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Squadcast Summary (2015-05-30) - Mu Joins In!

BudgetHedgehog
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BudgetHedgehog

BudgetHedgehog

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Hello everybody, and here's the summary for Squadcast 2015-05-30. Sorry for spelling mistakes etc. I try and clarify what is an actual quote from Max (if it's wrapped in "quotation marks", it's the best transcript of an official Squad member you'll find on the web), and what is a summary from myself as I'm aware I switch between the two with 0 notice. When I say 'Squad', I mean 'the relevant people who are currently developing the game'. As always, this is just a volunteer transcript of an off the cuff vlog of a non-native english speaker - some details may change or be entirely incorrect.

Squadcast Summary for 2015-05-30 - Watch it here!

Mu joins in this week! He's from Manchester and has a silver car :) 3 weeks ago, Squad were working on 1.0.1 and 1.0.2, the next week, they were jumping out of planes in Mexico. Max got a hairline fracture on his coccyx.

PSA: right now, physicsless parts aren't truely physicsless anymore. They transfer drag and mass (i.e. all physical properties) to their parent.

This week, Max and Mu talked mainly about Unity 5 and the 1.0.3 hotfix. With Unity 5, every single UI will be replaced as the current system uses like 3 different UI systems which bloats the game. With them all being replaced with 1, it'll hopefully optimise things, reduce scene change loading tines a bit etc. Overall, it should run slicker and get a bit of a visual revamp. Modders will have better access to things and able to do more stuff (some stuff about OnGUI that I don't understand (Squad are removing all uses of it, but modders are still able to use it), best to watch it for yourself if you're a modder (or not) and want to know more. Skip to 6 minutes or read my transcript here).

Wheel colliders in U5.. they're not fun and are a pain unless you use them specifically for cars. For spaceships with 12 wheels at odd places, it works perfectly up to 5m/s or so then wobbles to death. So they fixed it - as mentioned in the last Devnotes, they're using a custom version of something from the Asset Store (written specifically for KSP by the author) that should handle things a lot better.

Also, brace yourself - multithreaded physics incoming ;)

1.0.3 news! Mu's been putting hours into it, he noticed even before 1.0 that balancing heating for command pods and cockpits is mutually exclusive, so they're introducing a new heating system called Skin Heating - basically, rather than seeing a part as a part, you see it as things surrounded by a shell of metal that heats up and cools down quicker - this basically makes things easier to balance overall. Same system as in Deadly Re-Entry actually - Squad talked to those devs and got permission to use some of their ideas. All their own code, but some of DREs ideas. 1.0.3 will not be released this week due to this new heating system needing balance, Squad wants to make it right first time. 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 were about 6 hours apart, Squad wants to avoid that again. Re-entries will be "better", should exit and re-enter more stabley. Rockets will be more stable, aero will change a bit so "just wing it". More engine tunings, fairings have been fixed ("for the changes to the heating system" - NathanKell), Mk3 parts drag fixed, temperature gauge memory leak fixed (huge thanks to sarbian for helping with this).. big changelog, but not coming this week and probably not the next either. Regarding the editor aerodynamic stability overlay, it's still pencilled in, but it's one of those things that the more you add to it, the more you CAN add to it, which is a dangerous position to be in. Still, it's in the devs minds.

Big news: Once U5 is done, Mu will take a more serious role regarding development: he'll take the wheel for 1.1+. Multiplayer development is getting seriously done, so HarvesteR is going to concentrate more on that, while Mu will take care of KSP core in general. Few new.. "procedures" regarding design, input and feedback.

Other stuff that you already know or don't care about happened, Jeb died again and Max is still terrible at KSP.

________________________________________________

And that's pretty much it from me. Ta-ra, procrastinators!

Edited by ObsessedWithKSP
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NecroBones

NecroBones

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Awesome!

I still want to know what the change in the wheel collider system will mean for existing parts in part mods.... like landing legs (they used upside-down wheel colliders for the suspension system). Do we need to redesign them from scratch? Will the existing ones get automatically translated to the new system? Inquiring minds want to know...

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NathanKell

NathanKell

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Given the way Mike phrased things, it sounds rather like some of the stuff Claw and I were discussing in the Overhauls thread, i.e. 1.0 levels of drag for spaceplanes and very-tapered rockets, and 1.0.2 levels of drag for pods.

We'll just have to see, though! :)

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BudgetHedgehog

BudgetHedgehog

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OnGUI transcript (full)

Mu: "We're eliminating all uses of OnGUI from the code, which is.. if you've profiled the game, it's a huge black pit of performance.. umm.. that is going to be a huge boon, I think"

Maxmaps: "How do you expect like in the case of modders, do you think they're going to have to redo a lot of work or..?"

Mu: "Well, most modders use OnGUI anyway so they should be fine.. umm, for those who interact with the standard UI, it should be pretty similar because most of the stuff is just being rebuilt, but it's still called the same thing. Umm, we have namespaced it all off, so you'll definitely have to recompile, but that makes the game easier to program for anyway.. umm, but they'll also be able to use our pop-up prefab windows easier which is basically like OnGUI but done in unity, so max performance with uh, actually minimal code changes, it was designed to replace OnGUI code so it almost works exactly the same."

Maxmaps: "Awesome!"

Mu: "And also, they'll have better access to all of the things and should be able to change them easier, it's a lot easier to code and script than EzGUI was and certainly SSUI which was, is the third thing.. so yeah, it's positive, modders will have to put a few minutes in here and there but it should be fine"

Maxmaps: "It won't be a massive amount of work that will tank your systems, but in the end, it will be worth it, I think"

Mu: "It's gonna be worth it, both for us and players and modders because it's such a pain to maintain the interface"

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basic.syntax

basic.syntax

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Thanks OWK! Its great to hear that 1.0.3 will be more than just a few quick fixes. Mu is doing entirely new coding work to balance the system, with some help from DRE, yes, but nonetheless much more involved work than "just" tweaking all the part values, which was going to be complex enough in my mind, because you have to consider what the appropriate values should be, for each one.

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problemecium

problemecium

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Yaaay, multithreaded Physics is actually really on its way for real (not just a thing for which we had our fingers crossed)!

I'm disappointed to hear that the aero model is liable to change yet again, but I'm not surprised and I concede it will be better if we settle on the best model feasible rather than just whatever we have.

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TheMoonRover

TheMoonRover

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Fairings fixed, eh? I hope that means what I think it means.
Holy Kraken. I hope this means what I think it means.

What does it mean? What's wrong with the fairings?

- - - Updated - - -

Stand outside his house until he lets you see the dev version of multiplayer/1.0.3/U5

Hehe. Manchester is a big city though (by UK standards anyway) so that wouldn't be easy...

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Endersmens

Endersmens

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What does it mean? What's wrong with the fairings?

- - - Updated - - -

Hehe. Manchester is a big city though (by UK standards anyway) so that wouldn't be easy...

They (we) want 2 piece fairing separation, which is more realistic. Right now fairings can eject as many as 50 or more pieces using the 3.75m fairings.

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