Kerbal Space Program has recently been updated to version 0.90 — dubbed BETA Than Ever by developer Squad — taking the game into the Beta stage of development. "We've come a long way. The decision to go into Beta is a big step, and there's no better way to say it than with an update the size of Beta Than Ever" said Lead Developer Filipe Falanghe via the games official Tumblr. He continued stating "It means we are in the home stretch. We are not done with the game by any means, but it has matured to a point where we can safely say that hitting 1.0 is within sight." Still where did the game come from? How did they get it to where it is today? Also, what does the future hold?
Kerbal Space Program — KSP for short — is a physics-based space simulator that allows players to manage a space program via Sandbox or Career Mode. It was quite a different project for the Mexico-based marketing company Squad. As a company they had no desire to break into the video game market when Filipe, one of the 3D Modellers, started work on a Rocket Builder/Simulator. Management at Squad saw potential in the game however when Filipe posted some rocket parts on several forums and overnight they received in excess of 30,000 hits. As a result, some people even began offering to pay for a playable version of the game. Originally intended to be just a 2D side-scroller with 3D assets, the game went through a multitude of design changes before the earliest playable version of the game got released. The 2D side-scroller style made way for a full 3D game engine, with version 0.7.3 released for download on June 24th, 2011 and hitting over 5,000 downloads. With the increasing popularity of the game, the development team has grown to eight developers. It is now the primary focus of Squad, although the marketing arm of the company remains intact.
As the groundswell for the game increased due to players streaming on Twitch and posting videos to YouTube, Squad kept on producing content and tweaking the game's assets. Early versions of the game only featured the planet Kerbin, home of the little green Astronauts with large heads known as Kerbals. For many new players, the first objective tends to be construction of a rocket that can get as high as possible. However, this commonly ends with players attempting to produce the biggest explosion they can achieve with the least amount of parts possible. The games physics can take a while to get to grips with due to the game engine being based on real Orbital mechanics. Every player will remember that feeling of accomplishment when they reach orbit for the first time or their first encounter with Mun (one of the moons of Kerbin, the other being Minmus). As the game continually receives updates, more and more planets and moons are added providing increasingly difficult challenges for players.
As more people became aware of the games existence, a modding community began to form making unofficial user created parts and planets. This was encouraged by Squad, who added hooks into the game to facilitate modding and sometimes officially developed those mods back into the game. This was the case for the Spaceplane Plus Mod created by forum user Porkjet, who improved the stock Mk2 Space Plane components and added additional parts that Squad incorporated into KSP. The fanbase of KSP continued to grow gaining fans even at NASA, resulting in a patch mixing aspects of the NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission with their full support. This added the game mechanic where asteroids can appear and travel towards Kerbin. Players must approach the asteroid and either capture it in the planets orbit or adjust the orbital trajectory to prevent an impact on Kerbin. Career mode received another update allowing players to gather Science that can be spent on unlocking parts, giving the game some direction and a sense of progression. Another added mechanic are Contracts for players; that is a request from one of the various Agencies to complete a randomly generated task such as testing components in a particular environment or collecting data from different planets.
With the release of Patch 0.90 on December 15th, 2014, it brought an enormous amount of new content to the game. The Kerbal Space Centers (KSC) various buildings now require upgrading to unlock their full functionality. This can halt the progression in some cases until a building receives an upgrade, for instance, the Vehicle Assembly Building. Without being upgraded it can only hold a maximum of thirty parts but with a Level 2 upgrade it can hold two hundred and fifty-five. Every celestial body with a solid surface received an overhaul adding additional Biomes to allow players to gather more Science from each via Exploration Missions. With the addition of Satellite Contract Missions players must construct, launch and position satellites in orbital trajectories around different planets and moons. Numerous components received a redesign, like the MK3 Spaceplanes parts, allowing a more realistic construction of shuttle style spacecraft. Another feature is Experience that levels up the abilities of the three different types of professions — Pilot, Engineer, and Scientist. For example, a Level 0 pilot can use the Stability Augmentation System (SAS) only, but a Level 1 can also aim the ship prograde or retrograde — forwards or backwards along the orbital path. Finally in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and Space Plane Hangar (SPH) the Editor user interface received an overhaul adding the ability to sort parts by criteria such as Manufacturer or Price. It also enabled precise part positioning, a feat that until recently could only be achieved by glitching parts into one another.
On December 19th, 2014, Squad teamed up with TeacherGaming LLC to release KerbalEdu. This is a version of KSP where Educators can create custom scenarios that present problems for students to solve using the games Aerodynamic and Orbital Physics. This version of the game, for both the Mac and PC, are provided at a discounted price for educational institutions.
So what is next for KSP? The fanbase continues to grow and yearn for more content. The developers have taken to social media sites like Tumblr to report on what they have been doing over the past week, providing a sneak peek of up and coming additions and changes. KSP is still very much a single-player game, but Squad PR Manager Bob Holtman has confirmed this will change. "Shaun [Esau, multi-player mod developer] has proven that multi-player can be done, so Squad is committed to making multi-player a part of the final release." This may mean that multi-player may not make an appearance until version 1.0.
Whatever the case, the hype train keeps on rolling and gathering pace, with the last big bump coming from the influx of new players via Steams Early Access program in March 2013. Only time will tell if the game continues to deliver the same stellar content that it has become known for by gamers worldwide. Either way it should be a blast.
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