KSP Weekly: The space pioneers and other adventures

[SQUAD]

Welcome to KSP Weekly everyone. On a day like today, 60 years ago and just 3 weeks after the Soviet Union had launched the first man into space, NASA launched the first American human spacecraft: the Mercury-Redstone 3, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard Jr. Shepard’s mission consisted of a 15-minute suborbital flight with the primary objective of demonstrating his ability to withstand the high G-forces of launch and atmospheric re-entry. He named his space capsule Freedom 7, setting a precedent for the remaining six Mercury astronauts naming their spacecraft. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 101.2 nautical miles (187.5 kilometers) and traveled a downrange distance of 263.1 nautical miles (487.3 kilometers). A few years later, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the Apollo Lunar Module Antares to the most accurate landing of the Apollo missions. At age 47, he became the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon, and the only one of the Mercury Seven astronauts to do so. During the mission, he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface. Here at the KSP HQ we are constantly inspired by the legacy of the brave men and women who pioneered space travel, such as the legendary Alan Shepard. But you didn’t come here to learn about history or read motivational texts, so let’s start with this new issue about the latest developments of KSP.

Let’s begin with the developments of the upcoming 1.3 Update. The past week, although it was a little bit shorter for some of us due to the May holidays was spent testing more localization changes, improvements, and the newest fixes for the core game. For example, we adjusted the internal camera system to solve an issue with a green colored line appearing over the ocean, which we’re sure will be welcomed. Similarly, some time was spent addressing some long standing issues with shadows and we were able to solve the old shadow issue in the KSC scene for buildings. The devs also fixed a problem with the maneuver nodes and patched conics where the maneuver node would jump to an invalid location on the screen when a vessel was burning it’s engines past a node and the projected conics encountered another bodies SOI. Investigations into a few of the other, and most difficult to reproduce bugs, have also been drawn into focus, but still need time and effort to pin down completely for dev attention.

Some of the devs tested some mods, so we can assure that they’ll work properly with the new additions coming to 1.3, as well as to nicely document all of the api changes and new features. Check out the modders Notes for 1.2.9, that have been posted on the KSP Pre-release subforum, we’re sure there’s very useful information for you modders there.

And to wrap up the news about localization, the work on the KSPedia and localized textures continues with the help of the dedicated group of volunteers who have been helping us to ensure the proper translation of all the terminology within the game.

In other news, Console testing continues with each new build bringing promising results too.

As we mentioned in a past issue of KSP Weekly, we have been working together with Blitworks on improving the game’s control scheme for consoles and one good example we mentioned are the maneuver nodes controls in the orbital view, which now can be easily adjusted with the following control scheme:

PS4

• Prograde/Retrograde = Press LS + Up or Down
• Normal/Anti-normal = Press LS + L1 + Up or Down
• Radial In/Radial Out = Press LS + R1 + Up or Down
• Move maneuver = Press LS + L1 + R1 + Up or Down

XB1

• Prograde/Retrograde = Press LS + Up or Down
• Normal/Anti-normal = Press LS + LB + Up or Down
• Radial In/Radial Out = Press LS + RB + Up or Down
• Move maneuver = Press LS + LB + RB + Up or Down

We have some visuals for you to see how it works too (see, no cursor)!

There was some progress in the development of the Making History expansion as well. On one hand the work on defining the expansion’s stories and tasks is moving forward, coupled with the Expansion’s iterative development.

Furthermore, there’s been some work on some minor tasks and adjustments for the new expansion, including several code reviews on the expansion system as well as polishing the saving mechanism to list and persist expansions in the ExpansionBuildWindow. We also refactored code to support bundle name hashing instead of pure bundle hashes and added support to generate and modify content for ScriptableObject during editor runtime.

In addition to all the technical work mentioned above, the expansion parts have been getting more QA feedback and testing, including getting part failures working with edge cases such as when vessels are unloaded. Devs also worked on getting the calls to expansion code to fail gracefully when the expansion isn’t installed.

And on the parts subject, we have another surprise for you. The team was able to get more work done on our American engines, and also wrapped up some finishing touches on a new 2.5m Apollo-inspired capsule. Check it out!  

Our artists have also been working on the expansion’s UI, which is looking great and hopefully we’ll be able to give you a sneak peak soon.

Finally, we encourage you to participate in our latest KSP Challenge - Landing like Elon does! This time around the challenge consists of orbiting and landing under rocket power only without lander legs or any mods. Are you up to the challenge? Check it out and share your creations!

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!

[AlamoVampire]

Interesting stuff. Guess I need to dust off my space y download and give it a go. Bet elon does better than me lol. Any word on price on the expac? Also first yay!

Edited May 5, 2017 by AlamoVampire

[Waxing_Kibbous]

Ooooh nice capsule, is that ladder on the front by any chance

[klgraham1013]

13 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

a new 2.5m Apollo capsule. Check it out!

Looks great!

[Just Jim]

Love the capsule... but because I take so many screenshots, I'm much more excited to hear the shadows are being addressed... 

[RoverDude]

Yes, the ladder is in front, and those RCS ports work

[JPLRepo]

3 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

Love the capsule... but because I take so many screenshots, I'm much more excited to hear the shadows are being addressed... 

Download it and try it. The fixes are in the latest prerelease that got published an hour or two ago. version 1.2.9.1781
EDIT: The shadow fixes I meant. Not the Apollo capsule.

[nestor]

1 minute ago, JPLRepo said:

Download it and try it. The fixes are in the latest prerelease that got published an hour or two ago. version 1.2.9.1781

I am waiting for the Mac Book Pro shadows to be fixed, but I think that's only me and a few other guys. 

[klesh]

Pod looks fab.  Very Kerbal.  

[XLjedi]

Yer killin me with the localization and console control stuffs...  hopefully you will be rid of it soon?

Looking forward to hearing when the mission editor will be released, I'll buy it.   ...if that helps.  Hard to participate/contribute to current mission challenges if I know something better is on the horizon.  I'll wait, I s'pose.

Edited May 6, 2017 by XLjedi

[CoreI]

45 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Yes, the ladder is in front, and those RCS ports work

Sweet! The capsule looks great! I love that the RCS Ports are actually RCS Ports. Reduced part count for the win!

I can't wait to see some sneak peeks of the Expansion UI.

 

[Just Jim]

45 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

Download it and try it. The fixes are in the latest prerelease that got published an hour or two ago. version 1.2.9.1781
EDIT: The shadow fixes I meant. Not the Apollo capsule.

I really wish I could, but I'm running about a dozen and a half mods for Emiko Station, so I'll need to wait for the official release, and then give the mod makers time to catch up before I can switch everything over.

But if anyone has a screenshot of the shadow fixes I'd love to see how they look!

[JPLRepo]

5 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

I really wish I could, but I'm running about a dozen and a half mods for Emiko Station, so I'll need to wait for the official release, and then give the mod makers time to catch up before I can switch everything over.

But if anyone has a screenshot of the shadow fixes I'd love to see how they look!

You could download and install a separate instance. But here you go (just what I already had).

 

[Just Jim]

4 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

You could download and install a separate instance. But here you go (just what I already had).

Probably, but I don't want to chance it. I screwed it up once already and almost lost my career game. I'm patient, I can wait, and the screenshots look great! Thank you!!!  

Edited May 6, 2017 by Just Jim

[passinglurker]

1 hour ago, SQUAD said:

and also wrapped up some finishing touches on a new 2.5m Apollo capsule. Check it out!  

Now this! ^^^^

This is a perfect opportunity to use DLC to support improvements to the core game. My disapproval for button rows of bolts that don't exist on the real thing aside Why let the ugly old ram hogging mk1-2 pod/IVA linger in the part catalog when this can replace it? 

Why should I give squad more money when they won't even use DLC as an excuse to polish the rough parts of the core game that got the shaft in the rush to 1.0?

[theJesuit]

1 hour ago, SQUAD said:

 

And on the parts subject, we have another surprise for you. The team was able to get more work done on our American engines, and also wrapped up some finishing touches on a new 2.5m Apollo capsule. Check it out!  

 

As someone who uses Stock Replacement Assets and Color Coded Canisters regardless of install and other mods that I am or may not use, simply because IMHO the stock textures on the stock pods are so awful, and the tanks too, this is gratefully received.

Peace.

[StrandedonEarth]

That new 2.5m Apollo pod looks mahvelous, and working RCS ports too! Can you please just use that to replace the current 2.5m pod?

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

The Mk1-2 is "ugly" and "awful"? News to me. Happens to be my favorite command module. I try to use it on every ship I can, even though it's so heavy. Speaking of which, can the staff tell us what the mass is going to be on this new beauty?

[klgraham1013]

21 minutes ago, theJesuit said:

snip

I immediately thought it would go well with the NecroBones suite.

[qzgy]

I like the new capsule. Though the color palette is not really to my taste. The whites seem a bit too much greyed. I personally like the older porkjet colorations/style.

This is an opinion, do not start a flame war

Edited May 6, 2017 by qzgy

[passinglurker]

4 minutes ago, qzgy said:

I like the new capsule. Though the color palette is not really to my taste. The whites seem a bit too much greyed. I personally like the older porkjet colorations/style.

This is an opinion, do not start a flame war

I haven't had a chance to test the exact colors yet but the porkjet spaceplane "white" is actually always greyer than people remember

Still those bolts though. Reeeeeee!

Edited May 6, 2017 by passinglurker

[qzgy]

1 minute ago, passinglurker said:

I haven't had a chance to test the exact colors yet but the porkjet spaceplane "white" is actually always greyer than people remember

Took a look. You might be right...

Still, something doesn't sit right with me on the models. Could be the panel lines. I'm not sure.

Edited May 6, 2017 by qzgy

[shdwlrd]

I'm wondering once the controls are nailed down for the consoles, will Squad make them the default gamepad setup for the pc versions. You know, to help out the people who can't fly with a keyboard and don't have time or know how to setup a gamepad for the game.

Good to see the shadows and green line is fixed. Both were annoying, never a deal breaker, but annoying.

[passinglurker]

Just now, qzgy said:

Took a look. You might be right...

Still, something doesn't sit right with me on the models. Could be the panel lines. I'm not sure.

Well compared to standards established by porkjet I note a few differences (note I'm assuming since it's using a mk1 fuselage endcap that the manufacturer is C7 and therefore should follow the C7 agency style...)

1. Panel lines and the edgewear on the panel lines isn't applied consistently (around the door, between the body panels and heat shield panels, around the RCS panels)
2. Corners on the panels aren't subtly rounded
3. The little button rows of bolts that have no precedence either in real life or kerbals "aesthetic" and are generally bad engineering (why are they on the heat shield!?)

any of this sticking?

[qzgy]

Just now, passinglurker said:

Well compared to standards established by porkjet I note a few differences (note I'm assuming since it's using a mk1 fuselage endcap that the manufacturer is C7 and therefore should follow the C7 agency style...)

1. Panel lines and the edgewear on the panel lines isn't applied consistently (around the door, between the body panels and heat shield panels, around the RCS panels)
2. Corners on the panels aren't subtly rounded
3. The little button rows of bolts that have no precedence either in real life or kerbals "aesthetic" and are generally bad engineering (why are they on the heat shield!?)

any of this sticking?

All of it.

Edited May 6, 2017 by qzgy