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KSP Weekly: When things start to take shape


SQUAD

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Welcome to KSP Weekly, everyone. We had another week full of progress on the various projects we are working on, but we also have a couple of days off due to public holidays, so this week’s edition might not be as comprehensive as previous KSP Weeklies, nonetheless, there are plenty of things we want to share with you. So, without further ado, let’s begin.

From now on we’ll divide the contents of KSP Weekly by topic instead of dividing them by department, so we’ll start with the progress we’ve made during the pre-release for the localization update.  We’re about to transition from the bug hunting phase into the final localization cleanup where all the mistranslated phrases get polished up nicely. Russian is getting really close already! And the QA team will be trying to help the rest of the volunteers as much as they can with whatever they need.

Whilst the final cleanups are occurring we will still keep testing and bug hunting in order to squash all of those pesky bugs we might encounter. This week, during the usual cleaning up of the bugtracker, our devs were able to fix more than thirty bugs, including a couple of nasty null reference exceptions in some edge use cases for staging vessels whilst landed and deployable wheels functionality. But that is not all, devs even found some time to apply some improvements to the tools testers and staff use to work on localized texts. These tools also help people find the strings to work with in other languages, so it’s pretty important work to increase the productivity and efficiency of our workforce in that regard. Similarly, we updated the TextMeshPro package and corrected some call stack problems found on the Linux platform.

To close up this section, our artists keep on with the work on the KSPedia screens, which thanks to our volunteers are getting more and more accurate in every language.

Moving on to the advancements for consoles, Blitworks continues to deliver. Our QA testers continue to thoroughly test the coming builds and so far, these haven’t corrupted a save on us yet. A few rockets might have been sacrificed for the cause though, and these poor test kits are functioning quite well as space heaters.

And now it’s time to talk about Making History Expansion!

On a game design perspective, this week was spent editing and going over the design documents for our beloved devs to use when developing the Mission Builder. Our designer has been having lots of interesting conversations with the team about systems and mechanics which has helped massively!

There is plenty going on in the development department for Making History. This week some of the devs have been working on designing the build pipeline for expansions where we will be using asset bundles. The method for creating and loading them and what components we might involve in this process - underpinning infrastructure style stuff. Others worked on making sure that players will be able to save the missions they create properly, a basic function that cannot and won’t be overlooked. Furthermore, work continues on the Expansions functionality with first iterations of the mission editor UI being pieced together. All in all, the expansion is taking form and as any creator will know, it is nice to see how a concept takes shape and becomes more real with each passing day.

Speaking of UI, the art department continues with the task of giving it a really nice look for future mission creators to enjoy. But that’s not all they’ve been busy with, they’ve also been spending some time on textures and modeling IVAs. Aside from these tasks, our artists found some time to make some beards, glasses and other stuff for some very special kerbals, one of a kind, we might say…

In Part News, artists spent time this week wrapping up more of the new American-inspired parts for the expansion before moving on to our Russian-inspired parts. They even had a chance to go test some of them out on the Mun. And here’s a gif of our new LRV wheel in action!

Finally, we encourage you to check out the incredible space stations that were shared on our last KSP Challenge thread - Space Station Week! Incredible, thank you so much for sharing, the creativity of our community inspires us every day. :)

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. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news and development updates!

Happy launchings!

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cool new rover wheels but those seem kind of specialized and limiting, I'm sure the community will love robotics being integrated into the game.

Other than that it's an overall Ok post. comparable to the average quality of notes from the old times Keep it going folks!

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I like the new 'by topic' format.   Much more friendly and easier to follow.  Overall it looks like progress is good on all fronts.  Keep up the good work. 

Edited by pandaman
Correcting my mobiles 'auto correct' issues
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The art department has also been busy with the expansion either working on some of the new American parts, tweaking specular maps and playing Tetris with UV layouts.

missed a spot.
RzXA95a.png

19 minutes ago, Skylon said:

Is that tank on the lander a new texture?

doesn't look like it if you look hard enough you can make out these old hap-hazard placeholder quality scratches
bByboqR.png
it's just a trick of lighting and distance

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11 minutes ago, passinglurker said:

missed a spot.
RzXA95a.png

doesn't look like it if you look hard enough you can make out these old hap-hazard placeholder quality scratches
bByboqR.png
it's just a trick of lighting and distance

Yeah, I see it now. 

But what is the base those rover seats are on?

Edited by Skylon
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6 minutes ago, Skylon said:

But what is the base those rover seats are on?

that is probably new though I'm curious how they plan on getting that rover to the mun history style (the real life lunar rover folded in more ways than just the wheels)

Edited by passinglurker
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Just now, passinglurker said:

that is probably new though I'm curious how they plan on getting that rover to mun history style (the real life lunar rover folded in more ways than just the wheels)

Hopefully it fits in a service bay :P 

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1 minute ago, basic.syntax said:

IIRC, one of the problems Squad had with putting more "robotics" style articulated parts in KSP came from Unity game-engine problems, when one is attached to another.

well there are other ways to approach the problem such as KIS style assembly or some sort of spawning mechanic if folding proves technically infeasible for a reliable core game experience. or like @Skylon said maybe the descent stage parts will just have a big enough service bay.

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1 minute ago, Vanamonde said:

What is circled in red there? 

the UV-map (the bit that tells the game which part of the texture to paint onto which facet of the model) looks like it's slightly misaligned making the edging look stretched on the right and non-existent on the left I pointed it out when the LEM was first revealed.
 

 

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6 minutes ago, Iamsodarncool said:

Is anyone else put off by the appearance of the new wheels? Something bothers me about them but I can't put my finger on what it is... shading maybe?

The tire grooves are a lighter gray, possibly to look like encrusted Mun dust; it looks fine to me in the Mun screenshot but a bit off floating in front of the blue sky. Is that what you're seeing?

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2 hours ago, SQUAD said:

They even had a chance to go test some of them out on the Mun.

I just saw there's a floating boulder in the upper left corner of this pic, along the crater rim. I LOVE IT!!!!  (Emiko Station readers will know why... hehehehe)  

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2 hours ago, EladDv said:

cool new rover wheels but those seem kind of specialized and limiting

Since it's supposed to be based on historical items, I'd expect many of them to be rather specialized and limited.

 

24 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

The tire grooves are a lighter gray, possibly to look like encrusted Mun dust;

I think it looks quite like the LRV tire.  Strips of metal over a mesh structure:

705px-Lunar_Roving_Vehicle_wheel_close-u

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35 minutes ago, Iamsodarncool said:

Is anyone else put off by the appearance of the new wheels? Something bothers me about them but I can't put my finger on what it is... shading maybe?

maybe it's the differences from the historical rover? the real tires had a metal framework interior with a with wire mesh and plates stretched around the outside. It looks like here they moved the framework to the outside making for a much more busy looking appearance which some may find jaring against kerbals cartoon/toy aesthetic.

Or maybe it's just that the edging and AO on the fenders is too weak or loose to be made out in this lighting/distance? I would say it could use some scratch and grunge like we have on the landing gear, but the real lunar rover fenders were admittedly more of a fiberglass-like material... ah that's it! the fenders lack beveling! You see when you see a hard edge you think it's metal and expect the scratches and grunge if they beveled the ridges it would appear softer matching the material as textured better.

NEFmdlr.png

Edited by passinglurker
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