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“Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)

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Re: “Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)

#41

Post by kanemcgrath »

janzer wrote: post #36
JLO64 wrote: post #19

I’m primarily a coding instructor but I also teach lessons based around Kerbal Space Program. From that angle I’m pretty happy where these devs are going with the sandbox and level of freedom they plan on giving users. One reason my students seem to really like KSP are all the different things you can do/build (especially space planes). While it does have a high difficulty curve when it comes to the controls, once th…

Have you ever combined KSP with the coding instruction using either kOS[1] or kRPC[2]? 1. https://ksp-kos.github.io/KOS_DOC/ 2. https://krpc.github.io/krpc/

I relied on Mechjeb too much in my game, so I did a run using KRPC and built my own autopilot features with it. It was a lot of fun, and I would recommend it.

Re: “Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)

#42

Post by mihemihe »

incognito124 wrote: post #31

An actual spiritual successor to KSP is KSP2 Redux, a community project to resurrect KSP2. They made tons of progress already: https://ksp2redux.org/

KSP2 modding is a dead end. Also, it forces people to buy an abandonware KSP2 to play the mod. I spent myself those 50Euro on KSP2 when it was still active on development, but now I hope no one else makes the same mistake.

Re: “Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)

#43

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

MarsIronPI wrote: post #38
ryandrake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The game is not expected to be made open source due to certain dependencies that are not also open source. That's always kind of struck me as a silly excuse. So just release it without those non-open source dependencies. If there is a community need, they will be re-implemented. There's no law that says an open source release needs to be buildable from day one.

The only time it's not silly is when said dependencies are not just non-free, but covered under an NDA. If the API is under NDA then they can't release the code that uses the APIs. AIUI this is why FOSS games don't get ported to console, even though there might be people willing to fork up the money to pay for devkits and SDKs.

What secret sauce APIs are there to protect on the consoles? I guess the DRM side they might want to keep as secret as possible, but everything else strikes me as boring standard stuff. Here is how you draw a triangle, register an achievement, pop up the console store, whatever.

Re: “Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)

#44

Post by OneDeuxTriSeiGo »

MarsIronPI wrote: post #38
ryandrake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The game is not expected to be made open source due to certain dependencies that are not also open source. That's always kind of struck me as a silly excuse. So just release it without those non-open source dependencies. If there is a community need, they will be re-implemented. There's no law that says an open source release needs to be buildable from day one.

The only time it's not silly is when said dependencies are not just non-free, but covered under an NDA. If the API is under NDA then they can't release the code that uses the APIs. AIUI this is why FOSS games don't get ported to console, even though there might be people willing to fork up the money to pay for devkits and SDKs.

My guess is that it's the dependencies for the game engine. They use a custom engine but with how fast they got it up and running I'm guessing it's based on a pre-existing game engine which would almost certainly get it put under NDA.

Re: “Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)

#45

Post by TeMPOraL »

pooploop64 wrote: post #39
zamadatix wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the angle is at least partially that "Kitten"/"Kerbal" both start with a 'K' and are 2 syllables making the game names sound very similar (in both full form and abbreviation). Of course, I'm sure there will be Kerbal mods if the game proves anywhere near as popular!

The main reason for them being kittens is to incentivize valuing the astronauts lives without forcing a gameplay related penalty for killing or losing them. The disposability of astronauts is something the devs of this game think was a mistake in KSP. But at the same it's not a game about forcing the player to behave a certain way, so making them kittens is the middle ground.

What disposability? Kerbals were never disposable! If you crash your little green astronauts on some moon or planet, you're supposed to send a rescue mission after them. And should that rescue fail too, stranding more Kerbals, you just keep launching more rescue missions, until you successfully establish a colony :).

Re: “Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)

#46

Post by OkayPhysicist »

incognito124 wrote: post #31

An actual spiritual successor to KSP is KSP2 Redux, a community project to resurrect KSP2. They made tons of progress already: https://ksp2redux.org/

Kitten Space Agency is being made by one of the studios that attempted to land the contract to make KSP2. Basically, KSP1 had fundamental engine limitations that were blocking adding stuff that the developers really wanted (interstellar travel, better colonies, etc). So instead of just developing more DLC, they decided to make KSP2. Since the company that made KSP1 wasn't a game developer (they were a marketing company that gave their devs some free time), they shopped around for a studio to take it over. Of the studios that offered to take on the project, they ended up choosing Take2, because they had a flashy, art-focused pitch. Take 2 muddled around in development hell, then decided to abandon the engine rewrite, and focus almost exclusively on releasing a graphics overhaul of KSP1, all while still promising the features that required the engine rewrite in the first place. Queue absolutely disastrous early access launch. Rocketwerks, the KSA studio, were another one of the studios that pitched for KSP2, on the technical basis of their proposed replacement engine which would actually solve the problems that was KSP2 raison d'être. After Take2's KSP2 failed miserably, fired all it's staff, and then pretended that KSP2 wasn't dead for months, Rocketwerks announced that they were going to build their own game, KSA, on the engine that they had developed for KSP2.

In short, KSA is more of a KSP2 than what Take2 gave us.

Re: “Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)

#48

Post by pinewurst »

tintor wrote: post #7
rowanseymour wrote: post #2

So excited to play this but also sad that they didn't get the IP to use Kerbals. Not loving the cutesy baby kittens.. should have gone with a more serious animal like capybaras.

I'd like to play Minion Space Program.

Isn’t that NASA?

Re: “Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)

#49

Post by colechristensen »

kanemcgrath wrote: post #41
janzer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever combined KSP with the coding instruction using either kOS[1] or kRPC[2]? 1. https://ksp-kos.github.io/KOS_DOC/ 2. https://krpc.github.io/krpc/

I relied on Mechjeb too much in my game, so I did a run using KRPC and built my own autopilot features with it. It was a lot of fun, and I would recommend it.

I thought it would be nice to have actual mission planning in game for things like complex maneuvers, orbital slingshots, Lagrange point orbits, and the like.

Then launch countdowns, maps, exact timed burns that you'd still have to do manually but you could seemingly do so much more.

Or maybe this kind of thing already exists with mods.

Re: “Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)

#50

Post by kanemcgrath »

colechristensen wrote: post #49
kanemcgrath wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I relied on Mechjeb too much in my game, so I did a run using KRPC and built my own autopilot features with it. It was a lot of fun, and I would recommend it.

I thought it would be nice to have actual mission planning in game for things like complex maneuvers, orbital slingshots, Lagrange point orbits, and the like. Then launch countdowns, maps, exact timed burns that you'd still have to do manually but you could seemingly do so much more. Or maybe this kind of thing already exists with mods.

Mechjeb does a lot of automation for complex maneuvers like planetary transfers, ascent autopilot, target interception, etc.. You can even do a porkchop plot for interplanetary transfer. but lagrange points are not possible in KSP because of the Sphere of Influence Model. and orbital slingshots are not included, I assume because they require an intense bruteforce calculation.
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