[HN Gopher] Kerbal Space Program free on Epic
___________________________________________________________________
Kerbal Space Program free on Epic
Author : hersko
Score : 155 points
Date : 2023-01-05 19:42 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (store.epicgames.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (store.epicgames.com)
| scubbo wrote:
| I'm a big fan of the recent Hitman trilogy, and I remember there
| being _outrage_ when the 3rd installment launched first on Epic.
| So far as I could tell, the primary criticisms of Epic Games
| Launcher were 1) it didn't have as-good social features as Steam
| (for a game that doesn't support multiplayer, who cares?), and 2)
| it didn't have a cart to which you could add multiple items
| before checkout - have you _ever_ bought more than one item from
| Steam at once, not counting game-and-DLC (which would typically
| be available as a single-purchase bundle)?
|
| I mention this here because it's a valuable reminder that not
| everyone uses or experiences software in the same way as you.
| These people weren't wrong, they just had different evaluations
| of the "point" of a launcher than I did.
|
| EDIT: and this comment
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34265872) lists a third
| reason - "exclusivity is bullshit". To which, uhhh.....sure,
| philosophically, I would _prefer_ for all content to be available
| on all platforms so I can pick-and-choose exactly the platform
| that I prefer. But if a) the platforms are all free, and b) the
| platforms all hit a minimum-bar of quality, such that being
| forced to use one of them doesn't majorly impact my experience,
| why would I care that "the icon to launch Hitman results in a
| different under-the-hood launcher than the icon to launch Half-
| Life"? (Note this is _different_ from disliking fragmentation of
| shows across Netflix/Disney+/Hulu/etc., because those aren't
| free)
| andrecarini wrote:
| Steam has many problems but given it's been out there for two
| decades it's inevitable that people will compare it to
| newcomers.
|
| Personally, I think EGS has much worse UX than Steam.
|
| 1) Slow on older computers: minimized it to the tray and
| brought it back? Keep looking at this blank screen and loading
| bar for 10 seconds now. Want to see your library? Here, wait 20
| more seconds.
|
| 2) Got a free game, played it and didn't like it? Can't hide it
| from your library!
|
| 3) Want to know how large a download will be before you install
| a game? Good luck hunting that information!
|
| Steam isn't a perfect launcher, but it had a long time to
| iterate and gather feedback.
|
| (FWIW, Epic has a "Feedback and UX User Research" [1] program
| but it's only open to US residents -- which I'm not.)
|
| [1]: https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/ux
| jamie_ca wrote:
| The biggest part of the Hitman 3 outrage was that IOI dropped
| the ball on back-compatibility, it was a bit of a hassle and
| poorly communicated throughout how one would gain access to the
| levels from Hitman and Hitman 2 from purchased copies on Steam,
| inside Hitman 3 from Epic.
|
| IIRC one of the early messages was "you'll just need to own
| them on Epic - Hitman was free for a week a year ago and Hitman
| 2 was just on sale for 80% off last month (but isn't anymore)"
| and if you missed those you were SOL. Though I understand it's
| complicated by the publisher/ownership situation w/ Square Enix
| for the first Hitman, I'm glad they got it sorted for launch
| (and even happier that they're simplifying the whole trilogy
| behind one SKU later this month).
| kemayo wrote:
| I think the main objection I remember seeing was around
| exclusive games, with the rest of the complaints being largely
| nitpicking. (Which I get. Having to remember which launcher I
| need to run to find a game I want to play is a pain, albeit
| very much a first world problem.)
|
| > have you _ever_ bought more than one item from Steam at once,
| not counting game-and-DLC
|
| Yes. Generally during sales, admittedly, when I'll sometimes
| pick up a few games at once. As I recall it felt a bit strange
| that Epic lacked it, because they were promoting themselves at
| launch with a lot of heavy sales, which really maximized the
| odds that someone might want to pick up a few games at once.
| ChoGGi wrote:
| > have you _ever_ bought more than one item from Steam
|
| Last weekend, I keep a wishlist and check it when sales happen.
|
| Nothing personal against epic (I like the freebies), just not a
| fan of exclusives.
|
| Plus I leave steam open in background, epic I have to open and
| wait for a 100+ MB update (crap internet around here).
| mappu wrote:
| A Steam client update is also ~100MB and it happens
| frequently (seems like every 1-4 weeks at usual pace).
| idiotsecant wrote:
| My general argument for not liking it when publishers force an
| alternative game platform goes like so: I don't want to support
| companies making me install and sign up for a zillion different
| software distribution platforms. I like steam, it works great
| and I think they give a pretty decent revenue split to creators
| and are overall not an obviously unethical POS company. As long
| as they keep that up I jsut want to use steam because it makes
| my life easier.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Epic store has a cart now, IIRC reason #2 has been moot for at
| least a year
| soulofmischief wrote:
| I buy multiple games at once on Steam all the time. #2 seems
| like such a silly criticism though.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| I have well over a hundred games purchased on GoG or game
| website or humble bundle (many of them also on my steamdeck -
| kudos to Valve for building an open platform).
|
| I also have many hundreds purchased off of Itch (in large part
| due to the ukraine bundle).
|
| I prefer to purchase off GoG/humble just due to how locked down
| Steam is. I've bought the same game in a series on GoG versus
| Steam. On GoG I can LAN game with my kid to play co-op. On
| steam, I would need to purchase a controller, figure out how to
| use it, since basically no games support using 2 keyboard
| configurations on 2 USB keyboards, and steam requires
| purchasing multiple copies for LAN play.
|
| Also the steam client often sucks up gigs of RAM (seems to be
| due to the chrome web portion when checking process list) for
| no obvious reason that I have better use for.
|
| Epic on the other hand, I have purchased exactly one game at my
| kid's request and it being an epic exclusive. Due to no linux
| support of any kind. I've snagged a fair number of their
| freebies in the past, but only a few work somewhat under Wine,
| often only if circumventing their client, so it's not worth
| dropping my money on.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| another reason is that Epic is completely unusable on some
| monitor sizes/resolutions, unless they've fixed that recently
| colechristensen wrote:
| Epic gets hate for anticompetitive behavior and essentially
| trying to buy success with exclusivity deals. They aren't
| winning business by being better at anything they do, just by
| owning things and using that for leverage, and then people who
| care about a game feel forced to use a store they don't want to
| use, sometimes after a last minute rug pull before release.
|
| Content + distribution houses shouldn't be allowed to do these
| things in any industry.
| adra wrote:
| ** epic. Wow, I was hoping to say more but I guess that's it.
| Waiting on their exclusivity bs to dry up so that we can get
| games through other stores without lockin (same reason Ive sworn
| off certain consoles for similar reasons). Theres no perfect
| solution but I may as well have a principled stand against
| something.
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| @dang, I think that https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/kerbal-
| space-program would be a better link for this
| 3vidence wrote:
| Just to add on here, the link just takes me to the main Epic
| Games page and I can't see anything about KSP.
|
| Edit: The current link.
| dang wrote:
| Changed from https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/. Thanks!
| SquareWheel wrote:
| There's two free games this week, so
| https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/free-games would be even
| better. Not sure why the submitter only mentioned one of
| them.
| hersko wrote:
| KSP is a popular rocket sim that can teach you the basics of
| orbital mechanics and beyond.
| naillo wrote:
| This feels like a gpt-3 auto reply
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| Nah, GPT-3 doesn't sound quite that much like a bot.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Me:
|
| > What is KSP?
|
| ChatGPT:
|
| > KSP is short for Kerbal Space Program, a space flight
| simulation game developed by Squad. In the game, players can
| design and build their own spacecraft and launch them from
| the ground or an aircraft to explore the Kerbal planet and
| beyond. The game is known for its realistic physics and
| engineering simulation, which requires players to carefully
| consider factors such as fuel consumption, aerodynamics, and
| structural integrity when designing and piloting their
| spacecraft. Players can also perform a variety of space-
| related tasks and missions, such as building and maintaining
| a space station, landing on other planets or moons, and
| conducting scientific experiments.
| rkapsoro wrote:
| GPT-3 definitely ups the ante on the old "I will replace you
| with a very small shell script" quip.
| btdmaster wrote:
| [flagged]
| iso1631 wrote:
| That looks like a very shady site generated automatically,
| unlike a well known 10 year old game with millions of users
| okasaki wrote:
| It's all true?
|
| I've played plenty of KSP, and when you launch the game the
| first time there's a popup where you have to agree to have
| your privacy violated (there's a link to iirc unity analytics
| where you can supposedly opt out, but it always gave me a
| page error when I tried to go there. In Linux, it wouldn't
| even launch the browser and it doesn't give you the URL, so
| it would be impossible to opt out even if it worked).
|
| Their integration with the redshell spyware is well
| documented too.
| btdmaster wrote:
| https://codeberg.org/shadow/SpywareWatchdog
| its-summertime wrote:
| from the site that lists brave browser, firefox, netsurf, all
| as spyware
|
| also lists VLC as potential spyware
|
| also lists the entire HTTProtocol as potential spyware
| zzo38computer wrote:
| It doesn't say HTTP is spyware; it says it has some problems
| (which is true). There are ways to be implemented to mitigate
| some of these problems.
| Lammy wrote:
| The front page sez:
|
| "We take an expansive and strict stance on what constitutes
| spyware. We define spyware as anything that includes
| telemetry, phoning home, automatic updates or is listening in
| without the user's knowledge or consent."
| galoisscobi wrote:
| On VLC's page it says not spyware in green and then says it
| has some opt-in spyware features.
|
| It's also interesting that Steam is listed as extremely high
| spyware level.
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| Honestly, Steam probably isn't even that bad compared to
| the games themselves with the kernel space DRM.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I do wonder about the economics of throwing this many free games
| at consumers. I think I have around 160-170 titles on my Epic
| Games Store account and I have never spent money on the service.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Yeah I have a couple hundred and have bought... like... two.
|
| That's just something you can do when you have a money-printer
| (Fortnight) and want to buy market share, I guess. Worked in my
| case--sorta--since I'd only ever have bought a couple
| exclusives and wouldn't have it set to start-on-boot if not for
| the frequent free games.
|
| But, if I'm looking to buy a game, I still check GoG and Steam
| first, and if it's not there give a hard think to whether I
| really want the game, though. Which is why I've only bought two
| games. I'll even pay more, or defer until a sale, if Epic has
| it for cheap and it's more expensive on the other two services.
| The only price they're winning my "business" with is _free_
| (except a couple exclusives).
| asfodelsu wrote:
| If they don't fix the Linux issue, like steam does, no money
| from me.
| shostack wrote:
| Is it just market share? What do they do with your data?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Game company advertising budgets can be in the hundreds of
| thousands per day, giving away free games like this (most
| likely with a bulk discount negotiated with the game creator)
| is peanuts compared to the traffic they bring.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| They don't pay retail price. You probably weren't going to buy
| those games if Epic wasn't giving them away, so you don't
| represent a lost sale. The developers could easily come out
| ahead getting payed penny's on the dollar for sales that
| wouldn't have otherwise happened.
|
| There is a risk that a game or studio gets a reputation for
| giveaways/discounts which could canabalize future sales. Or the
| entire industry gets such a reputation. However, at least in
| this case, KSP is so old at this point, I don't think it is a
| major issue. If anything, the publicity probably will do more
| to boost sales of KSP2, then the notion that KSP2 may be free
| in 7 years.
|
| Given the timing, I suspect Private Division views this as a
| marketing deal in advance of the February release of KSP2. Any
| monetary compensation they get is just a bonus.
| tetraca wrote:
| I'm not sure they're losing much. You would have to pay me
| money if you wanted me to play 90% of what's free on the epic
| games store.
| p0pcult wrote:
| The more free games you have, the less time you have to spend
| on games you bought on Steam, slowly decoupling you from the
| Steam ecosystem.
|
| Maybe this isn't a money play, but an attention economy play,
| in the short run?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| In the new economy, attention is the real currency.
| kube-system wrote:
| Think of it less like "free games" and more like "buying market
| share".
| dgrin91 wrote:
| In the Apple VS Epic suit some of the numbers for this were
| actually released. Its surprising how low some of the numbers
| where. I think for some weeks Epic was only paying $50k/week
| for this (which, for the scale of Epic, is peanuts). Obviosuly
| for bigger games (e.g. when they gave out GTA V) it was way
| bigger, but the YoY cost is actually not as high as you might
| think.
|
| Also remember this is suppose to be a loss leader. If they can
| get you hooked on a few games to draw you from Steam then you
| start buying your games on Epic and then they make real money
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _If they can get you hooked on a few games to draw you from
| Steam then you start buying your games on Epic and then they
| make real money_
|
| Hasn't happened yet and I've had an account for >2 years.
|
| The thing is that even if they keep giving out free games, I
| still consider my Steam library to have the superior
| collection of games than what Epic has thus far given out.
| And since I like using the Steam client and the Steam store
| more, I don't see Epic Games closing the quality gap anytime
| soon.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| The Epic launcher is obnoxious trash that is constantly popping
| up ads overlaid on my desktop. "free" games aren't really free.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Heroic launcher works great. Saved game syncing is still in
| development, but if you have one gaming computer, this is not a
| problem.
| ChoGGi wrote:
| You can turn them off, steam also has pop-ups that you can turn
| off.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I'd like to use neither Steam nor Epic. Looks like there's a
| direct download for KSP.
| opportunist wrote:
| [dead]
| Loughla wrote:
| I like this game, but I still can't even get shit into orbit.
| Pardon my language.
|
| It makes me feel like I'm just an idiot. I don't think I am. But
| maybe I am. Who knows. All I know is that I feel bad for killing
| all of those little guys. They didn't even die in the pursuit of
| knowledge. They just died for my own hubris and naivety.
| CabSauce wrote:
| Scott Manley has some great intro videos that will help.
| ender341341 wrote:
| Agreed, I got started by copying rocket designs from some
| youtubers and watching them launch them and attempting to
| copy their flights, starting off quite badly but once you get
| the hang of it you're able to go from low kerbin orbit to
| mun/minmus orbits to minmus landings/returns to mun landing
| returns and then work out towards duna then the moons of
| jool.
| smoldesu wrote:
| For me, I found a lot of satisfaction building space planes.
| Much different takeoff/landing procedure and completely
| different craft design, but a lot easier to maneuver.
|
| As for killing all those little guys, consider adding a final-
| stage parachute that decouples the crew cabin from the rest of
| the craft. It might take them a few hours to hit the ground,
| but you'll despotically murder less space goblins that way.
| Moissanite wrote:
| Moar boosters!
| iso1631 wrote:
| Are you building your own rockets? Building a rocket to give
| you enough delta-v to get into low Kerbin orbit, or even to
| Mun, isn't terribly hard, just throw more boosters and more
| struts, go up for a bit about 80 degrees to the east, about 20k
| high start burning pretty much due east.
|
| Remember you pretty much have to go up and sideways to get into
| orbit.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Point the navball about 45deg east a little bit after lift-off
| (and then straight east after you leave the atmosphere) and use
| a lot more boosters and you'll get into orbit easy
| plandis wrote:
| You're not an idiot, the game requires you to understand some
| rocketry and orbital mechanics concepts which has a learning
| curve --- the concepts are not difficult but if you don't
| understand them you the game can be rough.
|
| Thankfully there are plenty of YouTube tutorials that kind of
| summarize the basics.
| ecnahc515 wrote:
| Have you done the training missions? I found those really
| helped.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| You really have to follow a youtube video or text walk through
| to get it right for most of us limited amount of free time
| humans. After that it all sort of coalesces in your brain and
| you can get better at it. Kind of like learning a new computer
| language.
| zzz345345 wrote:
| > Pardon my language.
|
| at least you didn't say "pardon my French"...
| mabbo wrote:
| The key lesson you need to remember about orbit (in KSP or real
| life) is that orbit is _sideways_ speed, not _up_ distance or
| _up_ speed. Going up, you will come back down. Go sideways fast
| enough, you 'll come down but keep missing the planet below
| you, so you stay in space.
|
| The most efficient way to do this would be to just go sideways
| really fast from the ground. Problem: there's a lot of air in
| the way. So the right thing to do (again, both in Kerbal and in
| real life) is to initially go just up, but as the air reduces,
| gradually switch to moving sideways instead.
|
| Then once you're up there, you need to know the basics of
| manipulating orbits. Lesson number 1: you can increase the
| height of your orbit _on the opposite side of the planet_ by
| increasing your speed in the direction you 're currently going.
| So once you get your apoapsis (highest point) above 100km or
| so, you can turn off your engines, wait until you get there,
| then burn hard in the direction you're going and your periapsis
| (the lowest point of the orbit) will raise up like magic.
|
| You'll be orbiting in no time.
| eunoia wrote:
| What a fantastic comment. Really highlights what a good job
| KSP does teaching orbital dynamics through practice and RUDs
| (imo).
| billfruit wrote:
| One thing is that KSP uses manual staging, so timing of
| engine burns kind of matter. Is there features in vanilla KSP
| to automatically trigger staging?
| mabbo wrote:
| Timing of engine burns matters once you're in orbit, but
| vanilla KSP had tools to help you plan the basic ones.
|
| During launch, the only real timing or skill involved was
| knowing when to start turning east (around 10km, imho), and
| knowing how to keep your speed below the thresholds that
| air resistance was eating your delta-V (there's charts
| around to help with that, but it's not hard).
|
| If you're using solid rocket motors that can't be throttled
| or stopped, you have a bit less control.
| remarkEon wrote:
| You can automate this using the in-game programing
| language, but yes it does require a mod (kOS). I'm
| assuming/hoping that KSP2 has something similar in vanilla.
|
| It's straightforward though, the documentation is here:
|
| https://ksp-kos.github.io/KOS/structures/vessels/stage.html
| DuskStar wrote:
| As long as you pay some minimal level of attention this
| shouldn't be a problem. 10s delays between stages won't
| prevent something with a minimum TWR of 2 and 4000m/s of
| combined dv from reaching orbit.
| jve wrote:
| You talkin about this? https://xkcd.com/1356/ Oh no, I mean
| this: https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
| rollcat wrote:
| Or this: https://xkcd.com/2712/
| dmd wrote:
| "East takes you Out, Out takes you West, West takes you In,
| In takes you East." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smoke
| _Ring_(novel)#:~:text...).
| [deleted]
| yamtaddle wrote:
| The key insight is that most of your fuel should be spent going
| _sideways_ , not up. Getting to space is easy, staying there is
| what's (relatively) hard.
|
| Even if you don't break out spreadsheets or game-specific
| calculators or whatever, you develop an intuition over time for
| what looks right as far as stage sizes, payload-to-fuel ratios,
| that kind of thing. I've done it all by eye & guesswork and
| have had successful out-and-back missions as far as Minmus and
| solar orbit (but my not taking it seriously enough and running
| some numbers ahead of time is probably why my attempts to reach
| the Mars-alike planet have just been big wastes of time--I just
| don't have the patience to figure out the ideal launch window
| and run the time ahead to then, to work out a proper budget for
| my fuel, and all that--plus those missions are easier with
| orbital rendezvous and I _hate_ those, I can do them but they
| 're such a pain in the ass)
| LarryMullins wrote:
| One big advantage of eyeballing your rocket designs is you'll
| create plenty of opportunities for rescue missions so you can
| practice rendezvous. ;)
| fathyb wrote:
| Note that it also works on macOS even though it only shows
| Windows in "Platform". The Epic Launcher and KSP both run through
| Rosetta on ARM.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| KSP is an amazing game.
|
| More important than anything else, what it gave me is an
| intuition of orbital mechanics. There's a lot about orbiting
| craft that's hilariously counter-intuitive to ground-based
| intuition (favorite example: to approach something, in front of
| you, you turn opposite to your current trajectory and burn. It
| shortens your orbit, which decreases your orbital period, which
| means you'll catch up to your target).
| thot_experiment wrote:
| Cannot recommend this game enough if you haven't played it
| before. It gave me an _intuitive_ understanding of orbital
| mechanics. Few things more satisfying than nailing an orbital
| insertion by the seat of your pants.
| drivers99 wrote:
| I had a lot of fun with it by landing a guy on Duna (Mars
| basically). But then I felt like I should rescue him, so ended
| up going on the even harder mission of bringing him back home,
| which required being able to land and then take off and make it
| back, as well as landing in a specific spot on the planet vs
| just landing anywhere.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| Exactly! This sort of emergent gameplay is the bread and
| butter of KSP, I love how a story just forms in my head every
| time I play it.
| John23832 wrote:
| I can't wait for KSP2. Looks very interesting.
| alphabetting wrote:
| the cinematic trailer we got 3 years ago had me so excited.
| hopefully it will live up to most of what was shown.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_nj6wW6Gsc
| capableweb wrote:
| There is some more recent videos showing actual clips from
| KSP2, here is the latest one: " Kerbal Space Program 2:
| Episode 6 - Early Access " -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAL3XaP-LyE
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I've been playing KSP since early access, but I have concerns
| about the new direction. Nothing really tangible, but stuff
| like requiring a launcher. That's not needed, but doesn't have
| that plucky KSP feel anymore to me.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| Same. I _loved_ KSP and have hundreds of hours in it, but I
| feel like what I really want it to be is a base builder and
| orbital mechanics simulator, instead of just the latter.
|
| High hopes for ksp2. Multiplayer is interesting as well,
| there's certainly enough space for a few friends out there.
| kamikaz1k wrote:
| my goodness this site is struggling hard...
|
| login page loading took many attempts (one resulting in a CF 5XX
| page) and not it is stuck on the confirmation....(I have no given
| up).
|
| Also, why is this store page fully client side rendered? the
| layout thrash is really noticeable. Is the store in the middle of
| a rewrite or something?
| slothtrop wrote:
| I still refuse to support Epic no matter how many free games they
| try to entice with.
| kamikaz1k wrote:
| why?
| lgl wrote:
| I'll have to say, very few games gave me the combination of
| extreme frustration as well as extreme satisfaction as KSP.
| Highly recommended if you're willing to spend some time learning
| it while failing a lot.
| knorker wrote:
| And if you fail, you get to send a rescue mission!
| wincy wrote:
| I have gone to the moon several times in Kerbal Space Program.
| Going to the moon is super easy. Not smashing into the moon at
| 1.5KM/sec, on the other hand, is pretty difficult.
| capableweb wrote:
| Once you learn to use and read the map, together with the
| guidance/markers you can put manually on the map, it gets
| relatively easy as long as you have a good ship.
| klipklop wrote:
| Great game, but I won't really sign up for a gaming service that
| is controlled (in part) by Tencent.
|
| Don't get me wrong, Epic makes great stuff. The Unreal engine is
| amazing. You can argue Tim Sweeney is the CEO, but any meeting at
| a high level with Epic includes Tencent. You are not talking to
| Sweeney alone, it's Tencent and Sweeney.
|
| The way Fortnite targets kids for Vbucks and skin sales is pretty
| gross too. Many stories of Mommy's credit card being ran up. A
| game that is essentially banned in China.
|
| No thanks. No amount of free games will have me install the Epic
| Games client.
| scohesc wrote:
| A law firm in Canada has won a class-action against Epic Games
| for something to do with LootBoxes/VBucks - if you're eligible
| you get $25 bucks! I only got it because it's somehow related
| to Rocket League drops as well. Thankfully I have Rocket League
| on Steam before they removed it and migrated over to the Epic
| store to get that sweet sweet microtransaction money
|
| https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/fortnite-c5719335176219...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-05 23:02 UTC)