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Kerbal Space Program Breaks Ground with a New DLC!


UomoCapra

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I had to just cancel my Eve rover and this will be an amazing update to make cool rovers. I certainly will play it :D

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On 5/6/2019 at 10:02 PM, UomoCapra said:

Brand new downloadable content for Kerbal Space Program is on its way! Filled with new content and features, Kerbal Space Program: Breaking Ground Expansion will give new meaning to the Kerbal scientific endeavours. [Snip]

What about enhanced edition? When will we get it

Edited by James Kerman
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1 hour ago, Xurkitree said:

Yes. 40$ turns into less than 15$. Nice to see another Indian here lmao. DLC is like half of that, so is SR2.

I wish the DLC was only 1$. It's ok as it is

Edited by Nigel Cardozo
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One small request:

If you find a show-stopping bug at the last minute...release it anyway. 

It was so painful last time when that happened. 

I'd rather have it on time with a bug that formats my C: drive than wait longer. 

Also...

How do we think "spider leg motion" is going to work?

I'm guessing we are going to get motorised joints, hinges and electric motors, etc. So how will we make the timing work so that we can operate the parts in a sequence to make multi-leg craft walk? 

Edited by Foxster
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33 minutes ago, Foxster said:

How do we think "spider leg motion" is going to work?

I'm guessing we are going to get motorised joints, hinges and electric motors, etc. So how will we make the timing work so that we can operate the parts in a sequence to make multi-leg craft walk? 

I think i read on PC Gamer that will be a ''robotics'' mode, i am guessing like Docking Mode, where we will operate the robotics.

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Definitely hyped!

Just a silly question that might or might not have been asked and answered already in this loooong thread:

Do I have to be running the newest 1.7 version of the game to be able to run the DLC? I am currently on 1.45 for the purpose of being able to use some of the older mods. Thanks!

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1 minute ago, Aelipse said:

Definitely hyped!

Just a silly question that might or might not have been asked and answered already in this loooong thread:

Do I have to be running the newest 1.7 version of the game to be able to run the DLC? I am currently on 1.45 for the purpose of being able to use some of the older mods. Thanks!

The obvious answer is: yes! Actually it would be more like 1.7.x

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48 minutes ago, Aelipse said:


Do I have to be running the newest 1.7 version of the game to be able to run the DLC? I am currently on 1.45 for the purpose of being able to use some of the older mods. Thanks!

They’ll probably drop a light 1.8 as a base for BG

Edited by StrandedonEarth
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5 hours ago, Snark said:
19 hours ago, lodiped said:

You guys could've gone for the aesthetical bandwagon and make just as much (maybe?) without having to force people to buy stuff to get the full experience.

So your theory is that they should spend a whole bunch of money to make a thing, and then give it away for free?  How do they stay in business if they do that?  Can you explain the math to me?  Because I'm kinda scratching my head, here.  ;)

The only way they're going to make money is if people actually want to buy the stuff they make.  Which means that the really cool stuff is exactly what they need to charge for.

@Snark I think lodiped means selling aesthetics for money but giving away core game for free. Grinding Gear Games has this business model for the Diablo-like ARPG called Path of Exile. You can download and play the whole game for free because they make so much money from people buying aesthetics like giant neon wings for their characters which don't affect your stats or gameplay at all. (Side note: GGG also sells stash space that makes trading with other players and hoarding loot much better, but it's not pay-to-win enough to matter, and by the time you really need it you're well into endgame anyway.)

That said, I don't really like that business model. I prefer the way KSP is being sold with DLCs. IMHO it beats microtransactions any day. I personally feel that microtransactions encourage the devs/publisher to change the game itself to encourage sales, often purposefully hurting game mechanics or making things purposefully un-fun or frustrating in the hopes that you'll give up and pay money to make the un-fun parts go away. Yes, even aesthetic microtransactions in Path of Exile have left some lasting damage to the core game (but now I'm getting too far off topic).

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2 hours ago, Foxster said:

One small request:

If you find a show-stopping bug at the last minute...release it anyway. 

It was so painful last time when that happened. 

I'd rather have it on time with a bug that formats my C: drive than wait longer. 

 

Are you talking about how they delayed the console DLC for a few days?  

I’m hoping this new DLC had a little more time in QA, so things like parts aren't offcenter, tutorials referred to are actually present and not just missing, mass and cost values for the entire lineup of parts arent simply copy and pasted so a 0.625m thing weighs the same as a 3.75m version, etc.  I don’t want to see “Broken Ground” memes because this got rushed out.

 

That brings me to another question:

Making History owners have 1.875m and 5m parts whereas stock players do not.  How will this be handled moving forward with subsequent DLCs including Breaking Ground?   Will this DLC contain those size robotic parts for MH owners, and have them be absent for players without it? Can you piggyback dependancies like that with the way the DLC checking is setup codewise?

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36 minutes ago, klesh said:

I’m hoping this new DLC had a little more time in QA, so things like parts aren't offcenter, tutorials referred to are actually present and not just missing, mass and cost values for the entire lineup of parts arent simply copy and pasted so a 0.625m thing weighs the same as a 3.75m version, etc.  I don’t want to see “Broken Ground” memes because this got rushed out.


Another thing about this DLC is it implies some pretty steep changes to the way game balance and player-time management works. It seems like it would be pretty key to let folks mess around with it a while make sure the rewards for seeking out surface features and deploying science experiments seemed worth the extra effort and that other rewards were balanced around that so we aren't maxing the tech tree in 2 or 3 missions. There's also probably a fine balance between players feeling involved in the process of exploration vs weighed down by a lot more clicking through menus, so UI streamlining and automating some things might be important too.

Two other key aspects:

1) I'd love to know how mapping will work with all this. We've talked about this in the Suggestions subform but sitting around watching kerbnet waiting for a little question mark to pop up isn't the most fun way to hunt down anomalies. It would be fantastic if there was some way to map them in a more automated way. The other thing is right now we can turn on a biome overlay in map-mode in the debug menu but it be great if that was something that could be unlocked with a surface scanner the way the resource overlay is. Being able to see all this in map mode is super important to visualizing and selecting good landing zones before starting the descent. 

2) Another really important thing I think might be varying the value of different features in a geographically significant way. If we could do some orbital surveying and spot "Oh, hey, there's a whole lot of something interesting clustered in the Mun's southwest crater" we might be incentivized to land there specifically and rove around or set up a science base. If everything is more or less evenly distributed you don't quite have that same incentive because you can basically land anywhere and get roughly same result. 

 

Edited by Pthigrivi
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8 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Just imagine some kerbalized ATHLETE parts to move bases around...

  Hide contents

 

Can’t do that with my mod.. but I bet the new robotics can!

Yeah, already planned for this. In fact I was originally trying a Landing gear ATHELETE system, but now it will not be needed.

You know how there was no rover for Constellation Altair originally? Because it will be using ATHELETE.

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11 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:
11 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Hopefully the modders can adjust the models.  I am worried Squad didn't think through what surface features should go where.

@UomoCapra @Maxsimal Can you provide any insight into this? Are the new terrain features placed depending on the biome or are they just scattered around at random? Crystals poking out of grass just looks strange.

Many players have assumed Squad will use the existing scatter system, because the wording of the OP says the unique surface features will be "scattered across" - but that is not necessarily the case. I have a good feeling the objects will be placed by hand. The robotic sample arm in the picture is shown hovering over the surface of a crystal object with nothing else around; I think we'd see many crystals in the background, if the scatter system was being used. I am hopeful these objects will have collision models, so that the robotic sample arm can know how close it is to a surface. That seems to be implied by the screenshot. The scatter objects don't have collision models, so all the sample arm would know is its distance to the origin or placement point of the scatter item.

 

18 hours ago, klesh said:

Here's some healthy speculation.  Does this image from the OP hint at this long lost surface sample animation finally being used?

The image is a rendered piece of concept art, showcasing the expansion's features in the best possible light. (very nice lighting, indeed!) 

The sample animation would have to be expanded considerably to be seamlessly believable. The chunk of rock the Kerbal is picking up should be a different color depending on planet/moon being sampled - and it should be a container of some kind, for liquid samples. Further, I've sampled while on a ladder; it would be challenging to come up with an animation for that position.

Edited by basic.syntax
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3 hours ago, Foxster said:

I'm guessing we are going to get motorised joints, hinges and electric motors, etc. So how will we make the timing work so that we can operate the parts in a sequence to make multi-leg craft walk? 

Seriously though, there'll be more details in the future.

 

Edited by Maxsimal
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54 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:


Another thing about this DLC is it implies some pretty steep changes to the way game balance and player-time management works. It seems like it would be pretty key to let folks mess around with it a while make sure the rewards for seeking out surface features and deploying science experiments seemed worth the extra effort and that other rewards were balanced around that so we aren't maxing the tech tree in 2 or 3 missions.

 

There's also probably a fine balance between players feeling involved in the process of exploration vs weighed down by a lot more clicking through menus, so UI streamlining and automating some things might be important too.

 

Indeed, there must be big changes to the science system, because I've never had a problem running through it entirely with one trip to Minmus (or Minimus).  I don't even need to use the mobile lab, and to deploy time-based science generators, when science is so easy to get.  It will be interesting.

 

Yes, since we're not doing actual science (I'm not sure what that would even be like), I wonder is this just going to be more buttons of "Run the transmogrifyer TM-26 Experiement" instead of "Take Surface Sample"... I mean, they're all just a one click operation.  "Run science analysis" in the mobile lab isn't very satisfying either.  These new ones will be click + wait, and I'm not sure that will be very immersive.  I suppose they being finely location based is where your immersion comes from, needing to be X distance from a rock or crystal instead of just within a giant biome.

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Maxsimal said:

Seriously though, there'll be more details in the future.

 

The ability to attach a sequence to the A W S D keys would be great, atleast W and S for forward and reverse like the rover wheels. 

Oh mech-rovers and 'swing wing' aircraft here I come!

Edited by Eskandare
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1 hour ago, Heirloom said:

Yay! More DLC and it’s free for us old players! :D 

Well it won't be free for console players who bought the original version of the console version (the broken Flying Tiger Entertainment one) but I don't mind, at least I got the Enhanced Edition for free. Yes I bought the original KSP console Edition 

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This does look good. The ratio of new fun things to do, per new mechanisms to learn, looks better than it was for M.H.

I hope "measurements over time" works more like ScanSAT and less like the Mobile Processing Lab.  Maybe results will come in separately for daytime, nighttime, and for each season on planets with enough inclination. 

I hope the new surface features do have colliders.  Turning on colliders for the existing scattered objects, with config files for the Kopernicus mod, makes landing and roving more dangerous in a good way.

If the robotics system is capable enough to make a walker, soon kerbalx.com will no longer disappoint me with "No craft matched your search: ornithopter"

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Super hyped for the robotics parts! They look like they will open up some great possibilities in terms of building. 

I don't know how the new parts will interact with auto strut, but I really hope that if they interact how i would imagine they do based on current craft movement stuff (ie it will prevent movement if the strut runs between the two parts of movement) Squad changes the current wheels/landing legs. Right now they are for some reason forcefully auto strutted to the heaviest part. If this stays and the robotics parts interact with auto struts in the usual way, it would prevent the building of articulated landing legs and wheels, something that would be very disappointing to me (and I would imagine others)

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2 minutes ago, Bubbadevlin said:

Super hyped for the robotics parts! They look like they will open up some great possibilities in terms of building. 

I don't know how the new parts will interact with auto strut, but I really hope that if they interact how i would imagine they do based on current craft movement stuff (ie it will prevent movement if the strut runs between the two parts of movement) Squad changes the current wheels/landing legs. Right now they are for some reason forcefully auto strutted to the heaviest part. If this stays and the robotics parts interact with auto struts in the usual way, it would prevent the building of articulated landing legs and wheels, something that would be very disappointing to me (and I would imagine others)

That is a really good thought. Hopefully Squad reads this and fixes this “bug” before it gets released, if they haven’t already. :)

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