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Devnote Tuesdays: The "Can't Spell Kerbal without K" Edition


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<p><strong>Felipe (HarvesteR)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> Spent the day yesterday at the office with everyone, checking out everything and mostly making sure everything’s coming along. Things are moving at a really nice pace, I must say. I took some time last week and today to compose a little jazzy piece to play in the Admin Facility, I think it’s going to fit in well there. Also worked with Alex to organize a lot of sound effects we had into a nice library for later use. </span></p>

<p><span>That is about all I can openly discuss for now. As you’re probably imagining, we are working on a lot more stuff than we’re sharing here, and that’s because those are one of two things: Either it’s something that is too early in development to talk about, or it’s something that will only be used on a feature not scheduled for 0.25 (in which case it’s also much too early to talk about). Such secrecy is necessary sometimes, and I agree talking about having stuff we can’t talk about doesn’t make for very good devnote material, but I don’t want to have you thinking we’re not working on anything.</span></p>

<p><span>Indeed, we are all working frantically towards a very large goal. This is one of the largest, if not </span><span>the </span><span>largest concerted effort to develop a single feature we’ve ever had. We’ll share our plans as soon as they reach a point where they are matured enough to be discussed openly. For now, we have to keep these things under wraps, so please bear with us and try to keep speculation to a minimum, ok? </span></p>

<p><strong>Alex (aLeXmOrA): </strong><span>I worked with Felipe on selecting new sounds for the parts. There were a lot of them that we had not decided if they fit in the game. Now we have a library from where we can test and select the ones for each part. We’ve whittled it down to about 85 sounds overall. Also, we released the updated version of <em>KerbalEdu</em> with 0.24.2 features. And I’m almost done with changes to the <em>KSP</em> Store website.</span></p>

<p><strong>Mike (Mu):</strong><span> Well, the administration backend got a bit of a rewrite to make it a lot more interesting to modders. It was already very moddable but it’s systems can now be fully config defined which should add a little spice to things. I’ve also been plowing on with a new logging system for vessels and kerbals. This will become the basis for a few new systems linked to career mode and will give us a better idea of where our intrepid astronauts have been.</span></p>

<p><strong>Marco (Samssonart): </strong><span>Now that the cat is well out of the bag, I can disclose that I have been working on a few features. First of all, additional NavBall icons! Now, the Normal and Radial vectors will be visible on the NavBall. An arrow will also indicate the general direction of the maneuver marker when using maneuver nodes. I’m currently working on crew transfer, meaning there will be no more need to EVA kerbals to transfer them among docked crafts. In other news we updated the edu version of the game, so all you <em>KerbalEDU</em> users will now have version 0.24.2.</span></p>

<p><strong>Daniel (danRosas)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> I am deep in the ocean of modeling and texturing. You know, moving vertex, uvs, painting. Trial and error. The pipeline between the artists has been set up, so it’s just trying to oil the machine that’s departed the preparation face. You can also read more about our current status in Maxmaps’ dev note. <em>The life of a game artist.</em></span></p>

<p><strong>Jim (Romfarer)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> This week i have decided to make my notes in two parts: Part 1 is for those that don’t want to read technical gui stuff and part 2 is.</span></p>

<p><span><em>Part 1:</em> Last week the team was challenged to make a mun landing. Basically the challenge was something like this: “<em>We are determining the team’s capability to land on the mun. Do that and we will send you a stupid t-shirt.â€Â</em> <a href="http://imgur.com/a/sZ6FS"><strong>HERE</strong></a> are some images from my mission: </span><span>As you can see, i decided to take the challenge a bit further and see how small a vessel i could make it with. I think my concept is sound enough, but when i finally landed it on the mun i realized i didn’t have enough fuel to make it back. So here is a challenge to you: Can you make it back to Kerbin and land on the runway again? (The whole point of my vessel is to not drop any fuel tanks during the mission.)</span></p>

<p><span><em>Part 2:</em> I needed a incremental power slider for a part of the new administration facility gui. The framework (EzGUI) we use for this can’t handle that so i had to come up with a nifty trick to make that work. Basically the existing implementation can only move the slider up and down or left to right, but it doesn’t tick along certain increments. Adding a callback on “ValueChanged†for the slider won’t work either because a ticking slider obviously doesn’t change it’s value until the next tick, so it’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem. So i created two sliders on top of each other, the top one being transparent but with triggering colliders. The invisible slider is actually moving with 0 increments, and whenever it gets in “half range†to the next increment, it sends and update to the bottom slider to have the knob move to the next increment. When the slider is dropped both sliders snaps into place on the given increment so the colliders are aligned and ready for the next move.</span></p>

<p><span><strong>Miguel (Maxmaps):</strong> </span><span>Organizing stuff for adding new sounds and overall effects to the game. Looking great so far. Also, our art team is currently sequestered in what is the largest 3D asset endeavor that we have overtaken so far. So much so you won’t see it in .25, so forgive them if they’re not really sharing a lot of info on the matter. We are talking dozens of high quality models that must be made. Oh, I also wrapped up a deal with <strong>Porkjet</strong> to add a modified version of <strong>Spaceplane Plus</strong> to the base game. This mod not only fits the aesthetic of the game perfectly but tackles parts that needed to be remade and did so in the best way possible.</span></p>

<p><span>While we generally focus on our own implementation of features and prefer to do things in-house (Benefits are large, for starters having full control over code/asset quality), <strong>Spaceplane Plus</strong> is so close to precisely what we wanted that you’ll practically see the whole mod ingame after a couple minor adjustments. Shoutout to <strong>Porkjet</strong> who has been an absolute pleasure to work with.</span></p>

<p><strong>Bob (Calisker):</strong><span> Have a good week everyone - I’m on holiday with the family. </span></p>

<p><strong>Ted (Ted): </strong><span><a href="http://youtu.be/T2BNmn8TYdE">Good news everyone!</a> I finished processing all 684 tester applications and have now closed down registration. There were some really fantastic applications in there that simply blew me away. It’s unfortunate that we don’t need as many testers as there were brilliant applications. It’s going to be tough to narrow it down to the final 50 - 60. However, I do really want to thank everyone that took the time to apply.</span></p>

<p><span>Outside of the applications, I’ve been wrapping up my work on the Testing Documentation, as well as finishing off the evaluations of both the Testing Teams. Finally, I’ve been keeping up with the awesome features that the developers are working on, trying to contain my excitement to a barely professional level.</span></p>

<p><span><strong>Anthony (Rowsdower):</strong> So how are we doing this week? Any better? Any worse? We know the devnotes aren’t always as action packed as you may like and hopefully HarvesteR’s given a better insight as to why, up above. That said, I spent a good deal of time over the last week just scanning reactions, talking things through on our end and created a survey for you to fill out on what you’d like to see, any changes that should be made, so on and so forth. Now, I’d planned to have it ready for you today, but it’s still undergoing edits and approvals so while it’s not here yet, expect it soon. We’ll get some decent mileage with a much more focus stream of thoughts from the community. Otherwise, I’ve still been spending a lot of time on the KSP-TV front. Things are getting better there every day and both OverlordUT, as well as N1tch are playing nicely. Say, did any of you catch Ferretbomb on the channel last night? Finally, I voted for the banana. Why isn’t the banana in the game? As always, blame Yargnit :P<br/></span></p>

<p><span><strong>Eduardo (Lalo):</strong> </span><span>.Organizing some legal contracts, making sure that the remodeling of the office is in order and following up with the entire team on deadlines.</span></p>

<p><strong>Rogelio (Roger):</strong><span> We’ve been modeling, doing uv maps, texturing, and optimizing as much as we can. Before Squad, I was used to modeling and texturing in a more artistic way, but doing it to fit in a videogame has been challenging and I really like it. The production schedule was also finally done between Dan, Nick and myself. It establishes due dates and current status of the models we’re doing. It will be fun to improve our skills as a team. </span></p>

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Nice devnotes, plenty of good information. :) Also -- how is HarvesteR so talented? He can write code *and* compose music? Wow!

And... Spaceplane Plus is becoming stock? Woot! Also, "This will become the basis for a few new systems linked to career mode and will give us a better idea of where our intrepid astronauts have been." Something like FinalFrontier, if I read that right? Nice. And EnhancedNavball functionality in the stock game? Two more hoorays from me!

Edited by Woopert
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So how are we doing this week? Any better? Any worse?

Much better. This is what I would expect when I open a link to "devnotes". Thanks, guys, great read!

E: Also, if SP+ ends up in the game without the cargo bay, I'm going to be very unhappy.

Edited by regex
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Spaceplane Plus? More navball icons? The admin building!? Wooooooooooooooooooohooooooooooooooooo! But we're still not getting the banana :(

So it looks like the admin facility will have sliders... interesting.

Anyway, these were the kind of devnotes we were all looking for! Great read!

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"This is one of the largest, if not the largest concerted effort to develop a single feature we’ve ever had."

Let's speculate: Multithreading or some super IVA, or Planetary refined details !

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These devnotes are a lot better than last time. There's some good information here. I am really happy to see that SpacePlanes Plus will be in the game because it is a fantastic pack. Also Enhanced Navball and Crew Manifest in the game is going to be great too! Great read!

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So how are we doing this week? Any better?

Now THIS is a Tuesday Dev Note worth reading. thank you.

Once again, Squad shows its commitment to modders to clearly demonstrate that modders are members of the extended Squad team. Glad to see that SpacePlane Plus is the mod chosen. Perhaps, the first of many.

I agree talking about having stuff we can’t talk about doesn't make for very good devnote material, but I don’t want to have you thinking we’re not working on anything.
I don't believe any community member thinks you're doing nothing. We're certain you're working on 0.25 and beyond. However, in the typical Dev Notes (let's be frank; today's is atypical), when somebody states "I'm working on something, but I can't tell you about it", appears to be taunting. Just don't say anything. Talk about what you can or are willing to discuss. Edited by Apollo13
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"This is one of the largest, if not the largest concerted effort to develop a single feature we’ve ever had."

Let's speculate: Multithreading or some super IVA, or Planetary refined details !

Multiplayer.

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Great Devnote! Lots of new/interesting information! THIS is what I like to read, especially when we only get word once a week.

Thanks for listening to the community and providing a better/more appealing service. Since, you know, our complaints could have just as easily been disregarded.

Thanks again, from a satisfied reader. :D

[EDIT: In addition, can't wait for that survey! :)]

Edited by RazorWolf19
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<p><span><strong>Anthony (Rowsdower):</strong> So how are we doing this week? Any better? Any worse?

Much much better. This is exactly what I expect to see when I read devnotes - notes on the game development, not just a 'I'm still employed and doing things'. My thanks to you, Rowsy for getting the team to divulge more (based on last weeks notes) and to, of course, the team for divulging more. Let's hope this continues, eh?

In other news, hooray! One of my favourite mods is becoming stock! Congrats and massive thanks to Porkjet for creating such beautiful parts and thanks to Squad for integrating it into stock - it's a huge leap forward in community interaction. Also, yes, if the cargo bays don't make it, I shall be very angry. So angry, in fact, that I'll keep them installed from SP+ :P I'm really quite excited about the Admin Building too - I feel like saying 'yes, that's very well, but what does it actually do?'.

Well done and thanks to everyone involved in this weeks notes. Seriously looking forward to 0.25 :)

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<p><span><strong>Miguel (Maxmaps):</strong> </span><span>Organizing stuff for adding new sounds and overall effects to the game. Looking great so far. Also, our art team is currently sequestered in what is the largest 3D asset endeavor that we have overtaken so far. So much so you won’t see it in .25, so forgive them if they’re not really sharing a lot of info on the matter. We are talking dozens of high quality models that must be made. Oh, I also wrapped up a deal with <strong>Porkjet</strong> to add a modified version of <strong>Spaceplane Plus</strong> to the base game. This mod not only fits the aesthetic of the game perfectly but tackles parts that needed to be remade and did so in the best way possible.</span></p>

:D

71ZXuGBl.png?1

All aboard the hype train!

And yes, the devnotes this week were very interesting. Thanks!

Edited by mythbusters844
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"This is one of the largest, if not the largest concerted effort to develop a single feature we’ve ever had."

Let's speculate: Multithreading or some super IVA, or Planetary refined details !

It's multiplayer. It's got to be.

It's a feature that involves almost all the code in the game, how could anything be larger?

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Very nice Devnotes! Bravo!

I'm very glad to hear about Spaceplane Plus, I haven't paid much attention to that mod, but when so many people voted for it, I looked at it and wow... They fit with the stock parts so well! (Does this mean we're getting stock cargo bays?!!!).

And of course enhanced Navballs and Crew manifest (at least, those features in the game, not the actual mod)!

It appears that .25 will be a much more interesting update than I expected... Alllllll aboard!!! CHOO CHOOOOOO!

P.S. Wouldn't the banana make a great easter egg? *hint* *hint*

Edited by RocketPilot573
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Rowsdower, one question: would SP+ cargobays be implemented? It's time to stop these docking port+RCS+lots of panels contraptions.

Multiplayer.

I don't think so - this would require LOTS of work, which means they would need to basically stop developing the main game. My money is on the proper loading system, which (finally!!!!) wouldn't require keeping all textures in RAM. This is absolutely possible and had been demonstrated with Load On Demand plugin.

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