Devnote Tuesday: "Point sharp end towards space"

[Frozen_Heart]

I think there should be a run checks button. It shouldn't be running at all times.

It will be an utter pain to us experienced builders who often do unconventional things in the VAB/SPH.

Being bugged about an unlinked fuel tank when its left like that on purpose would drive me nuts.

[Wabbit]

Think with the new dV being shown, I will stick to KER. As for the aero, and accurate isp, yay!

[Robotengineer]

I think there should be a run checks button. It shouldn't be running at all times.

It will be an utter pain to us experienced builders who often do unconventional things in the VAB/SPH.

Being bugged about an unlinked fuel tank when its left like that on purpose would drive me nuts.

I second this. I know some people leave fuel tanks empty for aesthetic or other reasons, and that would become a pain really quickly. Wouldn't having it run every single time you move something suck CPU terribly? I can hardly fly a 200 part shuttle with decent FPS, having the editor lag that this would probably bring would suck a lot of time.

What would be a cool addition would be a drop down menu with the list of destination bodies, you select the body and then it tells you whether you have enough DV to get there.

Will we even be getting a new CM on the forums? If they aren't going to listen to us, why bother? Or the forum population could elect a representative to Squad?

I vote regex for first forum representative! /pseudosarcasm.

[Laie]

Open the task manager and check out the CPU use in VAB and in flight.

Have you tried that yourself?

For me, in flight has the lowest cpu utilization (even with many-part craft in atmo). Pausing the game (Escape) will make CPU load go up, which I find quite silly. But the highest loads ever occur in SPH/VAB. I became aware of this as my fans were spinning up whenever I reverted to VAB.

Concerns about the engineer's CPU requirements seem justified.

[klgraham1013]

Okay, okay. Everybody gets it. Folks would prefer that more development news and teases were posted here first. Seriously. We get it. Now please stop flogging that dead horse and discuss the news itself rather than its source.

Actions speak louder than mods. ...and I'd say it's quite relevant to this weeks dev notes as Reddit is mentioned multiple times.

[Starhawk]

Lag in flight is unpleasant. Everything takes longer, crappy frame rates. But you can still play.

Lag in the VAB is horrible. I recently built a lander to take the Mk1-2 pod to Eve. When every attempt to move a subassembly or even select a part is followed by the game just stopping and you have to wait before the software responds, it makes the game difficult to play. If there were any further lag added to that, it would make it almost impossible.

This is why I would like the engineer's report feature to be controlled by the player rather than run continuously.

[chrisb2e9]

I'm happy to see that the game is coming along. Keep up the good work.

Edited February 11, 2015 by chrisb2e9
i can be a jerk

[Apollo13]

I use the Docking Mode when docking. I look forward to see what the next iteration looks like, based on Felipe's comments.

[Potatocan]

Yay fixed thrust.

[Alizerin]

Actions speak louder than mods. ...and I'd say it's quite relevant to this weeks dev notes as Reddit is mentioned multiple times.

Oh, please. People are being really childish about this. It was one tweet on a developers private twitter account. Folks need to get over this.

Frankly, I can't blame the Devs for turning to other areas for feedback. People on the forums act as if they are the end-all-be-all of the KSP community when it is demostratively false. I'd, even say the vast majority of players do not even hit these forums, ever.

The main people who use these forums are going to be die hard KSP fans, who may or may not actually give good useful feedback in polls, surveys, and "general user experience" issues. Why? Because they are die-hard KSP fans who do crazy things like calculate dV while sitting on the toilet or design ships during meetings at work. People on this forum are prone to having very strong opinions about how the game should be run, and flip out if someone posts a random tweet as a teaser or start burning down barns if they don't like what they see in an early release photo.

If te developers need feedback on the average user experience, this forum is really not the place to get that feedback.

I enjoy reddit way more than these forums lately, largely because the level of stupid seems lower, and actual enjoyment of the game seems higher.

This is supposed to be a cool community. How about we start acting like it, and not flip out with stupid drama over fun tweets?

[Nemrav]

Why are people so concerned about the forums getting less attention than reddit

You should check the active users list, Kasper is still there, he's not going to post as much (because once you're part of the company you need to be a little more careful about posting). You don't know how much less the forums get checked than reddit, and even at that, this is probably all temporary until Squad gets its numbers back up (Rowsdower just left).

Also does reddit get dev note tuesdays ? or official articles ?

[Starwaster]

The main people who use these forums are going to be die hard KSP fans, who may or may not actually give good useful feedback in polls, surveys, and "general user experience" issues. Why? Because they are die-hard KSP fans who do crazy things like calculate dV while sitting on the toilet or design ships during meetings at work. People on this forum are prone to having very strong opinions about how the game should be run, and flip out if someone posts a random tweet as a teaser or start burning down barns if they don't like what they see in an early

thats bull. I never do DV calculations while sitting on the toilet.

I do them when scooping out my cat's toilet

[linuxgurugamer]

I use the Docking Mode when docking. I look forward to see what the next iteration looks like, based on Felipe's comments.

I also use the Docking Mode when docking. I'm not adverse to trying something new, but hope that it will be as understandable as the current version.

[Robotengineer]

Oh, please. People are being really childish about this. It was one tweet on a developers private twitter account. Folks need to get over this.

Frankly, I can't blame the Devs for turning to other areas for feedback. People on the forums act as if they are the end-all-be-all of the KSP community when it is demostratively false. I'd, even say the vast majority of players do not even hit these forums, ever.

The main people who use these forums are going to be die hard KSP fans, who may or may not actually give good useful feedback in polls, surveys, and "general user experience" issues. Why? Because they are die-hard KSP fans who do crazy things like calculate dV while sitting on the toilet or design ships during meetings at work. People on this forum are prone to having very strong opinions about how the game should be run, and flip out if someone posts a random tweet as a teaser or start burning down barns if they don't like what they see in an early release photo.

If te developers need feedback on the average user experience, this forum is really not the place to get that feedback.

I enjoy reddit way more than these forums lately, largely because the level of stupid seems lower, and actual enjoyment of the game seems higher.

This is supposed to be a cool community. How about we start acting like it, and not flip out with stupid drama over fun tweets?

The people who care about KSP the most, second to the devs, tend to be the die-hard fans. To some people on the forum KSP isn't 'just a game' it's the best game. It is the game. So before you start getting upset about a 'mob' on the forums, think about the posters reason for why they get upset about development.

[NoMrBond]

They collect feedback from everywhere, even from 4chan and somethingawful (Thanks Maxmaps for braving that for the nuggets amongst the nuggets)

The heaving self sorting dogpile of reddit allows some dialogue which wouldn't really work in the linear forum format

Each platform has its strengths, better to leverage those advantages than to constrain themselves

[DuoDex]

As NoMrBond said: This discussion should really not have been had. If you prefer reddit, use reddit. If you prefer the forums, use the forums.

[Bill Phil]

They collect feedback from everywhere, even from 4chan and somethingawful (Thanks Maxmaps for braving that for the nuggets amongst the nuggets)

The heaving self sorting dogpile of reddit allows some dialogue which wouldn't really work in the linear forum format

Each platform has its strengths, better to leverage those advantages than to constrain themselves

All should have an equal amount of information, though. They don't.

[Sonny_Jim]

If you prefer reddit, use reddit. If you prefer the forums, use the forums.

Saying that doesn't stop the forum die-hards feeling like they are being neglected and ignored :-(

[KasperVld]

All should have an equal amount of information, though. They don't.

If anything I feel the forums have much more information than the other platforms, especially when it comes to in-depth information. That's a good thing, and it should stay that way. If you want to continue discussing the topic of information placement, please head over to this thread.

[Bill Phil]

If anything I feel the forums have much more information than the other platforms, especially when it comes to in-depth information. That's a good thing, and it should stay that way. If you want to continue discussing the topic of information placement, please head over to this thread.

Yes, that's true. But some information that is pretty important is not on the forums... Like maxmaps saying "shmelta vee". I only know because so e forum goers have quoted it. And there could be so much more.

[Whirligig Girl]

If I remember right (it's been awhile), yeah, the stock ISP curve can support numbers beyond 1 atm.

Actually, here's the relevant modification I make to the aerospike for reference via a MM config:

	@MODULE[ModuleEngines*]
	{
		@atmosphereCurve
		{
			@key,0 = 0 385
			@key,1 = 1 375
			key = 5 320
			key = 15 0.01
		}
        }

So I've set it to essentially zero out down at the "surface" of Jool or what have you (15 atm), whereas other engine types I generally have zero out below 5 atm so they're not effective on the surface of Eve.

Well is that realistic? Would Jool's atmosphere REALLY bring the efficiency to zero?

[Red Iron Crown]

Well is that realistic? Would Jool's atmosphere REALLY bring the efficiency to zero?

Very unlikely. The atmospheric pressure on Jool would have to be as high as the exhaust pressure at the end of the engine bell.

[regex]

Well is that realistic? Would Jool's atmosphere REALLY bring the efficiency to zero?

I'm not entirely sure what would happen, but if chamber/throat pressure were less than ambient I don't think your engine would work. Hell, your turbopumps may not even be able to inject the fuel. 15 atmospheres is a little low to kill a rocket engine (average is around 80, IIRC) but if you're at that ambient pressure I think you've got other problems besides your engines firing.

[Stormweaver]

Well is that realistic? Would Jool's atmosphere REALLY bring the efficiency to zero?

In BTSM many lighter engines have 0 ISP at 5atm, mid range ones at 7atm, and the spike at 15atm. Now given that eve (5atm) is an analogue to venus (~75atm?)...

It's a matter of scaling to make gameplay happen I guess. Otherwise it'd only have a limited bearing on gameplay.

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

In BTSM many lighter engines have 0 ISP at 5atm, mid range ones at 7atm, and the spike at 15atm. Now given that eve (5atm) is an analogue to venus (~75atm?)...

It's a matter of scaling to make gameplay happen I guess. Otherwise it'd only have a limited bearing on gameplay.

I wouldn't say that Eve was analogous to Venus: Venus is basically hell, while Eve is more like the Hotel California.