Devnote Tuesdays: The Really Hot Edition

[klgraham1013]

The re-entry feature is new

Semantics messing with me. I interpreted the use of "new" in a way it was probably not intended.

[tntristan12]

So glad to hear re-entry heat is incoming! Now the only features I am desperately clamoring for are clouds and something like atmospheric sound enhancement! (RemoteTech would also be nice, but I'm perfectly okay with keeping that as a mod)

[r4pt0r]

Daniel (danRosas): I have been working on the female Kerbals long before the announcement. Now that it’s public knowledge, I can talk about them! It’s been a while since we started doing concepts, playing with the shapes, the texture ideas, how it would affect the current rig for the Kerbals, silhouettes, and all those processes involving character design. Right now I’m moving the default kerbal joints and adjusting them to the female version, also painting weights to try and do afterwards some retargeting inside Unity. There’s one issue though, since we did the Kerbal EVA system before Unity 4, we’re only using Mecanim on the facial animations. Everything else is running under the Legacy system. Right now we need to figure out how hard it’s going to be to implement the default EVA animations into the adjusted rig for the female model. If it doesn’t work there’s a couple of paths we can take. One of them involves doing the retargeting inside Maya (and since we’re talking of more or less 100 animation loops, it’s probably the last option). My main concern right now are the facial animations, I’m afraid they’re going to break once we add the rotations and translations of the default Kerbal face. Fortunately we’re talking here about single states that are blended into Mecanim (happy, sad, excited and scared plus variations), so creating new ones should take one day or two tops.

This paragraph leads me to believe that the females have a substantial difference in shape from the males. I hope they have some nice figure

[DBT85]

Heat is good. I'd suggest any damage form it being off on Easy mode, on for Normal and maybe turned up a little for hard?

[ngianoplus]

Could we have the re-entry effects made so we aren't getting supersonic effects below 5,000 and reentry above? Could it be based on speed? As of now, regardless how fast you go if you are "in the lower atmosphere" it will be supersonic effects. This isn't accurate is it? I know its a trivial feature, but if its not too much trouble it would be appreciated.

Also, if re-entry is being added can you add proper temperature in all places? The 2HOT Thermometer does not give accurate readings in extreme places (i.e. right next to the sun).

[lincourtl]

Reentry heating! Thank you. More realistic stock aerodynamics and reentry heating have been the features I've been longing for the most since I started playing. Also, I'm thrilled you're finally working on Kerbals with female appearances. Like Jeb said on Facebook earlier, "I'm just happy the gooheads in management finally realized that excluding half of kermanity from the space program only made us half as awesome as we could be." ;-) Seriously, it means a lot to young women to see themselves reflected in the media they consume.

[meve12]

I still feel that there should be a .99.0 release, just as a final bug-test pass before final release.

Ditto. It's a big update, so maybe do a .99 release for a final bug sweep.

[tater]

Nice update, guys. My daughter is asking for girbal pics... I hope to leverage 1.0 into an abiding love of orbital mechanics in her.

[razark]

Glad to hear that the long-awaited re-entry heating is being added. Hopefully with a toggle switch for those who wish to not deal with it.

I mean, they could probably implement tons of mods into stock and not do anything themselves...

That would be a Bad Thing.

Mods are, by necessity, stuck onto the side of things. The lazy way may work, but they right thing to do is to integrate the functionality directly into the game.

[NathanKell]

I'm very interested to see how reentry heat is handled, since KSP doesn't track heat. It tracks temperature. Which means, if it goes the same route as Deadly Reentry, an antenna will melt just as fast (or slow) as a capsule, and vice versa.

[KevinTMC]

The question remains though on what they're going to do with shielding. Heat might be easy to implement with the new aero system as they said, but shields are really the other part of the equation here that complicates things substantially.

It's not how things should work, perhaps...but as I get more familiar with Deadly Reentry, I find myself able to get away with just letting the final-stage engine take the heat. So I'm presuming that a really forgiving implementation of reentry heat might serve to prevent some of the more insanely aggressive aerobraking/reentry strategies, but not really require separate heat shields.

I hope that's not what we're getting, though.

[NoMrBond]

I'm very interested to see how reentry heat is handled, since KSP doesn't track heat. It tracks temperature. Which means, if it goes the same route as Deadly Reentry, an antenna will melt just as fast (or slow) as a capsule, and vice versa.

I wonder if this will also fix/change the current overheat mechanics on engines

[Rolanvorxariat]

As much as i love Re-entry heat, i want there to be some sort of slider, that limits the intensity of the Heat. I always designmy craft with reentry in mind, but one of my most important craft is not created for reentry. I'm eally worried i wnt be able to aerobrake. well, i never aerobrake, but this plannes mission uses-wait. If they are adding reentry, Mk3 parts will have to have reentry shielding. WOOHOO!

[Whirligig Girl]

I'm very interested to see how reentry heat is handled, since KSP doesn't track heat. It tracks temperature. Which means, if it goes the same route as Deadly Reentry, an antenna will melt just as fast (or slow) as a capsule, and vice versa.

They essentially need to redo the heat system. Completely. probably.

And devs, please make sure to repackage the Mk3 parts as proper textures (Not TGA I believe is "proper") so they don't become white. (or fix that bug entirely)

[bigyihsuan]

Part nicknames? YES. YES.

So I'm guessing names like Nuke, Cluster, and Dougnut would be plausible names?

(LV-N, Kerbodyne Engine Cluster, That donut fuel tank)

[Engineer of Stuff]

I hope that stupid bug that causes the space center to lock up is squashed!

[RocketPilot573]

Engine nicknames? Eh, I liked "S1 SRB-KD25k" better. Or not...

That's this thing since you probably don't recognize that name what-so-ever.

[Rithsom]

Re-entry heat! It just wouldn't make much sense for there to be a much-improved aero model without heating.

Progress on this update is going very fast, hopefully you guys can get around to squashing some serious bugs too.

[meve12]

Something I just thought of: Since we're getting this engineer report, could we also get deltaV and TWR estimates per stage ala Kerbal Engineer?

[Superfluous J]

Love that re-entry heating is going to be stock, and can't wait to try (or see pics of... hint hint) the aerodynamics gui.

All we need is a few information mods to be made stock (*cough* KER *cough* Trajectories *cough*) and I may be able to play this game without mods

[NovaSilisko]

Something I just thought of: Since we're getting this engineer report, could we also get deltaV and TWR estimates per stage ala Kerbal Engineer?

Was thinking the same thing. It's been previously said that delta-v indicators _{(...somehow...)} take some of the fun and spontaneity out of the game... but these new features coming seem to be even more predictive than a delta-v meter, so I'm a bit confused now.

[Starwaster]

I'm very interested to see how reentry heat is handled, since KSP doesn't track heat. It tracks temperature. Which means, if it goes the same route as Deadly Reentry, an antenna will melt just as fast (or slow) as a capsule, and vice versa.

Don't forget though, it only needs to be playable. It doesn't need to be a simulation. That's what Real * mods are for.

[biohazard15]

New drag system, re-entry heat, stock fairings, female kerbals, rebalancing everything... Guys, you're really overstretching here. Drag overhaul ALONE would take at least one update to check if everything is fine and working as intended.

It reminds me of an old Russian joke about super-advanced airliner - "And now, ladies and gentlemen, we'll try to take off with all that cr*p onboard".

Edited January 28, 2015 by biohazard15

[Aristarchus]

Something I just thought of: Since we're getting this engineer report, could we also get deltaV and TWR estimates per stage ala Kerbal Engineer?

Was thinking the same thing. It's been previously said that delta-v indicators _{(...somehow...)} take some of the fun and spontaneity out of the game... but these new features coming seem to be even more predictive than a delta-v meter, so I'm a bit confused now.

In my current save, I waited to download KER and KAC for when mission control and the tracking station were fully upgraded. This forced me to use trial and error while exploring Kerbin's SOI, and allowed me to use a more rational design process for my more ambitions interplanetary process. I thought it struck a nice balance between the "learn by failure" experience and a more rational design process that wouldn't kick in until a new player has gained enough experience to know what to do with it.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Aristarchus

[DBT85]

Was thinking the same thing. It's been previously said that delta-v indicators _{(...somehow...)} take some of the fun and spontaneity out of the game... but these new features coming seem to be even more predictive than a delta-v meter, so I'm a bit confused now.

Not quite sure I understand how. I mean, when aiming for the moon trying to eyeball it can be a bit of a giggle. But when trying to go anywhere else arriving and finding you're 100m/s short of orbit or landing is just infuriating, not fun.