KSP Weekly: The Solar Visit

[FleshJeb]

2 hours ago, StarStreak2109 said:

The point of many of the criticizers was that with some effort put into the textures we could have a consistent, performant and nice looking texture set. Not that people don't care about the textures, because a) they either don't notice them or b) they have such a lousy computer that they have to turn down their quality slider all the way...

Oh and yes, I do watch my models from up close, for instance when I'm EVA'ing or docking or performing other precision manouvers in game. Then bad model quality turns me off. Actually, now that I think about it, that already starts in the VAB...

I present this counterargument with insider information: Most of the people offering the harshest criticisms play with almost no stock parts, or don't play at all. Why is their opinion valid? They're functionally not interested in stock.

I don't object to [a group of people from] Discord brigading when it's used for constructive purposes; it's when you get together and start bullying like a bunch of teenage girls over some other girl's makeup choices that concerns me. As much as I value the technical skills and talent of the people offering criticism, judging by the reaction, the method leaves something to be desired. There's an element of "we're doing this to feel superior, and because we're in a gang" to it, and I'm of the opinion that you all need to take an honest look at that social dynamic. I'll admit to falling into that mindset a few times, and I had to ask myself if it was what I wanted out of my time here.

Now, I know that you personally play with stock parts at least some of the time, and I think you've made some excellent arguments. Constructive criticism [by skilled people] COULD do what you say. If this has been tried in the past and not listened to by Squad, perhaps the brigaders would be better off just letting it go, venting in private, and not turning threads THIS blatantly negative--Particularly if the primary motivation is just fluffing their own egos, and won't affect their gameplay one way or another. Note that this is a general statement, and not directed at you personally. It's also just my somewhat-informed opinion and may be less objectively true than I think.

I may not care about the textures, but I do care about the quality of the discourse.

If anyone wants to get some good yelling done at me, you're free to PM, and it will stay absolutely private.

Edited August 16, 2018 by FleshJeb
got some constructive criticism, edited for privacy concerns

[klgraham1013]

3 hours ago, passinglurker said:

Then you don't care if it's pushed to look better.

Most people care how things look.  It's just hip to say graphics don't matter.

[passinglurker]

1 hour ago, klgraham1013 said:

Most people care how things look.  It's just hip to say graphics don't matter.

Yep this exactly I say what I say because I doubt they really are apathetic so I want them to come out and say what they really want.

If one were truly apathetic not caring how things look as long as it's reasonably smooth running then wish granted they can download the last stable version and be set for life. Squad has their money they have squads game all as jeb intended. So there is no reason to be involved further other than to show off in game creations and accomplishments, unless of course they aren't actually apathetic and so have some opinion about the direction of development which I would genuinely like to hear.

Edited August 16, 2018 by passinglurker

[TiktaalikDreaming]

I'm going to ignore all of this thread except the initial post and make a feature request, inspired by Delta IV's rocket engines, to which I expect the answer to be "Ha!  That would be awesome, and <expletive> <expletive> no, just no!"

Any chance of FX for some of the engines to set themselves on fire?  It'd only be a huge body of work for a tiny gain.  What's not to like?

[shdwlrd]

I'm personally vary happy to see Squad finally doing part and texture updates for the older parts. Taking a really boring and/or strange looking parts and making them feel like they belong together. I personally may not like the style represented in the samples they have shown us so far, but the finished product will make the parts look more vibrant and consistent which is sorely needed.

2 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

It's just hip to say graphics don't matter.

It's more of a statement of "I don't care 'cause I can't do it." Graphics do matter, but most people don't have access to the latest and greatest equipment. Most people would love to be able to play all their games at their highest graphic settings, but can't because of the equipment they have can't do so. So graphics don't matter because they can't run those high graphic settings anyway.

 

[hieywiey]

6 hours ago, LoSBoL said:

-Snip-

This is kind of what I meant, I am frustrated with the inconsistent style, with the "True Porkjet" Spaceplane Plus parts, and the nicer Porkalike Mk1 & Mk3 plane parts, but it starts to fall apart with the Making History parts, which are all over the place. I am not saying that these parts are ugly, far from it, just that the styling is inconsistent. This isn't necessarily a bad thing however, as parts from different in-game manufacturers could have their own unique design language, to differentiate them. Ultimately, I really just would like a refresh on some of the parts that have had the same models for quite a while (all of the electrical parts, reaction wheels, some of the rocket engines, some fuel tanks, and science equipment), so the styling is more consistent across all parts.

[KSK]

3 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

It's more of a statement of "I don't care 'cause I can't do it." Graphics do matter, but most people don't have access to the latest and greatest equipment. Most people would love to be able to play all their games at their highest graphic settings, but can't because of the equipment they have can't do so. So graphics don't matter because they can't run those high graphic settings anyway.

Okay, I am definitely no expert on 3D graphics but I'm just thinking of the kind of game settings that make my computer chug. From memory: anti-aliasing, ambient occlusion, detailed shadows, bloom and possibly particle effects are the main ones. Textures and model details on the other hand don't seem to cause much of a problem and I can usually turn those kinds of settings up quite high.

I'm running a 5 year old iMac. I wouldn't class it as a potato computer (whatever that stupid piece of terminology means) but... it's an iMac. Not exactly known for cutting edge graphics cards at the best of times, and this one is five years old.

So, from personal experience (which is exactly one data point and should be treated as such), I would say that a computer that can't run high graphics settings is not necessarily a computer that can't deal with high quality textures - which are what the debate on this thread seems to be about.

[Deddly]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

I wouldn't class it as a potato computer

They can be pretty powerful.

 

On a more serious note, that was a useful post. Thanks!

[StarStreak2109]

3 hours ago, KSK said:

Okay, I am definitely no expert on 3D graphics but I'm just thinking of the kind of game settings that make my computer chug. From memory: anti-aliasing, ambient occlusion, detailed shadows, bloom and possibly particle effects are the main ones. Textures and model details on the other hand don't seem to cause much of a problem and I can usually turn those kinds of settings up quite high.

I'm running a 5 year old iMac. I wouldn't class it as a potato computer (whatever that stupid piece of terminology means) but... it's an iMac. Not exactly known for cutting edge graphics cards at the best of times, and this one is five years old.

So, from personal experience (which is exactly one data point and should be treated as such), I would say that a computer that can't run high graphics settings is not necessarily a computer that can't deal with high quality textures - which are what the debate on this thread seems to be about.

Already liked your post, but I wanted to expressly thank you for that post. Very useful in this debate.

For another thing: why do people use almost exclusively mods?!? I can't speak for anyone but myself. I tend to find mod parts much nicer and more interesting than the stock parts. Having said that, that doesn't mean that I do not use them. I tend to use the small generic parts like struts, structural parts and other smaller parts that do not pop into your eye so much. However when compared to mod engine parts for instance, the current stock engines mostly lack a bit in terms of model quality. It's a shame though, because unless I am using a dedicated pack like BDB, I need some kind of baseline rocket parts pack. This role could be nicely fulfilled by the stock rocket parts. However I prefer the nicer looking, but almost equally old KW rocket engines, over the stock engines. This would change, if the stock engines would be brought up to par with some current models floating around, like Ven's part revamp, or the never officially released Porkjet revamps.

[KSK]

3 hours ago, Deddly said:

They can be pretty powerful.

On a more serious note, that was a useful post. Thanks!

 

1 hour ago, StarStreak2109 said:

Already liked your post, but I wanted to expressly thank you for that post. Very useful in this debate.

You're both welcome!

[Raptor9]

You know, I've been an active user of these forums for many years now.  I usually refrain from posting outside of the Spacecraft Exchange, but I do try to keep up with and read the forums every couple days at least.  In my opinion, there are two solidly consistent aspects about the KSP forums.

1) Every KSP player has an individual play style that differs in some way from every other player.  "Stock purists", "Mod it 'til it breaks!", "Spaceplane jockeys", "Rocket slingers", "Surface base colonists", "Station builders", "Minimalists", "Part count hogs", "Cinematic visualists", "Performance pixeleers", "Interstellar nomads", "WWK dogfighters".
2) Every single one of us want @SQUAD to prioritize development to support our own individual desires (features, bugfixing, etc), creating a wide swath of opinions on who is "right" and who is "wrong", but ultimately trying to justify to each other why our preferences and viewpoints outweigh the others. 

Almost every KSP player is extremely passionate about some aspect of the game.  You would have to be passionate about KSP in some way to stick with it beyond the tutorial missions or achieving your first stable orbit.  Unfortunately, passion is a strong motivating emotion, that can easily feel threatened by disagreeing opinions.  This is why half the moderating posts in the Announcement and KSP Weekly threads are reminders to keep it civil and constructive.

Rarely are any opinions decisively changed on the internet, and people feel much more comfortable expressing strongly-worded statements to others online.  This is a reality of the internet and the "plugged-in" world we live in.  However, this is why it is even more important to consider the content, and lack of visual body language and verbal connotation, when posting a face-less text-only forum message.

Bottom line, forum responses addressing civility and criticism shouldn't be taken as an attack on an opinion, but rather an indicator that one or more fellow forum users have undoubtedly mis-interpreted the message as being mean, harsh, or offensive; or maybe they just misunderstood the message entirely. 

[Delay]

2 hours ago, StarStreak2109 said:

This would change, if the stock engines would be brought up to par with some current models floating around

I agree with that. The base parts - ALL of them - need a massive overhaul.

But it seems that no matter what @SQUAD does to them in an attempt to make them visually more pleasing, the only thing they get back consistently is complaints. I for one quite like the way the HECS now looks. We can argue about the new size 1 tanks though; I think those are just lazy copy-pastes from the size 2 tanks.

From what I've gathered here there are two options: Either the parts @SQUAD provides us with look like those made by Porkjet or they are bad. And I don't want to create a false dichotomy or even a strawman - that's genuinely what I'm getting from this conversation.

Either Porkalike or terrible. No other options available.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Delay

[passinglurker]

@Delay sorry I seem to have caused a misunderstanding here it's not that other styles can't look good alone. The new hecs by itself or with a coordinated set away from ksc would look very nice I imagine, but to achieve an optimized consistent aesthetic or even just the simple pixel density standardization @SQUAD mentioned in the weekly over the splintered layers of different art styles and standards we presently have we would find that porkalike is the most straightforward and practical solution.

The largest single block, I dare say almost half the stock parts  were done by porkjet, and his work is professional and consistent each made to the same standard. To adopt something else of similar quality but radically different style or standard would mean a lot of extra work getting the parts porkjet made redone, (and perhaps even the ksc b9 made redone so that the styles match.). The standardization work they mention in the weekly would already practically be half done if they'd just go porkalike.

Similarly doing some close but different style like rd-alike or beale-alike just raises the question of why not just make the short hop to porkalike?

And finally there is the option of standardizing on something higher quality than porkalike which opens a new can of worms about simply licencing ven's stock revamp and being largely done with it all in an instant XD

So when you look at it porkalike is the easiest way to standardize kerbal's art assets so really we shouldn't be saying "everything but porkalike is terrible" but rather "in this instance everything but porkalike is kinda wasteful... Except ven's ssr..."

[Terwin]

13 hours ago, passinglurker said:

Yep this exactly I say what I say because I doubt they really are apathetic so I want them to come out and say what they really want.

If one were truly apathetic not caring how things look as long as it's reasonably smooth running then wish granted they can download the last stable version and be set for life. Squad has their money they have squads game all as jeb intended. So there is no reason to be involved further other than to show off in game creations and accomplishments, unless of course they aren't actually apathetic and so have some opinion about the direction of development which I would genuinely like to hear.

The only stock parts I spend much time looking at are: hitchhiker containers, copulas, and solar panels.

These are generally on bases constructed using Roverdude's USI parts, generally assembled using KIS/KAS.

When I make rockets, I will usually clip things like fuel tanks 2-4 deep to keep the rocket shorter and easier to navigate in the VAB.  (Did you know that if you clip ore containers together they will explode if both of them have ore in them?)

 What *I* want is an engine that can smoothly handle a large rover dragging a resource node back to a very large base to extract the enriched resource content.  I would also like the KAS welds to stop sliding when the bases comes into simulation range.  It would also be nice if I could bring a rocket carrying 50 colonists(with life support) in range of my base without experiencing a pause that may interfere with landing maneuvers.

Sure pretty parts are a nice to have, but between my compulsive clipping and the low number of stock parts I have on my bases, I would rather have Roverdude working on those 20m USI-MKS parts than making tanks and engines look pretty.

But I also recognize the difference between his work and his hobby, so I avoid advocating for what would effectively be 'quit your day-job so you can do the work I want done for free!'

Also, I don't stick with an old stable version because RoverDude and Allista keep coming up with nifty new things for USI and GroundConstruction. 

Removing the excess surface volume from the 2.5m separators has made adding fairings just below the separator much easier though, so I do appreciate that and the 'Antenna range lite' stock improvements in particular.

[passinglurker]

57 minutes ago, Terwin said:

Also, I don't stick with an old stable version because RoverDude and Allista keep coming up with nifty new things for USI and GroundConstruction. 

Sorry I didn't account for mod users in my definition of apathetic people I had assumed that if you are using a mod you have at least some small wish about how you want the game improved, shaken up, or simply left alone so you wouldn't have to update anymore.
 

57 minutes ago, Terwin said:

The only stock parts I spend much time looking at are: hitchhiker containers, copulas, and solar panels.

In that case you should check out nertea's space station expansion mod it has porkalike replacers for most of these parts 
 

57 minutes ago, Terwin said:

 What *I* want is an engine that can smoothly handle a large rover dragging a resource node back to a very large base to extract the enriched resource content.  I would also like the KAS welds to stop sliding when the bases comes into simulation range.  It would also be nice if I could bring a rocket carrying 50 colonists(with life support) in range of my base without experiencing a pause that may interfere with landing maneuvers.

Sure pretty parts are a nice to have, but between my compulsive clipping and the low number of stock parts I have on my bases, I would rather have Roverdude working on those 20m USI-MKS parts than making tanks and engines look pretty.

It sounds like you want some coding work done. nothing wrong with that not shooting you down, but I'd like to discuss this. What do you want squad's artist's doing while the code monkey's hammer out more stability from the physics engine? RD being an exception these two hats aren't often worn by the same people at a well staffed dev studio so while the programmers do this what would the artists do to be productive?

Edited August 17, 2018 by passinglurker

[Delay]

@passinglurker I mean, I'd really like to use Ven's parts in my Principia copy (if it even still works for 1.4, I guess not given the new features of 1.4), they look fantastic and gorgeous. The problem with installing it now is that - analogous to Squad themselves revamping crucial parts like engines - proportions would break and old craft files become unusable. Something you probably want to avoid in a game that left beta a long time ago.

[Terwin]

2 hours ago, passinglurker said:

Sorry I didn't account for mod users in my definition of apathetic people I had assumed that if you are using a mod you have at least some small wish about how you want the game improved, shaken up, or simply left alone so you wouldn't have to update anymore.

Not apathetic about the game, just apathetic about the quality of the bitmaps used to make the parts look pretty.

Quote

In that case you should check out nertea's space station expansion mod it has porkalike replacers for most of these parts 

I don't have  problem with the parts I mentioned, I was just pointing out that I don't spend much time looking at anything else, so I don't much care about the quality of the graphics for the other parts.

(I don't feel much about the graphics for those parts either, but at least I look at them un-clipped with some frequency)

Quote

It sounds like you want some coding work done. nothing wrong with that not shooting you down, but I'd like to discuss this. What do you want squad's artist's doing while the code monkey's hammer out more stability from the physics engine? RD being an exception these two hats aren't often worn by the same people at a well staffed dev studio so while the programmers do this what would the artists do to be productive?

Graphic artists can do what graphic artist do, be that promotional copy, video renders, or creating bit-maps.

I am very much a function over form kind of person, if it works, I don't care how clunky it looks, and if it does not work, I don't care how pretty it looks.

Unless the appearances imply non-existent functionality(like bump-maps that don't impact aerodynamics), anything that is close enough to reasonably identify what the part does, is good enough for me.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Terwin

[passinglurker]

@Delay an understandable concern but not insurmountable. This issue comes from how with ven's it literally replaced stock parts by telling the game a different set of art assets to associate each part name with, but In 1.4 when squad replaced some old stock assets (the command pod, the decouplers, the 2.5m tanks, etc) they took a different approach. Instead of changing which assets are associated with which part names they just gave new part names to the new art assets and hid the old part names with their old art assets from the vab editor, still keeping them around in the background. That way  prerevamp craft file's load old art assets and avoid the hicups with proportion and balance changes while still allowing for the art to be steadily overhauled as any new craft made with the editor would be made with new parts.

This is likely going to be the case no matter what squad does be it porkalike, venalike, or their own style really...

@Terwin as long as we understand that programmer resources and artistic resources and largely separate and therefore squad can do both without one being at the expense of the other then I think we have nothing to really disagree about.

[HebaruSan]

22 minutes ago, Terwin said:

Graphic artists can do what graphic artist do, be that promotional copy, video renders, or creating bit-maps.

Or, if we've truly run out of things for the artists to do (from your point of view), one option is to stop paying them and send them home.

I'm not wishing anyone to lose their employment. Just noting that "but what would the artists work on" is not an unanswerable objection.

[Redneck]

On 8/11/2018 at 6:56 PM, passinglurker said:

@Redneck they are at least acknowledging the problem and not making embarrassingly false excuses like "we have our own internal design reference", and "these are not placeholders you shouldn't call them that" so that's due a small measure of positive reinforcement(credit given where credit is due and all that jazz). Next we need them to walk the walk (i.e. make pork-a-likes) this is the most headway we've made in a long time

ehhh they gonna do whatever they want anyways as long as its a free update. Its only when they make a DLC and they want our money do they actually care about opinions. The "TRUE" magic and appeal of the game died when Harvester and the devs left IMO i think because they actually engaged with the community and didnt hide behind a community manager or NDA. The feel of the game,types of updates they did and reasons they gave for doing them were all different back then. It was about making the game fun. Now it seems like they went from a fun,feature based development to a more of a appeal based development that is failing IMO. You remember the days (i do) when the forums were so jammed packed with people it would overwhelm the site and crash it to the point where squad had to find another host that could handle the load? Do you remember the pages and pages of replies for the devnote thread? ( i do because i had to go through each comment and reported comments and disagreements and moderate and trim comments and threads) How many pages are in this thread now? Do you remember the excitement back in 2011,2012? You call it headway? I call it more of the same ol **** the continuation of the downward spiral. They call it "end of development" I call it an excuse to achieve that goal when THAT is the goal. There is so much more they could add and do with this game...but when thats your goal then what can you expect? Exactly what we are getting now. Thank god for the modders huh? (the ones that are left) If it wasnt for them we would not be having this discussion right now. I hope you get your parts or part revamps. Keep fighting the good fight! cya