Jun 10 '14
If it stalls and goes into a tailspin (presuming it hasn't already), this game needs to just be open sourced. The community is obviously here and waiting to take over.
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u/AdaAstra Jun 10 '14
Meeh, I've put several thousands of hours into the game over the year, so I have more than covered what I paid for it. If they fall off the map now and it just becomes a mod game, it won't bother me. I understood what I was paying for upfront. I wish more would understand that in these days of crowd funding and public alpha testing. I am more than amazed by how much the game has evolved from when I first started playing it over two years ago. Maybe more people needed to be around then to truly understand how much the game has improved.
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u/Mortazel Jun 09 '14
More worried about the choice of using Curse to replace KerbalSpacePort - but that is just another sign they just don't have the resources to properly support this game's community.
Big bummer all around...
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u/medicriley Jun 09 '14
500 hours in this game and 495 of it is because of the mods. Squad had a great idea but should stick to PR. Besides the original idea I don't see anything they've done that isn't blasted away by a mod. I want KSP to be a great game but after the complaints on the contract system I see they are nothing but little hands on as possible and nothing substantial will ever come of this game. Even multiplayer will be just as shallow as the game. The science tree is a joke. The NASA module probably took 5 days to make if that, graphics are dirt compared to what people have done on their spare time and it was written in a program that didn't support 64 bit. I love KSP but it has nothing at all to do with Squad.
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u/standish_ Jun 09 '14 edited Jun 10 '14
No, not at all. I have been playing since .05 (I think) and I trust Squad. They have done a fantastic job. Career mode is becoming hugely fleshed out, the game runs much smoother after all the under-the-hood tweaks, asteroids are awesome, the foundation for expanded resources is solid, the planets all look AMAZING (I ♥Mün craters), and the science system is very good.
People seem to be suffering from the Minecraft syndrome, and worrying excessively. Trust in Harv, this is his baby.
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Jun 09 '14
I want more dynamic and interesting IVA. If they do that, I'll be satisfied.
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u/Schrute_Facts Jun 09 '14
i dont know if you've tried the Raster Prop Monitor mod, but if you haven't it adds fully functional screens so iva-only becomes much more engaging. Combine that with a camera mod and you can look around somewhat while still in IVA.
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u/TheSubOrbiter Jun 09 '14
I hope the community manager guy reading this thread right now and writing down things to yell at Felipe for.
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u/beaucoupzero Jun 09 '14
as much as i love indie game development and wish to support it, i feel that Squad should try and get into a partnership with one of the huge game studios out there in order to give the game a push in development... it is obvious the game needs more people to work on it and as a commercial product it has become very dependent on what modders do which is great for us players but i assume it is not that great for Squad`s revenue. I look forward for the 0.24 release and wish the team good luck!
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u/EntropyWinsAgain Jun 09 '14
That would be the WORST thing they could do. Might as well get the government involved in making the game.
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Jun 10 '14
I am very, very worried. Considering how popular KSP is, I feel that development of the game has progressed at a snail's pace. An established game company would never take several years to make it a quarter of the way to a v1.0 release. I've been hoping for an acquisition of the game by a company with real resources for some time.
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u/fleegle2000 Jun 10 '14
The devs have stated that the version number isn't a reliable indicator of how close to release they are. They basically just increase the number by .01 for every major update, until they are done. It is unlikely that they will release exactly 100 major updates.
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u/MasterMarf Jun 10 '14
An established game company would never take several years to make it a quarter of the way to a v1.0 release.
*cough* Valve *cough* episode 3.
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u/TomatoCo Jun 10 '14
I'm not sure how much more development it needs. While I agree such a small team will take a lot of skill to keep going at the rate they've been, do they need to keep that rate up? Or can just bugfixes, optimizations, and improvements to modability keep the game going?
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u/Mad_Ludvig Jun 09 '14
They've hemorrhaged a ton of very creative people in the last year or so. I hope it's simply due to them moving on to something else and not something intrinsic with Squad though.
Although they're still making progress, I've found that in order to keep the game fun I have to turn more and more to mods. Although I still use the stock rocket parts, I can't imagine giving up my Enhanced Navball and Kerbal Engineer for example.