Devnote Tuesdays: Bonus Editon

[SQUAD]

<p><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/0ff9377afa68dc3ad3fe6844aaf1bd38/tumblr_inline_mwbtr433Mg1rr2wit.jpg"/></p>

<p>Ok, so it’s not Tuesday. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad time for some devnotes. Here’s what <strong>HarvesteR</strong>'s been working on.</p>

<p><strong><span id="docs-internal-guid-40313fcd-5def-9c9f-4672-1ddfc634295e">Felipe (HarvesteR)</span></strong><span><strong>:</strong> I spent most of last week adding support for 6-DOF input devices. That was a lot more involved than originally anticipated, but I took the opportunity to go over all the camera code in the game and clean it up, since most of that hadn’t been touched for a really long time now, and some of it was in dire need of attention. I also created a new settings page on the Input Settings screen, with a new parameter to disable the auto-align-to-camera behaviour on EVAs when you’re using the jetpack. Today I’ve been working on something we’re calling ‘Ancient Bug Hunt’. I’ve been able to fix a few very old and very annoying bugs, mainly around docking this far, but there are more bugs to go through still, and I think this will make a noticeable difference. Just to give an example of an ancient bug, today I was able to isolate and fix (hopefully) a bug where docking wouldn’t take into account physicsless parts that could be in the middle of the vessel hierarchy. This was most likely the cause of the vast majority of spontaneous space station ‘disassembly’ events reported so far. </span></p>

[Deejay2000]

It's nice to hear HarvesteR has been fixing some of those annoying bugs, especially on a Tue... Friday...

[Chrisd857]

Ahh, sounds like this bug has been fixed.

[HarvesteR]

That's the one indeed. In can see the little cube strut dangling there off the broken port.

Turns out, while there wouldn't be any errors explicitly with this bug, the physicsless parts would get handled as if they were normal ones, and they'd get joints added to them. Joints that require rigidbody components, which got added with no initial setup to these objects.

To get an idea of what this means, consider that by default, rigidbodies have 1 full unit of mass, respond to physx gravity (which we don't use) and that these parts were parented to another object. You can get a sense of the chaos that would come from it.

It's one bug I'm very glad to see fixed. Definitely.

Cheers

[Kasuha]

I'm really happy to see bugs getting fixed. Thank you!

[Sirine]

Tweakable-lity, Can we have parachute that does not auto-cut when landing on surface?

[stupid_chris]

Here you go, have fun.

[Whirligig Girl]

---edit--- nevermind!

Edited November 18, 2013 by GregroxMun

[tntristan12]

I'm glad we're getting a cleanup update this time around. I love getting big new content like 0.18 and 0.22, but anything that cleans up behind the scenes and makes the game run better is fine in my book!

[Scotius]

OK, something occured to me today. In the future buildings at KSC will be destroyable, and we will have to pay for rebuilding them. Does that mean...KSC development and management? As in: we start with a small hangar, dirt runway, small VAB and a shack serving as R&D Facility - and we will have to invest money to build bigger, more advanced facilities?

[Markus Reese]

Camera oriented jetpack !!!!!

[Virtualgenius]

Scotius would that mean we would be able to rebuild the second site and do launches from there

[antbin]

Hey Harvester, thanks for the bugfixing. Having just looked at the camera code, what would you think of harmonizing the IVA and VAB/SPH camera controls with the normal in-flight display?

[drewscriver]

Great news! Dare I hope it'll address this little bit of behavior?

Edited November 20, 2013 by drewscriver