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Devnote Thursday: Tweaking and Turning Gears


SQUAD

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1 hour ago, BeeGeenie said:

Every Devnote, everybody starts debating about features and I'm over here like:

"I wish they would hire someone named Jeb, since Bill (Taniwha) and Bob (Roverdude) are on the payroll."

And what about a Valentina? We do not have a Valentina!!! 

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3 hours ago, BeeGeenie said:

"I wish they would hire someone named Jeb, since Bill (Taniwha) and Bob (Roverdude) are on the payroll."

And I'm an engineer (sorta, did the degree (Electrical and Electronic), but wound up being a programmer). And here's the real fun one: my surname is Currie (oh so close :P).

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The exe and all of the dlls that the process uses also have to be mapped into the available virtual address space. This also includes some of the windows dlls. Also, the first meg of address space is reserved to prevent issues with code written for dos/win9x.

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11 hours ago, Andem said:

Sudden thought @RoverDude, do the Antennas need to be deployed to communicate or should they work when retracted?

Yup, antennas need to be deployed to be active. All probe cores have a little built in one (with a very low power rating) that does not have to be deployed.  There's also the Comm-16S (surface mount version) that is not deployed, and all of the relay antennas are non-deployable.  Most of your direct antennas (from the Comm-16 through the 88-88) are deployable, and will also break under atmospheric pressure.  Usual deal, all things subject to adjustment based on QA, etc.

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12 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Yup, antennas need to be deployed to be active. All probe cores have a little built in one (with a very low power rating) that does not have to be deployed.  There's also the Comm-16S (surface mount version) that is not deployed, and all of the relay antennas are non-deployable.  Most of your direct antennas (from the Comm-16 through the 88-88) are deployable, and will also break under atmospheric pressure.  Usual deal, all things subject to adjustment based on QA, etc.

If you're out of range, can you deploy the antenna or would the probe be dead at that point? That has to be my biggest frustration with RemoteTech.

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9 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

If you're out of range, can you deploy the antenna or would the probe be dead at that point? That has to be my biggest frustration with RemoteTech.

Remember that in partial control, you still have access to the PAW, action groups, and some control capabilities based on SAS level.  The only point where you would be 'bricked' would be if you were out of EC.  This was a very specific design consideration :)

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5 hours ago, RoverDude said:

Remember that in partial control, you still have access to the PAW, action groups, and some control capabilities based on SAS level.  The only point where you would be 'bricked' would be if you were out of EC.  This was a very specific design consideration :)

Even then you could alt-F12, activate infinite EC, open your solar panels or turn off the high power usage part and extend your antenna then turn off infinite EC.

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18 hours ago, RoverDude said:

Yup, antennas need to be deployed to be active. All probe cores have a little built in one (with a very low power rating) that does not have to be deployed.  There's also the Comm-16S (surface mount version) that is not deployed, and all of the relay antennas are non-deployable.  Most of your direct antennas (from the Comm-16 through the 88-88) are deployable, and will also break under atmospheric pressure.  Usual deal, all things subject to adjustment based on QA, etc.

This sounds as if antennas would stay deployed after transmitting science data at last.

12 hours ago, John FX said:

Even then you could alt-F12, activate infinite EC, open your solar panels or turn off the high power usage part and extend your antenna then turn off infinite EC.

I am not 100% sure, but I think infinite fuel etc. needs to have some fuel left that the enginge could theoretically burn, zero fuel meaning zero fuel?

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On 8/25/2016 at 7:43 PM, SQUAD said:
...Bob (RoverDude) wrapped up his work on partial control, which can happen when a probe or crewed pod without a pilot has no connectivity to a control point.

Probes will be limited to no throttle or full throttle, actions and events, SAS/RCS toggles, and the  autopilot settings that are allowed by their SAS level.  This means that maneuvering is still possible, but somewhat limited. Both probe cores and non-pilot crews without a connection to a control point will also lose the ability to add/edit/delete maneuver nodes.  The pre-plotted will remain, but without connectivity to a control point (or a pilot on board), it will not be possible to place new ones on the fly. We expect this provides appropriate incentives to maintain control without ‘bricking’ your existing probes, and also provides an incentive to use your pilots, even after probe cores are unlocked.  Bob was kind enough to share a shot of the updated user interface! http://i.imgur.com/l7sEIP3.png

Q: Will the pilot stipulation be in place for Sandbox/Science gameplay modes as well as Career, or will a Scientist/Engineer be able to remotely control a probe?

Right now under Sandbox/Science modes the ability to pilot a vessel with full range of SAS modes is universal, scientists & engineers can do it just as well as a pilot. Further, all probe cores are currently functionally identical under Sandbox/Science - with the full range of SAS modes available to all (even the Stayputnik)

Question arises from a Gameplay Questions forum post which guesses a design intent of "everything unlocked in sandbox" which has evolved into "everything unlocked except...(mining/lab operation)" as new features are added - before we potentially add another "except" I figure it's worth clarifying.

Personally I'm for limiting the ability to directly pilot vessels in Sandbox to pilots just as in Career, otherwise we'll have the sandbox mode giving unique mining bonuses to engineers and unique (if redundant) lab operation skills to scientists, unique remote probe piloting arrays to pilots, but the ability to directly pilot a craft being universal. It's a messy mish-mash of exceptions which made sense a few years back with a (presumed) desire not to brick v0.21 and earlier saves, but has evolved into something a bit too unwieldy as we add more career specific mechanics.

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4 hours ago, KerbMav said:

I am not 100% sure, but I think infinite fuel etc. needs to have some fuel left that the enginge could theoretically burn, zero fuel meaning zero fuel?

You do not need any fuel for infinite fuel to feed your engines or any EC for your powered devices to work.

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7 hours ago, MiniMatt said:

Q: Will the pilot stipulation be in place for Sandbox/Science gameplay modes as well as Career, or will a Scientist/Engineer be able to remotely control a probe?

Right now under Sandbox/Science modes the ability to pilot a vessel with full range of SAS modes is universal, scientists & engineers can do it just as well as a pilot. Further, all probe cores are currently functionally identical under Sandbox/Science - with the full range of SAS modes available to all (even the Stayputnik)

Question arises from a Gameplay Questions forum post which guesses a design intent of "everything unlocked in sandbox" which has evolved into "everything unlocked except...(mining/lab operation)" as new features are added - before we potentially add another "except" I figure it's worth clarifying.

Personally I'm for limiting the ability to directly pilot vessels in Sandbox to pilots just as in Career, otherwise we'll have the sandbox mode giving unique mining bonuses to engineers and unique (if redundant) lab operation skills to scientists, unique remote probe piloting arrays to pilots, but the ability to directly pilot a craft being universal. It's a messy mish-mash of exceptions which made sense a few years back with a (presumed) desire not to brick v0.21 and earlier saves, but has evolved into something a bit too unwieldy as we add more career specific mechanics.

I've never played a Science mode game. I started in Sandbox, went to career, and never turned back. Does Science mode really unlock all the skills/SAS modes? That seems odd. I'd think with a Science play through, you'd still want to unlock different technical capabilities from different probes, and maybe have some true skill differentiation.

I'd say that Science and Sandbox mode (and I suppose, by extension, Career mode, for those who have expressed dislike for the features) might be well served by extra difficulty buttons. Basically, have a button to select whether Kerbals are equally cross trained, or if they have job specific training. Have another button to select between Probe cores with tiered SAS capabilities, and cores with universal SAS.

I guess it also bothers me that science operations in Sandbox are completely kaputski... I gave up on sandbox, because it was, quite frankly, boring to have no goals... It's like a No Man's Sky preview! :sticktongue: Being able to deploy and use Science Labs in sandbox would at least let you rack up a clear and definable "score" in the recovered science value, even if it's not consumed for anything. Similar arguments could be said about Mission Control. Again, Sandbox has no goals, per say. It'd be nice if you could still receive missions (maybe swap out the word contract for missions, when in Sandbox or Science mode, to conceal the no money factor). Missions could be limited to science payouts.

8 hours ago, KerbMav said:

This sounds as if antennas would stay deployed after transmitting science data at last.

If this is true... HALLELUJAH!!! :cool:

On August 27, 2016 at 10:27 AM, Kerbart said:

Not everyone is a late adopter. Many of us have bought KSP for $20 or less. If you're playing on an older machine (not exceptional if you bought KSP when it was only $20) you might even run into issues trying to upgrade to more than 4GB in the first place.

I bought KSP for $17. Good thing it was that cheap too, as I had just dropped $630 for a then brand new Mobo, CPU, RAM, and a used GPU. I would say I splurged. Spent big. I know a reasonable computer can be built for far less. Ultimately, if it ever comes down to old hardware, it's not that hard to move forward to newer hardware.

I had just built a new computer, but I reused all my old hardware from my old computer, like hard drives, etc, and my case was a custom build that used a 1939 Philco radio cabinet I already owned (most cases can be reused anyway). In retrospect... I could have saved $100-130 going with a less ALLTHEFEATURES motherboard... Spoiler alert: I didn't use all the features. :rolleyes: I would not have saved one measly cent on the CPU, as I got the best I could, at the time for my socket, the Intel i7 3770K Quad 3.5 GHz, and I never regretted it! I got matched 16 GB (2x 8GB) RAM, and later doubled that to 32 GB, when I had the cash. Same deal with storage. I upgraded to dual SSDs later on: Mac OS (I run a Hackintosh) on a 1 TB and Windows 10 on a 240 GB SSD. All considered, by recycling my old parts to build a new machine, I got a top of the line i7 for $630, and I should have paid $500 (cause I stupidly wasted a lot of money on a motherboard with unneeded features). Even later, i did my upgrades one at a time, when i could save up for them.

Truth be told, I do feel I spent big time. I really did look for only the best of the best for my build. The only area I scrimped on, was the GPU. I got a used Radeon 5770 for $50, and it's been "good enough" for what I play. I wanna get a new high end AMD GPU once the high end cards get solid Mac driver support. It's the one downside of preferring Mac OS for daily use... You're certainly a second class citizen when it comes to GPU support. I could go to the dark side and get an Nvidia card... They have good Mac support, but I don't like their closed standards policies. I'd rather offer my support to AMD for their open standards. Yeah... I'm one of those guys... Stupid principals getting in the way of decent FPS numbers and compute units... :confused:

It's surprising just how quickly 3 years on this machine has gone by. Shockingly enough, I honestly don't feel like I'm using a 3 year old computer. The thing is, I kept my build costs down, despite getting some very high end stuff, by building my own machine, and recycling parts from my old one. Even if your CPU is stuck at 32 bits or your motherboard can't go beyond 4 GB, doesn't mean you're at the end of your rope. Consider used hardware. Even a 3-5 year old motherboard is easily gonna offer support for a 64-bit CPU and over 4 GB RAM. If you can snag an old computer, used, that might be all you need. When reusing much of your old hardware, you might get away with only paying for a mobo, CPU, and RAM.

If you go that route, then I really do recommend, spend that extra bit for an Intel. They have crazy good single thread performance, and that is where KSP will shine. For $65, there's the 3.3 GHz dual core Intel Pentium G4400. It's most notable feature is that it's part of the Intel Skylake family. It shares motherboards with other Skylake CPUs because it uses the same socket as the Skylake I3/5/7 chips. It has integrated graphics as well, so you can either reuse your old GPU, or use the integrated graphics until you can afford to buy a better GPU. The Intel G4400 serves as a very reasonable entry point, with the option to upgrade to an even better CPU further down the road, without having to dump ANY of your existing hardwareI It might take some time to save up, but saving for a $65 CPU, a $65 Mobo, and some RAM is doable. That this investment only sacrifices $65 on the upgrade path toward a higher end Skylake CPU... Is shockingly impressive! The G4400 has a single thread benchmark score of 1865, and has two cores. My 3770K has a single thread benchmark score of 2085, with 4 available cores. Mine was also around $300, where the F4400 is $65. That's why I'd recommend it as a good starter CPU. It won't excel at gaming, but it'll certainly get your foot in the door.

My justification for saving... I waste a good amount of money on fast food. If I save a meal of fast food, and make something instead, I can save $10 at a time. I think if a person sets their mind to it, they can manage to save up toward most goals. Each person can set their own goals, but setting a $10 or $20 bill aside every now and then, both adds up, and will eventually reward you! :D

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40 minutes ago, richfiles said:

Does Science mode really unlock all the skills/SAS modes? That seems odd. I'd think with a Science play through, you'd still want to unlock different technical capabilities from different probes, and maybe have some true skill differentiation.

I'd say that Science and Sandbox mode (and I suppose, by extension, Career mode, for those who have expressed dislike for the features) might be well served by extra difficulty buttons. Basically, have a button to select whether Kerbals are equally cross trained, or if they have job specific training. Have another button to select between Probe cores with tiered SAS capabilities, and cores with universal SAS.

I guess it also bothers me that science operations in Sandbox are completely kaputski... I gave up on sandbox, because it was, quite frankly, boring to have no goals... It's like a No Man's Sky preview! :sticktongue: Being able to deploy and use Science Labs in sandbox would at least let you rack up a clear and definable "score" in the recovered science value, even if it's not consumed for anything. Similar arguments could be said about Mission Control. Again, Sandbox has no goals, per say. It'd be nice if you could still receive missions (maybe swap out the word contract for missions, when in Sandbox or Science mode, to conceal the no money factor). Missions could be limited to science payouts.

Yep, in Sandbox & Science modes right now the following seems to be in effect:

  • Every kerbal, regardless of specialisation, can pilot craft with full range of SAS modes
  • Every probe core has SAS capability and the full range of SAS modes
  • Every kerbal, regardless of specialisation, can repair wheels/legs/repack chutes
  • Only engineers provide bonuses to mining drill extraction rates
  • Only scientists can clean goo/material bay experiments & staff mobile labs (only relevant in Science mode)
  • And (personally, hence the question) hypothesised for v1.2 - only pilots can remotely pilot probes/ships through a comm link.

It's a messy mish-mash which (personal opinion) originated from the initial introduction of career modes (initially career mode was what we now call science mode) and the desire not to brick pre 0.22 saves which may have had Bob on solo deep space Eeloo missions and Stayputnik probes going beep....beep.....beep.... around Moho.

Roughly speaking, it seems abilities which were universal prior to the invention of Career mode (as we call it now) remain universal in sandbox/science modes to this day, but abilities which were tied to specific careers and added after that date are tied to those careers in all three current game modes.

As v1.2 will see KSP further refine the roles and abilities of probes and pilots, I figure now is as good a time as any to clarify the position.

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On 8/28/2016 at 9:16 AM, 5thHorseman said:

If you're out of range, can you deploy the antenna or would the probe be dead at that point? That has to be my biggest frustration with RemoteTech.

Powered landing on an atmospheric body was always the hardest thing for me when I was playing RT. IIRC, the way I solved it for Duna was to set up my network first, fly another craft right overhead at the same time as landing, use the DP-10 antenna for landing, and deploy the long range antenna once I was down. 

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1 hour ago, Racescort666 said:

Powered landing on an atmospheric body was always the hardest thing for me when I was playing RT. IIRC, the way I solved it for Duna was to set up my network first, fly another craft right overhead at the same time as landing, use the DP-10 antenna for landing, and deploy the long range antenna once I was down. 

You may have misunderstood. Powered landing on a distant world is SUPPOSED to be hard. I expect it. It's not frustrating because it's the gameplay I signed up for. Forgetting to right click an item that any one of 1000 flunkies sitting at 60s-era computer terminals in mission control could have done for me because there is never ever a reason why anybody would ever allow that to happen in a real space program, and having your probe irrevocably bricked forever because of it - that's frustrating.

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On 28.8.2016 at 3:03 PM, RoverDude said:

Yup, antennas need to be deployed to be active. All probe cores have a little built in one (with a very low power rating) that does not have to be deployed.  There's also the Comm-16S (surface mount version) that is not deployed, and all of the relay antennas are non-deployable.  Most of your direct antennas (from the Comm-16 through the 88-88) are deployable, and will also break under atmospheric pressure.  Usual deal, all things subject to adjustment based on QA, etc.

Ok so it will not survive reentry if extended, the com 16 and hg.55 should survive on an rover in atmosphere, the 55 is pretty heavy duty and the 16 is a lot like the old car antennas who has no issues with high speed. in an car, hypersoinc is something else :)

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On 8/26/2016 at 4:35 AM, klgraham1013 said:

Yes. *snark* ...but I get they won't.  I'm just really ready for that line in the sand to be drawn.  There's really no reason anyone should be on 32-bit anymore.

<- Grumpy semi-old man.

I beg to differ. The company i work for stull uses a 32bit OS (for whatever reason). So no 32bit ksp would mean no ksp for me during business trips :wink:

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23 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

That's why you buy a gaming laptop. :D

With RCs and motorbikes as my other 2 hobbies my budget is a bit tight atm... :) but yes, next time a new gaming rig is due, it will be a laptop.

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On 25/08/2016 at 7:43 PM, SQUAD said:

fixed a long-standing issue with Kerbals sliding on ladders.

 

On 25/08/2016 at 7:43 PM, SQUAD said:

a gamesetting for toggling navball hiding going to map view was added

Oh my word, these two things have annoyed me since forever.  Does this mean kerbals will no longer get randomly catapulted when exiting a module?

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