KSP Weekly: The Cosmic Snake!

[SQUAD]

Welcome to KSP Weekly everyone. Recently a study published in Nature Astronomy shows revealing and insightful information about the formation of stars in the early Universe. This observation suggests that so-called stellar nurseries in the early Universe contained far less material than originally believed.

Since the Hubble Space Telescope entered in service in the early 90s, scientists have been able to study in great detail very distant objects from when the Universe was much younger by pointing toward high-redshift galaxies. These observations, along with the coordinated work of several international teams that perform research on different scales, and countless simulations made in supercomputers, has helped astronomers and astrophysicists to develop a fair understanding of the fundamental mechanisms that regulate star formation in galaxies.

Previous observations of distant galaxies indicated that the mass and size of these distant star forming regions, clumps of gas and stars, largely (sometimes even thousandfold) exceeded that of their local counterparts, estimated to contain enough gas to make over 3 billion stars like our Sun; something that suggested that in the distant past, star formation was governed by different laws or physical conditions. However, an international team of astrophysicists led by the Universities of Geneva, Switzerland, for the observations and Zurich for the simulations has tackled this inconsistency, which seems to question our knowledge of star formation when we study the early Universe, far away in time and space. They have found the first answers thanks to the observation of the “Cosmic Snake.”

The “Cosmic Snake” is actually a very distant galaxy, which is located behind the core of galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-084747. The cluster is so massive it distorts and bends light like a lens so that distant galaxy light is amplified and ends up looking like a snake. This phenomena is called gravitational lensing, which basically is the deflection of light by a massive object, creating multiple and amplified images of the galaxy. Astronomers exploited this occurrence by pointing Hubble at a huge gravitational lens, which generates several stretched, warped and almost overlapping images of the galaxy.

The fact that the image of the source galaxy is repeated five times at different spatial resolutions allows, for the first time, to perform a direct comparison and to establish the intrinsic structure – and size – of the observed giant clumps. And so, this team of international astronomers have discovered that the giants clumps are in reality not so large and massive as suggested by previous observations, but that they are essentially smaller or composed of multiple and unresolved small components, something that was not possible to directly prove so far.

This lucky coincidence has allowed scientists to make observations and simulations that are leading us to better understand the fundamental mechanisms driving star formation in distant galaxies. Amazing! But you are here to learn about KSP development, so let’s begin!

[Development news start here]

We continue to work hard on the Making History Expansion. This week in particular, the team worked on adding the ability to assign Awards to missions. The Awards System will be another means by which Mission Creators will be able to give missions their own distinctive style. On the Mission Briefing dialogue, the Creator will be able to select the Awards Tab, and there, they’ll be able to assign Awards for their Missions. The expansion will include a list of Stock Awards that can be applied to the mission - these will be separate from the Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards, and will be for things like “Completed the Mission in under X minutes”. The Creator will be able to provide the information for these awards so they can tailor them to their own needs. We will also provide graphics for each award and players will get those when the award is fulfilled. As for the Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards the Creator will need to simply add in a points value at the points those awards will be given. Mission Creator will be free to only fill in one of the Points values - for example on the rare case they only want to have a Bronze Award.

A less exciting but equally important task that was performed this week was the revision of the text on all settings and nodes in the Mission Builder, while documenting any changes required, so that we can make appropriate corrections if needed. This is an important part of the development process to avoid misspellings in the game and provide better descriptions/names for all labels. The lack of attention to this kind of detail can affect the player’s perception towards a game, and as many of us aren’t English native speakers, we are placing extra care with this.

The team also worked on replacing UI elements from implemented wireframes to the actual project assets for the Mission Builder. This means that the final look of user interface that you will encounter in the expansion is being implemented as we speak.

The QA team also got the chance to test another batch of Nodes for the Expansion this week, so we’ll take this opportunity, as we have in previous weeks to talk about those particular Nodes, just remember that the naming might still change:

• Place Kerbal Node (Action Type): This node will allow you to set one specific Kerbal from the roster in orbit or on the surface of a Celestial Body. Placed Kerbals will be controllable, unless they are set as “stranded”, which will also be an option.
  
• Rescue Kerbal Node (Location Type): You will be able to set the task of rescuing a stranded Kerbal on a given location using this node.  Kerbals placed with this node will not be controllable or visible in the Tracking Station until Players are fairly close to them, and in order to perform the rescue, Players will have to be within coming off rails range (default is 2.2Km) of the Kerbal’s location and then board them onto a vessel (once reaching this range, “lost” Kerbals will gain controllability). Which is the same functionality as Rescue Kerbal contracts today.
  
• Crew Assignment Node (Vehicle Type): This node is basically for checking if a vessel has the right crew in the right place, i.e., Put Kerbal A on vessel B and/or put Kerbal X on Planet Y.
  
• Vessel Crew Count Node (Logic Type): Using this node allows you to count a specific number of Kerbals in the crew of a mission, as well as setting the type (pilot, engineer or scientist) they need to be.
  
• Vessel Stage Node (Action): This node allows you to trigger a Staging of a vessel at a given moment during the mission.
  
• Science Experiment Node (Science): With this node you can have Players perform an experiment in the right situation, and also has options for a requirement to return the science to Kerbin (via recovery or data transmission), or that they simply have to perform the experiment with the selected parameters.
  
• Part Failure Node (Action): This node will cause the failure of a given part at a specific moment of the mission.

On the artistic side of the development process, this week kept our artist busy with the task of creating the geometry and the textures of our Gemini-inspired capsule. Hopefully we’ll be able to show it to you soon, but in the meantime, we wanted to show the second texture configuration of the new 1.875 Tank. This texture was made specifically to match the look and feel of the parts that are currently on the game, keep a homogeneous look for your vessels when using old parts, too.

In other news, the updated version of KSP on consoles continues to see improvements and bug fixes as its QA phase continues. This week a couple of them were particularly noteworthy, as they could have turned into real nuisances if not fixed. The first one caused the loss of control of the craft, specifically on the Pitch, Roll and Yaw function, while Map View was active. And the second one caused the loss of stage and Navball functionality after selecting ‘Revert To Launch’ via the Cursor Mode after a crash landing - something that is bound to happen when playing KSP, so luckily it was found and fixed.

Finally, we remind you that you still have another week to participate in our latest KSP Challenge - Destroy the KSC!.  So go check it out and share your creations!

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!  

[Just Jim]

15 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

Part Failure Node (Action): This node will cause the failure of a given part at a specific moment of the mission.

oh???  This one really intrigues me... hehehe

[0111narwhalz]

Are there failure modes that are not "explode" or "break a joint?"

[JPLRepo]

3 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Are there failure modes that are not "explode" or "break a joint?"

There are many and moddable.

[klgraham1013]

56 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

This texture was made specifically to match the look and feel of the parts that are currently on the game, keep a homogeneous look for your vessels when using old parts, too.

They'll fit perfectly with the 2.5m oil drums!

[regex]

1 hour ago, SQUAD said:

Part Failure Node (Action): This node will cause the failure of a given part at a specific moment of the mission.

<predicting twenty-thousand Apollo 13 missions appearing in the challenge forum next year>

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

Any word on the volume of those tanks? Trying to guess at it by just looking. The little guy looks like it might hold about 30 lf/o. In any event, they look like they're gonna be pretty useful. The more the merrier. And they look good, too.

[StrandedonEarth]

33 minutes ago, regex said:

<predicting twenty-thousand Apollo 13 missions appearing in the challenge forum next year>

I’ll be different and do an Apollo 12 mission then, complete with lightning strike and earlier-than-historic POGO-induced engine shutdown. 

@JPLRepo will there be a way to mimic an inflight lightning strike ?

[regex]

Just now, StrandedonEarth said:

I’ll be different and do an Apollo 12 mission then, complete with lightning strike and earlier-than-historic POGO-induced engine shutdown. 

The best part is this will become the de facto deus ex machina for every mission.

A WILD PART FAILURE APPEARS

ITS SUPER BORING

[StrandedonEarth]

1 minute ago, regex said:

The best part is this will become the de facto deus ex machina for every mission  

(Emphasis mine) So now we’ll need ghostbuster kerbals for hunting down the “ghost in the machine(s)”

[Theysen]

54 minutes ago, regex said:

<predicting twenty-thousand Apollo 13 missions appearing in the challenge forum next year>

Unless you don’t fail the „reaction wheel“ in the same event you know  how it will play out .. 

[JPLRepo]

29 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I’ll be different and do an Apollo 12 mission then, complete with lightning strike and earlier-than-historic POGO-induced engine shutdown. 

@JPLRepo will there be a way to mimic an inflight lightning strike ?

Can't see why you couldn't do that using the part failures.

[regex]

22 minutes ago, Theysen said:

Unless you don’t fail the „reaction wheel“ in the same event you know  how it will play out .. 

Failing the reaction wheels would be the most hilarious thing to see stock-only players cope with.

hrm...

E: Oh hey, @JPLRepo, are you guys going to provide a method to strip Kerbals of their EVA fuel so we can avoid "getting out to push" in these missions? That would be pretty sweet.

Edited November 17, 2017 by regex

[Delay]

10 minutes ago, regex said:

Failing the reaction wheels would be the most hilarious thing to see stock-only players cope with.

Get out and push. This is stock after all.

[StrandedonEarth]

29 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

Can't see why you couldn't do that using the part failures.

Well, yeah, but how about providing some special effects for lightning strikes pleeeease?

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

33 minutes ago, regex said:

Failing the reaction wheels would be the most hilarious thing to see stock-only players cope with.

 

How so?

[regex]

6 minutes ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

How so?

I'm sure the anguish wouldn't last all that long once people adapted but how many stock-only players use RCS to control upper-stage orientation during coast? How about for general orientation? How many even know about the practice? Not many, I'd wager. Why on Kerbin would you use RCS for orientation when you have carnival-ride levels of torque in a tiny package that is basically fuel-free?

[klgraham1013]

Can't wait to put these parts into a single, homogeneous craft!

Edited November 17, 2017 by klgraham1013

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

28 minutes ago, regex said:

how many stock-only players use RCS to control upper-stage orientation during coast? How about for general orientation? How many even know about the practice? Not many, I'd wager. Why on Kerbin would you use RCS for orientation when you have carnival-ride levels of torque in a tiny package that is basically fuel-free?

I'd say probably just those of us who favor large vessels. RCS provides better reaction, as well as the ability to make very small course adjustments without changing the thrust limiter on your engine.

However, I think the whole thing is a moot point. Any part failure is going to be a minor inconvenience only. If it were cataclysmic, what would be the point? You wouldn't be able to complete the mission. Maybe busted landing legs would be cool. It would force you to make a very soft landing; depending on the vessel design.

[regex]

31 minutes ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

You wouldn't be able to complete the mission.

Sure you would, that would be the whole point of the mission. Reference: All the Apollo 13 "reenactment" missions that are going to flood the challenges forum next year 

[Just Jim]

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Well, yeah, but how about providing some special effects for lightning strikes pleeeease?

Now that I would love to see!!!  hehehe  

 

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Well, yeah, but how about providing some special effects for lightning strikes pleeeease?

With the the option to make the Kerbal struck either poof or be Changed Forever.  Or were you talking about lightning hitting ascending rockets?  Which should be no big deal, given that airliners get hit practically every day somewhere in the world  

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

13 minutes ago, regex said:

Sure you would, that would be the whole point of the mission. Reference: All the Apollo 13 "reenactment" missions that are going to flood the challenges forum next year 

Possibly, but I hope not. I keep a close eye on the Challenges subforum. Anything that's not actually challenging or at least different, I don't bother with. From what I've seen, everyone who takes the game seriously does the same. Not to say that reenactment-type missions aren't worth doing. Just that if it's the same-ole same-ole, I don't know how many guys would bother. Anyway, I think maybe we're putting too much emphasis on part-failure. It's just a small part of a greater whole. From everything they've been telling us, it sounds like a mission creator will have control over just about everything. The one thing that never fails to surprise me on this forum is the creativity I see. I'm really looking forward to seeing what can be done with this mission builder. And I'm hoping that some of the Weekly Challenges will be missions designed by Squad themselves. At the very least, things will be interesting.

[Azimech]

Something of a real challenge would be an element of unpredictability. Like having to launch immediately to save kerbals from a decaying orbit ... in bad weather.

Part of the mission would be to design a rocket that can cope with it. Plus it might improve the flying skills of the player.

On the other hand ... I don't believe there are any real world examples.

[JPLRepo]

44 minutes ago, Azimech said:

Something of a real challenge would be an element of unpredictability. Like having to launch immediately to save kerbals from a decaying orbit ... in bad weather.

Part of the mission would be to design a rocket that can cope with it. Plus it might improve the flying skills of the player.

On the other hand ... I don't believe there are any real world examples.

But something the mission creator could create a mission to simulate.