Squadcast Summary (2015-02-21) - All The Pictures Edition!

[BudgetHedgehog]

Sorry about the delay in getting this summary up guys, I'm not feeling 100% - went to bed at 10pm last night and had an awful nights sleep. Still, better late than never!

Sorry for spelling mistakes, I'm a terrible transcriber. I try and clarify what is an actual quote from Max (if it's wrapped in "quotation marks", it's the best transcript of an official Squad member you'll find on the web), and what is a summary from myself as I'm aware I switch between the two with 0 notice. When I say 'Squad', I mean 'the relevant people who are currently developing the game'.

As always, this is just a transcript of an off the cuff vlog of a non-native english speaker - some details may change or be entirely incorrect.

Squadcast Summary for 2015-02-21 - Watch it here!

What a week, what a week... "personal apology from Max to you guys - trying to edit last weeks episode resulted in it crashing onto itself and disappeared" but thankfully, there's these summaries which kept the information alive (OWK: you're welcome, Max!).

Been a busy week, got a lot of things done by everyone, Squad can show Valentina when Squadcast ends (and they did, see this thread for the official discussion).

Fun fact - the Squadcast was late because Max had to reinstall his video drivers and if he hadn't done that, he'd be streaming the QA version of 1.0 because he's having a blast with the new aero. It's quite interesting, a lot of re-learning is needed and it's quite sad to realise that things that used to work don't any more. The typical ascent still kinda works, but you have to really watch your speed, or you'll flip because of the high pressure. Aerodynamic stress is pretty fun, been interesting to see bits of rockets and planes just shear off.. Landing speeds weren't found to be too high during testing which is nice.

A whole bunch of new tutorials will be coming, such as an improved one for launching to orbit to go with the improved aero.

As mentioned last week, if you play carelessly in career, it's likely you will fail, you'll get a Game Over screen.

As for 1.0:

This is very close to the final form. From right to left, a clamshell scanner, Mk1-2 pod, resource container and ISRU convertor (not drills). There's a little omni scanner on the bottom as well.

Also, meet the new set of landing gear. Presumably, they'll be balanced through the tech tree. Far left is current landing gear replacement, second one is kinda larger, better for Mk2 planes, the right one is for heaviest planes, like Mk3. Bottom left are two tiny fixed gears. Huge thanks to PorkJet for these. Not even done yet - him and frizzank working on IVAs, "we can show you those later)

All the kerbals have to be equally disposable and they were originally meant to be asexual. But Squad did make a mistake and the kerbals ended up pretty masculine. So, in the interest of fairness, meet Valentina Kerman. Be kind to her, she's new to the space program:

She'll be a Pilot and possibly one of the starter set, haven't decided yet.

See you next week!

[r4pt0r]

making the kerbals masculine is not a mistake. They look like steriotypical 60's US men and women astronauts, and thats fine, fits the game well.

[BudgetHedgehog]

making the kerbals masculine is not a mistake.

True, the mistake was the deviation from original idea to final execution. They were intended to be asexual and ended up more masculine.

[Norpo]

inb4 people complaining the new atmo system is too hard

This all sounds great! Thanks for doing these.

[Renegrade]

Thanks for the summary, OWK

I wish we could have seen the current "1.0" though. Maybe next week?

(Hearing about "parts shearing off" makes me nervous though - aerodynamic failures was a controversial thing in FAR. And rather irritating until the wing strength tweakable came along.)

Edited February 21, 2015 by Renegrade

[FishInferno]

What will the new resources be called? Will it be called Karbonite or something else?

[Stormweaver]

Thanks as always for this, I keep meaning to catch the cast and...always forget.

[RAINCRAFTER]

What will the new resources be called? Will it be called Karbonite or something else?

Yes, they intend for it to be a different resource system by the same dude who made Karbonite. Also, intend means maybe, so if they run short on time they might just clone Karbonite.

[GusTurbo]

Sorry about the delay in getting this summary up guys, I'm not feeling 100% - went to bed at 10pm last night and had an awful nights sleep. Still, better late than never!

Sorry for spelling mistakes, I'm a terrible transcriber. I try and clarify what is an actual quote from Max (if it's wrapped in "quotation marks", it's the best transcript of an official Squad member you'll find on the web), and what is a summary from myself as I'm aware I switch between the two with 0 notice. When I say 'Squad', I mean 'the relevant people who are currently developing the game'.

As always, this is just a transcript of an off the cuff vlog of a non-native english speaker - some details may change or be entirely incorrect.

Squadcast Summary for 2015-02-21 - Watch it here!

What a week, what a week... "personal apology from Max to you guys - trying to edit last weeks episode resulted in it crashing onto itself and disappeared" but thankfully, there's these summaries which kept the information alive (OWK: you're welcome, Max!).

Been a busy week, got a lot of things done by everyone, Squad can show Valentina when Squadcast ends (and they did, see this thread for the official discussion).

Fun fact - the Squadcast was late because Max had to reinstall his video drivers and if he hadn't done that, he'd be streaming the QA version of 1.0 because he's having a blast with the new aero. It's quite interesting, a lot of re-learning is needed and it's quite sad to realise that things that used to work don't any more. The typical ascent still kinda works, but you have to really watch your speed, or you'll flip because of the high pressure. Aerodynamic stress is pretty fun, been interesting to see bits of rockets and planes just shear off.. Landing speeds weren't found to be too high during testing which is nice.

A whole bunch of new tutorials will be coming, such as an improved one for launching to orbit to go with the improved aero.

As mentioned last week, if you play carelessly in career, it's likely you will fail, you'll get a Game Over screen.

As for 1.0:

http://i.imgur.com/neKPtkQ.png

This is very close to the final form. From right to left, a clamshell scanner, Mk1-2 pod, resource container and ISRU convertor (not drills). There's a little omni scanner on the bottom as well.

http://i.imgur.com/OdKmZ9i.jpg

Also, meet the new set of landing gear. Presumably, they'll be balanced through the tech tree. Far left is current landing gear replacement, second one is kinda larger, better for Mk2 planes, the right one is for heaviest planes, like Mk3. Bottom left are two tiny fixed gears. Huge thanks to PorkJet for these. Not even done yet - him and frizzank working on IVAs, "we can show you those later)

All the kerbals have to be equally disposable and they were originally meant to be asexual. But Squad did make a mistake and the kerbals ended up pretty masculine. So, in the interest of fairness, meet Valentina Kerman. Be kind to her, she's new to the space program:

http://i.imgur.com/sL6pvAj.png

She'll be a Pilot and possibly one of the starter set, haven't decided yet.

See you next week!

So excited for this. Aerodynamic failures will mean learning to overcome new challenges, which is a big plus. It's also more realistic and more "Kerbal" at the same time.

[Frozen_Heart]

The new aerodynamic failure looks fun.

Going to build a huge ISS replica and watch it fall apart on re-entry!

[Canopus]

True, the mistake was the deviation from original idea to final execution. They were intended to be asexual and ended up more masculine.

I highly doubt anyone actually thought about Kerbal procreation and genders when they were created. They were just funny stand-ins for your stereotypcal Astronaut. Cartoony creatures without backstory other than their interest in Spacetravel. Until this non-issue about missing female representation in KSP came along. I'm not mad that they put them in but i still think the reason is silly. If this was a game about humans then i would understand it perfectly but its about green dwarves with Buzz cuts.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Can we not reduce this thread to another slap fight about females kerbals being added to the game? Cheers.

[Majorjim!]

So excited for this. Aerodynamic failures will mean learning to overcome new challenges, which is a big plus. It's also more realistic and more "Kerbal" at the same time.

"Bits of rockets falling off" sounds strange though.. I really hope it's not overdone.. Because that would be limiting and not 'fun'.

Sorry to be all doom and gloom but I have a bad feeling about this.

[klgraham1013]

That's a lot of "Karbonite" on Eve. I hope there's a slider in the difficulty menu for those of us who want to work for our free resources.

- - - Updated - - -

"Bits of rockets falling off" sounds strange though.. I really hope it's not overdone.. Because that would be limiting and not 'fun'.

Sorry to be all doom and gloom but I have a bad feeling about this.

We've all seen Max's designs. Is anyone surprised his rockets are falling apart in realistic atmo?

[Canopus]

That's a lot of "Karbonite" on Eve. I hope there's a slider in the difficulty menu for those of us who want to work for our free resources.

Isn't landing and taking off from Eve already hard enough?

[InterCity]

meet Valentina Kerman

I wonder... Will I have to dispose of give her an assignment because she'll keep crawling in my craft just like Jeb?

[Renegrade]

So excited for this. Aerodynamic failures will mean learning to overcome new challenges, which is a big plus. It's also more realistic and more "Kerbal" at the same time.

Well, there's realistic and then there's realistic. Aero failures the way FAR did it is actually fake: real life aero failures come from when the aerodynamic forces overload the natural structural integrity of parts and joints. KSP already has structural integrity - very extreme integrity (although almost no stiffness). In theory, one can tear apart a craft using FAR with aero failures off, which would represent the natural failure of these parts. However, since the stock integrity is so insane, it's almost impossible to do so (I don't think I've ever managed it, but others say they have). Instead, Ferram wedged in a bit of code to cause things to fail in a manner that's more in-line with real life craft - but that's now violating the natural structural integrity of the stock engine.

Or, to put it differently and shorter-ly, it sacrificed internal consistency to model real life, which is not always the best course of action. KSP rockets are held together by a very elastic version of the strong nuclear force, except when exposed to air...?

Also a significant percentage of the community objected rather violently to aero failures, which is part of the reason why NEAR exists (even though there's a configuration option in FAR to disable it).

(Of course maybe I'm being pessimistic, and that the truth of the matter is they've fixed the structural integrity issue so it is both consistent and realistic, and the aero failures are simply a natural consequence of that)

[Majorjim!]

That's a lot of "Karbonite" on Eve. I hope there's a slider in the difficulty menu for those of us who want to work for our free resources.

- - - Updated - - -

We've all seen Max's designs. Is anyone surprised his rockets are falling apart in realistic atmo?

Yes, those that haven't are.

- - - Updated - - -

(Hearing about "parts shearing off" makes me nervous though - aerodynamic failures was a controversial thing in FAR. And rather irritating until the wing strength tweakable came along.)

THIS.

[CalculusWarrior]

THIS.

I feel like the aerodynamic failures may be less difficult than many of us think; I play NEAR and I've only had my planes disintegrate a couple of times, and only when I'm doing something stupid with them (i.e. pulling out of a 20 km long dive quickly).

Of course, doing stupid things is sort of the backbone of KSP, so perhaps the failures will be tweaked in the future, or we'll get another slider?

[Majorjim!]

I feel like the aerodynamic failures may be less difficult than many of us think; I play NEAR and I've only had my planes disintegrate a couple of times, and only when I'm doing something stupid with them (i.e. pulling out of a 20 km long dive quickly).

Of course, doing stupid things is sort of the backbone of KSP, so perhaps the failures will be tweaked in the future, or we'll get another slider?

After thousands of hours of KSP very few things are 'difficult' now. I'm worried about unplanned failures that make little sense compared to the real world. From which we all base our understanding of 'how things work'.

[BagelRabbit]

inb4 people complaining the new atmo system is too hard

*moan* I'll miss you, obscene un-aerodynamic flying car thing.

It's really quite fun to abuse physics in this game. Just this once, I wish that the added realism of proper physics wouldn't result in the death of such obviously fine* craft.

*sarcasm

With all due seriousness, I'm quite happy about this update. I think that at the rate things are going, KSP really will be ready for 1.0 by the time it's released, which I was worried about.

[klgraham1013]

That's a lot of "Karbonite" on Eve. I hope there's a slider in the difficulty menu for those of us who want to work for our free resources.

Isn't landing and taking off from Eve already hard enough?

Thus, a slider, so players have the choice.

[Streetwind]

As anyone who has actually played with FAR recently will tell you, aerodynamic failures are a complete non-issue for rockets. No rocket flies maneuvers that put this much stress on the parts - even when they flip out violently because of an easily avoidable piloting mistake. Inline parts are exceptionally strong.

And for planes, which do have to watch out for their integrity a lot more, there's the whole system of being able to strengthen parts by adding a little additional mass to them.

Now obviously, Squad's implementation is pretty much guaranteed to be different from ferram4's. But the point is: there is no reason you cannot implement aerodynamic failures in a manner that's both reasonable and controllable by the player. And Squad has in the past always leaned towards erring on the side of the arcadey when they implemented new laws of physics, just to be safe and sure. I expect nothing less this time around - it'll be a system that'll catch a few reckless newcomers unawares, but that won't ask much at all from a seasoned veteran.

[Damien_The_Unbeliever]

Every time that people ask for a slider/setting, I'd hope that people would realise that that's saying "please, Squad, multiply all of your testing efforts by (however many positions this new settings could take)" - for all that people argue for realism, reality, in terms of how much effort squad can expend in delivering this game, must at least be taken into account.

I would instead argue that we (as we have to) wait and see what 1.0 actually is, and then if we're unhappy with it then we can a) appeal for fixes in 1.1 and continue to seek mods that change the game in ways that we find more appealing.

We can continue to feedback on the forums, of course, but the suggestion of "add a slider" or "add a checkbox" isn't as trivial for software developers to deal with as many people here seem to think it is.

[Melfice]

I would instead argue that we (as we have to) wait and see what 1.0 actually is [...]

THIS. Many times this.

So many arguments happen due to:

- "Squad is implementing this, so obviously this is going to happen!"

+ "Oh, cool! So you've had a go with the update? You're a QA tester?"

- "Well, no... but... y'know... IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN."

And then pandemonium.

Chill, everybody.

I would assume that, if a feature is poorly implemented or nonsensical, the testers would step in. Whether or not Squad chooses to listen is another thing, but the fact that an update had been postponed in the past seems to indicate Squad is willing to listen.

So, let's all be cool like Fonzie.