1.0.3, where is it?

[NecroBones]

I'm not in any rush. Every time they push out an update, I have to scramble to fix anything that breaks my mods, and correct for any balance changes they make, etc.

I expect 1.0.3 to be relatively benign in that regard. The Unity 5 update on the other hand has me terrified.

[mikegarrison]

As it is, reentry heat is a joke.

When 1.00 came out, I was eager to play with the heat shields, except they didn't work right (due to the physics=1 bug).

When 1.02 was out, I used heat shields on almost every re-entry for a long time. But eventually I started trying re-entries without them, and came to realize they are just useless weight. Occasionally a battery, solar panel, or ladder blows up during re-entry, but so what?

[Laie]

Any meaningful reentry heating is extreme relative to what we have now: effectively no reentry heating.

Well, I don't think I can bring the message across any better than those that tried before my, but I'll try anyway...

The core problem is Kerbin's small scale. We're coming in really really slow compared to actual spaceflight around earth, it doesn't take much to reduce a returning pod to sane speeds. If you a) want the heat to be a by-product of friction and drag and want dangerous heat even when returning from the Mun, this leads to ridiculously unrealistic drag & friction in pretty much every situation that does not involve returning pods.

The key word in the above sentence isn't "unrealistic", but "ridiculously". As in outright silly and obviously wrong to anyone who has ever seen a leaping cat.

[szpachla]

Work on multiplayer has been going great - so far, a stable server exists,

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/121535-Squadcast-Summary-%282015-05-16%29-Max-Forgets-About-Re-entry-Heating-Edition!

OMG!

This is what i was waiting for all the times.

There was unofficial DMP mod, but it never worked due to laggy nature.

I can't wait to put my hands on 1.0.3

Thank you development team.

[Superfluous J]

This is what i was waiting for all the times.

There was unofficial DMP mod, but it never worked due to laggy nature.

I can't wait to put my hands on 1.0.3

Multiplayer will not be in 1.0.3. It is a totally separate thing they're working on.

[dsonbill]

There was unofficial DMP mod, but it never worked due to laggy nature.

I'll never understand why people feel the need to say stuff like this :/

[DoToH]

Try a steeper reentry at like 7 km/s.

Tried. Without heatshield. No explosions.

- - - Updated - - -

some people forget this is a game, where various aspects of it must be balanced against one another, such as reentry heating versus the small scale of the game universe.

And this (10 char)

[drswagboss]

So is 64bit going to be a thing again(and doesnt this mean no caps on mem and no untracable bugs?)

[Mandelbrot]

I'll never understand why people feel the need to say stuff like this :/

DMP is great. It brings back those heady days of the mid '90s, where playing Mechwarrior 2 over a 2400 baud modem at 4 FPS seemed - well - it was neat that it worked anyway.

[dsonbill]

DMP is great. It brings back those heady days of the mid '90s, where playing Mechwarrior 2 over a 2400 baud modem at 4 FPS seemed - well - it was neat that it worked anyway.

Also, I wish people would understand the difference between lag and bugs. Because, you know, someone who knows what a 2400 baud modem feels like should probably understand at least that much.

EDIT:

Man, just look at that 4 FPS action!

Edited May 28, 2015 by dsonbill

[rkman]

Well, I don't think I can bring the message across any better than those that tried before my, but I'll try anyway...

The core problem is Kerbin's small scale. We're coming in really really slow compared to actual spaceflight around earth, it doesn't take much to reduce a returning pod to sane speeds. If you a) want the heat to be a by-product of friction and drag and want dangerous heat even when returning from the Mun, this leads to ridiculously unrealistic drag & friction in pretty much every situation that does not involve returning pods.

The key word in the above sentence isn't "unrealistic", but "ridiculously". As in outright silly and obviously wrong to anyone who has ever seen a leaping cat.

The argument is that currently reentry heating is not meaningful. You seem to be arguing against about something else, namely that it is impossible if not silly to even try to balance atmo heating in KSP, and/or that it is silly of Squad to have made the KSP universe such a small scale.

Otoh, it is clear that Squad intends there to be meaningful reentry heating (which there currently is not, which is what the argument is about), and people have been tinkering with 1.02 aero/heating and got a reasonable compromise.

[Murph]

The argument is that currently reentry heating is not meaningful. You seem to be arguing against about something else, namely that it is impossible if not silly to even try to balance atmo heating in KSP, and/or that it is silly of Squad to have made the KSP universe such a small scale.

Otoh, it is clear that Squad intends there to be meaningful reentry heating (which there currently is not, which is what the argument is about), and people have been tinkering with 1.02 aero/heating and got a reasonable compromise.

It's not at all clear that Squad intends there to be "meaningful" re-entry heat under all circumstances, only that they intend to represent that the heating exists (which is an entirely different thing to representing the consequences), and provide consequences in extreme circumstances. Can you cite a single reference which says that Squad's intention is to have highly realistic consequences of re-entry heat under all circumstances?

The scale of the star system is a necessary and useful compromise in a number of ways. Squad got that bit right, for the "more fun, a little less serious" approach of the game. Re-entry heat is meaningfully represented; but the no-fun, bad for gameplay, bad for KSP's overall success consequences are greatly softened.

The scale compromise results in other necessary compromises. The game is far better having more forgiving re-entry heat, than pushing hard towards realistic consequences, as too much realism there would make it completely impossible to re-enter in anything other than a very narrow range of craft designs. This is an area where maintaining the possibility of fun for the majority completely negates the justification for providing realism for the minority.

Is the current tuning and balance perfect? Probably not. Will it improve? Almost certainly. Should it be pushed hard towards realistic consequenves? No, absolutely not. Is it actually much closer to being "ok" than the critics here are willing to admit (mostly due to being too narrow minded, failing to see the big picture, etc)? Absolutely, yes.

I'll say it again, the worst critics of the current heat implementation need to tune/configure their game to give the result they would prefer, and/or mod it if Squad's provided controls are insufficient for them. You are in the minority here, you are arguing for changes which would likely be overall significantly harmful to KSP.

- - - Updated - - -

Any meaningful reentry heating is extreme relative to what we have now: effectively no reentry heating.

It is to bad that ascent heating of spaceplanes is holding back the gameplay experience with rockets - especially considering that KSP started out as a rocket game and the addition of planes is an afterthought.

The mach 3.0 plane at 20,000m is just an example that most should understand. High altitude, very fast aviation is very much a good thing to include in the game. Just look at NASA, they have a long and broad history in more extreme aspects of terrestrial aviation as well as space. Tweak the game too far in the way that you are advocating (and my sense is that you want it tweaked much too far in that direction), and rockets will likely have unreasonable (possibly even unrealistic) heat problems on ascent as well.

Space planes are here to stay and a popular feature of the game. Get over it.

[Sandworm]

The scale of the star system is a necessary and useful compromise in a number of ways. Squad got that bit right, for the "more fun, a little less serious" approach of the game. Re-entry heat is meaningfully represented; but the no-fun, bad for gameplay, bad for KSP's overall success consequences are greatly softened.

The scale compromise results in other necessary compromises. The game is far better having more forgiving re-entry heat, than pushing hard towards realistic consequences, as too much realism there would make it completely impossible to re-enter in anything other than a very narrow range of craft designs. This is an area where maintaining the possibility of fun for the majority completely negates the justification for providing realism for the minority.

The scale is not based on fun or game, at least not now. It is an artifact of very early days, days before time warp, and is now bounded by technical issues. Making Kerbin bigger would solve or at least facilitate solutions to all number of physics issues, from aero to ISP and reentry. But KSP faces texture limits. There is only so much that you can do when a planet is coloured by a single massive texture. Look to any number of the RSS/Kopernicus threads to see what I mean. KSP is already on the low end in terms of texture quality, and on the VERY low end in terms of terrain. They cannot push down much further without drawing the ire of reviewers. Given KSPs "load everything 24/7" approach, going with more detailed planet textures would mean a larger ram footprint... not an option.

So, no. Squad hasn't sat down and decided that a planet of exactly this size would create the most fun. They have stuck with a very early decision made in a very different stage of development and have either refused or been unable to revisit the issue.

Edited May 28, 2015 by Sandworm

[Albert VDS]

There should be a couple of changes on how reentry works.

- Reentry effects should be in sync with actual heating, no need for flames when there's no damage or ablation happening.

- When launching a rocket; heating shouldn't be such a problem, as the craft is creating less air compression as it goes higher. Heating is caused by air compression instead of friction.

- Engines shouldn't be able to act like a heat shield. Sure the rocket engine nozzle can stand high heats, but there is a lot of other stuff on there which can't.

I think these 3 things will make rocket and space plane launches more feasible at higher speeds, which in turn allows for higher reentry heating.

Higher heating and no rocket engine heat shielding means actual use for the heat shields.

[kurja]

The scale is not based on fun or game

I believe you are mistaken, for an example the time (actual play time) it takes to ascend to orbit very much depends on the scale which is important for fun & game.

[Albert VDS]

I believe you are mistaken, for an example the time (actual play time) it takes to ascend to orbit very much depends on the scale which is important for fun & game.

Exactly, you don't want to wait 8 minutes just to get to orbit every time.

[Mipe]

And some people forget this is a game, where various aspects of it must be balanced against one another, such as reentry heating versus the small scale of the game universe.

I don't get it. If people would get fried in the atmosphere too easily, they would call the game unbalanced, etc.

If you want realism, why don't you try the Realism Overhaul mod?

[Murph]

The scale is not based on fun or game, at least not now. It is an artifact of very early days, days before time warp, and is now bounded by technical issues. Making Kerbin bigger would solve or at least facilitate solutions to all number of physics issues, from aero to ISP and reentry. But KSP faces texture limits. There is only so much that you can do when a planet is coloured by a single massive texture. Look to any number of the RSS/Kopernicus threads to see what I mean. KSP is already on the low end in terms of texture quality, and on the VERY low end in terms of terrain. They cannot push down much further without drawing the ire of reviewers. Given KSPs "load everything 24/7" approach, going with more detailed planet textures would mean a larger ram footprint... not an option.

So, no. Squad hasn't sat down and decided that a planet of exactly this size would create the most fun. They have stuck with a very early decision made in a very different stage of development and have either refused or been unable to revisit the issue.

As others have already said, you're completely wrong about that, and the reasons you think were behind it. There are a great many things in the game which would be far worse with real scale: ascent to orbit, descent from orbit (just the time needed, nothing to do with heat), rovers, terrestrial flight to places elsewhere on Kerbin, etc; pretty much every single thing involving distance and real time control. It has absolutely nothing to do with texture size or quality, you could do real scale without any difference in texture size (but low-isn quality), or just a modest increase in texture size for ok-ish quality. The mods which are giving problems with texture memory have chosen to go with heavy texture load, but they didn't really have to in terms of gameplay, only an arbitrary decision by the author to make it look as pretty and detailed as possible. Scale and detail are two completely separate things.

Squad could very easily have done real scale while still having all textures loaded all of the time, and without severe memory bloat. It's not like there is much surface detail to see anyway, to justify high res textures for planets. I strongly believe that they chose not to do real scale because it would be extremely crap for gameplay for the average person just wanting to have some fun. The current scale provides a game which can deliver satisfaction from as little as 5–10 minutes of play, or feel like you achieved quite a lot in an hour of play. It lets you complete a flying mission on the other side of Kerbin in less than an hour. Launches take long enough to be interesting, can be hand flown without much issue, but not so long that you're dreading the time they take. It's absolutely standard in game simulators which are on the (more fun, less serious) end of the spectrum to make exactly that type of choice, as you get a better game out of it, with a far wider audience.

It's all a bunch of compromises necessary to produce a "light" and fun game. It has never been supposed to be an ultra-realistic simulator, just something which doesn't deviate too horribly from real physics in general, and adheres to normal orbital mechanics. KSP does not need ultra-real re-entry heat, it would be a vastly worse product with that. All we need is acknowledgement that re-entry heat exists combined with limited consequences from it as long as providing those consequences doesn't cause serious problems for average players. Today's heat system is perfectly acceptable as a whole, maybe it could use some minor tuning, but that's all; it should absolutely not try to get even close to real re-entry heat problems.

[carlorizzante]

And here I expected them to abandon KSP and concentrate on mobile games.

I hope not! Despite a sort of lack of content (luckily compensated by a countless amount of mods), KSP is one my very favorite games.

Unfortunately I can not even play it at the moment: it crashes as soon as I click somewhere in game. So I'm very frustrated and I gave up.

Looking forward to a more stable release. So I'll be back putting stuffs into orbits

[rkman]

Can you cite a single reference which says that Squad's intention is to have highly realistic consequences of re-entry heat under all circumstances?

No, but as you know i never said that Squad wants that nor that i want that. So much for that red herring.

It's not at all clear that Squad intends there to be "meaningful" re-entry heat under all circumstances, only that they intend to represent that the heating exists (which is an entirely different thing to representing the consequences), and provide consequences in extreme circumstances.

Sure that makes sense, Squad going through all that trouble to create reentry heat that is consequential only in the most extreme of circumstances than can be created only by trying very hard. Do you really think that is how it will be, can you cite any reference for that, or are are you just being contrarian?

We'll see soon enough how much of a factor reentry heat will actually be.

I don't get it. If people would get fried in the atmosphere too easily, they would call the game unbalanced, etc.

Heat shields? The point of reentry heat is not to get fried but for the player to put a bit more thought into mission design. And those who don't like that can tone down the heating.

If you want realism, why don't you try the Realism Overhaul mod?

If Squad does not want us to have realism, why do they put reentry heating and unforgiving aerodynamics in the game?

Edited May 28, 2015 by rkman

[Wanderfound]

unforgiving aerodynamics in the game?

Stock aero is about as unforgiving as a puppy. Almost anything with wings will fly, 15G+ maneuvers can be casually accomplished in ships that aren't remotely built for it, and you can land by power-diving at the runway then pulling up hard 20m off the deck.

[Warzouz]

Well, the truth is you start with the new aero with the smaller rockets. Smaller rocket are less forgiving than bigger ones. Until you understand what to do, it's harder, and when you understand it, it's time to switch to bigger rockets which I found much easier to fly.

PS : I don't think I'm very clear on what I wanted to say

[kurja]

Sure that makes sense, Squad going through all that trouble to create reentry heat that is consequential only in the most extreme of circumstances than can be created only by trying very hard. Do you really think that is how it will be, can you cite any reference for that, or are are you just being contrarian?

We'll see soon enough how much of a factor reentry heat will actually be.

I notice that many parts can and do explode on a re-entry, even a reasonably shallow one, if they are not somehow protected.

The other day built a space plane, took it to orbit and tried to land at ksc - I was going to overshoot so I pitched up hard to lose as much speed as quickly as possible and the Mk1 crew cabin exploded.

So yeah, re-entries aren't as deadly on Kerbin as here on earth but the effects exist. Balancing isn't ever going to please everyone, it is what it is and the tweaking/modding option is there for those who want it. I don't really see how this is an issue.

[Warzouz]

Y I burnt to hell a whole MK3 somewhat reentry vehicle (was not a plane). It was on route back from a bit farther than Minmus. I did 3 pass to reduce the speed from 3000 to 2500. The ship had a heatshield, airbrakes. It burnt around 15000.

A also burnt to hell a rockamax adapter. I simply removed it. It went very nice, then...

[Instresu]

It's only Thursday today. Calm down, it's comin'.