Kerbal Space Program 2 News

Hello fellow Kerbonauts!

Okay, we've got a date for the v0.1.2.0 patch - it'll arrive next Wednesday, April 12. We'll post patch notes on that day as well. There's a nice blend of performance, stability, UI, and visual improvements, and we think these add up to a significantly improved KSP2 experience. One unheralded improvement, in addition to the already announced fixes - the nighttime lighting at KSC has taken a big step forward:



Meanwhile, we're continuing to work on upcoming Science Mode features, re-entry and thermal systems, and of course ongoing improvements to performance and stability. We've also begun some investigations into improving the currently wobbly rocket situation, and we should have more to discuss on that subject soon.

For today's Weekly Challenge, we're going to Eve! Until the future arrival of re-entry heating, you've got a great opportunity to do a little low-risk sightseeing (and if you visit after next Wednesday, you'll get to experience Eve's stunning new height fog, as well):



Also, check out this week's burger-iffic Community Highlights post. So many amazing creations this week! There's also a new TikTok!

I'm heading out for a few days' rest in a place that has sunshine, which means next week's updates will be made by guest writers. Please be nice to them, but also don't be so nice to them that my bosses decide I shouldn't do the posts anymore. Please be medium nice to them.

See you in two weeks!

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Hello Kerbonauts!

While last week's AMA was great, it looks like I forgot to check my staging when lining up the questions - many have pointed out that a lot of Discord queries got answered, but questions submitted through Steam and the KSP Forums were neglected. I'll try to be more conscious of that when the next AMA rolls around, but in an effort to right a past injustice, I'll answer a few of the questions that got missed right now! Here we go:

First, from Filip Hudak, on the forums: When we'll see other exotic fuel types like metallic hydrogen? Will they be added alongside some big update like colonies or will they be added before?

• We will be bringing in new engine and fuel types across multiple updates, generally as they become instrumental to the progression. I suspect nuclear pulse will be next up, as it opens up the interplanetary progression quite nicely and is a good supplement to colony building. Chris Adderley has also cooked up a few new methalox engines that I think will be popping up sooner rather than later.
  

From Moons, on the forums: Adjustable UI/UX, legacy UI, scaling, modularity.

• This is a good example of an area that's being developed iteratively. I think the first goal is to give players the ability to rescale the flight HUD, but making it modular and giving both players and modders more control over how things look is a key priority for the UX/UI team.
  

From walkingwiki666, on Steam: Will the game's price increase as new features are added?

• The game's price will certainly increase when 1.0 arrives, though if you purchased the game during Early Access, you'll get all Early Access updates and the 1.0 update for free. After 1.0, we expect to continue providing free updates to the game, just like KSP1 did.
  

From MARL_MK1, on the forums: It is cool that we can press 'F2' and take HUD-less screenshots, but given that it's the most basic way of taking screenshots, and that many of us players enjoy taking the best pictures possible of our crafts: Does KSP2 plan to implement a fully fleshed C?

• I need to do a better job of evangelizing our capture camera controls! If you hit V, you can cycle through camera modes. When you're in Capture Mode, the numpad offers a bunch of new camera controls that you can combine to do smooth, swoopy pans, dollies, zooms, etc. You can combine these with paused time warp to do some pretty fancy stuff. Here are those controls:
  
• Zoom in: Keypad +
  
• Zoom out: Keypad -
  
• Roll left: Keypad 7
  
• Roll right: Keypad 9
  
• Orbit up: Keypad 8
  
• Orbit down: Keypad 5
  
• Orbit left: Keypad 4
  
• Orbit right: Keypad 6
  
• Pan up: Keypad 2 (or up arrow)
  
• Pan down: Keypad 0 (or down arrow)
  
• Pan left: Keypad 1 (or left arrow)
  
• Pan right: Keypad 3 (or right arrow)
  
• Mouse toggle: Backslash
  
• Speed up camera movement: Keypad
• 
  
• Slow down camera movement: Keypad /
  

From alphaprior, on the forums: Will it be possible to alter the surface on the planets? Like dig a pit or flatten an area for a colony?

• There are no current plans to do this - as you can imagine, it has some brain-bending multiplayer implications, especially when time warp gets involved. But it would be incredibly cool and I'm not aware of any specific technical blockers. It's certainly come up in conversations with Mortoc, our senior graphics engineer. I mean, we have a game with nuclear pulse engines...the fact that you can't make craters with them feels like a missed opportunity. So yeah, we'll keep talking about this.
  

Thanks for your questions!

Onto business. We have knocked out a few more bugs for Patch Two, including that pesky issue where vehicles with more than 8 parts in a radial symmetry set were loading into the floor. We've just about wrapped up the cherry picking process and can say with confidence that it'll be out sometime in the next two weeks. We'll post an exact date for Patch Two as soon as we know it.

As we continue stabilizing and improving performance, we're also making progress on re-entry heating, new parts, and Science Mode. And just to highlight that other, bigger systems are always being worked on in parallel, here's some pictures of our QA team goofing off in multiplayer:



Yes, collision is working:



Last week's Duna-focused Weekly Challenge yielded some incredible creations! If you're in the mood to see highlights, the most-upvoted posts on both the ksp2_challenges and ksp2_screenshots Discord channels are now archived in the ksp2_bestof channel. There, you'll see stuff like this:



Those hydrogen tanks shine up real nice!

Finally, an apology: we've had some minor technical difficulties getting the next Weekly Challenge put together, but we hope to be bale to get something posted over the weekend. We regret the delay.

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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! 🍬

While it’ll be tough to beat the sheer number of fixes that went into Patch One, we’re seeing quite a few big ones go down in Patch Two. We are still pulling a couple of late-breaking improvements into that build - once we’ve got it in QA’s hands we should be able to give you a date, and of course full patch notes will be posted when the build goes public. Until that time, here are a few things that are already checked into Patch Two:

• Fixed loss of vehicle on reference frame change when physicsless parts present
  
• Fixed flamed-out engines not restarting properly
  
• Enabled switching between vehicles in atmospheric flight (within PhysX bubble)
  
• Recovered Kerbals now return to VAB Kerbal Manager
  
• Gave click priority to planets rather than moons when zoomed out in Map view
  
• Struts and fuel lines no longer broken after cloning subassembly in VAB
  
• Fixed bug: vessels with no control deleted during save
  
• Fixed flowers on Kerbin
  
• Added "next" button to seizure warning screen
  
• Height fog added to all atmospheres
  
• Updated parking garage collision (now possible to enter structures)
  
• Various CPU and GPU optimizations to improve performance
  

There are other improvements that we’re hoping to squeeze into Patch Two (one of which got checked in last night), so hopefully a few more big-ticket items will get added to the list in the coming days.

Here are a couple of screenshots to show our progress. We have pruned all the hovering flowers made of squares and replaced them with flowers made of flowers:



We’re also pretty excited about how nice the new height fog is looking. It’s a subtle change, but it adds a lot of depth to the landscape:



In other news, I did a Discord AMA this morning. Thank you for all your questions - we received literally thousands of them and did our best to include as wide a variety as possible. This was lots of fun, and we’ll be doing more AMAs in the future! We’ll do our best to choose different questions the next time around so that things don’t get too repetitive. If you’ve got thoughts about how we can improve our AMA process, please let us know!

A written version of the Discord AMA will be posted within the next week. Stay tuned!

We’ve also got another Community Highlights post on the forum - it’s very exciting to see how Patch One has unblocked some more ambitious missions! Please keep sharing your creations in the #ksp2_screenshots and #ksp2_challenges Discord channels- our team is fueled by your crashes achievements! We’ve also added an upvote system to both of those Discord channels. If you like something, add an :upvote: emoji. If an image in one of those channels gets fifteen or more upvotes, it’ll appear in a new channel called #ksp2_bestof. If you posted a screenshot you’re proud of that has now been lost in the mists of time, feel free to resubmit your creation so that the community can give it the upvotes it deserves!

And speaking of Weekly Challenges, we’ve got a new one: this week, we’re heading out to Duna!

Have a great weekend!

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[h3]The v0.1.1.0 Update for KSP2 is live! [/h3]

The complete patch notes for this update can be found below. We've had a few busy weeks!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/954850/view/3677790625554628815

First, the fine print: while this patch contains a lot of big improvements, it does not fix every bug in the game! This update represents the first step in an ongoing process of improvement that will continue through Early Access. If a high-profile bug that is especially important to you has not been addressed in this patch, please keep in mind that the order in which fixes roll out is not just contingent on priority — it also depends on the complexity of the problem that's causing the bug. The KSP community has done a very good job communicating their priorities to us, and we’re working to resolve the highest-impact issues first.

Among the changes we're most excited about (and again, check out the patch notes for the approximately 300 changes contained in this update):

• Optimized fuel flow calculations to cut processing by up to 3x and reduce garbage by half
  
• Improved joint strength for engine plate floating stack attach nodes
  
• Fixed R.A.P.I.E.R. engine mode-changing issues
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented loading of a saved game within an existing Campaign, caused workspaces not to load properly, and prevented saving the game
  
• Fixed issue that could cause some environment objects to spawn on top of the active vessel, causing KSC and other objects to move to the origin
  
• Fix for engine thrust being deflected at too high of a value when a part obstructs an engine’s exhaust (the Kraken Drive bug)
  
• Fixed physics impulse occurring when an engine runs out of fuel
  
• Fixed issue where some parts remain connected to/follow vessel after detachment
  
• Fixed stack decouplers staying connected to the vessel when staged with certain engines that have fairings enabled
  
• Fixed trajectory intercept patch not showing when captured by a Celestial Body
  
• Fixed stack decouplers operating as if crossfeed is active even when PAM entry shows crossfeed disabled
  

We are currently aware of one new bug in Patch One: when far from the viewer, runway lights toggle off. That issue will be resolved in the next patch.

A few minor adjustments have been made to terrain around certain areas of interest (for example, collision has been restored to the bottom of the Mohole). There is a very small (but non-zero) chance that this update could cause issues with landed vehicles near those locations. If you do encounter such an issue with a saved game, you can revert to an older build to move your vehicle to safer ground.

We are hard at work on Patch Two and have already committed some important new changes to that build (upcoming fixes in Patch Two will fix fuel line issues that prevent asparagus staging, stop the unexpected in-flight destruction of vehicles equipped with physicsless parts, and allow vessel switching in an atmosphere, among other improvements). We don’t yet have a release date for Patch Two, but it should arrive sometime in the next few weeks. We will update you here when we know more.

As always, thanks for your patience and continued support. As you know, this is a very big game, and the community’s ability to shine lights on every corner has given us much better visibility in a lot of critical areas. We hope that the performance improvements and bug fixes in today’s patch open up new opportunities for fun, and we look forward to making the game even better.

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