AD-Edge

Spent a decent chunk of time yesterday reading though the thread (was 2am where I was when the AMA started), made my day when I randomly stumbled upon the commments about KSP! Great to know some of the crew at NASA enjoy it too I can imagine the feeling of acomplishment/awesome the team must be feeling right now.

New sun effects look amazing, and I noticed the apparent lower ambient lighting as well. Is this just because we're seeing the command pod further away from Kerbol? Or a more global change to the ambient light? Either way, looks very very nice with the darker shadows. Loving it!

Also hoping for a transcript of the KSP stuff, as with the dev chat a while back (currently a sticky thread) Some cool stuff though by the looks. Eve looks great, awesome to see the colour tones of Charr toned down (that is the Mars-like planet right?) Also, the physical model of Kerbol is epic to see! Ive been waiting to see that intergrated since very early on playing KSP Also hoping to see a transcript up at some point, not sure how likely that is however, but it would be great to read everything which was said (like with the Dev talk sticky in this section, from quite some time ago) But yeh its great to see all this new stuff for 0.17, Eve looks great! Its good to see Charr (thats the mars planet yet?) has had its colour tones dialed down a little. And Im very excited to see the physical body for Kerbol now, Ive been wanting to check out the actual physical body of the start since the start of my time playing KSP!

More than likely his first attempt at a legit landing, which went wrong due to not being used to the conditions. The mars like planet will likely have thinner atmosphere, yet still relatively strong gravity. So imagine landing on the Mun with more gravity than usual. The atmosphere doesnt slow you down very much (especially relative to what youd be used to back on Kerbin) and the gravity is pulling you down faster, so your pretty much going to run into some troubles unless your used to the conditions and have a strong rocket assisted approach to the surface planned.

Thought Id add my 2c to the Mars-like planet development. My only issue with it, is that it seems pretty highly saturated. So I dropped the saturation down + moved the hue over a bit closer to orange. Exciting stuff though Wasnt expecting new planets for quite some time.

My guess is that its the Mars-like planet, the \'crater\' your seeing is actually a mountain (ie Olympus Mons style), and could potentially be the highest mountain in the kerbal system (now that would be some interesting terrain) Its hard to tell though, but from that angle, shouldnt the area be completely in shadow if it were a crater? Seems to be picking up more light, meaning its being elevated upwards (with the light source behind/to the right of the picture relative to the planet)

Is that... the new sun??? (with an actual physical \'surface\') Damn these low res pictures!! Really looking forward to this next update, I would have been excited enough with one more planet or moon O_o And I like Harvs comment about smaller features adding to gameplay - adding huge features (like EVA\'s etc) is great, but a bunch of smaller things can really add to more dynamic gameplay. Cant wait to hear more about it

Been here since 0.7.3 as well! Found KSP during the 2nd week of it being public. Took a screenshot when I joined the forums as well. Its... certainly come a long way since! Well done to KSP and Squad for how far this game has come in 1 whole year. Look forward to the next year of developments!

Loved this one! (same with all the others, really) These comics are great Always make me laugh.

Ha, I cant wait untill I have that much money either Not planning to make them bigger, they\'re pretty awesome/hand sized how they are now. Answered a question about cost in an above comment. 3D printers are pretty expensive at the moment, we\'re starting to see more \'hobbiest\' ones for anywhere around $1000 and upwards, but they are pretty basic and cant print anything too big, and usually dont have the materials Im after. Thats why shapeways is so handy at the moment for those of us who aren\'t millionaires, they have a ton of materials and a bunch insanely expensive printers already bought and ready to use. I went to a 3D printing conference in my area a few months ago, one of the local universities had some of their 3D printers up and running at the time, as a demonstration. These are about $1500 each. SO colourful ;D And the sounds these made as they were working away, bits moving in all directions, engines whirring and adjusting as the model gets printed... It was like something out of Star Trek. These Kerbals are printed in a material called \'Full Colour Sandstone\' which is exactly what youd think, a sandstone material which is injected with ink as its being printed, so it comes out of the printer completely coloured with no need for painting. They are a bit heavier than you would expect. The first 3D print I got in this material was quite a surpise to hold at first, it felt very solid, strong and heavy compared to what I expected (heavier than the plastic materials Ive also used to print objects in the past) Its also a pretty tough material, Ive had several tumbles and drops with these guys and other prints - not a single breakage yet. Its a very hard, yet brittle material. I saw someone on youtube a while back doing some strength tests with some of his prints and a hammer, and it can take a beating. But it does shatter once it reaches that breaking point. The texture is interesting as well, \'sandy\' is the best way to describe it. Its quite rough, an interesting texture. Previously this material was pretty poor, so I never used it. Id seen samples at other 3D meetups, and the surface would \'smudge\' if you ran your fingers across it and youd get this residue on yourself, which wasnt very nice at all. But at the start of this year they went back and did some testing with how the material is used, and significantly improved it. Thats when I started working with Full Colour Sandstone, as I was able to start projects which I wasnt confident enough to with the material how it used to be. Heres a factsheet for the material, if anyone wants to read more on the topic - http://www.shapeways.com/materials/fullcolor Also Im doing some tests at the moment with the current Kerbals I have, to give them a more \'glossy\' finish. Seems to be taking several spraying sessions with a can of gloss (Im thinking the material is initially absorbing a lot), but I should soon end up with some very nice smooth/shiny Kerbals. Not sure how Squad will feel about us shooting rockets at them with actual kerbals inside, but its a nice thought ;D Its actually one of the most affordable materials. And yeh it will be interesting to see how 3D printing develops into the future. I know the military is already onto it in various countries, the USAF already have 3D printers on their larger planes. A part of our plane/vehicle/helicopter is broken? Lets 3D print a new one! *Edit* Ohh, super cool video about how printing in this material works, forgot about this: http://youtu.be/hHxp9Ail6MY

Thanks Nova And yeh your right. I noticed my models were a bit wrong in terms of the proportions once Id seen the Kerbals in action in the recent EVA pictures. Might have do do some adjusting and see how things look, they kinda lack that all important \'short, fat & cute\' Kerbal style.

For one full Kerbal (ie the character, helmet and visor) I think its ~$30 + postage. 3D printing is still a bit pricy since its such a new \'thing\', but its not too bad. *Edit* Should also mention, Ive been a bit bogged down this month with Uni assignments and in particular exam revision, so I more than likely wont be making an order to complete the set of 3 Kerbals until July sometime *sadface*

Depends on your idea of fun. I mentioned this very thing in an older thread C7 had, ill quote it below: So yeh, part failure for certain people wouldnt be fun, but I know that as the type of gamer I am I would enjoy it, and I actually hope that this very thing does eventually get implemented. Plus it can be implemented into the game in a \'proper\' way - ie the chances of failure on a part in new condition is so low that it will almost never happen (as in real life, sometimes things go wrong with parts even if theyre brand new, its just unlikely). But then if your cutting corners and using parts which havent been repaired, or are 2nd hand, or are just recovered and then slapped onto a new rocket and used over and over again - then the chances of a failure on that particular part(s) increases until it could pose a serious threat - at which point you only have yourself to blame, for allowing the part to be used on the rocket (etc) Its this kind of thing which could add some interesting dynamics to the \'campaign\' mode, or some interesting events to the sandbox game we currently have. Either way though, malfunctioning parts are something I hope to see in KSP oneday soon

Further images: Heh, nice one!

This mod is amazing, simple as that! Something I expected to oneday be added to KSP, but I never guessed it could have been modded in. Love the little details which are noticable now as well, like the shaking of parts relative to the one the camera is mounted on. Some seriously impressive shots being showed off already as well. Cant wait to apply this to some of my own KSP videos!

Yeh that would be great. I\'ve nagged Harv ever since ~0.8 to change the particle effects for explosions, its the one thing that really brings the game down to a grinding halt, or at least generates a lot of staggering etc as a huge amount of particles are loaded and drawn during an explosion. I realise the explosions initially in the game were very hackish and placeholders, but its time they were updated, and I know the main issue in optimising it has been waiting for the latest unity release with the particle system update - thats now happened. Will be interesting to see how these new ones turn out, sounds promising.

Awesome, and please tell me that these new particle effects are more optimized than the originals!?

Great to see all of these fixes so fast, some major issues cleared up in this patch Ah ~40mb is nothing in the grand scheme of 10gb... 200GB a month here

Autobots - move out! This is seriously awesome though, well done.

Congrats! I did see this happening soon enough tho. Slowly, Squad assimilates everyone! Resistance would certainly be futile ;D

Funny you should mention that, I have a script written and the beginnings of a storyboard for such a thing ;D The only issue is spare time.. and the amount of other projects I have going at the moment. *Edit* An earlier comment I made about the project in another thread: I\'ve \'prepped\' the Bill model, somewhat similar to your 3rd suggestion, just without the \'Im about to lecture you hand\' I think I should probably get Bob reprinted too, I wasnt very happy with him having the default pose so I added a bit of variation to his model, plus his \'helmet connecting disc\' is missing the plugs which hold the helmet properly (hes the old original design, Jeb is the improved design I modified after receiving the Bob print)

For anyone interested in how these prints were made (a relatively detailed explanation of the process) check out this \'instructable\' I finally posted on the Instructables site yesterday! http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Kerbal-Figurine-Kerbal-Space-Program/ It got featured on the front page too http://www.instructables.com/

Adjust center of gravity

Just a minor update on this little project. I got around to transferring the source files over to my new laptop today (they were on the HDD from my laptop which died last month). Opened it up to have a look around, the Bob and Jeb models are of course done and finalized, so next up I need to get Bill printed out, found him in the file along with the other Kerbals + one which Id forgotten Id created - the \'blue\' Kerbal crew member. Since my most recent 3D printing order was made around about the time the new crew system was being worked on, I imagine I was planning on getting him printed along with Bill and Jeb, but only had the time to get Jeb ready. Could always get the blue crew member printed out at some point in the future as well and maybe even a female Kerbal (although hair could be hard to do considering the helmet has to fit... hmmm) Either way, heres some pics from in the 3D program (Blender). Ive still got to sort out a pose for Bill, something neutral to go with his neutral/concerned expression I imagine. Then he should be ready for order early June to finally complete the trio ;D

Im yet to send something to land on it, but I spent a quick 20mins getting my first probe in orbit around the Minmus mun. Looks a bit bigger than I expected, will have to send a rover at some point! Got some nice pictures though, at one point I looked back and saw Kerbin in the distance, with the Mun also in view, Kerbol shining off in the distance, with Minmus in shot as well - now that was cool