KSP Weekly: Looking Forward to a New Year!

[Kerbal pancake]

ive noticed that there are 6 decoupler sizes. will any other parts of the new sizes be in 1.4? 

[fourfa]

0.625m, 1.25m, 1.875m (new), 2.5m, 3.75m, 5m (new)

All those exist or have been talked about extensively in these notes over the past year.  Lots of parts for 1.875m and 5m have been shown

[Daveroski]

I would still really like to see more love for unmanned vessels.

If I have to launch a manned vessel to dock in orbit, I never need to add mollyprop tanks to the vessel. I find the amount contained in the pod to be more than adequate.

However, unmanned probes which often have less mass than a manned pod, have to carry a tank containing an amount of mollyprop which is way out of proportion with their manned counterparts and often end up being a high percentage of the total volume of the craft.

Those little white tanks inside the FL-R1, I could use a tank, the size of ONE of those with volume to match.

Which brings us to the size and power of the actual mollyprop thrusters. For most unmanned craft they are huge, way over-powered and massive.

How much work would it be to copy the existing thrusters and surface mountable mollyprop tanks only 10% of the size/mass/power  of their counterparts?

And while you are at it, a stock 5-way thruster in both sizes would be pretty cool too and save on part count.

Oh.. by the way, the expression is 'Greased Pig' not 'cat' it is in reference to an ancient sport. A 'greased cat' wouldn't go fast at all, it would just sit cleaning and feeling sorry for itself.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Daveroski
typo

[Majorjim!]

11 hours ago, RoverDude said:

The plan is to hide the legacy parts so old ships and craft files still work, but we avoid cluttering the GUI with outdated versions of the parts.  So the new ones will necessarily have different names to prevent conflicts.

Good descision! Will we still be able to display the older parts if we so desire?

[Kerbal pancake]

6 hours ago, fourfa said:

0.625m, 1.25m, 1.875m (new), 2.5m, 3.75m, 5m (new)

All those exist or have been talked about extensively in these notes over the past year.  Lots of parts for 1.875m and 5m have been shown

I knew they were coming but I thought they were making history exclusive 

Edited January 7, 2018 by Kerbal pancake

[RoverDude]

4 hours ago, Daveroski said:

However, unmanned probes which often have less mass than a manned pod, have to carry a tank containing an amount of mollyprop which is way out of proportion with their manned counterparts and often end up being a high percentage of the total volume of the craft.

Not sure what mollyprop is, but if you mean monoprop, there is a tiny spherical tank we use on the Vostok/Vokshod analogues that is probably what you are looking for,

1 hour ago, Majorjim! said:

Good descision! Will we still be able to display the older parts if we so desire?

Don't want to run too far ahead of this, but in the short term, with some Module Manager magic, sure, since the parts are still going to be there in your install (to avoid breakage), but I'd have to talk to the team and defer to @nestor and Leti on the long term plans.

[Daveroski]

6 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

there is a tiny spherical tank we use on the Vostok/Vokshod analogues that is probably what you are looking for,

Splendid!

Now all we need are the probe sized thrusters and a five way or two then we are in business

 

[klgraham1013]

3 hours ago, RoverDude said:

Don't want to run too far ahead of this, but in the short term, with some Module Manager magic, sure, since the parts are still going to be there in your install (to avoid breakage), but I'd have to talk to the team and defer to @nestor and Leti on the long term plans.

Sounds like a good solution to me.

Edited January 7, 2018 by klgraham1013

[basic.syntax]

A very HAPPY New Year's surprise for KSP fans! 

It must be mildly frustrating at Squad, to hear calls for a more consistent art style, unveil some consistency, and get criticized for it    I, too would like to see more visual distinction between separators(most of which were called out by blue banding) versus decouplers. The construction-tape banding texture has moved to the inside; please consider making it blue & also blue arrows outside, for the separators, dark red arrows for the decouplers.  (The double-arrows are a good idea, and would have helped me understand the parts when I was a new player.)

More love for orange! Great option to extend the Rockomax line. Could we also have a new orange 2.5m nose cone? A texture option for the existing large nose cone would be the simplest method, but a new part smoothly capping off the top, copying the Shuttle's external tank would look better.  

This talk of alternate textures and module-manager magic has me thinking of a Career Mode where we could see repurposed oil drums in the first tiers, and see polished NASA in the final tier. (Any craft launched during a previous tier would retain its look, showing the historical progression of your space program.)

Thanks Squad and keep up the good works!

 

[Lord Aurelius]

Awesome, glad to see some of those old eyesore parts getting an overhaul, not to mention the new parts that should fill a few gaps in the game.

A question on the balance pass: is this pass only for the new DLC parts, or are there plans to consider the existing parts as well?

[Enceos]

I want an electric propeller in stock KSP... to make drones, helicopters and Eve flight capable planes. 

Edited January 8, 2018 by Enceos

[Guest]

I want a balloon. Anybody else want a balloon?

[Sirad]

Good to read.

Finally we are gettin' an Art pass.

New Decouplers & Tank's look Great. Great in Terms that we can Build some rockets, fly them and show them to our Friends without having to be ashamed of the visual Style.

 

[mistergoblin]

On 1/7/2018 at 9:47 AM, RoverDude said:

Don't want to run too far ahead of this, but in the short term, with some Module Manager magic, sure, since the parts are still going to be there in your install (to avoid breakage), but I'd have to talk to the team and defer to @nestor and Leti on the long term plans.

I'd like to cast my vote for this as well, and even to keep them accessible in the VAB/SPH, even if only in some hidden legacy tab. The more parts the better

I'm a heavy SSTU user but I'm very excited for all these parts and craft, and can't wait for this expansion. 

[Shamash]

Looks great, exciting to see new textures for stock parts and I'll be quietly crossing my fingers that this apparent art rework isn't stopping at just what we've been shown for this one update so far. I do have some question to ask, though. I know texture and mesh switching has been discussed as a feature that we'll be getting at least in Making History (multiple parts have been shown and discussed as having alternate textures or togglable engine mounts) if not 1.4 as well (looks like the Rockomax tanks and fairings are shown with multiple texture options... I'd rather not make any unwarranted assumptions, but... I think its safe to say if each fairing diameter and texture was a separate part, that'd be a pretty quick way to clutter the part list). I'm curious as to the reason why the old and new textures are becoming a separate parts rather than being part of the list of available textures the player can (presumably) swap between. At the very least, it'd make updating old rockets to the new, sleeker look a lot easier. I'm also curious what exactly the new shrouds are. I assume they aren't new textures for the engine shrouds, the kind you get when you occupy the bottom node of most the rocket engines, as then they'd all be custom cut in length to match the length of the engine they correspond to (and wouldn't be floating in the editor like they're supposed to be independent parts from said engine). Interstage connectors perhaps? Fairings can kind of already occupy that niche, but they also won't let you emulate the S-1C to S-II interstate separation for when we get the Saturn V parts in Making History.

[0111narwhalz]

20 minutes ago, Shamash said:

I'm also curious what exactly the new shrouds are.

Outer races for bearings, if they're round enough.

[klesh]

Impressed, thankful, and really digging the additions to the base game for 1.4.  Those decouplers & separators are a godsend.  Keep doing stuff like that.

 

AJ10 Engine - I wonder what it's nickname will be?

Edited January 9, 2018 by klesh

[Rejected Spawn]

Anyone know of a mod that enables the time acceleration for the players side of the screen? Am suffering from severe bouts of creative urges and would like to skip ahead, currently in grave danger of using a Rockomax decoupler.

[Guest]

You know what else I'd like? A simple little thing which is present in Procedural Parts: the ability to set the fuel tank type. Meaning, switch between Lf, Ox, and mixed as a setting in the part. I build a lot of planes and this would give a quite a bit of flexibility, as well as make it much less fussy to tune fuel loadouts. As it is I have to swap out parts which is much more tedious.

[Shadow Wolf56]

THE PARTS LOOK SO COOOOOL!!!!!

[SG Aero]

NOOOOO THE IMAGES WONT LOAD FOR ME

[Pi_]

Another +1 here for the new decouplers-separators. 

Adding the orange to the smaller Rockomax tanks... yeah, ok I guess.  I understand that people really hated the bland gray color.  But they came in handy for building a stock-alike ISS replica, which now kinda goes out the window if we don't want to resort to texture mods.

However I still can't get past this one.  Putting aside that the eggs look silly, I'm wondering... if you're taking the time to retexture, why retexture the portion of the part that won't even be visible?

On ‎1‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 4:41 PM, SQUAD said:

The revamped FL-R1 RCS Fuel Tank 

 

 

[Ventzi]

 how is the unity upgrade performance wise?

[fourfa]

For some reason - can’t imagine why - I really want dumplings right now

[Warzouz]

On 07/01/2018 at 4:23 AM, RoverDude said:

FYI - there is no toroidal monoprop tank - that's an LFO tank   I think there may have been a typo in the KSP Weekly.  I redid the toroidal to replace the old ROUND-8 so it would be more consistent with the new capsule and spherical LFO tanks.

ah, ok. BTW the smallest monoprop tank is very big for basic usage. Would there be a possibility to get smaller ones (like a radial 10 or 20 unit)

The current smallest tank is 60 units, but as it's radial, you usually need 2 of them : 120 unit is much more than most ship needs. Sure, you can deplete tank fuel to reduce weight, but the container (doubled) is still 160kg.