Devnote Tuesday: A week of Experimental Testing

[SQUAD]

<figure class="tmblr-full" data-orig-height="92" data-orig-width="480"></figure>Hello everyone!

Last Wednesday update 1.0.5 officially entered experimental testing, which means that today marks the end of the first week of collecting feedback, bug hunting and –fixing. Overall it’s been a very smooth process so far which increases our hopes for a quick release. Everyone is now focusing on fixing the bugs the experimental team is encountering, including the developers that are also working on 1.1: Felipe (HarvesteR), Mike (Mu) and Jim (Romfarer). Smashing these bugs now means we won’t have to do it later on, in the 1.1 dev cycle. Felipe said that downgrading to the Unity 4 work environment “felt like starting up a car that hadn’t run in many monthsâ€Â.

If you’ve followed the KSP Twitter feeds you may have learned that during this week in which builds rapidly succeed each other we’ve passed the magical build 1000 mark. Unfortunately, bugs pop up everywhere and we did not foresee the KSP store encountering a bug not unlike the Y2k bug – and some people on Twitter already dubbed this the B1k bug as a result. Thanks to Taniwha for documenting this one!

Of course we’ve encountered various bugs during experimentals, one particularly quirky one was where the fog from being underwater would persist in the map view, making Kerbin look particularly mystical! A lot of fun was also had when the Whack-A-Kerbal dialog was stuck open in the Space Centre scenes - many hours were spent whacking buildings and Kerbals!

We should keep stalking Ted’s busywork for one more paragraph here, because as you may know KSP won the Best Indie Game award at the Golden Joysticks last week, and Ted himself was attending to receive the award. He wants to thank each and every one who voted for us! We also came third in the Best Original Game category - an excellent achievement! It was all made even better by the wonderful things people had to say about KSP and its community.

Chris (Porkjet) meanwhile has been going over some details: polishing up textures, improving exhaust effects, creating heat animation and fixing various smaller issues, directed by the ever-watchful eyes of the experimental testers. Speaking of experiments, one little ‘experiment’ we’ve been testing is an inner turbine model for the jet engines. It’s placed at opposite the jet nozzles and will just clip into other parts when attached. The parts basically handle the same as before, but give a better representation of what jet engines actually are, being more than just a nozzle with a hole that produces .flames. Also it adds a logical explanation for their COM offset. We advise you to make sure you’re sat down before you click this link.

After regaining our collective composure, it’s time to look at what else has been going on in the process. Bob (Roverdude) has new resource parts - specifically a small radial tank as well as a new, smaller drill. These smaller bits will have certain drawbacks, for example the smaller ISRU converter cannot operate for long periods, and the drill requires a minimum ore concentration to be present. This makes the smaller ISRU good for biome hopping, but not so good for your long-term refuelling base. The smaller drill can work great for smaller ships, but will require more careful planning compared to the usual ‘land, drill, and pray’ prospecting mechanic some are used to.

On the career front Brian (Arsonide) has been working on the career compatibility process that checks out older saves just before they get loaded into a career. This allows us to upgrade any outdated contracts that have changed, and makes sure that all older careers remain compatible with the new version.

While working on this, Brian also introduced a new form of contract, adding a variant of part test contract that does not require the player to actually perform a test. The contract simply completes when you fly the part to the destination, so it behaves more like a payload contract. The goal is to break up the early game with a bit more variety. A few small Easter eggs were also added to the passive reward system, to reward the more adventurous players. We’re looking forward to see how quickly these get discovered!

Nathanael (Nathankell) has seen few issues with his code in experimentals so far, and has shifted his attention to fixing ye olde bugs and filling in a few small holes in the code. For example:

• The internal part name is no longer used in the Flight Log, instead it uses the part title;
  
• Decouplers (or any staging part) can be set to have their staging
  toggleable;
  
• Engines now show how much of their propellant requirements are met each
  frame (and the confusing “IntakeAir†bar on air intakes, whose code have also
  been fixed, is hidden in exchange);
  
• Parachutes no longer flutter identically or ‘warp’ instantly to the
  velocity vector; and
  
• Female and male Kerbals now have the same ragdoll behavior.
  

Not shy of a challenge Nathan added some nice tinting when underwater. Buoyancy changes have been something of a hit so far with the testers, and we hope you’ll enjoy them just as much!

Nathan has also been working on integrating the radiator and Core Heat code into the new thermodynamics system and iron out any interaction issues. 1.0.5 gives us much more control over how vessels’ temperatures behave at high levels of time warp (internally referred to as “analytic thermoâ€Â), which has proven useful to make sure radiators behave properly in analytic thermo just as well as under regular conditions.

Some work was put into 1.1 still, even with the 1.0.5 experimental testing in full swing right now. Felipe finished implementing the remaining features of the Flight user interface, including the navball burn vector (and the delta-V gauge that shows how much longer you have to burn). We’ve officially flagged this part of the user interface as “finishedâ€Â, and will now move on to such things as the editor, tracking station and the settings screen.

Valve was kind enough to send us a couple of early access Steam controllers, and Felipe and Jesus immediately grabbed one to put together an official profile. KSP has usually been regarded as nearly impossible to play with anything other than a keyboard and mouse, but the flexibility of the Steam controller really comes through in this regard. The work in progress profile already has all the essential controls to both build and fly..

And that concludes the devnotes for this week. Thank you for your attention and don’t forget to post questions and follows us on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr - as well as on our official forums.

Edited November 3, 2015 by KasperVld
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[regex]

Not bad. New engines look real good but without a hollow part to go with them they're going to fall a bit flat IMO.

[eddiew]

Good to hear that 1.0.5 is doing well in testing, thanks chaps

...though I'm banking on 1.1 and Unity 5 unleashing all 64 of my bits to get really excited over. I really like the new stuff you're putting in, but I also want to get some beautification mods and planet packs in, which are kinda mutually exclusive right now. But since that's continuing as well, I can't really moan now can I? Any chance of 1.1 by Christmas?

[Fyrem]

excellent!

[TheMoonRover]

Underwater fog?

Kerbal Submarine Program!

[Warzouz]

Very nice, keep the good work !

[KasperVld]

Any chance of 1.1 by Christmas?

That's the goal!

[ShadowZone]

Great update!

I am however a bit split on the Jet engine model. While it sure is more realistic for them having turbine parts, this basically makes all VTOL designs look ridiculous with a huge turbine sticking out the back. And it also should negate the parts the turbines stick into of their fuel capacity (since you have to make room for the turbine).

Interested in how that Steam Controller setup will work.

[L4r5man]

"Female and male Kerbals now have the same ragdoll behavior."

Nooooooo! I loved that they bounced differently. In my head it was because of their bouncy boobs.

[r_rolo1]

Text formatting can be hard at times

Nice stuff overall ( I especially like the underwater tint pic ) ... just some rapid fire questions, though:

- Will IRSU able to get Solid fuel and/or Xenon out in 1.0.5/1.1 ?

- Will Eve oceans be of the same density than Kerbin or Laythe ones? In other words, stuff that floats on Kerbin will float everywhere the same like nowadays?

- How exactly did the ragdoll behaviour was changed to match the male with the female behaviour? And related, why do we still have ragdolling?

- Will we get the possiblity of having more than 15 contracts at a time? Unlimited != 15 in my book

[ElWanderer]

Excellent. I can't wait... to be able to get to my gaming PC. It's buried behind a large pile of stuff while our kitchen is redone. Wonder what'll be finished first: the kitchen or v1.0.5!

[Alshain]

Not a huge fan of the turbine thing. It adds no real value and it will ruin many many VTOL designs.

It fact, with drag I would go as far as to say it will eliminate the ability to VTOL at all.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Alshain

[One-Way Films]

Wow. Gaben hath blessed you. Congrats!

[Arsonide]

Will we get the possiblity of having more than 15 contracts at a time? Unlimited != 15 in my book

Luckily this is already in the game! At the top of GameData/Squad/Contracts/Contracts.cfg, edit this value: AverageAvailableContracts to a higher number.

[Rithsom]

Very nice! I especially like the underwater tinting, that will make me think of the oceans as an actual place to go rather than just an animated texture.

And about the turbines, I like them myself. If the engines were to be placed on the underside of VTOLs (turbines inside fuselage) you probably wouldn't see them poke out of the top anyway. The turbines don't seem to be much longer than the length of the nozzle.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Rthsom

[Tristonwilson12]

I'm not a huge fan of the fan turbine......but what ever I don't make planes any way

[r_rolo1]

Luckily this is already in the game! At the top of GameData/Squad/Contracts/Contracts.cfg, edit this value: AverageAvailableContracts to a higher number.

That was a jib, Arsonide. I have a certain opinion about the effect of the number of avaliable contracts in the career game and how 15 is a quite small number unless you expect the player to fast forward a lot ( and actually punishes a player that doesn't do so ). And OFC, the stock number should be displayed in the ingame options IMHO, because Unlimited =15 looks so much like something out of *insert name of evil telecom company of choice*

[regex]

Luckily this is already in the game! At the top of GameData/Squad/Contracts/Contracts.cfg, edit this value: AverageAvailableContracts to a higher number.

This should really be upped by default. Seriously, the number of contracts late game is too sparse.

Plus, organize and generate contracts by celestial! Please!

[Alshain]

This should really be upped by default. Seriously, the number of contracts late game is too sparse.

Plus, organize and generate contracts by celestial! Please!

Agree, it should be at least 30 by default. Especially if they are adding a bunch more contract types with contextual contracts.

[Superfluous J]

I like the new engines, though had no problem pretending the hidden stuff was there before. I can't help but wonder if I'm taking a performance hit for stuff I'll never see while flying.

I especially like the new water hazing, if for nothing but the fact that it implies we'll have full 360 degree freedom when moving the camera in the ocean.

Not bad. New engines look real good but without a hollow part to go with them they're going to fall a bit flat IMO.

Yeah. Like some kind of structural fuselage or something.

[Tourist]

Not a huge fan of the turbine thing. It adds no real value and it will ruin many many VTOL designs.

It fact, with drag I would go as far as to say it will eliminate the ability to VTOL at all.

Not a huge fan of the turbine thing... boom tish!

I like it, but I don't build VTOLs.

[regex]

I like the new engines, though had no problem pretending the hidden stuff was there before. I can't help but wonder if I'm taking a performance hit for stuff I'll never see while flying.

It's pretty low on the poly count and it's not like poly count is what's holding KSP back...

Yeah. Like some kind of structural fuselage or something.

If only it were hollow...

E: Also, what'll really be funny is that the front of it isn't even an intake, so just slapping the engine on the side of your craft will do nothing.

Edited November 3, 2015 by regex

[Alshain]

I like the new engines, though had no problem pretending the hidden stuff was there before. I can't help but wonder if I'm taking a performance hit for stuff I'll never see while flying.

Of course you will. It is added part count with no benefit and more space requirements as well which further constricts creative design. I'm sorry but this is a very bad idea. It would be one thing if it had some real value in gameplay, but it doesn't.

[KasperVld]

- Will Eve oceans be of the same density than Kerbin or Laythe ones? In other words, stuff that floats on Kerbin will float everywhere the same like nowadays?

- How exactly did the ragdoll behaviour was changed to match the male with the female behaviour? And related, why do we still have ragdolling?

There will indeed be differences between the ocean densities. For example, Eve's oceans are denser than Kerbin's. The issue with the ragdolls was that the rigidbodies that made up the female ragdoll had very different mass and drag defaults than the male model's. Ragdoll physics are a feature used to animate falling characters, Wikipedia has a decent article on it

Of course you will. It is added part count with no benefit and more space requirements as well which further constricts creative design.

It's all still one part, so no added part count.

Edited November 3, 2015 by KasperVld

[NoMrBond]

In a sideways shoutout to a prior topic (I can't remember if it came up in last weeks devNotes or Squadcast maybe?), but multi-monitor support just arrived in the latest Unity 5.3 beta (5).

As for the engines thing, maybe the internal display is (or could be) toggleable?

Will the staging toggability extend functionality in the other direction (i.e. would we be able to add, say, decoupler releases to the staging list?)