A Sneak Peek at KSP: Beta Than Ever

[cantab]

First up, I have no trouble understanding Max. His English is perfect and his accent's hardly strong.

So pilots can now do some actual piloting, scientists do science, but we need more stuff for Engineers to do. Time for some random part failures with engineers improving reliability and doing maintainance?

Random failures is a bad stock mechanic IMHO, in a game that's already as tough as KSP is. As it is they have useful things to do. An engineer will be nigh-essential on a rover in particular.

1) Add two docking ports orthogonal to the main command pod

2) Select "control from here"

3) ????

4) Profit!

Congratulations, you have cheated the xp system to hold other vectors that your pilot is not supposed to be able to hold.

Lawl. Well, I think that's gonna be unavoidable. Any attempt to "patch" it would just make things more annoying. And to be honest, how often do you need to point (anti)normal or (anti)radial anyway?

Squad should make it so you can't "control from here" unless you have a high level pilot.

This, for example, would be awful. Docking's hard enough as it is, let's not add more annoying obstacles to doing it.

I must say that the buildings we saw in that video were nowhere near the quality of the buildings that got ripped to pieces by the forum when we saw the tier 1 buildings.

They seem better quality, though the video shows them way too far out to be sure. But they're just boring. A blue boxy building is upgraded to a slightly bigger blue boxy building.

[mythbusters844]

They seem better quality, though the video shows them way too far out to be sure. But they're just boring. A blue boxy building is upgraded to a slightly bigger blue boxy building.

This. The VAB looks too boring and has too little detail, at least from the video.

[The Jedi Master]

You might as well have been saying "AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME" the whole time.

[Norpo]

Am I too late to share my excitement for this update?

*Honestly, i'm extremely excited for the sheer MODDING potential for the kerbal experience, assuming it's not just hardcoded in there and new classes and features and such can be added.*

[Wjolcz]

How's the progress on the new landing gear? Any chance we will see it in 0.90? If not is there going to be a minor follow-up update adding them in?

Edited December 13, 2014 by Veeltch

[Kerano]

Wow, everything's looking great! Amazing job guys, can't wait to play it.

A few questions off the top of my head for the FAQ...

1. Can Kerbals ever learn multiple skills, or just the one they start with?

2. How do I level up my Kerbals? Is it a passive training process (XP gained over time while on a mission), or do you have to physically pilot/return science/repair things to gain XP?

3. Do the best probe cores in the game have the same piloting ability as a top-level Kerbal pilot?

4. Will we be able to see these awesome biome maps in the game, or at least get some on-screen indication of which biome we're currently in/over?

Edited December 14, 2014 by Kerano

[Kerano]

Thought of a few more for the FAQ:

5. Does the Scientist benefit stack? If I have a max level scientist on board and add another scientist, will he add any extra science... or will he be redundant? How about if I have two half level scientists, will they stack to give the benefit of one max level scientist?

6. How does the Scientist benefit work? Is it a percentage boost, or is there a separate pool of "Scientist only" science points in every biome? I'm thinking of a situation where I've exhausted a biome of science using only a Pilot. If I now send in a Scientist, will he be able to gather any additional science the pilot couldn't gather?

Edited December 14, 2014 by Kerano

[dryer_lint]

It sounds like Engineers are going to need some attention. They'll probably be most useful for rover missions, which are usually unmanned though... and face it, nobody ever needs to fix landing legs, do they? Solar panel repair might be the most common use for Engineers.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, by the way, will scientists be required to run the mobile lab? They totally should!

[sp1989]

How's the progress on the new landing gear? Any chance we will see it in 0.90? If not is there going to be a minor follow-up update adding them in?

I don't know if there adding new landing gear in this update but if there is a mod that has a good chance of being added tot he game its this one. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99660-0-25-Adjustable-Landing-Gear

[Kerano]

More suggestions for the FAQ.

Given that experience is awarded to Kerbals depending on where they go (e.g. landing on the Mun)...

7. Is the XP awarded upon landing on the object (e.g. Mun), or upon return to Kerbin?

8. Can a single Kerbal (e.g. Jeb) get XP from the same achievement (e.g. landing on the Mun) more than once?

9. If each Kerbal can get XP from the same achievement multiple times, what counts as a "new achievement" in terms of XP? Taking off from the Mun and landing back in the same biome? A different biome? Exiting the Mun's SOI and entering again? Landing on another body before landing on the Mun again?

10. If each Kerbal can only get XP from each achievement once, is there a way to track which achievements each Kerbal has earned? Once I have dozens of Kerbals on active missions, I can't always keep track of who's been where.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Kerano

[basic.syntax]

Wow, everything's looking great! Amazing job guys, can't wait to play it.

A few questions off the top of my head for the FAQ...

1. Can Kerbals ever learn multiple skills, or just the one they start with?

2. How do I level up my Kerbals? Is it a passive training process (XP gained over time while on a mission), or do you have to physically pilot/return science/repair things to gain XP?

3. Do the best probe cores in the game have the same piloting ability as a top-level Kerbal pilot?

4. Will we be able to see these awesome biome maps in the game, or at least get some on-screen indication of which biome we're currently in/over?

#3 - was answered in the most recent weekly dev notes: choosing a probe core will matter .

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/102494-Devnote-Tuesdays-The-Beta-Than-Experimentals-Edition

#4 - I'd also like to see a science part or improved game feature, that helps identify biome boundaries. "In character" Kerbals shouldn't know the names in advance, just that "this area is unexplored." When you're looking at the orbital / solar system view, your current ship info tells you a bit about this, and every time you do a crew report, it tells you Where this is being done. Some basic info could be shown to us in the main UI, and shown more clearly at a higher tech level, with a science part.

[kujuman]

10. If each Kerbal can only get XP from each achievement once, is there a way to track which achievements each Kerbal has earned? Once I have dozens of Kerbals on active missions, I can't always keep track of who's been where.

My guess is that we'll get something similar to the science archives for Kerbals. Because otherwise...rage And the progress tracker already knows the Kerbals who did certain firsts: first Kerbals in orbit of each body, first EVAs and so on, so I'd guess there's some bonus to the early astronauts.

In addition, I just rewatched the preview video, and the runway and launch pad upgrades are both mass and a box dimension limits. VAB and SPH get part counts upgraded and types of action groups upgraded. The "Basic" action groups are probably the abort, stage, brakes, etc. The "Custom" action groups at the highest tech level are probably 1-10 The old C7 Mk3 cockpit appears in the list of parts in the editor review as well, but that may have been an artifact of a prerelease build? No view of landing gear in the VAB to see if new ones made it in.

[CelticCossack51]

i have to say that this update shall be a huge success and the Hypetrain will run of the rails! Nice work Squad! I will keep playing Ksp through beta and eventually official release!

[WuphonsReach]

So pilots can now do some actual piloting, scientists do science, but we need more stuff for Engineers to do. Time for some random part failures with engineers improving reliability and doing maintainance?

Yes please. We need:

- The ability to recover and recycle parts in the VAB

- Time based construction (reduced if you have parts on hand already)

- A way to pre-stock the VAB with common modules to speed up construction

- Dang It functionality (older things break more often)

[Cakeofruit]

thx to you to make that game so good !!

and thx to the mod community that make wonderful mods and some contributioon to the stock game.

( plz add select root to the functionnality if not already in the BETA )

[MrJacobean]

Will this update require a new save?

Can I still use my current .25 save?

[MrJacobean]

Yes please. We need:

- The ability to recover and recycle parts in the VAB

- Time based construction (reduced if you have parts on hand already)

- A way to pre-stock the VAB with common modules to speed up construction

- Dang It functionality (older things break more often)

I think that would be a mod, "Kerbal construction time"

link to thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92377-0-24-2-Kerbal-Construction-Time-Release-v1-0-0-%288-29-14%29

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

In my 30 years of gaming, I never got so much value for my money as I did with KSP. Squad rocks!

[Ignath]

Will this update require a new save?

Can I still use my current .25 save?

I believe Max said in the SquadCast most recently that it SHOULDN'T break saves, but there are obviously no guarantees.

If you are concerned about losing/corrupting your save, I'd suggest backing it up before updating to 0.90 when it comes out.

[cantab]

VAB and SPH get...types of action groups upgraded. The "Basic" action groups are probably the abort, stage, brakes, etc. The "Custom" action groups at the highest tech level are probably 1-10

This I don't really think is a good idea. The Action Groups are mainly a player convenience thing, and artificially limiting them is just making the player do tedious but not at all difficult clicking.

The old C7 Mk3 cockpit appears in the list of parts in the editor review as well, but that may have been an artifact of a prerelease build?

It will probably still be in the game for legacy compatibility, but I do expect it to be hidden from the parts list in the .90 release.

- Time based construction (reduced if you have parts on hand already)

I'm not sure this is a great idea. Construction times on the rockets would go against the "Try it and see" playstyle that Squad seem to favour and that some players enjoy. Though it depends on how long the times are. A day or two won't be much of an issue, several weeks would really hurt the game I think.

[Technical Ben]

Yep. Engineers seem to be there for repairing solar panels and similar. Which is a nice addition and adds to both the replayability and gameplay. As before it was "I'll reload as I don't want to loose panels" or "Oh, lost panels, scrub the mission it failed". But now instead, we can send up repair crews! Great addition!

[kujuman]

Yep. Engineers seem to be there for repairing solar panels and similar. Which is a nice addition and adds to both the replayability and gameplay. As before it was "I'll reload as I don't want to loose panels" or "Oh, lost panels, scrub the mission it failed". But now instead, we can send up repair crews! Great addition!

And more importantly, we can now have missions designed to dip into the atmo to break solar panels (because it's so fun) and we can do it over. and over. and over. (As long as the craft gets back into vacuum.)

[polan]

This update looks amazing. And awesome. Awemazing. Can't wait to get KSP this Christmas.

[klesh]

This looks like a great update, I am excited for it. Thanks Squad!

[juststephen]

Looks kerbaltastic! Can't wait for this update.