Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive • Hacker News Board

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#111

Post by vanderZwan » Wed, May 31, 2017, 6:03 PM UTC

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #100

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52

KSP was possibly my best entertainment spending ever. It definitely is the best game for me in terms of costs / time played. If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and buy it now. If you have a kid with even tangential interest in space, get a copy for them. Side effects of playing KSP include: - getting an intuitive feel for basic orbital mechanics - finding yourself reading up on actual math to better u…

The game also has a horrible habit of turning people into arrogant know-it-all armchair rocket scientists. > no longer being able to watch most space movies due to frustration caused by the filmmakers not grokking basic orbital physics Oh boy, this again. Are you not able to watch movies with guns because Rainbow Six taught you how guns work and now you're just too woke to suspend disbelief? Something about this game…

Don't be so flippant. It's not exactly controversial to say that trained musicians will suffer more when listening to bad music, so why would it be different for any other skill?

One of the main gameplay mechanics is all about understanding orbital physics, and fiddling around with that for tens if not hundreds of hours will leave anyone with a grasp of it on an intuitive level.

Once the brain is that trained, is it so hard to believe that the process can take on an aesthetic experience? Ant that seeing it done wrong is like a false note in music?

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#112

Post by ilugaslifk » Wed, May 31, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #100

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52

KSP was possibly my best entertainment spending ever. It definitely is the best game for me in terms of costs / time played. If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and buy it now. If you have a kid with even tangential interest in space, get a copy for them. Side effects of playing KSP include: - getting an intuitive feel for basic orbital mechanics - finding yourself reading up on actual math to better u…

The game also has a horrible habit of turning people into arrogant know-it-all armchair rocket scientists. > no longer being able to watch most space movies due to frustration caused by the filmmakers not grokking basic orbital physics Oh boy, this again. Are you not able to watch movies with guns because Rainbow Six taught you how guns work and now you're just too woke to suspend disbelief? Something about this game…

Oh please. This is an extremely vapid "stop liking things I don't like"/"not liking things I like" take. And an accusation of "nothing but loser nerds signaling their knowledge in public" is particularly rich coming from someone whose username is a Futurama reference -- a work no less subject to the same (equally vapid) accusation of its appeal being "look at me getting these leet nerd references".

How about art with pretenses towards realism/naturalism (which is not all art, nor should it be) can be more enjoyable for living up to that? And learning something is not a hostile act of self-indulgent performance by the learner, even when that learning might change their perspective on a piece of entertainment media.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#113

Post by Bartweiss » Wed, May 31, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #77

mediocrejoker wrote: post #16

I hope this goes well. I would love to see a remake that retains the exact same gameplay with more modern graphics. Hopefully all the people who paid for the current in-development version are not left high and dry in terms of updates and bugfixes. I also have heard the rumors that the team was not treated well, and that the game was never really the focus of the company. I think it may have been a side project of on…

>Hopefully all the people who paid for the current in-development version are not left high and dry in terms of updates and bugfixes. How long is a developer expected to keep improving a game? Maybe it is the old console gamer in me, but it wasn't that long ago that a game developer was done with a game when it was released. This game has been public for 6 years, been on Steam for 4 years, and been out of beta for 2…

It's an interesting balance. On one hand, games were historically 'dead' at release. On the other, they were at least theoretically done at release. That's no longer even a goal for many developers today - features get deferred, and players get used as a massive QA team.

KSP as it first hit Steam was fun, but obviously incomplete. KSP 1.0 was viable as a finished product, but had obvious, planned upgrades unfinished. After-release support was pretty obviously planned from the beginning.

As for how long, though, I don't know. I'm exceedingly happy with the KSP I got for my money, and unlike some games they could have quit support before now without upsetting me. So as long as Take-Two keeps a decent business model, I'll happily pay for further content.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#114

Post by adl » Wed, May 31, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #26

jesseryoung wrote: post #6

Hopefully the game will be better off under Take-Two (I am not familiar with their past treatment of indy-like games like this) I have read several stories online about how poorly SQUAD treated the core development team of KSP: https://www.develop-online.net/news/squad-devs-blast-kerbal-...

$2400 sounds incredibly low even in PPP terms for Mexico.

Software developers (.NET and Java) can get between 1,000 - 3,000 dollars a month in Monterrey, Guadalajara or Mexico City. 2,500 yearly salary sounds extremely low. Even interns get paid more that that here.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#115

Post by coldpie » Wed, May 31, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #100

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52

KSP was possibly my best entertainment spending ever. It definitely is the best game for me in terms of costs / time played. If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and buy it now. If you have a kid with even tangential interest in space, get a copy for them. Side effects of playing KSP include: - getting an intuitive feel for basic orbital mechanics - finding yourself reading up on actual math to better u…

The game also has a horrible habit of turning people into arrogant know-it-all armchair rocket scientists. > no longer being able to watch most space movies due to frustration caused by the filmmakers not grokking basic orbital physics Oh boy, this again. Are you not able to watch movies with guns because Rainbow Six taught you how guns work and now you're just too woke to suspend disbelief? Something about this game…

Wow, cool, 30 minutes and two comments in and we're already tearing each others' throats out. God, I love the Internet.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#116

Post by J5892 » Wed, May 31, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #108

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52

KSP was possibly my best entertainment spending ever. It definitely is the best game for me in terms of costs / time played. If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and buy it now. If you have a kid with even tangential interest in space, get a copy for them. Side effects of playing KSP include: - getting an intuitive feel for basic orbital mechanics - finding yourself reading up on actual math to better u…

> no longer being able to watch most space movies due to frustration caused by the filmmakers not grokking basic orbital physics Meh. I've a degree in Physics and I still enjoy Star Trek. I agree with the rest.

And I think all of us here love hacker movies.

Sneakers, Hackers, Swordfish, etc. :)

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#117

Post by kbenson » Wed, May 31, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #100

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52

KSP was possibly my best entertainment spending ever. It definitely is the best game for me in terms of costs / time played. If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and buy it now. If you have a kid with even tangential interest in space, get a copy for them. Side effects of playing KSP include: - getting an intuitive feel for basic orbital mechanics - finding yourself reading up on actual math to better u…

The game also has a horrible habit of turning people into arrogant know-it-all armchair rocket scientists. > no longer being able to watch most space movies due to frustration caused by the filmmakers not grokking basic orbital physics Oh boy, this again. Are you not able to watch movies with guns because Rainbow Six taught you how guns work and now you're just too woke to suspend disbelief? Something about this game…

There is a line to be walked. Having a gun that never runs out of bullets doesn't fly in most movies, even if they'll fudge exactly how many are fired before a reload. This is due to the general public's level of knowledge on the topic.

It used to be very annoying to watch certain parts of movies when I was younger. Computers and the internet were treated so haphazardly, it was cause for celebration whenever a contemporary computer interface was shown that wasn't entirely bullshit. This isn't relegated to just these topics, I assume there's a wide swath of annoying Hollywood misrepresentations on topics where there's a sizable subculture, and interest enough to sometimes be included in popular media, but with enough obscurity to the general public that Hollywood can basically make up whatever they want about it and most people won't know any better. For example, I imagine a good majority of car chases and slides around turns probably look like crap to stunt and race drivers, professional and amateur.

The effects of this range fro harmless to possibly shifting popular consensus in harmful directions (I could argue that a lot of early fear regarding the internet was misplaced, and the expectations of the public were so off that it may have retarded some basic security awareness for some time).

The annoying part is that all too often it's just a small matter of knowledge that keeps the representation from matching reality, and the only thing that stopped it from happening was a lack of care on the director's part for the subject they were representing. That's what the real shame is, because how hard is it for a director to get someone to sit in and consult on those topics?

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#118

Post by Symmetry » Wed, May 31, 2017, 6:16 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #107

TeMPOraL wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a movie stage setup problem though, not a physics issue.

How so? The movie shows them going from A to B, physics says going from A to B takes far more delta-v than the spacecraft would have, therefore it's a physics issue. It would be like a WWII movie showing a bomber taking off from NYC and bombing Berlin.

The Tiangong in the movie isn't a real space station so if the Chinese were to build it they could put it in any orbit they like, even one hypothetically 10m/s of delta-v away from the ISS and there might even be realistic reasons for them want to be energetically close to the ISS. There are reasons not to do it but if there's a good reason like the Chinese want to keep the option of physically linking to the ISS open then there's nothing actually preventing it.

So it isn't two known and far distant locations like New York and Berlin, its more like New York and an unnamed city.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#119

Post by mattmanser » Wed, May 31, 2017, 6:19 PM UTC

mnx wrote: post #66

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52

KSP was possibly my best entertainment spending ever. It definitely is the best game for me in terms of costs / time played. If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and buy it now. If you have a kid with even tangential interest in space, get a copy for them. Side effects of playing KSP include: - getting an intuitive feel for basic orbital mechanics - finding yourself reading up on actual math to better u…

The 100 will sadly ignore physics, logical consistency, and more, if it can better serve teen drama. Which I guess is a permissible creative decision, just not one I like.

Aside from the bad space physics, which I can put down to a lack of budget, I found the 100 a pleasant surprise.

It's like they told the screen writers "make a teen drama" but then didn't check the script, and the writers get extremely dark in places. The only thing thing they assiduously avoid is rape.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#120

Post by JabavuAdams » Wed, May 31, 2017, 6:20 PM UTC

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #100

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52

KSP was possibly my best entertainment spending ever. It definitely is the best game for me in terms of costs / time played. If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and buy it now. If you have a kid with even tangential interest in space, get a copy for them. Side effects of playing KSP include: - getting an intuitive feel for basic orbital mechanics - finding yourself reading up on actual math to better u…

The game also has a horrible habit of turning people into arrogant know-it-all armchair rocket scientists. > no longer being able to watch most space movies due to frustration caused by the filmmakers not grokking basic orbital physics Oh boy, this again. Are you not able to watch movies with guns because Rainbow Six taught you how guns work and now you're just too woke to suspend disbelief? Something about this game…

I had a real problem teaching Newtonian Mechanics to students who got most of their Newtonian Mechanics from movies. Their intuition about motion in free-fall was all wrong. Imagine if movies just got this right as a matter of course, and gave even uneducated people correct intuition.

I believe that constantly seeing mega-structures fail incorrectly (e.g. CG buildings falling over) actually contributes to 911 conspiracy theories.

EDIT> It's also a cool feature / talking point. Uneducated person watches a space movie. "Huh, why is the ship pointing backwards, etc." <-- this can serve as a hook for learning.