Here's Your First Look at Kerbal Space Program: First Contract

[Spazmataz]

There are lot of questions around part recovery -- what about parts that get jettisoned during launch like SRBs and stages? Are parachutes or probe cores needed, etc?

they pretty definitively said those would NOT get recovered w/o a mod at the moment

Pardon me for my ignorance, but when/where was this said?

[Sky_walker]

Problem with pre-scripted is that suddenly we ended up with a campagin that got a limited playtime o_O

[rodion_herrera]

Problem with pre-scripted is that suddenly we ended up with a campagin that got a limited playtime o_O

For players like me who have barely enough time to play KSP because of "real life", that would actually be a good thing. Short, doable, and satisfying campaigns for the weekend rocketeer.

[AlamoVampire]

just to make 100% sure, Steam should auto-update as perusual and kick it into 64 bit right? <i know i should auto-update for sure, just not sure about going from 32 to 64 bit>

[micha]

just to make 100% sure, Steam should auto-update as perusual and kick it into 64 bit right? <i know i should auto-update for sure, just not sure about going from 32 to 64 bit>

On Linux you have to manually launch the 64 bit version, or edit your steam configuration. By default it launched the 32 bit version. But it was part of the download.

[AlamoVampire]

On Linux you have to manually launch the 64 bit version, or edit your steam configuration. By default it launched the 32 bit version. But it was part of the download.

Im running on windows on steam, which i know will dl automatic but will it automatic load 32 or 64 bit?

[Linear]

Problem with pre-scripted is that suddenly we ended up with a campagin that got a limited playtime o_O

That's probably the idea, there are a lot of people who do want some kind of closure. For them, it could be when the engine switches to procedural contracts! :-)

[Streetwind]

Im running on windows on steam, which i know will dl automatic but will it automatic load 32 or 64 bit?

I assume that it will default to 32bit, because that is guaranteed to work for every Steam user. Guaranteed functionality is a priority for Squad and Steam, everything else comes after that.

To launch 64bit you need to run a different .exe file. The new 64bit .exe will probably be included in the download. You can manually tell Steam which executable to run, so making it launch 64bit will be just a small properties edit away if you have the necessary file.

Edited July 12, 2014 by Streetwind

[smunisto]

Problem is - is this true 64-bit, or they just updated the game, without changing the unity version? Will we be able to use more than 3 Gb RAM?

[Tw1]

I must say, I am impressed. After the shallow science system, I had my doubts about how the game would go on, and if Career would be fun. But this looks nice. Well done Devs!

The thing I'm looking forward to? Reverse rockets. Engine clusters built to use monoprop, and RCS control measures using liquid fuel and oxy-clean. Sweet.

I may be considering some CFG modifications, to put new partmodules to the test...

Edited July 12, 2014 by Tw1

[SkyRex94]

So rough estimates: Ship Launched for ca.3150 Kredits

Engine Cost for 850

And the Recovered Funds were 1707

So: 3150 - 850 - 1707 = 593 difference

Included in Refund were 37 (i think) Funds for Fuel and 33 for Oxidiser = 70 Funds for remaining fuel , wich was a 1/3 of the starting amount, so

fuel wise 3*70 = 210 were included in the rocket plus 12 (or 13 ?) Funds for Monopropellant.

So 3150-850-210-12 = 2078 = initial part cost of the recovered parts without ressources.

Recovery value for them would be : 1707 - 70 (Fuel) - 12(RCS) = 1625 Funds

so recovery Cost and part value loss were 2078 - 1625 = 453

So we got a little more than 78 % of the part cost back. Which i think is a good value for proposed maintenance cost and it'll probably make Reusable ships/planes usefull (e.g. recover your SSTO, attach new payload launch again-- not unrealistical high maintenance cost)

Keep in mind thats only the percentage based on a Mk1 Pod, 3 tanks and a parachute, so with higher class parts these percentage could go up or down, because as said the percentage is different for every part (good thing to know would the % of an engine in this calculation).

P.S. I hope i guestimated the numbers right, some of them were really hard to read. if you read something significantly different let me know.

P.P.S I missed the Map view to see if 0.24 maybe changes Eeloos Orbit and intruduce GP2 ... hope is dying last

Edited July 12, 2014 by SkyRex94

[BudgetHedgehog]

Is there any reason the launch defaults to 50% throttle now? Or is it just for shiggles? If I'm brutally honest, that's pointless at best and annoying at worst. I have to throttle up 100% at launch anyway, it doesn't matter if my starting throttle is 50% or 0%.

Also one thing I noted, in the VAB, with the funds counter at the bottom right, they didn't seem to be lined up the same. It looked like:

   39576.56
    4315245

It's a slight niggle but wouldn't it make more sense to line them up so we can immediately see which one's bigger? Maybe it was the youtube quality, but having to parse the different decimal places in the figures as well as actually reading them takes longer than just seeing if 3 is bigger than 2. Not to mention they're different fonts and have different spacing. In essence, I'm just saying that this:

    39576.56
  4315245.00

Is easier and quicker to parse.

Oh and one for the FAQ: Is the toolbar movable? Because that was the only corner of my screen I could almost comfortably put my FRAPS FPS counter.

Edited July 12, 2014 by ObsessedWithKSP

[NoMrBond]

Problem is - is this true 64-bit

Yes

or they just updated the game, without changing the unity version?

Yes (x64 for 4.3.3 works)

Will we be able to use more than 3 Gb RAM?

Yes

-----

P.P.S I missed the Map view to see if 0.24 maybe changes Eeloos Orbit and intruduce GP2 ... hope is dying last

Didn't Max say that extra planets would only be arriving during the Beta (polish phase following feature complete)?

Maybe I was reading too much into it

[kujuman]

a half-baked implementation of the Mission Controller Extended mod. Sure, official 64-bit support and a few other tidbits are nice, but...six months of development time for this?

I've seen this attitude before on the forum and elsewhere, and I just don't understand it.

1) MC was designed from the start to give us a taste of what career mode would be like. MC is a mod which gave players a preview of career mode before it was developed, not a game feature Squad copied because they had nothing else to do.

2) Why is the assumption that contracts will be "half-baked"? We honestly have no knowledge one way or the other, but I would lean on Squad doing a fuller job (even if it's just making modding it simpler) than MCE has been able to do, as much development as it has gotten.

3) April, May, June, July...yup, six months

The real problem is that we're spoiled by the hundreds of actively maintained mods and hundreds of thousands of hours modders have probably put into the game. "We have mods for Missions, Squad should do something else." Um, like what? Spaceplane parts? New planets? Resource detection and collection? Better aerodynamics? Heating effects on reentry? Life support? Base modules? Parts parts and moar parts? Navigation utilities? Warp drives? New launch sites, both on Kerbin and off? Performance enhancements? Stronger joints? MFDs? Shuttle engine controllers? New effects? Ropes and winches? Yeah, there are mods for all of those, so Squad should just sit back and not work on them at all. And considering the growth of the modding community, Squad is basically unable to compete at something they should have a monopoly on.

Rovers? Docking? Electricity? You may not know this, but these all existed in mods before they became stock. Heck, two separate docking mods came out in .17 which were buggy as hell but were proof of concept enough for Harv to spend an afternoon trying out his own version during the .18 update cycle. That's why we got docking when we did and not a few versions later. It's really unfortunate that there are so many players who never got to experience the game when it was a promise of things to come instead of the final development of those things, and that they don't really understand just how much the game is still in development because, for the most part, it feels very polished. No longer are the two missions that exist 1) getting to the Mun and 2) rescuing the pod that broke off your Mun lander (not the kerbals, the pod) using landing gear to sorta claw it in place.

If contracts are to be even half as moddable as PartModules are, we're really in for a treat with the things the community comes up with.

[SkyRex94]

Didn't Max say that extra planets would only be arriving during the Beta (polish phase following feature complete)?

Maybe I was reading too much into it

Read my Huge Blue Horizon Thread in Development Disscusion. There i point out why Eeloo and so GP2 (not any other GP2 Moons) couldn't fall under this "After-Scope-Completion"-Rule

[kujuman]

Also one thing I noted, in the VAB, with the funds counter at the bottom right, they didn't seem to be lined up the same. It looked like:

I noticed this too, and I agree totally. Perhaps a post launch total would be nice, or "This launch is 24% of total funds? But too cumbersome perhaps.

Didn't Max say that extra planets would only be arriving during the Beta (polish phase following feature complete)?

My understanding the past year+ on this point was that new planets are waiting for 1) a discovery mechanic (if that's still on the roadmap) 2) performance improvements

[SkyRex94]

Another thing i noticed: The parachute was 422 to buy but got only 337 refundend: 422-337= 85 Funds lost.

The Fuel left in the rocket was worth 70 Funds. So leaving the parachute away and make a powered landing could have been a littler cheaper indeed.

Which means a Sapce-X approach with powered landing reusable parts could actually be more economical than slapping expensive parachutes on it

[Sky_walker]

2) Why is the assumption that contracts will be "half-baked"?

I'll try to answer that:

No procedural contracts.

I must say, I am impressed. After the shallow science system, I had my doubts about how the game would go on, and if Career would be fun. But this looks nice. Well done Devs!

What convinced you?

[BudgetHedgehog]

No procedural contracts.

..yet. No procedural contracts yet. If they come later in career mode or in a later version is unclear though. The problem stems from people not being able to understand Miguel, if he says "but we'll switch to procedural later on" or "but will switch to procedural later on". The former implies later in career, the latter implies later version of KSP.

[kujuman]

I'll try to answer that:

No procedural contracts.

Do we actually know that?

From Harv's dev blag #2

The plan then was to split up the update into two smaller chunks: Contracts first, generate missions based on this progress-aware, semi-procedural framework, then create some placeholder contracts to make sure the thing worked[emphasis added]. On the next update then, tie it together with budget management and add in some proper contracts.

So...yeah, at worst we don't know, and they'll be in the next version. At best, we get them in .24 because procedural contracts were intended to be in .24 even before ca$h-mon€y (which is what I will refer to "Funds" as) became a thing. At super best we get completely new missions like sample return. Laying the groundwork is not "half-baked", it's intelligent.

In the end, I'm waiting for the FAQ

Is there any reason the launch defaults to 50% throttle now? Or is it just for shiggles? If I'm brutally honest, that's pointless at best and annoying at worst. I have to throttle up 100% at launch anyway, it doesn't matter if my starting throttle is 50% or 0%.

It's good that they're thinking about default throttle setting. I don't know if I want 100% to be the default. Maybe ideal behavior (for me) would be during ship load:

If(LaunchAtPad == true)

set throttle full or so TWR is no more than 2G.

else //is spaceplane

set throttle some amount (don't really care, maybe 0)

if (vesselIsRover)

throttle = 0

I do a bunch of launch-but-not-really-launches, so remembering to throttle down so I can quicksave would be annoying to me. I can imagine a happy medium is hard to find.

Although we can throttle down instantly...maybe we just really need a full throttle hotkey?

Edited July 12, 2014 by kujuman

[Comrade Jenkens]

Any idea on when the media group gets this?

[bigyihsuan]

The thing I'm looking forward to? Reverse rockets. Engine clusters built to use monoprop, and RCS control measures using liquid fuel and oxy-clean. Sweet.

Have fun with your even bigger, monstrous LFO-RCS controlled, 10,000 part monstrosities.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Any idea on when the media group gets this?

A day or less before release.

[cwhiz]

Update is looking good. I am particularly interested to see what sort of cool, fun contracts there are. I have to say I'm probably most excited about the aesthetic improvements of the space plane parts.

[BudgetHedgehog]

It's good that they're thinking about default throttle setting. I don't know if I want 100% to be the default. Maybe ideal behavior (for me) would be during ship load:

If(LaunchAtPad == true)

set throttle full or so TWR is no more than 2G.

else //is spaceplane

set throttle some amount (don't really care, maybe 0)

if (vesselIsRover)

throttle = 0

I do a bunch of launch-but-not-really-launches, so remembering to throttle down so I can quicksave would be annoying to me. I can imagine a happy medium is hard to find.

Although we can throttle down instantly...maybe we just really need a full throttle hotkey?

A TWR of 2 would be even more annoying because, as I'm running with FAR, I never design my rocket to have a TWR of over 1.5 in the first place. Also, you can quicksave while throttled up I believe. Yes, a 100% throttle hotkey is sorely needed and that's why I have FloorIt installed - I'm going to be pressing Z in any case.

Yes, there is a happy medium - 0%. People are going to be throttling up anyway for launch (not every rocket is designed to take off at 50% throttle and if it can, you can get away with a small, lighter and less powerful engine) and other times, people will want 0% throttle anyway (like you said for rovers).

All those issues aside, if you launch and then leave the thing on the launchpad, it won't autosave because the vessel is throttled up. Which means if you wanted to leave to space centre, you'd have to throttle down.