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Devnote Tuesday: JEEEEEENKINS [the build server]!


SQUAD

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I don't want to aim at anyone in particular, but I thought I'd add some facts to help clear the waters a little. I know there's a bit of up-and-down emotions that happens every release cycle. So let me try to pull together some devnotes and events of the last six or so months.

 

11 hours ago, razark said:

But wasn't that the point?

To be fair, part of the point is to avoid the pieces of the cake like what happened in the release cycle leading up to 1.0.5...the "turns out 1.0.4 breaks career saves." Or "firing a kerbal corrupts the save" of 0.90 or 1.0 (I forget which off hand).

I'd rather not get into a whole 'nother round of debates about the beta again though, since we have other threads for that and Ted has explained the process elsewhere. Suffice it to say...

14 hours ago, SQUAD said:

and unfortunately our build servers have been giving us problems halting any new builds being made for Linux and OSX

Creates a whole layer of testing difficulty itself. It's rather hard to release an open beta when there are build server issues, but the nearer issue is that it's difficult to fully capitalize on experimentals while having issues.

 

7 hours ago, ktmemp said:

I waiting this update since last summer.

1.1 was originally announced with a December release date. That was pretty aggressive, but December is a pretty typical target date for such things. So up to this point, it's been about three extra months of work on 1.1. In the mean time between 1.0 and 1.1, 1.0.5 was released with some additional content and bug fixes.

 

7 hours ago, nosirrbro said:

but I guess either squad has been bad at being able to hold onto money so they can't afford enlarging their team or they are just being slightly scrugy about it and not considering how insane the time between updates is, both equally bad.

They have added at least four new folks since the release of 1.0. And of those four I'm thinking of, we all came from the "rank and file" KSP gamers out of this forum. I'm not sure if this qualifies as "Squad loves their community," but I think it's pretty great that they're hiring folks to help on the game who have already actually paid for and played it for years. (Of course, I might have a biased view in this regard.)

 

For the cake analogy, it's really something like this.

As one example, the unity upgrade updated all the shaders. Which really meant that nearly every shader in the game needed to be checked and fixed. Some shaders didn't work correctly, some were upgraded to the wrong "new" shader, and some were just plain missing references. After sorting all that, there are still little bits and pieces that get found...like "oh hey,  Linux / OpenGL atmosphere shaders not rendering properly in certain circumstances" Add onto that, finding and having to work around bugs in Unity itself (such as with wheels), and things get relatively complicated. Even something as old and robust as the mouse code needed updating to play nicely with the new UI.

So you think the cake is done, then you cut into it and find out that someone replaced all of the flour with baking soda. Then you make it again and find out there's still too much baking soda floating around in there...

 

There will be some new content and fixes for old bugs, but the major update of 1.1 (UI and physics) will likely feel largely invisible for anyone who is just looking for "more stuff." However, it literally touches every single element of the game.

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*gets @Claw a piece of cake without baking soda in it*

You guys are doing great. Compliments always get lost in the screech of complaints - just keep in  mind there is no other game in my Steam library at nearly 1000 hours.

That's the best testimonial I can offer to prove Squad is doing an amazing job.

(And 1.1 does have "more stuff" - in that players will be able to run all the mods they see fit to jam in)

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16 minutes ago, jo_jo_binks said:

If you waiting for some row from users, you are wrong.

No row, just trying to tie things together.

 

2 minutes ago, Gojira1000 said:

(And 1.1 does have "more stuff" - in that players will be able to run all the mods they see fit to jam in)

Yes indeed. Just might not appear to be as big of an update for anyone who might be interested in more parts or other sorts of things in stock, though in the long haul it will enable a lot.

And thanks for the cake! :D

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Developing software is not like peeling potatoes where if you do one in a minute then you'll do 10 in ten minutes. It's like walking on a minefield: you never can tell for sure how many mines are there and how long does it take to pass around all of them.

Edited by Ser
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I keep pressing 'period' but it isn't making 1.1 come any faster. :(

Ah well, changing the whole physics engine is going to mean I can load out this game with even more mods. Take yer time with this one, Squad, make it worth the wait.

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I can understand why people is so upset for the delaying, we are all waiting for see if the update to unity 5 can solve the most annoying bugs of ksp, framerate and 64bit, i'm hyped too because finally we can have a decent support for linux and for multicore processor but for now we know nothing and in the end are all assumptions without certainty.

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8 minutes ago, Badsector said:

I can understand why people is so upset for the delaying, we are all waiting for see if the update to unity 5 can solve the most annoying bugs of ksp, framerate and 64bit, i'm hyped too because finally we can have a decent support for linux and for multicore processor but for now we know nothing and in the end are all assumptions without certainty.

Not sure what you mean about decent support for linux.  I run on Linux with more than 250 mods, and it very rarely crashes, and those usually due to a bug in a mod.

 

LGG

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I don't really see why people would be angry at the devs about delaying in the first place. I mean, I'm upset too, but that's just how development goes, you'll see the same process for virtually any game. It's not like Squad benefits by setting the release back, so there is no point in blaming them or anything.

4 hours ago, Claw said:

There will be some new content and fixes for old bugs, but the major update of 1.1 (UI and physics) will likely feel largely invisible for anyone who is just looking for "more stuff." However, it literally touches every single element of the game.

As a long term player, considering all the public stuff we know, I'd assume the 1.1 update might be one of the most important updates KSP ever had, maybe more relevant than 1.0 (although new aero and the career over multiple updates was quite big.

Virtually unlimited memory and the expected rise in performance will be pretty huge. Not to mention the UI issues. Surely there still are going to be a lot of new bugs, but it's gonna be nice to see a lot of the ancient issue finally being fixed!

Meaning, everything but the shortest glance should show a big difference in how the game 'feels'.

Edited by Temeter
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4 hours ago, Claw said:

There will be some new content and fixes for old bugs, but the major update of 1.1 (UI and physics) will likely feel largely invisible for anyone who is just looking for "more stuff." However, it literally touches every single element of the game.

 I literally love you, what a nice way of tying it all up.

 

1 hour ago, daltonater said:

Kind of off topic here, but I have to ask: Why no poetry? Seeing the dev teams issues in poetry form gave a nice comedic twist to the dev notes.

We try, but it's either of Kasper (as stated before, literally the devil) censoring my beautiful, yet mayhaps foul languaged poems; or they are just not that funny and who wants boring poems about our dogs.

 

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32 minutes ago, Dr_Turkey said:

who wants boring poems about our dogs.

Looking on as keyboards thunder
The dogs of Squad are things of wonder
Beasts of legendary patience
Waiting calmly, ever gracious

Throughout the morn they wait for playtime
That moment when they run in sunshine
Inspiration! Cries the owner
Why couldn't I see that one sooner?

For dogs of devs are splendid creatures
They help solve bugs and then add features
As sounding boards and stress relievers
Vital tools for their code weavers

And while they might seem lowly minions
They're often sound in their opinions
Attentive as devs' tales unfold
Inside each one a heart of gold

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Just do all of us a favor (Squad & players):

Don`t rush it cause people are screaming "hype train", it`s stupid, find more bugs right befor release? push it back a couple more days. We will love you for it!
After 1.1 release, do incremental updates. We will love you even more for it! Like the bugged heat system in 1.0 that was fixed in a week but was held out for another 2 weeks with 1.0.1, and the next day 1.0.2.

When on the new Unity engine, don`t focus on mainly squashing big bugs, the tiny and small bugs that you run into 100 times a flight are actually MUCH more irritating then the rare thing we all know the work around for and do small patches with fixes, even if it`s 3-5 bug fixes a month, you are making us very happy!
That we had to use the "community patches" for simple bugs, please burry that smack the person who thinks of ignoring a known bug and a couple lines of code fix under the pretence of "but the community fixed it!" as new players will have no clue.

 

Looking forward to release :)

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24 minutes ago, Kamuchi said:

Just do all of us a favor (Squad & players):

Don`t rush it cause people are screaming "hype train", it`s stupid, find more bugs right befor release?

Well, if we want a buggy release then there is just the pre-release, which also allows us to report stuff.

As for everything else, I'm ok with a few bugs. All KSP versions had some issues and the most recent ones got always a bugfix after. Which is IMO just fine.

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27 minutes ago, eddiew said:

Looking on as keyboards thunder
The dogs of Squad are things of wonder
Beasts of legendary patience
Waiting calmly, ever gracious

Throughout the morn they wait for playtime
That moment when they run in sunshine
Inspiration! Cries the owner
Why couldn't I see that one sooner?

For dogs of devs are splendid creatures
They help solve bugs and then add features
As sounding boards and stress relievers
Vital tools for their code weavers

And while they might seem lowly minions
They're often sound in their opinions
Attentive as devs' tales unfold
Inside each one a heart of gold

Holy ****. I love it. I'm taking and printing that over my dog's house. Not even kidding. <3

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34 minutes ago, Temeter said:

Well, if we want a buggy release then there is just the pre-release, which also allows us to report stuff.

As for everything else, I'm ok with a few bugs. All KSP versions had some issues and the most recent ones got always a bugfix after. Which is IMO just fine.

Is that not the point of the pre-release BETA to everyone? Just make the pre-release live to everyone and we will help find bugs as well. 

Edited by oneshibbyguy
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2 minutes ago, oneshibbyguy said:

Is that not the point of the pre-release BETA to everyone? Just make the pre-release live to everyone and we will help find bugs as well. 

Is that not the point of the pre-release BETA to everyone? Just make the pre-release live to everyone and we will help find bugs as well. 

Wasn't done for technical reasons, old news.

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5 hours ago, Claw said:

To be fair, part of the point is to avoid the pieces of the cake like what happened in the release cycle leading up to 1.0.5...the "turns out 1.0.4 breaks career saves." Or "firing a kerbal corrupts the save" of 0.90 or 1.0 (I forget which off hand).

Honestly, I just like the beautiful absurdity of the statement "We can't let you help us find bugs because we haven't removed the bugs yet."

(Of course, I work for a government agency, so absurd contradictions are a part of my life that I've learned to take great joy in.)

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4 minutes ago, razark said:

Honestly, I just like the beautiful absurdity of the statement "We can't let you help us find bugs because we haven't removed the bugs yet."

(Of course, I work for a government agency, so absurd contradictions are a part of my life that I've learned to take great joy in.)

:lol:

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37 minutes ago, Temeter said:

Well, if we want a buggy release then there is just the pre-release, which also allows us to report stuff.

But remember that the pre-release is set to last two weeks. All of the remaining bugs need to be found by the end of the pre-release. So they're shaving it down to what they think is two week's worth of bugs.

If the pre-release was made live now, some of the bigger bugs would cover up smaller ones allowing them to go longer without being discovered.

Edited by KerbonautInTraining
Added clarification to 1st paragraph
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1 minute ago, KerbonautInTraining said:

But remember that the pre-release is set to last two weeks. All of the remaining bugs need to be found by then. 

If the pre-release was made live now, some of the bigger bugs would cover up smaller ones allowing them to go longer without being discovered.

Earlier pre-release betas didn't turn out very well when the game got bigger, that's why this one is a bit more limited, to find the smaller bugs.

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