Sandworm

I just checked steamdb and it looks like something has pushed them back to scratchpad. I think it safe to assume that "monday" will mean something other than 1am monday morning. I'd place my bets on the other end of that spectrum.

Oh joy, more sliders. As I said in another thread: abundance of "choice" eventually becomes stifling. A good game has good rules balanced against good, not limitless, choice.

I think it is hidden in the debug menu.

I get the sense that if the news announced the approach of a 300mm wave that most Americans would head for the hills. In all seriousness, within the US the distinction is a class issue. Those with science training are fluent in metric. Not being fluent in metric allows people to avoid meaningful scientific discussions, shielding themselves from realities well understood by scientists. The "difficulties" of the metric system are re-enforced by school curricula that focus on ridiculously underused measurements. Canadians do not order beer by the deciliter. It's a separation akin to the old french/latin/english separations within britain.

I'm not looking for new features. I would like them to actually finish those features they have already added: the sorry state of texture management or the fiddly orbits that sometime won't take a node. Has anyone seen whether terrain scatters are still labeled "wip"? Is there any single feature that Squad is ready to stand behind and say "Yes, that feature is now complete"? Some sort of official api, or at least some better documentation for modders would go a long way. A few months ago I dug through the math of how KSP calculates part costs in relation to resources in those parts. It's total back-to-front spaghetti math.

Switching to standard units would expose too much of the magic that is KSP physics. Start measuring fuel in kilos or liters and people will start wondering why it is too dense. Use accurate temperatures and people will wonder why parts melt so easily. There are lots of little compromises in KSP to facilitate gameplay on such tiny planets. Obfuscation is part of the show.

No no no. That's the "jeb's boots of +2 ISP" debate. KSP may be a wacky funtime game, but there are a couple things that should remain at least loosely tied to realworld physics. ISP and fuel is one. Pilots, at least those not named Merlin, cannot have any impact on ISP.

There is an area where "use it if you like" is insufficient. KSP has a complex career mode touching every aspect of the game. In the late/end game, are the contract rewards balanced against launching resources from Kerbin, or is it expected that by that point players will have developed a minmus mining facility? That sort of distinction cuts across play styles and should not be left by squad to "give it a try and see". But I am still laughing at the concept. Diving into gravity wells with a refinery on your back is only efficient in pint-sized kerbin. Anyone playing beyond beginner mode (stock) on a 3.2/6.4/10/RSS game will not be mining anything from the surface of planets/moons.

Lol, 85 is firecracker/black powder territory. That's a ridiculous nerf for a liquid engine. Replacing a magically-thick atmosphere with magically-inefficient engines isn't much of an improvement. The tuning of engines or, more accurately, their nozzles for atmosphere or vacuum changes their ISP a few percentage points either way. It doesn't make them useless in either.

Drilling for oil is in the game. Dropping a drill into a moon and refining whatever comes up into rocket fuel is exactly what Squad is talking about. Squad should be the one googling around nasa websites. Nowhere is there any mention of tiny drills pulling up the tons of rock necessary to generate the fuel needed to launch a manned craft into orbit from a planet. Perhaps soil for growing food, or building shelters, but bulk propellant isn't on the table. The weight of processing equipment just isn't worth it.

"Wings of the red star" is one of my favorite series. Most of them are on youtube.

Did the rocket+gravity perform the turn, or was it the pilot/sas following the prograde? I'm interested in knowing whether the new aero is capable of stabilizing a rocket in flight without control input. That would be a good first step towards something worth calling aerodynamics.

I will be upgrading to 1.0. Then I'll play for an hour or so, get bored with tiny tiny kerbin, and go play prison architect until RSS and FAR are updated. The full upgrade will take a while.

So is aerodynamic drag still a function of part-specific mass? Do nosecones shield underlying parts or not? What are the new delta-V numbers for kerbin orbit? I haven't seen any practical testing and suspect/fear that little has actually changed. In fact the vids demonstrated that the new system still cannot keep a rocket pointed prograde even in low atmo.

I'm not sure about that. I haven't seen anyone speak of dropping a drill into a planet and pumping out rocket fuel. The moon ain't Texas. The apparatus for collecting enough of whatever raw material would be huge. Think massive diggers and conveyor belts, not tiny drills. There are also fundamental differences between liquid water and H2/O2 rocket fuel. Being made of the same stuff doesn't mean it's easy to make one into the other. Getting from dirty water to pure rocket fuel is like moving from coal to diamond: possible, but by no means easy. And at least the diamond isn't constantly trying to boil off into space.

That's actually very interesting. It would make sense that the 'beta' tag would be removed on the later build used by manley. I wonder if that can tell us anything about Squad's internal practices? The one thing I do see is that none of the pre-release people have ever done a vid using a linux build. Linux version numbers always end in round numbers, a point that can be a real pain when mods test for compatibility.

As I do with each release, here are the version numbers: Winter Owl = 1.0.0.805 Beta x1 (Thanks Xavven) EnterElysium = none spotted. Scott Manley = v1.0.0.821 Most recent spotted in wild. Previously, these version numbers could be tracked against the various experimental builds. If you are into stats, they can be used as part of a german tank problem. But with so few youtubers doing vids this time it's hard to read much into the data. But it is still worth collecting imho.

I'm not happy with that. I think Squad has relied entirely too much on "choice". I know it's counterintuitive, but there is a point at which having tiny sliders for every little detail of the game becomes constraining. I cannot be the only one who has stared at the screen for 15 minutes trying to decide which rewards setting is appropriate, only to give up and go science-only rather then deal with question. Given the time required between starting a new save and starting to mine resources (10+hours?) I would rather Squad offer more ingame tools (ie proper landing instrumentation to facilitate landing on small patches) than saddle users with having to restart over and over until they work out what level of resources matches their play style.

Are there places on planets that don't have magic rocks? From looking at the overlays in the demos it seems you can plop down most anywhere and vacuum up endless fuel. One of the demos mentions that resource density only impacts the rate of collection. But with collection during warp, I see no practical difference. Anything that is infinite and can be found everywhere is the definition of op imho.

Ah, but when something is released as open source (GPLv3) then the creator is no longer an exclusive copyright holder. Each member of the public becomes a copyright holder. The original author cannot put it back in the bottle. It is not possible to "GPL" something to a specific group. A generic public license is a public license. It doesn't, cannot, differentiate between groups. All get the same. The original creator can only assert rights over code that he himself creates over and above what he has already given away. His rights post-GPL are, in short, identical to that of any other person except, as I said, in regards to copyleft. Example: FAR has been released under GPLv3 (2007) as copyleft. Ferram cannot take that back. "All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met." I basically now own FAR, as does everyone else. So long as I abide by the terms, essentially by not touching the license, ferram cannot do anything. He could create new code but has already given me an irrevocable license to FAR build 0.14.7v. He can no longer assert wholesale copyrights over that code. He does retain certain enforcement rights but not to the extent that he can permanently prevent use/modification/distribution. If/when FAR 0.15 comes about, even ferram is bound by the previous GPL (assuming 0.15 is built from 0.14.7v). Sorry to harp on about this but licensing is important with software. Mod creators too readily throw around GPLs without realizing that doing so gives up many rights. Other sow fear by suggesting that f/oss lives under threat of pullback by original authors. With GPLv3 free really does mean free.

"Total new parts 75" ick. That is really going to eat into the windows ram limit. Granted some are probably replacements, but I doubt 1.0 will take textures down in size. Then we have to add in all the totally new resources stuff which I assume will be deployed as a new texture layer atop planets. I don't mean to speculate about features, just that I see a sort of near-perfect storm on the horizon. (1) New release that will surely break the majority of mods. (2) Pile of new parts that will push the ram limits even tighter for windows users. (3) Host of new players, probably without our patience as this is now a finished product. (4) Possible partial withdrawal by some modders if, as this is 1.0, they feel that longstanding api bugs/issues will simply never be addressed. (5) Large number of new features with minimal testing = large risk of game-killing bugs for some segment of the community (a la linux mousewheel). I hope it arrives relatively bug free and that modders do not loose heart. A ray of hope for me are the horrible view numbers for the teaser vids. Less than 100k after four days is probably a record low for a pre-release KSP vid. So perhaps there aren't legions of new/noob customers waiting in the wings. I doubt Squad would be happy, but a softer sales peak is probably best for the community.

The new aero will not negate the need for FAR and/or DRE. This is still Squad and KSP. They want to keep KSP easy enough that kids can master the basics around an hour, one sitting. With FAR you need a little bit of knowledge regarding aerodynamics else your rocket will flip and explode. With DRE you need more than a little planning else the pod burn up on reentry. Put those two together and achieving orbit and return might take a new kid many hours. Such customers need some success, some positive reenforcement, within the first 15 minutes or so. KSP couldn't adopt anything close to FAR/DRE and maintain that easy playability. Those looking for a challenge, those with patience, will always need things like FAR DRE and RSS to keep KSP fun past hour 100.

Future versions if they don't contain any of the open-source code. If you incorporate open source code into your proprietary future version then you need to include documentation and copies of the used code (depending on the exact oss license used). And anyone else can take that same oss code and run with it as a competing product. This sort of license tracking is a royal pita for many organizations today. This is why why if you dig through the menus on any new BMW you will find reference to websites where you can go to download the oss code they used in creating their in-dash systems. A pure copyleft project will go further by forbidding any non-foss use of the code. In such cases you would have to release full code, including anything new, so that others could take the new code and sell a literally identical product. The only wiggle room in such situations would be trademarks, but I don't think any KSP mods are worth enough to warrant serious trademark disputes.

I don't think KSPs mod community could go the paid route. It cannot because it has been too open for too long. Almost all of the great mods have been released under licenses that would disallow their creators from properly monetizing them. Once code has been released open source it cannot be crammed back into a proprietary license. So any number of people could attempt to monetize such a mod. Some other licenses, the "copyleft" branch, specifically forbid monetization. Even if monetization was legally practical, the IP issues would be insane. Nearly every mod here relies in some part on others such as module manager. Releasing a monetized copy of a mod with a bundled copy of a dependency would require permissions. Then imagine if the dependency was subjected to a takedown. Not only would it break all those who use it, but they too would be subject to the takedown. And then there are the Squad-specific trademark issues. Trademarks must be defended. It's not an option. If you don't defend your mark then you can loose your mark. If mods become monetized, any mod using Squad's trademarks would have to be stopped. So basically every mod with the name "Kerbal" would probably be struck down or renamed. Such slash-and-burn events, on an already tired community, might just kill off KSP modding altogether.

I think that's part of the hype machine. Releasing tidbits here and there to select audiences seems to be a thing with squad. So saying that not everyone can access X or Y doesn't register with them as much of a problem. (I too also take issue with Twitch's total lack of security.)