So what happened to the barn?

[John FX]

That`s about it, just wondering what happened to the tier 0 barn?

Last I heard it was being worked on to be released before now I thought...

has it been dropped quietly or is it still a thing we might get?

[klgraham1013]

They sold the assets to Farm Simulator 2016.

[Wjolcz]

I don't care about the barn. It was kinda ugly. I wish they worked more with bac9 on implementing his models and ideas. Not only his buildings have less polygons but also look waaaaaaaay better.

E: Anyone has the link to his album full of those untextured low tier KSC buildings?

Edited January 10, 2016 by Veeltch

[Just Jim]

Just sad I never got a chance to have Val land on it's roof... lol...

[Hcube]

28 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

E: Anyone has the link to his album full of those untextured low tier KSC buildings?

Here you go ! Indeed it does not look very good, but it's not finished 

 http://m.imgur.com/a/G2sUx

[Pthigrivi]

I'm really praying this thread doesn't devolve.

Before people go nuts again, try to remember that what they showed us was work in progress, not the final product. Anyone who's done modeling or really any form of art knows it's pretty rare to mill something out in final form. You work first in studies, sketches, and drafts, slowly honing down to a finished form. What's seen above was somewhere along that chain, and was released as a sneak peek in the (unfortunately misplaced) hope we would be mature enough to understand that. We've paid for our overreaction sadly in the loss of a 4 trier game for more than a year. I'd just hope people could show a little patience and an aesthetic open mind over what's to come. 

That said, besides the obvious gameplay advantages of the more gradual step-ups 4 tiers would provide, I really do think the barn held such promise. There was a playful character to it, the hint of a real story of scrappy beginnings that seemed rich and fun and fit so well. I'm really hoping something of that survives. 

Edited January 10, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[Wjolcz]

2 hours ago, Hcube said:

Here you go ! Indeed it does not look very good, but it's not finished 

 http://m.imgur.com/a/G2sUx

Thanks, but I was actually asking about the one that bac9 did, not SQUAD.

FOUND IT! And ohhhhhhh... it looks so good! #bringbac9back

Edited January 10, 2016 by Veeltch

[tater]

I never liked it, and if it was there, I think I'd start any career with enough extra funds to upgrade it show I would not have to look at it. If it looked more like early VABs at White Sands or something, then I'd be fine with it.

Of course early VABs would almost certainly be horizontal, anyway.

[Hcube]

31 minutes ago, tater said:

I never liked it, and if it was there, I think I'd start any career with enough extra funds to upgrade it show I would not have to look at it. If it looked more like early VABs at White Sands or something, then I'd be fine with it.

Of course early VABs would almost certainly be horizontal, anyway.

How can you not like it ? No one bas even seen it yet. The album i posted above obviously is very early development, i suggest waiting to see it before judging. It might very well suck, but it could be awesome, who knows? 

[tater]

I saw them when they were in the dev notes or whenever it was they were posted here. I suppose I mostly dislike the fact that it's wooden, past that I don't care, really. Retextured to corrugated metal or something, and I have no problem with it, but honestly the KSC facilities are the least important thing in the game to me, I rarely ever see them except as a screen to go to the place I need to go.

[Wjolcz]

7 hours ago, Hcube said:

How can you not like it ? No one bas even seen it yet. The album i posted above obviously is very early development, i suggest waiting to see it before judging. It might very well suck, but it could be awesome, who knows? 

I don't think it was early development when it got posted and more of a "This is the finished product, guys", but people really hated the look of it and that's why it's been sorta abandoned. I might be wrong though. My memory doesn't seem to be the best.

[tater]

The very notion of a "barn" works more with the (frankly awful) rocket parts. The rocket parts, of course, don't look remotely as nice as the spaceplane parts.

[Pthigrivi]

But the buildings are inherently bound up in the process of progression. The first teir shouldn't look as "nice" as the last teir, that's precisely the point. Funkier, cooler even, but deliberately less polished. In fact the greater the difference the more sense of accomplishment and growth they imply. 

[adsii1970]

I'd love to see them create a more introductory level of KSP. Before anyone starts the eye-roll, let me explain:

A cardboard box with an old television satellite dish and coat hanger inspired antenna for mission control, a patch of concrete with a steel pole or rod for the launch pad, and keep the runway the dirt strip on grass. The Space Plane Hanger could be nothing more than a small metal shed with the VAB being simply a tarp tied between four trees.

Instead of making small manned rockets, start them off with unmanned .625m rockets and planes - that are essentially models. As they "learn" the basics of flight, then allow them to progress to the more simpler and larger manned parts.

[tater]

5 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

But the buildings are inherently bound up in the process of progression. The first teir shouldn't look as "nice" as the last teir, that's precisely the point. Funkier, cooler even, but deliberately less polished. In fact the greater the difference the more sense of accomplishment and growth they imply. 

Assume little changes about career. This tier 0 facility would go away almost instantly. You'd see it for what, 2 launches?

[Jarin]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

Assume little changes about career. This tier 0 facility would go away almost instantly. You'd see it for what, 2 launches?

I dream of it coming with a much-needed career overhaul.

[tater]

LOL, I suppose in that case I might be converted  Given the current state the first 2 upgrades are typically pad and VAB (particularly with scaled up kopernicus games as I need bigger stuff).

[swjr-swis]

Release both as statics for Kerbal Konstructs that I can place wherever, and I'd be happy. (Oh, and fix whatever stopped Kerbal Konstructs from working.)

[KSK]

15 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

I'd love to see them create a more introductory level of KSP. Before anyone starts the eye-roll, let me explain:

A cardboard box with an old television satellite dish and coat hanger inspired antenna for mission control, a patch of concrete with a steel pole or rod for the launch pad, and keep the runway the dirt strip on grass. The Space Plane Hanger could be nothing more than a small metal shed with the VAB being simply a tarp tied between four trees.

Instead of making small manned rockets, start them off with unmanned .625m rockets and planes - that are essentially models. As they "learn" the basics of flight, then allow them to progress to the more simpler and larger manned parts.

I like this idea. Have Tier 0 start with more of a hobbyist rocket club feel to it and I'm not even sure if I'd start with placeholders for all the Tier 1 buildings. Mission Control and the Tracking Station for example are a bit unnecessary at this stage.

The flavour text for the first few contracts would have quite a story-like aspect to them, with the stated goal being to build a big enough rocket to fit a kerballed capsule on. They give science points only  with the player being given enough funds up front to make progress. Tier 0 ends when the player successfully launches and retrieves a capsule (presented as a precursor to the Mk1 capsule) with some kind of science payload. That flight demonstrates that the both the proposed Mk1 capsule and high altitude kerballed flight are possible and draws significant attention to the player's space program for the first time. In game terms, this equates to a hefty chunk of funds, sufficient to upgrade most if not all of the Tier 0 buildings, with some left over for building the next rocket.

From then onwards, the game proceeds much as it does now.

I would suggest redoing the textures for the 2.5m parts and re-purposing the 'oil drum' graphics style for the Tier 0 parts. Tier 0 parts are the parts 'found by the side of the road' which at least fits with a shoestring budget hobby space program. At Tier 1, your program gets the funding to start professionalising slightly and building decent parts. The current 1.25m parts work OK for that. The 2.5m parts then become a stepping stone to the very modern look of the 3.75m parts. At the moment there's no logical progression between the relatively clean 1.25m parts and the janky 2.5m parts.

To be honest, I wouldn't bother with Tier 0 planes at all - a hobbyist rocket club can't afford them and won't acquire any contracts that need them. Redoing the textures for the 2.5m rocket parts should help make them less jarring compared to the equivalent tech plane parts.

 

 

Edited January 11, 2016 by KSK

[Wjolcz]

15 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

But the buildings are inherently bound up in the process of progression. The first teir shouldn't look as "nice" as the last teir, that's precisely the point. Funkier, cooler even, but deliberately less polished. In fact the greater the difference the more sense of accomplishment and growth they imply. 

By that logic the tracking center should be represented by a 1x1 dirt tower from minecraft.

Edited January 11, 2016 by Veeltch

[swjr-swis]

7 minutes ago, KSK said:

The flavour text for the first few contracts would have quite a story-like aspect to them, with the stated goal being to build a big enough rocket to fit a kerballed capsule on.

I'd be totally ok with the flavour text of the first contract being something like Jeb going "Here Bob, hold my beer and watch this.", Bill telling Bob to trust him, cause he's an engineer, and Val rolling her eyes at them all.

 

[adsii1970]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

To be honest, I wouldn't bother with Tier 0 planes at all - a hobbyist rocket club can't afford them and won't acquire any contracts that need them. Redoing the textures for the 2.5m rocket parts should help make them less jarring compared to the equivalent tech plane parts.

Sure, why not do tier 0 planes - in my mind's eye, could do unKerballed drones fitted with a camera.  A sample mission could be to fly a drone to the old airfield on the island, take a few pictures, and return. Basically, it would be to give a feel for the basic flight controls for aircraft flight... oh, and parts testing.

[steve_v]

16 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

The first teir shouldn't look as "nice" as the last teir, that's precisely the point. Funkier, cooler even, but deliberately less polished.

If you mean "less polished" as in less like a functional spaceport and more like some re-purposed but still reasonabe looking buildings, then I agree. If you mean less polished as in 'hastily thrown together out of random stock-asset junk', not so much.

While I hear you on the "work in progress" point (as regards the images that were released), not everybody is going to get this and showing something in that appalling state is simply asking to get slammed.

As Bac9 says it better than I ever could, I'll just leave this here (should be linky, lets see if it works):

It's not the concept that I dislike per-se, it's the execution. Sure, I wasn't a huge fan of the 'barn' to begin with, but it's the mismatched, misplaced texturing and obvious modelling mistakes that killed it.

TBH, even the space centre we have now is not much to look at - it's full of model issues, obviously tiled textures and z-fighting. Fortunately nobody has to look at it for long.

[Kerbart]

On 1/10/2016 at 9:23 AM, Pthigrivi said:

I'm really praying this thread doesn't devolve.

Before people go nuts again, try to remember that what they showed us was work in progress, not the final product. (...) There was a playful character to it, the hint of a real story of scrappy beginnings that seemed rich and fun and fit so well. I'm really hoping something of that survives. 

Yes, it would be really nice  to start in an absolute pioneer setting. Career mode as it is will need some work though, in the current manned-flight-first setup the barn would be a weird place to start. Bring on the stock sounding rockets!

 

On 1/10/2016 at 10:59 AM, Veeltch said:

Thanks, but I was actually asking about the one that bac9 did, not SQUAD.

Aaah yes, the Bac9 artwork... undeniably pretty. I hope there will be a time we'll see it, but a lot of miracles will have to happen for that...

 

19 minutes ago, steve_v said:

If you mean "less polished" as in less like a functional spaceport and more like some re-purposed but still reasonabe looking buildings, then I agree. If you mean less polished as in 'hastily thrown together out of random stock-asset junk', not so much.

(...)

It's not the concept that I dislike per-se, it's the execution. Sure, I wasn't a huge fan of the 'barn' to begin with, but it's the mismatched, misplaced texturing and obvious modelling mistakes that killed it.

TBH, even the space centre we have now is not much to look at - it's full of model issues, obviously tiled textures and z-fighting. Fortunately nobody has to look at it for long.

It's a good illustration of why you should never show something like that as a preview. Had the barn been showcased as paper+pencil artwork we might have it today. Showing unfinished work is risky:

• It sets expectations, realistic or not, both positive and negative, as we've seen
• If the artwork is received as low quality and it's updated, some will complain that it's not as promised (you can't win)
• If the artwork is implemented as shown, some will complain we expected something better, “but we showed it to you and you liked it!”

The biggest problem with the barn, I think, is career mode. To me it feels like you need a progression from cardboard tubes to V2-style sounding rockets as the “end game” for the barn, and stock offers nothing that even remotely resembles that.

[Pthigrivi]

Like I said, I have zero interest in starting another big fight over this. Needless to say, it does seem Squad has learned we can't be trusted with this kind of thing.

 

6 hours ago, Veeltch said:

By that logic the tracking center should be represented by a 1x1 dirt tower from minecraft.

Think about a game like Skyrim. Obviously the dragon armor looks 'cooler' than fur armor, but that's not to say both can't have their own artistic charm. This is pretty standard stuff in gaming. I happen to quite like the idea of a few intrepid kerbals cobbling things together from spare parts in old farm turned abandoned airfield. Its just fun, and there's a bravery and a romance to it, the way a kid might imagine building a makeshift rocket out of parts from a junkyard. And yeah, after a few launches, reaching orbit maybe, you're going to start upgrading to more rough-industrial looking buildings, then space-age, then a state of the art facility. Sure, you could just have tier zero be a bland miniature of the current facilities, but you'd be missing a huge opportunity for the player to engage in a real sense of story and progress. 

Just a few images that could be cool for tiers 2 and 3:

 

 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2016 by Pthigrivi