Patch 1.4.3 to be released next week!

[OM3GA]

Awesome! Any improvements to camera movement glitches?

[schwank]

Hello!  
I've just joined the forum, as the Making History release sale prompted me to finally pickup this game after watching it for years.  THANK GOODNESS!  This is the best game I've ever played.  I really appreciate the active updates and wanted to give some feedback.

The missions are awesome!  Once I had leveled off on my career learning curve, I leaned into the missions.  They're great!  Loving the Ziggy Kermin Spiders, just got a gold last night.  PLEASE keep updating these missions regularly.

On the bug report side:  I'm having lots of trouble with the Service Module SM-25 part, as regards placing fuel tanks on the 3x central nodes.  I've made a detailed photo-report of this problem. Can you please let me know if this is known/fixable?

SM-25 Fuel Bugs

THANK YOU!

[Terwin]

On 4/26/2018 at 5:18 AM, steve_v said:

Really? QA wouldn't involve launching a craft with landing legs? Docking I can understand, but for the exploding gear a pod with landing legs spawned on the launchpad is all the testing required.

I hope too... But I've been hoping for this since 1.0.

The first orbital class rocket first stage to even *have* landing legs was the Falcon 9.(and they were considered a joke by pretty much every non-SpaceX rocket scientist when they first appeared)

The Falcon 9 does not start sitting on it's landing lets, it only uses them for landing.

Aside form the Falcon 9, the only landing struts were on the Apollo landers.  

As such, the entire history of space flight could be simulated as part of the test cycle and never use landing legs if they:

a) Skip or land on the engines for the Apollo landers(I often land on the engines for Munar landings, so not a stretch in my mind)

b) Skip, do not bother to land, or already land hard enough to explode shuttle landing wheels

c) Stop before, Skip, or do not bother to land Falcon 9 boosters.

 

As of yet, no real-world orbital class rocket sits on its own landing legs prior to take-off, and I rather suspect that the landing legs of everything ever launched would have major problems supporting the fully loaded weight of the entire rocket in 1g.

 

As such, I find it entirely realistic that something that has never happened in real-life(and would cause catastrophic failures were it ever tried), would not be part of the limited pre-release testing done for a rocket simulation game.

But that is just me.

[OrbiterAirFields]

On 4/25/2018 at 6:51 AM, Silverwood said:

Are you talking about the issue where the legs explode. It has nothing to do with speed, they do it on the launch pad - but did not do it before the upgrade.

By the way has the 'admin bug' and the issues with the tracking station map flickering also been resolved?

Keith

I have had the exploding legs, I had to remove all my crafts with legs on them, my mun lander failed because of this.

[steve_v]

15 hours ago, Terwin said:

The first orbital class rocket first stage to even *have* landing legs was the Falcon 9

The history of spaceflight is irrelevant, and has nothing to do with QA for a game.

Even so, it's not at all unusual to test landers on the pad (or some lander testing area we don't have in game) IRL.

landing on other bodies is a core gameplay element, core gameplay elements should be tested in QA, no?
In a game about launching rockets to plant flags on moons and some other stuff, example items missed were: Rocket engines that don't thrust straight. Fairings that are the wrong size. Landing legs that explode on landing.
That's a pretty typical "Plant flag on Mun" contract right there. Or is "QA" just launching the "my first rocket" craft straight up... To see if parachutes work?

Edited May 4, 2018 by steve_v

[Terwin]

7 hours ago, steve_v said:

The history of spaceflight is irrelevant, and has nothing to do with QA for a game.

Even so, it's not at all unusual to test landers on the pad (or some lander testing area we don't have in game) IRL.

landing on other bodies is a core gameplay element, core gameplay elements should be tested in QA, no?
In a game about launching rockets to plant flags on moons and some other stuff, example items missed were: Rocket engines that don't thrust straight. Fairings that are the wrong size. Landing legs that explode on landing.
That's a pretty typical "Plant flag on Mun" contract right there. Or is "QA" just launching the "my first rocket" craft straight up... To see if parachutes work?

Especially in the early game, landing on engines is common due to part-count limitations(if a controlled landing is done at all).

*some* engines were offset, but not necessarily enough to overcome the ability to auto-correct if you have SAS turned on.

I thought it was just the largest fairing that was the wrong size, something I may not have ever actually used.

Truth be told, some of my earliest career games could have been played past the end of the tech tree before I even noticed these bugs(if I ever did).

Personally, if I can play the 'entire game' without noticing a given bug, I consider it to be a reasonably easy to miss bug, and do not consider it unreasonable for it to have been missed by QA.

 

[cfds]

Well, I am sure SQUAD has learned from this and created a set of cases that will be manually tested by QA before each release.

 

/s

[klgraham1013]

On 5/4/2018 at 8:30 AM, Terwin said:

landing on engines is common due to part-count limitations

Doing something because of poor and arbitrary gameplay design isn't necessarily good reasoning. 

[Terwin]

1 hour ago, klgraham1013 said:

Doing something because of poor and arbitrary gameplay design isn't necessarily good reasoning. 

Perhaps not, but testing something because it is commonly done *is* a good idea.

[The Minmus Derp]

noooooooo!

[m4ti140]

On 4/25/2018 at 10:10 PM, juanml82 said:

Yes, it was early access. It had issues, that was expected.

 

IMHO, Squad/Take Two should finish this patch, stop all development of KSP and start over with KSP 2 or other franchise games like Kerbal Aeronautic Program, Kerbin Boat Simulator or something like that, learning from the development experience of KSP 1, but starting over from a more robust base: maybe a better engine (if there is one), modern graphics (and a modern graphical design including minimaps and not loading everything at startup), cpu usage optimization, good gameplay mechanics (ie, career), less reliance on mods to fill in when the stock game doesn't deliver and some sort of development that doesn't mean any new patch means new bugs and waiting weeks for mods to update. Just imagine the state of the modded game if linuxgurugaming wasn't around.

 

Or image, I don't know, Skyrim if the suits of armor were incomplete, the journal and fast travel were only available through mods, experience was gained only by doing the Radiant quests and the graphics looked like 10-15 years old game

IMO they should just make KSP2, but with a custom made engine and more exploration content

[Lisias]

On 5/5/2018 at 9:54 AM, cfds said:

Well, I am sure SQUAD has learned from this and created a set of cases that will be manually tested by QA before each release.

Don't need to be manual - at least, not all of them. There's kRPC available - go DEVOPS!

[Gordon Dry]

On 4/13/2018 at 1:59 AM, basic.syntax said:

Aero/re-entry shaders sometimes can be seen through parts

It's still like that.

Using -force-glcore and (because of) Textures Unlimited.

 

[silverfox101]

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 1:19 AM, m4ti140 said:

IMO they should just make KSP2, but with a custom made engine and more exploration content

I don't think KSP 2 will exist or if it did happen it wouldn't be done by Squad and I don't think it would be a big seller to be honest. I do wonder at what KSP version the team will call it finished and only concentrate on DLC content, personally I don't think just concentrating on DCL would be a bad thing, I think that's the only way of generating new customers.

I know a few people who play with many mods, planet packs, all kinds and that's totally fine I do myself. But at some point KSP ceases to be KSP other than in name only the game is a completely different game, then KSP becomes just an engine similar to Unity for instance. I think that's a big plus for KSP personally but I doubt it will generate any new income for Squad. 

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, silverfox101 said:

But at some point KSP ceases to be KSP other than in name only the game is a completely different game, then KSP becomes just an engine similar to Unity for instance.

I don't know about Squad, but I like the sound of "KSP Engine". :-)

[Curveball Anders]

30 minutes ago, Lisias said:

I don't know about Squad, but I like the sound of "KSP Engine". :-)

I'm not sure I  do.

Creating a new game engine specialized for one game is rarely the right way to go.

There are many out there that could be used, some might fit better that Unity.

(But Unity was probably the only one to deliver enough candy to prove the business case in 6 months).

 

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, Curveball Anders said:

Creating a new game engine specialized for one game is rarely the right way to go.

There are many out there that could be used, some might fit better that Unity.

(But Unity was probably the only one to deliver enough candy to prove the business case in 6 months)

I think you missed the point. :-)

In the 90's, Lucas Arts created the SCUMVM - Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine, and a lot of LA's games were then made over it. Better, by porting SCUMVM to different platforms, most (if not all) games were automatically ported.

Before them, Infocom did the same with Zork with ZIL/ZIP - with the same results: I can play the 1979's Zork on my modern Unix machine, as someone kindly ported the ZIP to it.

ID Software did it again with Doom and Quake - the original Quake Engine was a marvelous at the time, we could literally switch the rendering subsystem to anything we want! OpenGL? Ha. This guy used a Oscilloscope as 3D engine! :-)

And so on.

There's no "Space Exploration Engines" around, as far as I know. Perhaps this can be a new niche to be explored.

[klgraham1013]

8 hours ago, silverfox101 said:

I don't think KSP 2 will exist

Why do you think Take Two bought KSP?

[silverfox101]

17 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

Why do you think Take Two bought KSP?

Maybe it will, maybe it wont. If TT did indeed want a KSP2 I think it would be a totally different beast than KSP and a beast that non of us will even recognize as KSP, maybe they just want the Kerbal brand, maybe a spin off title, mobile games etc. I think it would certainly be more of a polished AAA title, it would have to be to find a wider audience and to keep that audience playing and buying.

But who knows, I certainly don't.

[Curveball Anders]

22 hours ago, Lisias said:

I think you missed the point. :-)

In the 90's, Lucas Arts created the SCUMVM - Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine, and a lot of LA's games were then made over it. Better, by porting SCUMVM to different platforms, most (if not all) games were automatically ported.

Before them, Infocom did the same with Zork with ZIL/ZIP - with the same results: I can play the 1979's Zork on my modern Unix machine, as someone kindly ported the ZIP to it.

ID Software did it again with Doom and Quake - the original Quake Engine was a marvelous at the time, we could literally switch the rendering subsystem to anything we want! OpenGL? Ha. This guy used a Oscilloscope as 3D engine! :-)

And so on.

There's no "Space Exploration Engines" around, as far as I know. Perhaps this can be a new niche to be explored.

I've actually worked with all three.

But my point is that all three started as single game engines, with the budget (and/or madness) to create those games, and then was refined to be more universal.

KSP was conceived with 1 person having 6 months to prove that it could be done.

Eve Online was created by a small team mortgaging their houses to write their own engine, they've tried multiple times to 'generalize' the engine without much luck.

To start developing a game, with the intention to create both a game and a general engine for that kind of game is a very risky business adventure.

[Lisias]

31 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

But my point is that all three started as single game engines, with the budget (and/or madness) to create those games, and then was refined to be more universal.

Exactly as KSP - even some refinement are there. I'm using 1.4.3 now, and I'm still using some plugins compiled to 1.3.1, and some parts made for 1.2 - a lot of things changed since 1.2, but some add-ons managed to survive the changes.

Mainly, what didn't had to deal with Unity directly had a nice change to survive new releases - even one that switched Unity itself.

31 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

KSP was conceived with 1 person having 6 months to prove that it could be done.

Almost 10 years ago. A lot of water had crossed under the bridge. A lot of lessons learnt.

31 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

Eve Online was created by a small team mortgaging their houses to write their own engine, they've tried multiple times to 'generalize' the engine without much luck.

You have a point here.

However, KSP have one thing that Eve-Online doesn't: a lot of people writing plugins, effectively changing the (or even almost creating a new) game. And all these plugins had broken in the past on each new release. What had broken and what had to be done to fix them created a very nice knowledge base that, correctly consolidated and used, can mitigate such risks.

The only thing better than that would be having such knowledge base hosted on KSP's premises, as it's done by Mozilla.

KSP is more like Quake I or Unreal I than Eve-Online. For a mile, IMHO. Online gaming is being added to it by third-parties very similarly as it was added to Quake I (man, I remember playing Q1 Team Fortress on a US-Robotics 33.6K).

31 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

To start developing a game, with the intention to create both a game and a general engine for that kind of game is a very risky business adventure.

Developing an Open "World" Space Exploration with Tech Evolution was also a very risky adventure. It's no secret that TTI is changing the KSP business model to better cope with such risks.

A "KSP engine" can be an additional way to do that (but granted, can be not - you can be right, I'm not denying it. But my argument is that some facts appears to say that perhaps you are not).

I'm not saying it will be easy. I'm not saying that they will manage to easily switch (or even get rid of) Unity or something like that (the marriage to Mono appears to be solid at this point). I'm saying that they are, now, in a good position to seriously think about the possibility.

As ID was in the past, some point between Quake II and Quake Arena.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Lisias

[Curveball Anders]

45 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Exactly as KSP - even some refinement are there. I'm using 1.4.3 now, and I'm still using some plugins compiled to 1.3.1, and some parts made for 1.2 - a lot of things changed since 1.2, but some add-ons managed to survive the changes.

Mainly, what didn't had to deal with Unity directly had a nice change to survive new releases - even one that switched Unity itself.

Almost 10 years ago. A lot of water had crossed under the bridge. A lot of lessons learnt.

You have a point here.

However, KSP have one thing that Eve-Online doesn't: a lot of people writing plugins, effectively changing the (or even almost creating a new) game. And all these plugins had broken in the past on each new release. What had broken and what had to be done to fix them created a very nice knowledge base that, correctly consolidated and used, can mitigate such risks.

The only thing better than that would be having such knowledge base hosted on KSP's premises, as it's done by Mozilla.

KSP is more like Quake I or Unreal I than Eve-Online. For a mile, IMHO. Online gaming is being added to it by third-parties very similarly as it was added to Quake I (man, I remember playing Q1 Team Fortress on a US-Robotics 33.6K).

Developing an Open "World" Space Exploration with Tech Evolution was also a very risky adventure. It's no secret that TTI is changing the KSP business model to better cope with such risks.

A "KSP engine" can be an additional way to do that (but granted, can be not - you can be right, I'm not denying it. But my argument is that some facts appears to say that perhaps you are not).

I'm not saying it will be easy. I'm not saying that they will manage to easily switch (or even get rid of) Unity or something like that (the marriage to Mono appears to be solid at this point). I'm saying that they are, now, in a good position to seriously think about the possibility.

As ID was in the past, some point between Quake II and Quake Arena.

You're missing the main point.

KSP was developed using a well known development engine because it was the only way to produce a functional demo in six months.

To develop a KSP2 with it's own, and expandable, engine would most likely be an economical absolute no.

Everyone is welcome to prove me wrong, but frankly, I don't think so.

And keeps tinkering in 1.4.3

 

[Mark Kerbin]

Yeah, game engines are expensive as hell to make, and are only really reasonable for a company, or companies to make if they have viable plans for multiple games that can make up for the costs.

[Lisias]

On 5/12/2018 at 1:54 PM, Curveball Anders said:

You're missing the main point.

Nops. You are the one not understanding mine.  :-)

On 5/12/2018 at 1:54 PM, Curveball Anders said:

KSP was developed using a well known development engine because it was the only way to produce a functional demo in six months.

No arguing about this point. What I think of Unity is irrelevant - what's matter is what it had done to the game (good and evil), and if the net value of it is positive.

On 5/12/2018 at 1:54 PM, Curveball Anders said:

To develop a KSP2 with it's own, and expandable, engine would most likely be an economical absolute no.

Everyone is welcome to prove me wrong, but frankly, I don't think so.

And keeps tinkering in 1.4.3

 

There's no way to prove you (or me) right or wrong without effectively trying the stunt. So, all we can do is propose facts and arguments in the hope that from the discussion something minimally realistic could be extracted. :-)

I think that you think that I'm proposing that Squad would create their own 3D Engine, or their own Physics Engine, or whatever. Nops, far from it. There's no point on investing R&D money on commodities, and these things are commodities nowadays.

"KSP" engine is, in my mind, what's Quake Engine was in the nineties. A (relatively) stable API to build things - anyone here remembers AirQuake? ;-)

Such "KSP Engine" already exists (well, sort of). And we are already building content for it, in the exact same way people did in the nineties for Quake 1. And later, for Quake 2. And then Quake 3 and Quake Arena came - and the rest is history.

Money is a scarce resource - but engaged eco-systems are scarcer. Quake managed to accomplish that in the past, and I have absolutely no doubt this was the main (if not sorely) reason they managed to beat Unreal on the short run, and probably the cornerstone to what is Id Tech nowadays.

I agree that there's no certain gain on trying the stunt. But it's certain that there's no gain on no trying it.

Well, the rest of my arguing will hardly be different from anything I already said - so if I didn't made me understood by this point, I don't think I'll manage to accomplish that from here. Business Strategy are beyond technicians anyway. :-)

POST-EDIT 2018/05/18: It came to my attention that the phrase I used to finish my post (currently in strikethrough) can be seen as a subtle and indirect attack. My apologies - my English can be technically good (sort of), but I don't manage the language subtleties. Well, I am a technician. So I'm included on the statement, being  (or intended to) be implicit on the statement.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Lisias
better phrasing

[John FX]

Reading the last few pages makes me content that I now post a lot less here than I used to.

This place used to be people who wanted the game to be as good as it could be, who gladly helped people, and who saw the futility of arguing minor points back and forth until one party just gets fed up of doing so.

Now, every comment which could be pounced upon, is pounced upon and the poster subjected to an endless stream of arguing the toss over minor points.

I am sure this comment will suffer the same fate but I will not be checking to find out. Trolls will get no joy here.

Please do not quote from this post, and do not @ mention me, I would rather nobody replied and I will not reply if you quote this post or mention me.

I now dread the notification popup, I used to enjoy seeing it.

 

EDIT : Please stop 'reacting' to this post, I really really do not want to see my notification light any more.

Edited May 16, 2018 by John FX