Merandix

For all the people saying localisation... what most people identify with 1.3 will be the patch AFTER the localisation patch. Saying it's localisation is kind of saying something for the sake of being negative, which I can understand given the that the stream of info from Squad has dried up a LOT unless it starts with the L-word. I'm personally betting on a fully modable story mode with built in tutorial features and likely combined with a more logical career progression. Perhaps even with a tool that will make it possible to create challenges ingame, but that's pushing it.

Adjustable Landing Gear The amount of times I've raged at the landing gear heights just not making sense AT ALL...At both nose-wheels just being too short for the largest landing gear unless you happen to have a highly mounted wing on a large Mk3 design... I want my craft to look good... just a slider to change the height of the landing gear... I occasionally want a REALLY short main landing gear bogey (like many airliners have under their body)... and I sometimes wish my single wheel solutions were a bit taller. I don't even need the ability to place the wheels at an angle... just being able to procedurally change the height of the stock landing gear would be AWESOME. It's frustrating. And it's made even worse that the original mod is no longer maintained. No offence to the current maintainer, but I find it slightly saddening that I'm getting a ton of parts I don't use with the landing gear. It clutters the build menu. (And because he's still developing / engineering it, it's not quite at the level of the original yet). Still, much (many?) kudos for reviving it to Shadowmage!

You're welcome. Obviously, it's still a reasoned gut feeling, so I may be horribly wrong... But if we just look at things 'missing' in the core game... it's a proper tutorial / campaign. It's a logical connection between missions... it's that missions lack any sort of common sense, despite the game facilitating much more advanced gameplay with the features already present. The devs have, in the past, expressed interest in adding a 'story mode'... which could be a campaign to play through and guide beginning players through the game. Now... if I were a dev... and I'm looking at the current contract weighing system... I think it's not ideal. A good try... but not entirely there yet. So, if we get a fully modular system, one that allows modders to easily add story elements, extended campaigns or other forms of advanced narrative gameplay to the game... that's something that's going to keep the game alive, get creativity running and to be enthusiastic about as a developer AND player. It's definitely something modders could hook into. It's definitely something many players would be enthusiastic about, and if it's fully mod-able it holds amazing potential in keeping the game alive. KSP is a great platform for emergent gameplay (one look at the challenges forum proves that). And it pretty much fixes the insanely steep learning curve.

Our only hints are: - It's a bigger feature that takes time to develop. - They think we're going to like it. - It is something that can be hooked into by Nightingale as a programmer (and he's enthusiastic about it apparently). (Januari 21st ksp weekly) - It is something Nightingale is enthusiastic about as a player. (Januari 21st ksp weekly) So, going by the OP with these as reasonable criteria: 1: Gas planet two and outer planets --> not something that a dev would be enthusiastic about 'hooking into'. 2: Real looking plumes --> Again, not really hookable in such an enthusiastic way. Also seems too small for so much hype. 3 & 3.5: Interstellar stuff --> Outside scope of game. Mod-territory. 4: Life-support --> Possibly, but my feature senses aren't really tingling for this one. Later posts: New easter egg: too small, not something that can be 'hooked into'. Hats for Kerbals as paid DLC.... Stock Multiplayer: It sounds to me like they're teasing a gameplay mechanic. Also, I don't think MP is the first thing one would tackle with a largely new team. Also, it's pretty high up my list on 'things that are never going to happen'. Career addition: Very well possible. Rocket Part Overhaul: While neat, they stated it was put on hold until further notice. Again, not really hookable. Ships: I think it's a slim chance. Feature senses not tingling. Also not really hookable. Electric props: Could be, but not really something to 'hook into'. Part upgrade system: Very well possible. Delta-V readout: Seems too small and unhookable. Basic Weather Systems: Possibly, but it's not really a feature that promotes a lot of gameplay. Perhaps some difficulty, and yes it would be nice, but I wouldn't hype it this much. New planets: See gas planet two. Visual overhaul: I suspect it's going to be a gameplay feature. Career revamp: This is actually really high on my list of possible things they are working on. Better comnet: It works fine without being too complicated. Don't think it'll be this. EVA-suits using monopropellant from tanks: Seems not really something to be hyping this much. Science-point / tech tree revamp: Very well possible. More parts: Possibly, but I suspect 'more parts' is going to be a result of the feature they are developing, not the core. Nothing but bugfixes: Not something you hype as a new feature. Open sourcing: Insulting to mention to the devs, please mind your manners, and at least wait what this update will entail before judging. Improved EVA-movement: Sounds more like a bugfix to me. Final-Frontier-like feature: I dunno. Feature senses definitely not tingling. Going by the criteria posted above, I really think we should be looking in the direction of a more major feature. Something mods can hook into and have fun with. Something players can be entusiastic about. That leaves only a few of the above suggestions standing: - Life support - Career revamp - Visual overhaul - Science/tech tree revamp I consider the career overhaul the most likely. And that may entail more features than just contracts. The new weighted contract system obviously doesn't work that well, and they have said something about a 'story mode' in the past. More motivation, more logical contract-systems, more logical strategies... Beating some sense into the career system, and also making it modular enough for modders to hook into with their own (extended?) 'campaigns'. This may even include the science system and tech tree... That's my bet. But obviously, it may be something completely unrelated. Speculating is fun Edit: Also, why they are so 'slow'? I suspect they first want the console versions up-to-date and working a lot better. I suspect that is where attention is now, and I also suspect that is why we're a little dry on info currently. They are concepting the system, but not really working on it yet.

It seems KSP is now suffering from an old problem. KSP was designed, the rocket-parts where a bunch of raked together random bits of art. Squad didn't like them, but priority was never there. Everyone thought they looked weird. They looked weird for so long, many people are now loving the raked-together feel of the parts. It's KSP's look. Except it isn't. It was never intended to be the look of the game, they were merely placeholders that have been there for too long. It merely BECAME the look of KSP. Unintentionally I'm fully in favour of Squad releasing an official mod with the old engines as a little goodbye to the old art... but I LOVE the new engines. A shame they're not getting in the game for the coming update. Also.. do I spy more possibilities for tiny rockets? Will we be getting sounding rockets now? Will that mean we will also be getting a new tech-tree? Is that perhaps the reason the engines got 'delayed'? So many questions.

I'm not 100% sure if I'm right, because I'm certainly no expert on the human eye, but a bit of logic and a few articles make me think this topic confuses how camera optics work and how the optics of the human eye works. The human eye actually isn't anything like a camera, apart from the basic principles. IF you compare the two in the strictest sense, the human eye has a focal length equivalent of about 43mm on a full-frame sensor (but many focal lengths between 35 and 50 mm are usually given). Which actually isn't wide angle at all, but from what I've always understood is more like the middle-ground. Which makes sense, wide-angle and high zoom both produce significant distortions. If you think about this, it's actually quite logical why we don't see distortions, it's not our brains, but it's the fact that the photosensitive receptors on the back-side of our eye are actually not situated on a small flat plane like on a camera chip, but they are situated on the inside of a spheroid. A spheroid which very likely has (near) the same curvature as the lens-distortion. Why we get such a wide angle view anyway? The ENTIRE (almost the entire) back of our eye is literally plastered with photosensitive receptors, also outside our focal view. Which means that even if we directly compare the optics of a camera with the optics of our eye, the human eye will give a far wider angle, because the human eye simply works differently than a camera sensor. In the human eye, the 'sensor' sort of 'wraps around' the lens. Lens distortion is actually the technological shortcoming of the fact that a curved lens cannot deliver a perfectly undistorted image on a (fairly small) flat surface. It's also technological greed, because this shortcoming (tiny sensor) also means we can change focal length on the fly (zooming). I think it comes down to taste. Point is, our peripheral vision works differently than a camera producing a wide angle shot. In fact, the camera is struggling to deliver all that light to the positively tiny flat chip. Our eye doesn't have to put all light that enters on such a small area. And in fact, we don't have a uniform resolution density in our eye. Our peripheral vision has lower resolution than the centre of our vision. You basically have to picture KSP's vision like an eyeball floating behind the Kerbals, and we get to see a small cutout from what that eyeball sees. However, it is an eyeball with uniform resolution, because otherwise, we'd use too little of our screen real estate. Another reason is that the screen (in most home setups) only covers a small portion of our vision. Producing too much distortions (which simulate peripheral vision) actually makes games more prone to people getting 'game sickness' (of which quake and Minecraft are examplles often named by people experiencing game-sickness, which is a variant of motion sickness). Basically, it comes down to taste, but there's nothing 'unrealisitc' about it, it's just questioning whether to fully simulate all optics in a fairly narrow field of view (talking about the monitor, not fov on screen), or not. Especially combined with the fact that not all eyes are equal.

I honestly think that if squad will have to readdress landing gear for 1.2, perhaps it would be nice to take a peek at the pre-1.1 adjustable landing gear mod. I played once with that mod, and sadly can't go without it anymore (the pain, because obviously the writer is waiting out on the Unity-issues)... adjustable heights and all are nice. Many Mk 2 planes need a medium landing gear but look like a stork or crane high on very tall landing gear. It doesn't look nice, and it becomes top-heavy. Stock adjustable landing gear would be SO incredibly awesome and useful.

I'm primarily being burned on SSTO spaceplane deorbits... literally. I have to figure out how to do them all over again. I do my standard shallow descent (I lower my orbit to 30 km on the opposite side of the planet, over KSC, and glide in full airbrakes. I generally don't even need to use the engines that way). Slight problem. Airbrakes or not... I'm not slowing down. In fact, I keep accelerating down to about 53 km... Only then I start to very slowly decelerate... WAY too slowly. I eventually disintegrate at around 40 km altitude, still going almost 2200 m/s. May have to hit the atmosphere at a much greater AoA and see if that helps. For now, I worryingly enough cannot land my SSTO spaceplanes anymore... uhoh. Something definitely changed. The fact that I usually use an extremely gentle deorbit is worrying me slightly though....

Control isn't so much an issue once you figure out the trick. The main problem is not exploding. I've a cargohold full of radiators and I sort of hoped the ablator in the cargohold would absorb some of the heat, but unfortunately, no. The radiator-stuff doesn't help much. Note, this cockpit on this plane consistently explodes at 1475 m/s... In that light, 1469 m/s isn't that bad. But this is probably the fastest this thing will go. Takeoff mass is just 8930 kg from the top of my head. Funny fact considering the thing is likely twice the size of most planes here Also, just a thought, the aircraft needs to be manned, but does the kerbal need to be in control? Or can I use drone-parts?

I know there's mods for most of these; I love spaceplanes so a few suggestions there, but honestly, I'm glad 1.2 is going to be about updating and revamping the rocket parts; they have needed some love for quite some time now! - Landing gear of adjustable height and wheel configurations; I love the mod, and I hate the rigidity of the stock gears. they're always either too tall or too short. - A less 70's space-shuttle-look Mk3 cockpit; or maybe (long term) a Mk4 spaceplane concept that goes the modern looking hypersonic lifting body ala Mk2. Because really... I love the Mk2 design, but the Mk3 looks a bit... old... in comparison. - SAS/autopilot that actually performs marginally well with airplanes. - The older rocket parts in such a design that they actually fit together and look a bit nicer - 3,75 metre pod, holding 5 or 7 kerbals. - rover cockpit - Planetary base parts - More station parts - robotics parts so we can actually fold up rover wheels, deploy satelites and maybe, finally have that robotic arm. It doesn't need to be super sophisticated, but I'd really like to be able to fold up some things for launching. - Parts that can be manipulated/attached by kerbals on EVA, so to give them actual meaning to be there. Think KIS. - More science parts Non part related: - A better career progression.

o.O thanks... I'm so going to download that. I still think the game would benefit from having that in vanilla. But at least this suits my intentions as far as I can see. -edit- mod unfortunately seems to be out of date?

I've been trying out some mods recently. I like the community presented features mods bring. But I'm also a vanilla guy. And I'd like to use different sets of mods in different games. Currently this requires multiple installations of KSP. It also keeps save-loading times to a minimum. I'm not aware exactly how hard it is to change the moment mods are loaded in... But personally, I would love to pick which of the installed mods I use for each save separately. Would this even be possible? Or is KSP too far along in development to change this? I'd personally welcome this feature with open arms!

I love the new gear-system, but I think there's a small oversight going on. I used to use the large landing gear as main gear, and the medium one for nose-gear on large planes. Now, we would be unable to use the large landing gear combined with a steerable nose-wheel, because they'll be too short when the main gear would be placed on the more or less 'default' wing position, and the nose-wheel under the nose. Leaving only a second bogey-style gear as an option, which isn't steerable. In my opinion, the above needs a small addition: small steerable, medium steerable, large steerable (1A), large bogey (2A), huge bogey (3A). with 'large steerable' basically being the same as the 2-axle bogey, but only with a single axle and the option of being steerable. I took the liberty to butcher the example gif into an example image of my own: That would really be the ideal gear setup in my humble opinion; as a non-single axle nose gear just looks silly, and would still leave us without steering. Not saying I dislike anything about the proposed setup, and the new gear would definitely fill in a much needed gap; but I feel like would introduce a new gap. Also, because this post seems a little ungrateful, and that was definitely NOT what I was aiming for: awesome things up in the works guys. I love how you manage to get us enthusiastic for 1.2 before 1.1 is even out Enjoy your hollidays!

The Earthrise picture is actually not from the ground. Since Earth and moon are tidally locked, the Earth is on pretty much a fixed spot in the lunar 'sky'. Only when earth is very near the horizon it may 'rise' and 'fall'... but this will take several days. Because it's locked to the orbital period of the Moon. The Earthrise is caused by the spaceship orbiting the Moon. I also believe this isn't the original Earthrise picture. I think it's either a crop or a manipulation.

It was my favourite forum BECAUSE of the usual discussions spawned here and the great ideas that sometimes come from it. I could dig the 'best answer' approach if it kept the entire topic chronologically and put a COPY of the most popular answer below the opening post. This just messes up interesting discussions.

That's neat! Awesome devnotes! Will the adjustability for the ramp and cargo doors also be applied to the landing gear?

Sorry for the late reply, busy week Dear Streetwind. That's exactly what I'm getting at. They're acting in one direction, and talking in a way that CAN be interpreted as another. The smart thing to do here was write a PM. Because people WILL assume. Only solution is to be clear. I clearly used the word 'imply' as in one of the possible explanations of Harvester's words is what I said. What you said is another possible interpretation. What PR-work told me is that you need to be absolutely ridiculously clear. That's why I'm pointing it out. It is not meant to be rude, but meant as a community management advice. "Posting 'oh I like this!' is enough to get people to feel like it's being read. And that's what I mean. Obviously they can't individually post that it's going to happen or not (as Ted describes in the link he posted below). It's intentionally worded like this, because VERY little effort CAN make a huge difference on how people in the forum will regard you. I've done PR work myself. If you only place things and never post replies, then half of your potential PR is gone. Same thing applies here, for slightly different reasons. People dislike being ignored. Giving them the feeling they aren't is enough, even if you do not actually read the bloody things every week. My point is. You do respond here. You hardly do that in suggestions, and they don't need to be big posts. Therefore obviously suggestions and other questions will come to devnotes, because there's a clear dev-precense here. Even if it's a community manager, and not an actual dev. As long as people feel they're being listened to, suggestions will stay in suggestions. And that can literally be done by scrolling through the suggestion titles and only picking the titles that pick your interest. I do this myself occasionally, and while I generally respond with way more words, and that takes time. Writing short replies occasionally keeps people feeling appreciated, and that does wonders for PR. Literally put stuff like this on a time budget. It's a small effort that pays off immensely. Just point out clearly that you're not really looking for game expanding suggestions; people want to vent their ideas. The best thing you can do is show interest in the ones that may actually be useful. If one dev or community leader responds to a topic with 'Oh, I like this!' or 'I like the idea, but we're not planning on adding it', and you've clearly explained hat this doesn't mean it gets into the game, then people are aware that the topic has at least had the ATTENTION of the team. It will make people feel happy, even if their suggestion isn't actually used. I hope I wasn't too direct in tring to give some useful advice (I've been in the pit that is Public Relations myself). I've been told directness a national defect of Dutch people. If so, apologies. I mean well.

Dear KasperVld, and all of squad. I hope you realise you just acted out encouragement to post feature requests here. This is the only topic that apparently gets some dev-attention. So it's the obvious jump-board to post requests. You just asked someone to post a link to a topic in the requests section. You basically confirmed that suggestions here get more attention than in suggestions and development. Drop a short line in suggestions and development every now and then. Take five minutes a week to scroll through the top page of requests, and maybe respond to one or two interesting or popular topics. Doing that, you make it a worthwhile platform. This will maybe take 15 minutes of your time a week. And it doesn't need to be the same person every week, or even on an actual weekly basis. Give people a sense that the suggestions and development forum is being actively read, and THEN maybe the suggestions in this topic will lessen.What you basically did was confirm this is the best place for ones suggestions. Since they're actually being read here. Again, not saying you don't read the suggestions and development forum, just that people get a sense you're not, because you post more often in this topic, than in that forum. ================================================= That being said, sounds like work on the 'engine update' is coming along nicely!

Do these work to attach your docking ports to? Because then you CAN use node-attach. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/BZ-52_Radial_Attachment_Point

Well, that. Woops for getting the terminology of 'bunch' wrong

Which solarpanels are they? There's a bunch of solarpanels that no longer are able to retract. They can only deploy. You need the more expensive solarpanels 'in a white box', those can still retract. I apologise if you were already aware of this, in which case I have no answers.

Replace those LV909's with a single RAPIER, and I guess this plane will get you pretty darned close to getting to space/orbit already as an SSTO; on that point you're not far off. If you don't have RAPIERS yet, an SSTO doesn't need to be much bigger than this to work. However, you do need the turboramjets at minimum. I have tried non-ssto rocket launched spaceplanes. I failed at them. Trust me on this one: SSTO's are actually easier. Also, and that's my personal opinion which in no way should tell you how to play the game, but why build a plane if you launch it by rocket and land it by parachute? You're missing out on all the fun from flying planes. I mean, that moment you land your plane for the first time on the runway, and EACH time you land exactly centreline at KSP... Among others.

I can't believe people haven't mentioned it yet... but is fun to watch and very useful and informative, he's also infusing it with tidbits of science and space-flight trivia. Also, as he mentions in part one, the tutorials are actually fairly useful!

Friction is the wrong word... I'm having non-native English troubles here It's because only the bottom part of the wheels are actually acting like wheels (this is why the other wheels don't work upside down in KSP). If you put the wheels at an angle, especially DIFFERING angles (for example, when buckling) they will roll with different efficiencies. Also, if you tilt a wheel in real life, it wants to steer, that may play in as well. It feels as if one wheel rolls less well than the other, which can be perceived as a sort of 'friction'. Anyway, end result is that your main gear will impart a steering force on your plane, causing it to veer off centreline. I hope that clarified my failure of word-choice a bit Also: 'a couple of metres' from CoM is actually pretty far. I think it's about a metre at MOST.

Yup, that's a problem. Think of your plane as a see-saw, and your main landing gear as the pivot. You want to have the CoM a LITTLE in front of your pivot, otherwise your nose will lift off the ground, but you will basically want to push the tail down with the control surfaces, so the nose will raise. With very long planes, there's a risk of tailstrikes, so you have to be careful. Don't pull up too hard Don't forget to test with full and empty cargo holds though... Kind of annoying if your plane wants to do wheelies on landing XD When your wheels are buckling though, this usually means one side is providing more friction than the other, which then leads to your plane veering off course.