Recent reviews by rjbvre

TLDR: There are some outstanding things happening here, but it is very rough around the edges. I don't know how possible it is for it to be cleaned up/optimized in a reasonable time frame, but I'm cautiously optimistic. If you are unsure, watch videos and read forum posts, but most importantly don't forget you can refund on steam if you play fewer than 2 hrs. Definitely not for everyone!

I'm recommending this in early access but only with VERY big caveats. THIS EARLY ACCESS WON'T BE EVERYONE'S CUP OF TEA! There are bugs, and the performance can be rough. There are also some oddly poor design choices with the UI. I can't blame people for not wanting to pay $50 for what you get right now.

Having said that, I believe there's a brilliant core to this game. It does seem like the systems are in place for this to be a substantial and meaningful upgrade to KSP1 (long burns in timewarp, tutorials, procedural parts, future tech). Some of the polish shows a true passion for and dedication to the project: the sound effects, music, and part design are simply outstanding.

I think all of us who played KSP1 have memories of the sense of wonder and awe we felt during key milestones (first orbit, first mun landing, watching Kerbin slowly falling back on your first escape trajectory, nervously watching flames surround your reentering craft). Sure the graphics and audio weren't state of the art, but it gave us a glimpse of what REAL space travel looks and feels like. KSP2 has already provided me several of these moments in a much more profound way than KSP1 could. The realistic roar, rumble, and crackle of a launch is a visceral experience. Watching Kerbals use the new magnetic boots to walk around on spacecraft with planets/moons in the background is breathtaking with the new lighting system. Laythe is a great showcase of little details making profound improvements. Seeing shadows under clouds from orbit, mountain ranges covered in ridges, shallow coastal waters being more turquoise compared to the navy depths all make you think "holy crap, that's an actual world down there, I gotta explore it!" And all of this set to a much better musical score.

I managed a manned mission to all the Joolian moons while only encountering a few bugs, most of which were fixed by simply returning to the space center and reloading. The navigation system is definitely buggier and less functional than KSP1's, but having spent more time getting used to it, it's not as bad as it first seemed. I've only had 3 game crashes in over 10hrs, not too bad for EA. There are some issues with physics (part connections seem way too weak/flexible, decoupler oddities), but sensibly designed craft tend to perform well. Some players like to construct unrealistic monstrosities, and I get that, but if something would obviously not fly IRL, is it actually a bug if it works in KSP1 but not KSP2?

My main concern is performance. I'm underspec (GTX-970, I5-3570k, 16GB ram), and playing on/around surfaces is barely doable (5-20 fps depending on craft). Once in orbit I hover around 35-40fps, but with slowdowns to around 20fps when celestial bodies are in view and closer than about 250km. I find KSP perfectly playable at 30fps (as opposed to a shooter), and that still leaves plenty for me personally to do, but it is a limited experience. I don't know enough about game design to say how much this can be optimized: I'll leave that to the armchair programmers :-) I am cautiously optimistic though.

PSA: The orbital properties seem to be the same as KSP1 i.e. launch and transfer windows should be the same!