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KSP Weekly: A Year in Space

SQUAD

By SQUAD
in KSP1 The Daily Kerbal

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SQUAD

SQUAD

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Welcome to KSP Weekly everyone. The average distance between Earth and Mars is 225 million kilometers - in theory the closest approach would be of 54.6 million kilometers with Mars at its perihelion and Earth at aphelion, but this has never happened in recorded history. On the other hand, the farthest apart they can be is about 401 million km. If we were to use a spacecraft as fast as NASA’s New Horizons to visit Mars - which by the way is the fastest spacecraft ever built by humankind with an average speed of 58,000 kph - it would take us on average 162 days to reach our destination. So if we were to send a crewed mission to the Red Planet, astronauts would be subject to the effects of microgravity for a long period, especially if it’s a round-trip.

The reason that we’re bringing this up is because on December 21, 1988, Cosmonauts Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov returned to Earth after spending 365 days, 22 hours, 39 minutes aboard the Soviet space station Mir, which at the time was by far the longest space flight ever performed by humankind. It was not until Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov spent more than 14 months (437 days 18 hours) aboard Mir in 1995 that the record for the longest single stay in space in human history was broken - Valeri holds that record up until this day.

Similarly, NASA experimented to see how long-term spaceflights affect the human body with the One-Year Mission, where astronaut Scott Kelly wrapped up a 340-day-long stay aboard the International Space Station last year, which is the longest amount of time an American astronaut has lived in space in one single stay.

It was through those missions that we learned about the effects of microgravity on the human body and how it can alter many of the body’s systems. Astronauts who have stayed in space for long periods have problems with their circulation and eyesight, not to mention the rapid loss of muscle and bone tissue, as well as the formation of kidney stones due to rapid decalcification. To counter these effects, astronauts have to engage in physical exercise for two and a half hours a day, six times a week (fifteen hours a week) while in orbit. Nevertheless, the risks of these problems occurring cannot be completely eliminated through physical exercise alone.

These experiments are not only helping us to prevent the risks of prolonged exposures of microgravity to astronauts, but also in the development of treatments for osteoporosis and other conditions for people here on Earth. Luckily, the Kerbal physiology is perfectly adapted to microgravity and they don’t have to worry about it when travelling throughout their starsystem…   

[Development news start here]

December is usually a quiet month for business, but that hasn’t been the case for us. With two releases and an update around the corner, we have been very busy and lot of progress has been made too.

For starters, in the Making History Expansion realm, the team worked on a feature that will allow players spawn Vessels as “Splashed” in addition to on the surface. When setting up a vessels starting location, there is a checkbox in the Mission Builder that indicates if the vessel is placed on water, then the vessel will be spawned as splashed on the surface rather than on the ground at the bottom of the water body. This feature will not be vessel exclusive, players will be able to spawn splashed kerbals too.

The team also worked on adjusting the behaviour of Orphan Nodes. What’s that you ask? Orphan Nodes are nodes that are not directly connected to any other node, so they are not part of the mission path and can be triggered at any time if their condition is met. We are giving each node a “Catch All” flag - which controls its ability to be an orphan node. Essentially, creators will be able to use these nodes to redirect a mission from any point on its path - an example might be changing the mission path if one of the vessels is destroyed, and the flag will be helpful if they want to save their work when creating a mission and haven’t finished connecting all the nodes - the Mission Builder needs to know whether the creator intends them to be orphans, or whether they just haven’t finished connecting them up yet.

In some under the covers work we’ve noticed that sometimes pop-ups stop being helpful and can even be a little annoying, that is why the team also implemented a standardized “Don’t Show Again” checkbox on popups, and are started to find and implement that in these situations. Additionally, the developers finished with the implementation of the audio track for the Mission Builder scene.

The team has as well been working on detailing the final list of inspired Historical Missions that will be included in the Expansion. We want players to have missions to play immediately and as you’ve noticed a lot of the stuff we have been doing has been inspired by historical missions of the Space Race, so you can expect to find emblematic missions in this package. Which one? You’ll have to wait to find out.

A Mission Overview Screen has also been worked on for the Mission Creator to visualize in the Kerbal Solar System the plan of their mission and where goals and events may occur. By the way, do you remember that we’ve talked a lot about the implementation of the final UI elements and layouts? Well, we figured we could show you how the Mission Builder Canvas will look (some minor changes may still occur). If you look closely you’ll get an idea of several features that we are including.

BuilderCanvas.png

In other news, the certification process for KSP Enhanced Edition continues and soon we’ll be able to share the definitive release date for you all, and we are still on track for January. In the meantime, you can start getting familiarized with the New Controller Presets. Learn more here!

Finally, we remind you that you still have time to participate in our latest KSP Challenge - A Very Kerbal Kerismus Challenge!  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!

PS: The KSP team is taking a break for the Holidays, so there won’t be a KSP Weekly next week, but we’ll be back in January.

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Raptor9

Raptor9

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Posted (edited)
27 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

For starters, in the Making History Expansion realm, the team worked on a feature that will allow players spawn Vessels as “Splashed” in addition to on the surface. When setting up a vessels starting location, there is a checkbox in the Mission Builder that indicates if the vessel is placed on water, then the vessel will be spawned as splashed on the surface rather than on the ground at the bottom of the water body. This feature will not be vessel exclusive, players will be able to spawn splashed kerbals too.

Sounds like potential to create some Search & Rescue missions. :)

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Edited by Raptor9
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JK_Kerbineer

JK_Kerbineer

Posted
Posted (edited)
45 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

The KSP team is taking a break for the Holidays, so there won’t be a KSP Weekly next week, but we’ll be back in January.

I daresay you guys deserve it.

Merry Christmas to all!

Edited by JK_Kerbineer
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Just Jim

Just Jim

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8 minutes ago, Darkstar616 said:

Sure hope there's a release date announced in January then.

@SQUAD doesn't normally post release dates... they never have. Mostly because they don't know themselves until the last couple days. In fact, just telling us it's right around the corner is somewhat unprecedented.

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JPLRepo

JPLRepo

Posted
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3 minutes ago, MiffedStarfish said:

This place Kerbal/Vessel place anywhere sounds interesting, could it be used in sandbox to create a sort of stock vessel mover?

Anyway, merry Christmas and a happy new year to everyone at SQUAD! Enjoy your well-deserved break. :)

No. It is a feature of missions as part of Making History expansion

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TriggerAu

TriggerAu

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3 hours ago, regex said:

Is there a higher-res version of this?

Updated the opening post with the full res version, and here to save time (click to expand)

BuilderCanvas.png

2 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Fun Fact:  Squad only uses 640x480 monitors.

Mines monochrome too... or does everyones kerbals have green skin??

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Deddly

Deddly

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3 hours ago, Just Jim said:

@SQUAD doesn't normally post release dates... they never have. Mostly because they don't know themselves until the last couple days. In fact, just telling us it's right around the corner is somewhat unprecedented.

Except for the console release :)

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klesh

klesh

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21 hours ago, SQUAD said:

In other news, the certification process for KSP Enhanced Edition continues and soon we’ll be able to share the definitive release date for you all

 

In what region(s) is the certification process happening?

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Mako

Mako

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, ShadowGoat said:

Meh I’d rather have a new part reveal. Any chance of that? I mean you only showed us one picture and usually you show us two new parts, so you still owe us one...

I don't know if you intended to come across as sounding entitled so I won't focus on that aspect of your post, but I will say that there has never been an established pattern of showing off work done on new parts. Squad has only ever shown off what they felt was ready to show at the time, and if that is nothing then they show nothing. 

For me personally, new parts are fine, but there are hundreds if not thousands of new parts available right now through mods. Showing me parts I can't use right now isn't all that interesting. To me, the new features and functions are far more interesting whether or not I think I'll have a use for them.

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SG Aero

SG Aero

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I don’t know how that sounded entitled, so I’ll ignore that aspect of your post, but what I meant was that the last few weekly posts they have shown us parts from the making history expansion and they didn’t this time, and I much prefer seeing new parts/textures rather than some UI I’ll most likely never use.

Edited by ShadowGoat
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Mako

Mako

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57 minutes ago, ShadowGoat said:

I don’t know how that sounded entitled, 

 

5 hours ago, ShadowGoat said:

Meh I’d rather have a new part reveal. Any chance of that? I mean you only showed us one picture and usually you show us two new parts, so you still owe us one...

Emphasis mine. As I said, I wasn't sure if you meant that in jest or you just didn't realize it sounded like you were whining about some perceived but non-existent slight. If you meant it as a joke then I just took it the wrong way and I apologize. I sometimes misunderstand humor in text form and I'm sorry for the mistake.

My point was they only show parts when they have parts to show. I guess they can show pictures they've shown before, but I don't know how much that'll do for you. Personally, pictures of parts I can't play with are useless to me, but I recognize that they matter to you. However, Squad doesn't owe anyone pictures or even these Weekly posts, so if your point is anything besides new part pictures are nice than I strongly disagree with you.

Otherwise, sure they're nice. Kinda like collecting little knick-knacks for display on a shelf. At least digital images don't collect dust.

Edited by Mako
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