Science collection is a much smoother process that involves a lot less guesswork, and the new Science parts are pleasingly diverse, asking you to think hard about how to take advantage of their unique properties. How is it different from KSP? Lots of ways, big and small. Probes? Landers? Packing for Jool is always hectic.It's so fun. We've got a lot of empty docking ports on that main truss. We've disintegrated more than one probe in the thick atmosphere of Eve, and we're assembling a very big nuclear rocket in low Kerbin orbit, with the goal of exploring all the moons of Jool in one go. We've returned samples to Kerbin from Duna's North pole and the deep craters of Gilly. We've Gotten Weird With It, somehow managing to unlock the nuclear NERV engines before having rover wheels, extendible ladders, or any but the smallest batteries. Now we're playing KSP2 together, and our own Exploration Mode campaign has just entered Tier 3 on the tech tree. Just unlocked some probe cores, it's time to fly to Duna!My son was born a year after the original KSP’s debut. I've been playing a single Exploration Mode campaign for a couple of months now, and I'm suddenly realizing that thousands of deeply-invested sagas are about to get underway. Tomorrow, Kerbal Space Program 2 is crossing that same threshold from “fun toy” to “trying to figure out in the shower how to make a rover when you haven't unlocked wheels yet at the R&D Center.” With the release of the For Science! update, the game receives several new features and numerous high-consequence bug fixes. HarvesteR didn't just give me a game, he gave me an endless undertaking, the pursuit of which would lead me to Atomic Rockets, the NASA Spaceflight forum, and the videos of Scott Manley. When I knocked together my first goofy rocket, I didn't even really know what an orbit was. This video game had introduced me to a new and beautiful reality. Not all of these dreams were as far off as they seemed - as SpaceX achieved the impossible goal of landing first stages propulsively, we all played along at home. Sometimes it felt like I could wish them into being by building them in KSP. The real-world mission proposals all had awesome names that hinted at their audacity: Orion, Nautilus-X, Constellation. My Kerbal experience became a way to investigate many of these real-world mission architectures, and as a greater number of mods became available, virtually all things became possible. Thus was I introduced to the strange and beautiful universe of “what happens when the Kerbal spirit is applied to the material world.” Could you propel a ship with nuclear bombs? Yes, and we almost did! Could you build a plane that takes off from a runway, then switches from air-breathing mode to oxidizer mode to fly to orbit? You sure can try! Some of these creators drew inspiration from planned space missions, some of which were more speculative than others. To feed my growing hunger for design ideas, I first turned to the KSP Subreddit, where others (some of whom clearly knew a thing or two about space travel) were achieving impossible things with their own space programs. The missions became puzzles that I couldn't put down. And then the whole thing had to take off from the water again to rendezvous in orbit with a Kerbin return vehicle. It not only had to land upright in Laythe’s ocean, but had to deploy a boat to collect the survivors of a previous mission who had contrived to get stranded several kilometers apart from one another. I have a strong recollection of designing a Laythe rescue rocket in the margins of my meeting notes at work. That first Mun landing was a moment to remember, but the first Mun rescue was even better!Īs that narrative emerged - and as I invested my crews with personalities and dreams - the game began to invade other parts of my life. Stranded survivors of landings gone awry could not be left behind. I became attached to the individual Kerbals who crewed my first, stumbling Mun missions. With the siren song of new celestial bodies calling out to me, my own campaign saves turned into epic sagas. Over time, an expanding roster of new parts were added to the game, and lo and behold, KSP became undeniable. Suddenly, the game had goals: anywhere you went in the Kerbolar System, you could gather a Science currency that could be spent at the R&D Center to research new technologies. (Courtesy of TD Channel)If HarvesteR and Squad had stopped there, Kerbal would likely still be remembered as a beloved curiosity. Whether it was the slapstick fun of stringing together small fuel tanks (there was only one size) into impossibly huge rockets, or the eternal search for unlikely uses for the game's only “robotic” part (the landing leg), KSP was a good time from the very beginning.Īh, the good old days. For us early fans of the original Kerbal Space Program, there were so many things to enjoy during those first sandbox days.
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