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KSP Weekly: A Martian Helicopter


SQUAD

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Welcome to KSP Weekly! Before we begin, we want to pay homage to author and journalist Tom Wolfe, who unfortunately passed away on Monday. Wolfe is widely known for pioneering and giving a name to New Journalism, a style of journalism characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non-fiction, emphasizing “truth” over “facts,” and intensive reporting in which writers immersed themselves in the stories as they reported and wrote them. His work includes the influential book The Right Stuff about the Mercury Seven astronauts, which was published in 1979 and made into a 1983 critically acclaimed film of the same name directed by Philip Kaufman.

Not all was sad news this week, NASA revealed new exciting news about the Mars 2020 rover mission. Part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the Red Planet, the mission’s main objectives are to identify past environments capable of supporting microbial life; seek signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in special rocks known to preserve signs of life over time; collect core rock and “soil” samples and store them on the Martian surface; and finally, to test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere - all pretty cool in its own right. But, it is the Mars Helicopter what caught our attention the most. This small autonomous rotorcraft will travel with the agency’s Mars 2020 rover mission, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020, to demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Planet.  

Weighing just 1.8 kg (4 lb) and with the body of the vehicle roughly the size of a softball, the Mars Helicopter will use its twin counter-rotating blades that spin at about 3,000 rpm, 10 times faster than a helicopter on Earth, in order to fly in the thin Martian atmosphere. It will be equipped with solar cells to charge its lithium-ion batteries, and a “heating mechanism” to keep itself warm during the Martian night. It will be transported to the surface in the belly of the Mars 2020 rover, which will deploy it on the Martian surface and then drive to a safe distance from which it can relay commands. The Mars Helicopter will have two cameras to take images of the surface and hopefully will delight us with some amazing imagery. Here is a video of the helicopter’s technology demonstration.

[Development news start here]

Work shortage is not a problem at the KSP HQ with the team continuing development on the upcoming 1.4.4 as we mentioned last week. One of the aspects that is being looked at is the particle system FX. After the release of 1.4, various players identified visual issues regarding the particle system, which seemed to have experienced a setback. We took notice and took on the task of making these system look and behave better. We looked into the code to determine the situation, and now that the assessment is done, we are implementing improvements to make our SRB exhausts, smoke, spark, flame and aero/reentry effects, among others, look and behave better. As of today, the team finished work on the smoke effect to ensure that these particles look sparser and dissipate faster. The Splashdown effects have been also improved with the timing of the splash and positioning looking and behaving considerably better. Additionally, the SRB exhaust and sparks, which were using the force pattern for smoke, were tweaked to make them look better.

The particle system wasn’t the only thing in the agenda. We also updated the look of the maneuver nodes in MapView so that these fade slightly when positioned behind a celestial body. This small feature should help to manage and distinguish your nodes when performing elaborate maneuvers.

The team also continues to work on various enhancements for the expansion. For example, we are implementing key binding improvements for the Mission Builder. This will allow creators to use [ESC] key to quit or close all dialogs and Mission Builder scene, [TAB] key to move to the next field in the SAP, and [`] key to set the search field to have focus as in the VAB and SPH. Our aim is to facilitate the process of creation with quality of life features that were missing.

In other news, the folks at BlitWorks have also been occupied with the development of the new patch for Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition. This upcoming patch aims to solve many issues that this version was experiencing. In the latest build, they managed to solve a bug that displayed all the buildings as fully upgraded Tier 3 buildings when starting a new career game. This bug also prevented players to properly manage them since the buildings were shown as being fully upgraded. Another annoying bug that was squashed in this build displayed the available parts twice in the Research and Development building. Kudos, BlitWorks!

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:  

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While on the subject of particle effects, it seems like now would be a good time to consider realistic engine exhaust plumes that adapt with dynamic pressure. It has already been done successfully with RealPlume, so it shouldn't be too hard of a task, possibly in time for 1.4.4. Feasible? 

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3 hours ago, SQUAD said:

improvements to make our SRB exhausts, smoke, spark, flame and aero/reentry effects, among others, look and behave better.

Thumbs up.

1 hour ago, Mr. Cuttlefish said:

While on the subject of particle effects, it seems like now would be a good time to consider realistic engine exhaust plumes that adapt with dynamic pressure. It has already been done successfully with RealPlume, so it shouldn't be too hard of a task, possibly in time for 1.4.4. Feasible? 

Don't get crazy now.

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15 minutes ago, GregroxMun said:

Are you ever going to fix the mix-up with the stats of the Wolfhound and the Skiff though?

There’s a problem with them? I like Wolfhound as it is, I use it all the time on almost all of my rockets. Changing it will seriously break a lot of my crafts. 

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7 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

There’s a problem with them? I like Wolfhound as it is, I use it all the time on almost all of my rockets. Changing it will seriously break a lot of my crafts. 

Well then they could change the part model instead of the stats, to preserve the functionality of designs which use the wolfhound incorrectly. The fact is, the Wolfhound is an SPS/AJ-10 with J-2's stats and the Skiff is a J-2 with the AJ-10/SPS's stats. It's one of the reasons it's so hard to get an accurate Saturn V replica without partially emptying the tanks. But it would hardly be unprecedented to change the stats of parts for the much-needed game balance.

The wolfhound (or Skiff, as it *should* be) is overpowered anyway, since it combines denser fuel with hydrogen-burning Isp, but that's a lesser problem to me than the fact that the models for these engines are switched around the wrong way. It is incredibly infuriating to me, frankly, that this has been a known issue in the community since launch week and it has still not been resolved.

 

EDIT: here's a thread with more info: 

 

Edited by GregroxMun
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9 minutes ago, GregroxMun said:

Well then they could change the part model instead of the stats, to preserve the functionality of designs which use the wolfhound incorrectly. The fact is, the Wolfhound is an SPS/AJ-10 with J-2's stats and the Skiff is a J-2 with the AJ-10/SPS's stats. It's one of the reasons it's so hard to get an accurate Saturn V replica without partially emptying the tanks. But it would hardly be unprecedented to change the stats of parts for the much-needed game balance.

The wolfhound (or Skiff, as it *should* be) is overpowered anyway, since it combines denser fuel with hydrogen-burning Isp, but that's a lesser problem to me than the fact that the models for these engines are switched around the wrong way. It is incredibly infuriating to me, frankly, that this has been a known issue in the community since launch week and it has still not been resolved.

 

EDIT: here's a thread with more info: 

But does it need to be realistic? Maybe the engines are like this for gameplay reasons. No idea which ones though, just a guess. Has @SQUAD ever acknowledged that this is an actual issue and it needs to be fixed?

EDIT: thx for the link, that’s an interesting thread. I even posted in it, but moved on, because I didn’t really see a gameplay issue in having the stats mixed.

Edited by sh1pman
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2 hours ago, sh1pman said:

But does it need to be realistic?

Does it need to? No, its a video game about an impossibly small solar system with a bunch of unrealistic stuff already. @GregroxMun has pointed out how the stats don't match the models and how the models (and their swapped stats) are inspired by specific real-world historical engines. These parts arrived in an expansion called Making History, not Making Stuff Up, and in that context it makes sense for the stats to match the models in a way that lines up with their historical inspiration.

If a stat swap affects your crafts, you can always avoid the update or mod the files manually or with Module Manager. I do sympathize with your predicament, but if it's wrong it should be fixed. Engines got updates to their stats a while back to make sure their stats made some sense with their models, and I don't see any good reason to go against that line of thinking now.

Edited by Mako
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3 hours ago, sh1pman said:

But does it need to be realistic? Maybe the engines are like this for gameplay reasons. No idea which ones though, just a guess. Has @SQUAD ever acknowledged that this is an actual issue and it needs to be fixed?

EDIT: thx for the link, that’s an interesting thread. I even posted in it, but moved on, because I didn’t really see a gameplay issue in having the stats mixed.

The engines may be unrealistic for gameplay reasons (they're not though, the 412s Isp of what is currently the wolfhound is definitely overpowered for Kerbal Space Program's small solar system, but that's a problem for another time), but they would not be swapped for gameplay reasons. This is because from a pure mechanics standpoint it doesn't matter whether the Skiff looks like a J-2, an AJ-10, or a block of 8-bit cobblestone. But it is absolutely a mistake from a graphics standpoint. And such a simple one to correct.

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6 hours ago, MiniMatt said:

If the team are looking for some new features to pad out 1.4.4, perhaps some stock propeller/rotor functionality so we can make our own co-axial Duna-copters, just like NASA :)

Totally agree could we throw a few electric ducted fan motors and set of helicopter skids as well

Edited by Virtualgenius
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@SQUAD any news on the screen resolution bug where your resolution settings revert to native on every scene change? I submitted a bug report on it a while ago, but I haven't heard anything about it. I'm basically stuck on 1.3.1 because the UI is way too small at 4k resolution.

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6 hours ago, GregroxMun said:

Are you ever going to fix the mix-up with the stats of the Wolfhound and the Skiff though?

 

After 66 days and two patches to have fixed it with, I'm willing to bet they don't think there is a problem.

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44 minutes ago, Broke dead dogg said:

I've been away for a while so I don't know if this has been asked previously but, will the upcoming blitworks update include a fix to allow time warp during acceleration? As some of us don't relish having to sit through 20minute nerv burns

I’ve asked about this a couple times before and there’s been no response so far.  I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope it’s in the next patch.

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22 minutes ago, Ineedaweapon said:

I’ve asked about this a couple times before and there’s been no response so far.  I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope it’s in the next patch.

Since it was one of the first things players criticised when EE was released, it would only be either foolishness, or outright bloody-mindedness that would prevent them from addressing it

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14 hours ago, MiniMatt said:

If the team are looking for some new features to pad out 1.4.4, perhaps some stock propeller/rotor functionality so we can make our own co-axial Duna-copters, just like NASA :)

I want to like this more than once!

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3 hours ago, Broke dead dogg said:

Since it was one of the first things players criticised when EE was released, it would only be either foolishness, or outright bloody-mindedness that would prevent them from addressing it

There are things that have been asked for consistently for the past 5 years that we still don't have.  Don't hold your breath.

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On 5/19/2018 at 6:25 AM, klgraham1013 said:

There are things that have been asked for consistently for the past 5 years that we still don't have.  Don't hold your breath.

On consoles it is not currently possible to even perform physical time-warp once you have left the atmosphere(from what I understand), so while I would agree that hoping for any time-warp during burns higher than 4x(making that 20 minute burn into a 5 minute burn) would be foolish, it can be hoped that consoles will be brought into par with the pc version with the ability to have physical time-warp(2x-4x) during long burns.

Edited by Terwin
missing letter
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On 05/19/2018 at 7:13 AM, Broke dead dogg said:

I've been away for a while so I don't know if this has been asked previously but, will the upcoming blitworks update include a fix to allow time warp during acceleration? As some of us don't relish having to sit through 20minute nerv burns

If you're in a hurry maybe KSP isn't for you. Seriously.

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I don’t even have the expansion, but I can say that it would tick me off if the stats/models were messed up in a pack that’s meant to be realistic, because it messes up any replicas using those parts. Either they over/under perform or they have the wrong engine models.

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6 hours ago, Majorjim! said:
On 5/18/2018 at 11:13 PM, Broke dead dogg said:

I've been away for a while so I don't know if this has been asked previously but, will the upcoming blitworks update include a fix to allow time warp during acceleration? As some of us don't relish having to sit through 20minute nerv burns

If you're in a hurry maybe KSP isn't for you. Seriously.

And...if you're conducting a 20 minute burn from around Kerbin your final trajectory and velocity are going to deviate quite a bit from any planned path. You'd be firing 10 minutes before your maneuver node which is a decent way around the planet - enough that your burn will be far from ideal. Much better off doing a series of 4-6 minute Periapsis Kicker burns within the Kerbin system then doing a final burn on the last pass to put you in the correct transfer path.

On 5/18/2018 at 2:43 PM, GregroxMun said:

Well then they could change the part model instead of the stats, to preserve the functionality of designs which use the wolfhound incorrectly. The fact is, the Wolfhound is an SPS/AJ-10 with J-2's stats and the Skiff is a J-2 with the AJ-10/SPS's stats. It's one of the reasons it's so hard to get an accurate Saturn V replica without partially emptying the tanks. But it would hardly be unprecedented to change the stats of parts for the much-needed game balance.

The wolfhound (or Skiff, as it *should* be) is overpowered anyway, since it combines denser fuel with hydrogen-burning Isp, but that's a lesser problem to me than the fact that the models for these engines are switched around the wrong way. It is incredibly infuriating to me, frankly, that this has been a known issue in the community since launch week and it has still not been resolved.

 

EDIT: here's a thread with more info: 

 

I don't think Squad plans on changing it, so I built a fix for this. It makes a few other changes as well, which I think all work together. Take a look.

It fixes the engine stats and finally gets rid of the old Poodle model - which always looked out of place in the current post v1.0 game.

 

Edited by Tyko
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A small interesting detail to the featured video of the mars copter: The copter`s housingstructure looks suspiciously like a certain panel in Stock KSP.
If was a psychologist i`d bet there is something subcontious going on with the designer of the craft. And i`d bet the guys play KSP. :D 

 

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