9 Things We Know About Kitten Space Agency (KSA) - New "KSP Killer"

[@scottmanley]

Proposal - developers should get all the KSP streamers to record kitten voices for their game.

[@RiskOfRuins]

Great idea scott manley, but it should just all be your voice! Haha

[@GRIFAbyte101]

"Hello! I'm Scotty Nyanley and today I am going to prepare you furballs for your very first rocket flight, nyan." 😺

[@supertomcathornet8233]

ayy scott manley

[@sunslayer553]

I hear a certain DJ was pretty good at synthesizers and voice effects...

[@ethanjensen1445]

Are you going to be making a video on KSA soon scott?

[@mastershooter64]

Massive Corporations: *fails to make KSP 2* The KSP Communitiy: *Fine, I'll do it myself*

[@forsaken841]

People don’t like to say it cuz he was a fan and super passionate, but it was the lead developers fault for wanting to put everything everywhere all at once into KSP 2 without clear prioritization.

[@ReddwarfIV]

​@forsaken841 Eh. Nate Simpson is not without blame, but he wasn't lead developer, he was Creative Director. It was his job to come up with ideas for what KSP2 could and should be. The big question is why there was no one at the company tempering that into something realistic. Why were all these future features being worked on in parallel, instead of the company prioritising a functional base game they could add features onto?

[@rtho4]

​@@ReddwarfIVthey were developed in parallel because the plan was never to release into EA

[@Ronaldo-vs3uh]

Ksp community also fails*

[@Moritz_Space]

not community just a slightly less massive corporation

[@Nodnarb69]

"Don't do that. Don't give me hope."

[@Commando_history]

Couldn't agree more, I'm going to sit back and watch what happens

[@Domonian]

Huffing big hopium for this one boys. At the very least, their development process shows off solutions to problems that this type of game has, making it easier for future games down the line if this one also fails. Either way, it's infinitely better than nothing at all.

[@Syntex366]

They’ve got Dean Hall, HarvestR, and Blackrack on project. If they fail, no one can succeed.

[@GronGrinder]

Im not concerned. No publisher, no rush. No bad decisions made because of those publisher time constraints (the reason KSP2 trainwreck started).

[@wiktorwektor123]

I will still not preorder it or buy at lauch. I'll wait at least a month. I still haven't bought KSP2 and I will never do it. If people would stop buying unfinished trash on day one or preorder this practice of "releasing" shit would end very fast. But most are complete moronos, so we have game industry we deserve.

[@SWDennis]

I think this will be the real deal. They had me at HarvesteR

[@ShadowZone]

They had me at "custom framework" instead of Unity.

[@lorenzzorzt]

@@ShadowZone They had me at coding livestreams with all the code exposed instead of marketing videos and false promises.

[@Firebolt193]

They had me at fuckmothering *Blackrack*

[@adamfundytus5202]

Lol yes to all the above

[@angelainamarie9656]

Also, not one word about how much we'll love wobbly rockets.

[@Jonassoe]

Stratzenblitz must be salivating at the thought of 65k part ships

[@seantaggart7382]

TD also

[@eamonnator]

I literally thought this immediately @stratzenblitz75

[@Thefrogman081]

And Bradley whitstance must be crying

[@d3vitron779]

@@Thefrogman081 can’t wait for “KSA 3 part count grand tour”

[@Thefrogman081]

@@d3vitron779 Still to many parts!

[@clayel1]

it is definitely easy to mod! i suggested adding the 33434 scottmanley asteroid, and they did it in only 15 minutes while on stream!

[@ShadowZone]

Ah that was you! Thanks for bringing up the suggestion.

[@clayel1]

yes! i even have a hilarious picture of rocket pulling up the texture map of scott munley on screen after i posted a link to it in the discord stream chat (they said that texture maps were still a wip)

[@Alfred-Neuman]

Noice! 😃👍

[@Ender240sxS13]

That in and of itself doesn't mean it will be easy to mod. Having access to all the dev tools and the source code isn't the same as moding. Of course since many major KSP moders are working on it I'm sure they will take moding into account with how the engine is set up.

[@Alfred-Neuman]

@@Ender240sxS13 In the video he said there was a C# wrapper on top of the C++ code. That's most probably for modding.

[@bobmigarski283]

Ksa being the Ksp killer? I think the real ksp killer is take 2.

[@Alfred-Neuman]

Blaming only Take 2 is a big misunderstanding of the whole story... The team was burning money like there was no tomorrow and the game wasn't progressing. Even if Take 2 continued to fund this team indefinitely, the game would have have been ready only like maybe around 2035. And even there, it would still be full of bugs and it would still use Unity so it would run like crap even on a 8Ghz CPU and a GeForce 6090 GPU... The project was doomed from the beginning.

[@alexsiemers7898]

@@Alfred-Neumanthere is no reality where T2 cares enough about the game that it would become what was promised in the 2019 trailer

[@yanlucasdf]

Gee u mean the team that got forced to do bad decision after bad decision after bad decision by take 2 was burning too much of take 2 money O wow, what a surprise, to no one that watched the video this here channel posted about the clusterfuck that taoe 2 did to the ksp franchise

[@Infernal_Elf]

@@Alfred-Neuman take 2 has the GTA V engine rhat could have worked better with tweaks.

[@Saviliana]

@@Alfred-Neuman Nah, Take2 was the blame, they fired the old team which holds everything and scrap the original codebase document so they could bring someone else cheaper in, the old demo was 80% done with better graphics and run with halve system requirements and feature mostly complete(including functionality science and dynamic systems), but no, someone at the higher ups in Take2 wants it to be developed in house. It was not doomed, it was murdered.

[@vieleanimations]

programming > art Good art cannot save a game with bad technical underpinnings. Yes I want the game to be pretty at some point, but it has to work first. Really glad they are taking this approach

[@pyaehtetaung]

Dwarf Fortress is the best example.

[@lextacy2008]

Yea but this is the sad fact that the team is not large enough to foster both. And it may never will triggering another Take2 all over again.

[@DDDhoch2]

Yeah. That is why making a successor to to KSP is so difficult. If a potential KSP 2 is not as performant as KSP 1 then a KSP 2 will fail since people will eventually return to KSP 1 for the performance. The graphics are nice but if the performance is not there it has no use.

[@NuclearFalcon146]

With what little I know about programming, it is an art in its own right, just like anything else involving _craftmanship_. However it is an art that can only be appreciated by those who understand it and thus low IQ types will always gravitate towards flashy art because of dopamine seeking.

[@1mariomaniac]

Agreed, I'm really looking forward to potentially seeing an early demo of KSA next year. It probably won't be beautiful, I don't expect it to be, but I think it'll be incredible to see what they've done as far as the more technical stuff is concerned.

[@raffaelecirone157]

- Finish the foundations and make them as robust as possible - Build a successful game about Kitten Space Exploration - Make $$$ - Buy Kerbal IP - Build a DLC adding Kerbin System neighbouring the Kitten System - Add Kerbals as playable race together with Kittenkind

[@randellosburn5105]

Also add a stone age Hughman Sol System DLC on the other side of a wormhole.

[@raffaelecirone157]

@@randellosburn5105 heh... making them create a religion around kittens should be easy enough

[@xiaozhang2909]

The most crucial element is the source code; if we've got KSA on our side, the 'Kerbal IP' becomes less significant.

[@tonyhakston536]

@@xiaozhang2909yeah but i like the funky green men

[@jerk1921]

GENIUS!

[@TROPtastic]

A monthly series from you called something like "This month in KSA" could be really useful with how much information the devs are putting out, seemingly on a daily basis. Would be great for those of us who don't have the time to read every discord post!

[@ShadowZone]

Great suggestion, thanks!

[@brainiac10]

Im pretty sure i would have a more emotional reaction to one of my kitties dying than my frogmen. engineering will have to improve as a result XD

[@bboi1489]

Gonna miss kerbals though. I hope they put some Gerbals in there for gits and shiggles. Maybe as some sort of kitten rival and callback to the og space minions.

[@JoeMakaFloe]

There will probably be a mod real quick that adds Kerbal back

[@witext]

I really like the idea of having catstronauts, would be cute

[@therealdefoma]

@@JoeMakaFloe Can't really do that as "Kerbal" and the models and concepts relating to the actual Kerbal beings are copyrighted by T2I.

[@spacebassist]

@@therealdefoma the gmod workshop and its collection of playermodels spanning 50,000 IPs would like a word with you someone's definitely gonna do it, it's just up to take 2 if they want to take action on something that isn't officially in the game. hopefully not, it's difficult to sue every guy who mods Mario into a game, and doing so would just spur others to do it in protest

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

The fact that it's a dedicated engine and not Unity gives me so much hope

[@streetwind.]

It's not even really an 'engine', which implies a set of tools that helps with making a game. No, they're going for direct low-level hardware API access, with as little in-between as sensible. The studio itself describes the BRUTAL framework as "overly complex" and "hard to use". Which means building a functional game on top of it will be neither easy nor quick work. But if they can do it, it should produce outstanding performance and require zero compromises in what's possible to simulate. In a way, you could describe it as the _opposite_ of a game engine. Compare the Unreal Engine 5. Everything - and I do mean _everything_ - in that is designed to make it as fast, cheap, and easy as possible for developers to do their work. Most gamers think UE5 is all about the technology, like Lumen and Nanite. Epic is cleverly marketing it that way. But those are actually just means to an end. The true core philosophy of UE5 is "reduce development time and budget", and so they made a new way to build environment geometry without needing to spend time on LODs, and added a self-calibrating global illumination engine. In order to make these features work, UE5 sacrifices your hardware on the altar of performance. Memory, in particular. The amount of RAM, VRAM, and inter-component memory bandwidth that a UE5 game needs to scale properly is on another level of anything that came before it, and this is part of why everyone has been screaming at Nvidia for not delivering enough VRAM with recent hardware generations. Not the only reason, but certainly a big part. Meanwhile, here comes RocketWerkz with their not-an-engine, and say: "we just imported 40,000 stars from realworld data and rendered them all directly onscreen instead of baking them into a skybox. It takes up about 800 kB of VRAM and runs at 1700 FPS." But the framework that enables this feat is painfully complicated and does not hold your hand in anything.

[@amrbasbous1113]

​@@streetwind.Thx for the awesome comment, and I can't even start to imagine what having all of that performance could enable the developers and modders to do, especially that the focus is to enable extensive modding from the get go. Absolutely insane potential.

[@mennovanlavieren3885]

@@streetwind. Well, it still has an engine. The engine is not the set of tools, but only the core that does the number crunching to simulate the physics. The thing that makes it run. But maybe in some parts of the game development world the word has shifted meaning to mean the whole set of tools. Which would be called a Game Development Suite or something along those lines. I don't know, it has been a long time since I did some game development myself. For the rest, very informative and interesting comment.

[@mcgoo721]

​@@streetwind. Would all of that support a Huge Naturals mod for the astronauts, you think?

[@mattmurphy7030]

@@streetwind.of course it has an engine. The engine is the layer that interfaces with OpenGL/vulkan/directx. It’s not like they’re raw dogging mesh files into vertex buffers with NO engine layer representing a “mesh” object

[@Atlessa]

It just occured to me the KSP2 devs (some of them at least) are following Shadowzone's mantra: AGAIN!

[@HuntingTarg]

Did you ever watch the movie "Miracle" 😉?

[@ANDRU_OMEDA]

Dean Hall and the developers there have been really transparent and working with the community so far and it feels great compared to the treatment we got from ksp2

[@ShadowZone]

Yes, totally different vibe than before. Breath of fresh air compared to how T2 treated us (creators and community alike).

[@adamfundytus5202]

@@ShadowZone Yeah its like night and day. I feel a tingle of optimism in my loins for once

[@rosefeather_]

​@@ShadowZoneI've been following Dean Hall for many years now. I wouldn't put a lot of trust into him if I were you, but it's your choice.

[@Vaquedoso]

@@rosefeather_ you don't have to act superior; everyone knows about what happened with DayZ, that his contract with Bohemian ended so he left the development team.

[@sloo6425]

@@rosefeather_ I'd agree, still waiting for Stationer to finish, at least they are still working on it. I'd say, guarded expectations. If it was more a Stardew valley situation, would be a different story, but his office and Team here in town shows he's not a one man show and the current Stationer game is still lacking. I bought the game in 2017 and it's still early access with a few DLCs... it's kinda ridiculous ...

[@redderthanmisty6762]

Looking forward to modding back in the Kerbol system so we can truly have the KSP 2 we deserved

[@1mariomaniac]

And the best part is, because it won't be running on Unity, heavily modded instances of KSA probably won't take literal _minutes_ to start up unlike KSP! 😆

[@Napoleon_e2]

You mean hours? Minutes is average for 3d games ​@@1mariomaniac

[@1mariomaniac]

@@Napoleon_e2 Really? Huh. Not on my machine it isn't, other 3d games boot up in around a minute or less. 🤷 KSP on the other hand has taken 15+ minutes to load on some CKAN instances.

[@Napoleon_e2]

@@1mariomaniac yeah that's true

[@swiss6459]

HarvesteR alone gives me hopes that this sequel will be good

[@bruhus_momentum]

The guy is the ultimate space sim pioneer that forged in fire before everyone else. I trust him to invent a better wheel than failing to reinvent the wheel like ksp2 did

[@thedumbaviator5536]

I was so happy when i found out he was from my country lol 🇧🇷

[@mastershooter64]

@@thedumbaviator5536 oh he's from Brazil? that's pretty cool I thought he was from Mexico

[@ivanjermakov]

I want to see more teams like Wube (who made Factorio). A small group of passionate experienced devs and modders that are willing to make a game that is enjoyable for themself to play. I'm completely okay with KSA taking 5-10 years of early access, if they manage to stay focused on the goal of making a great game.

[@kildevang98]

Yeah, there is a reason Factorio is one of the best games ever made. The devs wanted to make the sort of game they wanted to play themself, so of course it was great. By the way, the factory must grow!

[@bbgun061]

Yes but the developers have to eat. Do they have the funding to work for five years before it's done? Or can they earn the money from Early Access sales?

[@HuntingTarg]

KSP1 went over 5 years from inception to version 1.0, and a lot was learned in that process. There is already an abundance of failures for the KSA to learn from, and there was community support all along the way for KSP1 in that process. My point: It shouldn't take 5 years this time. Any game that takes longer than 5 years to get to full release is in danger of becoming the next Daikatana or Star Citizen.

[@christopherquinn5899]

I hope that this version has a good "tech tree" where it is feasible to used unmanned spaceflight rather than having to wait as long as we had to in KSP1. Let's hope something comes of it.

[@sachathehuman4234]

I believe they said somewhere they were gonna do an uncrewed first sort of progression, but dont quote me on that

[@joshuajackson472]

Yeah, but starting with crewed missions was part of the kerbal charm. I liked to lean into it, even running crewed relay networks for fun. If they had a mouse wheel for my kerbals to run on to generate power, I absolutely would've used it.

[@GP22855]

​@@joshuajackson472even if they go with uncrewed first someone is gonna mod the kerbal tech tree into the game at some point!

[@mastershooter64]

@@GP22855 yea it's not the best, but it is a classic tech tree, no one can forget it

[@Superbus753]

There is the probes before crew mod for ksp if you want it

[@antoniskazou]

As much as I love the idea I am not allowing myself to get too excited, I don't want for my heart to be shuttered yet again.

[@1mariomaniac]

I think this will probably get way farther than KSP2 tbh. It's an indie team, with loads upon loads of talent involved, including the creator of KSP, HarvesteR. If anyone can pull this off, it's them.

[@shazmodeus2795]

What was accomplished on a frankly janky and limiting engine (Unity) with KSP was actually incredible. The thought of the original KSP creator having a hand in building a spiritual successor to his game on a custom built engine with a full dedicated dev team gives me immense hope.

[@mattmurphy7030]

How is unity janky lol?

[@RogueJin]

⁠@@mattmurphy7030 Unity just wasn’t built to handle the insane physics demand KSP had. It ended up causing issues like the famed kraken to occur. It’s not that Unity is janky, it just isn’t up to par with what was required of it.

[@thomgizziz]

No it wasn't. KSP had problems because the dev wasn't able to anticipate foundational problems when he started the game and tearing the whole thing down and building it back up was something he and his eventual team didn't want to do. Then KSP2 came along and made all the same mistakes in the planning stages because they had no communication with the KSP1 team. Everything this specialized engine can do can be done in unity if you know where the probably issues are going to be and plan for them.

[@thomgizziz]

@@RogueJin Kraken has nothing to do with unity. It has to do with the devs not being able to foresee some of the issues their choices at the beginning would cause in the future and when they were aware of the problem they didn't want to put in the major amount of time it would take to tear everything down fix it and put it back together. The tool is fine like it usually is and a poor dev will never blame themselves and will scapegoat the tool.

[@JRexRegis]

@@mattmurphy7030 unity itself is not, but the implementations done for KSP1 (joint physics on vessels, lots of weird render jank and physics jank) were primarily caused by Unity not really being an engine that has a good native physics engine built into it. You either have to graft another onto Unity or modify what is there, and KSP unfortunately did the latter, which resulted in physics that were meant to be used to deform things like ropes and clothing for rockets made up of thousands of parts (for reference, that physics system was made to animate hair made of 3-5 joints reacting to player input, not entire vessels made of thousands of joints reacting to random atmospheric forces or itself). Add to that all the things piled on top of this (like aerodynamics) and a very inefficient implementation (again, aerodynamics) and the source of the lag becomes clear.

[@luuk3731]

Looking at alternatives to KSP made me learn one thing: KSP's planet names are way better compared to any other games. It might be because we got used to it, but any Earthlike planet name sounds somewhat lacking compared to Kerbin.

[@Napoleon_e2]

Yeah

[@thomgizziz]

No. You got used to and attached to something and spent tons of time on it. Most people haven't and the real planet names are much more preferable and familiar. The fact that you weren't able to figure that out for yourself is a red flag.

[@luuk3731]

@@thomgizziz I wasn't saying it about real planets, but other fictional planets. I can never recall Juno: New Origin's planet names despite playing it a lot due to not being able to access my PC. Being a space nerd, I can recall real planet names just fine.

[@MT_Cuber]

you know that ksa will be the true successor to ksp if shadowzone talks about it

[@mastershooter64]

fellow cuber! I just started practicing F2L

[@ariclundy1300]

No kidding 😂 I didn’t believe KSP2 was cancelled till shadowzone said so

[@Bourinos02]

Errr, shadowzone talked a lot about KSP2...

[@maxxiong]

Cubers unite

[@lorenzzorzt]

I'm bad at cubing, pr 32s, I use basic CFOP with intuitive F2L.

[@dafelix]

They have to add the Subnautica button. The thing can not be simpler, just a notification that pops up from time to time that says "Press F8 to send feedback"

[@johnburr9463]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="525">8:45</a> Step 1 - Make it work. Step 2 - Make it pretty.

[@UriahGnu]

They have the right people, the time and money and the community, I am looking forward to seeing what they accomplish and hearing more about what the actual game will be. What gives me confidence is that Dean Hall is a gamer and experienced game designer who is very passionate about everything he does and won't have any meddling executive trying to micro manage the project.

[@angelainamarie9656]

More importantly, they have the right IDEA. Listening to the KSP2 team continue to gaslight us about wobbly rockets for months on end was very disappointing and depressing. And i gave that game a GOOD FAITH effort, playing it even when nothing worked until I was ready to cry from frustration.

[@UriahGnu]

@@angelainamarie9656 I agree, but also can't blame the developers themselves entirely. Take-Two was certainly responsible for placing nearly impossible contraints on KSP2 development. "Use the legacy source code, but don't talk to the KSP1 team. Add massive features, but only once you have feature parity with KSP1." These are issues of management and vision.

[@Android480]

Seems legit, but I think this is *even more* ambitious. Maintaining a modern engine is an entire company’s worth of work alone

[@HuntingTarg]

If it works, it could be the first of its kind (AFAIK, it is) and yield lucrative licensing fees. Look at Unreal.

[@joshuasteward6672]

As soon as I heard about KSA I thought "Can't wait to see Shadow Zone's take"

[@mrmoore2050]

So many cat puns in this video... and I'm here fur it.

[@bogosbinted8231]

kitten is probably the best strategy considering the popularity of cat games and cat in general online

[@UNSCPILOT]

The internet was built to share funny cat videos, space cat antics is a logical extention of that. Silliness aside I hope this works out, the amount of things KSP2 promised... then failed to come to par with the first game... it's painful and agitating with the whole studio being quietly deleted without so much as a "woops, we lied" from them or the publisher

[@angelainamarie9656]

And cute, don't forget. Our astronauts must be cute.

[@1mariomaniac]

Plus it'll incentivize smart design! Can't be hurting the adorable catstronauts after all!

[@roninfrog2065]

I swear if they actually use kittens the first thing im doing is installing a mod to change that shit

[@DopeEx]

@@roninfrog2065 That was the first thing i thought when i heard this and that it should be easy to mod. The first mod i would need is one that removes the stupid cats.

[@neotuxxedo]

indie development is going crazy this year and I am all for it!

[@1mariomaniac]

With Triple-A studios being so much of a dumpster fire, someone has to pick up the slack, right? 😆

[@PetrPss]

Could you name some other notable indie projects?

[@Meowskulls62]

@@PetrPssSFS, StarbaseSim

[@mennovanlavieren3885]

@@PetrPss Factorio?

[@neotuxxedo]

@@PetrPss sand, forever winter, satisfactory, animal well… just to name a few.

[@TalkierSnail016]

The KSP community never ceases to amaze me. It may very well be the most dedicated community to any game out there, and I absolutely love it.

[@EritoKaio]

Will hold my hype for when we have proper gameplay in our hands. I'll do my part in modding. I only have one request for their team: DOCUMENTATION. My biggest issue modding KSP1 is the lack of updated documentation in modding. Be it from the official PartTools or even the community itself. If KSA makes easy to follow modding documentation it is going to help figure things out so much faster.

[@thomgizziz]

Yeah what did you do? Put in some decals and then over inflated your own ego? Get a grip.

[@kendallsmith8860]

What they should do is license the *sound* files from KSP2 - I think universally everyone agreed that piece of KSP2 was good (and should be implementable without headaches since not really part of the game engine).

[@livethefuture2492]

Well a bunch of the modders from that are working on this team, im sure they could pull something off. Since it isnt a core mechanic, it can be easily modded in. You could add pretty much whatever sounds you like.

[@TommyLikeTom]

When you realize that KSP was mostly made by one person it all starts making sense

[@HuntingTarg]

This also makes a lot of sense: HarvesteR was the core engine, and the dev support of Squad & the modding community were like boosters & second stage; think Proton or Centaur. This Dev team working together is more like Falcon super Heavy. Once the engine is validated and tested, a lot of the dev support can either detatch from the project or move into component design and graphics.

[@japhy4]

So happy. I have been playing stationeers for 5 years and they have 100% pulled through on their early access commitment. That plus the lack of pretty pictures actually makes me really hopeful.

[@r3versingm4chine]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="280">4:40</a> actually we do know what machine that was running on! He said in the discord that his machine at work has a 4090 in it and an i9 processor

[@Napoleon_e2]

Lol no wonder it ran at 1000fps

[@sitrilko]

Just having HarvesteR even as an advisor makes me positive about this project.

[@roderickelliott6193]

If they had called it Kapybara Space Program I would have puked.

[@fridaycaliforniaa236]

LMFAO

[@gcewing]

Maybe Tardigrade Space Program? No need for space suits.

[@impulsiveDecider]

Hey hey hey, leave them Capybaras alone

[@methodermis]

*furiously shoveling coal into the hype train* What did you say?

[@1mariomaniac]

*helps you shovel more coal into the hype train*

[@calluxdoaron1903]

*helps shoveling shovels into the hype train.* More! *More!*

[@axelord4ever]

No. Never again. I'll sing praises when I see the choir.

[@HuntingTarg]

​@@axelord4everVery understandable. Don't worry, we'll be back for you with the Early Access runs. 😉 MORE COAL! 🚂

[@albert_vds]

The best part is RocketWerkz actually applying things learned from KSP1 and 2. Unity is an engine which can do lots of things, but because of that it can't be a solution for every game. But once a game needs to get into a very niche situation, then it all breaks apart and need to be fixed somehow. Also, the fact that multithreading is a noteworthy point is showing that KSP1 and Unity cause a problem together. Multicore games have been around for ages, and yet we were just chugging along on KSP1 and 2 with just 1 core being used. It is just too damn silly.

[@estelyen]

I can already see the next d**k move from Take2: They're most probably going to try to sue RW for intellectual property violation before selling the IP. I'm hoping against hope though that they show some semblance of human decency and not do that. I sincerely hope RW will succeed in their endeavor!

[@Techno_Idioto]

I don't doubt Take2 will do as scummy corporations do and sue for IP violation.

[@r3dp9]

KSA is sufficiently distinct, would be pretty hard to sue over. Then again, sueing doesn't have to succeed to 'win', it just has to bankrupt the target with legal fees.

[@akiranara6404]

Take 2 does not own the concept of a game based around a space program. None of the KSP IP appears in this game as it is currently presented; the only thing they could even argue is that the name is similar, but "Kitten Space Agency" is highly distinct from "Kerbal Space Program". And while many members of the dev team originated from KSP... well, Take 2 laid them off, and I don't think it's legally actionable anyway unless they can prove code from KSP was used in the new product, which would be hard since the team is building a whole new engine to make this game. Take 2 could try to sue, but any reasonable judge would immediately dismiss the case.

[@higueraft571]

@@akiranara6404 >but "Kitten Space Agency" is highly distinct from "Kerbal Space Program" This... is definitely debatable. Both KSP and KSA are Space Flight Sims which (presumably, it's mostly just empty promises at the moment) similar gameplay and mechanics with a similar(?) artstyle. >but any reasonable judge would immediately dismiss the case. Are you a Lawyer? And no, even then they wouldnt most likely. There's DEFINITELY an Argument to be made on if this IS actually too close/crossing the line or not. (And besides, if Take Two *wants* to kill KSA, they just have to sue them and keep the lawsuit going long enough to bankrupt the developers, doesnt matter if they win the case in the end or not, they'd still win regardless)

[@akiranara6404]

@higueraft571 I meant that the name "Kitten Space Agency" is distinct from the name "Kerbal Space Program". Take 2 Interactive's copyright on the latter does not entitle them to persecute all products with similar names. I mean, look at Superman and Spiderman: both are comic book heroes with relatively similar names, but both are still distinct enough that a lawsuit by DC would very likely fail. I'm admittedly not sure how a lawsuit would go, but it would definitely be stretching the KSP IP for Take 2 to try and sue RocketWerkz(?) over making a game in the same genre with entirely different character designs. Best case, a judge throws out the case for being blatantly anticompetitive, or RocketWerkz successfully countersues using the Sherman Antitrust Act. (Assuming US law applies here, I'm not sure where RocketWerkz is headquartered.)

[@markh.7650]

Ahh C#. The love of my unschooled coding adventures. When you mentioned "worker threads" I knew exactly what you meant. I've used them, and they are magic. One thing about windows is, it's event driven. so if you try to program everything from your GUI, nothing will happen "in the background". Unless you spin off worker threads to do the work and have them report (generate an event) to your high level control interface. They use C++ for time critical processes because it's closer to the Kernel than a highly abstracted language like C#. Brilliant stuff.

[@hey_how_are_ya]

Depending on the ambitions of ksa i wouldn't expect to see the finished game sometime between 2 to 6 years at least

[@UNSCPILOT]

Still better than KSP2, what with the studio getting deleted

[@hey_how_are_ya]

@UNSCPILOT also it seems like ksa is going to be an indy game

[@complex3297]

I think we will have something playable in 2 years. They have a lot of good people with experience so I’m interested to see how everything works out

[@corporatecapitalism]

The ksp community is approaching gurren lagaan levels of determination to make ksp 2 actually good.

[@albert_vds]

I hope think becomes as great, or better, than KSP1. Not only do we need a more modern KSP type game, I also think it's great for this channel to have one of its focuses back.

[@GamePlague]

KSP1 but with more planets/moons (and landmarks on them) and the ability to build functional infrastructure on other planets is all I have ever really wanted from a space game. So the ability to easily mod in planets is great to hear. I never really paid much attention to KSP2 details because I was waiting to see if it would get cancelled before I dedicated time to it.

[@SciFiFactory]

First thought was "Kittens? Reeeaaally?" But the more I think about it... It is kinda growing on me. And the range of jokes available is promising :)

[@Deltarious]

About hype: I think it's mostly a function of demand/desire for something combined with hope or the possibility of something being good. If the chance for a new game *exists* and it's what people want to hear/something there is huge demand for the hype is then *automatic* and happens on it's own. I'd argue it's actually harder in reverse- to manage and 'keep down' hype to a realistic set of expecations. Your framing in this video helps a lot with that so I hope a lot of people see it

[@eddyjay83]

I've done my mourning, and accepted ksp fate. And now you go and tell me there will be another? and with the original devs? You bastard, you gave me hope...

[@HuntingTarg]

"Hope springs eternal..." 😊

[@stuffisfunsometimes]

The transparency is what makes me actually quite optmistic about this. They're fully open about how early the project is, so it's not going to release to the public only for people to realise that it's not ready at all, even for a beta test.They're also explaining _why_ it's going to perform better than KSP, rather than just saying they will like was done with KSP 2 (although they might just be making stuff up for all I know) Obviously it's still way too early to have an opinion, but I'm definitely keeping an eye on it

[@joshuasims5421]

KSA seems to have two goals right now; to make a bespoke space physics engine for a game like KSP, and to make a game+IP to replace KSP. I have high confidence in the former, especially if they keep onboarding great modders and KSP devs. I am worried about the latter goal; nobody should be thinking about Kittens or branding until the core system works. This was the fatal flaw of KSP2, they tried to rush out a clone of KSP. KSA can do this right, but they need to hold their horses on any branding&game design until the core system is immaculate. Looking forward to the early access!

[@ShadowZone]

As I said in the "Kittens. Really?" chapter of the video, I don't think Kittens are set in stone yet. It's all just to have a working title I think and convey the idea that they want to have a cute and funny maskot style protagonist ... thingy...

[@joshuasims5421]

@@ShadowZone I hope so. In the discord, a slight majority of fans seem mostly fixated on the Kittens theme and minor details of gameplay, which is the reason for my comment. I very much agree with your stance in the video.

[@youtubeisapublisher6407]

Honestly, focusing 100% in on the architecture for simulation and modding is absolutely the correct way to approach this. Id say that at least for a game like this, the art design and models are the "easy" (insofar as anything in game dev is) part.

[@Coconut-219]

great username 👍

[@plazmaguy13yago9]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="17">0:17</a> my names markiplier

[@wObBlE73]

And today we are playing five nights at kerbin

[@JuxGD]

​@@wObBlE73Five Nights at Kerman's

[@zachlistofficial]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="180">3:00</a> You missed the opportunity to say "Purrformance" rather than Performance 😂😂

[@simandi1511]

the nyan drive should become a thing even if it wont be called Kitten Space Agency

[@Steve211Ucdhihifvshi]

and instead of mach numbers, purrfactors.

[@josefwitt9772]

I like RocketWerkz, I like KSP1, and I like kittens. Great stuff!

[@UrbanImposter]

We shall watch your career with great interest.

[@Xizilqou]

This seems amazing, glad to see more custom engine/framework tech being used in more games

[@CompilerError1128]

I only want one thing out of KSA. ONE THING! I want kittens to stay, especially if there’s some level of customization. My Ziggy deserves to ascend the stars and take his rightful place as a cosmic being.

[@mastershooter64]

Even if they don't, due to the high level of "modability" I'm sure you'll be able to mod the kittens back in

[@CompilerError1128]

@ good point!

[@papascrumpeeh]

Would be cool if the characters looked like the palicos from monster hunter 😆

[@UNSCPILOT]

Yes, very much yes, do want

[@TheGamer7000]

I hope they go with the kitten idea. Love It!

[@Infernal_Elf]

Its pretty much the only thing apart from minions that could be as iconic as the kerbals.

[@shawnfike2910]

@@Infernal_Elf OMG, Minion Space Program would be friggin' EPIC!

[@Aiello_]

@@shawnfike2910 That would be a funny mod, add Vector to the moon too lol

[@fridaycaliforniaa236]

@@shawnfike2910 Or the Rabbids ^^ I'd love to see a mod with the; BBWAAAAaaaaHHHHHHHH 😂😂

[@higueraft571]

@@Infernal_Elf Birds.

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

Ksp modders are so amazing and create such beautiful labors of love that they might as well make their own space game entirely from scratch.

[@AgustinCaniglia1992]

I kind of like the kittens. It might be good to popularize it as well as people love cats and some say they come from different planets and are really intelligent.

[@Guardian_Arias]

Step one to killing the kraken, employ Einstein Special and General Reletivity Theories. Checks out.

[@sovietunion8304]

The thing about ksp is that it had a style of humor with the little Kerbals and their solar system so far all ksp successors did not capture this and in my mind they won’t replace ksp as it’s just another space sim Having the agency revolving around kittens might actually pull it off I could see ksa having the same type of style and humor ksp is known for

[@AzureImperium7701X]

But we might be a little more careful not to kill our kittens.

[@tdkerman3604]

"another space sim"? Are there that many that we have a choice? XDDD

[@notaulgoodman9732]

I love how their teaser is actual gameplay. Like they just booted up obs while flying around the map. It feels more genuine, like it is actually what they promise.

[@PJBlick]

Awww...Coote Kittiehs in Space... WAIT? NO KITTIEH, DON'T MARK THAT CONSOLE!!

[@jamesroy791]

I dont know about this game But Space Simulator 2 looks promising

[@curious_ksp_]

Blackrack?! Nertea?! HARVESTER?!! Wow... Just wow

[@axelord4ever]

You can't understand how much it hurt to see what they did to the very name of KSP with the sequel. After having been a regular KSP player since the _very first publicly released version,_ I had some understandably high hopes. Now seeing some people aren't willing to let that flame go out, well... it makes me happy at least. Only the future will tell, but I'll hold on hope.

[@dragon-ksp]

They got 1700 FPS when rendering planets 💀

[@fridaycaliforniaa236]

Meanwhile, KSP 2.0 -> 10 FPS in pre-alpha ^^

[@mastershooter64]

@@fridaycaliforniaa236 in KSP 2, FPS as in Frames Per Seventeen years

[@pootisbird7280]

It is worth noting that the machine running it has a 4090 and an I9, so it's not exactly a home laptop. Still, very impressive.

[@corporatecapitalism]

@@pootisbird72801700 fps is still pretty crazy with a 4090 compared to my 30 fps with a 3090 in ksp 2

[@Piemur1]

As mentioned in the video, RocketWerkz is development studio that also are making Stationeers, which is an AMAZING crafting/survival hardcore game where they have an incredibly robust simulated fluid dynamics system. Temperature, pressure, phase change to/from liquids and gas (and solid if it freezes). Mixes of different gases. Combustion. Radiating thermal energy. Power generation. Etc, etc. It's an incredibly in-depth system and even incorporated the MIPS assembly programming standard so you can control devices via coding if you are so inclined to. I hope ShadowZone has played it, or might be inclined to try it out at some point. Edit: okay so ShadowZone has at least mentioned they didn't really like the art style of the game, but if you ignore that bit, it's still a good game.

[@adammanning8882]

I wish someone would have bought KSP2 to fix it, and this seems like the next best thing. I’ll miss my little green frog men, but if this is a good spiritual successor to KSP1 I won’t complain

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

You can't fix a broken foundation

[@YodaIzChaos]

I'm sure Kerbals will be one of the first mods you see for this game. Lol

[@mxp14242]

@@YodaIzChaosAgree 100% I think the only question is how quickly it will happen. I don’t really know much about modding or what’s required in terms of modeling and animating something for a game but I think there may even be some friendly competition between modders racing to be the first to Kerbalise their kittens.

[@mariueg]

Hyyyyype! I'm in their discord already and boy do they keep the updates coming

[@SkalyGhostGaming]

they should use kittens in this one... it'll make getting back on spacecraft much easier

[@vadimbich4602]

no more forgotten ladders on landers! with kittens we don't need no darn ladders!

[@FireCrack]

"no shiny stuff" is great. I remember the very first announcement trailer for KSP2 giving me some worrying feels when it spent so much time showing of crazy fusion propulsion and extra-solar rocket engines, can very little time on the actual fundamentals.

[@Stukov961]

"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."

[@mastershooter64]

"Hope is the first step on the road to Happiness"

[@launchsquid]

I'm someone that bought KSP way back when it was cheap and they promised I'd get all the DLC's for free, and I'm still playing it today (I've never been particularly good or inventive, but even us NPC's can still have fun in KSP). I never even started with KSP2. For me, it needed to be more than KSP for me to even start taking it seriously, that never happened. I thinknthis is the hurdle that KSA will face the most. I'm liking what I hear so far, and I m always an optimist when things like this get announced (them succeeding means we get a fun game), but KSP has so much going for it they really will need to get something pretty special going to be a KSP killer. And the KSP2 failure will also hurt them, there are people that bought in and feel burned, at least some of them will be slow to take on early adopter status for this one after that. I wish them well, and I will be keeping an eye on this in the hope I can give them my money, but will need to see something close to parity with KSP from a gameplay pov before the better frame rates and better physics simulation become the thing that'll make me feel like KSP is getting old. Good luck devs, I'm rooting for you.

[@Foxstein]

After the KSP2 disaster, I would rather believe that Roscosmos will succeed than that a worthy analogue of the original KSP will appear.

[@netshaman9918]

When i saw a half alpha game sold at 60 € , this had triggered all my scam alarms ! ^^

[@GuardianOne24]

@@netshaman9918and you can still buy it!

[@FreelancerWells]

After what happened to KSP2, it's encouraging to see the approach they're taking with KSA. I hope it goes well for them. 👍

[@TheRealBigbeat]

Don't forget the man behind the project already abandoned his first game: Dayz. So don't expect anything different, then taketwo did to us

[@laser_red1820]

When there's old modders of KSP 1 and 2 and some devs PLUS the creator of the original game, the worst that can happen is that he abandons the game after making a lot of money and give back the direction to the devs which don't disturb me at all. Don't be afraid, we're not dealing with stupid AAA companies full of greed that don't care about their games, we're with an indie game studios without stupid decisions that don't make sense and with people that really knows what they are doing and have the complete determination to do it.

[@lorenzzorzt]

That was partially caused by Bohemia Interactive, RocketWerkz is completely autonomous, they are being funded by Stationeers and Icarus. This project has the devs of KSP 1 and 2, HarvesteR, the creator of KSP 1, modders and many other stuff, plus they don't want any excessive hype, the game will take time. Just the fact Rocket did coding live exposing the source code to all people in the call is proof this will probably be different. Also, as the other guy mentioned, if Dean steps back due to some kind of problem, we will still have the original dev team.

[@Byzz2077]

always nice to see something having a connection to SS13

[@CosmicAggressor]

Interesting. Definitly something to keep an eye out for. Hopefully it will pop up on steam instead of having to go to some website like we originally did with ksp. Because while that might have been fine in 2012 these days most people are used to being able to find everything on steam or gog or if they hate themselves epic games.

[@LighthouseCape]

Love it that T2 is also the mastermind behind the once beloved GTA series turned into a butt end of a joke for being milked the sh*t out of GTA5&Online for 11 years. That company is the "EA (or UBI or whatever) of the new age", and the arch-nemesis for most of the gamers now.

[@meatstack]

Early Access can be great, when done right. Take a look at how Coffee Stain tackled Satisfactory for examples of how to do it right.

[@bearnaff9387]

Stationeers is a continually-expanding modular thermodynamic simulator in much the same way that KSP and Space Engineers are modular kinetic physics simulations. The publisher, at least, has experience with building and refining a physics simulation over time while developing a game, and I think a lot of the potential stumbling blocks in KSA development will be things that Rocketwerks has experience with and will avoid this second time around. Now all they have to do is not run out of money.

[@MitchCyan]

I’ll be keeping my eye on this.

[@mcbrite]

I LOVE the "9 lives" angle and all the cat possibilities! I imagine many players would let their best astro-cats retire on their ninth life! 😀 Also we NEED an engine that leaves a rainbow trail!

[@airwaffle]

no kraken will be awesome! fianlly i can make any goofy spacecraft!!

[@richardbloemenkamp8532]

KSA is really awesome news. I have no problem paying for early access or even demos on Steam. KSP has given me so much that I'd be happy to give a hundred dollar back to support the developers. I even don't care to pay for stuff that they give away for free to others later. However I find it very important that they are open about what they do, make everything mod-friendly and work with the KSP community and the KSP KZbinrs. I also find kittens pretty cute and funny. So far all the choices, like focus of a good engine and technology are perfect.

[@Infernal_Elf]

As i have said for quite a while Unity engine is quite basic. And tottaly failing both at KSP2 and Cities skylines 2 it only works well for basic 2d games. Kitten space agency sounds promising.

[@thetobi583]

Now THIS is how a KSP successor is made! I will await further developments on this with an eager ear.

[@lightningwingdragon973]

First VRage3, now Brutal. Space sim engines are building up steam!

[@Britaliope]

It's hard to contain optimism when seeing the way they handle the project, and the team behind it. Also, the fact that they were a serious contender for being the studio for KSP2 is very reassuring. It shows that it's not a project launched just to try and fill ksp2 market space but instead was something they already thought long ago, and just resurrected the project now that ksp2 is dead. We just have to wait if they manage to cook the magic sauce that original KSP manage. But i think if they manage to copy KSP1 main features even with simple graphics but on their custom framework, all the KSP community will jump in. KSP1 with a more stable architecture and built on sane basis for 1- modding and 2- uture updates and maybe DLC and expansions would be enough to convince me.

[@crosshunter3316]

As a ksp1 lover i can conclude what is best for the good space program simulator, and what is bad: 1 performance is highly recommended to be as good as it could be - just to have big reserve for mods and fancy stuff. 2 physical stuff like aerodynamics should be as accurate as it could be, so we could make rockets - possible in real life, like for example in ksp we tested starship concepts when those were released by spacex, and could try do belly flops, and other cool stuff before spacex could say or show anything. 3 modding capabilities should be maximum available, because mods are just unbelievably good way for game to get a lot of good stuff. Bad things for good space simulator: good graphics - no need for these, if someone wants good graphics he should know that good graphics killed ksp2 - devs were making pretty planets, effects and highly detalised part and character models ,and fancy animations - it took a lot of work, and MONEY! So making good graphics - made game expensive and buggy on release, instead they should've focus on totally different stuff, and hire different people like programmers and testers, to studio. Being ignorant and ignore community is bad for any game, it is just a fact. Not having good planning for game development is a bad thing too, it was one of ksp 2, killers. Huge ambitions is bad, you maybe want to make AAA level title, but you not rockstar ubisoft, ot EA, so stop dreaming big and start making small/basic.

[@sylvira3212]

I love Purrbals! 🤣 That sounds fun!

[@17Scumdog]

Under rated comment

[@pegasusted2504]

I'm just asking at the minute Epic support as to why KSP2 early access is still for sale on their site. I even got a pop up notifying me of it in the first place. This new one is looking interesting.

[@HuntingTarg]

I bet it's just because Take2 is in the thrall of greedy investment bastards who will take the money of any fool who thinks KSP2 is still worth playing. 'Forget the development, full funding to advertising!' (Not really, just giving dramatic emphasis).

[@pegasusted2504]

@@HuntingTarg I remember back in the day Take2 games were great. I believe the first one, or one of them, they made was Alien Breed I think on the Amiga or maybe Megadrive.

[@HuntingTarg]

@@pegasusted2504 "Every company is born entrepreneurially, and dies bureaucratically." -Orrin Woodward

[@JohnnyJakuleg]

RocketWerkz say that they might still have very prominent (KSP2?) team member joining their team. I chose to believe that that person will be Lyin' Nate who will join as a consultant. Whenever they have doubt on what to do on a technical issue, they'll ask him and do exactly the opposite 🙂 --> success will be guaranteed. Kidding aside and somewhat ironically, I believe they can really get the foundation right, but the looking at stationeer, they might lack in accessibility, polishing and cool graphics (which seems to have been the only focus for KSP2). I hope that looking at the hires they have done - like the cloud-guy (blackrack?) they are indeed fully aware that pretty graphics might not be THE core issue in a physics-sim game, but still required for larger success.

[@junkaccount8302]

They should’ve gone with puppy space agency to honor Laika, the first animal in space. I’m also a dog person, so…

[@calluxdoaron1903]

Internet was made to spread funny cat pictures and videos (And POOOOORN). This is logical conclusion to which we came. And dogs could be ingame rival company.

[@fridaycaliforniaa236]

The fact they decided to create a solid foundation before working on all the shiny stuff is a good green flag to me. Light years ahead of what Nate Simpson did (or did not) at Private Division/TakeDown Interactive... « Wait and See », as people say, but to me this is a good indication they're on the right path to success =)