Devnote Tuesdays: The "Building Buildings" Edition

[Franklin]

Ted wrote a bit of an article about the QA and experimental teams, what they do and how they work. Found here. May also be good to poke through his blog posts as well.

As for who they are, it's not a secret or anything. Just look at the in game credits or the credits in the read me.

Oh yeah I'm not suggesting they're some shadowy cabal or anything insane like that, I assume they were plucked from the communities. I just like more reading, more transparency, etc. It's not really a heated desire, just wanna be more a part of the town hall meetings, ya know. Let the citizens sit in on them or somethin.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Franklin

[Laie]

I'm not suggesting all of Alpha Team should also be the QA team but like, who is my local QA representative and what is their mailing address, you know? How do we know they represent "us"?

They don't and shouldn't. QA is the wrong category for that kind of thing, by the way... the job of QA is to see if it works as intened, not to judge the intentions.

We (the users/customers) have no right to mess with development; in large part because there would be barely any development if they had to mess with us. Nor would it make sense if they'd come to us for brainstorming -- even on a busy day, it can easily take all day until an idea thread settles into a few general directions, while they talking among themselves could come to a decision within the hour. And let's face it: most of the time, the community suggestions aren't really unique or superior.

There are a few excellent ideas hidden in the depths of the suggestions forum, between lots and lots of chaff. I don't think I'd take the time to sieve through it if I was in squad's place. The case of experience was quite special in that the discussion on the forum happened just when squad was doing their brainstorming.

Yupp, there were in fact dozens of fantastic ideas and engrossing discussion taking place around the community that I read. I even saw a post from someone on reddit where they suggested trait/role effects and went into the detail and reasoning behind each one; excellent stuff. In hindsight I probably should have mentioned that we take into consideration the suggestions and brainstorming that comes out of the community. Like you say, it's a huge brainpool.

Thanks for that! I will sleep better tonight.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Laie

[Dunbaratu]

Struts and Fuel Lines no longer use their own Part extensions. Now, there is a single part extension called CompoundPart, and along with it, a new PartModule extension called CompoundPartModule. As you might imagine, CompoundPartModules require a CompoundPart type part to function. On top of these, we now have three CompoundPartModules: CModuleLinkedMesh, which takes care of keeping the visual model of the strut (or fuel line) connecting both ends of the part; CModuleFuelLine, which creates a fuel re-route when both sides are anchored, and CModuleStrut, which creates a joint between both ends.

Well I can see that requiring a lot of mods having to redo some code. At least I know it will affect kOS, that's for sure. Having to walk the parts tree to work out "how much fuel is this engine connected to" was a kind of messy algorithm before because of how fuel lines are implemented. I hope this will make it cleaner and better.

[Laie]

Well I can see that requiring a lot of mods having to redo some code. At least I know it will affect kOS, that's for sure. Having to walk the parts tree to work out "how much fuel is this engine connected to" was a kind of messy algorithm before because of how fuel lines are implemented. I hope this will make it cleaner and better.

Why do you even need to do that (rather that tap into KSP that already knows the canonical answer)?

[Pecan]

Do you know ... I just don't care any more - in a good way :-)

There seem to be a lot of ways that Squad could get Kerbal experience and expandable buildings really 'wrong' as far as most people will be concerned. I trust them to pick the one that they think will be most effective for most people and, most importantly, not to interfere with my sandbox ^^. It might be a pity that I never want to touch career mode for one reason or another but nearly everything is becoming an easily-selectable (or de-selectable) option, which means we're all still free to have fun the way we want to.

Plans sound good so far gang, give us what you can, when you can - full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes!

[SpacedCowboy]

I love it all! However, I do have a concern. Just went to 'Tanuki Chau's live squadcast, where she's playing "Buzz Aldrin's Race to Space". I ran into a wall of "F-Bombs". Needless to say I'm not impressed. I'm no saint but, I'm really turned off by any live stream blurting out profanities every five seconds. I do realize that SQUAD has no control of Twitch, but just the same, I'm a little dismayed.

[CaLVin-K]

Marco (Samssonart): This week was a busy one, I’ve been helping Chuchito wrap his head around the whole project in order to start implementing his multiplayer client into the game (chill out people, this still doesn’t mean multiplayer is coming out soon-ish). Apart from that QA for the building markers has officially started, after having some problems with the scene losing references to some game objects and scripts after having gone through git QA could start and that’s where I’m currently doing. I had to struggle a bit with Unity’s meta files in order to get git + Unity to behave.

What is git? or is that just a typo?

[Franklin]

F-Bombs...

[NFUN]

I love it all! However, I do have a concern. Just went to 'Tanuki Chau's live squadcast, where she's playing "Buzz Aldrin's Race to Space". I ran into a wall of "F-Bombs". Needless to say I'm not impressed. I'm no saint but, I'm really turned off by any live stream blurting out profanities every five seconds. I do realize that SQUAD has no control of Twitch, but just the same, I'm a little dismayed.

Your concern is noted and has been put into the appropriate location.

I'm sorry, but they, as you noted, can't control the streamers, they don't want to turn off streamers (publicity), and Chau had just been incredibly helpful to SQUAD. In any case, this isn't the right place to complain.

[SpacedCowboy]

Your concern is noted and has been put into the appropriate location.

http://www.vistax64.com/attachments/tutorials/2580d1370210857-recycle-bin-empty.jpg

I'm sorry, but they, as you noted, can't control the streamers, they don't want to turn off streamers (publicity), and Chau had just been incredibly helpful to SQUAD. In any case, this isn't the right place to complain.

Where did my concern go?

[Rowsdower]

I love it all! However, I do have a concern. Just went to 'Tanuki Chau's live squadcast, where she's playing "Buzz Aldrin's Race to Space". I ran into a wall of "F-Bombs". Needless to say I'm not impressed. I'm no saint but, I'm really turned off by any live stream blurting out profanities every five seconds. I do realize that SQUAD has no control of Twitch, but just the same, I'm a little dismayed.

Edit: Hey SpacedCowboy. Mind PMing me with what parts in particular?

Edited November 6, 2014 by Rowsdower

[NFUN]

Where did my concern go?

Oops, my bad. The recycling bin there is empty, I see. A clever one you are. And I apologize if I implied your opinion meant nothing, I just mean I don't think it is relevant to this thread, and not conducive to action.

[Dunbaratu]

Why do you even need to do that (rather that tap into KSP that already knows the canonical answer)?

If such a thing exists in the API it's not documented.

[HarvesteR]

What is git? or is that just a typo?

Git is a particularly awesome Version Control system. It lets us all work at the same time over the project without stepping on each other's toes all the time.

What Marco called Git QA here is the first stage of QA testing all features go through. This is something we do for every new feature, to make sure nothing we add is going to break the game for everyone else. (if you think a broken game is tough to play, try developing over broken software. ) Once the most serious issues are worked out, the feature branch is deemed worthy to be integrated into the main development branch (aptly named 'develop').

Once all our planned features make their way into develop, we start experimental testing on a branch that eventually becomes the new public release version.

Cheers

[HarvesteR]

If such a thing exists in the API it's not documented.

Part.GetConnectedResources() should be the method you need. It also walks the hierarchy internally, but it's 'canon'

Cheers

[Shuttle]

I have a stupid question.

As you can see, two vertical stabilizers are clipped into the fuselage. I guess that if I press and drag the green arrow, I will be able to move them up and down? In other words, it is possible in .90 to select a stabilizer, place it on the fuselage and then clip a stabilizer inside the fuselage using green gizmo?

[Seshins]

Great dev notes. Sounds like you guys had a really productive week.

[zekes]

I have a stupid question.

http://i.imgur.com/P5oFCvd.jpg

As you can see, two vertical stabilizers are clipped into the fuselage. I guess that if I press and drag the green arrow, I will be able to move them up and down? In other words, it is possible in .90 to select a stabilizer, place it on the fuselage and then clip a stabilizer inside the fuselage using green gizmo?

ooh i hope so

[Dunbaratu]

Part.GetConnectedResources() should be the method you need. It also walks the hierarchy internally, but it's 'canon'

Cheers

Thanks. I've added it to our issues list ("try replacing resource tree walk with Part.GetConnectedResources()").

Hopefully we'll get to it before the release is public.

[enneract]

... During construction, crew assignment is now completely persistent. Kerbals assigned in the crew tab will stay in their assigned seats as you add and remove parts, and even if you disconnect the part they’re in itself. They only return to the available list if you delete the part they’re in...

Good to see that my mod is getting implemented!

[Tw1]

Good luck Tanuki Chau. I hope you can make the biomes detailed and plentiful.

If you need ideas, or thoughts on a planet's geology, don't hesitate to contact forumers. There's got to be a few geologists here, plus there are fanwork writers who've already done a fair bit of googling and speculation to flesh out their long term mission reports.

We'd be more than happy to pass ideas along.

[Unit327]

so I moved back to work on the editor overhaul during the weekend...

if you had asked me if it was worth doing yesterday at half past midnight, I would have given you a bleary eyed look that would certainly not imply I was happy with the whole idea…

I’m very glad I took the time to get it done - even if it meant another working weekend and some late nights. It was well worth doing.

Great work but don't burn yourself out! Take a break now and then!

[Broax]

I love it all! However, I do have a concern. Just went to 'Tanuki Chau's live squadcast, where she's playing "Buzz Aldrin's Race to Space". I ran into a wall of "F-Bombs". Needless to say I'm not impressed. I'm no saint but, I'm really turned off by any live stream blurting out profanities every five seconds. I do realize that SQUAD has no control of Twitch, but just the same, I'm a little dismayed.

I fail to understand the relevance of your post in regard to the dev update, the new version or KSP in general...

Twich streams are like TV channels if you don't like them you don't need to watch them... If, for some reason, you feel the need to complain you should use the apropriate channels to do so instead of an off-topic rant.

I don't think posting here will help your cause... Nor it should...

[enneract]

What is git? or is that just a typo?

This is git.

[tanuki_chau]

Good luck Tanuki Chau. I hope you can make the biomes detailed and plentiful.

If you need ideas, or thoughts on a planet's geology, don't hesitate to contact forumers. There's got to be a few geologists here, plus there are fanwork writers who've already done a fair bit of googling and speculation to flesh out their long term mission reports.

We'd be more than happy to pass ideas along.

This will be happening...as much fan input as possible is basically what I'm going for. This is all of your game, I'm just lucky enough to be a part of making it into a reality.