Devnote Tuesday: Joe was censored!

[Ser]

Hail the 1.2 release Am I the only one who waits so hard for it?

[federicoaa]

Nobody wonders why the turkey was shot?

[The White Guardian]

Stuff seems to get complicated in the dev notes, that's for sure. I actually had to read it multiple times before I really understood it all. Who knew wheels out of all things could bring this much trouble?

Something I have not yet seen though (could be because I don't usually use rovers) is friction: on icy worlds such as Eeloo the friction would be lower and on sandy worlds like Duna it would be higher. Let's not forget the friction force that states: F_Friction = f multiplied by F_N, ('f' depends on the terrain, it is lower on ice and higher on sand while F_N depends how much an object is pushed against the ground, may it be by gravity or an external force such as an engine) which means that the heavier the craft (or the more it is pushed against the ground), the higher the friction. Will that be implemented as well, or is that already in-game?

[Red Iron Crown]

@The White Guardian Friction proportional to normal force is already modelled in KSP, though I suspect it's more sophisticated in the new system. As it should be, friction being equal to the coefficient of friction times normal force is a bit oversimplistic for wheel traction.

[Benji]

1 hour ago, federicoaa said:

Nobody wonders why the turkey was shot?

Doesn't the US have a turkey pardon day?

[Majorjim!]

14 hours ago, SQUAD said:

It’s possible to drive a rover into a cargo craft, close the cargo bay doors and fly off, then land somewhere else, back it out of the cargo bay, and drive off!

I should Blooming well hope so. The exclamation mark worries me greatly..

[magnemoe]

14 hours ago, fireblade274 said:

Putting rovers inside cargobays; it sounds like some cargo straps would be a great help for keeping those things in place for multiple transportation's

1.2 getting started twooooo ooohhh

I has not even thought of putting an rover into an cargo bay and don't dock it.
Yes it should work in atmosphere without time warp but still.

Remember putting an kerbal into an small cargo hold on an probe, this was back in 0.18 before we had seats. It did not go well as he tumbled around 
 

[The White Guardian]

1 hour ago, Red Iron Crown said:

@The White Guardian Friction proportional to normal force is already modelled in KSP, though I suspect it's more sophisticated in the new system. As it should be, friction being equal to the coefficient of friction times normal force is a bit oversimplistic for wheel traction.

Indeed, but it could lead to interesting rover designs, such as rovers that use the normal force for more friction.

[Red Iron Crown]

6 minutes ago, The White Guardian said:

Indeed, but it could lead to interesting rover designs, such as rovers that use the normal force for more friction.

That's been a thing for some time, mounting an engine on top of a rover thrusting downward to increase wheel traction on low gravity bodies (or to stick the rover to the wall of the VAB ).

[The White Guardian]

39 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

That's been a thing for some time, mounting an engine on top of a rover thrusting downward to increase wheel traction on low gravity bodies (or to stick the rover to the wall of the VAB ).

I even tried racing up the VAB once. I think I used a bit too much power though, for the VAB collapsed.

It's a requirement for Gilly rovers though.

[Majorjim!]

2 hours ago, Majorjim said:

I should Blooming well hope so. The exclamation mark worries me greatly..

Hang on.. They mean without docking it to anything right? So what is to stop it flying around inside the cargo bay??

[TMS]

18 hours ago, SQUAD said:

 

On to the new features for 1.1 then: Daniel (danRosas) has created new achievement graphics for the consoles...

Years ago, Squad maintained a policy that the game would not contain Steam Achievements.  The rationale behind this was some high-minded belief that KSP should aspire to more compelling gameplay challenges than mere achievements.

This never really made a great deal of sense to me, given that achievements encourage divergent player behaviour that they otherwise wouldn't do, and that such achievements are a time-tested and proven way of giving players the dopamine hit they want.

Since the impending console release success appears to have tempered the aversion to achievements that once existed, can we safely assume that Steam players will receive the same features or, indeed, that non-Steam PC users will receive the same features as part of the core game installation?

13 hours ago, Arsonide said:

Each objective only ever happens once per body per save. That's why we call'em World First.  The repeatable flag contracts are still around, but they are separate from the World First and Explore contracts. The cool thing is, with weighting in 1.1, after declining a few of these repeatable flag planting contracts, the agencies will take the hint and offer you other things.

This is good, but the current reputation penalty for declining contracts will be counter-productive to your aim of giving players more control.

Is the intention to remove this?

[KerbMav]

24 minutes ago, TMS said:

the current reputation penalty for declining contracts will be counter-productive to your aim of giving players more control.

Is the intention to remove this?

1. It is really small.

2. It is a difficulty setting.

[Velve666]

Performance for low end users please. I would rant for many paragraphs but I am holding it back.

1.1 is going to allow you guys to optimize the game a bit (emphasis on bit), frankly, I rarely feel frustrated to the point of having to have my say. But after learning that PORTRAIT panels are the cause of extreme lag on my vessels with many kerbals, I just don't know how to translate my thoughts on the poor performance without coming across as a "you know what". 

I apologize for the following paragraph but,

less focus on elements/additions modders could implement, and more on the core code and API that they do not have access to. A performance increase is available with unity 5, we don't need more "insert vulgar word here with four letters". Gameplay is fun the "play" part is not up to par with the game.

I realise I ended up ranting a tad more than expected, but i feel i am just echoing what the majority of the user-base feels without their innate urge to praise the slightest of changes/improvements most of them did'nt even know they needed. You have the code, work on it for the new unity release please. 

 

[mattssheep4]

21 hours ago, SQUAD said:

First time around a few worrying bugs were found, mostly related to landing detection and with cargo bays (“not again!”). The way wheel landing detection works is different from other parts: wheel colliders don’t actually touch the surface. Rather, the wheels raycast downwards to ‘feel’ for it, and based on what they find, and the known wheel parameters, they compute the appropriate reaction forces for each wheel to simulate forward and lateral friction, drive/brake torque, slip, etcetera. That in turn means that wheels need their own logic to detect when they’re landed, which is then further complicated because ‘landed’ in KSP doesn’t necessarily mean you’re touching terrain. You could be landed on a landed part, which would mean you are landed yourself.

Hopefully you’re still with us. Back to the case of driving a rover onto an airplane, by now you can imagine how things can get tricky in this sort of situation: at no point did the wheels come off the surface, so they think they’re still landed. However, as the aircraft takes off that landed state needs to change, because in the same way the rover is landed on the aircraft the aircraft itself is also in contact with the rover. The aircraft sees the rover is landed and therefore assumes that it is landed as well. Quite a knot to untangle.

Eventually Felipe managed to overcome this bug, and the same scenario now as expected. It’s possible to drive a rover into a cargo craft, close the cargo bay doors and fly off, then land somewhere else, back it out of the cargo bay, and drive off!

 

I'm unclear about this. Does this mean the rover won't move while the cargo bay doors are closed, even if undocked? Or does it mean that the rover will still roll around (and maybe even be able to be driven around) while in flight in said plane? Could someone elaborate on this a bit, please?

Aside from that, I'm liking the new UI and I'm really grateful to all of the KSP team for all the hard work you do!

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I am glad to see career getting more refined, it's a great mode with a lot of potential still. One request while improvements are being made- I recently had a career where I rescued 8 pilots, 3 engineers, and no scientists. Please take a look at this to improve the distribution a bit.

[NoMrBond]

Well, uhh, now that there are some 1.1 screenshots in the wild... any chance of some being released in a more official capacity? Hrm, actually if people spot stuff in the screenshots which later gets changed or dropped there would probably be drama, so that's a bit of a conundrum. Maybe a little peril?

[gogozerg]

21 hours ago, Shadowsteps said:

Oh no!  It sounds like the antenna system is at risk of getting pushed off to a later update.

 

Oh yes! Space communications based on infinite light speed would definitely be a bad thing in a "space program game".

[Quiana]

3 hours ago, TMS said:

Years ago, Squad maintained a policy that the game would not contain Steam Achievements.  The rationale behind this was some high-minded belief that KSP should aspire to more compelling gameplay challenges than mere achievements.

This never really made a great deal of sense to me, given that achievements encourage divergent player behaviour that they otherwise wouldn't do, and that such achievements are a time-tested and proven way of giving players the dopamine hit they want.

Since the impending console release success appears to have tempered the aversion to achievements that once existed, can we safely assume that Steam players will receive the same features or, indeed, that non-Steam PC users will receive the same features as part of the core game installation?

This is good, but the current reputation penalty for declining contracts will be counter-productive to your aim of giving players more control.

Is the intention to remove this?

TMS, they've already confirmed that consoles actually have a REQUIREMENT for achievements.  They never wanted to put achievements in as they do also cause the exact opposite, causing a completionist to do them to get them done.  The best rewards sometimes in a game like this is not the game patting you on the back, but your own sensation of joy when you complete something you've struggled at or thought 'I can do that too.' when you see someone else's work.

[mcirish3]

7 hours ago, Benji said:

Doesn't the US have a turkey pardon day?

No we pardon a single turkey on the day we eat millions of them.

3 hours ago, Majorjim said:

Hang on.. They mean without docking it to anything right? So what is to stop it flying around inside the cargo bay??

I am not sure exactly what they mean.  I asked nearly the same question on the second page.  They have not exactly answered either of our questions.

[mcirish3]

3 hours ago, TMS said:

This is good, but the current reputation penalty for declining contracts will be counter-productive to your aim of giving players more control.

Is the intention to remove this?

 

2 hours ago, KerbMav said:

1. It is really small.

2. It is a difficulty setting.

Except this is not my current play style at all.  I never decline contracts I just take them as they are offered.  I very quickly have the contract building at lvl 3 and just complete the contracts.  But as KSP versions have moved forward the likelihood of me completely filling out the tech tree has diminished because I just keep getting mission to do the same thing over and over and over again  in biomes that I have already visited often more than once.  Ever since 1.0.2 I don't even bother to leave the Kerbin system.  I get burned out on the repeat contracts before I have the resources or tech to do so.

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, TMS said:

Years ago, Squad maintained a policy that the game would not contain Steam Achievements.  The rationale behind this was some high-minded belief that KSP should aspire to more compelling gameplay challenges than mere achievements.

This never really made a great deal of sense to me, given that achievements encourage divergent player behaviour that they otherwise wouldn't do, and that such achievements are a time-tested and proven way of giving players the dopamine hit they want.

Since the impending console release success appears to have tempered the aversion to achievements that once existed, can we safely assume that Steam players will receive the same features or, indeed, that non-Steam PC users will receive the same features as part of the core game installation?

Achievements would be linked to the world first and perhaps other milestones like landing and returning kerbal from bodies. 
Steam achievements has is not so much for players but for developers to see that players focus on. 
How many has landed on Eeloo compared to Duna as one example show how large need it is for more planets. 

[0111narwhalz]

I wonder... Will the wheel update and landing state fix allow us to attempt artificial gravity with greater success? Perhaps even thrust gravity...? I know this is a long shot, but it'd bring my dreams to life.

[mcirish3]

31 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

I wonder... Will the wheel update and landing state fix allow us to attempt artificial gravity with greater success? Perhaps even thrust gravity...? I know this is a long shot, but it'd bring my dreams to life.

It would seem after two days they are going to leave us to wonder.

 

Edited February 4, 2016 by mcirish3

[Wallygator]

Can we please have speed control?  And perhaps surface attach onto wheels?

An entertaining and nice update though, thank you.