Devnote Tuesday: I ain't getting on no plane!

[JPLRepo]

20 minutes ago, Raptor9 said:

Ha ha. Gene: "No Bob, pushing forward on the stick makes the houses get bigger!  Pulling back makes them get smaller."

what houses? Kerbin doesn't have any houses.

[Firemetal]

2 hours ago, Alshain said:

Typically less than a month once QA starts up, not counting 1.1.

Ahh thanks. Hypeeeeee!

[Alshain]

2 hours ago, Arsonide said:

As of now, if you disable communications networks, KerbNet will be available in sandbox mode, but not career. Of course, that might change before release based on feedback.

Well I certainly will provide my opinion.  Those who choose to use RemoteTech (or any mod) or no telemetry at all shouldn't be limited from the feature.  Otherwise people will have to resort to a mod (such as Waypoint Manager) that basically duplicates stock functionality, and that would be unfortunate.

On the other hand if it were possible for those mods to assert their dominance over the system, that would be nice as well, however if the player simply didn't want the telemetry system at all there should still be a way.  Maybe a "KerbNet Requires Connection" option in the difficulty panel?  I'm just spitballing now.

Hope that feedback helps

 

EDIT: Just some context, I personally think Stock vs RemoteTech is going to be a lot like Stock vs FAR.  Based on purely the description of stock, I think RT is a lot more realistic with it's directional/omni antennas.  Not everyone is going to like the stock system, but on the other hand not everyone likes the complication of RemoteTech.  Personally I like RT, but I also want to try the Stock approach at least once.  I would hope that this interesting new KerbNet wouldn't be completely tied to the stock telemetry.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Alshain

[0111narwhalz]

4 hours ago, Raptor9 said:

Ha ha. Gene: "No Bob, pushing forward on the stick makes the houses get bigger!  Pulling back makes them get smaller."

"But don't pull too hard back, or they'll get bigger again!"

4 hours ago, JPLRepo said:

what houses? Kerbin doesn't have any houses.

It's an aviator thing.

[JPLRepo]

Just now, 0111narwhalz said:

"But don't pull too hard back, or they'll get bigger again!"

It's an aviator thing.

Yeah I get the reference. Was just making a remark that there are no houses.. Or maybe there are.

[Geschosskopf]

6 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Bob (Roverdude) and Brian (Arsonide) continued work on the antenna telemetry system. Aside from fixing bugs and tweaking code based on the feedback from the QA team Bob has been working on giving pilots more utility by introducing pilot-only control. This means that a scientist or engineer can only achieve full control of certain pods when in direct communication with Kerbin.

Boo, hiss.  Please, Squad, just admit the class system was a bad idea and either scrap it entirely or replace it with something that actually would help the game (for which there have been many good suggestions).  Please don't keep compounding the problems with the existing system by trying to invent ways to make the useless classes useful at the expense of making things even worse for the players.  Seriously, it's totally unrealistic to make pilots a required part of the crew because even from the beginning of spaceflight, primitive computers did all the flying except in very rare cases.  At best, pilots in spacecraft are just emergency backup systems.  If there's no emergency, then they're just a waste of payload mass.  This, and the way scientists work themselves out of a job eventually, is what makes the existing class system such a mess.  It would be better to let players pick specific skills for Kerbals from all the things the existing classes can do, so as to create their own types of astronauts, than what we  have now.

[StahnAileron]

So it feels like bits and pieces of several popular mods have inspired stock features. KerbNet feels like a SCANsat map window integrated with a lite version WayPoint Manager. That in turn is integrated with a version of RemoteTech.

I'm liking the cross integration of the new features. This is something that's a bit hard to coordination among independent mod devs. Even moreso with complex mods like SCANsat and RT, which are team developed.

I'm still waiting on more gameplay features to provide incentives in career mode, though (especially in the long-term). However, I'm patient enough to wait until KSP is brought to a stable baseline state before efforts begin to take KSP from simulation to true game. It's better to build a house on a solid foundation if you can help it.

[Alshain]

53 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Boo, hiss.  Please, Squad, just admit the class system was a bad idea and either scrap it entirely or replace it with something that actually would help the game (for which there have been many good suggestions).  Please don't keep compounding the problems with the existing system by trying to invent ways to make the useless classes useful at the expense of making things even worse for the players.  Seriously, it's totally unrealistic to make pilots a required part of the crew because even from the beginning of spaceflight, primitive computers did all the flying except in very rare cases.  At best, pilots in spacecraft are just emergency backup systems.  If there's no emergency, then they're just a waste of payload mass.  This, and the way scientists work themselves out of a job eventually, is what makes the existing class system such a mess.  It would be better to let players pick specific skills for Kerbals from all the things the existing classes can do, so as to create their own types of astronauts, than what we  have now.

Docking, maneuvering in space, and actually landing are apparently considered rare cases, because all of those were done by a pilot/commander on the Space Shuttle.

While I disagree with your comparison to the real world, I do agree from a gameplay perspective , I dislike the class system.  Leveling Kerbals is a grind best suited for an MMO, not KSP, and the purpose of leveling them is either minimal or nonsensical.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Alshain

[Enceos]

@RoverDude One thing I hated about RemoteTech is I couldn't visually see the range of my active antennas, and had to do the math. Would it be possible to have some kind of a toggle in the map view to see the coverage of the active antenna of your current vessel?

Edited August 10, 2016 by Enceos

[Kerbuvim]

No one word about the situation with consoles. This is a complete disregard for the people who paid the money[REMOVED FOR PROFANITY]

[sal_vager]

16 minutes ago, Kerbuvim said:

No one word about the situation with consoles.

You need to look here.

And you also need to refrain from profanity on these forums.

[Capt Snuggler]

Any chance we could see some screens of what @Porkjet is up too?

[WhereAmI]

29 minutes ago, Capt Snuggler said:

Any chance we could see some screens of what @Porkjet is up too?

Yeah, I would like to take a look at the reworked rocket parts.

[Monger]

KerbNet is amazing! So excited when I can finally try it out (which will probably be when my child grows up, so... oh, well...).

This makes a satellite network really, really useful. Will this work for airplanes, too? So, could I build a reconaissance drone which scans the ground for biomes, and marks them for future missions?

[Pthigrivi]

So much good news here. Can't wait to see it all guys!

[Arsonide]

1 hour ago, Monger said:

KerbNet is amazing! So excited when I can finally try it out (which will probably be when my child grows up, so... oh, well...).

This makes a satellite network really, really useful. Will this work for airplanes, too? So, could I build a reconaissance drone which scans the ground for biomes, and marks them for future missions?

Yep, there are two plane parts with KerbNet access: the Mk2 Drone Core, and the avionics hub, which isn't technically a probe core, but we wanted a low level plane part with KerbNet access. The RoveMate even has KerbNet access. Of course, your scan resolution gets lower as your point of view gets lower. The RoveMate for example sees a radius of about ten kilometers.

[StahnAileron]

3 hours ago, Enceos said:

@RoverDude One thing I hated about RemoteTech is I couldn't visually see the range of my active antennas, and had to do the math. Would it be possible to have some kind of a toggle in the map view to see the coverage of the active antenna of your current vessel?

Maybe I read it wrong, but I think the stock system won't have a limited range. As I understand it, it based on signal strength. (So the best path could very well be the longest physical path. It's kinda like the Internet and networking: Hop count versus latency.) Again, I could be wrong, so @RoverDude would have to chime in.

If this is the case, heck yeah. I tried out RT in Root range mode and found it far more flexible, though you need a reference sheet for actual effective ranges. (Even more so since I also use the additive mode for Omnis. I have an Excel sheet to help me calculate ranges for various antenna/dish combos.)

If there are range limits, they'd have to be fixed ranges per antenna. Ranges based on antenna combinations would be hard to visualize coherently since it's dependent on which two craft are involved for the calculation.

[Kertech]

4 hours ago, Alshain said:

Docking, maneuvering in space, and actually landing are apparently considered rare cases, because all of those were done by a pilot/commander on the Space Shuttle.

I agree with the point, but nasa did have astronauts all from a pilot background, who didn't trust computers to do it for them! It's actually quite funny when you read up about it, reminds me of Jeb...

[klgraham1013]

5 hours ago, StahnAileron said:

efforts begin to take KSP from simulation to true game.

If only it was possible to make a simulator that's also a game, or a game that's a simulator.  What am I saying.  That's crazy talk.

3 hours ago, Capt Snuggler said:

Any chance we could see some screens of what @Porkjet is up too?

At this point, I'm not expecting much.

[evileye.x]

5 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Please, Squad, just admit the class system was a bad idea

I think, the class system is very good idea. Especially with mods, that extend the concept of kerbals proffesions, like KAS/KIS, tourism plus and so on...

And I'm very glad SQUAD makes step in right directions. Yay! Pilot-only control! Remember how Watney launched from Mars? A Pilot controlled his accent via remote control!

And they are fixing SAS! Unbelievable news... Kerbnet and stock waypoint managing looks supercool as well. (However I do prefer not to use any biome helpers except ScanSat) 

Looking forward for new release, consider me convinced 

[Chaos_Klaus]

12 hours ago, SQUAD said:

making the vessel angular velocity the mass-weighted average across parts

 

Paging @NathanKell

I'm interested in this. What does this mean? Will the whole vessel rotate like a rigid body now? I had this image in my mind where KSP vessels are basically just individual parts "flying in close formation". This would include all the parts having their own anglular velocity and angular momenum and this momentum would be communicated to other parts via joints. I also get that this gives a lot of oppertunity for oscillations.

Is this a simplification that is beeing implemented? Because a mass-weighted average sounds weird to me. Shouldn't it be connected to moment of inertia? But again that would require looking at the actual shape of the part, the mass distribution inside the part and an finding an origin to compute moment of inertia in the first place.

Please don't get me wrong. Sometimes the strangest simplifications can be made. I just want to understand.

 

EDIT: Or does this relate to vessels that are on rails only?

 

 

Edited August 10, 2016 by Chaos_Klaus

[Pthigrivi]

Really happy we're seeing some biome mapping becoming available. Is there an opportunity at some point to perform a complete biome scan with a survey scanner on board? Its nice sometimes to have a full overview of your options. Also is requiring the manual refresh a performance issue or just a design choice? Is there a reason this and the narrow band scanner can't provide a continuous feed (for additional ec even?)

Edited August 10, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[swjr-swis]

2 hours ago, Arsonide said:

Of course, your scan resolution gets lower as your point of view gets lower.

Odd, one would expect the exact opposite, since flying lower the same physical resolution of the sensor should be able to get more detailed scans.

[Arsonide]

Ah, sorry I was talking about the resolution of the map, not of each pixel. Yes the level of detail goes up, but the scope of your view goes down a bit.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Arsonide

[swjr-swis]

1 minute ago, Arsonide said:

Ah, sorry I was talking about the resolution of the map, not of each pixel. Yes the level of detail goes up, but the scope of your view goes down a bit.

Ok thanks. (I am taking this as being a reply to my question, even though the quote is of an entirely different question).