I was hoping that KSP2 wouldn't be unity, but... there are far too many unity editor shots in that video. Hooray, 2 FPS launches continue into KSP2! Seriously though, I have full belief that...
I was hoping that KSP2 wouldn't be unity, but... there are far too many unity editor shots in that video. Hooray, 2 FPS launches continue into KSP2!
Seriously though, I have full belief that they'd write a performant game if they could, but the choice of Unity honestly holds them back so much. It's been said time and time again that Unity is great for education and rapid prototyping, but absolutely terrible to ship a production game on. They should be on UE4 or something proprietary for this next title.
A well designed game will work and look great on both unity and unreal. There's nothing inherently wrong with unity. In fact, recently there have been a lot of features (like the jobs system, or...
A well designed game will work and look great on both unity and unreal. There's nothing inherently wrong with unity. In fact, recently there have been a lot of features (like the jobs system, or the HDRP) released which could be very useful for a game like KSP.
Yes, there is. Unity uses C#, a garbage-collected language, in a scenario requiring high performance. The same code written in C# will be slower than C++ almost every time. Worse, garbage...
There's nothing inherently wrong with unity.
Yes, there is. Unity uses C#, a garbage-collected language, in a scenario requiring high performance. The same code written in C# will be slower than C++ almost every time. Worse, garbage collection isn't always predictable, leading to frame drops and stuttering. Here's a short article by the developers of Cuphead, on how to optimize a Unity game for the Nintendo Switch. Their advice on how to improve garbage collection performance is telling:
Luckily, we had the RAM budget to increase the heap so that it collected once every 15-20 minutes. Given we also trigger garbage collection on every pause, load, or restart (when invisible to the player) and because, well, Cuphead is a very difficult game, it is extraordinarily unlikely that players will be in a level long enough to experience garbage collection during gameplay.
Essentially, they simply delay garbage collection until a loading screen is shown. Working around inherent engine issues like this should not be a normal part of optimization for a game.
True, but the original quote was that there was nothing inherently wrong with Unity, which I disputed. (I still personally use Unity, because UE4 is so difficult to get started with, especially on...
True, but the original quote was that there was nothing inherently wrong with Unity, which I disputed. (I still personally use Unity, because UE4 is so difficult to get started with, especially on Linux.)
And that's only a concern if your game is heavily frame dependant. Difficult platformers like Cuphead and competitive FPS games may indeed find this unacceptable. But the way you're painting the...
Yes, there is. Unity uses C#, a garbage-collected language, in a scenario requiring high performance.
And that's only a concern if your game is heavily frame dependant. Difficult platformers like Cuphead and competitive FPS games may indeed find this unacceptable. But the way you're painting the whole engine with a broad brush I think is unfair. There's a ton of great games that use Unity and it does great.
And that is an inherent flaw, caused by Unity's choice of C#. It might not impact a simple game as much, but it's still a design decision they made that makes Unity objectively worse at...
And that is an inherent flaw, caused by Unity's choice of C#. It might not impact a simple game as much, but it's still a design decision they made that makes Unity objectively worse at performance compared to other game engines.
Do you know the actual performance impact that it would have on a game like KSP? I would assume a game programmed around (as in, a studio who knows the intricacies of it, and how to deal with it)...
Do you know the actual performance impact that it would have on a game like KSP? I would assume a game programmed around (as in, a studio who knows the intricacies of it, and how to deal with it) the garbage collector should perform similarly to a game programmed with a non-garbage collected language.
In my experience in unity development (which is admittedly not much), the majority of the performance degradation comes from aspects other than garbage collection.
I don't know what soured you on Unity. It's a perfectly good engine and easily just as good as UE4. There's a reason those two compete against each other so hard; they're both very good. On top of...
I don't know what soured you on Unity. It's a perfectly good engine and easily just as good as UE4. There's a reason those two compete against each other so hard; they're both very good.
On top of that, while I can't speak for UE4 seeing as I don't follow it's development or use it (yes I realize my bias), Unity's current tech projects stand to dramatically improve performance almost everywhere via DOTS/ECS. Even now, way before production, Burst Compiler, ECS and Jobs combined can speed everything up to insane speeds. So Unity is definitely headed in the right direction, even if some areas might not be so great right now.
I'm late to the party, but I just bought KSP a few weeks ago and I've been loving it. They made such great design choices that captured the spirit of what's cool and fun about exploration...
I'm late to the party, but I just bought KSP a few weeks ago and I've been loving it. They made such great design choices that captured the spirit of what's cool and fun about exploration perfectly. It gets the fun of toying around with rockets to make them work, it captures the sense of awe about actually accomplishing a historic feat of space exploration. All that and the designs of the Kerbin astronauts is so charming that it keeps the whole thing light and fun, even when your terrible engineering choices made without any math or due diligence involved will end disastrously.
I'm looking forward to a sequel and based on the trailer it seems like they're aiming for just bigger, better versions of everything which I am down for.
If you want a challenge that had me sitting besides a huge pile of numerical tables and math; do a grand tour. 1 Ship, visit every planet and moon. I built a 20 thousand ton monster that initially...
If you want a challenge that had me sitting besides a huge pile of numerical tables and math; do a grand tour.
1 Ship, visit every planet and moon.
I built a 20 thousand ton monster that initially moved as slow as you can imagine it would but it got to everywhere and I left little lander stages and satellites behind. I spent almost 3 months planning it out, figuring out how much delta V I need, what time I can spend on each planet and the ideal launch time. In the end I had 1 month in game time to assemble the ship in orbit, bring up all the fuel and prep various mod systems.
The best parts when I had fucked up and missed a deadline or used too much or too little fuel, forcing me to improvise Apollo 13 style without compromising the mission several times.
Something that always got me was the landing gear. You gotta make sure you use the 'Rotate' tool on 'Absolute' and lock it nice and straight. It's easy to have them be a teeeeny bit off kilter if...
Something that always got me was the landing gear. You gotta make sure you use the 'Rotate' tool on 'Absolute' and lock it nice and straight.
It's easy to have them be a teeeeny bit off kilter if you're putting them in odd spots or have already rotated other parts. So you'll start gaining speed and suddenly it just pratfalls in the runway... Great fun
Also making sure that if you're attaching them to wings that you have struts/autostruts making the whole thing rigid, for the same reason. If things start to flex then they have a tendency to go sideways quick
If keyboard flying is too finicky, place RCS/reaction wheels closer to center of mass or remove some altogether. You can also press caps lock to have movement keys have a little spool up time so...
If keyboard flying is too finicky, place RCS/reaction wheels closer to center of mass or remove some altogether.
You can also press caps lock to have movement keys have a little spool up time so small movements are less intense.
See, this is the fascinating thing—I think KSP2 is going to be good for this fact. Star Theory seems to be an entirely new company built up of industry veterans to build KSP2. I don't know if I'll...
See, this is the fascinating thing—I think KSP2 is going to be good for this fact. Star Theory seems to be an entirely new company built up of industry veterans to build KSP2. I don't know if I'll be their only focus game, but—as far as I can tell—it looks to be built from what used to be Uber Entertainment but now with the backing of a big publisher, Private Division/Take Two. Considering that Squad is primarily a marketing agency, at times KSP has felt like a side project. Perhaps the DLC weren't what KSP1 needed, but I bet the DLC releases have funded a bit of KSP2.
I've got higher hopes for KSP2 than the first game, which I'm fully burnt out on.
Here's the accompanying 10 minute video from the devs with more information (not a lot).
I was hoping that KSP2 wouldn't be unity, but... there are far too many unity editor shots in that video. Hooray, 2 FPS launches continue into KSP2!
Seriously though, I have full belief that they'd write a performant game if they could, but the choice of Unity honestly holds them back so much. It's been said time and time again that Unity is great for education and rapid prototyping, but absolutely terrible to ship a production game on. They should be on UE4 or something proprietary for this next title.
I'll still play it, though.
A well designed game will work and look great on both unity and unreal. There's nothing inherently wrong with unity. In fact, recently there have been a lot of features (like the jobs system, or the HDRP) released which could be very useful for a game like KSP.
Yes, there is. Unity uses C#, a garbage-collected language, in a scenario requiring high performance. The same code written in C# will be slower than C++ almost every time. Worse, garbage collection isn't always predictable, leading to frame drops and stuttering. Here's a short article by the developers of Cuphead, on how to optimize a Unity game for the Nintendo Switch. Their advice on how to improve garbage collection performance is telling:
Essentially, they simply delay garbage collection until a loading screen is shown. Working around inherent engine issues like this should not be a normal part of optimization for a game.
True, but the original quote was that there was nothing inherently wrong with Unity, which I disputed. (I still personally use Unity, because UE4 is so difficult to get started with, especially on Linux.)
And that's only a concern if your game is heavily frame dependant. Difficult platformers like Cuphead and competitive FPS games may indeed find this unacceptable. But the way you're painting the whole engine with a broad brush I think is unfair. There's a ton of great games that use Unity and it does great.
And that is an inherent flaw, caused by Unity's choice of C#. It might not impact a simple game as much, but it's still a design decision they made that makes Unity objectively worse at performance compared to other game engines.
Do you know the actual performance impact that it would have on a game like KSP? I would assume a game programmed around (as in, a studio who knows the intricacies of it, and how to deal with it) the garbage collector should perform similarly to a game programmed with a non-garbage collected language.
In my experience in unity development (which is admittedly not much), the majority of the performance degradation comes from aspects other than garbage collection.
I don't know what soured you on Unity. It's a perfectly good engine and easily just as good as UE4. There's a reason those two compete against each other so hard; they're both very good.
On top of that, while I can't speak for UE4 seeing as I don't follow it's development or use it (yes I realize my bias), Unity's current tech projects stand to dramatically improve performance almost everywhere via DOTS/ECS. Even now, way before production, Burst Compiler, ECS and Jobs combined can speed everything up to insane speeds. So Unity is definitely headed in the right direction, even if some areas might not be so great right now.
Holy shit there's a Project Orion spaceship running in engine
I'm late to the party, but I just bought KSP a few weeks ago and I've been loving it. They made such great design choices that captured the spirit of what's cool and fun about exploration perfectly. It gets the fun of toying around with rockets to make them work, it captures the sense of awe about actually accomplishing a historic feat of space exploration. All that and the designs of the Kerbin astronauts is so charming that it keeps the whole thing light and fun, even when your terrible engineering choices made without any math or due diligence involved will end disastrously.
I'm looking forward to a sequel and based on the trailer it seems like they're aiming for just bigger, better versions of everything which I am down for.
If you want a challenge that had me sitting besides a huge pile of numerical tables and math; do a grand tour.
1 Ship, visit every planet and moon.
I built a 20 thousand ton monster that initially moved as slow as you can imagine it would but it got to everywhere and I left little lander stages and satellites behind. I spent almost 3 months planning it out, figuring out how much delta V I need, what time I can spend on each planet and the ideal launch time. In the end I had 1 month in game time to assemble the ship in orbit, bring up all the fuel and prep various mod systems.
The best parts when I had fucked up and missed a deadline or used too much or too little fuel, forcing me to improvise Apollo 13 style without compromising the mission several times.
Meanwhile, I'm over here trying to figure out why my planes always seem to pitch to one side and crash before getting off the ground. . .
Something that always got me was the landing gear. You gotta make sure you use the 'Rotate' tool on 'Absolute' and lock it nice and straight.
It's easy to have them be a teeeeny bit off kilter if you're putting them in odd spots or have already rotated other parts. So you'll start gaining speed and suddenly it just pratfalls in the runway... Great fun
Also making sure that if you're attaching them to wings that you have struts/autostruts making the whole thing rigid, for the same reason. If things start to flex then they have a tendency to go sideways quick
Of course the solution would be to add more struts!
What a fool I was. . .
Seriously though why does that always happen? Just tried space flight, seems so unstable. I also am flying by keyboard which blows for space flight.
If keyboard flying is too finicky, place RCS/reaction wheels closer to center of mass or remove some altogether.
You can also press caps lock to have movement keys have a little spool up time so small movements are less intense.
Very helpful, thanks!
I can't help but notice that they've changed developers. I wonder if KSP2 will have the same charm without SQUAD working on it.
See, this is the fascinating thing—I think KSP2 is going to be good for this fact. Star Theory seems to be an entirely new company built up of industry veterans to build KSP2. I don't know if I'll be their only focus game, but—as far as I can tell—it looks to be built from what used to be Uber Entertainment but now with the backing of a big publisher, Private Division/Take Two. Considering that Squad is primarily a marketing agency, at times KSP has felt like a side project. Perhaps the DLC weren't what KSP1 needed, but I bet the DLC releases have funded a bit of KSP2.
I've got higher hopes for KSP2 than the first game, which I'm fully burnt out on.
I had a lot of the same concerns when I heard it was announced but, to be honest, the trailer actually got me pretty excited.
The song in the trailer is one of my absolute favorites!
M83 - Outro for anyone interested.