option 1:
the thing i did to piss off all my friends in the "kerbal as an educational tool" meta on KSP twitch
option 2: The Bastard
i also would like to note, for reasons i was reminded of while watching a KSP2 update video:
i have never liked "so kerbal" as a typecast for the game, its an identity issue the game has fought with for years and it seems worryingly like the KSP2 devs have fallen on the wrong side of it in saying "wobbly rockets w/ poorly coded joints should be in the game because it's so kerbal"
its something devs have had to push back on ever since Bac9 did the original artpass on the kerbal space center (UPDATE: it turns out the devs FUCKING REMOVED THE WHOLE PASSAGE I WAS TALKING ABOUT, mirrored here), this eternal conflict where one narrative is pushed that "kerbals are basically WH40k orcs who just Fuck Around" to the detriment of the game, one that pushes it as "haha funny explosion simulator" when that's not what the game's about. or not what it has to be about. They can be competent, they are competent, they clearly are, they are sending shit into fuckin' space, they're not dumbass slapdash engineers. They can be a little reckless, but they're just an extension of player agency and their perceived attitude towards failure was always meant as a way to help the player themselves grapple with it themselves, that "we'll get it next time," try-fail-try again attitude.
Their perceived recklessness isn't callousness, it's welcome acceptance of failure being a step towards succcess. It's "it's okay, you can fuck up and have shit blow up on you, but you'll get there!"
You'd think with an early access release trailer like this, set to "Things Can Only Get Better" they'd understand that mindset, because it so clearly conveys it. I don't get how they can oscillate between "really understanding the spirit of the game" like in that trailer, and then saying "wobbly rockets are so kerbal" when that was only the case as a flawed justification for poor calculation of nodes and joints in a spaghetti codebase from 2011
HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT A FUCKING MOVE
It's preserved in the comments, but here.
excerpt from a KSP devblog, titled *It's Not Kerbal?*
\*shrug\* For some reason some people like to think Kerbals are sloppy engineers only capable of producing inherently broken designs held together by duct tape. To them, proposing something prim and proper like a NASA VAB could be built by Kerbals is ridiculous. Well, I disagree. Take a good look at the parts: at the LV-N engine, at 3-man pod, at the landing legs, at ion engine. Those are cleanly executed pieces of impressive technology. Kerbals are indifferent to safety precautions and are very excited about explosions, yes, but they make an impression of extremely capable and very competent engineers. Sure, we know they probably turned a construction crane into a vomit carousel or raced on bulldozers in the process, but I don't doubt for one second they can build buildings similar to real ones, and I don't think it would be out of character for them. Plenty of other stuff like engines is fairly close to how our human rockets look. It's unfair to mistake Kerbals for Orks from a “Certain Universe With 40k In The Name,” or to expect them to build sloppy duct-taped huts.Overall, I'm convinced the obsession with disasters and perception of Kerbals as worthless engineers only caring about explosions is destructive for the game. KSP deserves much more than being a glorified disaster simulator where rockets falling apart and crews being killed is the prime entertainment and the only expected result. The achievements of players who strive to be successful, who create beautiful, well-engineered, reliable designs, should never be devalued, and the opinion that going to space is impossibly hard deserves to be crushed and disproved over and over again. Kerbals are capable engineers and it's up to the player to utilize their technology well.
This same mindset is harming the game in many other areas as well. The bugs of the physics system aren't there because we thought they would be fun and don't deserve to be defended as some players surprisingly do. The achievements of reaching orbit, landing on another body or even establishing a permanent base somewhere should not be perceived as something impossibly hard and unreachable for anyone but hardcore players. Everything is possible if you are willing to learn and there is no reason to restrict yourself to playing a disaster simulator with rocket cars or insta-exploding space planes. Justifying that to yourself by creating a certain mental image of Kerbal engineers competency might make the game better for you but I’m striving for a greater Kerbal good.
Now, I'm not opposed to having fun at all. For instance, I have nothing against the KSP trailers made by our Pixar-tier magician Daniel Rosas which often depict Kerbals ignoring safety and having good fun. Part of the charm of KSP is the opportunity to take enormous risks, ignore established paradigms and experiment freely, which can often leads to great successes and interesting stories to tell. That is not clashing in the slightest with the fact that you have nice, cleanly made, technologically impressive spacecraft parts available to you, or well-built buildings to assemble your creations in - all without any sign of duct tape, rust or sloppy welding. So, basically, I feel objects in the game should continue to be clean and well-built to be consistent with the existing art style, and I'm convinced reinforcing the widespread opinion of Kerbals being incompetent is very harmful for the game. So there you have it.
