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[Culise]

I just came down from a KSP stint and was surprised to see KSP2 on early access. What's the issues, as you experienced them?

Is it really that bad? Do you think there's hope that it gets fixed or is it just an irredeemable mess?

KSP2 was one of the *very* few games I was really looking forward to, and it was kind of a gut punch seeing the absurdly inflated system requirements and hearing about all the issues it has

With the caveat that I haven't played it for myself and am going entirely off second-hand reporting and the company's own official lists of features and plans:

1. KSP2 right now is about as complete as KSP1 was when it first hit EA.  This worked well for KSP1, which was a fly-by-night garage production by a team that was still running in their spare times around their day jobs and had no real competitors.  KSP2 is competing against KSP1 and being produced by a development company under a major publishing firm, which went to some effort to ensure that it was under their control.  Thus, not only does it draw more ire from fans, those fans have alternatives available that many of them already own. 

2. One of KSP2's major advantages over KSP1 is a graphical overhaul.  Unfortunately, this resulted in very steep system requirements, particularly in the graphics card.  KSP1 has the advantage of being ten years old in this respect.  While it was fairly demanding computationally in the day, it is a rare game that would still be demanding on processing power after so many years (Crysis memes aside).

3. Another of KSP2's major advantages over KSP 1 was supposed to be a rework in the core engine in an attempt to reduce what's vernacularly referred to as "jank," including the kraken.  Unfortunately, KSP2 still has quite a few major bugs, including a loss in processing scaling to total parts in the system (not just loaded in the local area).  The kraken (and kraken drives) are still alive and well, and KSP2 is still shackled to Unity, which is a viable platform for many games, but brings many of its own complications to a game that seeks to do what KSP does.  Low FPS and stutter are regular occurrences, and

4. Mods.  Much of what KSP2 offers or promises can be done in KSP1 via mods, so long as you don't mind a certain amount of jank.  They offer procedural parts: procedural tanks and wings are KSP1 mods, including custom recoloring.  They promise extrasolar colonies: KSP1 mods offer extrasolar systems and colonies.  I mention it here rather than under the graphics note above, but KSP1 with mods like Scatterer and Parallax 2 is almost as good and far less system-intensive.  KSP2 is not just competing with Squad's work on KSP1, but 12 years of free, volunteer development done by random people all over the world. 

What KSP2 promises at its heart is not just its feature base, but a chance to improve the core engine, parts of the game mods can't touch, and improve the modding experience.  As of its very first EA release, it has yet to deliver.  That's not to say it won't deliver, however.  I'll give them a chance, but I won't give them my wallet just yet. 

I'm also playing KSP1 again, though I might give Distant Worlds 2 another spin with the new patch that just released.

[hector13]

I think part of the problem will be many folks expecting KSP1+ from an early access sequel. I think people don’t realize that early access means getting a game that’s still in development, rather than getting a full game before anyone else.

[lemon10]

2. One of KSP2's major advantages over KSP1 is a graphical overhaul.  Unfortunately, this resulted in very steep system requirements, particularly in the graphics card.  KSP1 has the advantage of being ten years old in this respect.  While it was fairly demanding computationally in the day, it is a rare game that would still be demanding on processing power after so many years (Crysis memes aside).

To expand on this: The graphics requirements are absurd.
Four years ago I made a new computer and got a at the time new graphics card (1660, $200 at the time). It wasn't the best, but even today I haven't run into a single game it can't run just fine.

It could not run KSP2 properly.

Three days ago I got a new graphics card released two years ago (3060, $380), which is a significant upgrade over the old one (mainly for AI image generation). It has 0 trouble keeping most AAA games at 60 FPS at a significantly higher graphics quality.

It does not meet the recommended system requirements for KSP either. (Although it does meet the minimum ones, so it should be able to run it).

No, to meet system requirements you need the $650 3080.
If you have a normal human graphics card you get stuff like 10 FPS launches or even low FPS while actually building your rocket.
On the subject of Crysis memes; Kerbal 2 actually has higher requirements then the upcoming Crysis 4.
---
The requirements should go significantly down with some optimization, but the game should not have been even pre-released in such a state.

[hector13]

I have a 1GB graphics chip that works fine for me, but I don’t like games with super graphics, generally.

It struggles a bit with CKIII in the court bit, but it still works, and I don’t care for the court stuff anyway so I don’t generally go on that screen heh.

[Robsoie]

Spoiler: nice place, i'm sure nothing bad can happen there (click to show/hide)

Alien Isolation

[fathatgunderson]

I've been playing the Procedural Realms MUD (yes, I am with the remaining two figures of people on the planet who still play MUDs.) It's one of the most user-friendly terminal experiences I've found in a good while and the turn-based battle gameplay lends well to the medium. I've just been engaging with the typical hack & slash gameplay loop of optimizing a silly build.

[Funk]

Back on mount and blade banner lord, trying to get up to a kingdom, so i've got custom troops mods going.
At least the AI cheats less in banner lord no cheesing army's from nowhere.

[delphonso]

What KSP2 promises at its heart is not just its feature base, but a chance to improve the core engine, parts of the game mods can't touch, and improve the modding experience.  As of its very first EA release, it has yet to deliver.  That's not to say it won't deliver, however.  I'll give them a chance, but I won't give them my wallet just yet. 

Fair. Yeah, this has been my take away as well - much like the original KSP, I'll just wait 5 years or so before I actually start messing around with it. Or, if lemon10's run down is correct...maybe 15 years until I have a computer up to snuff.

I think part of the problem will be many folks expecting KSP1+ from an early access sequel. I think people don’t realize that early access means getting a game that’s still in development, rather than getting a full game before anyone else.

To be fair, game companies have poisoned all these terms by releasing "pre-alpha" footage of finished games.

[Telgin]

A friend has suggested a few times that I play Signalis, so I started playing it a couple of days ago.  The atmosphere is pretty cool and I like the presentation, but combat feels a little too punishing even early on in the game with the scarcity of ammo and respawning enemies.

I also started playing Deep Rock Galactic last week when my brother suggested it.  It's pretty fun, but so far I've only tried playing as the gunner and engineer, and find the engineer quite hard to play properly with the way platforms work.  I'm a bit disappointed that I haven't found any Dwarf Fortress references in it anywhere yet, and it's a little shocking that some of the dwarves don't have beards by default and that you have to pay for the luxury of a beard with in-game currency.

[Egan_BW]

A friend has suggested a few times that I play Signalis, so I started playing it a couple of days ago.  The atmosphere is pretty cool and I like the presentation, but combat feels a little too punishing even early on in the game with the scarcity of ammo and respawning enemies.

There's not much difficulty in actually executing the combat, so the main difficulty is indeed in managing your ammo and not getting punished by respawns. I played pretty careful and ended up with a reasonable surplus of supplies by the end. Reasonable if that's not gameplay you're into though.

[askovdk]

I'm back playing 'Etherlords II'
https://store.steampowered.com/app/270790/Etherlords_II/    5 EUR (don't get the bundle Etherlords 1 is apparently not working on modern machines at all)

It's essentially old 'card' collector and battler, and I'm (again) delighted how well made the enemies 'decks' are. I.e. in almost each battle I get a 'Ah, that's the idea with your deck, - very clever' experience, and may get beaten, but then modify my deck.

The battle animations can drag out, but can be fast forwarded with 'space'.
As the AI plays very well (including not wasting time defending if it know it's doomed) the FIRST map in each campaign can be next to impossible when not playing on 'easy' (as you don't yet have enough cards to have creative freedom of your deck), but after that I recommend switching to 'normal'.

[Telgin]

A friend has suggested a few times that I play Signalis, so I started playing it a couple of days ago.  The atmosphere is pretty cool and I like the presentation, but combat feels a little too punishing even early on in the game with the scarcity of ammo and respawning enemies.

There's not much difficulty in actually executing the combat, so the main difficulty is indeed in managing your ammo and not getting punished by respawns. I played pretty careful and ended up with a reasonable surplus of supplies by the end. Reasonable if that's not gameplay you're into though.

It's just taking some getting used to, I think.  I didn't die any before the first boss, but did die to that because I wasted too much ammo before figuring out what to do.

The real problem I have with the game is that I have a terrible memory, and that's not good for puzzle games!

[Akura]

Started a run in Distant Worlds(the first one). Playing a Democracy, rather than my usual Monarchy. My population growth is rather explosive. My homeworld hit the 10 billion mark fairly early, something I don't think I ever hit with Monarchy, at least so quickly. Eventually switched to Way of the Ancients, which is just Democracy but better in every stat.

Also, the Ancient Guardians seem to make no distinction between "military ships" and "exploration ships armed with a single phaser for self-defense just stopping to buy some gas before leaving". I only have the latter wandering around, and they've started both complaining about military incursions and shooting my explorers.

[Robsoie]

Being fearless at Deep Sky Derelict

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Cthulhu]

I rearranged my limited living space so I can have a giant TV and XXL fuf (memory foam beanbag chair the size of a small couch, revolutionary technology).  So I've been playing lots of PS5, using the subscription service they've got.  It's kind of insane, the number of games they've got on there is enough to give you brain damage.  So I've been playing a bunch, in parallel.  Some on the subscription, some I bought.

Wild Hearts - It's monster hunter. Not inspired by, not similar to, this is monster hunter.  It is pretty good but also strictly worse than monster hunter and therefore has no reason to exist. It's to monster hunter what nioh is to dark souls, but nioh fulfills an interesting niche in the souls genre and this doesn't really bring anything special. karakuri isn't special.

Dredge - It's pretty good. Lovecraftian horror fishing game. The lovecraft stuff is pretty mild and not overbearing or annoying, and while there's really not much to the game it's short enough that by the time you start to feel the repetition it's almost over.

Resident Evil 4 Remake - Easy game of the year contender. The only "flaw" is that some of the campiness is gone but in its place los illuminados and the general vibe are more sinister and threatening and that fits really well with the graphics upgrade.  The first regenerator attack is the closest thing a video game has come to being scary in a long time.  It's so god damn good, I can't wait for mercenaries.

Immortals: Rise of Fenyx or whatever - Ubisoft breath of the wild ripoff.  Typhon is taking over the world. It has a fun framing device where Prometheus is telling Zeus the story about how your character is gonna save the day, and generally takes a kind of silly atmosphere. But it's a breath of the wild ripoff without the minimalist sandbox vibe which is what made botw good.  It's clear it was made with a lot of love and heart which is sad because it's the video game equivalent of elevator music. Fuck ubisoft, fuck open world games, I'm sick of this shit.

Forspoken - Fuck ubisoft, fuck open world games, I'm sick of this shit.

Horizon Whichever - Fuck ubisoft, fuck open world games, I'm sick of this shit.

Days Gone - Fuck ubisoft, fuck open world games, I'm sick of this shit.

Legend of Dragoon - It's on PS5 now. I dunno.  I have nostalgia for it but it's kind of boring. JRPGs are boring. The story is just a string of cliches and the only interesting thing about the gameplay, even once dragoons become a thing, is the QTE mechanic, which is not actually interesting.  If anything dragoons make it more boring because that replaces the magic system so whenever you're not dragooning the only option is basic attack.