Devnote Tuesday: 1.2 Pre-release, the bug hunt and more!

[HafCoJoe]

4 hours ago, Alshain said:

Not that kind of artist.  They are talking about the artist that does the promotional stuff.  Images and videos.  The last one left some months ago (prior to 1.0.5, we haven't had a release video since 1.0)

 @SQUAD missed the opportunity to hire @HatBat... lol

All regrets aside, Welcome aboard Leto! I eagerly await your work

Edited September 21, 2016 by Avera9eJoe

[passinglurker]

3 hours ago, chimpbone said:

Any news on 1.2 on console? Has FT even started on that yet or are they still busy trying to fix their mistakes? How long until the console version is caught up with the PC version? How far apart are they? When can console players expect to see 1.2? A month? 6 months? A year? Most games try to release updates across multiple platforms pretty close together, usually within a week, or at the most a month. 

Most developers that do near simultaneous updates are either large and can develop for all platforms in house, or like squad they are small and develop for a core platform before sending it off to a porting house but unlike squad they are less transparent about this and delay release until all versions are ready to create the illusion of simultaneous development.

Sqaud is too small for the former and the latter wouldn't fly with the majority of the continuity unfortunately.

[0111narwhalz]

3 hours ago, chimpbone said:

Any news on 1.2 on console? Has FT even started on that yet or are they still busy trying to fix their mistakes? How long until the console version is caught up with the PC version? How far apart are they? When can console players expect to see 1.2? A month? 6 months? A year? Most games try to release updates across multiple platforms pretty close together, usually within a week, or at the most a month. 

Well, 1.2 must first be released for PC, then ported to console, and finally complete certification.

Respective date estimates are: Soon^TM, Slightly Less Soon^TM, and Very Less Soon^TM.

[RocketPilot573]

Looks like 1.2 is coming along real nicely! An airplane icon has been a long awaited feature for me, and good to here that I no longer have to search endlessly for Utility parts! 

 

-Rocket

[AlphaMensae]

20 hours ago, Avera9eJoe said:

Claw added a number of QOL features? I'm curious as to what he added now! Always room for small things

Go through each build's changelogs and look for the things that make you say "Yay!  About time we could do that!" as opposed to gameplay additions, i.e. the small things, and those should be @Claw's doing.   Like the new right-clicking the staging icon to bring up a part's action menu, or now being able to jump directly to the tracking station from the pause menu; we already got being able to press "enter" when doing an Alt-F5 named quicksave (and that is aa confirmed Claw addition).

Oh yeah, Claw did most of the SAS reworking as well.

 

[chimpbone]

Just now, passinglurker said:

Most developers that do near simultaneous updates are either large and can develop for all platforms in house, or like squad they are small and develop for a core platform before sending it off to a porting house but unlike squad they are less transparent about this and delay release until all versions are ready to create the illusion of simultaneous development.

Sqaud is too small for the former and the latter wouldn't fly with the majority of the continuity unfortunately.

There are plenty of smaller companies that release updates across multiple platforms relatively close together, mostly within a month. I can give you lots of examples: Elite Dangerous, Subnautica, Rocket League, Prison Architect, Ark: Survival Evolved, The Long Dark, etc.. Squad could have developed KSP for console in house like everyone else, but they chose not to. Also, all of those games I mentioned cost less than KSP on console, so if Squad is such a smaller company and doesn't have the resources, why are they charging $40 for this game on console? 

Elite Dangerous: $30, Subnautica: $20, Rocket League: $20, Prison Architect: $30, Ark: Survival Evolved: $35, The Long Dark: $20, We Happy Few: $30. All cheaper games from small developers who give timely updates across multiple platforms and communicate with their customers.

[0111narwhalz]

4 minutes ago, chimpbone said:

Elite Dangerous: $30

 

4 minutes ago, chimpbone said:

small developers

This, I question.

[chimpbone]

25 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Well, 1.2 must first be released for PC, then ported to console, and finally complete certification.

Respective date estimates are: Soon^TM, Slightly Less Soon^TM, and Very Less Soon^TM.

I was actually looking for an answer here. 

It took Flying Tiger over a year to port an older version of KSP to console. They haven't even started working on 1.2 for console yet because they are busy fixing their game breaking mistakes from 1.1.3. It certainly doesn't look like we will be seeing 1.2 on console anytime "soon."

3 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

 

This, I question.

Question all you want. It is in fact $30, and it is in fact made by Frontier Developments, a smaller development team. 

[passinglurker]

4 minutes ago, chimpbone said:

There are plenty of smaller companies that release updates across multiple platforms relatively close together, mostly within a month. I can give you lots of examples: Elite Dangerous, Subnautica, Rocket League, Prison Architect, Ark: Survival Evolved, The Long Dark, etc.. Squad could have developed KSP for console in house like everyone else, but they chose not to. Also, all of those games I mentioned cost less than KSP on console, so if Squad is such a smaller company and doesn't have the resources, why are they charging $40 for this game on console? 

Elite Dangerous: $30, Subnautica: $20, Rocket League: $20, Prison Architect: $30, Ark: Survival Evolved: $35, The Long Dark: $20, We Happy Few: $30. All cheaper games from small developers who give timely updates across multiple platforms and communicate with their customers.

Plenty doesn't mean all and what you listed are very different games with differing levels of complexity and other factors that influence price.

Elite dangerous: while the core game is cheap it's dlc price is abnormally high (the horizons dlc was $60 at the time of release for example) and it is supported by micro Transactions on the side (ship skins)

Subnautica: is still an early access game and according to the early access business model the price is expected to rise before its finished.

Rocket league: smaller scope, smaller game, smaller price.

Prison architect: is the dandy of released formerly early access games for a reason. Also they never had to pay for a total game engine swap.

Ark survival evolved: has its own slew of controversy, is supported by dlc, and is still in early access.

Long dark: again smaller and in early access it will get more expensive.

We happy few: has its own controversy and is early access as well.

 

That being said I agree the console port is a train wreck not presently worth the full price of addimition this decision to port wrecked the pc 1.0 and 1.1 releases just as bad as it did the console release but most of the devs who were around when that decision was made have already cut and ran and the new contract employees recruited from the pc modding community are left holding the bags. Between the constrains of time, money, and corporate meddling there isn't much more they can do but ask for patience and complete the 1.2 code clean up to hopefully make all future updates go smoothly.

That being said 1.2 shouldn't take a year to come to consoles. The initial release took so long because FTE was helping rewrite ksp for unity 5 a monumental and expensive task that made the console port possible in the first place. Porting the solid and stable 1.2 release should be small potatoes by comparison, but on the other hand neither squad or FTE are what you call "experienced" with consoles so getting a time table out of them won't be as easy as it is with elite or subnautica who have their rhythm down.

[0111narwhalz]

22 minutes ago, chimpbone said:

I was actually looking for an answer here. 

Rule 2.3e:

Quote

Messages that inquire about release dates for future versions of KSP.

The only answer anybody (SQUAD included) has to offer is "Soon^TM."

[psychogre]

22 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Brian has also given the birds at Kerbal Space Center the ability to sleep at night.

I've always wondered why there are bird chirping sounds at all -- there's not a single tree on the whole planet!

[chimpbone]

@passinglurker, thanks for the reply.

Most of those games are in early access because that has proven itself a good model for smaller developers to bring their games to console. Me comparing KSP to those other games was simply showing that smaller developers don't have to behave like Squad, and usually don't. If we are being real here, KSP on console belongs in early access. It is plagued with bugs and looks nowhere near finished. Those early access games I mentioned are in more of a "finished" state than KSP on console is. And not only are they cheaper, they are more honest about the "finished" state of their products. 

Comparing early access games to early access games (which KSP was) doesn't seem that far off to me. The fact that it didn't release as early access on console is just deceptive. For anyone who has played it on console, the game is far from being "finished." Regardless, KSP still has to compete with those games in the marketplace. Squad probably could have learned a lot from the development of those games. Elite Dangerous is $30 btw, the Horizons DLC which I do not own is also $30, which is probably why you thought it was $60. Recently, you could get both on sale for $35 though, and a lot of people did. 

That being said, I do have some sympathy for Squad. I understand that they have had a lot of turnover and that maybe some of the people responsible for some of this mess aren't even around anymore. That leaves the new people to take a lot of heat for stuff they aren't even responsible for, which isn't right. Flying Tiger is still in charge of the console port though, and that doesn't give me any confidence that things will be different for 1.2 on console. 

Sending your game to a third party to get ported usually doesn't work out too well. It seems like we are seeing more bad PC and console ports than ever before. Everything about this mess seems like it could have been avoided. 

[Apollo13]

" Additionally, right clicking on the staging icon will now open up the part’s action window for the part it is staging. "

Excellent!!!!!  We have a winner.

[NathanKell]

1 hour ago, Laguna said:

Go through each build's changelogs and look for the things that make you say "Yay!  About time we could do that!" as opposed to gameplay additions, i.e. the small things, and those should be @Claw's doing.   Like the new right-clicking the staging icon to bring up a part's action menu, or now being able to jump directly to the tracking station from the pause menu; we already got being able to press "enter" when doing an Alt-F5 named quicksave (and that is aa confirmed Claw addition).

Oh yeah, Claw did most of the SAS reworking as well.

 

The first one is actually Jim/Romfarer, the second is Mike/Mu. I don't recall who did the enter bit.

That's not to take away from Claw, of course, he does amazing stuff each and every day! Just pointing out that everybody's pitching in.

[passinglurker]

36 minutes ago, chimpbone said:

. Everything about this mess seems like it could have been avoided. 

Yep that's my take on this it could have been avoided but unfortunately it wasn't. We can't change the past so now all we can do is make the best of a bad situation, but I'm gonna be optimistic about this. 1.2 is shaping up to be the most stable update ever, and while FTE have a lot of lost trust to rebuild it should still not take as long as to make the jump too 1.2 as it did to make the initial release at least by any objective metric.

And of course 1.2 will indeed come to consoles they need the optimizations  for the wiiU port that much is certain

Maybe some tension could be eased if FTE did their own devnote type thing but that's a topic for the suggestion sub forum.

Edited September 21, 2016 by passinglurker

[chimpbone]

2 minutes ago, passinglurker said:

1.2 is shaping up to be the most stable update ever, and while FTE have a lot of lost trust to rebuild it should still not take as long as to make the jump too 1.2 as it did to make the initial release at least by any objective metric.

I sure hope you are right. It is just kind of hard for me to be optimistic at this point. 

[passinglurker]

21 minutes ago, chimpbone said:

I sure hope you are right. It is just kind of hard for me to be optimistic at this point. 

Understandable I too have been to the wastelands of the disenchanted and back(from 1.0 until the release of the revamp sneak peek) you can take all the time you need.

Edited September 22, 2016 by passinglurker

[lurkoholic]

1 hour ago, psychogre said:

I've always wondered why there are bird chirping sounds at all -- there's not a single tree on the whole planet!

Maybe the trees around the space center have been removed burned down, but I've seen trees on Kerbin:

http://imgur.com/a/TvSJR

[Torgo]

2 minutes ago, lurkoholic said:

Maybe the trees around the space center have been removed burned down, but I've seen trees on Kerbin:

http://imgur.com/a/TvSJR

But have you ever seen a bird?

[0111narwhalz]

2 minutes ago, Torgo said:

But have you ever seen a bird?

Has anybody seen a bird, really?

[klgraham1013]

1 minute ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Has anybody seen a bird, really?

I heard birds are just a mass hallucination.  #illuminati #halflife3

[passinglurker]

3 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Has anybody seen a bird, really?

How can one not I see them pull stunts swooping under the r&d bridge all the time

[razark]

7 minutes ago, Torgo said:

But have you ever seen a bird?

Birds?  What birds?

Are you referring to the sounds that the Lesser Kerbin Venomous Ground Squid makes as it sneaks up behind you?

[lurkoholic]

3 minutes ago, Torgo said:

But have you ever seen a bird?

No...but when I land on Kerbin it's usually preceded by sonic booms or exploded parts.  Also, I assume it sounds like this just before I launch:

Spoiler

 

 

Maybe the birds avoid the Kerbal Space Center more than the Earth equivalent due to all the stray SRBs.  WAIT! There's a bird behind you....ah never mind it flew away.

 

[razark]

4 minutes ago, lurkoholic said:

Maybe the birds avoid the Kerbal Space Center more than the Earth equivalent due to all the stray SRBs.