KSP2 Release Notes - For Science! Milestone v0.2.0.0

December 19, 2023

KSP2 For Science! Milestone v0.2.0.0 Release Notes

New Features and Content

Added a new game mode called "Exploration Mode"
Added Mission Control and R&D Center buildings
Added a Tech Tree with 4 tiers
Added the Mission Tracker App
Added 11 primary missions and 30 secondary missions
Added the Research Inventory App
Added 9 new Science collection parts
Added several unique points of interest throughout the Kerbolar System
Implemented thermal system for part heating
Implemented re-entry VFX
Implemented delta-v tools in both VAB and Flight
Added fully-functional buoyancy system for floating vessels
Implemented a new Audio Ambience System
Added the first iteration of the Cheats Menu (ALT+F8)
Added a boat dock environment
Added two new tutorials
Added new messages to the Cadet Orientation System
Added dozens of new items to the Kerbal Variety System
Added the K0 starter rocket stock vessel

Bug Fixes

Construction

Fixed: Attaching a subassembly to another part using the stack attach node of a symmetrical child part causes crash
Fixed: LES "Bottle Rocket" Solid Fuel Booster appears as a white box icon in the staging stack
Fixed: Assembly Anchors cannot be changed on non-launch subassemblies
Fixed: Copied decouplers are not copied to a new stage
Fixed: Symmetrically-placed parts remain held and cause a Null Reference Exception after removing and reattaching an edited subassembly
Fixed: Area around staging stack in the VAB is camera movement dead zone Environments
Upgraded water refraction for Kerbin and Laythe
Adjusted Eve's ocean waves
Adjusted ocean waves on Kerbin and Laythe
Adjusted Eve's ocean underwater surface visibility
Fixed: Visual artifacts appear in Jool's atmosphere while within Jool's SOI in flight mode
Fixed: Visible steps in cloud rotation due to low float precision
Fixed: Cloud shadows cause light flickering on vessels in low Kerbin orbit while on high quality settings
Fixed: Clouds dissapear at some locations when set to low quality
Fixed: Height mismatch between local and scaled clouds under medium quality settings
Fixed: Eve's upper atmosphere has a semi-sharp upper border
Increased resolution for close-range terrain textures on all celestial bodies
Fixed: Laythe low quality clouds have a pixelated glow effect on them
Fixed: Terrain appears pixelated when seen up-close
Fixed: Dres ridge and some other decal-based landforms don't have proper collision
Fixed lighting flashes when loading new scenes or changing vessels
Updated collision mesh for Air Traffic Control Tower
Fixed: Negative scale errors reported in log files

EVA

Fixed: Loading a game that was saved while an EVA Kerbal was holding onto a vehicle causes the Kerbal to fall off the vehicle
Fixed: If a Kerbal jumps during time warp while in flight mode, the Kerbal becomes unresponsive
Fixed: If ladder is shaking, Kerbal resting on ladder becomes offset over time
Adjusted jetpack material to better match kerbal spacesuit

Flight & Map

Implemented reinforced joints system and accompanying player-adjustable joint mode settings
Overhauled buoyancy behavior
Fixed: Acceleration under time warp stops working after reaching specific in-game time (UT) while in orbit around some CBs
Fixed: Buoyancy displacement incorrect for parts with variable drag cubes
Fixed: Landing legs deployed at high speed are ripped off of the vessel
Fixed: Vessels sink or are destroyed due to mistmatched terrain colliders
Fixed: Vessel falls through the ground when camera moves more than ~2500m away from it
Improved issue where rovers flip after driving a short distance from their load origin location
Fixed: Visual drift on several engines when using high timewarp
Fixed: Vessel's parts move out of place when switching to a rocket in orbit while at the KSC or Tracking Station"
Fixed: Vessels end up in a bad state when switching away from the vessel in orbit
Fixed: Vessel's parts are out of place after disengaging timewarp at very low orbit around Mun
Reduced floating point precission loss on rotating reference frames
Fixed: Ship is destroyed when switching away from the vessel while engines are running
Fixed: Two docked vessels become stuck and unable to undock after a third vessel is docked
Improved trajectory AP/PE values changing when saving and loading while in orbit around any CB
Added AP/PE display to maneuver trajectories appearing within SOIs
The projected trajectory and the actual trajectory now both show periapses for the targets in relative SOIs after a maneuver has been performed
Fixed: Kerbals appear as vessels in Map
Fixed: Orbit tag displays incorrect celestial body name
Fixed: "Time warp to Point" appears as an option for planned trajectories
Celestial body name is shown on both the default and expanded view of every AP/PE marker
Changed "Enter/Exit SOI" marker to "Encountering/Leaving CB Name"
Orbital markers inherit the color of the current trajectory or planned maneuver trajectory
Fixed: Vessel and other icons clip into celestial bodies in map view
Fixed: Maneuver gizmo can still be manipulated if the player pauses while manipulation is occuring
Added "control" and "focus" to kerbal action buttons in Tracking Station to align with vessel actions
Fixed: Returning to KSC while paused in another SOI breaks KSC
Reduced the frequency of "Solar Panels Ineffective" notification
Fixed: VesselOutOfElectricity message event does not trigger when EC is exhausted
Fixed: Notification does not display when trying to increase time warp past the limit using hotkeys
Fixed: Player receives "Loss of Control" notifications when discarding boosters
Fixed: "Vessel out of EC" notification fires when the vessel or kerbal doesn't have EC to start with
Fixed: Staging a vessel collapses the Delta-V information in the staging stack
Fixed: Vessel continues to accelerate after resuming control from Tracking Station, and turning off engines
Fixed: Vessels on launch clamps are not considered landed when at the launchpad
Fixed: Throttle sometimes jumps to 100% when passing 20km altitude above Kerbin
Fixed: Some engine gimbals don't work when offscreen (e.g. in Map mode)"
Added Vessel loss prompt when using the Escape Menu option to leave flight while vessel is on a collision course
Adjusted flight report to remove revert options from vessels that are currently in flight or have been recovered
Fixed: Map UI info panel fails to display buttons and flight information for EVA kerbals
Fixed: Portraits for both Kerbals are not present when docking vessels that have one Kerbal each
Fixed: Jetpacks sometimes show up in kerbal portraits
Fixed: Tooltips on map items duplicated due to camera distance
Fixed: EC values from destroyed electrical parts remain in the Vessel Resources UI
Fixed: Flight HUD velocity displays decimals but only updates on integers at velocities above 999 m/s
SAS vector hold indicator now displays appropriate highlight when selected
Fixed: Temperature gauges stay on screen when switching scenes
Fixed: Disconnected parts sometimes remain linked when joints are broken between parts
Fixed: Kerbol not visible betwen altitudes of 1000 MM and 750 MM in flight
Fixed: Deployed parachutes that have moved from the parts bin to the first stage do not stage properly
Fixed: Vessels landed on CBs other than Kerbin can be recovered using Info Panel in Tracking Station
Fixed: Part destruction causes assertion error
Fixed: Recovering vessel causes Null Reference Exception
Fixed: Looking directly at Kerbol from a semi major axis of ~25,210,000,000 m or more causes error flood
Fixed: Tracking station shows shows incorrect values for atmospheric pressure, sphere of
influence and rotational velocity for CBs

FX & Audio

Fixed: Ambient sound stops working when leaving flight view and coming back
Fixed: Audio events do not persist when entering the main menu upon exiting or saving a game
Fixed: Audio mutes on text entry on Campaign screen if you use numpad 1 or 2
Fixed: Audio does not detect collisions with non-terrain objects correctly
Fixed: Water impact splash does not change with part velocity
Fixed: Water splashes spawn at incorrect orientations
Fixed: KSC ambient music plays while in Cadet Orientation mode
Fixed: Math issues in water level detection vs part bounding boxes caused apparent hovering of floating vessels

Menus & Settings

Changing from Full Screen to Windows maintains resolution settings
Graphics Settings for resolution now default to the current resolution, if present on the dropdown
Fixed: Some accessibility settings do not visually update UI to represent saved setting state
Fixed: Graphics quality settings do not apply correctly when selecting medium quality
Fixed: General settings don't have descriptions for all options
Fixed: Part animations in Main Menu display incorrectly
Updated KSP2 Credits

Modding

Changed unit culture to be invariant for some text parsing scenarios

Optimization

Improved performance of SimulationObjectView by returning pre-cached components
Improved performance of loading stock vessel metadata by only reading from meta json files
Moved buoyant force algorithm to job system to address spinning of floating parts and to improve performance and stability
Improved water detection performance
Terrain rendering time reduced by ~30-50% based on location
Removed separate re-rendering of cloud edges to improve performance
Fixed: Cloud resources not released after changing cloud quality settings
Optimized shadow rendering for clouds
Fixed: Light bulb parts cause performance issues
Fixed: Frame rate drops when generating new Kerbals using the Kerbal Manager in the VAB
Fixed: Memory leak in PartBehaviorSystem

Parts & Stock Vessels

Fixed: "RF-AD-XL 2500" fueled adapter model is invisible
Fixed: "Tuba" engine experiences attachment offset at high warp speeds
Fixed: Landing legs and wheel parts under compression fully extend during timewarp
Fixed: Landing legs have issues when switching to map while they are extending or retracting
Fixed: Labradoodle engine moves out of place when timewarping at 1,000,000x speed in flight
Fixed: Already-deployed shrouds sometimes reappear when game is reloaded
Added heatshield functionality to existing heatshield parts
Fixed: DTS-M1 antenna collider stuck in deployed state
Fixed: Surface attach node definition for MK3 engine mount is missing
Added bottom node to inflatable heat shield
Fixed: Stack-attached parts incorrectly detected as contents of a cargo bay
Fixed: Missing drag properties for some structural parts
Improved clipping of landing legs through terrain and other surfaces during time warp
Minor tuning pass on many parts, including Command and Structural drag cube and buoyancy scalars
Tuning pass on drag cubes for all parts
Fixed: "Goliath" engine fan doesn't animate when throttled up/down

Saving & Loading

Fixed: Title freezes at loading screen after reverting to the VAB several times from flight
Fixed: Save files take a long time to load, and in some cases the vessel is absent after loading
Fixed: Struts don't appear on a vessel if the vessel was previously loaded onto a launch pad
Fixed: Close button doesn't work in the Workspace File Name input field inside the Save Worspace dialog
Changed "vehicles" to "workspaces" in VAB Save/Load menu titles to reduce confusion Fixed: Save Workspace menu shows vehicle names instead of workspace names for player workspaces

Tutorials

Fixed: Title crashes after deleting parts during tutorial 1 and then quitting to main menu
Added a setting to disable Cadet Orientation after creating a campaing
Fixed getting stuck on the final step after using time warp to reach a stable orbit trajectory during tutorial "Establishing an Orbit"
Fixed voice over getting stuck when player fails tutorial "Manipulating Orbits"
Fixed: Tutorial highlight overlaps Altimiter in the Flight Cluster
Fixed: Engineer's Report and Flight Planner crowd one another in the VAB tutorial
Updated arrows position for several tutorials

UI/UX

Updated UI for the KSC launchpad menu
Updated UI for the Training Center
Updated Launchpad Menu UI
Updated UI on the KSC Menu
Updated visuals for alert notifications panel
Updated visuals for UI Notifications
Passive notifications moved to the top of the screen
Updated UI for all app windows for stylistic consistency
Fixed: Alert & Passive Notifications don't scale properly when switching between resolutions
Fixed: Passive notifications remain on screen indefinitely when the game is paused
Updated boat launch icon
Consistency pass on KSC facility icons
Updated color for scrollbars
Increased font size for Game mode descriptions
Updated UI on tutorial arrows and indicator areas
Resized tutorial arrows
Tutorial gifs display at consistent size
Fixed: Fuzzy edges on the VAB Tool Bar UI
Fixed: UI does not properly highlight when hovering on the save vehicle save/load menu
Fixed: Ellipses have incorrect vertical position due to font issue
Fixed: Action Bar Bento Menu button text runs into edge of box
Fixed: Text misaligned when viewing EVA controls in flight
Fixed: Text is cut off and illegible in the Time Warp and Breadcrumb UI while on the lowest fullscreen resolution
Fixed: Text cut off in Training Center due to scroll masking

Known Issues

If paused in-flight, switching to Mission Control causes the loading screen to hang

Workaround: press '>' to resume time

Orbit Surveys are difficult to run on small celestial bodies

Workaround: geostationary or big elliptical orbits should allow the player to run those experiments. The intention of this part is for it to scan the regions underneath the vessel as it moves over them - however right now it pauses when a new region is encountered, something that occurs a lot when moving fast over some CBs. We are internally testing improvements to this so the part can get its data with less babysitting

Miscellaneous text issues in missions, i.e. debrief text repeating

Significant amounts of text went into this update, so of course a few things slipped through the cracks. Even if they're minor, please do report them!

Separators below a root part will cause improper separation causing loss of control

Workaround: Consider using decouplers instead of separators if you are running into this issue

Solar panels are sometimes blocked when in Jool's sphere of influence even when Kerbol is in clear view

After staring at the sun from Jool's 'surface', black dots may appear and persist even when transitioning back to the KSC

Surface-attached lights don't turn on properly when launching for the first time

Common Workarounds

If you run into an issue, the first thing you should try to save and reloading. We have found many common issues to be quickly fixed using this method. You could additionally try reverting to launch.

Performance may degrade over very long play sessions, but restarting the game client should fix this.

A Note on Heat

It's important to keep in mind that the Part Heat system in KSP2 is different than KSP1, so do not expect parity in this area. Tuning the numbers for the heat system will be a long-term project, so feedback is appreciated!

SUBMITTING BUG REPORTS AND FEEDBACK

If you'd like to provide feedback about this build, there are many different ways to do so:

Kerbal Space Program

Kerbal Space Program 2

Resources