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Devnote Tuesday: Back to Work!


SQUAD

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I know it's probably too early to tell, but I was wondering about save file compatibility... If Unity 5 breaks save games, since we are past 1.0 (I am under the impression that saves broke in the past (.18, ,17,etc) because it was "alpha."), will the devs attempt to make a converter? I know the game usually can handle updates & old saves, but those updates have only added some new lines to the persistence file, while Unity 5 is practically re-doing much of the game...

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So here's the thing with Kerbin entry heating. It may seem a bit too easy when coming back to Kerbin, but have you tried going to Jool? It's extremely unforgiving. So it's not actually a low entry heating setting, it's just that Kerbin has a relatively forgiving atmosphere.

let me guess regex, it doesn't make any sense.

No, you're just talking about the wrong things. Typical reentry speeds on Kerbin are sub 3km/s (you can get a bit more when coming back from Minmus, but whatever...) and, with the current drag and heating you're never going to build up enough speed heat to really damage anything beyond small parts. Jool is entirely different because you're entering at high speeds (usually much greater that 3km/s) from interplanetary transfer and have to scrub a lot of delta-V to aerocapture, which means your parts are subject to a lot more heating most especially because you're in a thinner atmosphere for much, much longer than reentry on Kerbin. In fact, it's pretty safe to say that aerocapture on Jool from an interplanetary transfer would be fairly close to actual reentry here on Earth, at least higher up.

So, yeah, it boils down to the fact that Kerbin is stupid tiny, like pretty much everything else in this game.

Edited by regex
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I knew we'd have devnotes when Modding Mondays came out!

Unity5! Great! Is modding going to suffer from this?!

x64! Fingers crossed so hard they might break!

Multiplayer! Still have no idea how is it going to be implemented or what purpose would it serve. Looking forward to it anyway!

Maybe give some love to the career mode? Take a look at the suggestions regarding contracts and everything. Some great ideas there.

Best of wishes to you all!

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Will all the shaders still be targeted at DX9 after the update? Some of them don't behave (well, or at all) under DX11 or OpenGL?

If things start borking out in OpenGL, Squad better re-write their asset loader. The method used is so ancient, dinosaurs are calling it old-school. To quote Majiir:

The single largest problem with KSP's memory consumption is the asset loader. Squad wrote this. It uses the single most trivial, most naive method of loading assets you could think up. It literally just loads every single asset it finds in the GameData folder, regardless of whether any part can possibly use it. It keeps all those assets in memory forever.

This has nothing to do with Unity, nothing to do with 64-bit, and nothing to do with modders. It is also not very hard to do right, and they did it so, so wrong.

OpenGl is a workaround for KSPs moronic asset loader. If shaders don't work well with it, then people who mod the game are gonna be SOL and, I suspect, very unhappy.

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Great news on the Unity 5 front.

If I may, since you redo large section of the code now may be the time to export all the displayed string to a config file so translation is easily doable ?

Jim (Romfarer): [...] The first thing that hit me is that we are going to replace the 3 previous gui systems with the new unity 5 gui system.

Great news. I hope the new system allow for better scaling of the UI. Some of the current UI is hard do use with high resolution.

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Grossly overestimated. No where near.

Explanation?

We've had regular updates take 8 months, and this update is rewriting or tweaking a LOT.

Plus, they're likely gonna add stuff besides just the U5 port. I still believe it will be quite a while.

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I was hoping for a little update on a hotfix for the aero issues. Putting time into the game while that's hanging out there seems kind of silly, since rebalancing aero is likely to change design strategies significantly again.

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Wooooo Unity 5. *\o/* Hoping we can see a patch soon for the 1.0.2 aero issues?

Never mind the aero, I can live with it for a while. But that temp gauge memory leak would be urgent... and if someone found the time to add a checkbox to the confirmation dialog when removing science, maybe?

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Really looking forward to Unity 5, even if x64 doesn't materialize, it'll hopefully be nice to not have to worry quite so much about part count, currently the one big constraint on my designs that doesn't make realistic sense. Audio overhaul should be cool as well, for me good sound design is one of the most important aspects of immersion.

My only concern right now is that I hope we can get a 1.0.3 patch first--even if the only thing it fixed would be the memory leaks in 1.0.2, I would be extremely happy. Right now I basically can't install major part mods: even though KSP currently starts up using about 2 gigs of memory, after a few scene changes it's right up around 3.2 and I have to restart. (I'll probably eventually go back to running x64 on Linux but I get noticeably lower FPS there and no AA, plus my Linux setup is incredibly annoying to boot into, so I prefer Windows ("I prefer Windows." As a long-time Mac user, never thought I'd hear myself say that.)).

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OpenGl is a workaround for KSPs moronic asset loader. If shaders don't work well with it, then people who mod the game are gonna be SOL and, I suspect, very unhappy.

Well I was more thinking that people on Linux or Apple platforms must use OpenGL, that it cuts down memory usage significantly under windows is a nice bonus, but it's essential for those users.

Which is why I was wondering about the standard shader, if they're sticking with custom shaders there must be a compelling reason?

[Edit] Hopefully modders can still use Unity 5's built in standard shader, that has some neat tricks in it.

Edited by NoMrBond
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3 things:

1) UI revamp: Please please please tell me there will no longer be mission-critical functions in right click menus that rotate around the screen attached to the ship, or wave back and forth across the screen as you try to keep your EVA'd Kerbal close enough to them to click. And PLEASE also tell me that "erase everything in this science experiment" won't be right next to "take this science away for safe keeping" :huh:

2) Unity 5: OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG. Erm. I guess that's not a comment really, but yeah :D

3) Are we getting a hotfix? Kind of a literal one? I too would like some danger in my re-entry heating, and I'm not talking about the danger that the memory leak will cause the game to crash.

Regarding aerobraking at Jool vs. Kerbin, I have one question: People still aerobrake at Jool? Gravity assist at Laythe or Tylo FTW.

- - - Updated - - -

and if someone found the time to add a checkbox to the confirmation dialog when removing science, maybe?

Oh Gawd yes. At LEAST check if the Kerbal removing the science is a scientist first.

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Regarding aerobraking at Jool vs. Kerbin, I have one question: People still aerobrake at Jool?
Aerocapture, it's aerocapture. Say it with me "aerocapture". Aerobraking is when you lower one of your periapsis' while already in an elliptical orbit, aerocapture is used to make an elliptical orbit from a hyperbolic one. Edited by regex
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Aerocapture, it's aerocapture. Say it with me "aerocapture". Aerobraking is when you lower one of your periapsis' while already in an elliptical orbit, aerocapture is used to make an elliptical orbit from a hyperbolic one.

The correction is valid, however, I would also agree that aerocapture at Jool should be intrinsically difficult, and in all honesty gravity assist when you have such unrealistically dense and fast-moving moons is certainly a more appealing option.

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Oh and on the topic of UI and before I forget:

So help me god - GUI CLICKTHROUGH! You have it disabled in some dialog boxes but not others! You have the code literally sitting in front of you, just make it apply to literally every single possible mouseover event you can find! Oh you want to adjust your staging? Here, let's pick up half your rocket instead.

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The correction is valid, however, I would also agree that aerocapture at Jool should be intrinsically difficult, and in all honesty gravity assist when you have such unrealistically dense and fast-moving moons is certainly a more appealing option.
Yeah, I don't really care how other people play the game, only how I do. Because I'm better.
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If you want more heat go and get DRE. I don't understand how people are still bitching about this issue.

Who is seriously complaining about saves breaking or ship designs breaking with a U5 port. 64bit U5 is going to be the best move squad have made since actually making the decision to make KSP.

I do agree a hotfix for the current memory leaks is justified, but please don't waste another moment developing for 1.0 Alpha.

2.0 here we come.

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Aerocapture, it's aerocapture. Say it with me "aerocapture". Aerobraking is when you lower one of your periapsis' while already in an elliptical orbit, aerocapture is used to make an elliptical orbit from a hyperbolic one.

Sorry, I mistakenly thought that aerobraking was a general term for - you know - braking using aerodynamics.

Aerobraking is a spaceflight maneuver that reduces the high point of an elliptical orbit (apoapsis) by flying the vehicle through the atmosphere at the low point of the orbit (periapsis). The resulting drag slows the spacecraft. Aerobraking is used when a spacecraft requires a low orbit after arriving at a body with an atmosphere, and it requires less fuel than does the direct use of a rocket engine.

(Emphasis mine)

Edited by 5thHorseman
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Reading these devnotes, I'm thinking that Squad really should have waited until after porting to Unity 5 before going 1.0. The biggest thing that made 1.0 not feel like it was ready for release (bugs aside) was the lack of polish, and it sounds like Unity 5 is forcing Squad to actually refactor and polish their game. Hopefully they'll kill those memory leaks for good this time.

Provided Squad takes their time to do this right, this could hopefully be the release we've been waiting for (at least as far as sandbox goes, career is a different animal entirely that will need to be addressed at some point).

I'm tentatively looking forward to this update now that Squad doesn't have mysterious deadlines pushing them.

Edited by Lord Aurelius
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(Emphasis mine)
Oh, are we getting all Wikipedia up in here?
Aerocapture is a related but more extreme method in which no initial orbit-injection burn is performed. Instead, the spacecraft plunges deeply into the atmosphere without an initial insertion burn, and emerges from this single pass in the atmosphere with an apoapsis near that of the desired orbit.
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Since it seems that now major parts of the code are being redone, will we ever see an update that fixes the ocean lag problem? It has been there for as long as I can remember playing, and it is so noticeable that I can hardly believe it's been ignored for so long.

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