Kerbal Space Program 2's first patch is due to drop this week. Creative Director Nate Simpson, on March 10, announced a specific date: "As to the timing of Patch One... QA is thoroughly testing the build right now, and as soon as they give us a thumbs-up, we'll release it. Right now, our goal is to release that patch next Thursday (March 16th). Provided QA does not uncover any show-stopping bugs over the next few days, that date should hold."

He also highlighted the possibility of a slight delay to the patch, in the event of bugs being found before the official date of issue: "If they do run into something unexpected that needs to be fixed, that date will slip. We have done a fair amount of hand-wringing around whether we should announce the target date for this patch when there is a non-zero chance of a delay, but we know this topic is very important to you all, so we're doing our best to keep you all in the loop." He then mentions that another set of improvements are being worked on. "We've also already completed a nice queue of fixes to go into the second patch, but we'll talk more about that after we've got the first one out the door."Simpson provided more details about the first patch, and states that the notorious 'Kraken Drive' problem has been semi-nixxed: "We continue to make good headway on performance improvements and bug squashing. In fact, we managed to sneak a few additional fixes into the first patch, including a fairly high-impact resource flow optimization. We also fixed the "Kraken drive" bug that created insane reverse thrust when an engine's nozzle was obstructed - so if you're working on a Kraken ship, the "unique" physics on which it depends are about to go away forever. We may not in fact have killed the Kraken yet, but we have definitely stubbed its tentacle."The Creative Director recommended that fans should check out a dev diary entry. Mortoc, a new graphics programmer on the Kerbal Space Program 2 team, discusses the optimization of graphics and in-game performance: "As many of you have noticed, KSP2's performance isn't amazing at the start of Early Access. In a game as complex as KSP2, there are a dizzying number of areas that we could spend our efforts on and the feedback we're receiving is invaluable for us to focus our time on the issues that affect the players the most."

The first patch's list of fixes is available to read here.