KSP Loading... Preview: Breaking Ground - Moho Wrinkle Ridge

[klgraham1013]

2 hours ago, Boyster said:

Looks nice, its for sure Kerbaling out of place but i dont think its a major issue considering the general style of the game.

I thought we were trying to move away from the general style being "good enough" to actually good.

[Serenity]

1 hour ago, klgraham1013 said:

I thought we were trying to move away from the general style being "good enough" to actually good.

Well, for me this game is already in the ''actually good'' state in every part.Its just how i feel about it, how much i enjoy it.

I am looking at the new games and i realize how important is that we have Kerbal.

Its getting DLC, its getting better, maybe not the best but its something, so yeah i am fine overall.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Boyster

[steve_v]

14 hours ago, St4rdust said:

Now cooled, this wonderful magma flow has an almost organic look to it.

It's been said already, but I'm going to say it again for emphasis: The asset is very nice, but it looks extremely silly set against the monotonous low-res terrain texture.
A random high-detail magma flow in the middle of a featureless low-detail slope (and one of an entirely different colour at that) is not even remotely convincing. It's jarring and immersion breaking.

Did nobody notice how out-of place this looks? ^

Incidentally, features like this pretty-much never occur in isolation in IRL. Where is the geological upheaval such an upwelling of magma would create? Ridges? Mountains? Other vents? Anything but a featureless same-coloured undulating landscape?

I'm all for more interesting surface features and places to explore, but if you want them to not look ridiculous then they're going to have to blend properly with the PQS terrain and surface textures. This looks like you didn't even try, just plonked it down and said "that'll do".
Terrain textures have been an eyesore for a long time, how about upgrading them to match your new "wonderful" magma flow?

 

13 hours ago, JammedDiskDrive said:

it arguably just looks like they took a model and slapped it on the ground.

That's exactly what it looks like to me.

Edited May 14, 2019 by steve_v

[Serenity]

I strongly disagree with you.Kerbal is not meant to be Google Earth.Its meant to be Kerbal and yeah things WILL look out of place.

Its justified to want better textures, better surface features but you have to realise in the end you are asking for a whole/new different game.

They have limitations as we all have and thats the reality.

Hopefully one day we can have this and we should still keep requesting all that stuff.But lets put a pause on dismissing these new features cause its not fair for anyone.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Boyster

[Poodmund]

6 minutes ago, Boyster said:

They have limitations as we all have and thats the reality.

A vocal minority said the same thing about dV Stats being in stock, about nice looking parts in stock... and now your saying it about the terrain features in KSP.

Now we have mostly-functioning dV readouts in stock, we have some nice looking parts in the game (see Spider) on a whole new level/standard... but we have these previews of a small, weird, contrasting asset plonked down on the yucky, low-res, noticeably polygonal PQS mesh surface.

Yes, improving the surface situation would entail a massive amount of work, you'd be replacing a core system in the game but how many times can you keep polishing a turd? The PQS system in its current state was great for KSP, the small-indie game of 2013. In current times, it really shows its age and limitations.

*shrug*

Not sure what the best answer to that is though. It kinda depends if there is something akin to a KSP 2 in the pipeline thats being built from the ground up or whether the plan is to keep KSP on life-support by introducing new features and slowly replacing/rewriting/refactoring old modules. No ones knows either way, so its not really even worth talking about.

[steve_v]

20 minutes ago, Boyster said:

Kerbal is not meant to be Google Earth.

I never said it was, the comment regarding RL was, as I said incidental. It's not the important point, that point would be the way that it looks like a nice model carelessly dropped on the ground.

 

20 minutes ago, Boyster said:

Its justified to want better textures, better surface features but you have to realise in the end you are asking for a whole/new different game.

No, I'm not. I'm asking for better textures, or at least matching textures. That has nothing to do with a different game, textures are assets like any other.
We have nice (and sorta-matching too) textures on parts now, yet the terrain hasn't changed for years.

As for terrain detail, that's down to the PQS system - but AFAIK that PQS system allows for prebaked detail geometry that meshes smoothly with the procedural planet- such as the area around the KSC. I don't see why that couldn't be applied here.
Hell, even just matching the palette would go a long way, but evidently nobody thought to do that. Where is Bac9 when we need him?

 

6 minutes ago, Poodmund said:

The PQS system in its current state was great for KSP, the small-indie game of 2013. In current times, it really shows its age and limitations.

Considering how long it took to sort out the terrain seams and that at one point a release was delayed to check out "possible PQS issues", I am starting to wonder if anyone really knows how that system works any more.
I get the feeling SQUAD is real reluctant to touch it in any way.

Edited May 14, 2019 by steve_v

[jojo5144]

Hello colleague from ksp. I understand the comments. The easiest way would be to use the color of the surrounding ground instead of black? use black for some pebbles. and why not flatten a little and lengthened. I think it will be very good.

Bob Kerman arrives on the spot. he asks: "a kraken poop?" mdr (sorry for the joke, I love your job)

(sorry google trad)

kerbol burns all the time !!

for centuries and centuries.

atchoum

Edited May 14, 2019 by jojo5144

[Frank_G]

While i agree, that the surface textures need some love, the current way of implementation makes such features easy to spot, which is good for gameplay. I could imagine an animated lightmap with nice glow and some smoke effects to achieve this though.

Anyways i am really looking forward to kerbal the science out of these features. Finally a good reason to restart my grand tour program

[steve_v]

4 minutes ago, jojo5144 said:

The easiest way would be to use the color of the surrounding ground instead of black? use black for some pebbles. and why not flatten a little and lengthened.

No kidding.
 

3 minutes ago, Frank_G said:

the current way of implementation makes such features easy to spot, which is good for gameplay.

I disagree. What's the point in exploration rovers if you can see the thing from orbit? Why even go look at it when you know it'll just be a random model in the middle of nowhere?
Yay, found a thing. Nothing to do here though, time to drive another 300KM over homogenous triangular terrain to the next random isolated "thing". Why?

Wait... Maybe they're trying to discourage the use of the janky wheels... How very cunning.

Edited May 14, 2019 by steve_v

[Tyko]

These need to blend into the planetary surfaces - both from a shape and a color/texture standpoint. Now it looks like a game piece sitting on a game board. Like it was just plopped there - not like a integrated piece of the terrain. 

 

[Xurkitree]

It could be a long shot, but does this mean that we could be getting revamped planetary textures for 1.8? And the model was built to reflect that?

[MechBFP]

37 minutes ago, Xurkitree said:

It could be a long shot, but does this mean that we could be getting revamped planetary textures for 1.8? And the model was built to reflect that?

I don’t think that is unreasonable, although I doubt 1.8 otherwise they would be showing them already. 

Edited May 14, 2019 by MechBFP

[Majorjim!]

11 hours ago, Jalaris said:

The object itself looks cool but... time to update those planetary textures. 

THIS!!! @SQUAD take note, the time has come to fix the flickery low res planet textures.

Also whilst the model is good it looks really crap just placed there... Maybe something like caves or crevasses would be better than this. 

Edited May 14, 2019 by Majorjim!

[Pthigrivi]

The other thing that might help would be to make it much longer, say 5-10 times as long. That and a ribbon of glowing particle effects would really bring it to life. I do like the texture, and especially the playful science of it. The funny thing is real life fissures really can look like they've erupted from nowhere. Check out some images of the Kilauea fissures. The main thing for me is the scale.






 

Edited May 14, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[klesh]

I had the planetary surface concerns when they showed off the first shots of these surface features.  The ones in the preview looked equally jarring against the plain surface:

This is exactly how the DLC will be; I do not believe we're having a fast one pulled on us and that full planetary retextures are up their sleeve.  Don't forget we got a new launchsite with Making History that consisted of nothing more than a mobile launch ramp plonked in the middle of rolling hills, and called a day.  Talk about jarring!   We complained and they put in a fuel tower and nothing more; it like 0.06% less jarring now.  These preview are all about creating hype, and if they had sexy new planet textures I'm sure they'd be using them.  I could certainly be wrong and I would actually love to be in this case.  The DLC comes out in 16 days, if there aren't new planet textures already, I'm not expecting them.

 

Also, if its cooled, why is it glowing hot?  If its glowing hot, where is the light eminating from the glow? I'd like to see some steam/gas coming out of a broken surface fissure like that.  Why can it be walked on without hurting your Kerbal or burning his space suit?  We have temperature in the game, shouldn't that thing explode parts if you land on it, or kill (poof) your Kerbal if you walk on it?

[lajoswinkler]

3 minutes ago, klesh said:

Also, if its cooled, why is it glowing hot?  If its glowing hot, where is the light eminating from the glow? I'd like to see some steam/gas coming out of a broken surface fissure like that.  Why can it be walked on without hurting your Kerbal or burning his space suit?  We have temperature in the game, shouldn't that thing explode parts if you land on it, or kill (poof) your Kerbal if you walk on it?

You made some valid points and I agree with you. However,  you can't have steam coming from such thing like steam coming from a pot of boiling tea. Moho, like Mercury, has no atmosphere. It would be really silly to have clouds of steam coming from it.

 

However, Kerbals getting hurt (for that matter, Kerbals having a health level would be nice!) when they walk over it is a great idea. And, of course, it needs blending in with the terrain.

When planets and satellites in KSP get visually redone, I hope Moho will get its Mt. Catbutt back. It was a hilarious feature.

[Pthigrivi]

16 minutes ago, klesh said:

Also, if its cooled, why is it glowing hot?  If its glowing hot, where is the light eminating from the glow? I'd like to see some steam/gas coming out of a broken surface fissure like that.  Why can it be walked on without hurting your Kerbal or burning his space suit?  We have temperature in the game, shouldn't that thing explode parts if you land on it, or kill (poof) your Kerbal if you walk on it?

Well, ideally from a gameplay standpoint we'd want to be able to take a sample so we want Kerbals to be able to walk on it. I think it would be pretty frustrating to fly all the way to Moho and have my kerbal go poof because he crossed an invisible death boundry. Maybe if we could rely on a heat-bar coming on if we got too close to the seam? I'd still love to see particle effects just so it looks cooler and Im personally okay with bending realism if it means keeping them benign. 

Edited May 14, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[klesh]

3 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

You made some valid points and I agree with you. However,  you can't have steam coming from such thing like steam coming from a pot of boiling tea. Moho, like Mercury, has no atmosphere. It would be really silly to have clouds of steam coming from it. 

 

Yes, I am very aware you cant have steam when you have no atmosphere, and that Moho has no atmosphere, which is why I also used the term gas. 

2 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Well, ideally from a gameplay standpoint we'd want to be able to take a sample so we want Kerbals to be able to walk on it. I think it would be pretty frustrating to fly all the way to Moho and have my kerbal go poof because he crossed an invisible death boundry. Maybe if we could rely on a heat-bar coming on if we got close? I'd still love to see particle effects just so it looks cooler and Im personally okay with bending realism if it means keeping them benign. 

 

Who said anythign abotu an instantaneous invisible death boundary?  Thats not my idea of good gameplay either.  We have heat highlighting (reddening) of parts as their temperature climbs, we also have little pop up thermometers on each part. The main point being none of that is happening.

We can hope and wish and talk about all the cool ways we wish this DLC would be.  We'll get what we get.

[JammedDiskDrive]

16 minutes ago, klesh said:

Also, if its cooled, why is it glowing hot?  

I mean, it is on Moho, which is an alternative version of Mercury. That said, when the planet rotates and this lava crack is on one side, it should cool. Maybe it's because Moho is actually very, very, very hot, hotter than, say, Kerbin/Mun at its core.

[Ahres]

I'm already too late to the scene on this thread so this won't get noticed near as much as I wish it would. As long as someone with @SQUAD sees it though. I've got to say that something like a fissure eruption is supposed to stand out against its terrain and all the comments saying otherwise should be, frankly, ignored. I'm in southern Idaho which has multiple flows and they stick out like a sore thumb with contrasting color and steep sides at the edges. Geologically, what we are being shown in the KSP Loading video is spot on. People saying otherwise have apparently never seen a real lava flow before.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Ahres
spelling

[Tyko]

8 minutes ago, Ahres said:

I'm already too late to the scene on this thread so this won't get noticed near as much as I wish it would. As long as someone with @SQUAD sees it though. I've got to say that something like a fissure eruption is supposed to stand out against its terrain and all the comments saying otherwise should be, frankly, ignored. I'm in southern Idaho which has multiple flows and they stick out like a sore thumb with contrasting color and steep sides at the edges. Geologically, what we are being shown in the KSP Loading video is spot on. People saying otherwise have apparently never seen a real lava flow before.

Oh nice  we apparently haven’t. please send some real life pics that look like what you’re talking about

I can’t imagine a spot where a stand-alone feature like this exists which doesn’t have any of the same colors or textures as the surrounding terrain and exists all by itself on a giant plain without any similar features nearby. 

Im excited to see examples, thanks!

 

[Ahres]

Ah man... the time has finally come for me to post my first picture on the KSP forums and I don't know how to haha. What's the trick on that @Tyko?

[RealKerbal3x]

Just now, Ahres said:

Ah man... the time has finally come for me to post my first picture on the KSP forums and I don't know how to haha. What's the trick on that @Tyko?

You need to upload it on an image sharing service (Imgur is quite popular among forum members as it's free and you don't need to set up an account) and copy and paste the direct link into your post.

[MiscelanousItem]

Well ... it sticks out
But ... it's kinda Kerbal
But ... it could be better
Anyway ... lets be happy...

[Ahres]

Thanks to @RealKerbal3x on this. I'm a genu-wine forums dude now. Here's a quick look at what I'm talking about, assuming I did this right.

https://imgur.com/a/TkOf4AC