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KSP Weekly: Watch out for the Asteroids!


SQUAD

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Welcome to KSP Weekly everyone. On a day like today in 1908, something really strange happened near the Stony Tunguska River, in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. An enormous explosion flattened 2,000 square kilometers of forest, leaving a desolate landscape and hundreds of scientists puzzled. Such an explosion had to be around 15 megaton, 1,000 times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. We now attribute this event to the air burst emitted by the impact of a small meteorite or comet (60 to 190 meters, depending on whether it was a comet or a meteorite). The Tunguska event is the largest impact event on Earth in recent history, but it’s dwarfed by the impact that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, which was caused by a body about 10 to 15 km in diameter! It is estimated that there are over a million asteroids that could potentially impact Earth, many of which are large enough to trigger another extinction event and we’ve only discovered around 1% of these. 

That is the reason why, on the anniversary of the Tunguska event, we celebrate Asteroid Day, an annual global event that aims to raise awareness about asteroids and what can be done to protect the Earth and its inhabitants. This event was co-founded by filmmaker Grigorij Richters, B612 Foundation COO Danica Remy, Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, and Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May. Over 200 astronauts, scientists, technologists and artists, including Richard Dawkins, Bill Nye, Peter Gabriel, Jim Lovell, Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins, Alexei Leonov, Bill Anders, Kip Thorne, Lord Martin Rees, Chris Hadfield, Rusty Schweickart and Brian Cox co-signed the Asteroid Day Declaration, which calls for action by the world including increasing the asteroid discovery rate to 100,000 (or 100x the current rate) per year within the next 10 years. We invite you sign this 100X Declaration by clicking here. Now let’s move on to what you came here for, news regarding KSP development!

This week the team was busy sorting bug reports that can potentially be included in the 1.3.1 patch, confirming many and fixing the ones that can be included. Some of the smashed bugs include: Fixing the part highlighting in the VAB/SPH that was not working correctly for parts that were using the new color changer method of lights. We also fixed dropping parts (not attached) in the editor highlighting, the rubble pile for the Tracking Station that was not appearing at level 2, and fixed a few more missing Localization texts. Lastly on the 1.3.1 topic we completed another performance pass on the code related to Localization strings.

In other news, work on the updated KSP version for consoles continuous at steady pace. Blitworks continues to consistently provide us with new builds and the team continues to test them as they come in. Our QA staff also now have the help from external bug testers, and together we are providing feedback to BlitWorks quickly and from all fronts. One method we use to provide feedback and to easily demonstrate how some bugs are triggered is through video capture of the gameplay, but the video capture function of console test kits is less than perfect to say the least. So some the QA staff have worked around this by setting up hardware capture boxes. Clever, right?

This week there’s also been a whole lot of work on the Making History Expansion. Apart from continuing work on various aspects of the expansion’s design and architecture, there was a ton of code reviews as the devs continue to flesh out the code for the Expansion. We’ve also been working on making the display of the mission nodes in the Mission Builder more customizable for the user. On a more technical note we worked on getting things ready to merge an architecture component called Compound Parameters, which is just another way for saying the ability to logically lay out and combine parameters for nodes. This lays the ground work to assist with building complex controls in the Mission Builder. Likewise, we’ve been working on how Biomes will be visualized in the Builder and it’s looking very promising. Work was also done on being able to add vessels into the missions in various starting situations and also the ability to have multiple vessels with their own orbit or starting positions and locations. These situations can be mixed with no restrictions and the Mission Creator will be able to create missions with dozens of vessels at will if they so desire!

To wrap up the Making History section, we also have advancements in the artistic side of the expansion’s development. The artists have been texturing an Apollo 11 inspired IVA and progressing with new gizmos for the Mission Builder, which need to have proxy vessels as part of the gizmos that indicate vessel orientation. Not to mention wrapping up one of our Russian-inspired engines. For this model, we will be adding in stock mesh switching support (including appropriate things like drag cubes, mass, and colliders specific to the swapped mesh).  Here’s a pic of the ‘naked’ and 1.25m mesh options for this engine.

And there’s a special surprise to celebrate Asteroid Day with you all. KSP master and YouTube celebrity, Scott Manley, prepared a challenge to celebrate this noteworthy occasion. Scott is sharing his Asteroid Day save file and you’ll have to find and stop the asteroid before it’s too late. Click here to learn more and don’t forget to sign the 100X Declaration.

Finally, we encourage you to participate in our latest KSP Challenge - Under Pressure! This time around, the challenge consists of building the heaviest craft you can and landing it on top of the VAB. There two categories: You can either attempt this on the “Challenge Mode”, where you’re only allowed to use stock parts and facilities are destructible, or, the self-explanatory, “Anything Goes Mode”. Three different badges will be given to participants, depending on the weight of their crafts. Are you up to the challenge? Check it out, share your creations, and win official badges in the process!

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 development updates!

Happy launchings!

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27 minutes ago, Dundral mk2 said:

Glorious! I like the idea of the multiple tank interface types. Anyone seen anything about existing engines getting anything like this?

The rocket part revamp, for which the design docs showed similar treatment, has been back burnered at least for now. 

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"Blitworks is making great progress and we are looking forward to testing every fresh new build coming out of the oven, they are very solid right now and still getting better each time."

"Blitworks continues to consistently provide us with new builds and the team continues to test them as they come in."

 

Thank you, guys, this week's news about the console version is much, much more interesting than the last.

 

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1 hour ago, SQUAD said:

On a day like today in 1908, something really strange happened near the Stony Tunguska River, in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. An enormous explosion flattened 2,000 square kilometers of forest, leaving a desolate landscape and hundreds of scientists puzzled. Such an explosion had to be around 15 megaton, 1,000 times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. We now attribute this event to the air burst emitted by the impact of a small meteorite or comet (60 to 190 meters, depending on whether it was a comet or a meteorite).

Krakens... it was Krakens I tell ya!!!   :0.0:

Oh, good weekly update as well... 

Edited by Just Jim
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TL;DR  Stuff is going on. oh look other stuff (today --> asteroids!)

Seriously though, we will likely experience this type of devnote until the day 1.3.1 is released. This is why the devblog is so very important - and should be more regularly updated.

(I do very much appreciate all the work going on, and it should continue without interruption from lowly folks like me, but the 'KSP Weekly' communications style and level of content is not to my personal satisfaction --> hardware capture boxes? why is this interesting to a player?)

IMO KSP weekly should be focused on communicating general information (with effective teasers) that the community wants to hear - and the devblog should be the place where things like 'hardware capture' is discussed.

Edited by Wallygator
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52 minutes ago, Kerbuvim said:

"Blitworks is making great progress and we are looking forward to testing every fresh new build coming out of the oven, they are very solid right now and still getting better each time."

"Blitworks continues to consistently provide us with new builds and the team continues to test them as they come in."

 

Thank you, guys, this week's news about the console version is much, much more interesting than the last.

 

A successful qa period is a boring one. Having nothing to report means that they haven't found any major problems. 

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39 minutes ago, TheRagingIrishman said:

A successful qa period is a boring one. Having nothing to report means that they haven't found any major problems. 

We, console players, listen to this "voice of void" for almost a year...

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3 hours ago, SQUAD said:

For this model, we will be adding in stock mesh switching support (including appropriate things like drag cubes, mass, and colliders specific to the swapped mesh)

Could we have Stock Fuel Tank switching? Now that would be really, really dandy.

For stock alone, this would be an amazing advancement, because some tank shapes don't have LiquidFuel-only versions. It would simplify the myriad of tanks by a lot!

But for Mods like @RoverDude's USI suite, it would be even more amazing, considering all of the different kinds of resources contained in it.

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17 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Not to mention wrapping up one of our Russian-inspired engines. For this model, we will be adding in stock mesh switching support (including appropriate things like drag cubes, mass, and colliders specific to the swapped mesh)

Good to hear this is the sort of development I like to see I might be buying this dlc after a-

17 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Here’s a pic of the ‘naked’ and 1.25m mesh options for this engine

-#$@&%!... never mind...

Anyway rather than rant I'll just signal boost Nertea's and Beale's reactions from reddit...

EDIT: more complaints coming from reddit, and qualified mod devs [1(yes pretty much the whole thread)][2][3][4][5] 

Edited by passinglurker
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5 hours ago, SQUAD said:

For this model, we will be adding in stock mesh switching support (including appropriate things like drag cubes, mass, and colliders specific to the swapped mesh)

Will this feature (stock mesh switching) be included in a future release of the stock game, or will it only be available for players that have the DLC?

 

I suppose what I am asking is if said switching will be available for moders to use in place of the various mods that do this already.

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5 hours ago, passinglurker said:

-#$@&%!... never mind...

Anyway rather than rant I'll just signal boost Nertea's and Beale's reactions from reddit...

Besides the fact that I think you linked to the same comment twice, I don't know why you're so affixed on textures, which are entirely replaceable. I, myself, hardly ever use stock parts anymore and I doubt you're a "purist" for stock parts, either.

I've said it before, the parts are, IMHO, not the crux of this update. Rather, the whole mission planning mechanic seems to be the meat of it. It's just a bit unfortunate that we can't really see what *that* entails other than a couple of mentions here and there, and other things I've seen around. 

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Hmm, somehow the "ends" of this engine look more like church bells than engine bells. Might be a trick of the viewing angle, but the bells look like they are like ten centimetres thick...

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34 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

Because mods should never be an excuse for a product.

I don't disagree with that, but, I think it'll be forever unfair to compare what Stock parts are to the mod parts catalogue we are blessed with in the KSP community. Personally speaking, I have given up on stock parts altogether. That said, the vast majority of my play time is spent tweaking a RO launch vehicle for 1 2 9 10 hours days and my parts are the beautiful Bobcat engines or using VSR for the stock engines. At some point, I gave up on the idea of just complaining about muddled textures. 

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10 hours ago, RoverDude said:

As always, I will leave it up to @nestor or one of the community folks to clarify what new features/API extensions (like mesh switching) will be the base game vs DLC :)

That's fantastic news! @nestor, more generally, can we expect similar *functionality* things (like mesh switching... I suppose, part module type stuff) to be included in the base game? Obviously the mission planner stuff is great, but if I want to use something like the mesh switching functionality, I'd rather not lock it to only my users who own the DLC. On the other hand... I'd understand and think there's sufficient reason if similar features were locked to the DLC.

Also, am I correct in saying there will be a 'drm' of having the DLC content in asset bundles? Is there anything else we should know (how it affects load times, for instance)?

 

 

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