KSA Developer Reveals Future for Kerbal Space Program Successor

[@sunslayer553]

I think the music is an underrated part of KSP (1&2). It does a lot of heavy lifting in the "wonder and awe" department that I hope gets translated to the new interation. Good interview Shadowzone

[@ShadowZone]

Agreed. Those first chords when you orbit for the first time in KSP are amazing. And the Duna descent music in KSP2 is fantastic. Howard Mostrom did an incredible job on the KSP2 soundtrack.

[@notmyname4790]

@@ShadowZonehere’s hoping they get the funding needed to add a score to the game that is as impactful as KSP 2.

[@kawaiinda6252]

isn't KSP1 music literally some royalty free stock music?

[@oasntet]

The music in KSP 1 is all Creative Commons work by Kevin MacLeod. KSA could, if they wanted to, reuse the entire soundtrack for free (with attribution) the same way HarvestR did for KSP. You can occasionally hear it in other places, like the 'crossing the Kermin line' music, which is "Impact Lento".

[@clayel1]

kevin is the goat of music

[@CptTiki]

Man.. a kiwi space program would be pretty awesome. Flightless birds that use feathers as fingers.. and we’re helping them gain flight? And to space?!? You say you want to bring it to schools.. a cute little bird that you’re helping get to space seems like a pretty rock solid idea.. better than kittens anyway.

[@danilooliveira6580]

it would be really cool if it was different animals.

[@Brandon-rc9vp]

Excellent idea! I second this argument :)

[@maxi4251]

Dodo Space Program

[@davescott7680]

​@@danilooliveira6580kiwi' small cute flghtless birds. It's cute having them want to fly. m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZW4hqtre8msidU

[@Wurtoz9643]

Ferret

[@Khether0001]

I know there is a lot before this, but the worst part for me in KSP was the lack of progression. The Space Center always looked the same whether you succeeded on the greatest mission or failed. Also, all the effort to get to a planet was just to plant a flag because the entire thing was a practically homogeneous desert. Could you eventually create ways for us to add our own buildings, assets, and quests on the planets?

[@Khether0001]

b.t.w. I'm a 3D artist by trade, please let me know if and when I can help!

[@cofibot8270]

I agree with you. I often wish KSP would make reusable spacecraft and stations more important, so a lot of progression would be building your infrastructure to do big missions. Maybe the downside would be penalizing experimentation. A lot of people enjoy the guess-and-check process that KSP encourages. But when progression is emphasized, early errors can really penalize a player later on. Maybe there's a way to preserve that KSP virtue, but also improve the progression rewards.

[@cofibot8270]

Oh, and not just reusable crafts, but even just reusable designs. If you come up with a launch vehicle design, and you use it over and over... Even if you throw it away each time, the performance should get incrementally better (because those engineering cats refine the design). Maybe just using the same parts attached to each other as in previous flights should give some buff.

[@LordInter]

​@@cofibot8270 ksp has a mod for that 😊

[@dosmastrify]

Did you never upgrade anything?

[@MarcusHouse]

Great chat here. I'm quite excited to see how this goes I've got to say.

[@just_archan]

Hey hey👋👋

[@ShadowZone]

Yeah, it was refreshing to finally talk space game development with someone not tied down by corporate legal departments breathing down their necks. You should visit their studio one day, you're closer to Auckland than me 😜

[@CGADragon]

Whatever else they do...find a community manager like Coffee Stain used for Satisfactory. I feel they set the gold standard for community engagement and keeping the expectations properly managed. Great interview SZ, thx!

[@adamleblanc5294]

One killer multiplayer feature I'd hope for is being able to have a player fly a reusable first stage back down, while another player continues to orbit in the upper stage. Also useful for things like air launched rockets, where one player handles the plane and the other handles the rocket.

[@steveschritz1823]

I wish you all the luck! 1. Kittens: I vote yes (but any cute little avatar works) 2. You did the right thing to start with the game engine first. That was KSP2’s fatal mistake. As far as physics simulation goes - keep it simple. It’s better to simulate separate simple things in parallel than simulate everything together. 3. You need money to develop this and we all understand that. I think it’s appropriate to charge for, say, from the second beta release on. As long as the game is fun we don’t mind shelling out.

[@Superbus753]

Exactly paying for a good product is more than fair. No one will hesitate to do that. Ksp2 just hurts as it promises so much costing more and being way worse than ksp1. We payed for a product we will never get

[@boringusername792]

KSP2 was simply over prices. Had early access been cheap and the final release half of the end price perceptions would have been better. As a fan of KSP1, I didn't see any significant upgrade to KSP2

[@carson1223]

In terms of gameplay design, I really hope the Rocketwerkz team takes a look at the Realism Overhaul/RP-1 mod community as a source of inspiration. Obviously hardcore mechanics aren't for everyone, but the career redesign in RP-1 with programs and launch complexes makes it feel like you're truly building up a cohesive living and breathing space agency with tons of interesting choices on how to invest your resources to accomplish your goals vs the "get science, do contract, click button" approach to upgrades and research in the original game.

[@eosborne6495]

I think one of the coolest things about modability is that you can up the challenge as your understanding and interest level increases. Regular stock KSP struck a balance between realism and playability that managed to be accessible to most people but also more challenging than the average game, and realistic enough to instill an interest in real world space flight. And then when you go down the rabbit hole with your new found passion and start to research the things that KSP doesn’t simulate, Realism Overhaul and Principia etc are there for you to do that deeper dive.

[@tacklemcclean]

Agreed. I also get it's not for everyone, but it's the most fun I've had in KSP, designing new launch vehicles within budget while learning about history.

[@joelneuman6527]

RP-1 is amazing and the logical progression in skill for KSP players. I think it would be ideal for the concepts of RO/RP-1 to be available as options in difficulty when starting a career. I would also love to see more options available for scaling the system. I don’t see it as a binary thing. Hopefully someone could have something similar to a vanilla KSP save and a RSS/RO/RP-1 save in the same install.

[@Nosirrbro]

Yes this is exactly what I’m hoping for

[@jm56585]

I really love that they're focusing on the architecture before the gameplay and that they're willing to ignore the community desire for shiny gameplay, I feel like this would bring a really performant game

[@lubricustheslippery5028]

I also think that is the right way to go. For AAA titles most of the cost is making the graphic and sound assets. And they pour in way to much money into that before the tech and gameplay is good. For Something as an spiritual successor of KSP it's an tech heavy game and they already know how a lot of the gameplay should work.

[@liquidhype3025]

I didn't know Dean was the original author for component space shuttle. That is so cool! I loved that mod

[@khaledsalah9248]

Never ask Wernher von Kitten what he was doing from 1939 to 1946.

[@sunburystudios8234]

This guy is a real game designer. Proving out what you consider to be the challenging parts is so important. They should do all of the rockets in *cough* a vacuum just to make it easier to iterat, then mash the systems together and tune it endlessly.

[@amrbasbous1113]

Thank you Shadowzone for your hard work and the amazing interview!

[@ShadowZone]

Thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed it.

[@livethefuture2492]

It had been almost a month since the last update...and I was just wondering what's been going on with KSA? And what do you know! ShadowZone comes out a full 45 min interview with the lead developer himself less than an hour ago! Can't wait to see it. Love all these Development Updates you do following this stuff so closely, you are my go to source for all this information and you've really done a great service to the community since the KSP2 days. So Kudos to you on that, you've done a Great job!

[@KarolOfGutovo]

Just in case - on the official KSA discord the last announcement about a week ago, and the last dev update was this Saturday :)

[@s4098429]

I hope they solve the problem KSP had with craft clipping into the ground. The interaction between craft, especially wheeled vehicles, and the ground was always immersion breaking. Slippery wheels, bases exploded on loading, craft sliding down shallow hills, lots of problems.

[@Nosirrbro]

He talked about precision so I feel like that might be what he’s basically talking about fixing

[@TlalocTemporal]

Slippery wheels was specifically a problem with the Unity physics engine. Many other engines solve wheel interactions much cleaner, and tooling your own engine allows much easier tweaking here. A few of the other issues are because of how planetary scale areas were jammed into Unity's physics engine, so again, much easier to solve. Ground collisions (especially at high speeds) is still a non-trivial problem, so I do hope that gets some special attention when it's turn comes around.

[@boringusername792]

I think this would be essential for bases: they lock into the ground

[@c44448]

If this runs on its own engine I really hope it gets very good modding tools. This was one of the reasons KSP was so good. Many diffrent mods and new content made by the community.

[@christopherquinn5899]

Let's hope for the best. We got all excited before.

[@evantimms2809]

I've got a good feeling about Dean. Hes super technical, which I think is exactly the leader KSA needs. This is a non-trivial game, and marketing should come second to overcoming technical challenges

[@DrVort]

My biggest problems with KSP gameplay-progression wise was tediousness. I love the idea of setting up infrastructure in space, putting in comm satellites all over the system, making outposts that produce resources and shipments, logistical stations on orbits of planets... the trouble is, that you have to fly them all manually, which is hundreds of flights that are just the same. I am dreaming about system where you just make single "proof of concept" flight, you fly manually and try to be perfect, then able to run this flight with a single push of button when needed, consuming same resources and getting same benefits, adding that nice management layer to the game. As for COOP, I really hope Rocketwerkz would reconsider the idea of competitive space agencies that we kinda see in multiplayer mods for KSP. There is sooo much fun to be had in controlling spacecraft together! Yes, there is little to do in first simple oh-I-got-to-orbit! missions in COOP, but you pretty quickly go beyond that, building spacecrafts and landers that would reeeally benefit for simultaneous control by multiple players! Besides that, there is an awesome concept of running a space agency together. There were an old mod, I forgot it name, adding web interface and putting nicely stylized instrument boards in control of other players, so you can kinda roleplay mission control with various roles players take. That is a true cooperative, not competitive, for friends to have fun together! Some subcontractors kind of vibe, one person designing lander, giving in-game specs for weight, size, speed of atmosphere entrty, etc to another, designing delivering vehicle - can be really cool, putting some more weight in design choices you make, making generations of delivering vehicles impactful! My issue with KSP that it's... barely a game, too heavily rooted in proof-of-concept 'we can make a spaceflight as a game'. For it actually to be a game, you need more gamification. Some goals that are better than 'visit all of biomes in a system!', some meaningful progression, some multiplayer interaction that incentivizes cooperation with game mechanics, giving rewards for that. PVP mods with guns would do fine with competition, you shouldn't be worried about it as a developer :) KSP-like game is not a game, it is a great, one-of-a-kind foundation for a game that gives ability to use spaceflight as a core mechanic!

[@Nunya-py2vj]

Badass interview thank you shadow and dean well done. Class acts both of you

[@cognittie930]

dean is so honest feels like reading a game dev's diary also the questions are really good of course

[@toeknee4932]

Much better questioning of a Dev. Asking the hard ones with follow ups.

[@Deltarious]

I really think the Kea idea could've worked tbh. They don't need to be super high detail rendered characters, I think most people would be happy with a KSP1 level of model where it just has simple elements. For a bird that'd just mean the feathers are quite large 'cartoonish' blades with simple animation and you anthropomorphize them to be upright bipedal and with hands on the end of their wings. Heck you could even have them able to fly short distances when unsuited if you wanted to, it'd be an interesting diferentiating factor. Anything extra on top is just a bonus. I still think the cat/kitten idea is alright too, though. They could always land on their feet and have a reasonably high tollerance for falls much like Kerbals do but in a pretty justified way. I will say that clearly the Kerbal IP is still the undisputed king and it'd be ideal if they got hold of it, it'd be 'proper' tbh P.S. IMO the mod for DayZ in Arma 2 is still better than the standalone to this day, it's so damn good. If that was his direction and the way he 'wanted to go' vs Bohemia then man they really screwed up. I do think the standalone game has gotten better over time but damn do I wish it was just a continuation of the mod with more polish

[@CaliHime]

Great interview, some really well thought out questions there. Also love the openness of Dean once again, top bloke.

[@boringusername792]

Thanks both for doing the interview. Hopefully, more to come! Dean seems to have his head screwed on and be very down to earth. Wishing him and the team every success. I love the Kea! Do the feathers have to be that realistic? I'm obviously a sample size of one but the kittens don't inspire very much. I'd also love the default solar system to be ours, it'd be great for education. Such a great goal to make it free for schools. For multiplayer it would be cool to have multiple launch sites.

[@thedebate4836]

This makes me so very excited. The best part of the interview (for me) was when Dean talked about "the first time in orbit" and the excitement he's having. Seeing developers, especially the CEO, excited about a game they are making and not just caring about the whole "cash grab" like so many dev studios are guilty of is just a breath of fresh air, and it really makes someone look forward to their release.

[@BerzoiIurii-Stefan]

Just some ideas: - The game Darkwood I think did the best of both worlds: you could buy the game normally or get it for free from torrent made by them. - If you make it a paid game, I think you'll have a much bigger audience on Steam. - Why couldn't we have multiple animals (cats, I saw kiwi birds and ferrets in the comments) and let us choose at the start. It would be more customizable both for single player and multiplayer and it doesn't have to affect gameplay (OR IT COULD: different launch pads, advantages and disadvantages, for example you could have a scenario where a fish colony wants to get to somewhere like the ocean of Europa with something like a Sea Dragon rocket) EDIT: All I wanted to do was to send a message, BUT KZbin REALLY HATES THAT for some reason, so here I am on another account with a shortened version sadly. I'm not a fan of the direction this platform is going but I digress.

[@franciscomagalhaes7457]

Wonderful interview. Thank you for asking all the stuff we wanted to know about.

[@livethefuture2492]

i'd love to see the full 2hr uncut conversation by the way!

[@Vaquedoso]

You said you read the comments, so i will provide my perspective as feedback on the issue of not releasing on steam. I understand the concerns you may have about the platform but i beg you reconsider your position on this. Having the steam workshop as a way of sharing user generated content is really an advantage, that i personally use and really appreciate. The community forums on steam are useful as well for troubleshooting, and are indexed on google so it's easier to find an answer. And the final, but in my opinion important, point is that steam handles purchases with its regional markets. As someone who lives in Argentina sometimes it's an issue trying to buy internationally with our cards, so having the option to use steam would be really helpful. I know the last point might not be as important if you manage to release the game for free, but nevertheless steam is a nice option to have alongside having it as a torrent

[@Kroko6]

im very concerned about that. steam is the platform of where most people are. if you dont release there lots of potential customers wont ever find the game. also its just annoying to have 20 different launchers so i would definetly prefer a steam release

[@Brandon-rc9vp]

I respectfully disagree, Steam is convenient, but it has been using it's power to exploit devs and the market. I'm all for a return to the old school days, standalone releases that you buy and actually own. Community servers if you want to play MP (but Dean please please please don't sacrifice making a great single player game just to make multiplayer work!

[@Vaquedoso]

@Brandon-rc9vp I disagree, as a storefront steam has always benefitted the consumer and isn't corrupted as the other options

[@supersleepygrumpybear]

Never got the impression that they don't want to release the game through Steam or even add mods through the Steam Workshop-it's more about the distribution of software, especially for a project that may be free/open source or distributed through schools and libraries. Steam is great, and Valve has done a great job making a valuable product; but it's still a walled garden...

[@Vaquedoso]

@@supersleepygrumpybear it's not a walled garden, you are absolutely permitted to release a game via other means (such as torrents) AND steam if you so wish. He also explicitly said he doesn't want to release on steam

[@boraklc5950]

Am i the only one who noticed that there is a body named "ScottManleyAsteroid" ?

[@KrakenIsMahB]

I looked up on screen and there it just was !! 😀

[@danilooliveira6580]

he got an asteroid named after him, 33434 Scottmanley

[@MateusViccari]

There is an actual real asteroid with his name, he got it named because of his contributions as a science communicator.

[@acestillwell98]

It's funny why its there; Firstly, it is a real body. 33434 Scottmanley. Second, they added it to the 'game' live, to show as an example how easy modding the game will be. They had a live stream showcase where a couple devs and the CEO of RocketWorkz talked about the game and what-not, and someone asked if they could add that body. It was pretty neat to watch them add it live.

[@MicahMulder]

​@@acestillwell98so people can add that 'dres' mod to this game too!

[@Zulban48]

I'm surprised so many people didn't like the idea of cats for the characters. Looking at a game like Stationeers and how the player models are cartoonified and squat to fit the grid system better I can picture them being cat/animal-like instead and having them look fine. I think the main target here is they want something endearing in the game similar to the three portraits of those little green men that really elevated those very early Kerbal Space Program impressions well beyond what they would be without those portraits. Looking at a similar game 'Juno: New origins' the 'droods' in that game don't have nearly the same allure as Kerbals or even cats do. Looking at the upcoming game 'Monster Hunter: Wilds' the ability to customize the cat-like sidekick you get (palicos) is a huge draw for a lot of people and they will often time recreate their pets and fight alongside them. In a similar vein, if KSA decides to stick with cats as the spaceship crews I can see some kind of cat customizer to be a great way to add a personal touch to the crew of your vessels, something I felt that Kerbal Space Program sort of lacked outside of modifying their suits.

[@ivanjermakov]

The impression I got from this interview is that Dean overestimates the difficulty of good and performant graphics, but underestimates the difficulty of enjoyable physics, multiplayer and UX. There is an immense gap between a cool looking tech demo and enjoyable game, especially with open-ended games like space construction sims. I respect the effort to get the foundations right though. Time will tell.

[@ShadowZone]

That is my biggest worry as well. Which is why I asked the "when will it turn from a tech demo to a game" question. They do have a couple of great designers now and it appears that Chris "Nertea" Adderley has joined the team. He has the title "Designer" in the KSA Discord since end of November.

[@adamfundytus5202]

I think luckily the people around him like nertea and harvester will temper his mathematical tendencies. Stationeers is one of my favorite games but at some point they need to get the game on top of their programming Sims lol. Icarus shows growth of the studio though

[@atlas7309]

You can build an incredibly fun game onto an impressive tech demo but you can’t retroactively fix a games foundation without restarting or immense effort… see Star citizen as an example

[@fullyarmedbattletoaster8596]

Counter point remember the very early days of KSP back in the beta when there was the free demo there was not exactly that much "game content" only 1.25m parts and just kerbin, mun, and minimus

[@adrianbagley5243]

Great interview, thanks both of you! Re. the whole kitten thing, my suggestion is just to give the humanoid cats their own name, e.g. Kitzens (or whatever). Kitzen Space Agency can be all things to all people. That way you're not asking the likes of Scott Manley and SZ to devote hours of their lives to making videos about kittens, middle-aged players can post about the game on social media without feeling silly, but you've still got the humour of endless cat puns to work with, and a kittenish art style that will help bring kids into rocketry. All things to all people.

[@samuelpaik]

Kzinti! I wonder who is in control of Niven's literary estate...

[@nousername8162]

I LOVE THE KITTENS, PLEASE DONT GET RID OF MY BELOVED KITTENS

[@royvanempel]

Kitters are great ofcourse, the problem i feel with the kittens is that it feels so unserious and feels like a name a single dev for a small project would come up it. Also looking at SEO, searching “kerbal” will instantly get you to ksp 1 and 2. The same will never happen with “kitten” or “space agency”. I personally think that creating some new creature that nobody before playing it knows what it’s capable of would be better for new people stumbling upon it.

[@supersleepygrumpybear]

You could always change the spelling to something like Kattan or Kitti or Kitters. As long as the abbreviation remains KSA-

[@scootsmcgoots1]

Lol yes because kerbals are such serious creatures. Kittens are purfect in my opinion

[@TlalocTemporal]

Cats and space rarely interact outside of mrmes, so any serious topic with the two should be unique enough to find easily. Satisfactory seems to be doing well despite the name being just a normal adjective.

[@notmyname4790]

The KSP IP is active as Estes Rockets has licensed it. I am curious as to how it will continue. I am all in on KSA and establishing a different IP with the curiosity and oddity of Kerbal is great.

[@adamfundytus5202]

Actually reassuring because they are literally just letting people pay them to use it whoever they are. Unlikely it's in a game companies hands

[@dimitriosdimitropoulos445]

100k subs soon!!! GOGO SHADOWZONE YOU DESERVE THIS :D

[@connorspruit6002]

as a C user, hearing him talk about choosing the right variable type instead of just giving everything 32 bits or putting everything into floats gives me a lot of confidence in these people because they didn't just build their own framework because of some frivolous reason, they know what they are doing and a more difficult to use engine that requires deliberate use is a recipe for optimization.

[@nullid1492]

As an occasional C programmer, I just use 32 bit ints because importing the stdint.h and typing the uint8_t is a lot of work.

[@Jason-gq8fo]

These guys give me so much hope for this project I like the cats, idk what problems people have with them

[@ConradPino]

Excellent interview and fascinating content. Thank you so much. Tell Dean he earned my admiration.

[@paulsidhuUK]

Great interview thank you both

[@TechyBen]

I think there's a real opportunity to "optimise" parts if not going in too fast and choosing an unworkable model. No doubt some concessions needed to be made, but if it opens up more possibilities, why not?

[@KrzysztofBurdzy715]

yeah the more comlex you go the worse lag gets but the more comlex you go the cooler it gets! I would be very happy to see some optimisation

[@TechyBen]

PS, Kangaroo Space Agency?!

[@Francois424]

Awesome interview. Thank you very much Shadow and have a nice holidays !

[@adamfundytus5202]

Dean is so reasonable. It's weird to see a rational person as a ceo

[@s4098429]

I think that’s because it’s his money on the line. CEO is not the same as ‘business owner’

[@therocinante3443]

That accent is completely unreasonable.

[@adamfundytus5202]

@@s4098429 I actually think hes passion driven for real. So rare

[@setaindustries]

Having the game be distributed via torrent would be WILD, I hope they do it xDDDD

[@invalidcreations]

Not releasing the game on Steam, whether it's free or not, would be shooting themselves in the foot. Games need to be visible and easily accessible, unfortunately torrenting as the only distribution option would be a terrible idea.

[@t2hk_]

Wasn't fond on the kittens idea originally but it just makes sense. Kerbals are silly, clumsy, goofy things. Having cats as a successor is so valid

[@LeafBoye]

I think the biggest holdup I have for it is it's not Kerbal space program :( it's got the 2 of the 3 important parts, space and program but we're leaving behind the friendship between us and those little green turds

[@rfsbsb]

Great interview and I see great things for this game! Hopefully this turns into reality!

[@Tristishominissomn]

Great stuff. Its reassuring to see them so focused on the technical foundations and not immediately trying to promise the moon in regards to gameplay or graphics. You can always update models, rewrite shaders and otherwise pretty things up after the fact, but its extremely difficult to retrofit foundational design assumptions after you've already built gameplay systems around.

[@AgustinCaniglia1992]

Good luck on this game. You can do it. LETS GOOOO

[@intrapersonaI]

I was maybe wrong about Dean Hall, I think his shortcomings from DayZ was more of a Bohemia game engine limitation than his own. Asking anybody to run a zombie game through the Bohemia clunky engine was always going to be a firestorm. This makes me a bit hopeful considering how much skin he has into the game figuratively and literally and how much he seems connected into the dev stream

[@pondobruin85]

ShadowZone - Fantastic interview. I love that you didn't shy away from the tough questions like DayZ. Direct, informative, Critical. Great Job! Dean - My GF and I played Icarus all through beta. We knew it was undercooked. Its great to hear why you released it in that state. The work you and your studio has put in to turn it around might rival Hello Games and No Man's Sky. After seeing the amount of dedication you have put into Icarus, RocketWerkz has 100% earned my trust. I think attempting to tackle the KSP genre and push it forward is a tremendous challenge, and I can't wait to see where you take it. Best of luck and I hope for your success!

[@watchclark6482]

So glad Jamie is involved in this. He's one of the best engineers I've ever worked with. Looking forward to KSA. Interesting to hear Dean talk about a bunch of good technical decisions I argued for but couldn't realize because... reasons.

[@theseus4737]

Kiwi Space Agency. Thick Fur would be easier to render and they could cutely pilot with their feet

[@geraldimhof2875]

Thank you for this video! Since you said you read the comments here it goes. Those ideas are for gameplay and are hugely taken from RO-1, but I think the vanilla game should have those in hard mode: 1. Make the game have a feel of progression, not only with the tech, but with all the infrastructure around. We should be able to choose our space center location. The SC should be modular, with various launch pads, VABs, Training Centers etc. There should also be the possibility to create stations that act like Space Centers.. eg you build a blueprint in the editor for the Station, you launch missions with "unassembled cargo" and you choose a location to place your blueprint and when you bring enough cargo, it slowly builds up (whether it is with kittens or robots). 2. Please, please make a tech tree that is more or less historical. We start with sounding rockets, then probes, then manned spaceflight. There should be an option for the survivability aspect. Let people choose whether their kittens need food and water in their save game. Make it hard for the people who want it. Probes should be the 1st reflex and reward with fast and easy tech progression, but stays limited in the reasearch that can be done. Manned is for in situ data analysis and survivability progress. 3. Comms.. with the focus on probes because it is cheaper and safer that manned missions, comms should be extensive, and hard for those who want to have the real experience. 4. Make it make sense to have durable missions and not one shot missions, with asparagus rockets IF the player so wishes. A mission should be more than just putting a satellite in orbit and collecting 50 science points with one click. It should entail time and ressource management. Science collection should take time. 5. Automation.. the best mod in KSP 1 is Mechjeb2. The auto launch and auto Hohmann transfer functions were the best implementations. Please have this, but add up to it.. when building a big station, the most tedious part is having to watch the launch happen over and over again until you've assembled the space craft in orbit. There should be a manage option, where the automation tool either does like mechjeb or executes a mission plan that the player created and off it goes while the player does something else. This way you don't have to stare at the rocket flying for 5 min. 5. Construction time! Rockets don't just roll out of the VAB after designing it. It takes time to build and it becomes more efficient the more you build. It should also cost more money when building a redesigned vehicle. Thanks! I truly hope those options are included for the more hardcore players :) wishing the project all the best

[@WWEdeadman]

Honestly, if there is one thing I genuinely can't understand is people disliking the Kittens part of the KSA. Like, why not cats? Either way, I am looking forward to whenever they're at a point where we can play this. The way this is looking to go so far is what I wished KSP2 would have gone for.

[@b1air77]

My neighbors cats shit all over my lawn

[@lrdchristios3108]

Well some people argue that the characters shouldn't be a real animal, instead being some kind of alien creature the same way kerbals are. Some people dont want cats because they prefer different animals (penguins, birds) and some people dont like anthropomorphic animals because they dislike furries.. I saw lots of points while scrolling the KSA discord. Me personally I love cats and ill be happy with humanoid cats being the characters. Some people even argued that the characters should even be humanoid.. like an actual cat in a costume or something else entirely..

[@ItIsCoMpLiCaTeDsTuFf]

I can't take cats in spacesuits seriously. All it makes me think of is some quality games like goat simulator or some unity asset rips. How do 4 legged animals in spacesuits carry things (without magic), or show expressions without making them into some anthropomorphized furry creatures? At that point they are no longer cats, and you might as well create some less creepy humanoid aliens instead.

[@WWEdeadman]

@ItIsCoMpLiCaTeDsTuFf Creepy? You legit have a problem if you find the mockup Shadow keeps flashing on screen creepy.

[@ItIsCoMpLiCaTeDsTuFf]

@@WWEdeadman I wasn't talking about that sketch. Also, the name kitten space agency has the vibe of an edutainment game for early elementary school students.

[@Real-Ninja-IV-XX]

the kittens could work with a lil backstory, imagine. Kittens once allowed humans to view them as their pets in exchange for tuna Tuesdays, but they were secretly watching and learning the whole time, once they learned how to use the can open, it was over for the humans, the cats quickly took over and enslaved the humans.

[@drunkenhobo8020]

I mean maybe without the slavery part. Perhaps humans all left Earth because they thought a great calamity was coming, but the cats did something to save the planet. An alien invasion perhaps but all of the aliens were severely allergic to cats and died instantly.

[@edust83]

No

[@theseus4737]

Gives Love, Death, and Robots vibes

[@Real-Ninja-IV-XX]

@@drunkenhobo8020 but cats clearly want to take over the earth and kill all humans, they only don't cuz of tuna Tuesdays, this is just common knowledge

[@snortymcsnortface]

i think this is a great direction, when you have such an amazing community like the KSP community, acnowlegding them and interacting with them you can make a great game.

[@hfw3]

This is awesome! I am hearing all the right things, but yes - the proof is in the eating. I hope they provide a limited demo as soon as possible just to see the framework in action. Even if it was a couple of prebuilt rockets, it would let us see the engine in action.

[@lightningwingdragon]

I LIKE THE CATS! KEEP THE CATS! SEND THE CATS TO SPACE!!!! (Also, humanity has already sent kittens to space, irl, so yea...)

[@zappyfuel5152]

Dsa - Dinosaur Space Agency and we wonder where they went? + merry Christmas!

[@tricky2917]

Why does Dean look younger than he did when he worked on DayZ a decade and a half ago?

[@adrian.pianist]

THANK YOU FOR THIS!

[@icaleinns6233]

Great interview. Loved that look behind the scenes at what's going on at Rocket Werkz. I still don't like Kitten. Not a fan of cats, I'd be more tempted to just let 'em burn on re-entry. Why not go with something made up, like a Kratz? You can make it whatever you want then.

[@handy-capoutdoors4063]

Anthropomorphic animals as playable characters. You could go to the old star fox 64 art and make a character race. Personally the races I wouldn't mind as playable that cover the cute aspect and comedy aspect. Raccoons, red pandas, koala, and small birds. But the one I would most like to see that fits with the past running jokes would be Kracken. A squid or octopus like head with tentacles or fins as hair. Of course you could take inspiration from one of your KZbin content creators the bearded penguin. 😉 Honestly having a line up of playable skins with basic customization for colors for online play so people can have their own race of space seekers. As for making $ while still keeping the game as free or accessible as possible. You can offer a single player version of the game and have multi-player behind a monthly pay wall. You could also have new skins for playable characters and object textures for parts as pay objects. If you do take the idea for multiple playable races maybe tweak them. Like an amphibian race can move in water faster, a bird like race takes less damage from falls. Little things that are not game breaking. Sadly without some kind of in game store for objects, I don't see a way to make the initial game free. You could have the price be so low that people won't care about the price but sadly the industry and in fact life itself revolves around money. As for online play ideas. I would say a server based environment with a limit on the number of players per server. Similar to ARC or other mmorpg servers. You could almost mimic what minecraft does as far as people can host private servers and visit other people's servers. Add in something like BD armory in the base game and it will give people a more enjoyable reason to be online and fun with friends. Just my thoughts.. I really hope you read and are inspired by my ideas and opinions.

[@jarredeagley1748]

a variety of animals would be hilarious

[@supersleepygrumpybear]

Variety of animal astronauts... but... the Kittens run the space agency (slight commentary on the contentious relationship between astronauts and mission control)

[@scootsmcgoots1]

Cool idea. I like the star fox analogy. A mix of mammals would be pretty awesome

[@gilmer3718]

I know it is very early in the development, but those cloud scenes were amazing.

[@nikolasubaric]

I love the bird idea. Maybe even the Kakapo, its round and cute, green too!

[@mschedler4984]

@ShadowZone... was there any discussion of Operating System support in the long term plan?

[@brettforsberg1798]

Awesome to learn he’s a mountaineer! Me too. I totally get the focus on wonder. I’m into the kitten idea.

[@scottalmond9206]

From the snapshots, I'd be wary about making this too realistic. A significant part of the charm of ksp is the cartoonish nature of the environment: short characters, impossibly dense plants, single body orbital dynamics...

[@KRobertsonGaming]

interesting interview thanks!

[@whaimm9361]

I thought this was a troll project when I heard about it because of the kitten name, kinda glad it’s real and hope it goes well!

[@EnigmaM1]

what would be really cool regarding player species, would be if you could choose between different, (perhaps even moddable) humanoid species native to different star systems/homeworlds with different planets, habitable moons and stars(maybe even binary stars or even black hole systems like kcalbeloh) and maybe even the possibility to meet up with a different species and share technology or whatever, maybe even a character creator to keep the character progression and fear to lose a character, just a thought.

[@scottalmond9206]

For an end game dynamic, it'd be neat to do hyperspace jumps by getting really close to the sun and engaging the hyperdrive. So then it's a challenge of balancing thermal, timing and aim for getting to another star - not just time warping indefinitely

[@K.F-R]

We want kittens! Excellent interview. How it should be done. Thank you!

[@KC-rd3gw]

I think a crucial part of the future success of KSA will be releasing an early alpha version to get community feedback ASAP. The sooner the community has input on what the game needs the less work gets thrown away in making the game what it needs to be to scratch that KSP2 itch

[@HelloDonkey9]

Release the full interview please!!!

[@Meatloaf_TV]

30:23 please don’t go completely free there are always downsides I think it’s important to have a demo or something to that extent so that people can get a taste but nothing more.

[@noahosborne6454]

even if they don't get to use the brand we just gonna mod kerbals back in

[@voxsideres]

Jumping Spider Space Program please. They're made for 0G!

[@Erpyrikk]

i know its not of a high priority but having deforming terrain would have interesting functions for basemaking. but mostly leaving craters behind from failed launches.

[@ElectricalInsanity]

I could take it or leave it with keeping Kittens as the spokesanimal. It could be fun to do a 'cats vs dogs' space race!

[@jesusrv2009]

Now, this is really good and promising. Focusing on foundations, game engine, performance, etc instead of Art, Animations and music. This is the way for a successor of KSP1

[@estelyen]

I'm a software developer and was actually toying with the idea of trying to send an application to RW when I first heard of KSA... Working on a project like this would be a dream come true for me! And New Zealand is so beautiful, would love to go there some day. Sadly, it's not going to happen, because I would have to move there permanently. As much as I want that, it's just too risky, because I don't think I could live up to their level of excellence 😢

[@nabflyer]

Awesome interview! Thanks to you both for the update! As far as cats go... I suppose that, for me, the execution is what matters. My primary concern coming out of this interview is the idea of it being geared towards school aged children. To what degree will this game be simplified (in comparison to the KSP IP) to satisfy that market? I think this will impact user experience quite a bit.

[@theondono]

It’s great that he is a bit singleminded about performance. If he wants to have schools playing with it, it will need to run on the potatoes most schools have, so you really need a big dynamic range in the look and feel of the game. The only way to really achieve that is if you can minimize the “fixed costs” of running it.

[@briannorman1750]

I think birds of some kind (Kia, Kiwi, etc.) would be quite a nice feel. The feathers don’t need to be all special but a simple texture would be fine. I mean, Kerbals as they exist are pretty much just smooth green polygons on legs. Avian supremacy!

[@TunderTunder.]

In indie we trust!

[@joehighton]

We sure do!

[@Kingstallington]

Inb4 bohemia interactive steals his idea again.. 😏

[@АртёмМоисеенко-л2з]

Is KSA going to be supported on Linux?

[@notreallyme425]

This is good to hear, they really need a rebuild from the ground up! I think the code based on KSP one just couldn’t scale up

[@lightningwingdragon]

This guy is a dead ringer for Matt Parker. They've even got similar accents!

[@dosmastrify]

You do a good job interviewing, and it's clear you know a thing or two about the software industry. I think maybe you may find a niche there.

[@josephschaefer9163]

I really like the realism being built in. It will make things do much easier for us hardcore mod players. I really enjoy playing with RSS

[@catbehaviourchannel]

I feel like Rocketwerkz is a developer that is very much into the highly technical side of gaming, with the amazing work on atmospherics on Stationeers, so intensely technical things like space, is a good fit.. Hope he gets someone to work on the UI for him though 🙂

[@UriahGnu]

One small step for... oh never mind. Happy holidays!!!

[@3PurpleSquirrels]

For me i world proffer it not to be kittens i think something fictional would be best you dont have preconceived ideas. 20:21 having object deorbited with you having to watch then is a small think that make a big diffrents on how you play. Happy to see your starting with the game engine first got to have a good foundation to start with. Keep up the open communication that is a big problme i see with lots of games. And pls under promise and over deliver.

[@matinf30]

Hopeful about the development of the game. The only thing that doesn't have me fully convinced are the cats. Maybe another animal or some alien would be better. At least, that's my pov

[@Bamamarama]

Fantastic interview. Also, the kittens are growing on me.

[@HavokTheorem]

Make the avatars ants, make them have adaptations to specialise in their role (pilot, scientist, astronaut) and let the avatars actually be a functional dynamic component of the craft; have your crew EVA to act as the landing legs of your craft!

[@xeen8331]

This single Interview is probably better than the entire development of KSP2