Devnote Tuesday: Wednesday Edition!

[Hobbes Novakoff]

3 minutes ago, CrashTestDanny said:

I like the new orbit lines, but personally would prefer the near future to be heavier/brighter while the distant future gets fainter.  Looks like it is opposite in the screenshots.  I think it makes more sense the other way (brighter lines in the near future) as the farther into the future you look, the less certain things are...  any chance that might be configurable?

Danny

I think of it as a sort of trail, which gets fainter and fainter as you get farther away from the ship.

[Skalou]

7 minutes ago, CrashTestDanny said:

I like the new orbit lines, but personally would prefer the near future to be heavier/brighter while the distant future gets fainter. 

[...]

Danny

I agree with you on this!

The important for me, is the near future, for RDV , intercept,...

[Panzerbeard]

52 minutes ago, RobotsAndSpaceships said:

Whatever happened to "console porting wouldn't effect main development"?

The only mention of consoles was regarding the settings screen rewrite, which would be beneficial to the PC version as well, I fail to see the problem.

[Speadge]

21 minutes ago, Skalou said:

I agree with you on this!

The important for me, is the near future, for RDV , intercept,...

that would look awkward, having every celestial object pushing a bright line in front of it.. ahhh please never do sth like that.

Edited December 9, 2015 by Speadge

[NoMrBond]

23 minutes ago, softweir said:

Because there are a large number of mods out there that still use the old ModuleEngines?

This is also my own sentiment, relayed in the next sentence of the paragraph you have quoted.  Taking it out of context makes it sound like I'm advocating for the removal of ModuleEngines, I am not.

[smjjames]

1 hour ago, RobotsAndSpaceships said:

Whatever happened to "console porting wouldn't effect main development"?

The only thing mentioned was just the settings and it sounded like it was a requirement anyway.

[pellinor]

25 minutes ago, Hobbes Novakoff said:

I think of it as a sort of trail, which gets fainter and fainter as you get farther away from the ship.

Usually I care more about where I am headed than where I come from. So the orbital prediction (the future part of the trajectory) is the most important part. And this part is currently drawn faintly, and hard to see with for the darker orbit colors. I think both ways are sort of intuitive, but flipping the brightness would give better usability.

[Moarmau5]

Love the new orbit lines!

 

1 hour ago, SQUAD said:

Bob (Roverdude) has been implementing his probe and telemetry system into the Unity 5 branch. The new user interface was ‘lit up’ for the first time and overall we’re very happy with the result. The interface shows your current control level –being either a Kerbal or a probe core), the signal strength and the method of connectivity which can be either directly to Kerbin, using a relay network or remote control from a piloted vessel.

So is there going to be a "stock RemoteTech" like feature in 1.1? Or is it just a signal for transmitting science back to Kerbin?

[Superfluous J]

Nice meaty devnotes! Well worth the day's wait!

2 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Felipe indicated that this would be a good time to highlight the overhaul on the orbit splines rendering: the orbit lines you see in the map view. This is one area that has been improved upon greatly in the update.

I haven't seen mention of this, but do these improvements include predictions being not accurate or simply not present in some situations? Most close encounters to Minmus from LKO still get that weird situation where the orbit prediction shows you're nearing approach, and then you tweak the maneuver node to get even closer and the orbit spline just vanishes.

1 hour ago, RobotsAndSpaceships said:

Whatever happened to "console porting wouldn't effect main development"?

First off it's affect and secondly everything that anybody related to Squad does affects development. Harvester visiting the toilet affects development. What they said (or at least meant) was that console development wouldn't hinder main development. And I see no indication that that has changed.

[smjjames]

lol your humor 5thhorseman. XD

[Dr_Turkey]

1 minute ago, 5thHorseman said:

What they said (or at least meant) was that console development wouldn't hinder main development. And I see no indication that that has changed.

If anything, it's the other way around.

[Kerbart]

16 minutes ago, Dr_Turkey said:

If anything, it's the other way around.

Main development is hindering console development?

[Speadge]

3 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Main development is hindering console development?

Console Dev is boosting Main-Dev

[Sanic]

1 minute ago, Speadge said:

Console Dev is boosting Main-Dev

How?

[smjjames]

1 minute ago, Sanic said:

How?

They're both going on Unity5?

[HoloYolo]

1 minute ago, smjjames said:

They're both going on Unity5?

That makes absolutely no sense. If anything, the development will take longer because of both of them going on Unity 5

[Speadge]

2 minutes ago, Sanic said:

How?

i.e. the console port is done by an external team - so they have a look on the code and can use their expertise to optimize it and give new ideas to squad - just one example i could imagine.

But thats a topic of a Devnote some weeks back. there were quite a few arguments even by squad.

[smjjames]

2 minutes ago, HoloYolo said:

That makes absolutely no sense. If anything, the development will take longer because of both of them going on Unity 5

I was making an off the wall guess. *shrug*

[HoloYolo]

1 minute ago, smjjames said:

I was making an off the wall guess. *shrug*

Yolo amirite?

[NoMrBond]

1 minute ago, Speadge said:

so they have a look on the code and can use their expertise to optimize it and give new ideas to squad

I think HarvesteR said they (Squad) got 6 extra developers (All of Flying Tiger) helping for ~6 months before the split of the codebases, which gave them a significant step up in the initial transition to Unity 5.

[Kerbart]

3 minutes ago, smjjames said:

I was making an off the wall guess. *shrug*

Well, you were very adament that console was boosting main, instead of main hindering console. So we're expecting a bit more than an off the wall guess here. 

[sal_vager]

Thankfully, making no sense to some people doesn't actually effect the developers performance

It's like this, if you're trying to learn something new it can take you a while, if there's someone around who has experience with that something they can lend you a hand, show you a few tricks they learned.

And if you figure out something that they are stuck on you can help them out too.

Two development teams for the price of one!

[Captain Sierra]

18 minutes ago, Speadge said:

Console Dev is boosting Main-Dev

A while back, I made the following post in response to the following comment about consoles. "As long as it doesn't hurt the PC version I'm okay with it."

Quote

Thats exactly what we're all concerned about (at least me). The console versions are going to need insane optimization to not run like a pile of steaming dog doo. Our (read: my) concern is that none of that will see its way to PC. Why should it? The PC version works and SQUAD is graced with a community that keeps building stronger rigs more than it complains about performance. They could get away with not optimizing the game we're so tolerant of it. Our fear is the optimization Flying Tiger has to do won't cross-pollenate back to PC because it won't need to. The PC version runs 'acceptably' and no point rewriting code that works.

(Okay that was a bit sarcasm-heavy but it does express a valid concern. We've been given no promises the above scenario won't happen, so why should we assume its not a possibility?)

Now, the case can be made that this development is proof positive to the contrary. On the other side of the coin, it could very well be used as evidence to make the case that console ports are going to destroy the game. I left the community for four months following Squad's console-port fever and I'm no more on board with it now than I was then (read: not at all). Take this for whatever you think its worth but my opinion that KSP needs to remain a PC game first and foremost, console ports be damned, stands.

[Wiseman]

Those orbit splines are gorgeous and intuitive. I couldn't tell you how many times I've tweaked the time warp just to figure out which way a planet or moon was moving in its orbital path. I'm super psyched for 1.1, you guys will definitely deserve your winter break plus some extra after this is released!

[Yakuzi]

great dev notes thanks guys! Also for working through your holidays, just make sure you don't burn yourselves out and take at least Christmas day off and your two weeks of holiday as soon as 1.1 is released ( make that 1.1.1 )... @Dr_Turkey I know, I'm fired... I'll let myself out

Any news on the thing rhyming with "shmelta vee" btw? We ve been waiting awfully long for that now and it would make a very nice new years prezzy!

Edited December 10, 2015 by Yakuzi
typing on a phone is the devil