Squadcast Summary 6/26/15

[Zucal]

Hey! ObsessedWithKSP is still not able to do the Squadcast Summaries, so I’ll do my best to fill in for him today. Note that the below text has been summarized and in some cases paraphrased, and should not be misconstrued as an official statement from Squad. I try to clarify what’s an actual quote from Kasper (if it's wrapped in "quotation marks", it's their own words), and what’s a summary from myself as I'm aware I switch between the two. When I say 'Squad', I mean 'the people who are currently developing the game'.

KasperVld is hosting Squadcast for the second week in a row, and began streaming early at about 8 AM EST/11 AM PST. Mator (another KSPTV streamer) is on Skype with him.

Squadcast Summary 6/26/15

-When asked why the re-root tool requires two clicks, “I don’t know, I’ll have to look into that.â€Â

-"Am I playing modded in secret- yes, that was the problem, um heheh.. in fact, this install still has Navball Docking Alignment Indicator active. It was actually the problem I can't show you just yet what I- what it was all about. That will have to wait. -Pause- It's pretty cool though, and we will show it to you guys next week. Not on Squadcast, before that actually, you'll know what it's all about. If anyone can guess what important event is coming up next week.. then you are.. probably very close to something."

-Kasper talks about how “Back in my day, we needed to use fins for landing gear.â€Â

-Kasper eventually decides to try docking two probes together using a 3-d mouse.

-A delta-v indicator for the Engineer’s Report is “was talked about†and “is still on the table.â€Â

-“We had two patches this week, we only wanted to have one.. but we had a specific error which affected some crafts in flight with heatshields that made them uncontrollable. We don’t want to break save-game compatibility between versions anymore.â€Â

-Temperature gauge leak has been fixed in 1.0.3.

-Asked about whether whether a key will be added to switch yaw and roll, “I think we already have that.â€Â

-“You can remove KSP’s own cursor with a mod, I’m not sure where to find it.†(This is the mod.)

-Kasper builds and launches an SSTO. He forgets to mirror the elevons, and chat tries to distract him so he flips. They fail. Nothing can escape Kasper’s piercing eye!

-“Max will probably return (to Squadcast) next week. He’s on vacation this week.â€Â

-Asked whether he can tell us an itty-bitty thing about 1.1, “Maxmaps is gone, so he hasn’t been able to (illegible) any news. I can’t tell you anything at the moment.â€Â

-Still at the “very early stages of porting the game to PS4.â€Â

-"This is not the way you do things, this is Squadcast!" (Quote from chat)

-Kasper messes around with his SSTO a bit more before ending the stream, he has “places to be.â€Â

Thanks for reading, and if need be I'll do this again next week for the return of Max. Happy landings!

Edited June 27, 2015 by Zucal
Grammar, formatting, and full quote from Kasper.

[Robotengineer]

Something new that they can't talk about. Brace yourselves... ...to be disappointed.

[wossname]

Something new that they can't talk about. Brace yourselves... ...to be disappointed.

They are adding dogs to the crew roster. Kanine pilots have been sadly absent from KSP.

[Cydonian Monk]

If there's already a key to swap yaw and roll (without going to docking mode) I've successfully failed at finding it since 1.0.2.

Am I missing something?

[Megan]

"This is not the way you do things, this is Squadcast!"

There are entirely too many uncharitable ways to sig that.

[Guest]

Something new that they can't talk about. Brace yourselves... ...to be disappointed.

Pretty much every big announcement has been disappointing. They really should be hyping the small notes from the patch notes instead.

[NecroBones]

-A delta-v indicator for the Engineer’s Report is “was talked about†and “is still on the table.â€Â

What I'd really like to see is a "remaining delta-V" indicator while in flight, limited to the current stage/configuration (which is just a simple calculation with the rocket equation). When creating a maneuver node, it tells you how much dV the maneuver will take, but there's no measure of what you have remaining. If you're not using a mod, you have to guesstimate based on the amount of fuel remaining*. Just an estimate of the current stage would be immensely useful.

* Also in terms of fuel remaining (I haven't checked if they changed this in 1.0+), the upper-right resource graphs are the only reliable measure of it. The fuel gauges in the staging list on the left treat shared tanks as if each engine owns them completely. That is, if you have multiple engines mounted on independent tanks, AND they receive fuel from a shared center tank, you get a non-linear result. Let's say you have four engines, and 1000 units of your fuel is in the shared tank, and the other 4 separate tanks have 250 each, for 2000 units of total fuel. When you've used up the center tank, you actually have 50% of your fuel remaining, but the fuel gauges show that you're down to 20%, because each engine thinks it has 1250 capacity available to it. I'd love to see this get smarter too.

Edited June 26, 2015 by NecroBones

[lost_in_space]

They are adding dogs to the crew roster. Kanine pilots have been sadly absent from KSP.

They've immortalized Valentina, why not Laika?

[anarkhon]

-“You can remove KSP’s own cursor with a mod, I’m not sure where to find it.â€Â

Here is the cure:

Cursor Deleter MOD

[Murdabenne]

*Kasper mumbles something about an issue he can’t talk about yet.*

A patch for the

in 1.0.4?

[basic.syntax]

Speculation on events next week that might tie into their bit of news? Kasper did not say it was "big" or "incredible."

Listening to the stream, he said we will know before the next SQ. It could be as early as Devnote Tuesday, or maybe as simple as a mod he was going to highlight on "Modding Monday." (Kasper started SQ with some mods active, and needed to restart.)

Falcon 9 launch June 28 is kind of early for an event "next week."

The New Horizons Pluto probe closest approach is July 14... a big event, but not next week.

[Zucal]

After a craft was not loaded because of missing parts:

"Am I playing modded in secret- yes, that was the problem, um heheh.. in fact, this install still has Navball Docking Alignment Indicator active. It was actually the problem I can't show you just yet what I- what it was all about. That will have to wait. -Pause- It's pretty cool though, and we will show it to you guys next week. Not on Squadcast, before that actually, you'll know what it's all about. If anyone can guess what important event is coming up next week.. then you are.. probably very close to something."

- - - Updated - - -

To me, that suggests something to do with SpaceX. They've expressed interest in collaborating with SpaceX before like they did with NASA for ARM, and the launch/potential landing Sunday would be good timing if they wanted to reveal it for Devnotes Tuesday. It becomes even more likely when you consider they may want to make up for the ill-recieved PS4 Devnotes.

[Superfluous J]

4th of July (American Independence Day) is "next week" if your weeks go Sunday-Saturday. Therefore, I fully expect the new big thing to be fireworks.

...but not in the game. That'd be cool. I expect they'll be KSP-branded fireworks with Jeb on the wrapper.

"Send your Kerbals up in the sky the way Harv did when he was a kid!"

[Yakuzi]

A delta-v indicator for the Engineer’s Report is “was talked about†and “is still on the table.â€Â

Of course it's on the table:

[FlowerChild]

-“We had two patches this week, we only wanted to have one.. but we had a specific error which affected some crafts in flight with heatshields that made them uncontrollable. We don’t want to break save-game compatibility between versions anymore.â€Â

I find that one slightly depressing given it tends to imply that Squad don't consider aero and heat overhauls to qualify as "save breaking".

"Ok, so all your rockets that you previously designed in this game were designed for a completely different universe with an entirely different set of physical laws, but just ignore that bit and carry on as you were".

[basic.syntax]

I didn't think the "important event" would be July 4, because it's at the end of next week, and Squad is based in Mexico. It has a nice rockets and red glare tie-in, but is not as space-y as space-x. (lol)

[Superfluous J]

I didn't think the "important event" would be July 4, because it's at the end of next week, and Squad is based in Mexico. It has a nice rockets and red glare tie-in, but is not as space-y as space-x. (lol)

Sure. It could be something Space-X.

I'm still betting it won't have anything to do with the actual game.

[federicoaa]

They are adding dogs to the crew roster. Kanine pilots have been sadly absent from KSP.

They've immortalized Valentina, why not Laika?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c9/Laika.jpg

Laika Kerman? of Kerdog

[Cydonian Monk]

I didn't think the "important event" would be July 4, because it's at the end of next week, and Squad is based in Mexico. It has a nice rockets and red glare tie-in, but is not as space-y as space-x. (lol)

Nonsense. There is nothing else important next week except good old Freedom and Apple Pies. 'Murica.

There's also a Progress launch next week (with potential for more fireworks) - two ISS resupplies in one week. The Microsoft HoloLens goes up on one, KSP adapted for VR goes up on the next. Gas Planet 3 confirmed?

[Guest]

Gas Planet 3 confirmed?

This would be awesome because it also implies Gas Planet 2.

[NecroBones]

A patch for the

in 1.0.4?

Whoa... that's just.. uhm... amazing?

[SoWeMeetAgain]

What I'd really like to see is a "remaining delta-V" indicator while in flight, limited to the current stage/configuration (which is just a simple calculation with the rocket equation). When creating a maneuver node, it tells you how much dV the maneuver will take, but there's no measure of what you have remaining. If you're not using a mod, you have to guesstimate based on the amount of fuel remaining*. Just an estimate of the current stage would be immensely useful.

* Also in terms of fuel remaining (I haven't checked if they changed this in 1.0+), the upper-right resource graphs are the only reliable measure of it. The fuel gauges in the staging list on the left treat shared tanks as if each engine owns them completely. That is, if you have multiple engines mounted on independent tanks, AND they receive fuel from a shared center tank, you get a non-linear result. Let's say you have four engines, and 1000 units of your fuel is in the shared tank, and the other 4 separate tanks have 250 each, for 2000 units of total fuel. When you've used up the center tank, you actually have 50% of your fuel remaining, but the fuel gauges show that you're down to 20%, because each engine thinks it has 1250 capacity available to it. I'd love to see this get smarter too.

the graphs in the upper right are misleading, too. if you have a final stage with it's own tanks you cannot exempt those tanks from being taken into consideration. "stage only" doesn't do squat with that. the running engines will run out of fuel in their tanks (naturally) and the top right will still show you fuel even if "stage only" is activated

[Superfluous J]

There's also a Progress launch next week

So if it's the Progress launch I'm guessing Jeb plushie delivery to the ISS. And they'll tease it as how cool it'll be to see Jeb actually making his way through a space station.

[Geschosskopf]

I find that one slightly depressing given it tends to imply that Squad don't consider aero and heat overhauls to qualify as "save breaking".

"Ok, so all your rockets that you previously designed in this game were designed for a completely different universe with an entirely different set of physical laws, but just ignore that bit and carry on as you were".

Well, unless all you ever do is piddle around within Kerbin's SOI, 1.0.4's heat/aero mess is way worrse than 1.0.2's. In 1.0.2, at least you could sometimes aerocapture at other planets (depending on ship design) and usually at least aerobrake enough to matter with 100% heat. In 1.0.4, however, just barely touching a substantial atmosphere at interplanetary speed makes your ship explode before the game fully transitions from space to atmospheric modes. So there will definitely have to another go at fixing this horrible mess.

In 1.0.2, I was pretty convinced the aerocapture problem was mainly the fault of the aero model in general, combined with arbitrarily set upper limits on atmospheres making them too dense too high. Those probably still play the main part in 1.0.4 but 1.0.4's totally new and buggy heat system is certainly pouring gasoline on the fire. Anyway, I doubt this can be fixed without yet again totally changing the aero model (the presumed root cause), which will again break saves. And I doubt this will get things right, either, so expect several more iterations. Thus, I'm taking a vacation from doing anything of significance in KSP until things settle down into a playable form and stays there for more than a few days.

[Superfluous J]

I (finally) downloaded 1.0.4 and noticed on the Squad page that I bought the game on July 2nd 2013. So obviously the big event for next week is the 2-year anniversary of my purchasing of the game.