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KSP Weekly: A new team member!


SQUAD

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Welcome to KSP Weekly, everyone! We’ve had a busy and exciting week here at the KSP HQ; A new addition to the team and much more, so without further ado, let’s dive into the this week’s Kerbal news!

On the QA front we started the task of cleaning up the 1.2 Pre-Release trackers, as well as  assessing and housekeeping on QA practices and processes. This included more re-testing and refining test cases, as well as looking into performance and usability issues. Moreover, this week was spent looking at parts with multiple colliders, particularly regarding stock bearings and how performance with these might be improved.

The work performed by the QA team is crucial to identify any issues and making sure that the game does what it should do. This is as important as bug finding , and it involves looking at the game through a player’s perspective and as a whole. It allows our developers to get constructive feedback about how could different aspects be improved and what things don’t work or need some tweaking.

While talking about tweaks, improvements and fixing, let’s dive into what kept our developers busy this week:

As usual, there’s been some bug fixing. Some highlight bug fixes are: an issue with the load game dialog where it doesn’t handle some OS errors very gracefully and you end up with an empty list and have to restart; some issues with the subassembly panel and tooltips where you couldn’t overwrite a subassembly by dragging onto the saved subassembly (We didn’t even know that existed until we were working on it); fixed a couple of issues with the FlagPole at the KSC, and it will now get upgraded together with the Astronaut Complex. Additionally we fixed a very old issue where if you have a vessel parked on the Launchpad at Baikerbanur you can’t Launch from the KSC until you clear that one (It’s a long trip to move your parked car).

We have collected a number of bug fixes (including some important ones like the aero overlay/part highlighting crash) over the last few weeks. These will make up the 1.2.2 patch which the testers will be getting a look at next week. We’ve specifically worked on the bits that have no effect on the modding community (aside from fixing issues raised by the community) so you shouldn’t be worried about mods not working if they work in the current version when it’s released.

Furthermore, the work on localization continues. This worked has included reworking the contract backstory generator to make it possible to localize in a sane manner.  Sadly, this does mean that the days of rambling semi-coherent contract backstories are numbered. In any case, this is why we’re here. Another interesting fact about the localization work: KSP has around 50,000 words that will be translated to 9 languages!

Moreover, we have been also working on the new keyboard layout feature for those of you guys that have non-english keyboards and wanted to play the game right away. Tell us what keyboard layouts you use, in case we are missing an important one.

In like manner, we have began work on design task for future content that we’re really excited about, we will be giving more details in the upcoming weeks.  

Just like past week some devs have also been working hand in hand with the art team working on content, as well as  revisions for the optimised colliders and fixing any minor issues we encounter, for example, this included fixing contact point of the “Drill-O-Matic” Mining Excavator.

The art team has also been involved with the localization effort; extracting text from textures and preparing those textures for the localization process. And helping the with  lots of images for communication purposes… keep an eye open for black Friday!

It seems that lately  it’s becoming a tradition to introduce new team members each week. This time it is the turn of our new Sr. Programmer. Please give a warm welcome to Isaac, also known as Ziggy Stardust, in homage to the legendary album by Mr. David Bowie.  Isaac is a professional C++ programmer with 8 years of experience working in AAA titles. And when he is not programming or playing video games, Ziggy plays guitar and continues adding up to his collection of horror stories, real life or media. Isaac also loves cats and discussing anything regarding the music genre. Some of his favorite video game titles include: The legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time; Shadow of The Colossus; Silent Hill 2; Castlevania; Alone in The Dark; The Call of Chtulhu.

Likewise we want to take this opportunity to let you know about our new Instagram page and invite you to follow us there. We will be posting all kind of cool pictures there. Click here to check it out!

Additionally, this week we started a new contest: Kerbals Around the World! Where we’ll be giving away plushies and a signed poster made by the talented artist, Yorshee, who you probably know for making the art for KSPTV. Learn more about the contest here and start taking cool pictures of Kerbals at landmarks of your hometown!

That’s it for this week. Be sure to join us on our official forums, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news and let those staches grow!

Happy launchings!

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11 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

Furthermore, the work on localization continues. This worked has included reworking the contract backstory generator to make it possible to localize in a sane manner.  Sadly, this does mean that the days of rambling semi-coherent contract backstories are numbered. In any case, this is why we’re here. Another interesting fact about the localization work: KSP has around 50,000 words that will be translated to 9 languages!

 
1

Coherent contracts, YAAAAAY!

Also, welcome to the team Isaac (Ziggy Stardust)

Edited by Ignath
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3 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Moreover, this week was spent looking at parts with multiple colliders, particularly regarding stock bearings and how performance with these might be improved.

What kind of stock bearing is this?  Like landing gear (animations), the unimplemented stock bearing part, or thermo hinges?

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Welcome Ziggy!

I wonder what it's like to work on an already established game with a bajillion lines of code, where you enter and have to figure out what the hell does what, what interacts with what, and basically how to add/fix something without breaking something else.
Especially something so Kerbal!

I'd be happy if you dev. journal that kinda stuff for us :)
Also, who's your favorite guitarist here: Scott Henderson, Allan Holdsworth or John Scofield?


Also, can't wait to hear about the new content. I wonder if it's going to be something as totally awesome as the LoudnClear update. What could it be? Perhaps an updated Career mode?!?? :):):):):)

Edited by Lightzy
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Welcome @Ziggy Stardust!

Speaking of bugs, please tell me the rover-killing gaps in the geometry of the geography are being looked into.  I haven't confidently driven in KSP since 1.0.4...

Spoiler

zuW5qb1.png

A quick search of the bug tracker shows it's in there.

Not implying @Ziggy Stardust is a bug in people skin.  Unless he is.  Then he's a bug in people skin.

Edited by klgraham1013
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1 minute ago, stibbons said:

That's a bizarrely long bow to draw. Citation?

Apart from the complete lack of any development news for, well, since forever? Note that I don't include working on bugs as development. I'd call that maintenance. 

1 minute ago, sal_vager said:

Oh don't worry, more is planned for KSP than just bug fixing, so keep an eye out for announcements :wink:

Thanks for that.

*Bates breath*

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1 minute ago, Foxster said:

Apart from the complete lack of any development news for, well, since forever? Note that I don't include working on bugs as development. I'd call that maintenance. 

That's also a bizarre definition, so I guess it's consistent?

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