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KSP Weekly: The Kerbal family wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving!


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Folks, they are changing geometries to improve performance. This means colliders will become more simplistic not more complex. My fingers are well and truly crossed for bearings of all sizes to survive the cull. The devs now have examples of many of the possible hinges/bearings from the big to the tiny.

Do us proud @SQUAD! And thank you for sharing any info you have @sal_vager

Just now, HoloYolo said:

Well the poems are longer than the actual dev part of the the OP so why not?

Ironically the poem had more info than the rest of the post. :D

 

Edited by Majorjim!
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10 minutes ago, Majorjim! said:

Folks, they are changing geometries to improve performance. This means colliders will become more simplistic not more complex. My fingers are well and truly crossed for bearings of all sizes to survive the cull. The devs now have examples of many of the possible hinges/bearings from the big to the tiny.

Do us proud @SQUAD! And thank you for sharing any info you have @sal_vager

Ironically the poem had more info than the rest of the post. :D

It is quite ironic. 

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Yes, Happy Pagan Harvest/Solar Worship Festival to all! Sadly, I cannot participate this year as previously since my goat skin trousers are still in for repairs.

On a more important note, Considering all these important updates, can you please fix the manner of joint strength?  Rockets are not held together by staples as a default.

Wobbly rockets are not a game dynamic, rather a basic pain in the backside.  Kind of like trying to enjoy oneself whilst laying on a bed of magma.

SO: default to highest strength, and let the player decide to lower it based on design choices.

(Apologies if this needs to be in another section but, maybe @SQUAD will hear me better in this thread :wink:)

Finally, Whilst I appreciate the changes that have been made to the weekly dev notes, I would feel even more thankful if specifics were provided regarding what bugs and tracker items are being prioritised.

So... Keep up the good work, but please work harder to communicate clearly.  As a team you have gone through some seriously huge and critical changes over the past few months.  The year ahead requires your focus on bedding in new talent, extending and leveraging an awesome modding community, and hopefully establishing a consistent and effective communication style that helps your player community understand and support your direction and long-term success.

Even in the midst of all the upheaval we have undergone in the past few months,I remain thankful that this game/simulator still rests at the tip-top of my "Games I Cherish Pyramid".  Thank you to all the Devs in-post and to everyone on the legacy contributor list. (Shout out to @NathanKell as I'm dedicating my "Real Turkey Dinner" to you this year! Happily it will be Venison Loin as I modded the stock Turkey)

Edited by Wallygator
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3 hours ago, Wallygator said:

On a more important note, Considering all these important updates, can you please fix the manner of joint strength?  Rockets are not held together by staples as a default.

Wobbly rockets are not a game dynamic, rather a basic pain in the backside.  Kind of like trying to enjoy oneself whilst laying on a bed of magma.

SO: default to highest strength, and let the player decide to lower it based on design choices.

If you have advanced tweakables turned on, you have access to both Autostrut and Rigid Attachment.

While I have never used Rigid attachment, I have found that using Autostrut on any wobbly parts of my rockets(say every 3-5 units in a long stack, or even just the engines of each stage autostrutted to the root part), and I do not have any problems with rockets that lack structural integrity.

(unless I clip full ore tanks into each other, but that is another matter entirely).

 

By my understanding it is:

normal: reasonable structural strength for the materials and joint sizes involved(weaker joints may partially stand in for what should be a part with a weak structure because weaker joints require less coding and less of a physics load on the game)

Struts: building normal structural reinforcements into the vessel(may be stronger than realistic, but that is probably just to cut down on the number of parts needed for reinforcement)  Use Girders, octagonal Struts and I beams for structural supports more complex than point to point links.

Autostrut: like struts, but allow fewer struts and less aesthetic impact, also allows strutting things that would be hard to link in the editor(like strutting the engine to the cockpit).  Can be considered 'internal structural supports'.

Rigid Attachment: A per-part semi-cheat-mode for those who don't like the minute weight cost that supposedly goes along with autostruts*.  Only attaches to connecting joints but very rigid.

Unbreakable joints(in the cheat menu): your joints do not bend or break.

* the devs say it is there, but I have not noticed it in the editor

Perhaps you are requesting a setting to have rigid attachment on by default?

Is there some reason you don't just turn on unbreakable joints?  It seems like it should be almost the same thing...

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23 minutes ago, Terwin said:

If you have advanced tweakables turned on, you have access to both Autostrut and Rigid Attachment.

While I have never used Rigid attachment, I have found that using Autostrut on any wobbly parts of my rockets(say every 3-5 units in a long stack, or even just the engines of each stage autostrutted to the root part), and I do not have any problems with rockets that lack structural integrity.

(unless I clip full ore tanks into each other, but that is another matter entirely).

 

By my understanding it is:

normal: reasonable structural strength for the materials and joint sizes involved(weaker joints may partially stand in for what should be a part with a weak structure because weaker joints require less coding and less of a physics load on the game)

Struts: building normal structural reinforcements into the vessel(may be stronger than realistic, but that is probably just to cut down on the number of parts needed for reinforcement)  Use Girders, octagonal Struts and I beams for structural supports more complex than point to point links.

Autostrut: like struts, but allow fewer struts and less aesthetic impact, also allows strutting things that would be hard to link in the editor(like strutting the engine to the cockpit).  Can be considered 'internal structural supports'.

Rigid Attachment: A per-part semi-cheat-mode for those who don't like the minute weight cost that supposedly goes along with autostruts*.  Only attaches to connecting joints but very rigid.

Unbreakable joints(in the cheat menu): your joints do not bend or break.

* the devs say it is there, but I have not noticed it in the editor

Perhaps you are requesting a setting to have rigid attachment on by default?

Is there some reason you don't just turn on unbreakable joints?  It seems like it should be almost the same thing...

I have advanced tweakables turned on. I hate having to edit EACH AND EVERY PART.

(Sorry, but I find your post incredible difficult to read - maybe it is just my "english as a primary language education" that is getting in the way. If you are not a native english speaker/writer then please accept my sincere apology - I intend no insult)

My point is... Why does the game DEFAULT to incredibly weak joints?  It makes no sense. No sense at all.

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8 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

If rockets behaved anything like this when made properly (and you said - and it's obvious from looking at it - that the rocket was designed to act this way), I'd agree with the KJR crowd. However, my rockets (even the tall and spindly ones) perform just fine.

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21 hours ago, Wallygator said:

I have advanced tweakables turned on. I hate having to edit EACH AND EVERY PART.

My point is... Why does the game DEFAULT to incredibly weak joints?  It makes no sense. No sense at all.

You could always use the unbreakable joints setting in the cheat menu if it bothers you so much, that applies to all vessels in the game with just a single click.

Also, I find that autostrutting works fine if I only add it to every 4th or 5th part in a stack.  You can also hold down alt in the editor and click a part to copy that part and all of it's children, including their autostrut settings.

Personally, I find that I only need auto-strutting when I have lighter parts supporting heavier parts or other scenarios where a realistic part would deform or break without internal or external reinforcements.

I generally only need struts in similar situations(like giving radial kickbacks or drop-pods a second connection point).

Remember: Rocket fuel tanks are little more than a thin metal tube with a little bit of piping that is filled up with volatile fluids.  Stacking 3 or more orange tanks without reinforcement is not very realistic and you should expect them to disintegrate one way or another.  The same goes for the max-length tanks of other sizes as well.(I am not even sure that stacking 2 orange tanks with stuff on top of them and no reinforcement is realistic).

Language: I tend to be technical and specific in my phrasing, this will often throw off those who tend more towards colloquial usage of the language.  (If you like you can think of colloquial English as a second language I rarely use, with literary American English as my first language)

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1 hour ago, klgraham1013 said:

Personally, I hope the next dev note is in a musical format.  It'd be like a poem with drums.

If they did it in musical format, they could win an Emmy.  Worked for the show Scrubs way back when.

The reason the Devnotes seem so devoid of actual dev content is that you're no longer hearing from the devs.  Squad has obviously hired full-time PR people, and they're now doing the PR/marketing thing.  You guys are used to the days when Squad was a shoestring operation and you got to talk directly to the source.  Those days are over - now you have a client-facing interface that stands between development and consumer.  You shan't get to talk to the guys in the trenches that much, if at all, any more.  The new guys - you'll notice that they don't participate on here like the old guys did.  We hear about them, but we don't get screen names and they don't interact with the community in the way you're used to.  Squad, for good or bad, for whatever reason, has placed a buffer between the folks making the game and the folks buying the game.  Not the first time I've seen this - it's just the guts of the company is disengaging from community involvement, but the company itself is not wanting to completely abandon its' fanbase.  

I think the days where you got a weekly status report in the format of "X is working on Y and has made Z progress" is done.  Now you'll get "The devs are working on the next release, and everything is going great!  We're really excited about this next release!  And now, a word from our sponsors..."

C'est la vie.

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4 minutes ago, MaxPeck said:

If they did it in musical format, they could win an Emmy.  Worked for the show Scrubs way back when.

The reason the Devnotes seem so devoid of actual dev content is that you're no longer hearing from the devs.  Squad has obviously hired full-time PR people, and they're now doing the PR/marketing thing.  You guys are used to the days when Squad was a shoestring operation and you got to talk directly to the source.  Those days are over - now you have a client-facing interface that stands between development and consumer.  You shan't get to talk to the guys in the trenches that much, if at all, any more.  The new guys - you'll notice that they don't participate on here like the old guys did.  We hear about them, but we don't get screen names and they don't interact with the community in the way you're used to.  Squad, for good or bad, for whatever reason, has placed a buffer between the folks making the game and the folks buying the game.  Not the first time I've seen this - it's just the guts of the company is disengaging from community involvement, but the company itself is not wanting to completely abandon its' fanbase.  

I think the days where you got a weekly status report in the format of "X is working on Y and has made Z progress" is done.  Now you'll get "The devs are working on the next release, and everything is going great!  We're really excited about this next release!  And now, a word from our sponsors..."

C'est la vie.

Perhaps they got tired of good talent being driven off by a small vocal minority of the fan-base?

It takes a certain amount of detachment to handle harsh criticism of something you have spent a great deal of time and effort working on.  

This means you either have developers who don't care about the product and treat it as just another pay-check(and who may not bother to interact with the community), or you need to protect the developers who really do care about the product they are developing so that they are not impacted by those users that complain loudly that this new version is 'awful' and 'unplayable'.

It is hard enough to find quality developers who will really care bout your product, why deal with the anguish and turnover of the large percentage of those developers who do not have a thick enough skin to take the kind of abuse that I have seen on these forums for almost every release?(and that is *after* the moderators have removed the worst of it...)

I would not be surprised at all if SQUAD was discouraging their developers from spending time on the forums in an effort to provide a more positive work environment and reduce turnover.

It could also be an effort to project a more professional and uniform corporate image, like many companies do when they get to a certain size.

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2 hours ago, Terwin said:

Perhaps they got tired of good talent being driven off by a small vocal minority of the fan-base?

This is conjecture unless you can provide some evidence to back up this claim. I could say good talent was driven off by mismanagement of the SQUAD executive branch, something Scott Manley hinted at in one of his videos.... this is also an assumption, however.

Let's stick to the facts please before pointing the finger at whichever group of people we currently like to blame most :)

Edited by Yakuzi
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