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KSP Weekly: What a week!


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9 minutes ago, klesh said:

As far as FTE goes, I still can't believe they were chosen.   They must've been the lowest bidder, because their resume is not impressive.

I think that was the general feeling on the forum at the time.

9 minutes ago, klesh said:

Lol, have a look at their new firefirghter game they just released on steam:

I'm sure they financed it with that sweet KSP money as well.  (jokes) (not jokes?)

Edited by klgraham1013
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I like RoverDude's work & think he is doing a good job of continuing and gently expanding the details of the "Kerbal" aesthetic. I also understand regex' desire to see more realistic metals, foils, and glass... "it would be nice... but..." I think greater photo-realism belongs to the Mod scene, with RSS

I'm looking forward to buying the Expansion!

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36 minutes ago, basic.syntax said:

 I also understand regex' desire to see more realistic metals, foils, and glass... "it would be nice... but..." I think greater photo-realism belongs to the Mod scene, with RSS.

I never once asked for "photo-realism" in KSP, I asked for less drab grey. Stop imagining what I'm writing.

I like the Porkjet parts and the proposed rocket part revamp because the parts looked fresh, clean, and ready to fly. They captured the hand-drawn, cartooney aesthetic of KSP quite well while elevating the general impression of Kerbal handy-work from literal disaster-sim ready garbage found on the side of the road. They were also kind of shiny for once. Kind of like how Bac9 captured this with the buildings, Kerbals being overly-enthusiastic pro-engineers. I feel like the LM's model captures this very well but the texturing feels ... overdone somehow. Maybe it'll look better in the game; for some reason we don't get previews in the game itself.

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45 minutes ago, regex said:

I never once asked for "photo-realism" in KSP, I asked for less drab grey. Stop imagining what I'm writing.

I chose to put "...reflecting metal tanks, deep shiny blacks, clean gold foil, engines that look like engines..." in the category of words that describe a more photo-realistic approach than what we have.

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1 hour ago, basic.syntax said:

I chose to put "...reflecting metal tanks, deep shiny blacks, clean gold foil, engines that look like engines..." in the category of words that describe a more photo-realistic approach than what we have.

Well, if color/specular variety implies "photo-realism" then sign me up for "photo-realism".

Edited by regex
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27 minutes ago, Apollo13 said:

For instance, my Kerbal drops a part on the Mun or Minmus surface.  A few seconds later...BOOM!  Or, another delightful instance.  Place item on ground.  Save game.  Restore game.  BOOM!!!  I gotta ask, how difficult is this?  I mean, the surface is one big collider mesh.  The dropped part has a collider mesh.  Algorithm: if two collider meshes contact each other, and the part is below some speed, or sitting still, then NO EXPLOSION.  If the dropped part has no collider mesh, then it simply disappears and the object removed from the scene.

But you cannot drop parts on the ground in stock game. That said, not a bug

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TBH, I don't like it. The color is eh, and it looks way too small for two kerbals. 

 

Honestly what KSP should have done is take RSS/RO and work with the modmakers (some already work for squad I think) and make that an expansion. For me, making historical ships is always a neat 1-time thing. I feel like people would enjoy this expansion for just a few hours of play.

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On 3/19/2017 at 6:02 PM, RoverDude said:

Trust me, art consistency is something I take into consideration, and have discussed with Leticia (our Lead Artist).  A big part of this is making parts that 'fit' with the different art styles, while pushing towards more consistency.  There's definitely a 'Kerbal' aesthetic - not junk, but not human proportions either.  Chunky, with a slight cartoony feel with a bit of accompanying oversaturation.  

Would the base game (sorta won't matter to me as I will buy the DLC) at least geta  gesture pass on the rocket tanks to make them more consistent with the new content? Seems to me that if people were to build 2 identical rockets in the 2 versions, they should look the same. If the DLC has variant tanks at the same exact size, such that no one with the DLC would ever use the ugly, old textures (I'm looking at you, 2.5m tanks and shorter 1.25m tanks!), then I'd still call the rockets identical (since identical capability/part count).

In short, even just a texture pass on the extant rocket parts would be nice to see, to create a consistency that will remain lacking if it doesn't happen.

21 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

As noted earlier, it can fit two Kerbals (provided they are really good friends).

Hehe, the real trick with Kerbals is getting the helmets to fit, I'd think, lol.

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5 hours ago, evileye.x said:

But you cannot drop parts on the ground in stock game. That said, not a bug

That's my point; It is a bug because you cannot drop parts on the ground.  A kerbal should be able to drop a part without it exploding.

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3 minutes ago, Apollo13 said:

That's my point; It is a bug because you cannot drop parts on the ground.  A kerbal should be able to drop a part without it exploding.

That would be an added feature rather than a bug, because Kerbals can't hold parts, much less drop them.

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1 hour ago, Rainbowd4sh said:

TBH, I don't like it. The color is eh, and it looks way too small for two kerbals. 

 

Honestly what KSP should have done is take RSS/RO and work with the modmakers (some already work for squad I think) and make that an expansion. For me, making historical ships is always a neat 1-time thing. I feel like people would enjoy this expansion for just a few hours of play.

I disagree. If you think two kerbals shouldn't be able to fit in the LEM, then just load one in.

As for the RSS/RO thing, I also disagree. IMHO, KSP is a semi-realistic game, realistic enough to provide a challenge, but not realistic enough to take the fun out of the game. I think that a RSS/RO DLC wouldn't result in as many sales as an expansion like Making History, because it would simply be too difficult, especially for new, eager players. 

It took me weeks to just get to the Mun and back in stock KSP when I started. Imagine trying to get into orbit in RSS! The furthest I got in RSS/RO was a satellite that barely made it into lunar orbit, before I quit realism due to difficulty.

New players especially might be deterred by that, and so not buy the expansion. This, of course, means SQUAD misses out on money, and might even lose money  if the DLC cost more to make than the earnings from said DLC (I understand that that's unlikely, but still). 

And lastly, the new historical parts don't necessarily need to be used for their purpose. Use them for whatever you want! Make a 300m tall monstrosity using 1.875m parts if you want, nothing's stopping you. I mean, people are making hinges out of THERMOMETERS! I think that the new parts will be used for much more than just a "few hours of play", since there are just so many things you can do with the parts in KSP. 

Spoiler

Wow. I just realized what a wall of text I just created. @Snark You happy now?! :D 

 

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12 minutes ago, razark said:

That would be an added feature rather than a bug, because Kerbals can't hold parts, much less drop them.

Ahhhh, that explains it.  Thank you.  I'm using KAS/KIS which allows Kerbals to hold and drop parts.  Gave you a Forum Rep point as well for your answer.

Edited by Apollo13
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38 minutes ago, Apollo13 said:

That's my point; It is a bug because you cannot drop parts on the ground.  A kerbal should be able to drop a part without it exploding.

I was Ninja'd by razark.

Spoiler

What evileye.x is referring to is that Kerbals cannot hold parts in the stock game, let alone drop them. So any instance of Kerbal dropping a held part can only occur in a mod dedicated game, and Squad can't be held responsible for fixing problems that are only introduced by mods.

That said, many (and I do mean many) games have a tough time with collider meshes touching. KSP is far from the only game that spawns objects visably above the surface because spawning them on the surface results in unwanted behavior. It happens with bases jumping when you come into physics range and vessels spawning above the pad/runway in KSP, and it happens in big budget Triple-A games from major studios who have been doing this far longer with far more resources than Squad.

I'm not saying that Squad shouldn't be looked at to fix bugs in their game, but the industry as a whole hasn't fixed this one yet.

Furthermore, your specific instance of dropping an item and having it explode reminds me of a the mod to replace the stock wheel collider with an improved one. The modder programming the collider and physics calculations said that if he access to the low-level PhysX code to force more cycles of calculations then most of the problems would disappear. This modder can increase the simulation calculations in the Unity editor and see how good things work, but the build that the Unity editor spits out is locked to a fraction of that speed. It makes me wonder if it's a similar problem with what you're experiencing: the part being dropped moves from being above the surface to inside the surface from one calculation to the next and boom. Maybe if those calculations occurred more frequently the part would react in a more expected manner, just like the wheel collider. My point is that this issue may be locked out by Unity, or even by the PhysX devs before it even gets implemented by Unity. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at them for implementing physics in such a way that it only works well for more traditional games.

Edited by Mako
Done got ninja'd because I talk too much
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13 hours ago, regex said:

I like the Porkjet parts and the proposed rocket part revamp because the parts looked fresh, clean, and ready to fly. They captured the hand-drawn, cartooney aesthetic of KSP quite well while elevating the general impression of Kerbal handy-work from literal disaster-sim ready garbage found on the side of the road. They were also kind of shiny for once. Kind of like how Bac9 captured this with the buildings, Kerbals being overly-enthusiastic pro-engineers. I feel like the LM's model captures this very well but the texturing feels ... overdone somehow. Maybe it'll look better in the game; for some reason we don't get previews in the game itself.

I agree whole heartedly with this. There are a few great modders out there that seem to follow within PorkJet's parts and his version for clean and crisp graphics. Too many times I find a really great mod that I would love to use, but the visuals make it where it clashes with the existing parts style. In fact, I would be negligent in my comments if I said that all the stock parts seem to go with one another. Since .90, there has been a disconnect in the appearance of the rocket parts versus PorkJet's airplane parts overhaul. 

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2 minutes ago, TheEpicSquared said:

Remember, all of what I said is IMHO. :) 

Oh, I thought you were making an argument against realism in the game. Most of what you said made sense but claiming that it would take the fun out the game was suspect.

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4 minutes ago, TheEpicSquared said:

Remember, all of what I said is IMHO. :) 

and then there's...

1 minute ago, regex said:

Oh, I thought you were making an argument against realism in the game. Most of what you said made sense but claiming that it would take the fun out the game was suspect.

Hahaha.... for some reason, you two sound like siblings arguing who has the most macaroni and cheese in the bowl... :D

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