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Devnote Tuesday: The wait is almost over!

SQUAD

By SQUAD
in KSP1 The Daily Kerbal

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SQUAD

SQUAD

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Hello everyone!

We’re getting very excited with the upcoming release of the 1.2 Update! After countless hours of hard work, it’s very fulfilling to see a project coming to fruition. The development process of any update is long and all the steps within it are vital to a successful release; that includes this final phase, where the participation of the community has been and is crucial to polish the final details. We’re almost there and we couldn’t be any prouder!

We’ll start by thanking everyone who has submitted their bug reports on the pre-release project on the  KSP’s Bug Tracker and congratulating the first 3 winners of the Bug Hunting Contest. Remember that the contest isn’t over yet, so keep those reports coming!

Steve (Squelch), Dave (TriggerAu) and the QA team have been wrapping up the test cases this past week. They’ve also been keeping an eye on the public tracker alongside the experimentals to keep them in sync. There have been some great reports coming in, and the Devs have been hard at work fixing, passing them to QA and Experimentals for first and second pass testing before applying them to the latest pre-release build. A big shout out to the rest of the QA team that rarely get a mention and are the unsung heroes. They have done a stirling job working through the test cases and generally being on the ball with fix testing.

The pre-release has been going very well. We’re spending a lot of time fixing bugs, doing performance optimisations and balancing the new features. Let’s go through the details that Mike (Mu) and the team has been working on:

Throughout the week, Jim (Romfarer) has been fixing mostly non-critical bugs, he also fixed an old bug/feature where you were not able to undo deleting a whole vessel in the editor. This is now possible and should hopefully make for a lot less grief when this happens accidentally.

In addition to the usual round of bug fixes, Bob (Roverdude) had some time to add on the new 0.625m heat shield, and continued on the biome rework. Part of this is looking for ways to make each of the planets a bit more interesting, as well as make the maps themselves more aesthetically pleasing, since they are now visible in KerbNet (and not just via the cheat menu). Eve has now fourteen biomes, and has a much prettier biome map.

Last week our valiant pre-release testers uncovered a logical issue that was causing Exploration contracts to only issue flyby objectives. Upon fixing that, and discussing feedback with them, we went ahead and made Exploration contracts have a 100% chance to appear if you enter Mission Control and one isn’t on the board. This should go a long way towards giving career mode some more structured narrative, and has been received well by the testers. Brian (Arsonide) also worked with Jeremie (Nightingale) on changing the contract weighting logic to add a small negative weight to contracts that were read but never accepted, which should make weighing much more intelligent. Jeremie also made the tourist contracts play better with the optional Kerbal Gee functionality (including adding a small chance for a special contract).

Nathanael (NathanKell), made some further refinements to Krakensbane and Floating Origin. Position and velocity precision is maintained much better now, explosions stay fixed to the ground where they occur, and vessels don’t jump when you fly near them. In addition, Nathanael made the resources and modules on EVA kerbals accessible through an external cfg file to let the community modify some of their key parameters, this will solve some of the issues people had been having while adding resources to them in the pre-release.

Bill (taniwha) recently returned from a trip to Australia visiting family and taking part in the Koala Space Program. On return, Bill fixed placing maneuver nodes on solar hyperbolic trajectories, and fixed the world disappearing when the camera is under 1000m below sea level.

Nathan (Claw) continues to add refinements and quality of life additions, as well as fixing some crashtastic bugs. Near-range targeting now has a bit more logic. If you double click on a targetable part (such as a docking port), that part will become the target, while clicking on other parts of a ship will target the vessel itself. Furthermore, clicking on the ship in control will now deselect the target. Claw also tracked down a bug that was causing the game to crash when decoupling certain parts and flying them away from the mothership.

Like most of the team, Sébastien (Sarbian) has been focusing on bug fixing, but there are 3 things that stand out among these tasks. First, Sarbian spent some time with the Text Mesh Pro font editor to add more characters to our default font. Secondly, Sébastien worked together with Nestor, Roy and Manuel on finding a solution for a issue we’re experiencing with the Steam Controller in 1.2 and it looks like a solution is near. Third, but not least, Sarbian invested some time playing with Quaternions and we finally have a fix for the LT-1 and LT-2 leg rotation in the editor!

Rodrigo (Roy) worked on the launcher for KSP; it has been updated according to our new patch solution and its visuals have been improved a little, too. Roy also helped fixing some bugs on the tracker, most of them regarding interface or part issues.

Pablo (Paul_Amsterdam) and Leticia (Leto) are working very hard on the 1.2 teaser & cinematic trailer and it’s looking GOOD! We can’t wait to premier it and let you see the final product!

On the Social Media & Communication front we’ve been working on and implementing new ideas to enrich the content we share and to engage with the community. Andrea (Badie) wants to let you know that we’re open to feedback and suggestions. Furthermore, Daniele (UomoCapra) and Alejandro (alecenturion), our business developer, will be attending Twitchcon this week, so if you happen to be there, come by and say hi!

Nestor, our producer, has some great news: the Xbox One patch has passed certification! This patch will be released this week and it will finally solve the save file issue that Xbox One players have been experiencing. Please stay tuned on the forum for the announcement. Nestor also wanted to let you know that we are still testing the PS4 patch to solve all the issues this port has presented, we’ll keep you informed about the advancements, but unfortunately there are no news regarding the release date for that patch, yet.

Sadly we have a man down for this Devnote, so no poetry from Mathew (sal_vager) due to an unscheduled excursion to the hospital. Join us in wishing him well and a speedy recovery.

That’s it for this week. Be sure to join us on our official forums, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. The KSP subreddit is also a great place to hang out and discuss the upcoming update. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news!

Happy launchings, Kerbonauts!

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Jarin

Jarin

Posted
Posted
19 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

Third, but not least, Sarbian invested some time playing with Quaternions and we finally have a fix for the LT-1 and LT-2 leg rotation in the editor!

This is by far the biggest news of the patch for me. Not even joking. Three cheers for Sarbian!

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klgraham1013

klgraham1013

Posted
Posted (edited)
43 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

Nathanael made the resources and modules on EVA kerbals accessible through an external cfg file to let the community modify some of their key parameters, this will solve some of the issues people had been having while adding resources to them in the pre-release.

Wait.  So did this mean a limited EVA fuel resource can be more easily modded in!?

Edited by klgraham1013
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basic.syntax

basic.syntax

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Best wishes for a speedy recovery at sal_vager!

This update continues marching towards "best ever" status. Technical debt is being paid off in huge chunks. Mad Props at Sarbian and Arsonide for landing gear and wheel fixes, so many now that I've lost track. Keep up the good works!

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dr_evil

dr_evil

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Get well soon Mr  sal_vager aka Mathew. I hope it is nothing serious.

Otherwise great devnotes, looking forward to 1.2 with all those awesome new features and performance tweaks.

Is there a way for Good Old Games userst to download the pre release version of KSP?

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Papa_Joe

Papa_Joe

Posted
Posted (edited)
20 minutes ago, dr_evil said:

Get well soon Mr  sal_vager aka Mathew. I hope it is nothing serious.

Otherwise great devnotes, looking forward to 1.2 with all those awesome new features and performance tweaks.

Is there a way for Good Old Games userst to download the pre release version of KSP?

yes.  yes there is, both via steam and the KSP store

Update. I misread your post... I was thinking "Good Old Gamers", like me... not if you purchased from Good Old Games...

 

Edited by Papa_Joe
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LaytheDragon

LaytheDragon

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, SQUAD said:

Brian (Arsonide) also worked with Jeremie (Nightingale) on changing the contract weighting logic to add a small negative weight to contracts that were read but never accepted, which should make weighing much more intelligent.

Is this for all contracts generated in mission control, that have been in mission control when it was entered by the player at least once, but never accepted before the deadline? Or is it for all contracts that were clicked on in mission control but never accepted before the deadline? Either way it sounds good :D 

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nightingale

nightingale

Posted
Posted
13 minutes ago, LaytheDragon said:

Is this for all contracts generated in mission control, that have been in mission control when it was entered by the player at least once, but never accepted before the deadline? Or is it for all contracts that were clicked on in mission control but never accepted before the deadline? Either way it sounds good :D 

Both!  It's a -1 modifier for a "seen" contact that was not clicked on and -2 for a "read" contract that has been clicked on.  Note as always that these numbers are both moddable and subject to change based on balance.

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dr_evil

dr_evil

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Posted
18 minutes ago, Papa_Joe said:

yes.  yes there is, both via steam and the KSP store

Papa_Joe how is that? I have bought the game on gog.com, I do not have it on my steam account neither do I have a KSP store account. If there still is a way to get my hands on the pre release I would be very grateful for a hint :)

 

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FullMetalMachinist

FullMetalMachinist

Posted
Posted
20 minutes ago, LaytheDragon said:

Is this for all contracts generated in mission control, that have been in mission control when it was entered by the player at least once, but never accepted before the deadline? Or is it for all contracts that were clicked on in mission control but never accepted before the deadline? Either way it sounds good :D 

Looks like it's a combination of both, with a heavier weight being applied if you've read the details. From the change-log for pre-release build 1532:

Quote
  • Contract weighting now applies negatively on expiration as well as decline. Expiration weighting is much lighter than decline weighting if the player has only seen the contract, but is heavier if the player has actually read the details of it. Unseen contracts that generate and expire before the player sees them (while he is flying a mission, for example) do not affect weight. Positive weighting was adjusted to compensate. The end result should be smarter weighting.

 

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