Fengist Posted December 31, 2015 Author Share Posted December 31, 2015 @Red Iron Crown Very well, the license remains since you say I can't change it. I'm going to be as honest as I can be. You guys have no idea... NO idea... the amazing feeling I got going from 0 experience in 3D modelling, texturing, using Unity and coding in C# to seeing my mod with 10's of thousands of downloads in the matter of a couple of months. You have no idea how satisfying it was to launch my first hull with a basic jet strapped on top and watch it fly across the water. I was a KSP modder! You have no idea how great it felt to see all the screenshots of my little parts pack being used in some of the most bizarre ways that I never imagined. Somewhere, on some remote corner of our little planet, I knew I was providing laughs and entertainment to someone. I felt a sense of accomplishment. I was thrilled to wake up in the morning and before heading off to work, check the forum threads. Even before I read the news, I had to see what you guys had posted overnight. What you guys had to say about my pack eclipsed every world event. You also have no idea how disgusted I got trying to build that pack. How I spent gobs and gobs of hours trying to find any scrap of info that someone posted somewhere on some obscure api call. You have no idea how frustrated I got spending countless hours reloading and crashing KSP, changing one single number in a .cfg to see what it would do because the total lack of documentation from Squad forces modders to guess at most everything they do. When HarvesteR posted in one of the dev notes, a list of all the things he could have been doing, like debugging code, instead of wasting his time writing a dev note, it should have clued me in. But I was blinded by the fun of creating something new. And then... You have no idea how horrifying it was to launch my test boat after the last patch and watch it completely flip over on it's top and start flailing around on the water like a dying fish. You have no idea of how angry I became to think I might have to go through every single part, in both packs, and try to sort out what the hell had happened without a single line of documentation from Squad on what actually changed. And you have no idea how depressed I got thinking, "this is going to happen again and again and again." Let me be blunt. The reason I gave up had nothing to do with anyone anywhere on these forums. It has to do with Squad blindly making changes without even the courtesy of a decent patch note. You want an example? I tried talking Dice into reworking Boat Parts. He gave up when he couldn't keep his ships from flying and couldn't find any documentation to explain why they were. The only resource modders have is the fact that someone has probably already tried guessing at what a setting does. You just have to wade through pages and pages of forum searches to find it. And if they haven't, be prepared to spend days guessing. In the end, I decided that as much fun as it was and as great as it felt, the bruises I have from face-desking became more than I was willing to live with. Until Squad realizes that even though KSP might be paying the bills, it's the modders who are making the game great and giving people the incentive to purchase. And until they wake up and start documenting the things modders need to keep making and updating mods, I fear every mod is eventually doomed to extinction. Modders will get tired of guessing. I did. While my initial thought was Squad doesn't deserve half the mods it has, I've backtracked on that. While I'll personally NEVER mod for KSP again until they provide the guidance to do so, if anyone else wants to take this mod up, with the included bruises, refer to my previous post. If no one comes forward by the end of January, I'll ask RIC to close the thread. Again, thanks for understanding and.... "Fair winds and following seas" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kebab Kerman Posted January 3, 2016 Share Posted January 3, 2016 (edited) Just keep working on the mod, its still better than using 50 stock parts to make a small, simple yacht. Besides, what about adding cruise ship hull parts and maybe even hulls with interior? I have yet to see that! Sure, we can do that with stock, but this is WAY better than stock boats! And they don't float as well. Not as well at all. Also, this mod needs the ability to have boats actually sink. I don't care that Squad is trying to improve the water-based deaths by adding the ability to land on it with stock pontoons, that's planes, not ships. I love this mod, and if I knew how, I definitely would continue it. Besides, this beats stock boats all the way to the edge and center of the kerbal universe! Kebab Kerman, signing out for today. Edited January 3, 2016 by Kebab Kerman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthJeb Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 On 12/31/2015 at 5:25 AM, Fengist said: @Red Iron Crown Very well, the license remains since you say I can't change it. I'm going to be as honest as I can be. You guys have no idea... NO idea... the amazing feeling I got going from 0 experience in 3D modelling, texturing, using Unity and coding in C# to seeing my mod with 10's of thousands of downloads in the matter of a couple of months. You have no idea how satisfying it was to launch my first hull with a basic jet strapped on top and watch it fly across the water. I was a KSP modder! You have no idea how great it felt to see all the screenshots of my little parts pack being used in some of the most bizarre ways that I never imagined. Somewhere, on some remote corner of our little planet, I knew I was providing laughs and entertainment to someone. I felt a sense of accomplishment. I was thrilled to wake up in the morning and before heading off to work, check the forum threads. Even before I read the news, I had to see what you guys had posted overnight. What you guys had to say about my pack eclipsed every world event. You also have no idea how disgusted I got trying to build that pack. How I spent gobs and gobs of hours trying to find any scrap of info that someone posted somewhere on some obscure api call. You have no idea how frustrated I got spending countless hours reloading and crashing KSP, changing one single number in a .cfg to see what it would do because the total lack of documentation from Squad forces modders to guess at most everything they do. When HarvesteR posted in one of the dev notes, a list of all the things he could have been doing, like debugging code, instead of wasting his time writing a dev note, it should have clued me in. But I was blinded by the fun of creating something new. And then... You have no idea how horrifying it was to launch my test boat after the last patch and watch it completely flip over on it's top and start flailing around on the water like a dying fish. You have no idea of how angry I became to think I might have to go through every single part, in both packs, and try to sort out what the hell had happened without a single line of documentation from Squad on what actually changed. And you have no idea how depressed I got thinking, "this is going to happen again and again and again." Let me be blunt. The reason I gave up had nothing to do with anyone anywhere on these forums. It has to do with Squad blindly making changes without even the courtesy of a decent patch note. You want an example? I tried talking Dice into reworking Boat Parts. He gave up when he couldn't keep his ships from flying and couldn't find any documentation to explain why they were. The only resource modders have is the fact that someone has probably already tried guessing at what a setting does. You just have to wade through pages and pages of forum searches to find it. And if they haven't, be prepared to spend days guessing. In the end, I decided that as much fun as it was and as great as it felt, the bruises I have from face-desking became more than I was willing to live with. Until Squad realizes that even though KSP might be paying the bills, it's the modders who are making the game great and giving people the incentive to purchase. And until they wake up and start documenting the things modders need to keep making and updating mods, I fear every mod is eventually doomed to extinction. Modders will get tired of guessing. I did. While my initial thought was Squad doesn't deserve half the mods it has, I've backtracked on that. While I'll personally NEVER mod for KSP again until they provide the guidance to do so, if anyone else wants to take this mod up, with the included bruises, refer to my previous post. If no one comes forward by the end of January, I'll ask RIC to close the thread. Again, thanks for understanding and.... "Fair winds and following seas" Damn, and KSP was the leading indie game in mod support, they should integrate the mod and hire you at least Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randazzo Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, DarthJeb said: Damn, and KSP was the leading indie game in mod support, they should integrate the mod and hire you at least I'm not sure what you think happened here, but all Squad did was add buoyancy. Ferram did that way before this came along. Edited January 11, 2016 by Randazzo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcirish3 Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, DarthJeb said: Damn, and KSP was the leading indie game in mod support, they should integrate the mod and hire you at least I think it still is. It is more the very regular updates over the years that have worn out a lot of mod makers. That and some rather bad actors in the community on occasion. But in my experience, as limited as that may be, this is really a very good community over all. ANd squad despite their shortcomings...*cough* delaying the migration to unity five until after the 1.0 release *cough*... is really one of the best game developers out there when it comes to listening to both the mod makers and the players. Edited January 11, 2016 by mcirish3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dezzy65 Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 How i can download it? im new on forum.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randazzo Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 6 hours ago, Dezzy65 said: How i can download it? im new on forum.. Hi Dezzy, Unfortunately this mod is no longer in a working state. You can still find the downloads on Kerbal Stuff and Curse, but the parts apparently do not function in KSP 1.0.5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturmgeschutz Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 I could see the future for this mod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcirish3 Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 20 minutes ago, Sturmgeschutz said: I could see the future for this mod Based on the conversation above I do think it has to die. It is just a matter of whether a mod maker will pick it up or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fengist Posted January 25, 2016 Author Share Posted January 25, 2016 Currently in discussions with someone who will be taking over this mod. As soon as they get set up, I'll change the op to direct to their thread and post an update here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 11 minutes ago, Fengist said: Currently in discussions with someone who will be taking over this mod. As soon as they get set up, I'll change the op to direct to their thread and post an update here. Glad to hear. I'm still sad to see you go, but I can see where you got frustrated. Is the submarine mod going to be taken over, too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azimech Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Sorry to see the emotions got the best of you, @Fengist. The solution is actually very simple. You've built your ship parts with a mass which is 1/10000 of real life stuff - needed for 1.0.4, terrible for 1.0.5. I've just built & tested a cargo ship and see the problems, I predict they can be solved with less than a days work. Mass increase to more realistic levels. The ships should be in the water no longer bouncing off. Crash tolerance, breaking force & torque need to be set to correspond with mass. Every hull part should get a buoyancy parameter. Maybe a CoM adjustment to improve or even decrease stability. Example: the cargo ship I built. Original mass: 5 tons. New mass: 454 tons. It behaves a lot better now. Can be tuned some more but this was 10 minutes work. Greetings from that other maritime guy :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDJ Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 @Fengist: Well I am sorry that you had so much trouble with this mod, but to be honest, I really enjoy what you did with Maritime and I'm glad I have your mod in my library of mods. I think you did one heck of a job, and I thank you very much for your effort. I use alot of your parts in my spacecraft, jet planes, speed boats, and it fills the little gaps I need to complete my crafts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beowolf Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 (edited) On 12/31/2015 at 0:25 AM, Fengist said: @Red Iron Crown You guys have no idea... NO idea... the amazing feeling I got ... You also have no idea how disgusted I got trying to build... You have no idea how horrifying it was to launch my test... And you have no idea how depressed I got thinking, "this is going to happen again and again and again." Let me be blunt. Again, thanks for understanding and.... "Fair winds and following seas" All the professional developers here actually do know exactly how you felt. You didn't go through anything unique. I spent 25 years riding that rollercoaster. It's where developers doing creative work live. Though I admit it's been so long I can't specifically remember my first time anymore. The lesson you need to take away from this experience is you perhaps aren't meant to be a developer. That's not intended as an insult; simply a statement of fact that you don't have the temperament for this role just like I don't have the temperament to be an investment banker or basketball player. I'm just not competitive enough for those jobs. Once, IBM changed the way my mainframe's CPU executed a particular instruction via a maintenance patch to the microcode, and they didn't document that either. Took six weeks of constant crashes of our 24x7 hospital admission system to find the problem, and then 5 minutes to fix. IBM even flew two of the CPU's chief engineers to our site from NY for the last couple of weeks. Cost my employer $30k-$50k in downtime alone, and cost me six straight 80-hour weeks with no overtime pay. I've been through similar problems thanks to "undocumented changes" by Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, and dozens of smaller companies you never heard of. It's part of why developers burn out sometimes and retire to a cabin in Maine. It's usually not that the company sloppily forgot to document something. It's because they had no idea I was using that particular mix of features in that particular way, probably had no idea it was even possible, and since that condition wasn't tested during QA the vendor didn't know it had changed. In other words, please try not to blame Squad for a problem that's endemic to the whole damned software industry. So, yeah, give the code away and pick a new hobby. Have you considered a cabin in Maine? Or how about a sailboat? For a decade I had a fantasy about buying a sailboat and just cruising the world, getting as far away from computers as possible. Had a big stack of books about it, and spent hours evaluating different equipment and outfitting my non-existent boat. I do understand, and sympathize. Thanks for your hard work, and I hope the next thing you try suits you better. Happy flying! Edited January 31, 2016 by Beowolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allmhuran Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 (edited) 3 hours ago, Beowolf said: please try not to blame Squad for a problem that's endemic to the whole damned software industry. So, yeah, give the code away and pick a new hobby. Have you considered a cabin in Maine? Or how about a sailboat? Fengist, I hope that you disregard this condescension. This is, of course, not the way the whole software development industry works in principle, nor is it the way the software development industry works in general, although there are specific occasions where it works this way. And when it does work this way, it can be, and should be, subject to criticism. As a developer, you would be entirely correct to be frustrated at the lack of a supported API, the lack of documentation on such an API if it existed, and the lack of documentation on changes to such an API. Being frustrated by this tells me that you understand good software development principles, or at the very least understand the frustrations that arise when such principles are not followed, even if you don't know the specifics of technical phrases like "Separation of Concerns", "Interface abstraction", "inversion of control", "dependency injection", and so on - although I suspect you might. It is the very people who believe that this is the norm that cause these kinds of problems on any specific project. Of course, you don't have to take my word for that: Here's what Linus Torvalds has to say on the topic. Edited January 31, 2016 by allmhuran Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hysterrics Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 (edited) So wait, Squad should just stop updating their game so you can keep your mod going? If your going to be a modder, you should be committed to it. It's alright if you don't want to continue. That's your decision. The issue is that now you're giving no one rights to the mod which means no one else can pick up development and you're blaming it all on Squad. Edited January 31, 2016 by Sequinox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUKE Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 (edited) 17 hours ago, Sequinox said: So wait, Squad should just stop updating their game so you can keep your mod going? If your going to be a modder, you should be committed to it. It's alright if you don't want to continue. That's your decision. The issue is that now you're giving no one rights to the mod which means no one else can pick up development and you're blaming it all on Squad. No that's not what's done it for him, it's the lack of detailed patch notes, supporting modders, explaining API, or even any real modding guides. I mean I have a small mod, and EVERYTHING I had to do to make those parts I had to either trial and error (try it, it's not fun at all), or i had to try and find something community made. Also he already said he's sorting out new ownership of the mod. EDIT: Also try sorting through the tonnes of stuff in the debug menu to try and catch a glimpse of what making that part not show up in game. Good bye Fengist my old friend, I salute you for the work you had done. Happy sailing and fair seas my friend. Edited February 1, 2016 by TUKE Addition Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDJ Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 3 minutes ago, TUKE said: No that's not what's done it for him, it's the lack of detailed patch notes, supporting modders, explaining API, or even any real modding guides. I mean I have a small mod, and EVERYTHING I had to do to make those parts I had to either trial and error (try it, it's not fun at all), or i had to try and find something community made. I don't think that is unreasonable at all to expect from SQUAD. If they go ahead and change something, fine. It's their game. But at least they can give a heads up or a e-mail giving modders the details of what to expect. I think that is very reasonable to want to receive this. Trial and error method? No thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUKE Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 5 minutes ago, GDJ said: Trial and error method? No thanks. And when it's a case of the wrong animation module in unity or some silly c*** like that, yeah.............. Even now I am still guessing, hence why I don't even want to try a cockpit because I will in all likely hood be unable to do the IVA. So THIS is what I am making, not much, but still surprisingly difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDJ Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 (edited) 44 minutes ago, TUKE said: And when it's a case of the wrong animation module in unity or some silly c*** like that, yeah.............. Even now I am still guessing, hence why I don't even want to try a cockpit because I will in all likely hood be unable to do the IVA. So THIS is what I am making, not much, but still surprisingly difficult. That looks great! Yeah, even trying to swap IVA's from one cockpit to another is rather problematic, just so I can see the Kerbalnaut in the right bottom corner. As for Fengst's mod here, I managed to get some of it working fairly well by altering the mass of the floating components (generally making them heavier) and that's been working out fairly well, at least for the boats to travel on the water. I can build a fully functioning Yacht that sits in the water stable, and the waterline is right where the hull goes from black to white. Thanks Azimech for giving me the idea! Edited February 1, 2016 by GDJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boborene Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 On 1/25/2016 at 7:30 AM, Azimech said: Sorry to see the emotions got the best of you, @Fengist. The solution is actually very simple. You've built your ship parts with a mass which is 1/10000 of real life stuff - needed for 1.0.4, terrible for 1.0.5. I've just built & tested a cargo ship and see the problems, I predict they can be solved with less than a days work. Mass increase to more realistic levels. The ships should be in the water no longer bouncing off. Crash tolerance, breaking force & torque need to be set to correspond with mass. Every hull part should get a buoyancy parameter. Maybe a CoM adjustment to improve or even decrease stability. Example: the cargo ship I built. Original mass: 5 tons. New mass: 454 tons. It behaves a lot better now. Can be tuned some more but this was 10 minutes work. Greetings from that other maritime guy :-) gg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crasher925 Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 so i guess i can kiss my dream of sailing in KSP good bye Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcirish3 Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, crasher925 said: so i guess i can kiss my dream of sailing in KSP good bye No mate it is ok, Fengist is passing his mod off to another mod maker. I am guessing they are waiting until 1.1 to make it official. Also the licencing made it forkable so there is always that. ALso, Azimech makes two excellent ship mods. Edited February 8, 2016 by mcirish3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beowolf Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 On 1/31/2016 at 3:24 AM, allmhuran said: Fengist, I hope that you disregard this condescension. This is, of course, not the way the whole software development industry works in principle, nor is it the way the software development industry works in general, although there are specific occasions where it works this way. And when it does work this way, it can be, and should be, subject to criticism. LOL, "not the way the whole software industry works in principle...nor in general" And how many decades have you spent as a professional fulltime developer? I stand by every word. When I originally wrote that post, I deleted several paragraphs of examples. I guess I should have left them in for you. And what you thought was "condescension" was my personal history. I did buy a sailboat to try to escape (no pager service on the lake, hooray!). A friend and colleague burned out, moved to a cabin in Maine, and hasn't been heard from since. Sorry my actual lifetime experiences don't meet your standards. It made my head spin that you posted a link to one of Torvalds profanity-laced meltdowns as an example in a discussion of professional standards. The man's utterly unprofessional and, in his own words, "is a very unpleasant person to be around". He's a brilliant lone wolf but has never spent a single day of his life working as a professional developer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eskandare Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 Fengist, I know exactly how you feel. I have to rewrite my mod each time there is an update. Rewriting for updates are common. You need to pace yourself and work around the changes. With every change there are challenges. Engines change, games change, mods change. We must all adapt. Nothing in the universe stays the same. I originally made screws and smoke stacks (desel, steam and nuclear) to use with your hulls. I haven't published them because of the lack of ship hulls. Azimech is right, with some very simple changes to this mod and it is back to working order. Same would go for InfinateDice's mod, which I loved dearly, but now I can't make carriers without a million parts, no catapult, no arrestor cable. Just don't give up... I don't, and I never will. I love your models Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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