Devnote Tuesday: "Point sharp end towards space"

[Robotengineer]

speaking of which, it would have been nice to have gotten a bit more information about that tonight . I thought that's why he was teasing it.

Got your hat in hand?

[razark]

Probably AOL. Or Yahoo. Is there a KSP Yahoo group? Or are Yahoo groups dead?

Y'all didn't get the telegram?

[Robotengineer]

Y'all didn't get the telegram?

What's that new-fangled technology? Y'mean the mail train ain't come yet?

[FleetAdmiralJ]

What's that new-fangled technology? Y'mean the mail train ain't come yet?

I dunno about you but I clearly saw the smoke signals

[Robotengineer]

I dunno about you but I clearly saw the smoke signals

I saw the cave paintings... Still got your hat? Proof:

Meh, I see twitter (and reddit) often for posting teases, devNotes for posting announcements. I'll eat a hat if there is nothing in the devNotes about the item he tweeted about.

Edited February 11, 2015 by Robotengineer

[NoMrBond]

I see the concern. I suppose it depends how intensive the calculations are. If they're not intensive at all, I'm not sure whether it's a big deal. (though I suppose I can see people being annoyed with it changing as they're building the ship). I suppose if there is a button for it, perhaps it should trigger on save and launch button clicks too. I'm guessing their concern is if you leave it as just a button, the players who need it most (new players) may not even notice it.

I can't say I'm worried since KER already does this without tanking the game

Except instead of giving you a red flag (or however the designs concern system will notify you) the dV for the stage just says 0, whoops

[bill_rowe]

<figure class=""></figure>Felipe (HarvesteR):

Since version 0.18 and the addition of docking, we’ve had this docking control mode which very few players ever got around to using. I didn’t remove that, but I did come up with a more elegant way to implement the control binding switching, so we could do away with all those duplicate input mappings on the settings screen. Now, there is only one input mapping for pitch, yaw, roll and linear translations, and the docking mode mapping is done using the secondary key bindings and a new state toggling system which is simpler and more flexible than the old way. So much more flexible, in fact, that you can now use docking mode as an alternate control scheme in any way you want. Rather use it to swap about yaw and roll inputs for controlling rockets and spaceplanes with a joystick? Now you can. Also, Axis bindings now also have secondary mappings of their own, so you can have a second axis bound to each action, either as a redundancy or with a different set of UI mode toggles.

Marco (Samssonart): The final conclusion we drew from the survey is that some people think the docking UI mode is basically useless, but we still haven’t decided what we’re going to do about it, other than gather more intel.

The docking mode UI is confusing because it changes the behavior of keys that we are all comfortable using. WASD are pitch/roll/yaw and IJKL are translation. Simple. If you want to revamp docking don't change the controls to a different mode, make this mod stock:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43901-0-90-Docking-Port-Alignment-Indicator-%28Version-5-1-Updated-01-10-2015%29

Simple and intuitive indicator of how you are aligned relative to the target docking port and how to get where you need to be.

Bill Rowe

[0111narwhalz]

Many, many mods were made obselete that day. This means I need far fewer mods, and therefore my away-from-home "darn close to stock" build will more closely mirror my "crazy ....... kill-your-RAM" build. Thanks, Squad!

Seriously though, 1.0 will be GLORIOUS. I'm hoping for the day Unity 64-bit Windows is stable and flexible enough for KSP.

Regarding the editor checker: I would like to agree with several of the above in stating that, while most of the report should be in realtime, the fuel flow should be player-activated. Perhaps even a gizmo for it? Click on a consumer and highlight all the providers involved? That might prove useful.

Again, Squad is doing an excellent job on the update. Although I acknowlege the milestone, I feel like I'll go on almost without noticing the version number. To me, it'll still just be 0.27, and I'll still end up treating it like an unfinished product. I know, I know, it's release-ready. But old habits die hard, and after playing an alpha for nearly two years, there's only so much a couple of numbers can do.

To all a good day, and to all a good 1.0.

(Psst...Squad, you might wanna rent a bit more bandwidth for release day. I remember one of the releases throwing non-connection errors.)

[Starwaster]

The docking mode UI is confusing because it changes the behavior of keys that we are all comfortable using. WASD are pitch/roll/yaw and IJKL are translation. Simple. If you want to revamp docking don't change the controls to a different mode, make this mod stock:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43901-0-90-Docking-Port-Alignment-Indicator-%28Version-5-1-Updated-01-10-2015%29

Simple and intuitive indicator of how you are aligned relative to the target docking port and how to get where you need to be.

Bill Rowe

You mean WASDQE is pitch/roll/yaw

(huh.... I forgot we had a docking UI... and it changes key assignments? I never use the darned thing so I guess I wouldnt know)

Anyway I second the motion to include DPAI. Great aid for manual docking.

[razark]

(Psst...Squad, you might wanna rent a bit more bandwidth for release day. I remember one of the releases throwing non-connection errors.)

Really? Does reddit get overwhelmed on release day?

[Aragosnat]

<b>Kasper (KasperVld): </b>I’ve started to look after many what used to be Rowsdower’s tasks, such as managing the Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and other social media outlets, and taking care of KSP-TV and the Media Group. It’s been a mountain of work that resulted in a few very early mornings and late nights, but that was to be expected. We have a contest planned for this Valentine’s day, so keep a look out for when that drops!

Gratz on being the 4th to the job. Just don't go extinct. =^.^=

A lot of good info. But, I do use the docking mode a lot so it is not useless. I mainly use it to swap out what the WSAD is used for. Don't trust my fat fingers to not miss touch a key. Plus I can swap out what it does faster then I can move my fingues over to a new set of keys thanks to good mouse management.

[Brotoro]

With temperature mattering in the aerodynamics system, will all the planets get realistic temperature models now?

[cantab]

And last but certainly not least, I’ve done a complete revision of the old Chase camera mode. Now, instead of being completely attached to the vessel in a motion sickness inducing way, it pivots about a coordinate system defined by your velocity vector, or the direction of a targeted object, if any. I’ve also fixed all camera modes not responding to input during coordinate frame transitions. That allows the new Chase cam to switch reference frames on the fly without any rapid changes in orientation (which lead to motion sickness). I have to say, it’s quickly becoming my new favorite cam mode.

I'm sure it's great, but can we please please have the classic Chase cam as well. I rarely use it for rockets, but for planes and rovers it really adds to a feeling of engagement to have the camera in effect rigidly mounted to your vehicle. And it's great fun to spin or rollover and have the whole view go tumbling.

It now includes temperature into the equations and has a much more realistic pressure/density curve. Have also been getting constant feedback from the QA team on how it’s flying and tweaking the balance and models.

Honestly, is this really necessary? Earth's atmospheric pressure is as close to an exponential decay as makes no difference for KSP. Temperature is more complicated, but it only really matters if you actually plan to make aerodynamics depend on Mach number.

And on the topic of key bindings, do you think the EVA controls could be changed to match the regular ship RCS controls? To this day I suffer from control screws when EVAing, because it's not like anything else in the game but it uses the same keys.

[White Owl]

Squad makes all the important keybindings easily remappable ingame. People complain about the default keybindings and ask for them to be changed.

Squad makes most of the career mode difficulty settings easily configurable ingame. People complain about the default difficulty settings and ask for them to be changed.

I sigh.

[tntristan12]

All the news is so fantastic I can't stop grinning! It's like they intentionally saved all the best stuff for last! The only things I am dying to see in the game before 1.0 are environmental enhancements such as clouds and atmospheres (a la EVE and AVP), sound effects that vary with altitude (Atmospheric Sound Enhancement), and a better science system that lets unmanned probes do science and doesn't allow all results to be valid in all places at all times. Life support would be awesome too, but I suppose I can live with that being in mod form.

[Starwaster]

It now includes temperature into the equations and has a much more realistic pressure/density curve. Have also been getting constant feedback from the QA team on how it’s flying and tweaking the balance and models.

Honestly, is this really necessary? Earth's atmospheric pressure is as close to an exponential decay as makes no difference for KSP. Temperature is more complicated, but it only really matters if you actually plan to make aerodynamics depend on Mach number.

Yes, it's necessary. Kerbin's atmosphere begins and ends far too abruptly when reentering or launching. The same holds true for all of the planets. When factoring in reentry heating especially on these tiny planets, they're probably going to have to exaggerate heating rates a bit such that heating will start as abruptly as the atmosphere's boundary is abrupt. It's better if the atmosphere doesn't cut off so abruptly and that's not something that's possible with the legacy atmosphere system. Only the pressureCurve system that they introduced a long time ago (but never made use of) can fix that. RealSolarSystem uses it to great effect.

[cantab]

Squad makes all the important keybindings easily remappable ingame. People complain about the default keybindings and ask for them to be changed.

I've been playing KSP for hundreds of hours and for some reason this never even occurred to me before. I changed the rover controls, but not the EVA ones. Dang I feel like a fool now. But checking now, I see no way to link a key to jetpack rotation, so getting it set how I'd like is either non-obvious or not even possible.

More to the point, options need sensible defaults, and I feel the current EVA jetpack control defaults fall short on that.

Yes, it's necessary. Kerbin's atmosphere begins and ends far too abruptly when reentering or launching. The same holds true for all of the planets. When factoring in reentry heating especially on these tiny planets, they're probably going to have to exaggerate heating rates a bit such that heating will start as abruptly as the atmosphere's boundary is abrupt. It's better if the atmosphere doesn't cut off so abruptly and that's not something that's possible with the legacy atmosphere system. Only the pressureCurve system that they introduced a long time ago (but never made use of) can fix that. RealSolarSystem uses it to great effect.

You think they're going to decrease the minimum atmospheric pressure the game uses? I think there's a limit to how far Squad can reasonably go on that, in that an orbit within the atmosphere needs to decay quickly otherwise the player is left w a i t i n g for it to deorbit.

Also, in Deadly Re-entry I haven't noticed heating starting abruptly on entering the atmosphere, so I question if that's really a problem.

And above all else, if Squad did want to extend the atmospheres to lower pressures, it would be trivial to change the one number that defines surface pressure:edge of atmosphere pressure ratio. It would be a step away from trivial to throw in a basic exponential pressure decay into the pressureCurve system.

I'm just not sure adding fine details of temperature and pressure when the basic aerodynamic model isn't even fully sorted out and there are tons of more significant things that could be worked on is the best use of Squad's development time. I don't want KSP to be wilfully unrealistic, but it really doesn't need every fine trivial detail either. Kerbin is fictional and made of unobtanium anyway, it can have whatever darn atmosphere Squad want to give it.

Edited February 11, 2015 by cantab

[klgraham1013]

P.S. your signature is a bit outdated since.. yesterday

[Northstar1989]

I’ve also gone over the Engines code, and tweaked them so that now throttle regulates the fuel flow rate, instead of the final thrust. That means fuel flow stays constant, and as Isp changes as you leave the atmosphere, thrust output increases (as opposed to thrust staying constant and fuel consumption changing).

THANK YOU! About bloody time this got fixed!

Regards,

Northstar

- - - Updated - - -

Good looking out. Unfortunately I don't use twitter. Thankfully a forum user made a thread about it for Max. I just haven't gotten around to updating it yet. Maybe I'll wait a few more versions.

AWESOME NEWS!

By the way, +Rep for your signature (re-posted below as "Code" in case you change it soon). It summed up the state of affairs so far BEAUTIFULLY. Really made me chuckle...

New Player: "What's that number next to the compass after I make a maneuver?"
Squad: "That's the delta v you need to do the maneuver."
New Player: "Ok. So how much delta v do I have?"
Squad: "We're not telling!"

Regards,

Northstar

- - - Updated - - -

You think they're going to decrease the minimum atmospheric pressure the game uses? I think there's a limit to how far Squad can reasonably go on that, in that an orbit within the atmosphere needs to decay quickly otherwise the player is left w a i t i n g for it to deorbit.

I disagree, because I want to be able to build Propulsive Fluid Accumulators in stock KSP- like I already can in the KSP-Interstellar 0.90 port with the Extension Config...

If SQUAD adds the ability to harvest resources from an atmosphere as one of the ISRU options, then I should be able to harvest some propellants (if there's any realism, Oxidizer but not LiquidFuel) from the edge of Kerbin's atmosphere... Combined with a realistic drag model that rewards streamlining, and doesn't make heavier objects necessarily have more drag (a lead ball shouldn't have more drag than a wooden one), and it might become possible to build a system that trades off Xenon (propelled by ion engines) for a much larger mass of Oxidizer over time in the upper atmosphere...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited February 11, 2015 by Northstar1989

[SorryDave]

Sounds like this is going to be a great release. First one I'll play without any mods.

It sounds like it'll be a whole new game. I can't wait to play the release, but I want SQUAD to continue feature adds and QA.

I know one thing, when this release happens I won't be visiting the forums for a while, I'll be playing!

[FlowerChild]

FlowerChild: Don't forget to add tangents (see Cpt. Kipard's big sticky in Addon Dev for a link to Taverius's thread) as otherwise you'll get ease-in/ease-out between each key and that's bad.

Aha! Thanks for that Nathan. I know I've run into oddities in the past adjusting float curves and wasn't aware of the reasons behind it.

[razark]

...Reddit feedback

...the community

...Reddit’s opinions

I just started up KSP. There's a selection in the main menu for KSP Community. When I clicked it, it accidentally opened up the forum instead of reddit.

You might want to fix that bug.

Edited February 11, 2015 by razark

[Corw]

Fixed that for you.

Regex is strong in this one

[Vanamonde]

Okay, okay. Everybody gets it. Folks would prefer that more development news and teases were posted here first. Seriously. We get it. Now please stop flogging that dead horse and discuss the news itself rather than its source.

[Corw]

Okay, okay. Everybody gets it. Folks would prefer that more development news and teases were posted here first. Seriously. We get it. Now please stop flogging that dead horse and discuss the news itself rather than its source.

Are you sure? Did Maxmap post a response on redit? (I couldn't help it. I'm sorry. Well, just a little, but it counts...)