DayZ creator reveals a "Kerbal Space Program killer" with kittens and challenges license owners to sue him

Stationeers and Icarus developers RocketWerkz are making a spiritual successor to beloved space sim Kerbal Space Program, which is currently titled "Kitten Space Agency" in a flagrant display of adherence to wholesome internet trends. It's based on an actual Kerbal Space Program 2 pitch the studio threw at Take-Two subsidiary Private Division back in the day. RocketWerkz CEO and original DayZ creator Dean Hall has hired several former KSP and KSP2 developers to work on the game, and is describing it on social media as a "KSP killer".

I'm not sure KSP2, at least, needs to be "killed" at this point. The sequel - which once thrilled with talk of interstellar travel and lightyear-wide braking manouevres - appears to have been abandoned, with Take-Two gutting developers Intercept Games back in May. Still, I'm happy to learn that somebody else is wrestling with the important problem of how you simulate an entire solar system without blowing up your office.

Hall - who has made KSP mods in the past - has posted about the new game on Reddit, as passed on by tireless Maw feeder MiniMatt. "Our studio actually was in the bidding to make KSP2 and we made it to the top three bids," Hall writes in the thread. "The final step was a call [with] Private Division.

"I put a lot of work with into a good design document and opted to keep the focus entirely on this design and the technical aspects of the project," he continues. "This was a serious problem for two of the people on the call who said we were the only pitch that did not contain art. Obviously our studio wasn't chosen." (I have fixed a couple of Hall's typos here, because I am nice.)

The studio's catlike KSP slayer/reviver is being made with a set of in-house C# development tools, the BRUTAL Framework, which RocketWerkz feistily advertise as being "complicated, slow, and difficult to use". The key asset of the BRUTAL Framework seems to be that it lets developers and modders work directly with your GPU via the Vulkan API, allowing for "tremendous" scale.

There's a fair bit of technical detail in that Reddit thread, a mix of game engine specifics and abbreviated ruminations about physics. I fear to quote much of it in case I capitalise the wrong letter and accidentally delete my computer, or switch off local gravity. A lot of it is tilted towards modders: there are a few modders on the KSA team. But hidden in amongst phrases like "dealing with floating point precision loss" there is some chat about the project's direction and features for us regular, Earth-dwelling folks.

Hall says they're aiming "To replicate the same feeling, commitment, and challenge of existing KSP", because "base KSP is a great compromise between many factors when it comes to scale, and so we are not trying to reinvent that". Instead, they're focusing on "solid datastructures" and "ease of development for modders". They're planning to include off-world base building, life support systems, multiplayer functionality, and seamless movement between screens with no loading breaks during multicraft space missions.

The current builds use real-life solar system data for testing purposes, but the developers aim to construct their very own solar system for the game. The ship-building elements will be familiar, but RocketWerkz want to expand it with combinable "subparts" such as fairings and small tanks. And yes, Hall says the game currently has kitten characters, though that may change. "I think a certain amount of whimsy is important," he notes.

One reachier goal is to add an n-body physics system. I'm going to screw up describing this, but essentially, an n-body physics system dynamically simulates the relationships between bodies based on gravity, rather than "baking in" their motions. It's very hard to do this without dropping planets everywhere like balls of wool. RocketWerkz say there's a "small chance" of RocketWerkz developing such a simulation internally - they're currently trying to hire somebody with a PhD to apply the requisite high-density brain-magic - but it's likely this will be left for modders to figure out.

RocketWerkz won't charge for the first version of KSA, because Hall feels that KSP players are justifiably wary of committing to anything new and KSP-ish, after the disappointment of KSP2. "I think the community is very burned out," he comments. "Which is why the first version of KSA will be free, so people can try it out before wanting to follow progress and then later buying it when it releases." The initial release won't have any DRM, either.

You might wonder what Kerbal Space Program rights holders Take-Two Interactive make of all this. Are RocketWerkz concerned about getting sued for copyright theft or patent infringement? Not at all, says Hall. "They are welcome to try! Would be some great publicity for us. Also, I'm very bitter as I think they are a terrible company. So bring it on! We have great lawyers." Well then.

As for when they'll share more - Hall says modders should get "behind-the-scenes access late this year or early next to initial builds for feedback". Hall's hope is that open access might follow "maybe mid next year". In the Reddit thread he stresses that "it is critical to be skeptical" of a project this complex, so by all means drop into that thread and hold his feet to the fire. I'll just carry on tending to Spaceship RPS in the starless void of temporarily suspended comments.