tater

Wow. See, Bezos is a sleeper... As I said here, or another thread about Bezos turning down a Russian offer of a lunar trip for a couple hundred million $... why pay retail?

I'll try and do more welding tests for you. I tested them a couple times, and haven't really pushed the use.

Not according to the guy who named it. (this has the potential to go very, off topic, however) Suffice it to say that when it was a novel, new way to get graphical content over the net, I never heard anyone use the hard G. On the subject of actual KSP stuff... I had a rescue contract and the target turned out to be an LC2. Since it had EC and RCS, I decided to dock it. Oddly enough, it won't dock. I do not think this is an SSTU issue, per se, since the game does't know that rescue pod can have a docking port. It did make me wonder how the initial pod is created such that it cannot dock, but like an idiot, I derogated it instead of checking the save file and looking at the craft. I'll go hunting for another SSTU pod, I'm curious now.

If they have a bunch of data, then the tweet is just this notion of what, trying to make their fan base feel included? If they don't have a bunch of data, and they actually need camera data from many km away---they are pretty desperate. I'm not saying anything one way or another, but I am certainly saying that the implication of the tweet is basically a coin flip between those 2 choices, so it's a bad idea from a PR standpoint (because it can certainly be reasonably interpreted as "desperation.")

No, I'd assume they have high framerate, HD cameras covering every angle such that nothing useful could possibly be learned from a camera several km away (any possible camera held by anyone other than them, in other words)

There could not be a less serious medium than Twitter. As such, it's aimed at the kind of people who follow actors. I doubt many had HD cameras trained on a static test. Its entirely plausible to read it as desperation, and it even being plausible gives a possible appearance of desperation. That's bad PR. I heard Columbia break up over my house, and there was a call to keep an eye out for possible debris in the mountains. That's vastly different than what was a TEST under controlled conditions that should have been observered better that spacex obviously did. I guarantee that future tests will have more data collection than this one obviously did---they certainly had many better cameras trained on it than the video we have all seen, right? They should presumably have cameras where we could pinpoint rivets, right? If not... Wow. Cameras are dirt cheap.

No, that's exactly what they are saying. That it's even a possible reading would make it a terrible PR move.

Why would they want the publicity of effectively saying "we have no clue, do any of you have a video we can look at?"

I was gonna say the same thing... tweeting it seems desperate, they've already asked for help privately within those communities. Tweeting it is by definition asking Joe Blow to help out, frankly.

I agree that they clearly are at a loss right now, which is a really bad thing for any return to flight attempts. If they cannot isolate it to a specific GSE issue, then future launches are just a dice roll, other than perhaps being extra vigilant about GSE risks in the future, and adding far more data collection in case of a failure. Maybe they should replicate the strong back as it was, and test second stages to destruction on it (meaning do launch loading cycles on it until something breaks). It's important to also note that all US LVs do a "static test" before liftoff---they spool up the engines with the hold-down clamps, then launch. If they detect a problem, they can shut down before releasing the hold-downs. The static tests are a bit odd, frankly, and including the payload as they have recently done is just, well, dumb.

Alternately, they could just make it so that 99% of the contracts weren't awful, then we'd not need a shortcut.

http://bfy.tw/7d7i

I thought this was gonna be about my 1963 Series II 109.

So rocket parts should look like a spaceplane mod's take on rocket parts? How about rocket parts look like rocket parts... Unlike spaceplanes (with my definition caveat above!), we have actual rocket parts to look at. My ideal aesthetic would be a sort of retro-future look, but making sure that every single part fit kerbals, including all hatches. (with helmets, otherwise the hatches should not be allowed to open in space, ever). Of the engines, I actually like the 1.25m ones the best... before I stopped using all of them altogether (I have), I never used the poodle, for example, even when there was not another choice... it was simply too ugly.

Yeah, I know they generally consider gliders spaceplanes, but I don't. By that definition Gemini with the parasail would have been a spaceplane. I don;t require SSTO for it to be a spaceplane, I think I require HTHL, or at the least VTHL under it's own power. I would consider early Shuttle concepts where the orbiter was on the back of another aircraft a spaceplane, for example. There's another thread about this issue. In the KSP world, spaceplanes are magic, however. I agree that to the extent there is any aesthetic that is coherent in KSP it's planes now.

@Andem Could I not complain that spaceplane parts don't look good stuck to my oil barrel looking rockets, then ask for those parts to be changed to match, so that when I use a plane part stuck to the oil barrel, it doesn't look jarring? That's the problem, spaceplanes are taken as THE style, and rockets must conform so that planes look OK with rocket parts, but the converse is not true (you said the parts should fit with the others, so shouldn't the (new) spaceplane parts ft with the old, crappy parts). What if I think the spaceplane parts are in fact too futuristic? I actually think this, but then again, spaceplanes are magic anyway (I don't see any spaceplane launch dates on the schedule right now).

It never had a coherent style anywhere until the spaceplane parts, all the parts seemed independent from each other. Then the PJ spaceplane parts came. The spaceplane parts are coherent, nothing else. You keep saying I twisted your words, when I have not twisted them at all (nor even really used them). I am taking the implication of your words, explicitly. You claim there is a kerbal look/style/aesthetic. I claim there is not, with the exception of spaceplanes, which look awesome. If you think there is a kerbal style that includes both, then that style is by definition awesome looking planes, and terrible looking rockets. If you want to abandon the notion of a kerbal style, that's great, we agree! Then we can talk about what the nonexistent kerbal style should be. I argued above that I think it should evolve from a "first rockets" look, to the spaceplane parts as an endpoint. Yes, that means I don't care at all if the lv-30 looks wrong stuck on a spaceplane. If everything needs to look spaceplane like... might as well add warp nacelles. (sorry, but I'm not a spaceplane fan until something like skylon actually flies). On the plus side, my "evolution" idea would have early plane parts added at some point that don't look like sci-fi, and those would work just fine with older looking 1.25m parts. How's the 2.5m oil barrel look on a spaceplane? I get what you are saying, but I suppose I don't care what rocket parts look like on spaceplanes. What has happened is that the PJ spaceplane parts are now basically defining "kerbal." Any part that would look wrong on a spaceplane won't work? Of the engines, is it only the redstone looking one that you dislike because of the bell shape? That's the only one that looks "old" to me (because I can see the V-2 and Redstone in it). Myself, I'm only concerned with rockets (a bias I freely admit). That's why adding some new parts, along with a revamp is good. Have the starter 1.25m parts, then throw in some newer looking engines that work with both kinds of craft better, and some old looking plane parts (Bell X-1 type things). They fit because they are the same color, that's about it. mk2 is the same form factor as mk1, but bigger. If there was a non-replica mindset for the mk3, it would have continued that trend. As it is, kerbals go in time from super streamlined, sci-fi looking plane parts that are 100 years in the future to 40 year old looking shuttle parts.

You absolutely implied that. You have stated that the new parts show are not "kerbal." Kerbal is what we have now, and that means ugly rocket parts, and sleek spaceplane parts. As I said numerous ways, there is no kerbal aesthetic anyone can point at, because the difference between spaceplanes and rockets is so incredibly stark. You certainly implied it. You don't like the "realistic" look of the PJ parts shown above. The mk3 parts are "realistic" in the sense that they copy a real craft, Then every part needs to look sleek, and modern, no exceptions. They should probably ditch the fixed landing gear with the spats, they look "old fashioned" and we don't have prop planes. The mk3 is a copy of shuttle. If it followed the rest of the spaceplane aesthetic, it would merely look like a bigger part sent for the mk1-2 series. That it doesn't underlines the lack of a kerbal aesthetic. Having the same color texture doesn't make the aesthetic the same. This is my point in a nutshell.

You didn't say it, but it's implicit. The spaceplane parts ARE nice looking, and the rocket parts are objectively ugly. Unless you are advocating for the spaceplane parts to be dragged down tot he level of the rocket parts, there is no kerbal aesthetic to point at as I see it, the 2 are not even close right now (planes vs rockets). They have to start someplace. Since the PJ plane parts, the rocket people have been living with exactly the same issue as if all the rocket parts got PBR, then the plane parts waited a year to get redone to that standard. The rockets would look utterly different and more real/3d, and the planes would look toonish. Just like the planes look sleek now, and the rockets look awful. I think the new engines fit just fine, but I understand that they might not match the plane parts. I'll admit bias, because all the rocket parts could be with new shaders, and the plane parts could never get them, and I'd never notice, as I don't ever use plane parts, ever. I had to snap a few together last night just to remember what they looked like in game (literally the first time I did that since they were first added). Above I pointed out something... that the parts realistically would show an evolution, where spaceplane parts are at an endpoint (currently, until /ifwe get end of tree rocket capsules, etc). Right now, there is literally no connection I see between the 2. The story of rocket parts as a timeline as described by the tech tree is: 1. Sort of 1960s looking manned spaceflight for largest 1.25 liquid parts and the engines, albeit with godawful looking, never should have been modeled as more than a flat ring, decouplers, and the awful small tanks that need to go away. (except any 1.25m part related to spaceplanes, which look nice, because spaceplanes). 2. Apparently after coming up with a largish 1.25m tank that doesn't look awful, kerbals decided to make every single 2.5m tank aside from the jumbo from a rubbish pile. Even the jumbo makes no sense, as there is no cap for it to build the otherwise sort of complete shuttle replica they added. Yuck to that entire part of the timeline, including every engine. 3. They then decided that the largest parts would go back to being OK looking, aside from the stripes not lining up. For spaceplane parts the timeline is: 1. Awesome, space-aged stuff right out of the box. 2. Even more awesome stuff, that perfectly matches the earlier parts such that both sizes ate 100% mix and match. 3. A space shuttle "reality mod" part set, but the smaller parts were designed for mix and match with this as well). There is no evolution, they are all sic-fi. The mk3 parts are copies. Same number of windows, same hatch shape, etc, ad nauseum. If they were meant to be "kerbal" the mk3 would have been made to follow the mk1 and mk2 cockpit lines to the point of being able to use those parts as the nose (as there is a mk2 part that the 1 fits in front of. The difference between the "early" space plane parts and the mk3 is that the mk3 is LESS advanced looking.

They look like they have shaders that the current game doesn't have. The rest of the parts will pop with those as well, and read very differently than they do now. How is it that a rocket engine that looks like and actual rocket engine looks too much like a realism mod, yet the mk3 parts are basically a Space Shuttle copy, and that's OK?

I'm with Nibb31 on this, I've been following the discussions on NSF (including L2) since the accident, and the recent tweets have few ways to be read other than bafflement at the cause. They might well have ruled out broad areas of concern (perhaps even stage 2 itself) due to telemetry, but if it's a GSE issue of entirely unknown origin, that's fairly crippling for any return to flight in the near future. Honestly, my reaction to the "popping" audio was to assume it was someone near the camera interacting with a truck or car. Thinking it might be more shows a lack of real data, IMO. You'd think they'd want to give the impression they have a handle on it, not tweet stuff that makes it look like they have nothing (then again, maybe Shotwell is now thinking her boss needs a handler ).

So "kerbal" WRT aircraft parts means "looks nice," and "kerbal" WRT rocket parts means "ugly?" When/if the whole game gets the new shaders, all the parts will look different, so take the PBR off the table for now. The parts shown look fine to me. The engines in particular are fine, though I think the tank bodies and the boat tail are on the "modern" side for early parts (I'd honestly like to see a choice of textures for parts such that late in the tech tree, you can make your rocket parts every bit as mod looking as the spaceplanes). I, for one, think that the stock rocket parts are profoundly ugly to the extent I no longer use them. For me, the "double take" moment would be to look at a rocket next to a spaceplane, they have no aesthetic similarities whatsoever.

Burma Shave

a place to park.

Spaceplanes have the same style because they should really all appear at the same, late time in the tech tree as they are in effect fantasy parts. Overall, I think there should be more parts, starting with fixing the rockets, then filling in places in the tech tree such that there is an evolution, and ideally even choices/trade-offs in parts. Spaceplane parts will not be redone to look ugly, so that means that rocket parts need to be redone to NOT be ugly... but the parts can implicitly acknowledge a timeline in the kerbal universe and an evolution in a design sense. We know one endpoint is the sleek, spaceplane parts, just as we have seen SF looking NASA concept art that looks nothing like corrugated Mercury and Gemini capsules. One, I think that Squad should really add texture swapping (like SSTU, as an example). Tank parts can have maybe 4 textures. Black and white stripes (early, visual roll detection), bare metal, all white, and orange. Capsules could have white added for the mk1, perhaps. Lander parts need to be seriously worked on, particularly the truly awful mk2 LC (some 45 degree RCS would be nice). Engines can vary a lot, honestly, but the guide should be real engines. For "late" part additions, that;s where perhaps you add in some more high concept parts. "Pure" spacecraft tanks, for example (spheres or something). Station and hab parts that can go from very simple (a better looking version of hitchhiker), to more spaceplane like in appearance. Perhaps a very sleek 3.75m crew part that takes cues from the porkjet spaceplane stuff.