The "For science" update ,for the most part, made the game actually playable and enjoyable, reigniting some hope for this iteration of KSP, but I want to see some further consistent progress before i can change this to a positive review.

The new model for missions and doing away with currency cost for parts makes the exploration mode much more approachable and fun than the original career mode, focusing more on exploration than doing arbitrary, stupidly specific tasks to get some money. Overall I like how it was executed, but it leaves out the endgame after you unlock the tech tree, in KSP1 you could sell research for cash which would in a way make research gathering useful even when you have maxed out the tech tree. People complaining about it being "too easy" and saying "I can max it in 2 launches" are an outlier, folks who can do multiplanetary launches with minimal parts. They are not representing the average casual player. A solution for this divide would be adjustable point multipliers in the difficulty settings like KSP1 had, though they might already be in the game as I have not checked.

Would I recommend this game over KSP1 as of now? Not yet. There are still a lot of things missing, which makes the "2" hard to justify for now. The devs managed to vastly improve performance and iron out most of the game-breaking bugs, but framerates still leave a lot to be desired and over 8 hours of testing this patch I still ran into some bugs such as being unable to dock and parts of my ship going past the speed of light out of nowhere, turning the game into a slideshow. Symmetry is also has numerous issues while building in the VAB.

Overall this patch brought back some hope that the devs are actually doing something, it's just that the game was nowhere near ready for release, even early access.



Below is the original review pre- "For science patch":
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you don't read anything else: RTX 3080 Ryzen 5600x 35-40 fps avg at the LOWEST settings at 1080p.
Abyssmal performance, stuttering galore, missing basic features and QOL stuff that was in base KSP1.
Not even mentioning their marketing material which overwhelmingly focuses on features that will not be in the game for years if ever.
Sure, sometimes it looks impressive graphically, there are definitely good sides to the graphics and user interface, but for every positive you can Take-Two things that are complete broken jank.

TLDR: there's a foundation that can be built upon, but right now it's absolutely not enjoyable to play due to performance, bugs and missing features. Hopefully in the coming decades my grandchildren will be able to witness this game in a fixed state.

========================
EDIT 7 Months into ""release"":
========================
This will get buried in the reviews and nobody will ever read this, but I am writing out of sheer discontent more than anything.

Nothing.

The skeleton crew of devs at IG left in place by take two interactive is ineffective and unable to deliver anything of substance period. 7 months of work has amounted to nothing other than hotfixes fixing five out of fifty million bugs.
No real content updates (apart from like 2 engines they didn't manage to squeeze in on "release" day), no gameplay features, forget about the roadmap.

As some recent reviews already iterated, It seems like the publishers already knew this was going to be disastrous early on (publisher's fault, they literally tore the original dev studio apart), therefore a great bulk of the remaining budget went into overblown marketing to try and at least scam the buyers to recoup some of the investment that went into the project. They took something that should have been completely scrapped, put a nice gift wrap on it and put it up for sale.
Getting scammed out of 40 bucks is one thing, but rewarding take two with said money for what they have done is the greatest evil of all.

The state of development becomes a lot clearer once you look up how the star theory studio, (who originally started the development of ksp2) were stripped of the KSP IP and then poached for less pay, which led to the creation of Intercept games (the current dev studio of ksp2).

The only two reasons why I dont try to refund this purchase are morbid curiosity and having spent probably over 1 k hours on the original since early alpha (2011), which makes me hold on to some naive nostalgic hope for the reboot. Can this pull a project zomboid and return from complete vaporware status? Very likely never. This release has ruined the prestige that KSP's name once held, one of inspiring many future engineers and tinkerers.

Footnote, for anyone curious about getting into ksp:
Just go for KSP1. It is a complete and polished game which this will never be. It stands on it's own legs without mods, but if you so choose it is moddable to the point where you can get graphical fidelity that is on par with ksp2, and you get so much more gameply to boot.

Ps: the sound design in this game is amazing, kudos to all those who worked on sound design and sound engineering for ksp2, it is truly a shame that their effort was wasted.

The "For science" update ,for the most part, made the game actually playable and enjoyable, reigniting some hope for this iteration of KSP, but I want to see some further consistent progress before i can change this to a positive review. The new model for missions and doing away with currency cost for parts makes the exploration mode much more approachable and fun than the original career mode, focusing more on exploration than doing arbitrary, stupidly specific tasks to get some money. Overall I like how it was executed, but it leaves out the endgame after you unlock the tech tree, in KSP1 you could sell research for cash which would in a way make research gathering useful even when you have maxed out the tech tree. People complaining about it being "too easy" and saying "I can max it in 2 launches" are an outlier, folks who can do multiplanetary launches with minimal parts. They are not representing the average casual player. A solution for this divide would be adjustable point multipliers in the difficulty settings like KSP1 had, though they might already be in the game as I have not checked. Would I recommend this game over KSP1 as of now? Not yet. There are still a lot of things missing, which makes the "2" hard to justify for now. The devs managed to vastly improve performance and iron out most of the game-breaking bugs, but framerates still leave a lot to be desired and over 8 hours of testing this patch I still ran into some bugs such as being unable to dock and parts of my ship going past the speed of light out of nowhere, turning the game into a slideshow. Symmetry is also has numerous issues while building in the VAB. Overall this patch brought back some hope that the devs are actually doing something, it's just that the game was nowhere near ready for release, even early access. Below is the original review pre- "For science patch": ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you don't read anything else: RTX 3080 Ryzen 5600x 35-40 fps avg at the LOWEST settings at 1080p. Abyssmal performance, stuttering galore, missing basic features and QOL stuff that was in base KSP1. Not even mentioning their marketing material which overwhelmingly focuses on features that will not be in the game for years if ever. Sure, sometimes it looks impressive graphically, there are definitely good sides to the graphics and user interface, but for every positive you can Take-Two things that are complete broken jank. TLDR: there's a foundation that can be built upon, but right now it's absolutely not enjoyable to play due to performance, bugs and missing features. Hopefully in the coming decades my grandchildren will be able to witness this game in a fixed state. ======================== EDIT 7 Months into ""release"": ======================== This will get buried in the reviews and nobody will ever read this, but I am writing out of sheer discontent more than anything. Nothing. The skeleton crew of devs at IG left in place by take two interactive is ineffective and unable to deliver anything of substance period. 7 months of work has amounted to nothing other than hotfixes fixing five out of fifty million bugs. No real content updates (apart from like 2 engines they didn't manage to squeeze in on "release" day), no gameplay features, forget about the roadmap. As some recent reviews already iterated, It seems like the publishers already knew this was going to be disastrous early on (publisher's fault, they literally tore the original dev studio apart), therefore a great bulk of the remaining budget went into overblown marketing to try and at least scam the buyers to recoup some of the investment that went into the project. They took something that should have been completely scrapped, put a nice gift wrap on it and put it up for sale. Getting scammed out of 40 bucks is one thing, but rewarding take two with said money for what they have done is the greatest evil of all. The state of development becomes a lot clearer once you look up how the star theory studio, (who originally started the development of ksp2) were stripped of the KSP IP and then poached for less pay, which led to the creation of Intercept games (the current dev studio of ksp2). The only two reasons why I dont try to refund this purchase are morbid curiosity and having spent probably over 1 k hours on the original since early alpha (2011), which makes me hold on to some naive nostalgic hope for the reboot. Can this pull a project zomboid and return from complete vaporware status? Very likely never. This release has ruined the prestige that KSP's name once held, one of inspiring many future engineers and tinkerers. Footnote, for anyone curious about getting into ksp: Just go for KSP1. It is a complete and polished game which this will never be. It stands on it's own legs without mods, but if you so choose it is moddable to the point where you can get graphical fidelity that is on par with ksp2, and you get so much more gameply to boot. Ps: the sound design in this game is amazing, kudos to all those who worked on sound design and sound engineering for ksp2, it is truly a shame that their effort was wasted.