Devnote Thursday: Tweaking and Turning Gears

[WhereAmI]

2 hours ago, Capt Snuggler said:

Any chance we could get a peek at what @Porkjet is up to with the part revamp?

I won't be surprised if the part revamp was shelved just like the famous barn.

[RoverDude]

3 hours ago, NoMrBond said:

Wasn't the answer basically 'Turn off the DSN and put an antenna at KSC'?

Pretty much.  The DSN has both a multiplier (so set it to 0.0000000000001 or something) or can be overridden by modders.  I expect folks will get creative day zero with this.

Unrelated - probably best to take the life support discussion to another thread as it's polluting this one a bit.

[Scientia1423]

15 hours ago, SQUAD said:

and fixing some issues with the buildings at KSC and KSC2 turning different colors.

What is that supposed to mean?

 

Also where is the Old SPH? I can't track and hunt it down!It must've run away to Dres...

[NoMrBond]

36 minutes ago, WhereAmI said:

I won't be surprised if the part revamp was shelved just like the famous barn.

That seems unlikely given that these were described as 'almost done' in a Squadcast before 1.1.3 even came out

I think it more likely that the parts have been designed with (a) the Standard Shader (i.e. PBR materials) and (b) assetBundles in mind, both of these are big shifts

There was some problem with the Standard Shader and KSP's camera system not getting on (from memory), something about reflection probes and KSP's complex camera system due to KSP's render scale, it had three 'cameras' to composite a scene?

And moving KSP's assets to assetBundles means apart from (possibly) needing to repackage all of KSP's files into a different (non-Mu) format, you risk breaking lots of stuff, including shorting any mods which use any asset in \GameData\

It wouldn't surprise me if the whole package was also being done by taking advantage of global texture atlases through (b) assetBundles, since a lot of texture assets could be shared that way and it would cut down on the file/texture clutter considerably

[psychogre]

15 hours ago, SQUAD said:

and fixed a long-standing issue with Kerbals sliding on ladders.

Wonderful news!  Let the bells be rung from every ... rung!

[Malah]

7 hours ago, Andem said:

Well, let's see, they get shafted. They can't update to the latest version until they get a more up-to-date OS. It'll get to a point soon where the 32bit version is just a hinderance.

Hello, you need to look at Steam statistics... 32 bits = 10% of the player base... it's not just a hinderance, it's a market. It's a bigger market than GNU/Linux + MacOS players...

Source: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, WhereAmI said:

I won't be surprised if the part revamp was shelved just like the famous barn.

Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he finished them in July which is why we've not heard about them. They're no longer in development.

[Theysen]

7 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he finished them in July which is why we've not heard about them. They're no longer in development.

This. There's actually the chance we get them as "surprise" once the patch is public and they hold them back some longer. It's mostly art rework and we all know that adding / changing parts is quite easy in KSP. We know when they're real, would be neat for sure  

[Red Iron Crown]

8 hours ago, NoMrBond said:

Currently KSP is uses multiple individual textures per part

That's not accurate, KSP uses one texture per part (unless you get a texture switching mod or something).

8 hours ago, NoMrBond said:

Part textures could be shared from global texture atlases.  The B9 pack does this for example, where textures serve for multiple models, especially applicable for closely related ones (i.e the FLT tanks) with layout controlled by UV mapping.

This technique is already used for some of the parts (the Mk2/Mk3 ones in particular, the tanks/bays share textures). I'd expect it to be used more extensively whenever the rocket part revamp gets done.

[Eskandare]

Will there be a fix for large parts being catapulted in the air if placed in water? For example boat part mods for those who want to explore Kerbin via the oceans?

Edited August 26, 2016 by Eskandare

[DMagic]

58 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

That's not accurate, KSP uses one texture per part (unless you get a texture switching mod or something).

That's not true. Lots of parts use multiple textures (not counting normal or emissive maps), many of which are downright ridiculous. Take docking ports, for instance, that little grey ring the goes into the part you are attaching it to, that uses a separate 1k texture... for a smudgy grey ring that no one ever sees, repeated on two different parts, seriously.  Fixing that problem could allow for five or six well optimized, related parts, to be added to the game with no affect on RAM usage. Or take the Science Jr., which has a separate 512*512 texture that seems to only cover the little colored wires; the Squad folder is littered with inefficient texture usage.

All of this talk about 32 bit not being supported, or not being able to add new features because of RAM issues is ridiculous. Stock KSP is no where near the 3.5GB RAM limit, and adding a few parts isn't going to get it there (someone had a thread detailing how parts don't actually account for as much RAM as people think they do, I just can't remember where it was). Adding even twenty or thirty new parts to support multiple new game features isn't going to break 32 bit KSP, and if they are created with some care it won't even really affect RAM usage that much. A better way to use less RAM would be to fix all of the old parts that needlessly use multiple textures, use textures that are too big, or (like fuel tanks) use basically the same textures over and over again for related parts; which is something that is hopefully being done, regardless of whether we hear about it or not.

@sal_vager RAM posting:

 

Edited August 26, 2016 by DMagic

[Red Iron Crown]

3 minutes ago, DMagic said:

That's not true. Lots of parts use multiple textures (not counting normal or emissive maps), many of which are downright ridiculous. Take docking ports, for instance, that little grey ring the goes into the part you are attaching it to, that uses a separate 1k texture... for a smudgy grey ring that no one ever sees, repeated on two different parts, seriously.  Fixing that problem could allow for five or six well optimized, related parts, to be added to the game with no affect on RAM usage. Or take the Science Jr., which has a separate 512*512 texture that seems to only cover the little colored wires; the Squad folder is littered with inefficient texture usage.

Huh, today I learned. Thanks for the correction, and apologies to @NoMrBond for the misinformation.

[sPeaRr]

So two weeks ago a console patch was in testing.  Now this week we are just nailing down the save issue.  So that wasn't in the patch being tested?  There needs to be more clarity for your console base.  Just my opinion, but it sure seems like the console release was just a cash grab. No way all these bugs were missed in testing(or heads should roll).  You released a lousy build on console, take that money and hire some new devs, and rather than making a console fix your first priority,  you blow smoke for 6 weeks and work on 1.2.  I'm certainly not impressed, tell me how should we be viewing this?   You're losing the faith of a big potential player base guys.  10 hours of limited gameplay isn't worth 40 bucks.  

[steve_v]

So, when can we expect a fix for the random crashing? I see no mention in these devnotes. Fired up 1.1.3 for the first time today after taking a "This release is bung, wait for next patch" break... crashed with "Error in `./KSP.x86_64': double free or corruption (out)" on the second launch of a new career.

Is this going to be fixed for 1.2 or what?

[richfiles]

48 minutes ago, sPeaRr said:

So two weeks ago a console patch was in testing.  Now this week we are just nailing down the save issue.  So that wasn't in the patch being tested?  There needs to be more clarity for your console base.  Just my opinion, but it sure seems like the console release was just a cash grab. No way all these bugs were missed in testing(or heads should roll).  You released a lousy build on console, take that money and hire some new devs, and rather than making a console fix your first priority,  you blow smoke for 6 weeks and work on 1.2.  I'm certainly not impressed, tell me how should we be viewing this?   You're losing the faith of a big potential player base guys.  10 hours of limited gameplay isn't worth 40 bucks.  

All patches to the console come first from the main PC branch. To fix it on console means to fix it on PC first. Once code is figured out on PC, it's then ported to console, and then Sony Microsoft and Nintendo all have to basically "approve" the code for their systems... Yeah, one more delay, even if the code ended up perfect. The people at (I think the company name is Flying Tiger, or something, I forget for sure) handle the port, as that is simply their role. If Squad "dropped everything" to focus on Flying Tiger, ALL further bug fixes would actually stop!

That this has all been said before... tells me there is a bug in your ability to pay attention to Squad's posts on consoles and replies to these questions. You ought to get that patched. 

Have a little faith in these guys. It's being worked on, and unfortunately, sometimes bugs don't get squashed with the first patch. doesn't mean they aren't still working hard to fix everything for the next one.

Edited August 26, 2016 by richfiles

[passinglurker]

4 hours ago, NoMrBond said:

assetBundles

I hope not there isn't a way to unpack bundles

[Kevin Kyle]

Awesome stuff, so very much looking forward to this build!

[Bombaatu]

7 hours ago, richfiles said:

On an unrelated note... Can KSP not simulate a frame or a few... whatever it takes to actually calculate maneuver node burn times (off a freshly staged engine, that is), and then discard the "simulated" frame of a simulation? We can revert a flight, so why can't we have the game freeze the simulation state on staging, run forward a frame or two... or whatever it actually does take, figure out the necessary thrust values to calculate burn times in maneuver nodes... And thus always have burn time there?

There is a mod called Better Burn Time that does exactly this, along with a neat graphical display (fading dots) indicating when to start the burn.

[Errol]

5 hours ago, RoverDude said:

Pretty much.  The DSN has both a multiplier (so set it to 0.0000000000001 or something) or can be overridden by modders.  I expect folks will get creative day zero with this.

Unrelated - probably best to take the life support discussion to another thread as it's polluting this one a bit.

I remember reading that the DSN will have upgradable ranges as you upgrade your tracking station, or something. Will the details of that be customization as well? Things like upgrade cost, and range of upgrades, or even number of upgrades.

[Commissar]

11 hours ago, NoMrBond said:

Imposing a 64-bit limitation would likely affect less than 2% of the playerbase (The biggest population of 32-bit OS installs is.... WindowsXP-32bit which is around 1.7%)

However if KSP used more than 4GB of RAM (by default) this would likely exclude about ~40% of the playerbase

Neither of those concerns are likely to amount to anything unless there are major changes (considering stock KSP currently uses ~2GB depending on renderer)

i've gotten the 64 bit past 9, but that's with 122 mods.

[sPeaRr]

@richfiles So they're fixing the save game glitch on pc branch by sal-vager borrowing an xbox to troubleshoot? Uhhu.  I lost enough of my time on their bugs and now I'm supposed to sift through dev notes, twitter and forum posts to get info on when they're going to get it fixed? A far more gratifying way to spend my time is to complain to anyone and everyone that will listen and then go play something else that won't disappoint me.  Try to imagine playing through a stock interplanetary mission and you get back safe and sound only the game doesn't save right and when you load the next day you never flew the mission.  Plus freezing, plus nodes disappear, plus sticking interface, plus plus plus. That's not fun, and it's been like that since release.  

[RoverDude]

1 hour ago, Errol said:

I remember reading that the DSN will have upgradable ranges as you upgrade your tracking station, or something. Will the details of that be customization as well? Things like upgrade cost, and range of upgrades, or even number of upgrades.

The method that calculates DSN Signal Strength is fully accessible to mods.

[Commissar]

53 minutes ago, sPeaRr said:

save game glitch on pc branch by sal-vager borrowing an xbox to troubleshoot?

it's an xbox bug.

[IncongruousGoat]

Does anybody know if the bug in 1.1.3 whereby service bays don't protect Kerbals within them from atmospheric heating has been fixed?

[kBob]

I usually avoid hype-trains, but dang...I'm running flat out to catch this one.  Sounds like some new interesting things to do and learn and probably a few new  #$%!# moments too.  Good also to see the extra attention going into QA that's a good investment IMHO.