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Shamash

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  1. Well this is exciting. Question, though, will we be able to place "compound parts", ie struts and fuel lines, and then run them with this new system? I notice at about 1:10, there is what looks like a strut in the inventory of what I'm assuming is a new 2.5 m diameter container, so I'm assuming that might be a yes, but figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. I'm also assuming the limitations about fuel lines and struts, being only able to run between parts that are in the same vessel, still holds, so we couldn't use this to, say, manually link up ships on a surface to refuel, is that accurate as well?
  2. So, if I may, few small questions, how exactly does this interact with the existing engineer skills and abilities? Does the engineer still need to be level 3 (meaning they must have, at minimum, planted a flag on both the Mun and Minmus and orbited the sun) and now on top of that have a repair kit to change a tire? Perhaps instead does the repair kit enable an engineer of any level (or lower level than typically required) to perform a repair? After the repair is finished in the video above, the Kerbal seems to be missing his EVA maneuvering pack, so is this something we are only expected to be able to do while landed (given how difficult and part intensive it can be to navigate by ladders in zero g and the fact that we don't have EVA tethers)? Does repacking chutes require a kit as well or is it just replacing tires? Are other classes of parts which already have damage states (solar panels, antenna, deployable radiators) becoming repairable where currently they were not? Are damage states on landing legs being reimplemented? Seems that got turned off back in 1.1 with the new suspension model, which means between now and then, the level two feature on engineers has done nothing. Are repair kits stackable in the inventory? The demo video shows clearing a requirement of "three repair kits needed" without going back and forth to the container and the inventory has a number spot that could denote quantity as well as what looks like an internal volume constraint which could not be met by the 5 L a single repair kit seems to take up.
  3. So we're getting a new pass for the existing RCS quad and a new set of linear and multidirectional RCS in a smaller size. Nice, I can definitely think of places where I'll be using these and look forward to playing with them. Though, if I might also make a bit of a request, while we're looking at new RCS parts (and potentially reworking a part that had already been touched up) is there any chance larger bipropellant RCS options might get another look? The vernier is currently our only entry in that category, and the aerodynamic casing can often make it awkward to work with.
  4. I mean, technically only the center one should be flowing down, no? If I'm understanding the plumbing right that's the liquid oxygen line to the engine. The ones either side of it are gas lines for autogenous tank pressurization, taking gaseous oxidizer and fuel passed through heat exchangers on the main engine back to their respective tanks to keep them pressurized as the liquid contents are drained out, right?
  5. That is some very nice looking foil texture on the tanks there. Those originally got a revamp back in 1.4 (or at least the toroidial tank did, the other two were new to that version), does this mean we could see other revamped parts from around that time get some minor touch-ups as well (the small SRBs and their lack of nozzle heat emmisives, is what's coming to mind for me). The new fairings look quite nice, I wasn't a big fan of the change in texture to the base they had in 1.9 (which maybe wasn't deliberate? It didn't show up in the change log, it just kind of happened and I haven't seen many people commenting on it, but maybe that's just me not paying attention in the right places). I can see the reflective metal one seeing much use as Starship hulls (now, if only we could make our fairings hinge open rather than explode open). The things I said earlier about the flags, magnetometer, fuel tank and Kickback variants, and the new probe parts still stand (all around nice, look forward to using them, but I still think the dish on the MPO would make a lovely part on its own, and am kind of wishing the MTM foil looked more like the other foils we have, seems like its going to stand out with how wrinkled it is right now, but I also haven't seen it next to those parts, so maybe its not as bad as it seems. I also notice we haven't been shown the kickback with the flag decals turned off and am going to go ahead still assuming that is something we can do). The comet tail effects look real cool, looking forward to getting out near one and seeing how big that actually is, because the image from the map screen makes it look like they're going to be absolutely huge. Tad bit bummed that it doesn't look like we'll be getting new panels for these missions and that Rosetta seems to be getting the short end of the stick as far as being represented with new parts is concerned. It'd be nice to have a sun tracking panel between the 1x6 and gigantor in size and output and having better proportioned panels for BepiColumbo and Rosetta seems like it would be a decent excuse to make those. The smaller claw is nice... my gut reaction isn't exceedingly positive, I will admit, but that probably has more to do with some poor experiences I've had with asteroid colliders misbehaving over the years than anything that actually has to do with the part itself. The Jool revamp is mesmerizing, I love it, though Laythe... its not that its bad, its just feel like its missing something and I'm not sure what it is. Maybe lighter shallows and shores, like what Kerbin got in 1.9, would make it looks more interesting from orbit? Clouds might also do the trick, but I'd be far from the first person to bring that up and it always seems to be met with silence, as far as I've seen, so... Also, lastly, the suit variants are very neat and quite welcome and I feel some need to point out that, after around 8 years and 20 major versions, we can finally have our orange suits wear orange suits while outside the vehicle. I'm finding genuine amusement in both how long it took to make that happen and how much I didn't realize it was something I wanted until I was told I was getting it.
  6. The flag decals and the magnetometer both look very nice and I'm excited to my hands on them. I like the new textures for the Rockomax tanks and the kickbacks look nice (though I do think it should have been the BACC and Skipper to be our Ariane 5 engines, not to imply that's something it'd be a good idea to backtrack on at this point). We haven't been shown it yet, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that the decals on the new kickback model can be toggled off, because anything else would be silly. The MPO probe core is kind of neat but it'd be very, very nice if little dish it came with could be a separate part. Seems like it would be useful on surface rovers and small landers or as an aesthetic piece representing a radar antenna like on the Apollo LM being more reasonably sized for the role than the HG-5 with its massively long arm, currently our only option for a small parabolic antenna. The MTM's foil texture looks like its probably a good deal more wrinkled than the MH panels, it would be nice if those could match more closely so one wouldn't stand out against the other if they were used side by side. Beyond that, I don't feel I have much to say other than looks like generally nice work to me. Hopefully we get to see some details soon about those comets that keep being mentioned and maybe a closer look at what seems to be a new fairing base texture and the new custom raceways on the orange tank's ESA variant both shown off with the build of a full Ariane 5 out of the parts a few weeks ago. I'm also wondering if we're going to get some some new tracking solar panels to go with these parts and maybe fill out the gap between the six panel ones and the gigantors or a new asteroid grapple to emulate Philae's landing gear, since we're supposed to be getting Rosetta parts according to the initial announcement, with 1.10 as well.
  7. The addition of the variants and turbomachinery on the Skipper and Mainsail make them so much better, both easier to use and more visually interesting. Thank you very much for going back and adding those. I will say, if you are still accepting feedback on the Mainsail, I'd like to cast my vote in that the orange cowling was the better color option of the two previously shown and state that I'm going to miss the little yellow accent it had in its original model, it just doesn't feel like the same engine without it to me (on a side note, how old is the standard liquid rocket engine plume? Is it something that we should expect to see replaced at some point?).The terrain revamp on Kerbin looks very nice, the sand now looks like sand which is great (didn't it used to be effectively palette swapped grass or am I misremembering, its been a while since I've been over there). Quality of life improvements are always welcome and I look forward to picking apart the BG example craft and figuring out how the new propeller mechanics are supposed to work (one thing adjacent to the propellers that I would like to note, if there were an option to tie the KAL in to read airspeed velocity or other flight variables instead of just using time, being able to program propeller blades that adjust to the optimal angle based on a curve over that would be amazing, just a thought I figured I'd share). The yellow orange banding on the BACC... I'm not certain what my opinion on that is yet. I don't hate it, but I'd definitely want to see it in use, next to other rocket parts before I decide whether or not I like it. Over all, I'd like to express that I'm quite looking forward to 1.9.
  8. I like the look of this. I assume it doesn't only have the option to vent LFO. Does it detect the contents of the tank and drain only those resources? Does it obey cross-feed rules when draining from vessel? I'm looking forward to the opportunity to use it and figure out how it works. If there is one small piece of feedback I might be allowed to give, though, it might be good to include a a texture variant that offers an alternative to the black and yellow caution tape. The caution tape has been a component of a lot of the stock part's aesthetics for a long time, but I've noticed its generally absent from the revamped parts. I don't particularly dislike the caution tape, but it just seems like having the option whether or not to include it might be nice. Its a very minor quibble about a minute detail that most people will probably never notice, but I just felt maybe it was worth saying aloud.
  9. Honestly, I'm really not sold on this one. The Skipper was pretty good, but this... it just doesn't feel right to me. The tank-butt/mounting bulkhead is even larger and looks more obnoxious to build around than it was before, the throat feels too narrow for an engine that's supposed to be a high thrust sea level booster (exactly the same problem the old poodle had, which we completely revamped the entire look and feel of in order to fix, but reversed), there's not a lot going on on the cowling that is presumably covering all the interesting mechanical bits (the Skipper has some detail to look at, with its handful of assorted of pipes and whatever the white ball is, its not much but it doesn't need to be and it looks interesting), it lost the yellow manifold on the bell, which was one of the more visually distinctive little details on what may be one of the more iconic engines in the game in my opinion (even if it was a minor detail of odd color choice and ambiguous function). Maybe I'm nit-picking. Maybe I'll get use to it over time, find some endearing qualities I'm overlooking now. I just... I feel some need to have it stated that on first glance, gut reaction, I'm not a big fan of this particular rework. It is nice though that it has a heat emmisive, a color option (though, personally, a bare variant would be preferable), and I'm partial to the little banding details on the inside of the bell, so, there's that at least.
  10. I, obviously, may be wrong, but I have a suspicion that the unit on the far right, the one labeled a seismometer, might possibly be the central station. I like the idea of it being a seismometer, it'd be consistent, I feel, with the lack of legs and pads to insulate it from the surface, but its the only thing here that looks like it has an antenna and it has quite a few ports on the side, more than we see on any other unit, presumably for plugging power into so it can be distributed it to the rest of the experiments. The small station behind the solar is, hopefully, an experiment (or a central station, as labeled, and I say hopefully as its plugged directly into the solar array and that could indicate power cables are indeed something that we can and have to run) but I have a suspicion, based partially on the fact that nothing else has been plugged in and on how difficult I, possibly naively, imagine it'd be to automatically generate a visual of cabling that looks good running between experiments placed at arbitrary distances and rotations, that it may actually not be a separate unit from the solar panels at all. I suspect it may be part of the solar panel unit's model and just be the controls for the panels so that the Kerbal setting it up can be imagined doing such things as tuning the sun tracking controller's parameters or ensuring its converting the output of the panels to the voltage and amperage that the central station wants or other things that would probably need to be done but KSP doesn't force you to worry about. Also, if we're tallying what we've seen, there are at least two more experiments (for a total of either four or five, depending on whether that one is a seismometer or central station), it looks like, that can be seen in the promotional image used to announce the DLC (I'm referring to the two being operated on to the right and left of the Kerbals in the fore ground, one looks like a cylinder with some foil on poles around the base, which may be the actual seismometer if the labeled one above is indeed a central station, and an upright box on the right... I've got no real idea what that one does yet) plus a dish antenna shown off in the same image. More on the original topic, I really like the look of the new experiments and am excited both to see more and to play around with them once the DLC drops.
  11. So, I've been playing about with Whirligig World recently (having cudgeled a 1.6.1 install together with it), and very much been enjoying it, however, I've been experiencing a bit of a minor problem which I'm not seeing in the known issues list. I just wanted to confirm its not something I did wrong with my install (which might well be the case based on the handful of mentions of rovers throughout the thread and NovaSilisko's neat little video a few pages prior, either that or its being brought about by some tweak to the stock suspension mechanics in recent versions, either way I figured I'd bring it up and at least check): wheels and legs appear to be having issues on Mesbin. Something seems be making the game's suspension model violently allergic to ground contact, or at least it has for all the wheeled or legged vehicles I've so far attempted to put onto the runway. I've tinkered a little bit with using different wheels, played different masses over different numbers of wheels, futzed with the suspension settings, tried launching from Woomerange to see if that improved things. I have not yet gone through and reinstalled everything/created other installs of the mod to test with. I wanted to see if this was something anyone else was experiencing before deciding if I either wanted to go that far to rout out the problem or just live with using i-beam landing legs on my landers and without the temptation of undertaking cross-country Mesbin road-trips.
  12. Looks quite nice. Are the combustion chambers and bells going to be hooked up with an emmisive texture, like we've been shown on the new Spark model, before release (and for that matter, would an ablatively cooled nozzle extension, as I assume the coloration of the new model's bells is supposed to suggest, even produce much in the way of visible radiation under normal operating conditions)?
  13. Looks great, exciting to see new textures for stock parts and I'll be quietly crossing my fingers that this apparent art rework isn't stopping at just what we've been shown for this one update so far. I do have some question to ask, though. I know texture and mesh switching has been discussed as a feature that we'll be getting at least in Making History (multiple parts have been shown and discussed as having alternate textures or togglable engine mounts) if not 1.4 as well (looks like the Rockomax tanks and fairings are shown with multiple texture options... I'd rather not make any unwarranted assumptions, but... I think its safe to say if each fairing diameter and texture was a separate part, that'd be a pretty quick way to clutter the part list). I'm curious as to the reason why the old and new textures are becoming a separate parts rather than being part of the list of available textures the player can (presumably) swap between. At the very least, it'd make updating old rockets to the new, sleeker look a lot easier. I'm also curious what exactly the new shrouds are. I assume they aren't new textures for the engine shrouds, the kind you get when you occupy the bottom node of most the rocket engines, as then they'd all be custom cut in length to match the length of the engine they correspond to (and wouldn't be floating in the editor like they're supposed to be independent parts from said engine). Interstage connectors perhaps? Fairings can kind of already occupy that niche, but they also won't let you emulate the S-1C to S-II interstate separation for when we get the Saturn V parts in Making History.
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