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KSP Weekly: Refactoring Kerbal


SQUAD

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Welcome to KSP Weekly, everyone! This week was all about localization and its upcoming pre-release. The amount of effort and work hours that have been put into this project was nothing short of a gargantuan endeavour and our excitement is a testament of watching our efforts come into fruition. But we’re here to talk about everything Kerbal, so without further ado, let’s begin.

Everyone in QA has been incredibly busy checking and rechecking all of the strings that have been converted, as well as making sure the game still behaves as it should. There are so many different ways of playing KSP, and and an equal number of results. There’s even more ways to break KSP to add on top. The localization effort has highlighted this very well. Variations between platforms can mean that some characters don’t render in the same way as others. Screen space has been a big concern. Another special mention is due to the volunteers that have worked tirelessly through this.

For example, one of the most challenging things we had to deal with the localization process was that, originally, the code wasn’t optimized for localization and the logic of the game was intertwined with some explicit words in english. We had to deal with this and many lines of code required some tweaking to allow us to introduce new phrasings and characters, i.e., lots of work.

But the QA team went also through more general bug discovery, confirmation and testing of fixes this week,so you can expect quite a few bug fixes for the upcoming update (you may have learned about some of them if you have been following KSP Weekly in past editions).

On other regards, Blitworks is doing some good progress on the builds we’ve been receiving and testing for the past few weeks, they even added a circular menu for the controls that will make the console’s UI more user friendly. Renowned poet and tester, sal_vager, decided to write a verse to express his experience with the last build he tried:

PS4

My planes soar

Kerbals on the Mun

Saves compressed

Stability test ✓

Having lots of fun

The development team has also been jam-packed with localization bug busting, too. For example, JPLrepo finished refactoring Biomes (did you know there are over 140 planet biomes in KSP and over 40 KSC biomes?), Celestial Bodies, Science System. The devs have had to do a lot of refactoring, this week included messages, PartModules and Contracts, too. Refactoring is the process of changing the code to separate UI display strings from strings used internally in functional code. This is what happens when a piece of software is developed without Localization and then Localization is retro-fitted at a later date.

Developers also did amendments to lots of UI screens and elements to make all the Russian and Spanish fit! As well as fixing some linux bugs, some KSPedia adjustments and the creation of an automated script in python to populate the language prefixes.

Finally we just want to remind you that the Localization Pre-release will take place on March 16th and that to celebrate that launch we are doing a cool contest with some of the best prizes we have given, yet. Learn more here.  

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.

Happy launchings!

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Hey, consoles got mentioned. The devs DO know those players exist! 

 

Looking forward to seeing the list of bugfixes, and maybe a return to game content once this project is done.

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25 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

So, like... what's up with the non- localization stuff?

 

It's right here!

 

36 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

But the QA team went also through more general bug discovery, confirmation and testing of fixes this week,so you can expect quite a few bug fixes for the upcoming update (you may have learned about some of them if you have been following KSP Weekly in pasty editions).

 

That's about it!

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30 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

First again?

 

 So, like... what's up with the non- localization stuff?

 

Best,
-Slashy

A bunch of bug fixes. Other than that, they've never mentioned any non-localization related project

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Oh god, I can already see the forum chaos after 1.3 is released with nothing new other than localization (I think that will be the first forum revolt I'll actually make part of)

 

Place your bets now on how many angry threads will be created.

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I'd be totally interested in an expected list of big fixes rather than saying it's been said before if you watch closely.

Perhaps even a looking ahead beyond localisation.

Ever since 1.2.2 was released and holidays were had (and temporary devs finished their contracts), development notes have devolved into something a spam bot would write, basically the same garbage that is generated for contracts in game.  This has been going on for quite some time.

I get that we would complain loudly if there were no communication and I get that not much else has been happening besides this translation project to be able to sell the game in more countries.  But we don't really know a huge amount about current devs.  Why not some photos or background pieces on those working on the game... stills of new artwork?

It has taken me a while to actually get so frustrated to post like this.  This frustration has been building.  Please do something more interesting next week!

Peace.

Edited by theJesuit
formatting
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Sounds like some good work was done, really looking forward to the changelog. Also looking forward to the Russian localization, it'll be fun installing those textures (even if I keep everything else English).

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1 hour ago, theJesuit said:

Ever since 1.2.2 was released and holidays were had (and temporary devs finished their contracts), development notes have devolved into something a spam bot would write, basically the same garbage that is generated for contracts in game.  This has been going on for quite some time.

Plot twist: This is a test of the new contract generator.

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OK folks, having looked at so many atrocious applications over my IT career, it's easier for me to appreciate the kind of effort needed to retrofit an ANSI-only application for localization / language / Unicode / whatnot. This is why developers are supposed to code for localization from the beginning.

 

他们for at least considering a huge undertaking with little promise of reward.

and I hope this web translator got it right...

Edited by Gordon Fecyk
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22 minutes ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

放他们一for at least considering a huge undertaking with little promise of reward.

and I hope this web translator got it right...

Quite nice translator dude

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I express appreciation for the attitude and efforts of each team.

And, I am looking forward to localized KSP reaching the people of the space lovers in each country. I want everyone to experience the feeling when I landed at Mun for the first time in KSP. My landing ship was lying down, though.

I hope the future evolve of KSP!

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I feel like I'm one of the few people that agrees with adding localization and focusing on bugfixing. Bring it to a 100% working state, then continue adding features. 1.2 has been the most stable update by far, and continuing on bugfixing will only help. Then we can focus on adding things again.

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5 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Blitworks is doing some good progress on the builds we’ve been receiving and testing for the past few weeks, they even added a circular menu for the controls that will make the console’s UI more user friendly.

 

(I'm a non-console player) this is great news. Computer UIs and console UIs should be totally, completely different because their methods of input are so different. Every single time you have to move a cursor and click a button on a console, the developer has FAILED YOU.

 

The same goes the other way (I'm looking at YOU No Man's Sky) but that'd be off topic.

36 minutes ago, legoclone09 said:

I feel like I'm one of the few people that agrees with adding localization and focusing on bugfixing. Bring it to a 100% working state, then continue adding features. 1.2 has been the most stable update by far, and continuing on bugfixing will only help. Then we can focus on adding things again.

 

Not in the least. I'm right there with you. Of course, it helps in my case that I barely play anymore.

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4 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Not in the least. I'm right there with you. Of course, it helps in my case that I barely play anymore.

I haven't played in a while, either. Screwed up my install and too lazy to re-install.

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7 hours ago, SQUAD said:
But the QA team went also through more general bug discovery, confirmation and testing of fixes this week,so you can expect quite a few bug fixes for the upcoming update (you may have learned about some of them if you have been following KSP Weekly in pasty editions).

 

Pasty edition! OMG - Snacks! mod to be incorporated in stock. You read it here first, folks!

 

:P

 

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Yeah, it is kind of hard to be excited about feature that you don't use. English may not be my first language, but it is a language I prefer my software to use. Localizations for my language are hilarious and I just can't be productive with them. I can't find half the stuff :D

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12 minutes ago, Corw said:

Yeah, it is kind of hard to be excited about feature that you don't use. English may not be my first language, but it is a language I prefer my software to use. Localizations for my language are hilarious and I just can't be productive with them. I can't find half the stuff :D

 

I'm curious. What is your native language?

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I'm really happy about the fact that you work on bug fixing even if i find 1.2.2 already fairly stable.

On the other hand I really don't get why you try to translate the game in other language.

 

My mother language is french, my 'first' second language is german and as you may see I speak a little bit of English and as far as I know there is no way to translate 'Rocket scientist' neither in french nor in german. And according to wikipedia, Rocket Science doesn't even exist in any other language.

So my question is: why do you even try to translate a game about 'Mad rocket scientist' if the concept of the game exist only in English.

 

The other reason why I think it's a lost of time to translate the game is that a lot of us play with mods and they won't be translated and then most of the player playing with mod will stick with english.

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