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KSP Weekly: The Moon Race


SQUAD

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2 hours ago, Poodmund said:

I fear that this is going to put unrealistic time contraints on your development team causing content to be rushed out that does not meet the quality standards that you say you aim to target... it has been said before by ex-staff members and even by HarvesteR himself very recently that these concrete deadlines caused you major headaches, so I don't understand why you would impose even more constricting timelines upon your team. But hey ho! That's your decision. 

I've got ninja'd by @TriggerAu but adding to that.

We are aware of the risks, we have considered them, and carefully planned our production schedule. We are also confident in our team and our capabilities as a studio to execute the plan. This is not limiting us to small features, it just requires more planning.

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Thanks a lot @SQUAD. The EVA suits look fabulous (they could be my favourite part of 1.5). The Stayputnik looks a lot more metallic and Sputnik-y. Great job on the SRBs, and is that four different varieties of FL-T tank I see there?

:cool:

3 minutes ago, TriggerAu said:

Im a Ninja! - woohoo

I wonder if C# counts as a martial art?

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Glad to see the updates continuing to come, and some of that mountain of technical debt left over from early access being addressed one bit at a time.

I know the devs probably can't comment on upcoming features at this point, but I would really like to see life support implemented to complement the probe communication system once the art overhaul is done. This has probably been said many times before, but the lack of life support concerns trivializes manned missions compared to probes, not to mention the extra free science experiments and the infinite fuel "get out and push" exploit.

2 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

I wonder if C# counts as a martial art?

Only if you use it to program a military robot.

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12 minutes ago, TriggerAu said:

For example, if you look at 1.4 there were 6 releases in 4 and a half months, those releases take time, planning and resources. And while we did have a lot of releases we were very careful with API changes that affect mods (since 1.3 we've been very careful with what API changes happen in revision releases). Even then we saw that the mod users (and authors) were getting pain from the "when will your mod work in 1.4.x" when almost all mods only needed a code update to go to 1.4.0 when the API changed and the versioning was causing pain with incompatibility messages that in a lot of cases didn't need a recompile. 

There are two things here that I feel are relevant. Firstly, I can recall there was an issue with the MH launch sites and Kerbal Konstructs where a conflict was introduced during the implmentation of the MH components. Upon this realization, the KK dev opened dialogue with you to resolve the issue and a resolution was found resulting in a small change within KSP's implementation and some changes as to how KK handled that. It was obviously a little frustrating for the KK developer but a gracious solution was found and happened in a fairly timely manner. If issues like this could be pre-identified at all then it would be much smoother sailing for all parties but I accept that this would cause for potential information leaks and the signing of disclosure agreements and it gets messy in this regard. Has there been any consideration made at all during the development stage to contact developers of prominent mods before patches are released when the dev team may know that a patch is going to cause disruption for said widely used mod... or would there be scope for it to happen?

Secondly, with specific regard to your post, I appreciate that a great number of mods only required recompiles to get functioning in 1.4.* but the prior patch release scheme and large changes to the code base since 1.0 causing mods to be rewritten, refactored etc. has driven a lot of developers away from maintaining their mods, KERFAR and Sigma: Dimensions being prime examples where authors have lost interest in publicly releasing their mods and its a testament to how many mods LinuxGuruGamer now maintains. I just feel its pertinent to say that if you want mod developers to continue to maintain their mods, its worth making their lives as easy as possible (but I am sure that yourself, JPLRepo and RoverDude know this in a deep-rooted manner coming from that background into the vanilla-Dev roles nowdays).

6 minutes ago, nestor said:

I've got ninja'd by @TriggerAu but adding to that.

We are aware of the risks, we have considered them, and carefully planned our production schedule. We are also confident in our team and our capabilities as a studio to execute the plan. This is not limiting us to small features, it just requires more planning.

I hope that you all pull it off with great success, as I am sure we all do. As outsiders trying to look in through opaque windows its hard to tell what is going on so we put blind faith in your studio/team which has previously had its ups and downs on delivery. Lets all hope that there are more ups from here onwards. :D  

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3 minutes ago, Poodmund said:

There are two things here that I feel are relevant...

Those are good points for sure's, the second one is one of the reasons we've been working to better this for sure

For the first one there's always room for improvement, and its a good note - we do have a number of modders in staff/test team, but you can never have too many

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Hi @SQUAD, no one has mentioned the change to updating us format in the comments thus far. 

I really like the weekly news (it comes in the morning Saturday NZ time).  The intermittent stuff across multiple platforms doesn't really do it for me.  Checking across twitter, reddit (perhaps or no longer?), facebook and the Forums seems to be a divide and conquer, non-feedback solution.  Even if it was made fortnightly, or on the 1st and 15th of the months or something.  I'd drop the historical piece and start with the KSP Vault stuff.  Ask a mode to tell us about their real life things - community building whatnot :)

I really like the suit update :)  Are the rotations part of a new kerbalizer (for android)?

Peace.

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1 hour ago, Deddly said:

...

One request, though; is there a possibility that news released via social media can be copied to the forum somewhere? I've seen many users here who don't and won't use social media.

Most definitely. We'll share them on The Daily Kerbal subforum  just as we do with JoolTube, StarMods, etc, but only the "KSP Loading..." posts will be pinned. ;)

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The new suits and the standardization of the solid booster stripe color are great improvements.  Very nice and thank you for listening to the feedback, @SQUAD:)

My favorite feature of this weekly however is the FL-T tank texture options.  Not only did you listen to the feedback (like @Lupi's), you added an all-white version.  This will make integrating 1.25m diameter parts into spaceplanes that much more seamless.  Looks like it will match up to the Mk1 Liquid Fuel tank quite well.

Just like a petulant child that is never satisfied, I'll throw in some feedback to eventually get the Rockomax X-series tanks with an all-white option as well. :wink:

Edited by Raptor9
Grammer...I shouldn't type before I've had my morning coffee
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Great job!

The new suit is pretty good (I like the screaming kerbal on the back of the helmet), the tanks look great (Yay variants!), and the Stayputnik is simply byootiful

The solid boosters do look a little better than the old ones, but I think they still need some detail on the bottom.

Also, the bugfixes are very much appreciated. I had a booster that used wheels as bouncy balloons. No more.

 

Thank you!

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@SQUAD I'm just wondering when is the release date for this update and when are the developers going to add an Orion command pod that can hold 7 Kerbals along with other Orion parts like circular solar panels, a Soyuz command pod that holds 3 Kerbals, a Lockheed lunar lander parts and a pod that can hold 4 Kerbals, a SpaceX style Landing legs and Grid fins that soyuz UR-700 and SpaceX falcon 9 and Heavy use. I would be very happy if they were added to the Kerbal Space Program game and I would be very pleased. Thank you.

 

 

 

Plus shuttle parts as well

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5 hours ago, SQUAD said:

we implemented an auto spring/damper to the wheel suspension system in order to diminish involuntary bouncing. We also adjusted the wheel friction and suspension parameters to tackle this problem. We expect that this will improve the behavior of the wheels and legs in the game.

I look forward to trying this out.

5 hours ago, SQUAD said:

EVA/IVA Space Suits

I do like, even if that pesky parachute is still on there.

5 hours ago, SQUAD said:

The new development news format will be called KSP Loading…” and will be a newsletter that compiles all the current developments of KSP intermittently between each update.

This is a great idea!  I've thought for a while that every week was to often for these.  There were weeks where there just wasn't really much to say.  It felt like you were doing it out of obligation and little else.  Releasing more meaty notes on a less frequent basis will be good for everyone in my humble opinion.

Edited by klgraham1013
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6 minutes ago, Trekkie148 said:

@SQUAD I'm just wondering when is the release date for this update and when are the developers going to add an Orion command pod that can hold 7 Kerbals along with other Orion parts like circular solar panels, a Soyuz command pod that holds 3 Kerbals, a Lockheed lunar lander parts and a pod that can hold 4 Kerbals, a SpaceX style Landing legs and Grid fins that soyuz UR-700 and SpaceX falcon 9 and Heavy use. I would be very happy if they were added to the Kerbal Space Program game and I would be very pleased. Thank you.

I feel like Kerbal is designed to be more general, with the exception of Making History parts which are designed to mimic historical parts. 

You can make vehicles based on all of those things in stock by combining the existing parts, like shuttles are pretty easy (if accurately hard to perfectly balance). Or you can download mods. I don't think it's necessarily Squad's job to make every specialized part, as much as it is to make a general box of space lego.

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5 hours ago, SQUAD said:

we will deliver updates approximately every 3 months.

So...3 months for the main update, and the next 3 for all the hotfixes?  Rinse and repeat?

4 hours ago, space_powder said:

Will there be a way to remove parachutes from an EVA suit? I don't like how they cover the backpack to be honest

I agree.

3 hours ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

I mean do you not want updates. I understand the frustration over an unfinished game but I want new updates too. 

I'll take a finished game over a constantly unfinished, forever in flux game every day of the week.

3 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

I do wish the IVAsuits lacked collars

Yes please.

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5 hours ago, SQUAD said:

The team also completed the revamp of the Probodobodyne Stayputnik Command Module. Needless to say, this part is influenced by the Sputnik satellite, and as such we wanted to make some adjustments to make this part look closer to its analogue. To achieve this and as with all the other parts we’ve revamped for this update, the specular, normal and diffuse maps have been redone from scratch. This is also one of the parts that benefits the most from the new shader, but an image speaks a thousand words, so take a look for yourself. Click here to see a gif with the new Stayputnik in motion.

tumblr_inline_pg51bpBiW81rr2wit_540.jpg

Very nice. Like I said, sorta abandons the "lying by the side of the road" feel to Kerbalkind, but still... shiny!

 

The new lighting looks nice.

 

Edited by HansonKerman
Removed something better left alone..
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32 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

So...3 months for the main update, and the next 3 for all the hotfixes?  Rinse and repeat?

No, ABOUT 3 months between each 1.x release and hotfixes in between if necessary. 

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39 minutes ago, Farix said:

So no overhaul of the 1.25m engines? That's rather unfortunate because I looking forward to properly paring them up on those 1.875m engine plates.

Maybe the engines are coming next patch?

 

Really hope we still get the LV-T15, the Boar, and the pug. They would all fill gaps in capability. 

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7 hours ago, SQUAD said:

We will however share small bits of day-to-day developments more casually throughout our social media channels...

Oh, hell.  Please tell me we're not going back to that craptastic model!

 

And, any news for our console cousins or do they just get the one line every two months?

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5 hours ago, TriggerAu said:

 

 

I feel here I can add some info from a dev directly, and hopefully alleviate some of that uncertainty. Its definitely not a plan to say whatever's in the development version at the end of three months is what gets released - there's been no "deadline" to push it out the door in this process. It is the next iteration in our improvement of processes becoming more mature and complete. We've been improving these over time for the last few years. 

For example, if you look at 1.4 there were 6 releases in 4 and a half months, those releases take time, planning and resources. And while we did have a lot of releases we were very careful with API changes that affect mods (since 1.3 we've been very careful with what API changes happen in revision releases). Even then we saw that the mod users (and authors) were getting pain from the "when will your mod work in 1.4.x" when almost all mods only needed a code update to go to 1.4.0 when the API changed and the versioning was causing pain with incompatibility messages that in a lot of cases didn't need a recompile. 

The process we are using doesnt preclude a "hotfix" for game-breaking bugs and making people wait 3 months, it includes a process to assess these sort of things and decide if the severity and impact of them means we should release a hotfix.

To clarify, the intent is certainly not to rush anyone in any team (and ive not seen that from this cycle at all), and its not a "deadline" where a big list of stuff is chosen at the start of a 3 month period and everyone is told to have it all done in 3 months (thats unprofessional as hell, and unnecessary pain for everyone). It does give everyone an idea of around what time frame the next release will be, so we can all have an idea of when that's coming

It's the latest iteration in our aim to continuously improve our processes and provide better experience.

 

Thanks @TriggerAu for that info. The parts look great and so do the helmets. You guys are doing a fantastic job with deving and communicating with us even responding to some. We see that you are paying attention...that goes along way with us.

EDIT: BTW I am not liking the social media idea mentioned elsewhere in this thread...never have

Edited by Redneck
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