Opinions on 0.20

[Deadweasel]

Only 7 new parts? Really? Why are they even hiring part makers if they aren't gonna make parts?

Maybe because Squad actively supports the modding community, supports their employees' existing projects, and wants to stay focused on improving the core game while allowing others who have more frequent and direct interactions with fellow players to develop the parts and features they want?

There are purists who groan about only having the things they want available as a mod instead of being a direct part of the game, but at the end of the day, what's the difference when it comes to parts? Shoot, the cupola alone came directly from a mod! The game doesn't behave any differently based on how it found the part at load-time, right?

Squad own the engine. I say let them focus on making it run better and adding new internal features like GUI enhancements and physics/graphical updates. Since they're actively encouraging a modding community, there's no reason in the world to look down on having extra stuff extend the game being provided by external (and unpaid, I might add) people.

Thanks to the modding support, the Squad dev team is unofficially much larger than their payroll would indicate, and that's actually a really awesome thing, because it means there will be new stuff to see and do in this game for quite some time to come.

Also, bear in mind: they didn't just hire on "part makers". They hired on full modders, who know how to code additional functionality into the game itself, beyond just adding custom parts. That's important, because they've increased the number of people on the team who understand how the game itself works, which means they can develop much more than additional parts.

So I guess what I'm saying is that since they're so openly supporting modding right from the get-go, there's no reason we should feel Squad is obligated to add piles of new parts with every update when so many others are already doing just that. How many of the stock parts do you actually use, as opposed to ones added by mods? Would you be pleased with a five minute game load time because they included tons and tons of parts in the vanilla game, or are you happier with it being able to cherry-pick certain packs and features that you personally want to see instead?

Edited May 23, 2013 by Deadweasel

[Mars90000000]

My opinions on 0.20: Why fix what ain't broke?

[Deadweasel]

My opinions on 0.20: Why fix what ain't broke?

So that's a "no" to any resource system? "No" to re-entry/supersonic effects? "No" to additional planets and moons? "No" to better gravity and atmospheric flight modeling? "No" to aircraft building and dedicated horizontal launch capability?

There are all things added with updates; "fixing things that ain't broke", essentially.

This time around they fixed a most definitely-buggy rendering engine and it resulted in better framerates and more enjoyable play, along with 7 new parts, a few of which were badly needed in my own opinion. Cupola with awesome IVA view? Docking port that matches the large part size? YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU!

[MR4Y]

Squad own the engine.

Nope. SQUAD doesn't own Unity3D.

As for opinions. Meh on the new parts. I was expecting all the KSPX parts in there. Maybe next time. I was also expecting something like the Subassembly Saver/Loader as well. Not this time. I haven't tested installing the old mods on 0.20 yet, but if the functionality ones don't work...I think I'll stay in 0.19 for now.

At first, the game doesn't load any faster in comparison to 0.19. Flag thing...Not seeing any use for it. I'm pissed at the fact that I can't play the game in windowed mode unless I move the taskbar out of the way, seeing that the lowest resolution is 1024x768 and my monitor is 1366x768. At least I could edit the settings in 0.19, now it's just a dummy file in 0.20.

[Stormageddon]

What happened to the Hitchhiker Storage Container IVA view? :/

[Deadweasel]

Nope. SQUAD doesn't own Unity3D.

As for opinions. Meh on the new parts. I was expecting all the KSPX parts in there. Maybe next time. I was also expecting something like the Subassembly Saver/Loader as well. Not this time. I haven't tested installing the old mods on 0.20 yet, but if the functionality ones don't work...I think I'll stay in 0.19 for now.

At first, the game doesn't load any faster in comparison to 0.19. Flag thing...Not seeing any use for it. I'm pissed at the fact that I can't play the game in windowed mode unless I move the taskbar out of the way, seeing that the lowest resolution is 1024x768 and my monitor is 1366x768. At least I could edit the settings in 0.19, now it's just a dummy file in 0.20.

Okay, so I'm not wording it right. No, Squad does not own Unity, but they own the core game engine that they've built on top of Unity. I'm sure you know what I'm getting at anyway, despite my lack of proper naming convention.

No the game doesn't technically load faster, it RUNS faster.

1366x768? Wow that seems pretty low by today's standards, unless you're on a very small monitor, perhaps a notebook? Wish I could offer up some kind of fix to help you out there, but honestly that resolution is going to be a bit in the minority where machines that are normally used to play games like this are concerned. I'm sure there will be something along soon to restore that settings tweaking functionality, because even if your rig is technically in the minority, you're definitely far from alone.

EDIT:

MR4Y, what happens if you add the custom res lines back into the settings.cfg file?

[COLOR=#a9a9a9]SOUND_NORMALIZER_RESPONSIVENESS = 16
[/COLOR][COLOR=#a9a9a9]SOUND_NORMALIZER_SKIPSAMPLES = 0[/COLOR]
SCREEN_RESOLUTION_WIDTH = 1280
SCREEN_RESOLUTION_HEIGHT = 720

Edited May 23, 2013 by Deadweasel

[asmi]

Seats, parts, blah, blah... The most important for me is the fact that this radial (un)attachment bug is finally gone! For mods - MJ works fine, so is BobCat's Soviet Pack (and now I can actually attach that damned 2-3 stage decoupler! - before it took 10+ minutes as it just didn't want to attach to correct node) - except of Launch Clamps bug that showed up when I was flying the Buran uphill (I assume it's caused by Lazor mod that is used for manipulators), Soyuz works like sharm, EdTools (I don't know the real name of the mod - it expands VAB and offers some new options) works as well. Gonna try to put back all my mods tonight to see if it starts running out of memory like it did in 0.19.x.

[Tw1]

The seats and optimisation are cool, but it is frustrating having a lot of big mods become non-functional. And that they only included some of the KSPX parts, and those didn't overwrite the ones from the mod. This means I'll be leaving the old ones in to change over.

Perhaps I'll stick to .19 'till I've finished with the missions I had running before starting anew in 0.20.

Basically, everything except the new parts sorting is great, but the part sorting thing is a bit inconvenient. Might take a break and play something else for a while.

[MR4Y]

Okay, so I'm not wording it right. No, Squad does not own Unity, but they own the core game engine that they've built on top of Unity. I'm sure you know what I'm getting at anyway, despite my lack of proper naming convention.

No the game doesn't technically load faster, it RUNS faster.

1366x768? Wow that seems pretty low by today's standards, unless you're on a very small monitor, perhaps a notebook? Wish I could offer up some kind of fix to help you out there, but honestly that resolution is going to be a bit in the minority where machines that are normally used to play games like this are concerned. I'm sure there will be something along soon to restore that settings tweaking functionality, because even if your rig is technically in the minority, you're definitely far from alone.

EDIT:

MR4Y, what happens if you add the custom res lines back into the settings.cfg file?

[COLOR=#a9a9a9]SOUND_NORMALIZER_RESPONSIVENESS = 16
[/COLOR][COLOR=#a9a9a9]SOUND_NORMALIZER_SKIPSAMPLES = 0[/COLOR]
SCREEN_RESOLUTION_WIDTH = 1280
SCREEN_RESOLUTION_HEIGHT = 720

That seems pretty low by today standards? Even for a 14.1 inch widescreen monitor? Games like Skyrim can run in 800x480 and 1024x600, why can't KSP do the same? I would play the thing in 1280x720, but the game apparently wasn't made for widescreen resolutions, since it gets all stretched when in fullscreen.

As for the suggestion, I was told by KasperVid that the settings.cfg file is just a dummy and that you have to change stuff at the settings now.

[rodion_herrera]

I'm really enjoying it with a 1366x768 display on my laptop I even cranked things up to fantastic graphics level and so far so good. MGC = nVidia GT540M, 6gig RAM Core i7, Win7-64.

And oh, I'm a bit startled but...my spaceplanes fly better (I use joysticks, so I can definitely feel the difference)! It's now much more controllable post-entry-interface. I can finally land them on the runway

-RODION

[lyndonguitar]

What happened to the Hitchhiker Storage Container IVA view? :/

For all I know it was not planned for .20, Maybe they are doing something special for crew containers in future updates. like transfering kerbals. All crew containers would have portraits and IVA then, planning on adding more crew tanks before releasing this one

[tikker]

So far 0.20 looks great to me I like the flags and the new lander modules. Radial attachment seems do do a bit weird for me though, I can't easily place stuff on places other than the center of tanks.

[Edit: ] this only happens when tanks are horizontal in the VAB.

Edited May 23, 2013 by tikker

[rodion_herrera]

First SSTO spaceplane landing from orbit...seems much easier now, so I'm not saying there's a definite change in aerodynamics, maybe there isn't? LOL

And some say that planting the flag is just plain frivolous, but I found a practical (esp. if you like to make KSP movies/videos) use for it--if you plant one near the launch pad or runway, it's a nice vantage point to watch a launch "from the press stand". All you then need to do is to press the bracket keys to switch to that planted flag's view (this assumes of course, that your rocket is SASed or MechJEBbed, unless of course you want to watch something crash hehe).

-RODION

[GalaxyGryphon]

to be honest it was the most disappointing update so far, all that i really see so far is they added a lot of bugs, forced people to use low-res textures, and added chairs.

[War Eagle 1]

question: are all the mods that were working on 0.191 still working with 0.20?

I can confirm that KW rocketry and HydroTech RCS Autopilot are working in .20 just fine

(looks like I can rebuild Glory Base even better than before)

[ash73]

I was told by KasperVid that the settings.cfg file is just a dummy and that you have to change stuff at the settings now.

Does this also apply to the controls in the settings.cfg file? In 0.19 I edit the .cfg file manually to bind my joystick using GlovePie (AXIS_PITCH, AXIS_ROLL etc) as I can't bind them in-game.

I'll try 0.20 myself in a few days, but if it doesn't work I'm stuck with 0.19 there's no way I'm going back to keyboard only!

[Payload]

Here is what im conserned with. Is my mods causing this or is this a bug

fwi i use a mac

Guys this is a mod issue. Open the game directory and remove all of your mods from the plugins folder and remove all of the parts from the generic parts folder for now. The updates to get most of these mods working are very minor CFG edits and I'm sure they will be updated soon.

If your game isn't stock then you can't really report bugs. That is the way things work. Squad can't possibly be responsible for things that you have added that are not parts of the official game.

[War Eagle 1]

Guys this is a mod issue. Open the game directory and remove all of your mods from the plugins folder and remove all of the parts from the generic parts folder for now. The updates to get most of these mods working are very minor CFG edits and I'm sure they will be updated soon.

If your game isn't stock then you can't really report bugs. That is the way things work. Squad can't possibly be responsible for things that you have added that are not parts of the official game.

After I removed the romfire laser mod this didn't happen anymore

my other mods (kw rocketry and HydroTech RCS Autopilot) work just fine

[rpayne88]

I posted this on another thread, but I think the Kracken is back. I've had an experimental SSTO shot from 1500m off the deck into intersteller space in less than half a second and accelerate from 180m/s to a few dozen c.

Edit: The ship was shot off without a model but the crew were still alive in the pod with IVA.

Edited May 23, 2013 by rpayne88

[Tada]

Kerbal in space suit weights 90kg and they can sprint now!

[elkar]

Well, new wheels sux. I mean, they are nice looking, have nice power output, they are harde to break, but you cannot really attach them to anything usefully, since they had low susspenssion so your rover is few cm above ground, if you try to use struts and H beams or such, you cant ever pull full throttle because those wheels have so much torque, that they will rip themselves off... :/

This is only case I can actually speed up fully, but its still kinda low:

I'm not really sure how to use them, when I put back those orange donut wheels, they are slower but much better to actually drive with. I guess with some large part-heavy mods you can find something useful...

Edited May 23, 2013 by elkar

[kookoo_gr]

been messing around with 0.20. Managed to work my ISAMap Sat mod along with kerbal alarm clock and started my 0.19 save, made a Munar landing and placed a flag in memory for my first landing at KSP. I was surprised to find that i could write the flag text at my language (Greek), also this applies for renaming all my ships, yay

[NWM]

Simply disapointing

+: starts faster

graaphics

docking port sr.

<>new file system - easiaer to erase the mod files, but unevitable duplications

- bugs(2 found in half an hour:

ion engine doesn't glow up, and produce traction instead of propulsion!

mouse scrolling down doesn't zoom in!

- disapointing new pods: is the designer of the landing pod's IVA ever landed using IVA? What a (CENSORED) stupid put the speed and navball up, the altradar down-left, the vertical speed up-left? When landing these must strictly garded and they don't be able seen on a static screen! The old 2 personed landing pod has only 3 gadgets these - pedantly side by side on the frame of the window!

- the seat can not be used as pod? DEMV MK3 seat is more useable...

- Falg planting - at least should be made more refinedly...

Tested on LinuxMint13

[NWM]

sorry, I am new here...

[paleorob]

Am I the only one that noticed that wheel symmetry in the VAB isn't borked any more? I built 3-4 rovers in the VAB yesterday in anticipation of launching them to my Mun base soon. To my surprise the wheels all face down, even with 2, 3, or 4x symmetry.