I would like to preface this by saying that I have played Kerbal Space Program (KSP) to almost 7000 hrs. I have done everything in KSP, modding, interstellar colonization using kilometer long starships complete with docked spaceplanes, everything. It must be noted that these are my impressions after only 240 hrs into Simple Rockets 2 (SR2). Bear with me, this will be a long, but comprehensive review and I will not be able to include all my thoughts into this review because of the character limit. Here is a TLDR:

TLDR: Comparing unmodded KSP to SR2, I can without a doubt say that SR2 is in many respects an objectively superior game. Period. In almost all of its functions, Jundroo has excelled in implementing. SR2 is basically KSP2, minus the little green dudes, interstellar travel, and colonies. SR2 is extremely impressive and has HUGE potential in my eyes. I adore everything about this game and it's a shame that the community is so small, I believe the devs deserve much more. For $15, you won't regret it.

CRAFT EDITOR: The craft editor is very innovative and much more in depth than KSP and is almost CAD like. You can make ANYTHING and MORE, which is done by providing the player with highly customizable parts. You get just about 50 of them, but they are the essentials and anything you can dream of you can probably make. You get a couple pre-built rocket engines and jet engines, but you can customize the engine cycle, nozzle geometry, nozzle length, chamber pressure and all this has actual performance impacts. You can create any fuselage or rocket body you can think of out of a simple cylindrical fuel tank. Lights and functional robotics are included, procedural wings and structural panels, cargo bays, customizable landing gear for air/space planes and landers, rover wheels, powerful RCS thrusters, pods, docking ports.

FLIGHT: Simple Rockets 2 is a game with "rockets" in the title. However, Jundroo does not stop you there. I will compare SR2 to KSP’s aerodynamic model. Each is distinct, but I prefer SR2 over KSP. KSP's model totals up the drag of every single part on your craft, every high-part count craft you build will experience unreasonable amounts of drag no matter how you shape it which can be extremely frustrating at times. KSP has no concept of occlusion. If a part is occluded and not in the freestream, covered by a cargo bay or behind another part, the drag for the part is still applied. Sometimes it seems as though drag is non-existent in SR2. This is because, to my knowledge, SR2 understands occlusion. In other words, if you have an airplane, the part that is the nose of the craft will experience more drag than the rest of the fuselage. This goes the same for intakes, you can not just spam intakes wherever you want and expect them to get good airflow like you can in KSP. In SR2, You need to make sure that intakes are situated, not occluded, somewhere with good airflow which is not immediately blocked by other parts. Overall, SR2 is superior in this sense. The transition from KSP to SR2 was relatively easy, and the UI not a problem to learn. The UI is missing a couple things though. Apoapsis/periapsis, and ascending/descending node values are not easily viewable like they are in KSP. The maneuver planner is superior to KSP's, it functions smoother and faster. One gripe I have with this game is docking, it is unreasonably hard. This is because you have two flight control modes, attitudinal and translational. To dock, you need to be in translational mode, but you can not be in both modes at once. This leaves you in translational mode with no way to control your attitude, your orientation, so you end up constantly toggling between the two trying to get everything aligned.

FINAL THOUGHTS: The SR2 community is very small, but there is a craft sharing functionality built into the game and a planet making studio. Modding support is very limited at the moment. KSP's modding community is huge compared to SR2, although SR2's player base has made a lot of cool content, and is a lot more skilled than KSP's. SR2's performance is PHENOMENAL. Compared to KSP, I can have an over 3000 part craft running on my screen at no less than 30 FPS, 300-400 part crafts running at around 60-70 FPS or more. If you tried a modded 3000 part craft on KSP, you wouldn't even get past the loading screen and if you could, a stock craft would rate at 8 FPS. On my modded KSP install I average 5-8 FPS. On SR2, 60-80 FPS.

High quality KSP knockoff made by the dev team that should have been hired for KSP 2

i have been playing the beta of career mode for juno new origins. this game is in an underdeveloped genre, so comparisons to kerbal space program are going to happen. so here are some of the differences i have seen, both good and bad.

KSP career mode is clearly based on nasa. with public funding, loans, and doing actual science (mystery goo anyone)
this game is more like an independent space program. you do contracts for money. your only source of money. and tech points are earned by reaching milestones such as max altitude/speed, crafts launched, and even how much money you save by recovering crafts.

this game is simpler in that respect and i like that, though others may not.

as for physics simulation i never got far enough along in KSP to give a fair comparison. the reason for that is the next point.

controlability of crafts. i could never do much in KSP because, to me at least, properly controlling a rocket was nearly impossible. i would take a tutorial rocket and try a simple maneuver and end up sky writing.

in juno new origins you start off the career mode with all the tech needed to keep rockets flying a stable course. drag the pitch and heading indicators where you want the rocket to point and it will follow them. assuming you have enough gyros/rcs/fins. then comes the programming aspect. you don't have to be a master programmer to use it. and you can use it to make repeatable launches that require no input. the tutorial orbiter you are given is just barely able to make it into orbit. and following the instructions it is easy to enter orbit. but once the instructions stop appearing how do you get to space next time? the simple answer is you put the instructions the game gave you into the program. now you can enter orbit the instant you click launch. and the repeatable nature of it means if you make a small change to your craft and test it with the same program you can compare the results directly and easily. and this feature is unlocked before the first rocket motor is.

Juno: New Origins is a steal even at full price point and you owe it to yourself to buy this game if you any interest in games like KSP, where there is a focus on engineering, space flight and orbital mechanics, and just designing and building stuff in general.

It improves on the original KSP formula in 4 important ways:

1) Interface:
In my opinion the interface is much easier to use than KSP, and this goes for making simple or complex craft. It doesn't matter whether you're designing rockets, planes, or cars the designer stands head and shoulders above any other game in this genre. The game also gives you all the most important information at any given time and it's really good at helping you to take a scientific approach to building your rockets.

This streamlined interface carries over into the flight simulation as well. Controlling your crafts is intuitive and again all the important information and display panels are easy to find and manage.

2) Accessibility:
The tutorials are significantly better than KSP. What's nice is that the tutorials are integrated with the career mode, you don't have to do a ton of reading or tutorials before you can 'start playing the game'. You'll have specific missions coming up from time to time with tutorials integrated with them, but there's plenty of time in between to do your own thing.

The game does a fantastic job of easing new players into its complexities.

3) Career mode:
The addition of the career mode is what took this from a great space sim to the best space sim that I've played. Like KSP, it gates your progress through a combination of tech trees and funding which is great because it means at every stage of the game you'll have to be creative and figure out the best way to achieve a goal within the limits of your existing tech and budget.

It improves on the KSP formula though by giving more mission types, specifically with regard to missions for other vehicles like planes and cars. These were present in KSP but never really implemented well whereas Juno gives milestones specifically aimed at things like land speed records etc.

4) Complexity:
This is, hands down, the single biggest improvement over KSP. Even though the developers have managed to make this significantly more accessible compared to KSP, it's also deeper and more complex in every area that matters.

The fact that you can design and customize every part means that not only is it easier to design crafts, it's also a lot more specific or granular.

I love that engines can be edited down to fuel type, nozzle length etc. and it's this attention to detail that makes you feel like you're a real rocket scientist trying to squeeze every drop of efficiency out of your designs.

TL:DR
Juno: New Origins is an awesome game, buy it!

Yea, so KSP 2 Early Access absolutely broke my back (I'am a camel)

Basically, while KSP 2 is drowning in bugs and awful optimization, try out this game. Why? Let me become a salesman for a second.

1)It can run on a potato (even cheap android phones can run it no problemo).

2)It also has a publisher that I honestly trust more. Why? KSP 2 is published by Take Two (Private Division is a child company of Take Two), who are known greedy scumbags and it makes me shiver. Juno, on the other hand, is both developed and published by the good old Jundroo (it's just a small indie team!), who I know have years of experience from SimpleRockets 1 and SimplePlanes. I simply trust them more, even if they make updates at a turtle speed :3

3)Flexibility. Yea, all parts are procedural! Yea, crafts may not look as pretty as when they are done using pre-made assets. But. All parts are procedural! If you devote enough time, your crafts will look and perform brilliantly.

4)Built-in programming language. Of course I have to talk about Vizzy! Want to make an automated rocket?You can with Vizzy! Just snap some code blocks together and spend next 10 hours debugging your garbage code :3

5)It has mods! And community made crafts! And custom planets! And custom solar systems! So much custom stuff! ......though the community is not that big. This is why we need fresh blood. Join us.

6)Graphics??? They are good! But why are you playing a rocket building simulator for graphics?

7)50$ for barely working KSP 2??? ehehe, Juno is only 20$

I hope you will at least try this little gem. May take a bit of time to understand it, but it will be worth it!
Was I a good salesman?

Really enjoying this so far, glad I purchased this on Day 1 so that I can see the game grow and develop!

Some of my personal recommendations for the devs (I'm just one unqualified voice out of many so please feel free to ignore me!). Also some of my suggestions may look very Kerbal-esque, but that's possibly to be expected for a review of a game in this genre.

- Camera view while flying craft is a bit annoying - I want it to be sharp and snappy when rotating using the middle mouse button. Instead the camera continues to 'glide'.
- Please consider building a proper navball in to the game.
- Would love to be able to see an atmosphere thickness scale while flying.
- Would prefer to see all my stages while flying, not just the next one.
- A window containing all the flight data I need at a glance would be great. Apoapsis, Periapsis, etc etc. E.g. Mechjeb-esque.
- I'd appreciate knowing what the different speed settings are (2x, 4x etc). That way when I get further into the game, if I have a 30 minute burn to make I know I can set it to 4x and return in 7 minutes etc).
- The ability to stage solar panels etc would be great, and to highlight which ones I am activating when hovering over the relevant option in the activation window.
- I tend to use middle mouse button to control camera rotation. It's a bit annoying when I accidently click on the pitch or yaw controls and it responds to MMB - I would prefer the option to turn this off and make pitch/yaw controllable by LMB or keyboard only.
- Is it just me or is the default view of the rocket flipped? I would expect a 45deg (to the right, as I view the craft) to take me with the planet's rotation. Instead, it seems to fly against it. I lift off, point my craft to the right, but in map view I am flying to the left.

Very possibly some of the above is too detailed for a game titled "Simple Rockets" if you are trying to keep it as simple/beginner friendly as possible. There's also every chance i've not given it enough time to explore and find the answer to some of these already built-in, as this is just a first glance review. I'll certainly keep this updated as I play.

Features that have stood out to me so far:
- I REALLY like the option to add input sliders.
- I have to say I found your tutorials absolutely fantastic. They are everything I wish KSP had when I was first learning. Also "While we're waiting, I just want to say thanks for playing this game" made me smile!

I recommend this game to all space genre fans! It already plays very well and has SO MUCH potential.

It actually runs on my laptop! I have an old laptop withi7-4710HQ processor and GTX 860M video card, and this works beautifully on it, 60 fps with medium settings. The game feels like a much better programmed and more serious version of KSP. Because it has so many similarities, it's impossible to not compare to KSP. Doesn't quite have the charm nor silliness of the adorable big-headed Kerbals. Here's how it's different:
1. Much better optimized. This works on my laptop while KSP doesn't run on my laptop (unless you consider 5 frames per second to be acceptable). It loads very quickly, a few seconds even on my laptop, whereas KSP takes almost a minute to load even on my main computer.
2. The parts are customizable, so instead of having 40+ versions of "fuel-tank" each with slightly different size like in KSP, there's only 1 fuel tank in this game, and you can choose its shape (conical, cylindrical), size (diameter, length), contents (liquid, solid, etc). Same with engines, and every other part. The parts list is very small compared to KSP, but it's a lot more potential because each part can have hundreds of permutations.
3. A lot less cutesy. The game has a somewhat sterile feel to it, maybe because it's early access. The astronaut does fall over when running/jumping on EVA, but it doesn't quite have the charm of the green fellas. The astronaut comes with a very utilitarian grappling hook, so in case you run out of jet-pack juice you can still get back to your cabin.
4. The graphics look decent. The skin on the parts can be customized to give your designs some character. The terrain looks good, although it is devoid of life. (No trees, rocks etc).
5. The flight instrumentation is a lot more detailed. The orientation lock allows you to pick which way your ship should face in degrees with intuitive interface. There are detailed displays for amount of fuel, speed, altitude etc. Same with design mode, it shows all the detailed flight characteristics of the designs.

Coming from a KSP interface, I keep using right mouse drag to try to rotate camera, but the camera rotate is left mouse in this game. So, after getting used to KSP control, the controls in this game seem annoying at first until you get used to them. If you liked Kerbal Space Program, this might be right up your alley.

It is clear that SimpleRockets is built upon a *far* better engine than genre-defining title, Kerbal Space Program. It runs smoothly, with significantly better visual effects and many Quality of Life features placing it a step above KSP.

And yet, what *truly* made KSP such an excellent game was its charming presentation. That is something that SimpleRockets lacks. I'm not saying that SR needs Kerbals. But it needs *something* to give it character. Because while SimpleRockets is *technically* impressive, it is also rather soulless.

For Veterans of KSP, I say this is well worth giving a try. But for player's new to the genre, you may find more engagement with the older title of KSP, despite its limitations.

Ksp skills do not cross over, I repeat
KSP SKILLS DO NOT CROSS OVER

make rocket
fly rocket
realize you suck at rocket science
rocket not fly
download rocket from online
realize using a different rocket doesnt make you know rocket science
rocket crash
repeat until rocket not crash