Squadcast Summary 2015/08/28 - Three For The Price Of One

[Superfluous J]

Sorry this was late. I didn't even know there was going to be a real Squadcast and Twitch is being persnickety so I had to watch it on Twitch. This time, though, we had 2 (and sometimes 3) hosts.

Every 10 minutes I drop a time stamp, so if you can find a spot in the video more easily. Something in "quotes" means it was directly said, though I frequently don't bother with that. [brackets] are those rare times where the accent barrier keeps me from understanding something, and italics are descriptions of what Max is doing in the game, with asides and commentary by me where I feel the desire. Finally, (things in parenthesis are asides by me when I either don't understand something they're saying, or just feel like it).

There were 2 videos, the first was less than 10 minutes long, the second over an hour.

First Video: (You can skip this one, nothing worth watching)

KSP to Wii U

They showed the teaser video, then an interview with Max on something called Nindies@Night.

I was having some technical issues unfortunately, you can get the video here

2nd video:

0:00

The interview continued, they started playing the game at about 2:15

KasperVld, Ted, and Andrea were subbing for Max.

Their goal is to fly to Duna and set up a base, using a mod from a recent Modding Monday.

The rocket is very large. Kasper forgot to add struts to the sides.

Andrea introduced herself. She's from Mexico City, and is the new community Manager (Badie)

She didn't know a lot about KSP before the job.

She's been to space, but hasn't gotten further. "It's really difficult for me."

She's trying to go to Mun now.

The side boosters run out. He detaches, and the center stack explodes because they clipped into it.

He reverts, and adds struts, and launches again.

KSP 1.1, from Ted:

Unity 5 upgrade, the core of 1.1. The players will see the benefits. "Conservative" performance improvements.

64 bit. They're focusing solely on that now. Stability.

Q: Is 1.1 in QA?

A: Not yet. Making sure they're starting on the right foot.

GAmeplay features: Antenna relays. Contract fleshing out depth.

10:00

Mk1 crew cabin for spaceplanes, can be used for space stations as well. (This seems obvious to me, as can all capsules?)

He decouples the boosters, and they successfully detach.

Then his rocket flips. Classic Max, but from Kasper this time.

He recovers, and continues to space.

Q: Length of the Imgur Album (There was no context so I don't know what this is)

A:

Q: Will the game look different?

A: Other than minor changes, no. It's still being worked on so no specifics.

Contextual contracts. Arsonide's wanted to do it for a while. Core devs work on backend stuff, but not fleshing out the game, so Arsonide is doing this.

Continuation of what the players have already built.

Now, you'll get a contract to alter the orbit of a satellite, or land a base module to a current base you already have.

Hard to sum up how it's implemented, but it'll be good to have a run-through in QA.

U5 needs to be stable before they can QA the features.

Kasper gets into orbit with very little fuel in his lifter, but he does it. Very efficient orbit. When he reached Ap his Pe was just under the ground.

Acknowledgement from Ted about UI bugs. Now, though, QA will be specifically testing the UI and can test for those bugs specifically, and the devs will be looking at them.

20:00

Discussion of bugs and how they get squished. And a bug can remain for many versions because they have to prioritize bugs that actually cause corruption or craft to explode. Click through is annoying but you can work around it.

Kasper sets up a pretty inefficient transfer to Duna I can't tell if he could have done it better, or if his transfer window was not ideal

Q: Will KSP have localization or will people have to make their own?

A: "popular" languages will be done by Squad, but the framework will be opened up. Not in 1.1, but in "future updates."

Q: Fairing modification, color shape and design.

A: Maybe in the future but not for 1.1.

Q: When does 1.1 launch?

A: Ha ha.

Q: Adding any part mods to the game?

A: Not in 1.1, unless PorkJet counts. Though he's making new stuff.

Q: Will limited EVA fuel be implemented?

A: 0.25 they were adding that in. Kerbals siphoned monoprop from cockpits. It went to QA. People had lots of trouble with it, because it's "quite unforgiving." to go EVA and not have monoprop in your suit. They were also concentrating on other bugs, so just removed it and put it on the back burner. And never went back to it. It's not something they're planning in the near future, but it could be a difficulty setting.

Q: When are Kasper and Andrea coming on the podcast?

A: They're on opposite sides of the world, so likely not together.

The Duna intercept is giving Kasper some difficulties, but he gets it.

30:00

Kasper gives props to Ted and Andrea for reading the questions for him, and Max for doing Squadcast and reading the questions himself.

Filipe is actually very good at KSP.

The ship reaches Duna, and after an Ike encounter flies by Duna. Retrograde.

He F5s before aerobrake.

U5 performance. nothing "revolutionary." Just a bit quicker. They have not tested on multiple different systems yet.

Q: Will Val be getting glass on her helmet on the menu screen?

A: "That is probably something we will fix." There's a mod that is "something like 4 lines."

Good aerobrake, other than being retrograde.

Modders currently working on KSP:

Bob, RoverDude. He brought resources. Currently working on Antenna diversity.

Arsonide, Brian. He is "King of contracts." He wrote Fine Print. Came in about 0.25. Working on contextual contracts.

PorkJet, Chris. King of spaceplane parts. He brought SpacePlane Plus Plus. Making detailed and efficient parts. Which is good because if each part is efficient, they can have more parts.

NathanKell, currently working on back end of localization. Also he's doing a "Thermal Tweak" to patch up problems people are having with the thermal just running away.

They're all doing really well and are adding things that are new but stay true to the original game design that Felipe had.

It's really good to work with all of them.

40:00

Kasper is aiming at the ground base, to come in and land in predawn.

The mod Red Iron Crown pointed Kasper to this mod. Which Kasper still hasn't said what it is. It's not bee released yet. He's deploying greenhouses that will unfold a bit.

Q: What is the skill set to be in the Experimental gorup?

A: Applicants ill hear back in a week or so. The skills are specific. Need to be attentive. Attention to detail. See things that don't look right. Good communicator. How to talk objectivity without personal bias. Also very patient, and understand that not all bugs will be fixed.

The ship breaks up on re-entry and the greenhouses explode. F9. He went in too shallow.

Clickthrough is annoying, but it was quite a pain to solve in U4 and they knew the UI was being overhauled. Irritating, but not high priority compared to game breaking bugs.

1.1 will have time for QA to recommend bugs to fix.

There was a lot of trouble upgrading from U3 to U4.

Q: Will "Asteroid Day" parts become stock?

A: Ted likes the idea of it, but they want to give it more time on its own.

50:00

Kasper reloads, as he's landing 50km short. He has a rover but won't accept a landing that far away.

Discussion of HOC's charity event.

Q: 5m parts in the game

A: No plans currently. Not opposed to it, but the 3.75m parts took quite some time to develop and find a role for, and doing that for 5m parts is not currently in the cards.

Looking forward to having it on the 3 major consoles.

No details on consoles yet.

He lands safely, 4km away. This is acceptable to Kasper.

This mod comes with landing legs and wheels, but he's not using those. He's got a rover to pick up the new delivery.

Q: Redesigning the rocket parts, in particular 2.5?

A: Not 2.5 in particular, but yes. (No details)

Q: Make your own Kerbals?

A: Yes, on Kerbalizer. But not integrated into the game.

He drives his rover over to the base, almost flipping it.

Andrea gets her audio back. It was down due to loudness at Squad HQ.

Q: Game Balance?

A: 3-kerbal pod, weighs 5x the 1-kerbal pod.

Game balance is a continuous thing. They will balance the game forever.

Q (from Kasper): what's the best part of working at Squad so far, Andrea

A: never happened

Rover reaches greenhouse. He lines up the ports, raises the legs, and docks. THen he loweres all legs and the base is grabbed. The rover is now top-heavy, and he has to drive 4km. He quicksaves

The 64 bit version can use more ram, but not more processor.

1:00:00

Q: Make docking ports less wobbly?

A: They're always looking into that, but hard joints are very delicate to modify. No specific plans.

Q: Something about overly large save files.

A: The don't have anything specific, but if given an example they can look at it.

Q: How many people are working on KSP

A: 12 core people, then freelancers and modders, so about 16.

He makes it to the base, does a scary stoppie, and stops safely.

Q: Easter eggs?

A: When they have more time.

He deploys the greenhouses, and they clip into the ground and explode.

Q: Link to the mod?

A: It was in the Skype chat. Check the latest Modding Monday. (How did I miss this? It looks really cool. Everything is cut in half vertically or even quartered, with things to hold them)

(Thanks, OWK)

Here's the mod Kasper was using.

Edited August 30, 2015 by 5thHorseman

[Ival70]

Thank you for filling in those of us who missed the broadcast this week. I have to say, I am perplexed at the downplay of the performance for 1.1. I was previously under the vague impression that there would be a large increase in for CPU's.

Edit: Oh yes, how could I forget! +1

[Columbia]

Thanks for this, 5thHorseman!

[Renegrade]

Thank you for filling in those of us who missed the broadcast this week. I have to say, I am perplexed at the downplay of the performance for 1.1. I was previously under the vague impression that there would be a large increase in for CPU's.

I've been warning people to temper expectations regarding CPU performance...

Actually I wrote an eloquent essay about tempering expectations in general (built around the old saying of, "if you expect the worst, all of your surprises will be pleasant ones", and warning people to expect 1.1 to burn their house down, eat their pets, provoke a tax audit, and then crash the real life universe), but decided not to post it after all as it had a rather vitriolic flavor.

[KasperVld]

Sorry this was late. I didn't even know there was going to be a real Squadcast and Twitch is being persnickety so I had to watch it on Twitch. This time, though, we had 2 (and sometimes 3) hosts.

Every 10 minutes I drop a time stamp, so if you can find a spot in the video more easily. Something in "quotes" means it was directly said, though I frequently don't bother with that. [brackets] are those rare times where the accent barrier keeps me from understanding something, and italics are descriptions of what Max is doing in the game, with asides and commentary by me where I feel the desire. Finally, (things in parenthesis are asides by me when I either don't understand something they're saying, or just feel like it).

There were 2 videos, the first was less than 10 minutes long, the second over an hour.

First Video: (You can skip this one, nothing worth watching)

KSP to Wii U

They showed the teaser video, then an interview with Max on something called Nindies@Night.

The quality was very poor on both. Watch them elsewhere if you want to see them.

I was having some technical issues unfortunately, you can get the video here

[Renegrade]

Sorry this was late. I didn't even know there was going to be a real Squadcast and Twitch is being persnickety so I had to watch it on Twitch. This time, though, we had 2 (and sometimes 3) hosts.

Don't apologize, btw. We all greatly appreciate the summary

Q: Will limited EVA fuel be implemented?

A: 0.25 they were adding that in. Kerbals siphoned monoprop from cockpits. It went to QA. People had lots of trouble with it, because it's "quite unforgiving." to go EVA and not have monoprop in your suit. They were also concentrating on other bugs, so just removed it and put it on the back burner. And never went back to it. It's not something they're planning in the near future, but it could be a difficulty setting.

I didn't see this bit the first time though. This is... the danger zone ... for me.

Maybe if people stopped relying on #lolreactionwheels and put some RCS tanks on, they'd not run out so easily, and mistakes would have consequences.

This sort of reasoning eventually leads to a difficulty setting that disables fuel consumption entirely. Sometimes, you just gotta man (or woman) up, admit that ship R1's design is a failure, and put on that RCS tank when launching ship R2.. It's not rocket science, people! Well, er, maybe it is, but it's in a rocket science game! Jeez..

Anybody interested in some of the background can see what happened here:

<some faulty math on Harv's side>

...sigh. It works fine in BTSM.

[Bloody_looser]

Greenhouse sinking into ground and exploding was hilarious.

[Grumman]

I didn't see this bit the first time though. This is... the danger zone ... for me.

Maybe if people stopped relying on #lolreactionwheels and put some RCS tanks on, they'd not run out so easily, and mistakes would have consequences.

This sort of reasoning eventually leads to a difficulty setting that disables fuel consumption entirely. Sometimes, you just gotta man (or woman) up, admit that ship R1's design is a failure, and put on that RCS tank when launching ship R2.. It's not rocket science, people! Well, er, maybe it is, but it's in a rocket science game! Jeez..

Real spacesuits do not even use the same fuel for maneuvering as the ship does, so it's impossible for the RCS to use up all your spacesuit fuel. It's also an unsatisfying mechanic that does nothing until it is completely crippling: a spacecraft that runs out of RCS can still use its main engines and reaction wheels to maneuver, but a Kerbal on EVA has nothing else if you discover he left the ship with an empty tank.

[passinglurker]

Modders currently working on KSP:

Bob, RoverDude. He brought resources. Currently working on Antenna diversity.

Arsonide, Brian. He is "King of contracts." He wrote Fine Print. Came in about 0.25. Working on contextual contracts.

PorkJet, Chris. King of spaceplane parts. He brought SpacePlane Plus Plus. Making detailed and efficient parts. Which is good because if each part is efficient, they can have more parts.

Q: 5m parts in the game

A: No plans currently. Not opposed to it, but the 3.75m parts took quite some time to develop and find a role for, and doing that for 5m parts is not currently in the cards.

The more they make the textures efficient the more parts they can add. The more parts they add the bigger they make the tree. The bigger they make the tree the more worlds you have to visit to find enough science. essentially more parts = more planets! ...we are totally gonna need dynamic loading...

Q: Game Balance?

A: 3-kerbal pod, weighs 5x the 1-kerbal pod.

Game balance is a continuous thing. They will balance the game forever.

Continuous? You make a formula for what the mass should be based on all its other stats and you follow that formula for all other pods. why in the kraken would you need to keep tweaking after that? sure you can tweak the formula to say how heavy these crewed parts should be overall but there is no reason to not establish and maintain some consistency. because at the moment crewed parts are the reason for most launches in ksp but their stats make the least sense out of any of the parts in the game honestly this just sounds like a copout to not bother doing it at all...

Really I don't even care if they are balanced I just want them to be consistent at this point...

[Majorjim!]

Thanks for this,

I am concerned by his words regarding performance increases. He says "Just a bit quicker". That is worryingly vague. That could mean anything really. We want facts and figures! On a given system what is the exact FPS increase with a given craft? I have a very bad feeling about this..

[Superfluous J]

I was having some technical issues unfortunately, you can get the video here

Added to the OP. Thanks!

Continuous? You make a formula for what the mass should be based on all its other stats and you follow that formula for all other pods. why in the kraken would you need to keep tweaking after that?

Part balancing =/= making all the parts equal. It's giving each one plusses and minuses so some are better in some places than others, and those "better"s can be subjective so no, you can't just toss all the values in a formula and pop out what each part "should" be.

The 3 man capsule is unbalanced not because it weighs 5x the 1-man pod, but because it does this with no benefit to the player except "hey it uses 2 less parts amirite?" This is not enough to justify the weight. They need to bring the weight down and/or give the pod a bonus. But you don't just make it weigh exactly 3x the mk1 pod, wash your hands, and be done with it for all time.

[KasperVld]

Thanks for this,

I am concerned by his words regarding performance increases. He says "Just a bit quicker". That is worryingly vague. That could mean anything really. We want facts and figures! On a given system what is the exact FPS increase with a given craft? I have a very bad feeling about this..

Ted was being careful, we don't have reliable figures yet because the update hasn't entered testing yet.

[Superfluous J]

I am concerned by his words regarding performance increases. He says "Just a bit quicker". That is worryingly vague. That could mean anything really. We want facts and figures! On a given system what is the exact FPS increase with a given craft? I have a very bad feeling about this..

They literally don't have these numbers. They're not even in QA yet, so they're still actually working on the code.

And it gives me a moderately bad feeling as well.

[Majorjim!]

Ted was being careful, we don't have reliable figures yet because the update hasn't entered testing yet.

Ok thanks, I will reserve judgement until we have that information.

Actually, hang on.. How can he say "Just a bit quicker" With nothing to base it on???

Edited August 29, 2015 by Majorjim

[Renegrade]

Real spacesuits do not even use the same fuel for maneuvering as the ship does, so it's impossible for the RCS to use up all your spacesuit fuel. It's also an unsatisfying mechanic that does nothing until it is completely crippling: a spacecraft that runs out of RCS can still use its main engines and reaction wheels to maneuver, but a Kerbal on EVA has nothing else if you discover he left the ship with an empty tank.

A real spacecraft that runs out of RCS is unable to maneuver, end of story. There are no manned vessels with reaction wheels, only manned stations. Even if they did have reaction wheels (or CMGs), they'd eventually saturate if the craft had no RCS to desaturate with.

Also - real spacesuits also do not have RCS systems at all anymore. The Shuttle MMU system was pretty much a failure. While the hardware operated as designed, it turns out that tethered missions are vastly more practical. The MMU massed almost 150kg (about 1.5x that of a typical professional football player) and had a grand total of 24m/s delta-v (vs ~624 for the #loleva kerbals), and less thrust than a fizzing-over coke bottle.

To address the gameplay side of things: if you discover your fuel routing is faulty, or your staging order is wrong, you can end up with a dead spacecraft in space. Should this spacecraft now have some sort of magical infinitely regenerating fuel because you messed up? No. Should a magical antenna appear on the craft just because you forgot one? No. Should solar panels teleport to the craft? No.

If you're saying we should probably have a tethering system, well, you're probably right there.

The 3 man capsule is unbalanced not because it weighs 5x the 1-man pod, but because it does this with no benefit to the player except "hey it uses 2 less parts amirite?" This is not enough to justify the weight. They need to bring the weight down and/or give the pod a bonus. But you don't just make it weigh exactly 3x the mk1 pod, wash your hands, and be done with it for all time.

Well, it does have better impact tolerance, to be fair. Of course that still isn't enough to justify that increase (especially given that the mk1 pod has plenty of impact tolerance as is)... :/

If we had life support or other such gameplay considerations, the mk1-2 could provide bonuses in that kind of area, which might actually make it worthwhile.

[GusTurbo]

Great summary as always.

Real spacesuits do not even use the same fuel for maneuvering as the ship does, so it's impossible for the RCS to use up all your spacesuit fuel. It's also an unsatisfying mechanic that does nothing until it is completely crippling: a spacecraft that runs out of RCS can still use its main engines and reaction wheels to maneuver, but a Kerbal on EVA has nothing else if you discover he left the ship with an empty tank.

Well, if you've got another Kerbal still in the ship, you can maneuver the ship to rescue the helpless EVA Kerbal. The danger and daring rescue attempt make it more exciting. Also adds risk to sending a Kerbal out alone on a mission.

[Renegrade]

Well, if you've got another Kerbal still in the ship, you can maneuver the ship to rescue the helpless EVA Kerbal. The danger and daring rescue attempt make it more exciting. Also adds risk to sending a Kerbal out alone on a mission.

These are good points too. Also there's always probe cores or follow-up rescue missions etc.

[Superfluous J]

Well, if you've got another Kerbal still in the ship, you can maneuver the ship to rescue the helpless EVA Kerbal. The danger and daring rescue attempt make it more exciting. Also adds risk to sending a Kerbal out alone on a mission.

If a Kerbal would auto-grab a ladder (maybe via a toggle you could turn on) then I'd accept this. I've rescued enough evaprop-free Kerbals to know I'd rather let them die than try to hit "f" at the exact right time, assuming the game decides that time occurs, seemingly independent of the placement of the kerbal, ship, and ladder.

[tater]

The mk3 cockpit is a 4 kerbal part, and weighs in at ~3 tons, vs the mk1-2s 4.12, for which you get more strength, battery, RCS, and torque.

Dunno how the greenhouse exploded, I've been messing with Nils' mod since first release, and have had none explode, ever.

[CalculusWarrior]

Actually, hang on.. How can he say "Just a bit quicker" With nothing to base it on???

I imagine they've done some limited test cases which show improved performance (such as the PhysX systems), or an aspect of the game that wasn't affected by Unity 5 much. I feel he's just being cautious, because the community does tend to get annoyed over expected features which don't pan out. Like you said, we have to wait until we actually see the update to pass judgement on how it's improved; some systems may get luckier than others.

As for the EVA question, I feel if the feature is ever added in, perhaps Squad could put in a popup which tells you something like "Oh no, you don't have enough monoprop to fill up this kerbal's tanks!" if you attempt to leave the ship. That being said, I'm a fan of the current system, as it is forgiving enough to the player while retaining difficulty (the amount of fuel on EVA limited to the same amount either way), but as you said, there would be that extra step in the design process to make sure you have enough monopropellant for all the EVAs you plan to do.

[KasperVld]

Greenhouse sinking into ground and exploding was hilarious.

A fitting ending if you ask me. And in the end I still have a greenhouse on Duna. Not two like I planned, but still

[passinglurker]

Added to the OP. Thanks!

Part balancing =/= making all the parts equal. It's giving each one plusses and minuses so some are better in some places than others, and those "better"s can be subjective so no, you can't just toss all the values in a formula and pop out what each part "should" be.

The 3 man capsule is unbalanced not because it weighs 5x the 1-man pod, but because it does this with no benefit to the player except "hey it uses 2 less parts amirite?" This is not enough to justify the weight. They need to bring the weight down and/or give the pod a bonus. But you don't just make it weigh exactly 3x the mk1 pod, wash your hands, and be done with it for all time.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this. When I say formulaically determine the mass based on the parts stats I mean all the parts stats (crew capacity, resource storage, crash tolerance, heat tolerance, commandable, science lab, crew can, the works) as it stands the crewed parts have absolutely no rhyme or reason and none would be agreed on by being in any way arbitrary. Basically there needs to be common ground to avoid community controversy. Assuming absolute soul crushing realism isn't everyone's cup of tea (it isn't mine I don't even drink tea) the answer is a common formula for determining stats.

The end result would be the same as you eyeballing it, but no one can complain about the result because it was calculated by a means that was fair to all pods. Station and lander parts would be lighter and more fragile than their space plane and reentry capsule counterparts is this not what everyone wants? though people would disagree as to how much more fragile or sturdy any one part would be for a given mass that is why I insist on formulaic generation of mass based on stats so that the parts are given their unique roles fairly and thereby the inevitable firestorm over fans being displeased with the balance like they were with the general engine nerf can be more easily quelled.

EDIT: Of course beyond saying "I think the answers a copout" going on about capsule balance is probably straying further from the topic than one should... >.>

Edited August 29, 2015 by passinglurker

[smjjames]

How do I see the chatlog for each video?

[Moesly_Armlis]

I have read all of the squadcast summaries and never have thanked you.

Great job and thanks for making these summaries.

[klgraham1013]

Click through is annoying but you can work around it.

Sorry. Not going to give Squad a pass on this one. The last time I can remember using a program with click-through issues was in High School. (The 90s)

I'd really like to know some other examples. I use a lot of open source / indie software and never run into click-through problems.

edit: So it's a Unity problem? Seems like a big oversight on their part.

Kerbals siphoned monoprop from cockpits. It went to QA. People had lots of trouble with it, because it's "quite unforgiving." to go EVA and not have monoprop in your suit.

I think it's ok for a game about going to space with generally realistic physics to be somewhat unforgiving.

Should this spacecraft now have some sort of magical infinitely regenerating fuel because you messed up? No. Should a magical antenna appear on the craft just because you forgot one? No. Should solar panels teleport to the craft? No.

That pretty much sums up my opinion on the matter.

Edited August 29, 2015 by klgraham1013