KSP Weekly: Thrusting into the future

[passinglurker]

Just now, Lisias said:

You weren't around before PorkJet's, were you?

I was I even relayed a story of how yellow came to mean monoprop to nestor on the first page of this thread though I don't see what seniority has to do with this.

1 minute ago, Just Jim said:

OK, I've been reading this all weekend, and I have to be really careful about what I say, obviously.
But I'm saying this not as a squad employee... but as an amateur artist and fan-fiction writer.

And I totally agree with these...

Even if I try to copy an artist like Giger, or a writer like Lovecraft... it's not going to be a Giger painting, or Lovecraft story... and it won't be one of my best either...
I am myself, and no matter how much I might try to write or paint like someone else, it's still my work in the end, and not someone else's.

And every other artist I've ever known is the same... 

I'm getting sick of these word games you all should already know full well that despite the subtle differences between artists that you can get close enough to achieve consistency from the audience/reader/player perspective other wise large productions and collaborative works would simply be impossible. Therefore its not to much to ask that squad get as close as they can like the true professional studio they are supposed to be.

[basic.syntax]

11 minutes ago, passinglurker said:

Uniformity overtime as RD described it is not practical. It's a constantly moving target and makes yet more work as you have to go back and revamp your revamps as the average shifts. You draw a line in the sand and scrap everything sitting on the wrong side of the line otherwise you're just wasting time, and money making worse assets. That is not something to thank someone for.

I agree with you in general, if this drags on for years more and a current artist leaves Squad and has to be replaced again. But they have been making good progress ( you have disagreed that some work constitutes "progress" but Squad did touch the part, and so it counts) I see a lot of parts being revamped. I don't know how long they will spend on  v1.5 ... they may revamp a dozen more parts for v1.5, perhaps even get to all of them by the end of this year, and reach a new baseline for KSP's look.

[Just Jim]

6 minutes ago, passinglurker said:

I'm getting sick of these word games you all should already know full well that despite the subtle differences between artists that you can get close enough to achieve consistency from the audience/reader/player perspective other wise large productions and collaborative works would simply be impossible. Therefore its not to much to ask that squad get as close as they can like the true professional studio they are supposed to be.

I am not playing word games... And it was my personnel opinion... I thought I made that part clear.

But you're right, I am now part of Squad, and I am extremely proud of it, and I am not going to comment further. 

Good day...

[passinglurker]

16 minutes ago, basic.syntax said:

I agree with you in general, if this drags on for years more and a current artist leaves Squad and has to be replaced again. But they have been making good progress ( you have disagreed that some work constitutes "progress" but Squad did touch the part, and so it counts) I see a lot of parts being revamped. I don't know how long they will spend on  v1.5 ... they may revamp a dozen more parts for v1.5, perhaps even get to all of them by the end of this year, and reach a new baseline for KSP's look.

If that sort of incremental revamp cycle didn't slowly drag on for years then you'd have a new problem where craft file's wouldn't be good for more than a few months. This is post release ideally when they revamp a part it should be for the last time and therefore they should leave nothing wanting if you get what I mean.

11 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

I am not playing word games... And it was my personnel opinion... I thought I made that part clear.

But you're right, I am now part of Squad, and I am extremely proud of it, and I am not going to comment further. 

Good day...

I meant this as a rebut to the player opinion you were responding to and answering you as if you were a player. I don't consider you deep enough in squad itself to speak for the direction of development if it's any consolation

Edited September 10, 2018 by passinglurker

[Lisias]

27 minutes ago, passinglurker said:

I was I even relayed a story of how yellow came to mean monoprop to nestor on the first page of this thread though I don't see what seniority has to do with this.

PorkJet's parts (re)defined the the game aesthetics. He did exactly what you said an artist should not. And you should knew that, as you were around here at that time while me had to scavenge old KSP versions and play them one by one to see the evolution.

On the bottom line, my argument can be resumed to "Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!". I love PorkJet's aesthetics, and I'll probably resent seeing his work being replaced (and I probably will have at least one KSP installment with a mod that resurrects his parts).

But any other argument or opinion about the replacement must wait until I see the thing. It's not unusual that things change for the better, you know.

I don't think I could bring anything new to this discussion, so… Thanks for the chat.

[Just Jim]

25 minutes ago, passinglurker said:

I meant this as a rebut to the player opinion you were responding to and answering you as if you were a player. I don't consider you deep enough in squad itself to speak for the direction of development if it's any consolation

OK, that's cool... and pretty much correct. I think that part is safe enough to say.
Everything I'm saying is just my personnel opinion.

And I'm sorry if I sounded like I'm playing word games. I didn't mean to. But for myself, personally, it's really, really hard to copy someone else, not matter how hard I might try.

 I do know how to 3D model... at least on an amateur level... I did these back around 2001:

Spoiler

 

 

But if I tried to copy Porkjet's style... OK, I could probably reproduce his past parts close enough... but new parts based on his style alone??? That's where it gets hard, because I don't think like he did, or any other person... and that's what I was talking about. And again, I just mean myself, from past experience. I just don't know if I could do something like that, not and do it any kind of justice. 

I have to do things my way... read Emiko, you'll understand

(super-huge gratuitous self-promotion plug... hehehe)

 

Edited September 10, 2018 by Just Jim

[passinglurker]

11 minutes ago, Lisias said:

PorkJet's parts (re)defined the the game aesthetics. He did exactly what you said an artist should not.

Porkjet was hired and paid to make parts in a particular style as requested by his employer/client(I'm not sure his exact relationship to squad). That style just happened to be his own. What I meant is that squad asking an artist to learn and emulate any particular style still isn't to much to ask because this is just a part of the job.

of squad can indeed replace porkjet parts but it would be a disaster if what they replaced the parts with were a regression. They want to top porkjet I wouldn't be opposed it might not even be that hard for them. The reason porkalike keeps getting brought up is because it set the current bar(a bar they haven't met yet let alone exceeded) and is therefore the quickest cheapest easiest way out of the obligation to fix the art mess thier predecessors made without giving the community a downgrade.
 

27 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

But for myself, personally, it's really, really hard to copy someone else, not matter how hard I might try.

I think that's normal I found it hard too. (warning GIF)

but I also found it wasn't impossible. Be it passion or paychecks people still can find thier reasons to do hard things.

[Mako]

The thing is, I'm less interested in anyone emulating the exact style of Porkjet's parts, and far more interested in current Squad emulating the technical proficiency exhibited by Porkjet.

Squad can do whatever style they want, I'd just like them to at least implement Porkjet's best practices when it comes to asset creation.

 

[Lupi]

The debate here seems to be missing the points I thought people were trying to make, and I'm gonna try to summarize to the best of my guess what people are thinking. I could be way off base, but here we go:

As usual, there's something to be said here, but y'all are doing a poor job of making it worth hearing. What, really, turning the thread into a "preorder simplerockets 2" conversation? 

 

People don't want porkjet replicas so much as they want synergy with his work, parts that visually fit with the ones he made during his time at Squad. Sure, you can't replicate Led Zeppelin, but you can do a darn good imitation of it, like Greta Van Fleet.

They don't want the game to be a mishmash of styles from multiple developers and from multiple mod acquisitions over the years, and they just want their craft to look nice no matter what parts they use, instead of having to make some really weird decisions just for the sake of keeping the whites matching on their hulls. And to that end, these people are wary of the revamps to these parts.

They're seeing the revamp introduce a new sort of design language that goes against the direction that the game started to head towards release, and they're drastically overstating their dissatisfaction. By at least the more reasonable accounts, the new parts we've seen are fine. They're not terrible, they're not the death of the game. To those who are the loudest in these threads, though, they're a disappointment. A revamp that just adds another design language to the game.

 

And it seems that some of those who feel the above way can get a bit unduly hostile about it. Yes, there should be a dialogue between those working on the visual aspect of the game and those who look upon it for hundreds of hours of play, or those who have to design their mods to jive with that style (or multitude of styles, in this case), for sure. But it shouldn't be this hostile. As a community, we should be able to hold that discussion in a civil manner, which I don't think we've been able to in recent weeks, for sure not since the 1.25m tanks dropped.

I certainly try my best to cut through the attitude and simply state my opinions on a part in an attempt to add to the conversation, and I've even logged feedback reports on the bugtracker when prompted so they have a list item to consider. And that's the thing, I treat them as opinions, as we should be. It's subjective that I think two yellow stripes on the RT-10 is a bit repetitive and unpleasant to look at, it's subjective that I think it would be better with no stripe on the top segment. And thus, I keep my feedback limited to "i think the part could be improved if we did it this way, instead of that way."

If you guys spend your time in these threads making the art team that silently read this feel like human garbage with your "feedback," you're not doing it right. If you guys take this opportunity to show off modmakers' attempts to do the same thing "but better," you're probably not doing it right either. I'm not sure. Perhaps we should have a discussion on why you like those parts and dislike these, just lay the parts out on a proverbial table and see if we can't set some discussion up. I don't know if that's possible, but that might be cool. 

Dialogue isn't, and shouldn't be, a [redacted]-measuring contest. Don't let your ego, or the chip on your shoulder, get in the way. We can probably do better, though let's be honest I'm gonna be eaten alive for this.

[steve_v]

8 hours ago, dvader said:

P.s. I would also very much recommend a career overhaul.

I'd suggest it for a DLC personally.
As a wise man once said, Squad committed to a side-quest system. Currently, career is nothing more than a series of unconnected, mostly nonsensical tasks. The only reason to do any of them is grinding points to unlock parts.
Improvements to the career gameplay (or just rip it out and start again) would be nice, and certainly of more interest to me than the last DLC.

[Redneck]

59 minutes ago, Lupi said:

If you guys spend your time in these threads making the art team that silently read this feel like human garbage with your "feedback," you're not doing it right. If you guys take this opportunity to show off modmakers' attempts to do the same thing "but better," you're probably not doing it right either. I'm not sure. Perhaps we should have a discussion on why you like those parts and dislike these, just lay the parts out on a proverbial table and see if we can't set some discussion up. I don't know if that's possible, but that might be cool. 

I think it is a great idea. I personally wont participate. I dont have a problem with the parts now or the artist but any discussion you guys did come up with im sure could only improve the parts more which also is a plus. But dont forget you still have the artist himself and "HIS" vision to contend with. Now on the other hand if squad is paying him to do it a certain way as @passinglurker has mentioned thats another story altogether. Perhaps the discussion would have meaning other than just reaching an agreement, it might have a outcome on the game itself if squad wishes it. So i say why the hell not? do it! Just remember there are always going to be someone that dont agree. So perhaps a majority rules type discussion/agreement would be in order. Perhaps polls on individual items. I dont know...anyways....Or maybe we should all agree that we disagree and move on with our lives

Edited September 10, 2018 by Redneck

[StarStreak2109]

3 hours ago, steve_v said:

I'd suggest it for a DLC personally.
As a wise man once said, Squad committed to a side-quest system. Currently, career is nothing more than a series of unconnected, mostly nonsensical tasks. The only reason to do any of them is grinding points to unlock parts.
Improvements to the career gameplay (or just rip it out and start again) would be nice, and certainly of more interest to me than the last DLC.

No, absolutely no. Then we get a third (fourth?) playmode. Besides, career is an integral aspect of the game (a core feature). I don't see this as a potential DLC. Also I don't want it to be a DLC, because as it is a core feature, I paid for it. They can add as many "bonus" features to the core game as they want, as long as people are willing to shell money out. But core features do not get to be DLCs!

3 hours ago, Lupi said:

The debate here seems to be missing the points I thought people were trying to make, and I'm gonna try to summarize to the best of my guess what people are thinking. I could be way off base, but here we go:

As usual, there's something to be said here, but y'all are doing a poor job of making it worth hearing. What, really, turning the thread into a "preorder simplerockets 2" conversation?

I think the "SimpleRockets 2" argument is only valid to point out alternative techniques when it comes to ingame rocket design mechanisms. Just calling out to "dump KSP and buy SR2 instead" is simply pouring out liberal amounts of salt without the intend to contribute something worthwhile to this discussion.
 

Quote

 

People don't want porkjet replicas so much as they want synergy with his work, parts that visually fit with the ones he made during his time at Squad. Sure, you can't replicate Led Zeppelin, but you can do a darn good imitation of it, like Greta Van Fleet.

They don't want the game to be a mishmash of styles from multiple developers and from multiple mod acquisitions over the years, and they just want their craft to look nice no matter what parts they use, instead of having to make some really weird decisions just for the sake of keeping the whites matching on their hulls. And to that end, these people are wary of the revamps to these parts.

They're seeing the revamp introduce a new sort of design language that goes against the direction that the game started to head towards release, and they're drastically overstating their dissatisfaction. By at least the more reasonable accounts, the new parts we've seen are fine. They're not terrible, they're not the death of the game. To those who are the loudest in these threads, though, they're a disappointment. A revamp that just adds another design language to the game.

Fully agreed. I don't think the point is that everybody is clamoring to have KSP all "porkjetified". A homogenous art style is what is definitely required. We then can discuss whether this is "good", "ok" or "bad", always giving reasons why we do find said art style to be "good", "ok" or "bad".

Quote

 

And it seems that some of those who feel the above way can get a bit unduly hostile about it. Yes, there should be a dialogue between those working on the visual aspect of the game and those who look upon it for hundreds of hours of play, or those who have to design their mods to jive with that style (or multitude of styles, in this case), for sure. But it shouldn't be this hostile. As a community, we should be able to hold that discussion in a civil manner, which I don't think we've been able to in recent weeks, for sure not since the 1.25m tanks dropped.

I certainly try my best to cut through the attitude and simply state my opinions on a part in an attempt to add to the conversation, and I've even logged feedback reports on the bugtracker when prompted so they have a list item to consider. And that's the thing, I treat them as opinions, as we should be. It's subjective that I think two yellow stripes on the RT-10 is a bit repetitive and unpleasant to look at, it's subjective that I think it would be better with no stripe on the top segment. And thus, I keep my feedback limited to "i think the part could be improved if we did it this way, instead of that way."

 

It is understandable to a certain point. Community feedback has been submitted, yet no reflection on behalf of Squad was apparent. Plus a certain frustration with bugs not being fixed, not even talking about the console mess. And of course there are also people who feel passionate about the game. I think it is worthwhile keeping in mind what you wrote, @Lupi. Everyone can state his/her opinion in a civil manner. We can react to that opinion in the same civil manner. That applies for opinions stated versus @SQUAD as well.

3 hours ago, Lupi said:

If you guys spend your time in these threads making the art team that silently read this feel like human garbage with your "feedback," you're not doing it right. If you guys take this opportunity to show off modmakers' attempts to do the same thing "but better," you're probably not doing it right either. I'm not sure. Perhaps we should have a discussion on why you like those parts and dislike these, just lay the parts out on a proverbial table and see if we can't set some discussion up. I don't know if that's possible, but that might be cool. 

Dialogue isn't, and shouldn't be, a [redacted]-measuring contest. Don't let your ego, or the chip on your shoulder, get in the way. We can probably do better, though let's be honest I'm gonna be eaten alive for this.

50% agreed. Yes, we should not state criticism for the sake of criticism or with the intent of making @SQUAD feel bad. I have no problem with modmakers showing off their artwork with the intent of showing how it can be made better. I see this as a professional courtesy from one artist to another. That's one way how we learn. But OTOH, I believe that @SQUAD are professionals that are being paid for their work. If they can do better, they should and not be sulky because someone said that they could do better... (as long as that has been expressed in a civil manner).

At the end of the day, I do not know nor understand why @SQUAD put so much emphasis on revamping the artwork of the game. Whilst having a homogenous artwork is definitely desirable and overdue, fixing the game and revamping some of the gameplay issues like science and career modes, game balance and so as has been said multiple times in this thread and others, seem much more worthwhile to me.

Finally to wrap up this wall of text some wisdom I like to live by:

First one is for @SQUAD: "Do some good and talk about it!" (unknown). Second one is for all of us: "Act according to a maxim which can be adopted at the same time as a universal law." (Immanuel Kant), or in more layman's terms: Treat you fellow user how you want to be treated...

[Deddly]

Great post, Lupi! But I honestly think that this week has been much better on the constructive criticism side. There's room for improvement, but keep it up, people, it was a much more pleasant read than it was in previous weeks. 

[steve_v]

1 hour ago, StarStreak2109 said:

No, absolutely no. Then we get a third (fourth?) playmode.

It could well be a "bonus feature". Be it an additional "story mode" that integrates contracts into a coherent whole, or simply some new contract types and strategies that actually make sense. Something like an expanded Strategia perhaps, with contracts to suit.
Then again I would prefer they fix the existing career mode, but that's been asked for forever and still hasn't happened.
Career was lame when it was first introduced, it's still lame now, and unlike the random game-engine regressions it's a fix I'd probably be willing to pay for.

42 minutes ago, Deddly said:

keep it up, people, it was a much more pleasant read than it was in previous weeks.

No.

[klgraham1013]

11 hours ago, Lisias said:

Artists are rarely motivated by copycatting other people's works. We are not talking about tools, we are talking about art.

So, the hundreds of artists at, say, Ubisoft aren't following a set of guide lines for Assassin's Creed?  There just all coming in the style they want to do?

I feel like some people here have a glorified idea of what a game artists job actually is.  You create what your employer wants.  There are style guides.  Art bibles if you will.  You don't get to decide.  There are to many people you have to work with together.  As a team.  This isn't about you.  It's about what's best for the product.

... I need a break from this forum ...

Edited September 10, 2018 by klgraham1013

[Poodmund]

That's exactly what an Art Directors job is... the clue is in the job title; it is their responsibility to make sure that they direct their artists down the same path when it comes to design aesthetic, design process, technical implementation and supplementary usages like common shaders/maps etc. 

I stated on a previous week that good games that implement a strong vision of style are unified in their art, such as Borderlands as a great example. Their art team probably consisted of over 10 people (being more than double SQUAD's at least) yet their Art Director was able to curb all of their artists into producing consistent art work that all followed the same aesthetic. This was probably helped by the use of a strict design guideline that was set out during the art pass stage that would have governed how they work.

I appreciate that initially it sucks to hear people ribbing on your design work as you have invested emotion and time into it, however, these are pieces of work that are being produced by paid professionals within the Digital Media sector who knew full well what they were entering into when taking on a role in this industry (at least I'd bloody well hope so). The games sector in particular is incredibly harsh with its critique and especially when it comes to art/graphics (see Mass Effect: Andromeda) but nearly all of these critiques are well justified. We are talking about companies with massively financially successful games here who have a corporate responsibility to produce work to the highest standards that the industry, and therefore consumers, expect from them.

TL;DR Games industry expects high standards of work, paid professionals should meet these standards or be held accountable in an industry sector where this public critique and feedback is par for the course.

-----------------

It sucks on a personal level but that's life. There are plenty of modders here within this community that do work to a very high standards... in their limited free time... for free. There are tons of artists out there of the same if not higher standards; imagine if they spent their working days doing this work on the revamp in addition to the existing art team. My thought would be to put my money where my mouth is and go out and supplement the art team with other competent, talented artists. Obviously that's just conjecture into the ether as internal budgets are a real thing.

@Lupi with regards to your post, if the internal Dev team do read this each week as Nestor has said, I would not recommend for anyone to holding back with critique or withhold from stating their opinions because that does not give any valuable consumer feedback to the team. Sure, you have to filter out a lot of the emotive language, good and bad, but eventually you get a good list of focus areas that should allow the art team to concentrate their work on to improve their output. Personally, I send out work daily for review and a lot comes back deconstructed with comments... usually negative (because that's what people tend to be more outspoken about) and you have to take it on the chin and say, "you know, you're probably right" and change your work, workflow, design idea etc. It's how you adapt your work to move forward and better yourself that ultimately matters, not how many good comments like, "nice work" you can garner from a community of online strangers.

With ALL of this in mind, it's good to hear from Nestor that feedback is being read... and hopefully accounted for on some level. Don't get down about the negative feedback, take it on as legitimate advice and come out in future weeks to prove people wrong that the art pass is the best efforts of the art team and is exactly what KSP 1.5 needs.

EDIT: Also there seems to be a common theme of 'likers' to my posts in these Kerbal Weekly threads from a group of members who have been openly negative towards the games development team for a long while. I do not endorse their posts as I have been posting recently (well trying to anyway) on a strictly objective and neutral level. There's not much of a place for animosity here in these threads as it achieves nothing. I do not supporting Brigading, I just wanted to get this out here in one of these Weekly threads.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Poodmund
Badd speelin'

[TriggerAu]

Ill add to nestor's comments too. A lot of us read it every week yes, and many other forum threads too (including our own mod ones at times ).  Just because we don't respond directly doesn't mean we don't appreciate, investigate, integrate or discuss the feedback - or have our own opinions too at times (all those pesky people who voted for the blue/red spacesuit )

I know I don't get down about feedback - whether good or bad - because its all feedback and its all input is valuable 

[nascarlaser1]

@SQUAD

Will the original textures for parts be kept in the KSP files as like legacy things, or will they be completely removed and require mods to put them back? I personally actually prefer the old textures on some of the parts, so if i can switch back to them it would be awesome.

[StarStreak2109]

2 hours ago, TriggerAu said:

Ill add to nestor's comments too. A lot of us read it every week yes, and many other forum threads too (including our own mod ones at times ).  Just because we don't respond directly doesn't mean we don't appreciate, investigate, integrate or discuss the feedback - or have our own opinions too at times (all those pesky people who voted for the blue/red spacesuit )

I know I don't get down about feedback - whether good or bad - because its all feedback and its all input is valuable 

Thanks for that, @TriggerAu.

[Tyko]

21 hours ago, dvader said:

I have a solution though which does not impede on Squads artistic freedom, let the background behind the part be different colors for different sizes. Light blue for 06, light red for 12 etc. This way, the parts can be as visually similar as you like but much easier to find.

THIS IS AWESOME... @SQUAD please consider this.

[Lord Aurelius]

From reading all this discussion back and forth on art styles and what not, I just had a thought.

What I really liked about the old KSP art style is that most parts were visually distinct. This made it easy to see what each part is on the rocket/vehicle/contraption and is very helpful for prototyping and was very helpful way back when I was a new player as well.

However, this visual distinction also made all the craft look like they had been cobbled together from a bunch of random parts. Sometimes this is funny, but it's also incredibly annoying when trying to build replicas or realistic-looking craft. The new art direction does address this, but it almost goes too far into the clean look where it's difficult to tell parts apart at a glance.

My feedback on the art direction is to find a middle ground. Make each part family have its own unique flair from the common design language, but keep it subtle enough that any part can be paired with any other part without it looking awkward and out of place. The boosters on the OP are a bad example of this since both parts look too similar. Find a common theme for all SRBs (a specific texture and model design language) and use things like varying stripes (color/position) and other tweaks to identify the individual parts from each other so that they are unique enough to tell at a glance.

I'm sure a lot of this is just common sense for design, and to a large degree I see this happening already, especially with the fuel tanks, but right now they're a bit too similar without enough visual distinction (especially in the thumbnails). Like dvader said, a different background would be very helpful, but I would also propose to have a bit more visual differentiation between the different tank families.

[Lisias]

9 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

So, the hundreds of artists at, say, Ubisoft aren't following a set of guide lines for Assassin's Creed?  There just all coming in the style they want to do?

Guidelines and copycatting are two different things.

If you had played Assassin's Creed since the first one, you would had noticed differences on the characters design. There're guidelines? Yep. But now and then such guidelines changes. Did you noticed how much the Animus changed in each version? Guess who proposed such changes?

I'm also a long time Tomb Rider player. Believe, there're a lot of design changes on each game - even at the times at Core Designs. Google for Toby Gard.  

 

9 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

I feel like some people here have a glorified idea of what a game artists job actually is.  You create what your employer wants.  There are style guides.  Art bibles if you will.  You don't get to decide.  There are to many people you have to work with together.  As a team.  This isn't about you.  It's about what's best for the product.

I think you need a mirror at home.  

The implications of your insinuations are near offensive. You are implicitly saying that Squad are allowing a random artist to "ruin the game" and are unable to prevent such catastrophe. You are also implying that every game artist are mere copycats, unable to create and innovate.

Yes, there're guidelines. But yes, such guidelines change. Did you notice it on the last Lara Croft models, didn't you? Had you played MGS on the last 30 years?

And, above all, how do you think you are able to decide if the artist is running wild, or merely defining a new guideline ? Once a game studio decide to renew the aesthetics of a game, who do you think they will hire for the job? An accountant?   

You (and granted, not only you - you only had the bad luck to be that last drop on the cup of water) are making a lot of assumptions without any solid ground. You don't build a game the same way you build a Web Site, a commercial application or a consumer gadget.

 

9 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

... I need a break from this forum ...

It would be wise.  

Edited September 10, 2018 by Lisias
some rephrasing

[Ald]

It is sad to for me to say this, but devnotes have degraded significantly comparing to the things I saw pre 1.2 or so. Having that out of the way...

I used to wonder, instead of revamping tanks, why not migrate to procedural ones? Similar to the way it worked/s in Procedural Parts mod.

For example, the regular LF/O fuel tanks or SRBs for rockets. Instead of keeping a whole lot of seperate parts, you would have one part. A part that would be tweakable in aspects:

1. Width, height, diameter
2. Possibly making an option to fill the endcaps if you consider the tank has nothing above and under id (attached radialy)
3. Possibility to pick witch what you want to fill it with (similar to Modular Fuel Tanks mod)
4. Choosable style of the fuel tank - model and texture wise
5. Optional: Basic color manipulation (ex. if a model and default texture has three distinct colors, add some sliders for those colors). That would benefit the airplane parts mostly.

And to cover the criticism of deleting the tanks as parts - there is a solution. Use templates in place of the deleted parts, to maintain compatibility. I see the template as an direct copy description and picture wise, but done actually with the "one fuel tank which is procedural" part, which has the required characteristics. This way, you would still have FL-T100/T200/T400/T800 on your catalogue list, but without 4 seperate parts.

I wouldn't apply this rule to things, that are ment to be distinct, like engines. But towards things that can be scallable - all kinds of fuel tanks and SRBs.

Of course I may be wrong about this, but it did work quite well for me in previous versions (I literally deleted all fuel tanks and used the procedural ones instead).

[Lisias]

3 minutes ago, Ald said:

Of course I may be wrong about this, but it did work quite well for me in previous versions (I literally deleted all fuel tanks and used the procedural ones instead).

It depends of the playing style.

Stock KSP has the mechanics of a LEGO set: "here, take this parts. See what you can do with them". Building things with a limited (and sometimes, insufficient) set of parts is their way of simulating the hard decisions people had to make on the beginning of the Rocket Age.

Some people (me included) want to do crazy, "magnificent" and/or beautiful things with near SciFi tech. Others, want to stay the closest it's possible to the origins. IMHO Stock should reflect the majority of the gamers by a simple reason: they need to sell new copies of the game. And since that bunch of people wanting to do crazy/magnificent/beautiful things are engaged enough to build the new parts themselves (as the procedural tanks!), it appears to me the status quo is, currently, their best option.

But this is only my opinion. I, as you, could be wrong.

Spoiler

May the road rise with  you.

 

[panzer1b]

20 hours ago, passinglurker said:

I found it hard too. (warning GIF)

I dont think ive ever been made aware of the MK-1 inline docking port until today .  literally, ive NEVER made a single craft that had that part on it in the entire time ive played KSP...

 

Also, what mod is that, id love to snag that texture to put on the part...