Deadweasel

Very true on almost all fronts, point well-taken. On that last one, though, I have to disagree: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/135293-Unity-Bullet-Physics-Plugin-Demo But, again, good points on it probably making more sense to just upgrade PhysX instead of changing the physics model entirely, and why Unity isn't moving ahead quite as quickly as we KSP players would like it to.

PROGRESS UPDATE: So I wrote what I thought I wanted to be Chapter 2. As is part of my writing process, I sat back, read through the whole thing (for the umpteenth time), and considered how it presented itself to me by comparison to the one that came before it. I realized two things about this latest effort. The first thing was that I noticed I had somehow reverted back to a style of writing that was much more in-depth and focused on character-building than I had actually intended for this project, and I'm not so sure that it's the kind of thing that fans of the game would like to actually read. Essentially I feel it just gets a little too heavy and serious. There's a lot of character interaction to establish their relationships and such, and some tense action scenes as well, but as a whole I feel like the the chapter is a little bit TOO intricate, and doesn't really achieve the tone and ideas I had set out to convey in a rational span of time. It actually feels a lot like Mass Effect, which has a TON of dialogue and character building, but it starts feeling like a crazy amount of unnecessary detail after a time. It's a habit that stems from having spent quite a few years working on a series of three fairly big stories. Basically, I set out to write a cool story series, and somehow switched gears to lay the groundwork for an entire novel instead. O_o The second thing was that this chapter got loooooong, like many pages long. Related to first point above. What I ended up producing tickles my writer's sense, but I think it's a bit too "Stephen King" in that it strives to paint out all the details for the reader instead of letting them build up their own. So I'm going to go back, strip out some of the unnecessary relationship stuff and re-focus on building the story's world much more than the characters. So hang tight, I'm switching to Editor Mode and trimming out the slow-paced stuff so I can keep this thing feeling epic and light.

And yet Eve in this game is one harsh, unforgiving mistress. She's also rather clingy. Just try getting away from her once you've gone to her place.

Also for some people who can't get a girlf- Okay no, that's just too wrong. I was never here! /runs away holding coat over head

There's also Bullet which (imo) does a much better job since as was stated elsewhere, PhysX was designed to make explosions and destructive components look more realistic when coming apart. Thanks, but I'm not sure I want to deal with an engine that is designed to make destruction look fantastic. That's for experiences like one of the (inevitably-many) incarnations of Battlefield or Call of Duty. Give me a real physics engine that is designed to simulate interaction of components while they stay TOGETHER instead. That's what Bullet does. Unfortunately, there's an aspect that all these calls for "real" physics support that nobody's addressing. Let's say the devs are listening to one person intently and are standing ready to implement the very next thing he/she says, and let's say he/she says "PhysX NAO!" It will be months, possibly a year before anybody sees another update in the game. Development on just about everything else will have to halt while the core is re-written and debugged to accommodate the new stuff. Now I'm not claiming some mystical insider knowledge of the game or even that I'm a programming expert, but I'm generally aware of how Squad has been building on this game, and just from the outside, I can see that's probable they'd have to go back and change quite a bit of the heart of the game to get it to work so radically different. How much outcry will be out there when the entitlement crowd starts getting itchy for its updates? I think the real issue should be leveled at Unity itself, not Squad, for why Unity is so relatively limited in this day and age. Squad are paying for the licensed pro version of Unity (which they'd have to if they're making a game that they're selling to the public, based on Unity. Look up the licensing requirements), so they're kind of limited by what Unity as an engine can do. Why aren't Unity including native PhysX/Bullet support instead of letting them lurk outside in the back alley as plug-ins (which would solve the CPU-only limitation for KSP all by itself btw)? Why isn't Unity running proper multi-thread support yet? These are questions that should be directed to the owners of the engine Squad are using, because at this point, some of the requests we're making of Squad are a bit like asking them to build a house and handing them a mechanic's tool set. Off to the side, I'm not going to touch the 64-bit argument because the only reason it's a topic of discussion at all is due to the use of mods driving KSP's memory load beyond the 32 bit addressing space (around 3.5GB). By itself, in plain old vanilla form, KSP is quite well-behaved and light on the RAM, compared to other big games I've played. Those mods, though, they all have to load into memory alongside the game too. Squad are generous to accommodate the modding community as well as they have, but there's no reason to bash them for not pushing for 64-bit, when the only reason such a thing is needed is because some people don't know when to stop with the third party add-ons.

Just make sure you aren't going for a PCChips or Elitegroup board, and I can almost guarantee you'll be glued to the new system for the whole weekend with all the newfound smoothness it brings to the game. ...at least until you get to the point where you're building 700+ part ships and the cycle begins all over again. LOL

There is? Are you thinking of Dune, or its "proper" name Arrakis?

Allow me to help add some perspective here. Look at this: This is what a frame ripper pulled from the game. What you're seeing is a segment of Kerbin rendered out. Okay, in the lower right hand frame, you see that area with the black blotches? That's the general area of the KSC. In this "model", there are 379 components. This rip was taken from a clean save with a kerbal (and nothing more) standing on the runway. A kerbal is composed of around 30 or so components. One kerbal. Now go ahead and slap your ship out there. Your 100+ part ship with individual pieces that require physics calculations for each and every one. Now while it's sitting out there, come back and look at this, and realize just how much is being rendered out in realtime by this game. Oh, by the way, each of those colored squares represent about 2 layers of meshes. The low mesh is the real planet surface, the upper one contains the topography (mountains, hills etc) that resides on it. Just some things I've recently discovered that go a long way toward explaining for me why KSP is the way it is sometimes.

Dell Latitude is NOT a gaming machine, and certainly isn't up to the task of crunching the tasks that KSP sets up for the CPU. I would be surprised if the fan wasn't going nuts and the temps through the roof.

Can't... breathe... someone used... ALL the air!

I have no idea what he's on about, but somebody get him a towel... or something...

It would be nice if there were docking ports that were dedicated for construction purposes and required a specific alignment/orientation in order to connect. Imagine if the docking port sr. was self-aligning. You could have some freaking fun with that thing! Then again, thinking on it, I wonder how hard it might be to convert a few of those B9 components to look as they do, but work as docking ports! O_o Hmmmm...

"I went on the internet, and I found... this! *audience gasps in awe* Beautiful piece of work right there.

Not up to much, just tearing up the Kerbin countryside in my badass ATVs, made with love from kraken bones and hippie tears!! You? (a work in progress)

LOL thanks, but I deal with those things and much much more every day already. I'm a technical specialist at a major printing and shipping company in the US.

Duuuude! Go ahead and be proud, that is EPIC!! ...oh, and the Saturn pic is nice too. Unrelated: what's with the comb punch and gapper machine pics on your gallery? Edit: nevermind, apparently you're a fellow ink-head too!

Now at your local Weezl Motors, it's the Kea Kerb Burner Spyder Edition personal transport! Cheap as chips, ugly as sin, and absolutely unbreakable as a rock, the all-new 2014 Kerb Burner Spyder turns those unnerving obstacles into just another bump to jump! Kea pulled out all the stops and included luxury extras on all models, such as: Full-time hi-beam road lights: STOCK! Full-time blinding rear hi-beam tailgater lights: STOCK! (No really, that's the rear end. Stop laughing.) Driver entry convenience package: STOCK! Convenient interior lights: STOCK! Premium KM Satellite Radio with free 1 year subscription: STOCK! Act now, and Weezl Motors will include at NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE a licensed HoonGear ground effects lighting upgrade kit! GUARANTEED to be annoying as hell or we'll take it back, NO QUESTIONS ASKED! The all-new Kea Kerb Burner Spyder! It only sort of looks like a mating jumping spider. Find it at your local authorized Weezl Motors dealership today! Actual demonstration vehicle not stock. Additional purchases may be required Rollkage 1.1 rover building system B9 Aerospace parts pack Aviation lights Tax, title and destination charges extra, some restrictions may apply depending on locality. See dealer for details. DOWNLOAD "I got mine! ....anybody wanna help with the pedals?"

Also an effective solution if you happen to have too many lawyers sitting around doing nothing... >_> "Kill all the lawyers!" "Nah, send 'em to Beirut."

I have a Flickr account too. It's even worse. :/ I may just be running afoul of some Photoshop retardation though, given that my images are physically smaller than KSP's own screencaps, but the files PS outputs tend to be a good deal larger in file size. Since Imgur compresses to 1MB for free accounts (and Flickr apparently compresses always), I have to do some digging into why PS is spitting out these much larger png files.

The only surviving scout ship from the Far Horizon prepares to land, as the Horizon explodes. Stupid Imgur... compressing the bejesus out of my work...

"Are you feeling well? Would you like something to eat?" Ahh good ole GERDI... If only ASAS were at that level of helpfulness.

Absolutely. ...until it decides to swing back the other way again. That's how an ASAS do.

I did some more writing on the second chapter of Kerbal Khronicles, and spent some time working on images for it. And now that I've got a reliable working ship to use for the scout, I'm going to go back and work on back-filling a few images for the first chapter as well.

Actually, if anybody wants to play with this (extremely short-range) little devil, here's the .craft file*. I built this strictly for the look. It only needed to fly long enough for me to get it in the air and capture an angle with the blue sky behind it so it would be easier to crop out. Thank heavens there are no clouds (yet)!! It actually flies pretty well, right up until the fuel tank starts running low. >_> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2004695/KerbalSpaceProgram/Horizon%20Scout.craft *B9 Aerospace and Procedural Dynamics wings required

Working on some images for the next chapter of Kerbal Khronicles. Be nice, I fought tooth and nail with this bugger to get anything even remotely close to what I was aiming for.