Devnote Tuesday: It’s All In The Details

[Commander Zoom]

Yes, please make the wobble cam toggleable. I can't stand shaky cams.

Good lord, people, read the thread first.

[GreenWolf]

Good lord, people, read the thread first.

But that would require a minimal amount of effort.

[JimmyAgent007]

Just check Harvesters profile, it shows all his recent posts.

[bdito]

Good lord, people, read the thread first.

Sorry but I'm not going through 150 posts to find the one line that applies.

EDIT: Harvester could always edit the Devnote to clarify it as well. Then people that read it now, next week or a month from now wouldn't need to sift through page after page of comments to know what's going on.

EDIT 2: It looks like Harvester edited the Devnote. Thanks! You guys are great!

Edited April 1, 2015 by bdito

[Shania_L]

And lastly, this is something that I’m still working on today, I’m adding a camera wobble system, to allow cameras to shake and vibrate in response to external forces. Currently I already have implemented effects when pulling high Gs, when rolling over the ground, and when intense aerodynamic effects are acting on the vessel. there are still a few other causes which I hope to implement, but even now this system already promises to be a significant enhancement to how flying feels.

I have already seen a few posts asking for this to be toggleable, and I want to add my voice to theirs.

Camera shake on IVA, ok yes it has a place there, but not on external view. It is already hard enough to hit the correct parts with a mouse pointer as it is without the view bouncing around just as much as the rocket is.

[HafCoJoe]

Hey devs you forgot to mention that your moving KSP over to JAVA. You should update the page.

[Lord Aurelius]

Also, Kerbonauts now cost Funds to hire. The cost of hiring more crews increases for each additional crew member in your active roster, that is, hiring your 30th Kerbal is much more expensive than hiring your 5th one. This cost increases based on your current active crew count. That means, for instance, that going through 100 Kerbals would be far less expensive than having a roster with a hundred active ones.

Not sure I like the idea of exponentially increasing costs for hiring kerbals. It doesn't make any sense from a realism standpoint and I'm not sure how it would improve gameplay unless you're trying to actively discourage large space stations and interplanetary bases with lots of kerbals. As it is, unless things change dramatically for 1.0, there is no need for more than the starting 3 kerbals to do everything, and actually there is so much science available relative to what you can spend it on that you don't need to do manned missions at all to buy everything. I can also think of a few situations that break that system, like one way manned missions where you intentionally kill the kerbals at the end to save the cost of bringing them back and to keep your hiring costs low. It seems to me that if you're going to increase hiring costs, it should only be in response to killing kerbals (i.e. not as many kerbals want to work for you, insurance payouts, etc) or if you can hire more experienced kerbals instead of all of them starting at level 1.

Max (Maxmaps): Tuesday already? Crud. Been way too busy with the business side of Squad HQ to plan the April 1st thing tomorrow. There might not even be one and that makes me sad in the heart. Besides that, helping out Dan with the 1.0 animation stuff, and making sure all the content from our awesome collaborators gets in the game in an orderly fashion. It’s kinda amazing seeing the devs working in ‘beta’ mode, where they’re just adding small things and doing polish instead of crafting behemoth systems. Kinda like modding their own game, really. Mind you, you have to look past the actual behemoth systems that still had to be made for 1.0, aero is big. Really, really big. You think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to the aero overhaul.

All the devnotes since 1.0 was announced have had comments about being ridiculously busy with the business side of things. While I understand that there is a lot of work to be done in releasing a game, I've gotten the impression that the business side has been dictating the development schedule since the abrupt transition from 0.25 to 0.90 (i.e. the beta in name only), maybe the devs were overconfident and/or pressured into a release schedule? Of course aero is a huge system, it's not something you schedule for the end of development. For a 1.0 release, 'beta' mode is the ONLY mode the devs should be working in, all the major systems should be in place and more or less working when you enter beta, much less jump to 1.0. Aero still needs to be in 1.0, no question about that, but the development schedule seems to be a bit rushed from my perspective. As I (and others) have said many times, take the time to do this right and release at least one proper beta update with the new systems in place, not just so we can playtest the game but also so that modders can attempt to break things in their own way.

Still, I'm glad to have feedback from the developers and I'm glad to see that the game appears to be progressing well even if I don't agree with the current development schedule. Looking forward to 1.0, it will be a big step forward for the game and I'm excited to see what the modders will be able to do with it.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Lord Aurelius

[Damien_The_Unbeliever]

Sorry but I'm not going through 150 posts to find the one line that applies.

So, instead you'll assume that you're the *first person* to make an observation out of 150 others?

Here's my approach to a large thread: a) read it all, *then* comment, or assume others are going to have picked up obvious issues. What approach are you taking?

[Red Iron Crown]

It may please you to learn that the fact that the camera shake is toggleable has been added to the OP to hopefully reduce any further confusion or repetitive questions.

[GreenWolf]

It may please you to learn that the fact that the camera shake is toggleable has been added to the OP to hopefully reduce any further confusion or repetitive questions.

Will the camera shake in the OP have a toggle?

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I notice that squad isn't a moderator! Give squad moderator things!

[Mister Dilsby]

In my head-cannon, all reasonably Sci-Fi vessels, KSP included, have built in Hi-Fi systems that *emulate* the sounds of nearby ships/explosions. It's the high tech version of a collision warning, letting you know that there is a ship or whatever nearby. It takes advantage of our "free" 3D awareness system - our ears.

There's precedent IRL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/americas-best-selling-cars-and-trucks-are-built-on-lies-the-rise-of-fake-engine-noise/2015/01/21/6db09a10-a0ba-11e4-b146-577832eafcb4_story.html

[Whirligig Girl]

Not just a toggle. There is a scaling tweak in the game settings screen. Set it to 0 for no wobble at all, or if you're brave (and very tolerant to motion sickness) set it to >1.

In any case, this isn't a gratuitous shaky-cam effect. The camera isn't going to be constantly wobbling about just for show. The movement is always based on something, like pulling Gs, or atmospheric flight at very high speeds.

Cheers

Does it work in the ship view as well?

[BudgetHedgehog]

Will the camera shake in the OP have a toggle?

Will the OP have a camera toggle if I shake it?

[Robotengineer]

What's up with the moderator thing? April fools. HAHA... Anyways, good notes.

[KarmaLarma]

Honestly, guys, I'm of the opinion that you should take as much time as you need perfecting 1.0. I don't care if we have to wait a year, all these new features + a software optimization will be worth it.

[Superfluous J]

Sorry but I'm not going through 150 posts to find the one line that applies.

If 100 of those 150 posters would have read the other 50 and not just tossed off a post asking for HarvesteR to make it toggleable, this would be a 50 post thread and it wouldn't have been that hard to read through.

[basic.syntax]

It would also be easier to read through this thread, if it wasn't derailed by April 1... which, by the way, if my math is right, officially makes the 1.0 update the longest in development, in the almost two years recorded on the wiki. The last 2-3 devnotes have been about smaller scale pieces of work, needing to cut a small feature, and bug fixing. But, not a word yet about stopping, and handing it off to the Experimental testers for the final 'code complete' game balance testing phase. So, I would say that compared to previous update intervals, this one isn't being rushed.

[theend3r]

Stock KerbQuake is great. Collision FX should be next.

Felipe (HarvesteR): ...Kerbonauts now cost Funds to hire. The cost of hiring more crews increases for each additional crew member in your active roster...

Seems like a good idea but the career still doesn't feel right because players don't feel the passage of time. Adding some time dependent effects like costs, science over time, kerbal age and retirement, component age or eventually even life support would improve the game significantly and prevent 15 year timewarps to your destination while you go get something to eat.

Felipe (HarvesteR): Jim (Romfarer): This week I’ve focused on bug fixing, the sort of bugs that have come from merging all the branches together. Between that I’ve worked on getting the resource panel in the Knowledge Base up to standards.

Since you're already working with the knowledge base, it'd be great if you could implement some sort of history log of your program or better yet a museum with craft miniatures displayed. Final Frontier sort of already does this, adding badges to kerbals for specific merits, but adding a knowledge base tab or even a specific scene (or even building!) would be far better. This doesn't seem plausible atm but the next update should definitely focus on this.

Overall the update sounds very promising, keep up the good work

[impwarhamer]

Ahh yeh trackir support! Only question, will we still have the ridiculous amount of 3d movement that was available in the mod? It was really cool being able to move around the cockpits to see out the tiny windows.

[Kami_K220]

Looking forward to the Camera Shake. I hope it will shake also approaching the critical angle of attack simulating the buffet on control surfaces. Will be a good way to simulate that the aircraft is about to stall and guide the player to decrease the angle of attack to maintain control of that craft.

[nohelmet]

This all sounds great, I'm looking forward to it!

The bit about expanding support for TrackIR... that means there is some support in the current version? Should I go and buy one?

[Dunbaratu]

I often wondered why "hiring" a kerbal never meant anything in the game, but now I see it's because they were planning on making it cost something but hadn't gotten around to it yet.

One question: Shouldn't Reputation score matter a lot for the wages you have to pay astronauts?

High Rep = Kerbals excited and happy to become astronauts, jumping at the chance.

Low Rep = Kerbals want more hazard pay to get on one of your rockets, given your past results.

And of course, killing kerbals would lower rep.

Or, better yet, the more you kill your Kerbals, the higher and higher the "stupidity" rating is on your pool of potential new recruits. The smart ones aren't volunteering.

That would be awesome if... "stupidity" did anything. Does it? Does it affect, say, experience and skills?

[JimmyAgent007]

@Steven Mading 'stupidity' afaik doesnt do anything but alter facial expressions when things happen on your ship. for now anyways. I love your ideas though.

[John FX]

I'd like stupidity to be a multiplier for the existing skills (or a divider, whichever makes more sense) so that a kerbal with low stupidity would pilot a craft with less error and jitter, a scientist would get more science from experiments and an engineer... um... what is it that engineers do anyway, is it just fix wheels and repack chutes?