Nachtwind

(You may skip to the last paragraph if this is too much to read ) So... i have been part of this community for the better part of three years. Even though i am not the most talkative on the boards i still have my share on reading and making myself an opinion. I joined KSP back when Version .11 was released and therefore i have seen a lot of stuff change over time. I was there when Kerbalkind first made a manned docking on stock parts, i was there when the first rovers landed on Duna and i was there when the transition from Alpha to Beta was made.. and now as we all know we will soon the the transition from Early Access to Full release, from Beta to 1.0. This whole matter has raised a lot of doubt on the forum and i see a lot of reaction being rather negative on the whole matter.. and i would like to bring the heated discussion to a point that is again reasonable. When i first heard of KSP the game was „just“ starting a rocket and flying arround for a bit.. nothing even remotely close to career, no science, no docking and a nice K.I.A. picture when the flight went really wrong (I really miss that one!). Back then there were a lot of promises. New Planets, Spaceplanes of all sizes up to the point of SpaceShuttle-crafts, career mode, science, resources, linux compatibility and much more. So here we are now, three years later and what did we get? Basically everything on the list was promised years ago. But this is a bit plain.. let me put it differently. Back in the days KSP, when Early Access was not a scheme to scam people but a nice way to back projects that just made promises, there was a whole different game. In the occasional news the community was informed of what would happen next and there always was the bigger scope of things into which a lot of small parts did fit into. There have been updates adding a lot of parts and others like .18 that introduced a whole lot of new gameplay content beyond parts. But pretty much all the updates got considerably more complex every time. Every new feature introduced was by itself a big task and always demanded changes to the game as a whole. Think of the following features that were introduced and increased the scope of the game: - Spaceplanes „Just“ some parts.. - Rovers „Just“ some parts and Kerbal-usable-modules (right click ingame on a part.. e.g. repack parachutes, repair wheels etc) - Docking Just a few parts but a whole bunch of changes like a reassigning root-part in game, combining crafts into one, changing savegames etc.. - Career Mode More than enough to sum it up here right now,) So as you can see new Features grew more complex and so did the game. Of course when a program grows more complex it opens up the possibility of exploits and bugs – and we all have experienced these. But I hope we can agree on the fact that most of the bugs are not to be considered critical. Be honest – how often have you managed to crash KSP with no mods installed? The game definitely IS stable. A lot of the bugs that still exist are either not critical or squad cant be blamed for it as Unity by itself is a buggy framework at some things. Sure.. the incompatibility of the Windows x64 binary IS a concearn.. but this is a problem coming from the framework, not from squad, equally to the vile Linux problem when the game misbehaves on Non-english distros.. I dont want to say that mods introduce bugs and make the game less enjoyable, no, but i want you to look at the stock game right here right now. The game now looks pretty much like the game promised several years ago.. yes. There are things still missing like interactive IVAs, more Planets and clouds.. but really? I dont think they are neccessary to have to call KSP „complete“. The whole „complete“ matter is also misleading. A lot of people consider a software as „done“ when it is 1.0 or released. This is not true at all. How many games or programs do you know that are released and are bug free and no longer maintained? Well, how many programs of that kind do you know that are worth talking about? Pretty much every software i know was updated after its initial release a few times.. and some programs i knew were way more buggy than KSP is. A lot of programs are only good after they hit 1.5 – so a release with bugs in it is nothing special at all. But ok, i think that KSP is not compatible to traditional version numbers.. KSP is a game which has changed over time and i trust SQUAD when they say that KSP will keep changing so a ever increasing version number would have been the better solution... Just call Version 27 to be out of EA and continue to work on 28... Also i expect we will see a lot of discussions coming up when 1.9 hits and we approach 2.0.. but well, thats another story... ;0) So in a traditional sense ksp will be a game ready for release. Also, i can live with that since i know that from now on Squad doesnt have any excuses anymore to put a lot of effort into bughunt und debugging or increasing the performance without having to give a thought about introducing another big feature.. So for me the transition to 1.0 means that now finally bugs can be tackled and later performance can be increased.. But what about missing features? Well.. truth to be told: I hope that new features or parts will be scarcely seen until the performance is fixed. On windows KSP is already now on the boundary of what 32bit executables can handle and when now furthermore parts, ivas and whatnot are introduced it might just be too much to handle.. so first things first I'd say.. One last thing i'd like to ask you is to keep trusting squad. I've read that people wanted refunds and such.. but really? What havent you got after buying KSP. I must have played more than 1000hrs of KSP (Steam has recorded 422 hours.. yet normally i play from cmdline) Thats about an hour per day.. for three years.. I cant think of any other game except maybe Ultima Online i have enjoyed that much.. and looking at the last few AAA titles i played i dont see any numbers that are even close to that so... in the end i have paid like $20 and got a lot of fun out of it. So.. who of you can truly say that investing the equivalent of two pizzas and getting hundreds of hours fun out of it is a bad balance? So far squad never lied to us. They made.. bad decisions on what to announce for certain updates but in the end we got everything that was ever officially announced and the game is basically what was announced in the beginning when it was first sold.. Till this day there has not been a single moment that made me mistrusting anything offically said by any squad member and i suppose it is the same for most of you as well... tl;dr So just let 1.0 happen.. discussions about its quality can be done when it IS done. So any speculation about its moddability, quality, buggity is right now only speculation and nothing more. We have seen past updates being postponed for quality reasons. We have seen updates and hotfixes being released pretty fast.. but we have always got pretty good results and nothing makes me think we wont get a nice and clean 1.0 release. And keep in mind: We dont have any date yet on when 1.0 is about to ship.. there will be surely enough time for the Experimental and QA Team to do their job ;0) It is nice to build up hype before a release, but i dont think it is now the time for some „loud“ members of the forum to raise speculation and hype on the negative assumptions they do on things that have not yet been tested or seen by anyone but the devs. My 2ct – in too many words ;0)

(quote taken as example of a lot of stuff i read here.. it is a nice summary and not meant to be personal)Sorry for bein rude now - but that is just the danger of buying a product before it is done. It is not Squads fault if a player made wrong assumptions. Stay away from Early access or Kickstarter and similar pages if you cant life with the danger of wasting $15.

There was an update.. 22 or 21, not sure right now that was mostly bugfixing and people have created one ....storm after another for the "wasted" release.. they might just not demand 1.0 but they would demand adding another feature X which introduces new bugy x1 to x999.. That way Squad finally has a fixed point in development. So the next few updates may just be there to fix the game, increase performance and after that add other features..

I resented from answering to such a thread.. but after reading a few dozen comments on the topic i need to say something as well. I came to KSP when it was in Version .11, so I have had my fair share of experience with the game and its development. At some point - i think it was Version .20 or .21 i created a infographic to show how the game developed and how much people didnt see how it did develop. unfortunately i lost track and at some point the interest in updating that graphic.. but well, such things happen. Point is that going now to 1.0 has its Pros and Cons. 1.0 is still some psychological Version number for a lot of people as it normally means "complete" - everything that comes afterwards is maybe a nice addition by the manufacturer but one has to consider something in 1.0 as done. I dont like this Versioning scheme for the simple reason that it is incompatible to projects like KSP. Squad was just adding version numbers and might as well just said KSP27 is "Scope complete" and exits Early Access. But by renaming it to 1.0 they just created a situation since this version number leads to confusion. There will still be updates. There will still be additional content. There will be, as far as i know there has been nothing said against it, a move to Unity5 and of course this all will be for free since that is something that was promised long ago. And if it comes to plannable promises i trust SQUAD. If it comes to promises like "Reentry heat when 1.0 arrives" - well, we all know how development goes. You just cant really plan this kind of stuff. Furthermore 1.0 might be a chance for the Devs to finally put an end to adding feature after feature but getting into the serious and needed business of also spending a whole release to bugsquashing and performance upgrades. Just imagine for a second we were still in the Version 90 scheme and said - ok... version .91 is about Mining and Aero, 0.92 about performance, .93 bugsquash, 94 again performance... people would have gone mad and demanded 1.0. Now with 1.0 in place squad can "relax" and focus on other important tasks that dont neccessarily include adding new parts or features. So.. if 1.1 comes out with no content but a ton of bugfixes it is different - psychologically - than stalling the release of the final version without adding new content... So in this regard KSP is absolutely ready for 1.0 as the main and most important features are in place. One personal note on the whole subject: I'be been playing KSP for several years now and considering the game was in Alpha stage for the most part i got a hell lot of fun from the game... and i would ask everyone who is about to rant about the game rushing to 1.0 to sit back and reconsider for a moment: Is it just a missing feature or an annoying bug that makes you think ksp is not ready? If so just think about how many hours you have spent on KSP enjoying the game so far and how much time you spent on your last bought AAA title in contrast.. i am sure the AAA title will loose in terms of hours played and the joy you had.. Though... long story short. No KSP is not ready for 1.0 as the development of the game is just not compatible to that version scheme, but it damn sure is ready for 1.0 in the sense of completeness and enjoyability. Everything beyond 1.0 will just enhance this even more.

Well, than again V could be Vladislav Volkov .. a cosmonaut who died on Reentry. May that be a hint that we get reentry heat now with the aero overhaul?

Project - Vogon We will be able to destroy planets once we have a few crafts in orbit... to make room for a hyperspace highway to other celestial bodies.

Or rather.. not There are OSX and Linux issues with that part highlighting (If you encounter them: Just turn it off in the Settings). So better first fix it and then use it for more stuff

Oh, that Alien ^^

3 words: Best movie ever But ok.. there are no dockfights with x-wings, no lasercannons and only half a dozen murders..

That does not work. Furthermore lookat() seems to be the wrong way to do it anyway as i dont want to just turn the camera but pivot it around the craft in order to keep the target (craft) in focus.

I have a question about setting the cameras properties.. I have a vector and would like to align the games camera on to it. FlightCamera.fetch.transform.LookAt() doesnt work unfortunately as it only shows while the game is paused... So i think the way to go is to use camPitch and camHdg - but i simply cant see how to get Pitch/Hdg from a vector (between two points), my maths skills just dont cover this stuff i suppose :/ Does anyone have an idea how to do that? The idea is that the camera does not just "turn" to look but rather adjusts itself arround the craft to look at the target. Thanks in advance

It works, but make sure you leave connection points in both directions available (eg dont strap a parachute on your mk1 capsule and try to save it as subassembly)

Basically you only have to update the part.cfg files for parts. Look at squads original parts (i am not on a ksp-running comp, else i would look it up). There are two lines that are defining how much Sci a part costs and which node it belongs to (i think). Just add the lines to, for example MJ, and youre fine. Works then flawlessly.

I didnt know that. But thats interestering.

Yesno.. thats some solution we thought about and while Arran is going that way, especially while creating a very very fine model for the base station we also approach this in two ways. His approach will be to use Kerbtown for a set System while mine will be to have parts available for using in "normal" rockets. That gives us the opportunety to have the simplicity of the Kerbtown method for those who want it and a way to create a space elevator the "oldfashioned" way by placing a geostationary satellite by hand. This also is a nice chance to build such elevates not only on kerbin but also Duna and every celestial body that a geostationary orbit within SOI. The beauty is that those approaches seem compatible enough to follow them both so in the end we hope to achieve a mod that can be used by everyone who wants a space elevator.

We tried that.. well, there was a babykraken to eat us Anyhow.. just to give an idea of my (plugin) approach. Since stretching any object to more than a few km is.. insane i have gone a different direction of "faking" the cable. We pretty much have a station on Ground and one, for simplicity, in a geostationary orbit (hovering more or less directly over the base). Both parts can be "connected" like, for example, done via remotetech. For the faked cable i am going to "draw" a sprite along the vector base/geostationary within the visible range of the currently active craft. But i will be gone for a week so i dont think there is much development on this. One picture i got is this: which is from a very early version. The red line is the normal vector that just sticks UP from the ground, the green one is the vector between the ground and satellite. Cheers

Works on Both G15 models

though i like certain procedural parts, like fairings for example i also dont like including too much of that kind into the vanilla game as it would make createing stuff too easy. There is no challange anymore when you just have one large tank instead of having like 20 smaller ones that you need to balance, fit into a design etc etc... Yet for fairings and stuff this is imho the way to go since they are rather cosmetic parts.. i'd also like to see procedural launch clamps and ladders.. but beyond that? Na.. no real need for that stuff.

Although thats a bit early to discuss but i would think that there wont be a full compatibility with that piece of hardware. As we all know Steam the new input thing will be attached to the steamworks api (like e.g. Workshop and Achievements) and therefore a full compatibility (e.g. using the screen on that gamepad) would include adding the steamworksapi to the game and break its current way of getting released (namely: Steam and Non-Steam). Thats why i think that there wont be full Steampad compatibility. If its possible to map stuff to the buttons on it though - then it should basically be doable.

Minor update: Added some .22 information that was given in the past few weeks.

hm.. so how can something not be solid at 0°K? I thought 0°K is defined by the immovebility (word?) of all nuclear parts? So even if something doesnt reach a solid state it should be solid matter still?

Silicium Important for age dating methods and pretty abundant. BTW: Iridium is not only found on a thin layer arround the world, that thin layer shows an unusual amount of Iridium (and chrome..) (i suppose you mean the KT-boundary. But thats an urban myth that iridium is _only_ found there.) Its a trace element found pretty much everywhere in the crust (with less than 1ppb though).

Thanks for the interestering answers. Ralathon your answer is, though mathematical, nice to understand and westair, yours is nice to imagine! Well, thanks for the insight :0)

Hi, I was thinking about a mind experiment and i wonder where i go wrong because this cant be right at all... So if you launch a craft from Earth the speed for a stable orbit decreases with altitude. So.. the higher you go the less speed you need to stay in said orbit. I hope we can agree on that part So.. my problem is.. if you go higher and higher in altidude - and if you werent affected by any other sources of gravity (for instance you make a solar orbit and increase its altitude) you reach a point where it takes you 1m/s to stay on the orbit.. and what then? If you go up further your relative speed tends to 0... but is that even possible? I mean.. at one point your relative speed will be so close to 0 that pretty much no movement is needed anymore, is it (of course this is ridicolous altitude we are talking here.. but still..)? Is there even a point where relative speed can drop to 0 at all? That question sounds stupid to me, but since velocity tends to 0 it should at some point reach it, or not?

Well.. the way i understand it you would always see just a static image of "a" and later no "a" anymore when you reach a "date" before the start..