Kerbal Space Program Update 1.5 Grand Discussion thread

[Lord Aurelius]

1 minute ago, Tyko said:

 agree with both points - A) USI-LS is a great platform to work from and B) They'd need to add some more spaces that offer Hab. I play with SSPRX which solves that for me, but for a stock game they'd need some options.

USI LS also has the advantage of RoverDude already being a developer. Multiple options to adjust difficulty would be a necessity, just like we have a reentry heat slider and multiple options for the comm network.

[DirtyMechnic]

Did they do something to the Aerodynamics? Because now all my SSTOs can barely get to orbit. And I had them DIALED in for my 60T lifter plane? They can barely reach the 440m/s mark  now to start boosting speed for orbit/climb. It seems to be much thicker atmosphere below 7500feet.

[klgraham1013]

32 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

Ya I honestly can’t fathom how it is not a bug when you can make your own ramps with structural panels and it works just fine lol. 

That's what I thought.  Clearly, we are mistaken.

I know the next time I drive through a tunnel, I'm making darn sure my mirrors don't hit the invisible walls.  Paying for new mirrors is the last thing I need right now.

[CanOmer]

22 minutes ago, Lupi said:

Oh, so THAT'S what that means! Man, that's a great change and I love it!

That's gonna make fuel transfer so much easier!

I'm still not understand what is different with this change.

[NerV-0-sol]

Am I the only one who gets the new "Burn Time" wrong? I have a craft with 8 "Nerv" engines and plenty of Lf (over 40K) which is capable of doing about 10260 m/s according to KER and no matter how I place the maneuver node I always see "Burn TIme: 17m, 45s" which is a complete bull****  It happens even if I just add the node and don't touch it at all. My other craft works properly but it uses a "Poodle" engine so maybe the "Nerv" is the problem?

Edited October 16, 2018 by NerV-0-sol

[Lupi]

23 minutes ago, CanOmer said:

I'm still not understand what is different with this change.

Before 1.5, if you clicked on the resources tab up top, hit the checkbox to pin a resource, it would show what tanks had (or could have) that resource, but you couldn't do anything with it, even if you pinned the tanks' info dispalys.

Now you can pin those displays and transfer fuel while using them, rather than manually having to pan your camera to be able to rightclick on every tank you want to transfer fuel around.

[Lathari]

Has it happened to anyone else that when you revert to VAB the second smallest 1.25m tanks go back to old model?

If I add new tanks they have new skins but the previously added have the old model, no option to change the skin.

[Xurkitree]

Any idea when the aero bug is getting fixed? I hope it gets fixed around the time all the mods update for 1.5...

[klgraham1013]

Not a bug at it again and it's glorious!

Spoiler

 

This test almost had me fooled!  Alas, I can always count on not a bug!

Edited October 16, 2018 by klgraham1013

[JPLRepo]

11 minutes ago, Lupi said:

Before 1.5, if you clicked on the resources tab up top, hit the checkbox to pin a resource, it would show what tanks had (or could have) that resource, but you couldn't do anything with it, even if you pinned the tanks' info dispalys.

Now you can pin those displays and transfer fuel while using them, rather than manually having to pan your camera to be able to rightclick on every tank you want to transfer fuel around.

Correct. It is also very useful for fuel transfers where using the resources app to highlight the part/resources Part Action Windows pop-up. You don't have to search around for the part, or trying to find them inside fairings/etc.

[Serenity]

11 minutes ago, Xurkitree said:

Any idea when the aero bug is getting fixed? I hope it gets fixed around the time all the mods update for 1.5...

Is it a confirmed bug? I am scared to launch anything in 1.5, i just build/test the new thingies.

[Lupi]

2 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

Correct. It is also very useful for fuel transfers where using the resources app to highlight the part/resources Part Action Windows pop-up. You don't have to search around for the part, or trying to find them inside fairings/etc.

Yeah, that's the real reason this is great. Don't have to hunt down the tanks you want to use as much. 

[Gorby1]

3 hours ago, Kerbart said:

...a single channel was used to push out the pre-releases. That did not go over well with those not on that channel who felt they were entitled to the pre-releases (never mind the fact that they were intended for bug fixes, not for early-access per sé).

Now THAT takes me back! The glass is half-full though; at least we no longer have to see posts on modders' threads along the lines of "when will this be updated for 1.x.x pre release?". I always wanted to punch my monitor when seeing those comments.

[CanOmer]

Is garbage collection is much worse in this update or it's just me?
I've a decent GPU, CPU and 12gb memory (still I turn terrain scatters off), no mods (except KER), no more than 1 craft in mission, just a new sandbox start. I'm flying with one of the small planes (Osprey) around KSC and experience freezes (500ms) in every 10-15 seconds.

[Lupi]

1 minute ago, CanOmer said:

Is garbage collection is much worse in this update or it's just me?
I've a decent GPU, CPU and 12gb memory (still I turn terrain scatters off), no mods (except KER), no more than 1 craft in mission, just a new sandbox start. I'm flying with one of the small planes (Osprey) around KSC and experience freezes (500ms) in every 10-15 seconds.

KER is very terrible for garbage collection, it dumps a lot of memory into garbage to keep all those bits of display info fed and updated. You might wanna try basic deltav or basic orbit instead and see if that improves things.

[micha]

8 hours ago, Snark said:

Bear in mind that "KSP 1.5" is a whole lot more than just the actual executable itself.  An awful lot of the guts of KSP are not in the .exe, but rather are in the "Assembly-CSharp.dll" that lives down in the "managed" folder.  And of course, there are lots of "assets" under GameData/Squad, e.g. models, textures, config files, etc.  None of that stuff is part of the .exe.

The executable is only the Unity runtime, actually, and the only time it changes is if they change Unity versions. The entire game is in the assets and dll's which ship with it.  You can prove it yourself by downloading the correct Unity version and comparing the checksums of the standalone player binary shipped with it against the KSP executable.

This is how modders can debug their mods actually - they take the *debug* executable from Unity and use that instead of the real one to run the game.

6 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Windows doesn't break all my programs when it updates.

  

 

Ooohh boy...

 

Well, true, not all... Solitare and Calculator tends to continue running most times although the interface changes are debatable.  And the latest update can wipe all your data.

 

</offtopic>

Edited October 17, 2018 by micha

[Lupi]

5 minutes ago, micha said:

Well, true, not all... Solitare and Calculator tends to continue running most times although the interface changes are debatable.  And the latest update can wipe all your data.

I still mourn the loss of 3d pinball space cadet, and all the old CD-ROM games i played as a kid that don't work (or don't work well) on modern windows because they were 16-bit.

[vmatt1203]

I love the new textures but the update broke my 1.4.5 save and all of my ships that i used clipping or rescale on are now broken and parts are loading with about a 10ft gap between nodes, soooooo I will be sticking with 1.4.5 for now.

[FinalFan]

3 hours ago, Lord Aurelius said:

I know that most people won't use the infinite EVA fuel exploit, but I've read enough mission reports on the forums to see that it's still pretty common. For a small spacecraft, the exploit is still a very viable method for maneuvering in space and getting lots of free dV. Sure, it's more for advanced players, but it's still an exploit that needs to be fixed (and was slated to be fixed when monoprop fuel was added to all the capsules only to be cancelled at the last minute). Seems like another candidate for difficulty settings if they're concerned about new players running out of EVA fuel.

No need to put a pilot in the capsule if a suitable probe core or the avionics part is present on the craft, so there's really no reason not to put an engineer or scientist in there for their bonuses.

Sure, return missions from places like the surface of Eve (and to a lesser degree Tylo) are difficult, but returning from nearly anywhere else is pretty much a gimme with how little dV is required to get back. The only thing the capsule needs to make it survive reentry is a heat shield and parachute which is still a trivial amount of weight. With how many free Kerbals I get from rescue missions, I could easily make them expendable for a few missions.

On the EVA engine, fair enough.  I just figure that if someone is going to abuse what is clearly an exploit, that's more on them than on the game.  But I respect your perspective. 

[edit:  My second point was poorly articulated.  I was trying to say, if you see the manned part of the vessel as in addition to the probe part, that doesn't really answer the probe-only vs manned-only question.  I will agree that adding probe control to a manned mission is usually trivial, but I really don't think the opposite can be said.  So in that case it's less about "how good is piloting vs. probe control" as opposed to "how much does it add to the cost to add crew to a probe?"  And I really don't see how that is relevant to the discussion of whether the crew stuff is OP compared to the probe stuff.] 

And as far as your claim that the difference in delta-v between a one-way mission and a return mission is "pretty much a gimme" ... I can only say I am very, very unconvinced. 

Edited October 17, 2018 by FinalFan
edit

[maallaard]

I can't be the only one who misses the old 1.25 tanks right?

[Thygrrr]

On 10/15/2018 at 7:04 PM, Drew Kerman said:

@UomoCapra @Samssonart well really then the Change Log should have said "atmosphere" rather than "SOI" it seems. I was trying to think of how its behavior may have been affected in space

@Poodmund makes sense to me. There's nothing close enough to reflect that clearly when you're outside vs. within a building

That's not correct, this looks rather like they have a broken reflection probe; or forgot one; likely their multi camera system affects how far a reflection probe can look.

There's an "infinite" setting, but the probe needs to be in the right scene; and if that isn't the scene the Stayputnik is in, it's hard to get that texture "across" (but it is doable)

[MaianTrey]

1 hour ago, Boyster said:

Is it a confirmed bug? I am scared to launch anything in 1.5, i just build/test the new thingies.

It's the lifting body components (Mk2 and Mk3 body parts) that have their lifting vector messed up. Wings work fine. If you have an SSTO that has the bare mininum on wings because it has enough lifting body parts to compensate, you'll have issues in 1.5.0. If you just use a ton of wings instead, then you'll have a little less effectiveness (due to any body parts) but it will still fly.

[micha]

19 minutes ago, Lupi said:

I still mourn the loss of 3d pinball space cadet, and all the old CD-ROM games i played as a kid that don't work (or don't work well) on modern windows because they were 16-bit.

Fairly trivial to install DOS/Win3.11 in a VM these days...

[Sam Hall]

1 hour ago, DirtyMechnic said:

Did they do something to the Aerodynamics? Because now all my SSTOs can barely get to orbit. And I had them DIALED in for my 60T lifter plane? They can barely reach the 440m/s mark  now to start boosting speed for orbit/climb. It seems to be much thicker atmosphere below 7500feet.

yeah it looks like the force vector for body lift is being applied in the same direction as the drag force now, so basically most of your spaceship's lift has been transformed into extra drag. strikes me as a peculiar balance decision but i am not a professional expert videogameman so whatever

[DMagic]

1 hour ago, Lupi said:

KER is very terrible for garbage collection, it dumps a lot of memory into garbage to keep all those bits of display info fed and updated. You might wanna try basic deltav or basic orbit instead and see if that improves things.

KER by itself isn't generally that bad for memory allocation. It's only when you cover the whole screen with readouts that things can get out of hand.

The new deltaV calculator does, disappointingly, seem to be generating a fair amount of garbage. It doesn't run every frame, but it adds up, and it gets worse with larger vessels.