KSP Weekly: The Greatest Contest of All

[SQUAD]

Welcome to KSP Weekly! This week we want to commemorate the first manned Project Mercury flight and the man who piloted it. The launch of Sputnik 1 jump-started the Space Race and led to the creation of NASA and ultimately to Project Mercury, a venture with the goal of putting a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $277 million in 1965 US dollars and involved the work of 2 million people.

Although the Soviet Union put the first human, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into a single orbit aboard Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, NASA successfully launched Mercury-Redstone 3, or Freedom 7, the first manned flight of Project Mercury, less than a month later on May 5, 1961. Piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard, M-R 3 became the first United States human spaceflight. Shepard’s mission was a 15-minute suborbital flight with the primary objective of demonstrating his ability to withstand the high g-forces of launch and atmospheric re-entry.

Shepard named his space capsule Freedom 7, setting a precedent for the remaining six Mercury astronauts naming their spacecraft. The number 7 was included in all the manned Mercury spacecraft names to honor NASA’s first group of seven astronauts. His spacecraft reached an altitude of 187.5 kilometers and traveled a downrange distance of 487.3 kilometers. It was the fourth Mercury flight launched with the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

During the flight, Shepard observed the Earth and tested the capsule’s attitude control system, turning the capsule around to face its blunt heat shield forward for atmospheric re-entry. He also tested the retro-rockets which would return later missions from orbit, although this capsule did not have enough energy to remain in orbit. After re-entry, the capsule landed by parachute on the North Atlantic Ocean off the Bahamas. Shepard and the capsule were picked up by helicopter and brought to the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain.

The mission was a technical success and together with the rest of Project Mercury, it laid the groundwork for Project Gemini, which carried two astronauts in each capsule and perfected space docking maneuvers. These techniques proved essential for manned lunar landings in the subsequent Apollo program, which was announced a few weeks after this first manned Mercury flight. Shepard would come to command the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the Apollo Lunar Module Antares to the most accurate landing of the Apollo missions. At age 47, he became the fifth and the oldest person to walk on the Moon.

It is very difficult to grasp the importance that this “competition” had in human history. The technologies that were developed during the Space Race have come to shape this age of information and connectivity that we currently live in, and its implications continue to affect us all every day.

[Development news start here]

KSP is an ever-evolving project that we continue to expand and improve. The team continues to work on an upcoming PC patch, with this week in particular focusing on assessing the particle system and FX to define the agenda for re-work and fixing.

Additionally, we also worked on a small new feature in the Mission Builder that will make life easier for mission creators. Basically when a creator clicks on an issue in the validator, the canvas will focus on the related node, so there’ll be no need to look for the issue on your own.

On top of that, in the past few days the team has been working on expanding the Game Settings to allow Expansion Specific Settings, something that the current game settings does not allow. The expansion-specific settings are being developed on a selective display system, so that these are only displayed to the user when the expansion is installed.

In other news, BlitWorks continues to work on an upcoming patch for KSP Enhanced Edition for consoles. This new patch will solve various issues and bugs that console players have been experiencing. This week for instance, BlitWorks provided us with builds that solved an issue that let players re-open and load the launch pad while the list of ships was loading by pressing the “Manage Building” button, instead of letting the game finish loading, which could eventually cause the game to crash. They also managed to fix a bug that prevented players from navigating the menu after pausing the game while the “Crew” tab was loading. Both of these issues still need to pass a thorough inspection by QA, and these are just a couple of examples, as there are several other fixes and improvements that the new patch will include.

Don’t forget that you can also share and download missions on Curse, KerbalX, and the KSP Forum.

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:

• Dunbar, B. (2015, February 27). What Was Project Mercury? Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-was-project-mercury-58.html
  
• Dunbar, B. (2015, February 27). NASA, Space Community Remember ‘Freedom 7’. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/50_freedom7.html
  
• Dunbar, B. (2015, May 12). Who Was Alan Shepard? Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/who-was-alan-shepard-k4.html
  
• Loff, S. (2015, April 06). About Project Mercury. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/program-toc.html
  

[Raven Industries]

The FX system being worked on sounds like potential for a litte bit of a secret rehaul in that department. 

[klgraham1013]

48 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

this week in particular focusing on assessing the particle system and FX to define the agenda for re-work and fixing.

Praise the Kraken.

[NoMrBond]

Oh my, please please please include plume expansion in your FX planning

That would be excellent

[Raptor9]

42 minutes ago, NoMrBond said:

Oh my, please please please include plume expansion in your FX planning

That would be excellent

Yeah, that would definitely be some cool eye-candy.

I do miss the pre-1.4 plume effects of the O-10 'Puff' monoprop engine.  The current one doesn't look as good, but that's small potatoes IMO.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Raptor9

[RealKerbal3x]

Whoo!! KSP Weekly!! I like these as we've got some history (or news of current spaceflight) bundled in with news about the game. Fun fact: when I started playing the game I did a Mercury programme analogue called, inventively, the Moho programme.

   Keep up the great work SQUAD!!!!!

[Goody1981]

7 hours ago, NoMrBond said:

Oh my, please please please include plume expansion in your FX planning

 That would be excellent

Seconded, thirded, whatever else needs to happen. Yes please!

RealPlume is always my first installed mod, would love to trim the mod list by one, especially since it’s not being upkept anymore.

[Foxster]

So, no development underway for another DLC (with things that people want this time)?

[klgraham1013]

2 hours ago, Foxster said:

So, no development underway for another DLC (with things that people want this time)?

One step at a time.  Let them squash all the bugs that were introduced in 1.4 before moving onto something else.

[Mr. Peabody]

15 hours ago, SQUAD said:

focusing on assessing the particle system and FX to define the agenda for re-work and fixing.

Sounds great. I just hope the game won't be made more graphically intensive for my old clunker. 

[Capt. Hunt]

the game isn't really that graphically intensive to begin with, it's the physics calculations that eat up processing power.

[Redneck]

On 5/11/2018 at 4:39 PM, SQUAD said:

his week in particular focusing on assessing the particle system and FX to define the agenda for re-work and fixing.

rock on squad \,,/ 

[sh1pman]

46 minutes ago, Capt. Hunt said:

the game isn't really that graphically intensive to begin with, it's the physics calculations that eat up processing power.

Not if you’re running in on a 4k display with a bunch of visual mods. In my case the performance bottleneck is GPU, even though it’s one of the best current gen graphics cards on the market. Mach and reentry effects, for example, literally obliterate the framerate for me, killing at least 30 fps, so I always turn them off in the settings.

[Capt. Hunt]

well, it's still probably the CPU that's slowing you down.  If your GPU's that good, then you shouldn't be having that much of a framerate loss, even at 4k.  You could always try running a lower resolution though.

[Wallygator]

On 5/11/2018 at 10:39 PM, SQUAD said:

Although the Soviet Union put the first human, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into a single orbit aboard Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, NASA successfully launched Mercury-Redstone 3, or Freedom 7, the first manned flight of Project Mercury, less than a month later on May 5, 1961. Piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard, M-R 3 became the first United States human spaceflight. Shepard’s mission was a 15-minute suborbital flight with the primary objective of demonstrating his ability to withstand the high g-forces of launch and atmospheric re-entry.

These days, (non-forum) people tend to forget that stuffing a human in a can and throwing h/im/er high into space was and still is rather darn scary.

Shepard was a bit of a bastage, but he was definitely brave. Likely the kind of human (that we needed err... still need) who would volunteer for this kind of thing.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Wallygator

[Majorjim!]

On 05/12/2018 at 10:02 AM, Foxster said:

So, no development underway for another DLC (with things that people want this time)?

Please no.. It's time to stop development. Fix the current bugs, add dv then leave it alone. As it stands it's just going to become a money making exercise.

 Plus the whole bugs/fix balance ride became boring a long time ago.

[klgraham1013]

2 hours ago, Majorjim! said:

Please no.. It's time to stop development. Fix the current bugs, add dv then leave it alone. As it stands it's just going to become a money making exercise.

 Plus the whole bugs/fix balance ride became boring a long time ago.

Yeah.  I actually agree with this.  Just finish the game.  Even without dv.  Let's just get a stable release and be done with it.  Let unpaid modders finish the rest.

God, that's sad.

[klesh]

I would advise Squad come up with some DLC ideas, and then pitch them to the community before starting work on them.  Perhaps some kind of poll.

They presumed the missions from the mission builder would be as popular as forum challenges, and thats definitely not the case.  For a forum challenge, you need to be able to type out your idea, for MH missions, you need to be part programmer to understand how to make anything proper and interesting.

 

Take Two is very very into “reccurent consumer spending” opportunities.  They are on record as saying they want them available in every game they put out.  For KSP, that doesnt mean loot boxes and shark cards, it means DLC.    I don’t think they are anywhere near shutting down development.  

[Majorjim!]

20 hours ago, klesh said:

   I don’t think they are anywhere near shutting down development.  

 

I see a scared, tired kerbal cowering in a corner as an evil, besuited buisness man stands over him whipping him over and over and over again...

 

[Dafni]

I am with you on this one guys, please no more new content before the bugs get fixed. Let us reach some kind of finished state once.

[klesh]

3 hours ago, Majorjim! said:

I see a scared, tired kerbal cowering in a corner as an evil, besuited buisness man stands over him whipping him over and over and over again...

 

Don't forget the kerbal trafficers who crammed them into a storage bay packed tightly with others just to sell them to the highest bidder.    We're lucky it wasn't for harvest(er)ing their organs.

 

Here, I made this for you; its an ingame flag.  Fly it proudly with sufficient distain?

 

 

 

 

[Tyko]

On 5/13/2018 at 2:33 AM, Majorjim! said:

Please no.. It's time to stop development. Fix the current bugs, add dv then leave it alone. As it stands it's just going to become a money making exercise.

 Plus the whole bugs/fix balance ride became boring a long time ago.

agreed...except they also really need to do an art pass to bring all parts up to 1.4/MH standards. 

[Redneck]

I would like to see a enhanced version of IVA where you can walk around inside of ship 1st and 3rd person view and do stuff like eat, do science experiments, punch buttons. Everything KIS/KAS/KOS can do repair stuff engines,computers. Life support stuff. Airlock stuff. Watch TV, use a cellphone, go out in cargo bay all that kind of stuff before they pull the plug on development. We have a pretty decent multiplayer now (luna multiplayer) I think this would make KSP complete IMO. I know there was somebody working on a mod but havent seen any progress lately. I tell you what. If the devs pulled this off, even though i am eligible for free updates to the game i would gladly PAY for it just because. If you like this idea give me a like and hopefully the devs will consider it

Edited May 14, 2018 by Redneck

[basic.syntax]

New expansions or parts DLC can help fund the updating of older parts. I expect this trend to continue.

Getting there is most of the fun right now, but I would like more things to see and do on planets and moons.

Eve (Venus) has "Explodium seas" that are probably very hot and should require some new aquatic and submarine parts to explore, especially if there were points of interest worth exploring. Extreme cold hydrocarbon seas (if these were added to one of Jool's moons) should need parts to warm a craft up (like the RTG). 

 

Thanks Squad and BlitWorks for the console updates! I'm not a console player, but I've noticed a lack of complaints about "lack of news" in these last two weekly updates   (Players can still complain about the glacial pace, but at least we can tell lines of communication are open, and progress is being made.) 

Edited May 14, 2018 by basic.syntax

[mattinoz]

25 minutes ago, Redneck said:

I would like to see a enhanced version of IVA where you can walk around inside of ship 1st and 3rd person view and do stuff like eat, do science experiments, punch buttons. Everything KIS/KAS/KOS can do repair stuff engines,computers. Life support stuff. Airlock stuff. Watch TV, use a cellphone, go out in cargo bay all that kind of stuff before they pull the plug on development. We have a pretty decent multiplayer now (luna multiplayer) I think this would make KSP complete IMO. I know there was somebody working on a mod but havent seen any progress lately. I tell you what. If the devs pulled this off, even though i am eligible for free updates to the game i would gladly PAY for it just because. If you like this idea give me a like and hopefully the devs will consider it

So would I but it would be more floating than walking and best not to think about to hard about it as it becomes complex very quickly with all the problems of zero-g.

Damn let go instead of pushing off. Just have to timewarp till I get within reaching distance of the other wall.