I’ve spent a bit more time with this. It has a lot of potential, but it needs more time in the oven.
For example, the build screen is in some ways more powerful than KSP’s, with dynamic resizing, but it also can be frustrating. There’s no sense of scale at all; KSP had Kerbils and ground craft milling around. I have trouble stacking an engine on the tail – is there some simple way to line this up so that the UI doesn’t think I want to place radial engines on the side?
Also, I’m confused about what costs me money. If I design a rocket and it explodes, do I have to build a replacement for the same price? Or is there a discount for having already built a prototype?
The contracts are nice enough, but not really an improvement on KSP. I’ve only done the first five or six, though, so I’m not very far along.
Finally, I don’t ever get to see an actual explosion. Are they in the game? One of the joys of KSP is seeing things blow up, lol. Edit: Supposedly I’ll see them later, once I build bigger rockets? But even a teeny explosion would be nice now, especially as the early tutorials require one to explode the spacecraft.