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Devnote Tuesdays: The Late Edition

SQUAD

By SQUAD
in KSP1 The Daily Kerbal

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SQUAD

SQUAD

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<figure class="tmblr-full" data-orig-height="92" data-orig-width="480"><img src="https://40.media.tumblr.com/0ff9377afa68dc3ad3fe6844aaf1bd38/tumblr_inline_nmgtd3FEcF1rr2wit_540.jpg" data-orig-height="92" data-orig-width="480"/></figure><p><b>Felipe (HarvesteR): </b>Another pretty busy week here. The camera wobble system is set up and operational (and scalable for internal and external views, separately). In preparation for the impending experimentals phase, I’ve been going over several items here which I had on my list, which I felt had to either get added now or get pushed aside:</p><ul><li>The main menu ‘load game’ dialog now shows Funds, Science and Reputation (as applicable depending on game type) for each game, as well as the number of active flights and contracts.<br/></li><li>The Physics Bubble for vessels is no longer always set to 2.5km. Those values are now defined separately for each possible situation, so we now keep vessels in the atmosphere (or in sub-orbital trajectories) loaded up to 22.5km away. That means falling debris can now easily hit the ground (or KSC facilities) during launch, other vessels can reenter with you and actually hit the surface, quite a few interesting things.<br/></li><li>I’ve added a basic set of custom cursors as well. OS default cursors in a game just scream ‘unfinished’. Although it was a minor addition, I couldn’t help but notice how everyone noticed it.<br/></li></ul><p>And last but most definitely not least (actually, quite the opposite), I’ve been thinking long and hard about the tech tree here, and a few important thoughts came up. Most importantly, I realized that no matter what tree layout we end up going with, there was one problem with the current implementation which would make any layout frustrating to go through: Until now, only nodes which were researchable were visible. You’d only get to see a greyed out node in the few cases where you unlocked one of the required parents for a node (in the very few cases where more than one parent is required to unlock). Now, all unavailable nodes will be visible in this greyed out state from the start, allowing you to see all the way ahead to the very ends of the tree,</p><p>This simple change alone already makes a dramatic difference in how going through the tech tree plays out. Being able to tell what comes next means you don’t have to take Tech nodes at face value anymore. You can now invest in long-term strategies, as you’ll be able to see where each branch ultimately leads. You also won’t find yourself blindly guessing anymore at the potential future options of a tech node, and getting frustrated when a choice turns out to be a dead end. In addition, you’ll also be able to select those Techs, view the parts they contain, view their dependencies and costs, all of which greatly enhance your ability to plan ahead and strategize, as you now have much more information available to make informed decisions.</p><p>Despite that, though (or perhaps as a consequence of it), I’ve also gone over the tree itself, and with the help of the debug utilities I wrote the other week, done a major revision to the tech tree layout. Being rid of the constraint of having to assume players can’t see the entire tree was immensely freeing. I was able to move nodes and parts about and create interesting branch paths with far more freedom and ease. (being able to launch cfg files in N++ straight from the game, and save and reload the tree on the fly were definitely a major help also). IMO, parts are much better organized. Aircraft parts are available earlier, a few redundant parts were repurposed/rebalanced, several new nodes have been added, including a few tier 8 ones, costing 1000 science. It should hopefully be quite a bit more interesting now.</p><p>Oh, and I also fixed the build server (again)… Although that’s hardly a lot of fun to talk about. Let’s hope it doesn’t break again immediately after writing this.</p><p><b>Mike (Mu): </b>I’ve been implementing some new parts from Porkjet and fixing a few bugs. The aero and thermal stuff is now feeling solid and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Thoroughly enjoyed a long weekend thanks to some religious thing too.</p><p><b>Marco (Samssonart):</b> This time there’s less to report since we had a short week in the Mexico front due to some mandatory Easter days off. Work on the demo is moving on nicely, I’m about halfway there I think, I’m starting to get into the career stuff.</p><p>QA for the tutorials has started too, there are not a lot of nasty bugs, but there is a fair bit of valuable feedback, so I’m going back and forth between the demo and the tutorials. Oh, and the usual “build-server-is-on-fire†situation now and then.</p><p><b>Jim (Romfarer):</b> This week i’ve been doing more bugfixing. I also had a lovely easter holiday. In more exciting news we did have a discussion about the tech tree and decided to make every node visible so you can see and select everything and better plan ahead. So i’ve implemented this functionality into the gui and it should work with all modded tech trees of course.</p><p><b>Max (Maxmaps):</b> Deals, meetings and more. Really exciting partnerships in the horizon that we can’t quite talk about yet without our surgically implanted NDA devices separating our heads from our necks. Other than that, I’ve been working on our prerelease plans for 1.0, contentwise to be precise. Should end up really cool!</p><p><b>Ted (Ted): </b>The QA Team and I have been continuing work on scraping together the last bits of QA and getting them done and dusted. Additional to this work, I’ve been writing and sorting the documentation for the Experimentals Team and testing are up to scratch. With, of course, a few build server issues to contend with in the meantime.</p><p>Lastly, I’ve managed to get in some good ol’ playtesting and getting as far in Career mode as quickly as possible. So far, the changes that have been made are fantastic.</p><p><b>Rogelio (Roger): </b>Finally Im done with the smoke simulation for the video, it was hard to really achieve the desired results, but I’m glad I did it. I’m adding some other effects to the shots where the smoke appears, the smoke is just another character in our new animation, it has its own role (I feel it like my little baby) lol. I’ve also been doing some lightning tests and it start to look very cool.</p><p><b>Kasper (KasperVld):</b> On sick leave. Get better, Kasper.</p>

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Universe

Universe

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Sweet! I'm actually looking forward to the enlarged physics bubble. It has the potential to make launch trajectories much more interesting!!!!!

Edit: Get well soon Kasper. I feel your pain.

Edited by Universe
Get well soon!!
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smjjames

smjjames

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the physics bubble for vessels is no longer always set to 2.5km. Those values are now defined separately for each possible situation, so we now keep vessels in the atmosphere (or in sub-orbital trajectories) loaded up to 22.5km away. That means falling debris can now easily hit the ground (or ksc facilities) during launch, other vessels can reenter with you and actually hit the surface, quite a few interesting things.

awesome! :D

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Spuds

Spuds

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Get Better Kasper!

Great to hear the physics bubble has been extended, though I wish that we can toggle the distance to what we desire. Hope that the tech tree modding tools get added in as well, that should allow for some alternate playstyles like BTSM and the Community Tech Tree.

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Mitchz95

Mitchz95

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Wow, great progress! Glad to see the tech tree is more transparent now, and I'll be using aircraft much more often now thanks to the parts being available earlier.

One question, though: is water lag going to be fixed in 1.0?

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Red Dwarf

Red Dwarf

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The Physics Bubble for vessels is no longer always set to 2.5km. Those values are now defined separately for each possible situation, so we now keep vessels in the atmosphere (or in sub-orbital trajectories) loaded up to 22.5km away. That means falling debris can now easily hit the ground (or KSC facilities) during launch, other vessels can reenter with you and actually hit the surface, quite a few interesting things.

Yes good.

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Bill Phil

Bill Phil

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Devnotes!!!!

I'm glad to hear about the physicis bubble changes and the tech tree.

I sure hope those smoke effects are amazing. It'd be a shame if they weren't...

Some good all around devnotes. Thanks, guys.

- - - Updated - - -

I wonder if the enlarged Physics Bubble will allow us to stick parachutes on things like SRBs and be able to recover them once they're expended. Can't wait to find out!

I'd say so...

Most SRBs are separated before 5000 meters anyways...

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Starwhip

Starwhip

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DEVNOTES! Yay!

EDIT:

Woah, hold your horses. The physics bubble goes 22.5 km in atmosphere now?

Hopefully, it's been optimized significantly. The island runway is, what, 18km away? I've got so many crashed things over there... The lag would be bad. :(

Edited by Starwhip
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klgraham1013

klgraham1013

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<b>Felipe (HarvesteR): </b>The Physics Bubble for vessels is no longer always set to 2.5km. Those values are now defined separately for each possible situation, so we now keep vessels in the atmosphere (or in sub-orbital trajectories) loaded up to 22.5km away. That means falling debris can now easily hit the ground (or KSC facilities) during launch, other vessels can reenter with you and actually hit the surface, quite a few interesting things.

Hmm... So many ideas, so suddenly. Things to test in 1.0.

<b>Felipe (HarvesteR): </b>I’ve also gone over the tree itself, and with the help of the debug utilities I wrote the other week, done a major revision to the tech tree layout. Aircraft parts are available earlier, a few redundant parts were repurposed/rebalanced, several new nodes have been added, including a few tier 8 ones, costing 1000 science. It should hopefully be quite a bit more interesting now.

Please be good.

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Hobbes Novakoff

Hobbes Novakoff

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I wonder if the enlarged Physics Bubble will allow us to stick parachutes on things like SRBs and be able to recover them once they're expended. Can't wait to find out!

It will, and we can more or less add Stage Recovery to the Big List O' Mods That Are Going To Be More Or Less Redundant After 1.0.

Also, I'd love to have it so that all vehicles with deployed parachutes in atmo are always loaded; that way you could drop a parachute scout probe during your Duna/Eve/Laythe aerobrake, and have it parachute to the ground while you circularize your orbit with the mothership.

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RocketPilot573

RocketPilot573

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The Physics Bubble for vessels is no longer always set to 2.5km. Those values are now defined separately for each possible situation, so we now keep vessels in the atmosphere (or in sub-orbital trajectories) loaded up to 22.5km away. That means falling debris can now easily hit the ground (or KSC facilities) during launch, other vessels can reenter with you and actually hit the surface, quite a few interesting things.

Wait what. That was unexpected. All I have to say is WOW!:cool:

I’ve added a basic set of custom cursors as well.

Cool! Can't wait to see what they look like.

Aircraft parts are available earlier, a few redundant parts were repurposed/rebalanced, several new nodes have been added, including a few tier 8 ones, costing 1000 science.

Thank you! Been waiting for this one. The previous tech tree really had all the newer parts sort of crammed in.

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tntristan12

tntristan12

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Given all of the focus on improving the tech tree, and making parts more accessible early on, is there any interest in removing the constraint of one node at start leading to a greater number of nodes down the line? It would make for an interesting mixup of game play strategies if players could choose a node at the outset which would specialize them for either aircraft, or unmanned sounding rockets, or the current manned rocketry node. Not only would this allow players to pick their own path at the outset, but it would greatly improve replayability.

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