Squadcast Summary (2015-04-11) - Arrangement Of S.H.I.E.L.Ds Edition!

[metl]

I'm a little aggravated about the barn issue. I want the barn and think it was pretty cool, but honestly the biggest issue is without it, there is a severe lack of real progression in career. There really needs another tier of buildings and something about pushing it post-1.0 just seems wrong. At this point I don't even care if it is the barn any more, just something!

Hopefully the tech tree changes mentioned in the dev notes are going to be well thought out. I feel like I unlock almost every part of the tree now before I ever even attempt to go interplanetary just because I really don't want to send only one Kerbal (even more so now with the XP addition.)

The memory leaks should have been handled by now, but at least they are finally fixing it.

I think the current fairing model is ugly. Maybe it's just max's terrible design for one, but it looks awful. Oh well. At least they have fairings.

I'm glad to see heat and hopefully heat will have an impact. I'm fine with not having extra "heat shield" parts. That means there is no "just put a bigger heat shield on" way to avoid heat. You will have to re-enter properly. DRE is nice, but ultimately easily bypassed by just using another layer or larger heat shield (which is what I found myself doing so often that I finally just stopped using DRE.)

I really wish they would release some videos of the new changes or something. I really want to see the aero stuff.

I'm anxiously waiting for 1.0, for I am beginning to really be concerned at the speed at which they are pushing all of this out.

[Bill Phil]

BTW, you are mistaken when you say that real fairings aren't pointed : Atlas 5 mostly uses pointed fairings like this.

Nah. That's a conical fairing, not a pointed one.

[Chaos_Klaus]

Anyhow, I'm surprised at how butthurt people are about this pointiness, which is a minor visual thing, vs. the fact that the fairing may forget it's setting if you so much as sneeze on it...

I think what maxmaps meant is that he deleted the base ring and attached a new one ... of course that would not remember the shape ... it's two different fairings essentially.

I guess the fairings could be as pointy or round as you like. Didn't anyone notice how the first fairing has a way blunter nose than the secon one? You propably can make it as round as you wish.

Ok, the stripes arn't that pretty. But that's basicly it. The rest is totally customizable.

[Superfluous J]

The big question is, are those gold stripes on a white fairing or black stripes on a blue fairing?

[tater]

Facility art (the barn) for something that will literally be part of a given career for way under 1% of the game time deserves commensurate attention, which is to say nearly none. VAB and pad are the first things you upgrade.

[Renegrade]

I think what maxmaps meant is that he deleted the base ring and attached a new one ... of course that would not remember the shape ... it's two different fairings essentially.

That's what I'm hoping (and that would make sense and be perfectly acceptable). But it's also possible that removing it from the ship is enough for it to forget, which would Suck Eggsâ„¢. I'll have to review the video to hear his exact terminology...

I guess the fairings could be as pointy or round as you like. Didn't anyone notice how the first fairing has a way blunter nose than the secon one? You propably can make it as round as you wish.

Yep. The way Maxmaps described the process (kinda 'click-click-click' like the old polygon drawing tool in mspaint), it's basically whatever shape you like, more or less. (well, except that it will always be round when viewed from the top)

You can even see in the second fairing that Maxmaps built, the nose is pointier, so I'm guessing you have control over even that last point, which should let you make it pointy or non-pointy.

The big question is, are those gold stripes on a white fairing or black stripes on a blue fairing?

gold stripes on a blue fairing of course! /canon_wb

[Bill Phil]

Facility art (the barn) for something that will literally be part of a given career for way under 1% of the game time deserves commensurate attention, which is to say nearly none. VAB and pad are the first things you upgrade.

But it's the first thing you see in career, which is advertised as the main mode of the game. If it isn't done, or looks bad, then critics might slam it.

Squad, please, don't leave this stuff out.

[basic.syntax]

I agree Tier 0 is quickly upgraded out of, but... not having the "Tier 0" means another round of career mode complaints about the expense of upgrades. We kind of need Tier 0, even if its quickly done with, not completely polished, and creates a threadstorm about unprofessional, misaligned textures floating over something somewhere... just for the math benefit of spreading costs and parts limitations over 4 levels instead of 3. Gameplay vs. polish argument

[Bill Phil]

I agree Tier 0 is quickly upgraded out of, but... not having the "Tier 0" means another round of career mode complaints about the expense of upgrades. We kind of need Tier 0, even if its quickly done with, not completely polished, and creates a threadstorm about unprofessional, misaligned textures floating over something somewhere... just for the math benefit of spreading costs and parts limitations over 4 levels instead of 3. Gameplay vs. polish argument

Maybe up the abilities of Tier 1?

[Sandworm]

Forget the barn. Forget the entire KSC. When I play a car racing game I really do not care how well the garage is rendered. KSP is about build things to get away from the KSP as fast as physically possible. It could be 2d and it wouldn't change my experience one iota. But the youtubers, they care because they want to get their videos out asap. Anything requiring minutes or hours of play is too much work. For them the KSC is a necessary set piece. (Except Manley, he seems to honestly enjoy playing the game.)

Edited April 12, 2015 by Sandworm

[dryer_lint]

Forget the barn. Forget the entire KSC. When I play a car racing game I really do not care how well the garage is rendered. KSP is about build things to get away from the KSP as fast as physically possible.

It's a valid point, but you have to admit, the shiny KSC we have now is a lot better than the cartoon one from the first versions (no offense, Harv, you're a great game designer but art wasn't your thing ) You can argue that you'll ignore the KSC... but new players won't. They'll see the sloppy cartoonish barn and think that they just wasted thirty bucks. Okay, probably not, but it'll still be disappointing.

[tater]

But it's the first thing you see in career, which is advertised as the main mode of the game. If it isn't done, or looks bad, then critics might slam it.

Squad, please, don't leave this stuff out.

The VAB upgrades… but the vast majority of the time you spend with it is inside, and I have never noticed the inside changing, even a little. Not that I care. I don't care about the barn even a little. You want the first thing to be crappy and rustic? Make it outside. Done.

[LABHOUSE]

Forget the barn. Forget the entire KSC. When I play a car racing game I really do not care how well the garage is rendered. KSP is about build things to get away from the KSP as fast as physically possible. It could be 2d and it wouldn't change my experience one iota. But the youtubers, they care because they want to get their videos out asap. Anything requiring minutes or hours of play is too much work. For them the KSC is a necessary set piece. (Except Manley, he seems to honestly enjoy playing the game.)

Most of my time is spent designing rockets, not flying them.

- - - Updated - - -

Perhaps I am being too harsh. Been a rough week.. I just dont like the yellow band. Its a bit too cartoony.

Then use two fairings, have each fairing cover up the other one's band.

[Alshain]

Then use two fairings, have each fairing cover up the other one's band.

Or just get a mod that adds more types of fairings. I don't particularly like the look of the rocket fuel tanks, but parts are easily moddable, so I don't expect the stock to please everyone.

EDIT: I mean fairings that work with the new stock system, not DRE or KW Rocketry. I'm sure they will be created. If it doesn't end up being a part, then Texture Replacer will likely make it happen.

[WWEdeadman]

About the barn: Seriously, I much rather wait for it to be done and in than not have it in 1.0

Other than that, cool way of doing fairings. Excited to try them.

[tater]

Is there any chance the inside of the barn will not look like the VAB? If the inside isn't obviously a barn they might as well not do it at all. If it's just the outside, the quality doesn't matter at all.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Asteroids have finite, well-defined masses. That naturally puts an upper limit on how much ore can be extracted from one. Even if a big E class was entirely ore, 3,000 tons isn't that much, you could use that much fuel in a handful of sensibly sized Kerbin launches.

I hope they will get smaller as they are drained.

[Windspren]

I think the way that they should do the resource system is make the resource hotspots have a fixed amount; so you have a hotspot on the Mun with a value of 1, and another with a value of 2. Then you mine out "2" and it drops down to "1" but THEN over a period of time (A few weeks maybe) it slowly replenishes back to 2, but no further. So it would encourage finding bigger hotspots to decrease waiting time and increase efficiency, but wouldn't deplete like Kethane.

[basic.syntax]

Is there any chance the inside of the barn will not look like the VAB? If the inside isn't obviously a barn they might as well not do it at all. If it's just the outside, the quality doesn't matter at all.

Agreed. But I wouldn't worry, they thought of interiors for tier 1 and 2 VAB, they are different from the fully upgraded version. Different and less shelving racks on the sides. No trucks running around. Darker color scheme.

[tater]

I don't worry about the VAB/barn at all, there is little I could imagine caring less about. I only see Kerbin in the rear view mirror, as it were, I don't care much about KSC at all.

[basic.syntax]

...but, you posted twice about it

I, too, enjoy my time 'away' from KSC, and thus my tolerance for minor graphical problems, as long as intended game mechanics work.

[JedTech]

I hope that the advanced aerodynamics don't become a stumbling block to kids wanting to learn about orbital mechanics. I know I didn't buy this game because I wanted an aerodynamics simulator.

[Bill Phil]

I hope that the advanced aerodynamics don't become a stumbling block to kids wanting to learn about orbital mechanics. I know I didn't buy this game to be an aerodynamics simulator.

It's more intuitive if it's realistic.

[JedTech]

It's more intuitive if it's realistic.

Then: Pod + Fuel Tank + Engine = Go to Space today

Now: Ooops, I turned too early and everything blew up.

[Wjolcz]

I hope the new aero wont be as rocket-flippy as NEAR and FAR are. I want to keep it realistic but I suck at building rockets in realistic aero. They are also the reason i stick to sending stuff in spaceplanes more.