KSP Loading...: Some Reassembly in Progress!

[UomoCapra 4,545]

Welcome to our official newsletter, KSP Loading…!  If you want to learn about all the current developments of the KSP franchise, then this is the place to be!

First of all, we hope all you Kerbonauts are safe and well during this pandemic. These times have been difficult for most and in such times it’s important to hang in there, do our part, and follow hygiene and safety measures to help stop the spread of this virus. Our hearts go out to those who have lost someone or their livelihood during these difficult times. Like everyone else, we have had to adapt to the current circumstances, but it hasn’t stopped us from continuing our work and hopefully bringing players some relief and joy with regular updates that keep KSP fresh and fun to play. Our best wishes to all of you, hang in there, and stay safe. 

And now, let’s talk about everything KSP!

Kerbal Space Program Update 1.11 on PC

If you’ve been following us on our social media channels, by now you’ll know that we are currently working on KSP’s next major update, Kerbal Space Program 1.11: Some Reassembly Required! In this KSP Loading we’ll talk about the suite of quality-of-life features that we’ll include in this update to improve the game experience, as well as our continuous effort to revamp the textures of all of the game’s celestial bodies, plus some new light parts that will brighten up your day. 

Joolian moons get a revamp

With this update, we will continue with the overhauling of the rest of the Joolian satellite system with Bop, Vall and Tylo. These moons have been popular destinations for intrepid space explorers and now they will look better than ever before, with high-quality texture and graphic shaders. As we’ve done with all of the revamped celestial bodies, players will be able to switch between legacy and high-quality options. Take a look at these previews and start preparing your next mission to these mysterious, yet beautiful moons! 

New Light Parts

Illumination variety has been fairly limited in KSP so far, with only 2 light options available in the game, but with this update we’re changing that. Some Reassembly Required will add new lights parts to the game, including some smaller, physics-less lights, that will allow players to further customize their creations. These will also come with a white and black trim variant to match with different craft styles.

Additionally, we’re including a couple of deployable lights. These are lights that can be deployed, just like deployable science parts, and will work through the use of an unbelievably efficient integrated solar/battery/LED system without the need for an attached craft or EC power source

Let’s get those lights on and see what creative contraptions you can come up with these new light parts!

New RCSs

Two new smaller Reaction Control Systems are being added to the part repertoire: The RV-1X Variable Thruster Block and the Place Anywhere Linear RCS Port. Additionally, both the RV1X and the classic RV-105 Thruster Blocks are getting 5-, 4- (the original configuration), 3- and 2-horned Orthogonal variants. These smaller RCS will be perfect to make your probes, drones or smaller crafts more mobile and versatile. 

Quality of Life Features 

As mentioned above, we want to include several QoL features within this update, some of which have been drawn directly from player feedback. These include the following:

Warp to Sunrise

We are adding a new button alongside the Warp arrows that when clicked will warp the game until the sun rises over the currently visited celestial body for the landed vessel. That way players won’t ever miss those sunrises.

Improved visibility for the map filter

We are improving the visibility of the map filters, too. Currently there is no on-screen indication of this functionality and players have to discover it on their own. Now access to these tools will be visible in plain sight and readily available for all players to use at will.

Landed Part/Vessel anchoring 

A side-effect of the game’s physics has caused some headaches by having vessels without landing legs or wheels to slowly slide when they are resting on the ground under different circumstances such as steep slopes. To help the players deal with this, we will be adding a new internal function to vessels to help anchor themselves to the ground. Similarly, we have improved Kerbal friction, which basically means that our little green astronauts won’t slide so easily from steep slopes either.

KAL improvements (Breaking Ground)

For Breaking Ground players, we’re also making some improvements to the KAL that will allow for more complex robotic setups, such as the ability to enable/disable a KAL on a craft as an action. Moreover, Kerbals on EVA will be able to activate KAL on crafts if on-the-spot adjustments are needed. These simple, yet significant changes will certainly help to exploit this powerful tool better, letting players have more control over their contraptions.  

KSP 2

Kerbal Space Program 2 is a very ambitious project and everyone at Private Division and Intercept Games is committed to delivering the best possible experience to KSP fans. For this reason, Nate Simpson, Creative Director of KSP 2 informed the community last week about the decision of releasing KSP 2 in 2022 instead of fall 2021. 

We knew we were taking on an immense technical and creative challenge when we started this project. [...] We’ve heard time and again from this community that quality is paramount, and we feel the same way.

Click here to read more.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to post some previews, feature videos and dev diaries to keep everyone up to date. In fact, recently we got a brand new entry to the KSP 2 Developer Insights series. Titled Kerbals, The First New Look, this developer insight was written by Intercept Games’ 3D Animator & Content Engineer, Paul Zimmer, who talks about the wide range of personality and emotional traits that Kerbals will display in KSP 2. We highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t done so already.

Developer Insights 6# - Kerbals, The First New Look

Additionally, we also got some cool images showcasing team color, lighting variations and Xenon fuel factories for the upcoming game.

On 10/16/2020 at 2:12 AM, Nate Simpson said:

3D Artist Jonathan Cooper set up a test scene to review some of his colony parts, as well as to play with some team color and lighting variations. Coop spends a lot of time obsessing over detail and consistency, and I love how it's paying off as the modules are used in combination.

The two structures immediately behind the Kerbals are Xenon fuel factories. I have no idea why you'd want two of these. These Kerbals must be really excited about tiny space probes.

Remember, you can share and download crafts and missions on Curse, KerbalX, the KSP Forum and the KSP Steam Workshop.

That’s it for this edition. Be sure to join us on our official forums, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news and development updates!

Happy launchings!

[Souptime 596]

FIRST! and OH YES!!!

[computercat04 217]

10 minutes ago, UomoCapra said:

A side-effect of the game’s physics has caused some headaches by having vessels without landing legs or wheels to slowly slide when they are resting on the ground under different circumstances such as steep slopes. To help the players deal with this, we will be adding a new internal function to vessels to help anchor themselves to the ground. Similarly, we have improved Kerbal friction, which basically means that our little green astronauts won’t slide so easily from steep slopes either.

Finally!

[Guest]

Most excited about Tylo that was a must for sure! Can't wait to see it with the cave!

Just now, computercat04 said:

Finally!

yes totally agree that will help with big buildings!

[computercat04 217]

Had to do it again.

[Souptime 596]

haha i was first, nearly the entire jool system has been upgraded to level 2, one more to go!

[klgraham1013 5,533]

Neat.  Generally optimistic about this update.  May have to nerf those lights myself, but otherwise, not to bad.

[Clonos 275]

oh god finally tylo doesn't look like birdpoop anymore

[Lewie 1,617]

@Matt Lowne does this mean that you’ll send a rescue crew to your Tylo colony? 

Cheers!

Lewie

[RealKerbal3x 5,817]

Yay, now my Tylo lander can crash into a high definition surface!

Also, thanks for that surface anchor feature, that's much appreciated

[Linkageless 64]

Looking forward to this.   The content of this post seems rather familiar, though.

[Starseeker 109]

Some really nice features so far! The new lights look great, and the new RCS varieties will be really useful on probes!

Also, if I may indulge in some rampant speculation:
This is a major update, so there's probably gonna be some significant feature added, and we haven't been shown it yet. The update's called "Some Reassembly Required"; reassembly of what? We've got work lights added, and parts on terrain have been stabilized in the backend.
...We're getting KAS (or a similar system) in stock, aren't we?

[RealKerbal3x 5,817]

5 minutes ago, Starseeker said:

Also, if I may indulge in some rampant speculation:
This is a major update, so there's probably gonna be some significant feature added, and we haven't been shown it yet. The update's called "Some Reassembly Required"; reassembly of what? We've got work lights added, and parts on terrain have been stabilized in the backend.
...We're getting KAS (or a similar system) in stock, aren't we?

It definitely seems like it would be some sort of construction system, whether it'll be stock KIS/KAS I'm not sure. We'll probably get some more announcements soon.

[Starseeker 109]

6 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

It definitely seems like it would be some sort of construction system, whether it'll be stock KIS/KAS I'm not sure. We'll probably get some more announcements soon.

Yeah, not saying *specifically* those mod's systems, but some sort of in-flight construction system.

[EchoLima 482]

2 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

Improved visibility for the map filter

We are improving the visibility of the map filters, too. Currently there is no on-screen indication of this functionality and players have to discover it on their own. Now access to these tools will be visible in plain sight and readily available for all players to use at will.

I'm confused by this. Visibility will be improved by adding an arrow underneath the map filter toggle?

[NH04 39]

Nice job, developers! I can’t wait to see the new update!

[RealKerbal3x 5,817]

4 minutes ago, EchoLima said:

I'm confused by this. Visibility will be improved by adding an arrow underneath the map filter toggle?

As far as I can tell it means that the UI element will be made more visible by adding this dropdown arrow. Currently it's completely invisible until you hover your mouse at the top of the screen.

[TriggerAu 3,707]

2 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

As far as I can tell it means that the UI element will be made more visible by adding this dropdown arrow. Currently it's completely invisible until you hover your mouse at the top of the screen.

Thats it, and you can control its visibility by clicking that

[NoMrBond 797]

3 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

To help the players deal with this, we will be adding a new internal function to vessels to help anchor themselves to the ground.

Will this be manually triggerable using Advanced Tweakables?

If not, could it please be.

[EchoLima 482]

On the topic of visibility, would it be possible to get an on-screen indicator whenever nearby ship tags are shown or hidden (F4 key toggle), like for the thermal/aerodynamics overlays? Without it it's hard to tell which mode is active.

[dprostock 323]

Yep...

You have to stretch the thing until 2022, otherwise you lose interest...
As long as there are no more delays...

[Bombaatu 342]

So - correct me if I'm wrong, but after this only Pol & Eeloo will be lacking revamps?

[dprostock 323]

8 minutes ago, Bombaatu said:

So - correct me if I'm wrong, but after this only Pol & Eeloo will be lacking revamps?

1.13

1.14

1.15

.......    

 

[Vexillar 259]

1.11 - full of Kerbally goodness!  There are a lot of things on my ticklist there

Can't wait to try it out.

[Serenity 398]

4 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

Landed Part/Vessel anchoring 

A side-effect of the game’s physics has caused some headaches by having vessels without landing legs or wheels to slowly slide when they are resting on the ground under different circumstances such as steep slopes. To help the players deal with this, we will be adding a new internal function to vessels to help anchor themselves to the ground. Similarly, we have improved Kerbal friction, which basically means that our little green astronauts won’t slide so easily from steep slopes either.

WHAAAAAAT, this seriously made my weekend!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS