Squadcast Summary (2015-05-16) - Max Forgets About Re-entry Heating Edition!

[BudgetHedgehog]

Hello everybody, and here's the summary for Squadcast 2015-05-16. 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 2015-05-16 - Watch it here!

Updates/1.0.3 plans

"Thank you, everyone" - the 1.0 launch kinda blew everyone's mind, the reception from critics and the KSP community has been awesome - Squad'll make sure they provide you with way more fun stuff to play with. Updates planned for quite a while, lots of cool stuff to add and free updates to give out. Work on multiplayer has been going great - so far, a stable server exists, it's all working ok. With regards to more planets, the game is kinda stressed in that regard so don't hold your breath.

Unity 5

Nice progress on updating to Unity 5 - probably going to have to flat out re-do the UI from the ground up though, which is good as it means they can be more efficient (the current UI is a relic of the very first versions when they didn't really know what they were doing). Hopefully, U5 will fix the current stability issues with OSX and Macs as Squad tracked down the problem to something within Unity itself. Windows 64bit - maybe? No promises, but they'll do their absolute best to make it the best it can be.

Miscellaneous

1.0.2 aero feedback - quite a lot of it, not all of it consistent - someone has to be wrong here. Squad are figuring out the best solution to make everyone happy, still working on aero, balance and bugfixing, on top of U5. Video and pictures of the dev teams skydiving adventures do exist, they'll be posted later. Also, Devnotes Tuesdays will return, don't worry.

That was Squadcast Summary, I'm OWK and you're welcome

Edited May 16, 2015 by ObsessedWithKSP

[Seshins]

Thanks OWK! I look forward to these posts almost as much as dev note tuesdays.

[Superfluous J]

Thanks for the summary. I was otherwise engaged (at Duna if you must know ) and couldn't watch.

[SorryDave]

Thanks OWK!

[AlexL]

...will fix the current stability issues with iOS...

Wait, have I missed something huge, or is that a typo?

[BudgetHedgehog]

Wait, have I missed something huge, or is that a typo?

I don't think so - a fair amount of Mac users have reported KSP being unstable since 0.90, hopefully these issues will be fixed with the U5 upgrade.

[Zucal]

The stability issues are with OSX, not with iOS. Might want to fix that before people get excited

[BudgetHedgehog]

The stability issues are with OSX, not with iOS. Might want to fix that before people get excited

Cheers for the correction

[Alshain]

Nope, OWK said it, now I want KSP on my iPhone.

[basic.syntax]

Thanks once again

Based on what I heard in last week's special SQ, I thought there might be a bit more about 1.0.3 plans.

But Mu and other travelers probably lost most of the week to travel and jet lag

[Robotengineer]

Glad to here the UI's will be getting redone, hopefully they will redesign them at the same time. Also looking forward to better OS X support, may be able to play on my OS X partition without feeling like a second (or third) class citizen.

[Jodo42]

"Thank you, everyone" - the 1.0 launch kinda blew everyone's mind, the reception from critics and the KSP community has been awesome - Squad'll make sure they provide you with way more fun stuff to play with. Updates planned for quite a while, lots of cool stuff to add and free updates to give out. Work on multiplayer has been going great - so far, a stable server exists, it's all working ok. With regards to more planets, the game is kinda stressed in that regard so don't hold your breath.

Rather disappointing to hear, but somewhat understandable. At least we have OPM.

[Francois424]

I thought unity 5 **WAS** stable Windows 64 bits...

What's up with that ?

[Eric S]

I thought unity 5 **WAS** stable Windows 64 bits...

What's up with that ?

Not sure if you're saying that Windows 64 was the point of Unity 5 or if you're saying that Unity 5 has a rock solid Win 64 code base. It's more stable, but no guarantees that everything Squad will need for 64 bit Win KSP will be bug-free. The big Win 64 announcement about Unity 5 by the Unity Devs was that the development stuff was able to run in 64 bit mode on windows. Yes, they worked out more bugs, but I don't know how much effort they put into debugging 64 bit Win code beyond that needed to run the editor.

[Francois424]

For me 64 bits in windows is all I care about. I hope it's a thing.

[Eric S]

For me 64 bits in windows is all I care about. I hope it's a thing.

From what I understand, Unity 5 is better at 64 bit Win than Unity 4 was, the devs of Cities: Skylines switched from U4 to U5 during beta because Win 64 wasn't stable enough to allow for a stable release. Then again, the parts of Unity that C:S and KSP use aren't that much in common.

Between improved performance single-theaded, the potential for multi-threaded physics when you've got more than one craft in the physics bubble, and the improved odds of working Win 64, I'm really looking forward to the U5 KSP port. There are other things U5 could bring, but those are the big ones to me, and in order of priority.

[Temeter]

From what I understand, Unity 5 is better at 64 bit Win than Unity 4 was, the devs of Cities: Skylines switched from U4 to U5 during beta because Win 64 wasn't stable enough to allow for a stable release. Then again, the parts of Unity that C:S and KSP use aren't that much in common.

U4 64bit is probably just broken.

[Linear]

Thanks OWK.

[Olterin]

Thanks OWK, I always miss the Squadcast at the usual time due to timezones - it's great to have a written summary every time! (Consider this applying every week for maximum post efficiency )

[r4pt0r]

With regards to more planets, the game is kinda stressed in that regard so don't hold your breath

Oh. Is that so?

[basic.syntax]

In regards to more planets, they consistently drop the hint "not anytime soon:" Reddit AmA

[Majorjim!]

No word on fairings? Or the massive instability?

[Linear]

In regards to more planets, they consistently drop the hint "not anytime soon:" Reddit AmA

Would definitely not be surprised to see a new mechanic for planets (similar to existing mods or not) in the future.

[Sky_walker]

Squad are figuring out the best solution to make everyone happy,

Yea... that's not going to happen. No matter what they'll do.

Would definitely not be surprised to see a new mechanic for planets (similar to existing mods or not) in the future.

And for me - that's all I want. I really couldn't care less if the new planets would be on the same level of (no) detail as the current planets are. I want planets to become interesting and something worth exploring, not just one-off visit, perhaps few more if you are into visiting easter eggs.

[Seshins]

ive been pining for something extra for the planets, something interactive. Like caves or sperlunking, or lava tubes.