A "KSP Loading..." Preview: The Mun Launch Site (KSP Enhanced Edition)

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, klesh said:

...note 22 says its still happening from 1 month ago.

Note 22 has no attachments. In my job, I'd kick that back to the customer without even looking at it.

[klesh]

I dunno man, I filter for votes up like Squad asked us to do, and viola that bug is listed at the top.   If they think its fixed, they need to get their QA to actually manage that tracker and tell the rest of us so. 

[Lisias]

4 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Note 22 has no attachments. In my job, I'd kick that back to the customer without even looking at it.

Followed by a ticket to the Accounts to bill the client for 15 min/man of work.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Lisias
Hit "Save" too soon.

[BadLeo]

My totally unnecessary 2 cents, added even though I don't have relevant info on current sales numbers for PC and console versions: console sales are probably keeping the game afloat, or will, at some point. In fact, this may even be the turning point. They have to give the console people something from time to time. Yes, bug fixing helps everybody all along, but they don't show, like water pipe and underground infrastructure.

Nothing is to say, though, bug fixing isn't also being carried out. Last I checked, designers and artists don't fix bugs, anyway. Better get them buttocks working on something. 

[cfds]

18 hours ago, BadLeo said:

My totally unnecessary 2 cents, added even though I don't have relevant info on current sales numbers for PC and console versions: console sales are probably keeping the game afloat, or will, at some point. In fact, this may even be the turning point.

Since console players pay twice the price for half the game they should be at least be more profitable at a "per sale" base, so you may be right about that.

[Salmon]

This makes me wonder if you could do a sort reverse-Apollo mission.

[Deddly]

50 minutes ago, Salmon said:

This makes me wonder if you could do a sort reverse-Apollo mission.

The rocket gets bigger and bigger with more stages on the way to Kerbin?? 

[Salmon]

1 minute ago, Deddly said:

The rocket gets bigger and bigger with more stages on the way to Kerbin?? 

What I meant was that you could have a rocket that launches from the Mun, visits Kerbin and returns to the Mun safely. It wouldn't be that hard with the weak gravity and lack of atmosphere on the Mun.

[Superfluous J]

18 minutes ago, Salmon said:

What I meant was that you could have a rocket that launches from the Mun, visits Kerbin and returns to the Mun safely. It wouldn't be that hard with the weak gravity and lack of atmosphere on the Mun.

No idea what it was called but that was a challenge at one point.

[Cheif Operations Director]

On 2/28/2019 at 4:15 PM, dlrk said:

A launch site on the Mun that the player doesn't have to set up is stupid. That said:

When KSP Console Edition was announced, I and many others, were concerned that development efforts would be diverted from PC to console, or that KSP would be dumbed down. This console exclusive Mun launch site is a dumbed-down feature that is exclusive to console.

Ugh.

You do understand that KSP Console has gotten virtually nothing before KSP PC right? As a former console player of who got the game in Nov 2015. I can say until enhanced edition and even that the game was impossible to play. I could have gotten a better version from almost anyone else! The game was not worth the money until Enhanced edition came out and even then it was lacking. If I remember correctly console has one point two and you guys had one point four. So the idea of a token of appreciation gift to the console players is not a bad thing as we stuck with squad for three to four years.  That being said it should also come to PC as it is not the fault of PC players that the console version was bad. Console should get it first though they deserve something for sticking with KSP for this long!

Edited March 10, 2019 by Cheif Operations Director

[dlrk]

IMO, KSP console should never have been released in the first place. PC gamers funded and tested KSP.

[Superfluous J]

19 minutes ago, dlrk said:

IMO, KSP console should never have been released in the first place. PC gamers funded and tested KSP.

I (somewhat) agree with your first sentence, but not for the reason posted in the 2nd one.

KSP console should not have been released because all the issues should have been ironed out first.

[sicko kerman]

@squad it's been close to a month since the new console update was announced is there any news on when it will be released. Thank you for finally bringing this update to console I have played this game so long and loves hat you guys are doing. Thanks

 

[Tyko]

22 hours ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

You do understand that KSP Console has gotten virtually nothing before KSP PC right? As a former console player of who got the game in Nov 2015. I can say until enhanced edition and even that the game was impossible to play. I could have gotten a better version from almost anyone else! The game was not worth the money until Enhanced edition came out and even then it was lacking. If I remember correctly console has one point two and you guys had one point four. So the idea of a token of appreciation gift to the console players is not a bad thing as we stuck with squad for three to four years.  That being said it should also come to PC as it is not the fault of PC players that the console version was bad. Console should get it first though they deserve something for sticking with KSP for this long!

I don't disagree with the sentiment of giving something back to the console community. They've certainly been shortchanged. That said, why not come up with something that doesn't break the game's canon / theme? You might as well give them a 1 million ISP engine, a Space elevator or a warp drive. Sure, there's a certain segment of players who'd probably be excited about any of those. I bet there are a lot of console players who bought KSP for its theme of mid-late 20th century "realistic-ish" rocketry who won't want the lunar site either. For them this new freebie will be as unwanted as it is for those objecting to bringing it to PC.

[HebaruSan]

18 minutes ago, Tyko said:

why not come up with something that doesn't break the game's canon / theme?

I have a theory about that, now somewhat backed up by evidence. The console editions have achievements, and SQUAD probably has access to the statistics about how many players have unlocked which achievements, which reflects how much player time each part of the game is getting. I looked for an official listing and found this instead:

https://www.trueachievements.com/game/Kerbal-Space-Program/achievements

Since this isn't an official site, I assume that individual players opt in to share their data (the site calls them "tracked gamers"), therefore they probably skew less-casual, and so we can treat the below numbers as an upper bound. That said, here are the stats for Mun achievements (the progress bars look bigger than they are because I cropped them):

23% of players managed a flyby, and 11% landed; the major game experience of walking and jumping on the Mun is being missed by at least 89% of Xbox purchasers (rovers on the Mun are being missed by 97%). I suspect that this feature is intended for that supermajority, to give them a bit more content with which to engage. If they're able to launch a simple rocket from the Mun, build a rover, EVA around a bit, maybe that will give some of them a reason to stick around and learn how to do it "for real" later on.

[Tyko]

21 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

I have a theory about that, now somewhat backed up by evidence. The console editions have achievements, and SQUAD probably has access to the statistics about how many players have unlocked which achievements, which reflects how much player time each part of the game is getting. I looked for an official listing and found this instead:

<SNIP>

23% of players managed a flyby, and 11% landed; the major game experience of walking and jumping on the Mun is being missed by at least 89% of Xbox purchasers (rovers on the Mun are being missed by 97%). I suspect that this feature is intended for that supermajority, to give them a bit more content with which to engage. If they're able to launch a simple rocket from the Mun, build a rover, EVA around a bit, maybe that will give some of them a reason to stick around and learn how to do it "for real" later on.

If we're going that direction. One could similarly argue that even a smaller percentage of players ever get to experience Duna. So it would equally make sense to give players the interplanetary experience by putting a spawn point in Duna orbit. Where does it end? How does this affect the value of achievements to players who did it the 'hard way'

I thought that achievements had two main benefits - tracking your own progress and bragging rights. If people can gain achievements on the Mun without first getting there doesn't that dramatically dilute the value of achievements in the first place?

In a way the 'achievements' argument works against the Mun launch pad. When it's entirely a single player experience you can say "there's no cheating, do whatever you want". Achievements add a community element to the game in which people have a way to compare against others' achievements. 

What if other games had a way to bypass boss levels and get the achievement without beating the boss? Would most players want that?

Edited March 11, 2019 by Tyko

[HebaruSan]

2 minutes ago, Tyko said:

If we're going that direction. One could similarly argue that even a smaller percentage of players ever get to experience Duna. So it would equally make sense to give players the interplanetary experience by putting a spawn point in Duna orbit. Where does it end?

Yes, according to those stats, 5% of players manage a flyby of Duna. This particular slope isn't all that slippery though: a Mun launch site enables the new experiences of low-gravity EVAs and zero-atmosphere launches. Duna's surface by comparison would be less novel.

2 minutes ago, Tyko said:

How does this affect the value of achievements to players who did it the 'hard way'

This is pure speculation, but maybe those achievements won't trigger when launching from the Mun. The vessel history tracking for contracts is certainly detailed enough to handle that already.

[Tyko]

1 minute ago, HebaruSan said:

Quote

How does this affect the value of achievements to players who did it the 'hard way'

This is pure speculation, but maybe those achievements won't trigger when launching from the Mun. The vessel history tracking for contracts is certainly detailed enough to handle that already.

I don't have hard facts, but I'd rate it above "pure speculation". Most games disable achievements if mods are used, presumably because a mod would enable players to earn achievements more easily. Hence, there is a desire amongst the game community to limit achievements to players who do it the 'hard way'

I agree that this could be avoided if they could restrict the achievements to craft that originated on Kerbin - not sure what that looks like from a coding perspective, but it works logically.

[Ratwerke_Actual]

On 3/5/2019 at 3:58 PM, Lisias said:

Evidences of the problem? It appears to be working fine on my Vanilla KSP (yes, I had tried before posting).

[EDIT : I tested on 1.6.1 and on 1.4.5 - no issues.]

Without further evidences, they are empty claims on my book.

 

On that, I agree with you. The BugTracker is also a P/R tool, and as such should be handled. Netscape, and now Mozilla, has a something to teach on the subject.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79705

 

On 3/5/2019 at 4:27 PM, Jacke said:

I'm of the gut feel that this bug or something very like it is still happening.

But we're going to need a near-stock or better stock savegame or better a craft that can demonstrate it on KSP 1.6.1.  Come on, someone has to have one.

They are not empty claims. Wheels and landing gear interacting with the surface are risky propositions until they fix this bug.

 

Edited March 12, 2019 by Ratwerke_Actual
edit: link video

[DfA-DoM]

Quote

Video not available
This video includes content from WMG, which has blocked it in your country for copyright reasons.

 

[Deddly]

@DfA-DoM the video posted above you or the OP video? 

[DfA-DoM]

17 minutes ago, Deddly said:

@DfA-DoM

the video posted above you or the OP video?

The posted above one.

Edited March 12, 2019 by DfA-DoM

[klesh]

Same

[klgraham1013]

If players aren't getting to Mun.  Instead of giving them a hand out, maybe the game should do a better job of teaching them how.

...and I mean within career.  People want to get in the game, not do a tutorial.

[Arch3rAc3]

On 3/10/2019 at 2:24 PM, Cheif Operations Director said:

You do understand that KSP Console has gotten virtually nothing before KSP PC right? As a former console player of who got the game in Nov 2015. I can say until enhanced edition and even that the game was impossible to play. I could have gotten a better version from almost anyone else! The game was not worth the money until Enhanced edition came out and even then it was lacking. If I remember correctly console has one point two and you guys had one point four. So the idea of a token of appreciation gift to the console players is not a bad thing as we stuck with squad for three to four years.  That being said it should also come to PC as it is not the fault of PC players that the console version was bad. Console should get it first though they deserve something for sticking with KSP for this long!

I'd much rather get the dlc for free since I bought a broken game and had to wait 1+ year for them to kinda fix it, instead of a hands holding feature that may take the achievement of getting to Mun from players.

Yet, it's just a feature people are not forced to use, so I really don't care and don't get all the fuss about it. I'm sure I won't use it as it takes away all the fun (besides, we have a cheat menu that could be worked on). I just wished we had the Delta-V calculation function with this update, it's just ridiculous how they left it out like that...