Ask Me Anything with Nate Simpson

Hi Kerbonauts!

Last week we sat down with Creative Director Nate Simpson for our first Ask Me Anything on Discord! We got over 600 questions, collected from Discord, Steam, and the KSP forums. Nate answered a ton of questions-the full AMA can be found here. As a reminder, we're in Early Access! Plans can change.

We've tried our best to organize the questions based on topic, happy reading! Thank you to everyone who submitted questions and tuned into the AMA. We can't wait to do this again in the future!

[h2]Development and Community Feedback[/h2]
Has there been any piece of community feedback/content that you and the team find especially motivating?

Anytime I hear about someone who wasn't able to get into KSP1 get into KSP2, that's incredibly motivating. Especially when it's kids. Feels great to hear kudos that someone feels we're on the right track with things, whether it be UI, soundtrack, etc. Howard, our composer, has been showered with praise upon the EA release - and it's SO deserved. When we hear nice things, it energizes us.

What is the reasoning behind not allowing Early Access players the ability to use the debug menu? Since it is a sandbox game its omission seems odd, especially for Early Access. Will it be included at some point for single player campaigns?

So, the debug controls were really only added for internal developer purposes, and we haven't really done any QA testing - or really created any design specs for it. Adding a debug menu could change a million variables that would really make it hard to investigate bugs. I want there to be a player-focused debug menu one-day.

Now that the first patch is out, what are you mainly focusing on?

Stability, performance, new features, in the order. Obviously, I am eager to see heat be implemented. We've shared the visuals but there's also the actual heating system. Thermal kinda feels like the final pillar we need for the structural outline of KSP2 to be complete so we can start building on top of it with the EA milestones.

Are big features like science or interstellar on the backburner until the game is better optimized, or are the big features being developed alongside bug and performance patches?

It's more parallel. People are focused on different things at the same time.

What was your favorite thing to work on in KSP2? What was your least favorite thing to work on?

Favorite things: probably tutorials. Tapped into my own passions as a storyteller, especially visual storytelling. Learning how we can convey complex topics with amazing animations.
Least favorite: probably tutorials. We iterated like CRAZY with them - redid them multiple times. Multiple scripts, multiple animations, lots of work. We eventually had breakthroughs on each one, but it was a process.

What has been the most challenging feature to work on?

For me: see above - tutorials.
For the team: heavy technical stuff. Adapting architecture to interstellar scale, accelerating trajectories, multiplayer. These make almost everything hard to implement, but we're making progress!

Will there be more tutorials in game, such as the ones being uploaded to TikTok, etc.?

For the in-game tutorials, we have quite a few already made. The animations are already made for 9 or 10 of them. As new features are being added to the game, tutorials will come alongside them.

[h2]Rockets and Parts[/h2]
How much time and research goes into deciding what kind of rocket/space plane parts get into KSP2?

A LOT. Chris Adderley (Nertea) is an amazing researcher and has a ton of existing knowledge. We also work with subject matter experts like Dr. Uni Shumlak from the University of Washington. We hold ourselves to the standard of rooting everything in game to real life science. Even if it's not a perfect implementation, if you look it up on Wikipedia you discover our features are real. We spend a lot of time on the Atomic Rockets website as well!

What is one feature/part/idea you really wanted to implement, but would not/could not for whatever reason?

This game is unique because we basically never say "no" to things. We often "defer" things because there's more important things to work on. Like for example, Chris and I want to add a proper airliner cockpit, but it's going to take time and effort from our team. Hopefully we'll get to it someday!

In regards to the decision to leave wobbly rockets within the game. Are there plans to make this feature more detrimental to rocket design and progression? Or is this simply an early implementation of something that'll become more elaborate and significant?

This is a really good example of how having something in Early Access helps us iterate and develop features forward. This is definitely a hot topic, so here's my two cents: If a rocket is skinny and made of many stacked parts, it should wobble. Larger scales, no. We're working on it; it will get better.

Will there by XL-sized launch engines, and if so, are there any estimates on when they will be added?

We have some very big engines that will arrive with the Interstellar update. People have seen the Crucible which is MASSIVE. Big Engines Coming!

[h2]Science Mode[/h2]
Are there going to be any significant changes to the science system in KSP2, or any changes that you feel are worth talking about?

For context, the first of the progression modes that will be coming in a roadmap update will be science mode. It will be similar to the KSP1 experience. Gaining science points, redeeming them for parts. Differences would include: We don't want people to be able to gather huge amounts of science around the KSC. We want to push people to explore and visit all the other Celestial Bodies. There will be an opt-in mission system that gives you a reward for doing a particular thing.

[h2]Colonies[/h2]
Will certain resources needed for colony construction be planet/biome specific?

The diversity of resources is what's going to make exploration mode so fun. Compared to KSP1 which was very self-directed (take temperatures, etc.), when there is a unique resource somewhere that gates your access to some category of parts/features - wow it totally changes the game. It gives you something material, the interplanetary/interstellar progression will really POP once you're able to dig up a specific thing that gives you a specific ability.

What kind of size range can we expect with colonies? Will all colonies be roughly the same size, or will we be able to have small 1-2 launch research colonies along with our gigantic industrial ones? Will there be any upper size limit?

There's no plan for an enforced upper-size limit. It'll be smaller to vehicles: it's made of parts - we want people to make it as large as they want. Obviously not all computers can handle massive builds, so there will probably be a player-dependent FPS-based size limit.

[h2]Interstellar[/h2]
When interstellar is implemented, are the different solar systems going to be stationary or are they going to orbit something (to simulate a galaxy)?

One of the things I learned very early in the project is that the movement of stars around a galactic center is very unintuitive compared to normal movement. Especially when you're dealing with stuff like dark matter, it's unpredictable. Our current implementation is that thye do move relative to the galactic plane, but we want other stars to be moving targets that you'll still have to get an intercept for.
Short answer: yes.

Will we see many more star systems and other interstellar objects added throughout the game's map as the years go on?

We've committed to three star systems leading up to 1.0. I'd love to add more circumstances permitting. That's not an official plan, but that's what I personally want. We always come up with cool ideas for new celestial bodies - and we want to add new bodies that create new kinds of gameplay. When we have those ideas, we definitely want to get them into the game!

How useful will orbital construction be and how awesome are the colonies?

Completely critical to interstellar progression. You can't make an interstellar vehicle in gravity well. Someone will definitely prove me wrong about that one day.

[h2]Multiplayer[/h2]
Can we get anything in writing related to the planned structure/function of multiplayer within the game, and how you plan to work around certain speedbumps like timewarp or two-player craft docking (ie where is the processing for this done?)?

Generally, we try to not talk much about multiplayer but let me give you something. People will have separate timelines and then there will be a reconciliation phase when the players interact with each other. That's the plan right now but I also can't speak directly to the details of this feature - future comms incoming!

Do you expect multiplayer KSP2 to overtake single-player KSP2 in terms of player count and development when it releases? In other words, will single-player KSP2 become mostly obsolete?

There's something about single-player KSP2 that can be very meditative. I don't always feel the need to share what I'm doing with everyone. I think single-player will always have a place.

[h2]Modding[/h2]
What is your favorite KSP2 mod so far?

We are IMPRESSED by how many exist already. Selfishly, it's one from LinuxGuruGamer, someone who if you're part of the modding community you're probably already familiar with. It's a script that automatically collects relevant logs for bug reports to send our way. Definitely awesome.

Many community members across the modding scene have noticed that certain models often contain INSANE polygon counts. Will those be reviewed for optimization passes too?

Already in progress. Some models actually need those insane polygon counts, like th IVA cockpits. Somethings unusually high polygon-count models slip through and we'll look to optimize them as our schedule allows. Patch notes will include lines such as "mesh optimization' which would basically be that.

[h2]Post 1.0 Launch[/h2]
Once the game is "complete" with everything on the roadmap implemented and debugged, is it possible development will continue with new features?

KSP got updates for over a decade. We want to do the same thing.

Will robotics be implemented in a future update?

Probably not before 1.0. There's a lot of work leading up to the full 1.0 release. When we get to it, we want to make sure it's fully implemented, so after 1.0...one day.

Any thoughts on adding VR support to KSP2 in the future?

Yes, I want it badly. Conversation will happen after 1.0.

[h2]KSP2 Miscellaneous[/h2]
Any plans to have a solid planet that is about the size of Jool or perhaps larger?

We do have a super-Earth in the game: Ovin. It's not as big as Jool, I think it's 60% larger than Kerbin. It has its own rings. It's big enough to make landing hard. No plans for a Jool-sized terrestial planet. Should we do it, community?

Will we have (and when) realistic plasma/smoke tail after reentering spacecraft and different colors of heated plasma because of different speeds of reentry?

Different atmospheres probably have different colors of plasmas - different ionization attributes. Going back to that iterative development point, the first version of re-entry heating will be one color, but the spec definitely calls for multiple colors based on location and atmospheric composition.

Will atmosphere-rich celestial bodies have weather patterns sometime in the future? If so, would this weather have any physical effect on your vessel?

We do not have short-term plans for that. We have planets with tilt, so we could implement weather and seasons. But, we have a long runway ahead of us. Never say never, but yeah if we wanted to implement these features, we'd want it to affect gameplay in some way, so we'd need to figure that out. There's also the whole 'once we implement more modding capabilities' to the game, it's totally possible something like this is added by the community.

Are there plans to have collaborations for missions and/or other scenarios in-game with IRL space agencies such as NASA, ESA, etc.?

Yes. Yes. Yes. We did that stuff in the past, and we're so excited about the things they're doing. It really just matters what those institutions are doing. If anyone knows people there, we're waiting by our phones...

[h2]General Miscellaneous[/h2]What non-KSP game/piece of media has inspired you and the team the most?

There's a video called "The Wanderers" by Eric Wernquist. It's a beautiful, very short video, that definitely feels like our 'north star' for what we want KSP2 to feel like. It has these beautiful-rendered scenes of humankind exploring the solar system. We watch it fairly frequently and show it to new hires.

If you read all of this (or scrolled to the bottom hehe)...snacks for you! 🍬