Here's Your First Look at Kerbal Space Program: First Contract

[BSimmons4Prez]

"Companies all over Kerbin..."

Yep. Need some cities now.

[Vanamonde]

Since the game came out, we've had to manually raise the throttle setting before every flight from zero to 100%. Why is it suddenly a bad thing that we might have to manually raise it from 50% to 100% before each launch? If anything, this does half the job for you.

[UAL002]

Go to the MCE thread. I asked malkuth about MCE plans, given what I saw in the video. MCE will integrate its missions with the KSP 0.24 mission structure. MCE will add reputation as well and remove its native parts recovery. More changes TBA.

Like you, after KSP 0.24 launches, I will begin anew with a blank tech tree and work my way up again. I will also begin MCE career anew as well.

same. in fact i might try vanilla for a few days before I compile my new custom tech tree.

[Eric S]

Because Unity 64-bit on Macs is unstable. You'd have to ask Unity people why; my guess is that it's just hard to get working right.

OSX was the most recently added 64-bit target on Unity (among the targets that KSP runs on, not sure about other targets), so it's had the least amount of time to get the bugs worked out of it and is probably even less stable than the 64-bit Windows target, which still has enough instability that despite testing it with 0.23.5 before the user hack was described, Squad didn't want to release it until they saw that there are people willing to trade that amount of stability for more memory.

[GusTurbo]

Since the game came out, we've had to manually raise the throttle setting before every flight from zero to 100%. Why is it suddenly a bad thing that we might have to manually raise it from 50% to 100% before each launch? If anything, this does half the job for you.

I'm happy with this -- my computer is crappy, so it sometimes takes a loooong time to get to full throttle.

[RocketPilot573]

Since the game came out, we've had to manually raise the throttle setting before every flight from zero to 100%. Why is it suddenly a bad thing that we might have to manually raise it from 50% to 100% before each launch? If anything, this does half the job for you.

And it was like that BEFORE too, in .16 I think.

[theend3r]

Did I see it wrong or do we get 100% refunds? Yay for SSTOs!

[cpast]

Did I see it wrong or do we get 100% refunds? Yay for SSTOs!

[Red Iron Crown]

Did I see it wrong or do we get 100% refunds? Yay for SSTOs!

You saw it wrong. 80% seems to be the figure.

Edit: What's up with the ninjas everywhere?

[cpast]

You saw it wrong. 80% seems to be the figure.

Edit: What's up with the ninjas everywhere?

I've been kinda bored and refreshing the forums a ton, so I've been ninjaing a few people I suspect others are also looking at the site more as we approach 0.24.

Edited July 12, 2014 by cpast

[Superfluous J]

Since the game came out, we've had to manually raise the throttle setting before every flight from zero to 100%. Why is it suddenly a bad thing that we might have to manually raise it from 50% to 100% before each launch? If anything, this does half the job for you.

Big deal? Not really. I'd just rather have it default to 100% instead of 50%. Or *gasp* let me pick.

[Andersenman]

post to give you a sneak peak

What exactly is a ... sneak peak? Am I mistaken or does it look awfully similar to a ... silent hill?

Edited July 12, 2014 by Andersenman

[razark]

What exactly is a ... sneak peak?

Obviously, it's a mountain with a lot of ranks in Move Silently.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Big deal? Not really. I'd just rather have it default to 100% instead of 50%. Or *gasp* let me pick.

Exactly - 100% or 0%. 50% isn't useful in any way, shape or form. If I can take off with 50%, like I said, the rocket is poorly designed and I can get away with an engine that's half as powerful. So yes, I still have to throttle up which raises the question of why this was implemented? Because, as I said as well, the game won't autosave while on the launchpad because it's throttled up.

If this isn't in the settings.cfg, I have no doubt a mod will come out within a few days of release that defaults the throttle to normal 0%.

[UAL002]

Yea, Max says something about it in the video. Like a quick little quip after mentioning it. I for the life of me could not understand it.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Yea, Max says something about it in the video. Like a quick little quip after mentioning it. I for the life of me could not understand it.

He says "Helps newbies have fun, you know?"

Great for newbies (for some reason) but what about non-newbies?

[Andersenman]

Exactly - 100% or 0%. 50% isn't useful in any way, shape or form.

Agreed. I cannot even begin to fathom the thought process behind the decision for this ... "Helps newbies to have fun"? If players need a reminder for throttling up in the form of, you know, forced throttling-up, there's something else wrong entirely and should not be resolved by inconveniencing existing players. Flattening learning curves diminishes satisfaction from learning success.

Edited July 12, 2014 by Andersenman

[tntristan12]

Not really. It means you have to spend serious effort on recovery, and can't just plop a bunch of parachutes on lower stages to get full recovery without even needing to think about it.

That is not what that means. It means that the devs will have to crack some way of simulating reentry for on-rails objects. I've hypothesized ways this could be done in the past and got no response, so I won't waste my words here. Nevertheless, it can be done. It's just a matter of making it mesh well with the rest of the game.

[smart013]

I would recommend to emphasize *heavyly* that ksp64 is going to produce *a lot of crashes* on all the different constellations of platforms of the common player. There will be problems with hardware, maybe ram, os versions and of course with a lot of mods or combinations of mods. The only reason why we get to enjoy 64bit ksp NOW is that Squad thinks the normal ksp player (or the vocal minority in the forums) is ready and happy to cope with these bugs, report them and dont start a storm about realising a software thats not ready for use. And we have lilleman to thank for showing this trust in the community.

I myself am not so certain. Already it seems that a lot of players think that ksp64 will enhance speed, stability, an absurd amount of mods installed and cures the common cold. This is a recipe for major dissapointments if the communication about this is not good in the first place.

Just saying

[UAL002]

I had a remarkable improvement on Linux x64 ksp. NO CRASHES. DOUBLED MODS. So, I think that may be unfounded worrying.

[Apollyon]

Agreed. I cannot even begin to fathom the thought process behind the decision for this ... "Helps newbies to have fun"? If players need a reminder for throttling up in the form of, you know, forced throttling-up, there's something else wrong entirely and should not be resolved by inconveniencing existing players. Flattening learning curves diminishes satisfaction from learning success.

I started playing Kerbal with no help from anyone completely on my own. I remember figuring out just by pressing a bunch of keys (yes I felt like a kerbal, hehe) how the space bar changes staging and that you need to manually throttle up to make the engines fire.

A lot of noobs press space, nothing happens (noticeably), and they sit there wondering what els needs to be done... now they won't need to wonder.

This is a great solution to throw them a bone and make it a bit less hard. They can still have the added joy of figuring out they make their engines have even more power (or less) when they learn how to work the throttle.

Sounds crazy, but it's true.

[Apollyon]

I had a remarkable improvement on Linux x64 ksp. NO CRASHES. DOUBLED MODS. So, I think that may be unfounded worrying.

Can you comment on if the game has improved with very large bases or high part-count ships?

[BudgetHedgehog]

A lot of noobs press space, nothing happens (noticeably), and they sit there wondering what els needs to be done... now they won't need to wonder.

Why stop at auto-throttling? Why not get KSP to autostage and launch your rocket for you? Why not just let it do everything for you?

There comes a point where you have to say 'ok, newbies need to learn how to play the game now'. Auto-throttling is that point - if they don't learn the key to throttle up (and they won't, because it's already done), how can they play the game? They'll run into all kinds of problems with cutting throttle if they never taught themselves or looked up what key to press. And if they do know what key deactivates throttle (X), they won't know what key reactivates it. Because it was already done for them beforehand. Sure, they'll learn eventually and then it'll get as irritating as other players find it. I just get the feeling that this default setting is just about 'help newbies have explosions, lol!' than any serious helpfulness.

In short - I know how to throttle up, I don't need the game to do it for me. Newbies don't know how to throttle up, they shouldn't need the game to do it for them.

[regex]

tbh it'd be nice if the game just set the throttle to 100% on the pad so I can just slap the spacebar and go. I guess 50% isn't that bad, it's less travel time to 100%...

[cpast]

tbh it'd be nice if the game just set the throttle to 100% on the pad so I can just slap the spacebar and go. I guess 50% isn't that bad, it's less travel time to 100%...

For that purpose, a key to max throttle immediately (i.e. FloorIt) would be better.