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KSP Weekly: Deep Inside a Comet


SQUAD

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Welcome to KSP Weekly everyone. Thirteen years ago to the day a space probe called Deep Impact (not to be confused with the 1998 disaster movie, despite the similar theme) was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a Delta II rocket with the mission of approaching Comet 9P/Tempel. Composed of two main sections, the spacecraft was designed to study the interior composition of the comet Tempel 1 (9P/Tempel), by colliding a 370-kg copper-core “autonomous Impactor” into Tempel 1, while a “Flyby” section imaged the comet from a safe distance during the encounter.

At 05:52 UTC on July 4, 2005, the impactor successfully collided with the comet’s nucleus with a force equivalent to an explosion of four and a half tons of TNT, and by analyzing the debris with the help of an infrared spectrometer and other instruments built into the Flyby probe, scientists were able to determine the comet’s composition, confirming that it was mainly composed of water, carbon dioxide, organic substances, sulphates, hydrocyanic acid and silicates.

Upon the completion of its primary mission, proposals were made to further utilize the spacecraft. Consequently, Deep Impact flew by Earth on December 31, 2007 on its way to an extended mission, designated EPOXI, with a dual purpose to study extrasolar planets and comet Hartley 2 (103P/Hartley).

On September 3, 2013, a mission update was posted to the EPOXI mission status website, stating that communication with the spacecraft was lost. It was later revealed that the computers on the spacecraft were continuously rebooting themselves and so were unable to issue any commands to the vehicle’s thrusters. On September 20, 2013, NASA abandoned further attempts to contact the craft.

Comets are time capsules that hold clues about the formation and evolution of the solar system. They are composed of ice, gas and dust, primitive debris from the solar system’s distant and coldest regions that formed 4.5 billion years ago. So this mission’s intent was to further our understanding regarding the formation of our solar system, which it did. Kerbals also understand the importance of studying and visiting Small Solar System Bodies, and some say that many exciting missions concerning these will be performed in the upcoming months.

[Development news start here]

Another exciting week full of developments has passed, and with the Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition release around the corner, our excitement is building up to over 9000! We have a couple of updates as we approach the Enhanced Edition launch.

First, we have recently made an update to the Enhanced Edition Release Announcement with the detailed release timings for the various territories where the game is going to be released next Tuesday. We recommend you to give it a look, so that you know when to look for it in your respective marketplaces.

And if you are a veteran console player and have doubts about how to redeem your free copy of KSP Enhanced Edition, we prepared this guideline to do this without complications. Spoiler Alert: It’s really easy.

By the way, have you seen the Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition Launch Trailer? Check it out!

While this KSP Enhanced Edition release means that currently there’s a huge amount of work related to performing a successful release, it also means that on the development side of the story there’s now greater focus on the 1.4 Update and the Making History Expansion. So let’s go through the advancements accomplished this week.

Let’s start off with a quality of life feature that was wrapped up recently and Mission Creators will definitely appreciate. That is the ability to manage the crew for your self-made missions. We’ve added a UI Display that shows all Kerbals in the Roster and where they are assigned, a pool of Kerbals that can be added to that roster and a Create/Edit capabilities for new and existing Kerbals.

Similarly, another aspect that was worked on to ensure a smooth gameplay experience is the ability to multi-delete and move nodes within the Mission Builder canvas. We want Mission Creators to be able to select multiple Nodes by pressing shift while they click on them; hitting delete will delete all selected nodes and moving the nodes will move them all in a block/group.

The team is also working on the implementation of a feature that will show all Vessels, Launch Sites and Orbits in the Graphic Action Pane (GAP) window for the selected planet for the current mission. This feature will be very useful, especially while creating complex missions that have various elements to be considered. This feature will allow Mission Creators to keep track of all the different milestones they have added to their mission. The team is also going to include filter buttons to the top of the GAP, similar to the ones in Map view and the Tracking Station today, which will allow Mission Creators to keep better track of all the mission’s elements.

Coincidentally, both the game design and art teams reviewed the layout of buttons, sliders and other elements for the Graphic Action Pane, as well as their functionality. All the wireframes and designed updates that are coming from this detailed inspection  have been forwarded to the developers so they can make the corresponding adjustments within the code.

Remember that in previous issues we talked about graphic banners, or ‘hero images’, into the Mission dialogs? We shared with you that Mission Creators will be able to set custom banners for their missions’ ‘Success’ and ‘Failure’ dialogs, but that we were also going to have a few pre-loaded ones? Well, we wanted to show off a couple of them.

Below is a ‘Success Banner’ - as the name suggests Mission Players will get this after completing a mission successfully:

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On the other hand, if the players fail a mission, they could receive a ‘Failure Banner’ like this one:

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Finally, we encourage you to participate in our latest KSP Challenge - Target Practice. This time around, the challenge consists of launching a rocket to the Mun or Minmus, targeted to very specific coordinates, and hitting the surface as accurately as possible. Are you up to the challenge? 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!


*Information Source: Perez, M. (2013, July 18). Mission to a Comet. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/mission/index.html

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A week has passed already? No way!

Really happy for all the console users. Hoping all goes well.

The ability to select multiple items at once, such as debris, in game would be a really nice add (hint hint). The deleted items could go into a temporary trash can, as with windows, to help with those derp didn't mean it moments.

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2 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Below is a ‘Success Banner’ - as the name suggests Mission Players will get this after completing a mission successfully:

I'm a bit disappointed: there's a distinct lack of hand-crafted white vest in that success banner. :D

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3 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Wait what now? In-game Kerbalizer? That would be grrrrreat!

Keep on chuggin' along

In game name and class changer more likely.

4 hours ago, SQUAD said:

...and with the Kerbal Space Program Console Edition release around the corner, our excitement is building up to over 9000!

Congrats on fulfilling all those preorders.

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4 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Below is a ‘Success Banner’ - as the name suggests Mission Players will get this after completing a mission successfully:

tumblr_inline_p2gszmnjej1rr2wit_540.png

On the other hand, if the players fail a mission, they could receive a ‘Failure Banner’ like this one:

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Yeah, that's pretty cool. *Slowly grins.*

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27 minutes ago, Xavven said:

I'm still confused about whether 1.4 is for PCs also. I saw in the last weekly that there are some retextures and a new engine. Do we PC players get those on Jan 16th also?

On the 16th, console players will get the equivalent of KSP 1.2.2 for the PC.

On some unannounced date, PC players will get 1.4 with the retextures and engines and such.

On some unannounced date (possibly the same, but don't count on it), PC players will receive the option to purchase* the DLC, with the mission builder and additional parts.

 

 

*Or will receive at no cost, iff they purchased KSP before a certain date.

Edited by razark
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They may have been referring to "mobile launch pads", but I agree it would be cool to have a couple additional launch sites and/or runways to land to.  Like launching a Soyuz from Baikerbanur on the continent west of the KSC:)

From the KSP Weekly on August 4th, 2017...

"The artists have also began designing a mobile launch pad! This launch pad has to be modular to fit various diameters, and has to have a terrain leveling system. The artists are taking inspiration from the crawler-transporter with some elements from other industrial facilities and applications. More details will be released later about this mobile launch pad and how it will work."

...and the KSP Weekly on August 18th, 2017

"While devs continue writing code, making pull requests and implementing features, the artists have also been occupied with several tasks. For example, they have finished their first  mock-up for the Mobile Launch Pad. This mockup is an early prototype that will allow developers to begin working on the code for the Launch Pad. The idea behind it is that a mission creator will be able to place launchpads on the surface of any celestial body whilst creating their missions. The launchpads can then be used to launch or land vessels during a mission. The mission creator will be able to choose to have none, one, or more of these in their created missions. Just keep in mind that whilst it has been designed it is still being developed, so things could change."

The bold emphasis on the last sentence of the second quote was added by me, since we probably won't know for sure what ends up going into the DLC until late in the "experimentals" phase; assuming the KSP dev cycle between updates hasn't changed of course.

Edited by Raptor9
2nd date in hyperlink text was in error
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