Stop messing with Physics Please

[MartGonzo]

I'm not a fan of the constant tinkering either, in my opinion it would have made much more sense if squad were to just take note of what modders are doing and give them a few quid (not sure on the going rate but I'm sure it would be less than paying a team to constantly mess with the existing systems)

In my opinion kerbquake was better than the camera shake we have, deadly reentry was better than the current heating model and FAR is an improvement over the stock aero so why not reward the modders who have put so much love into the game?

[technicalfool]

This argument will become valid the day Squad gives a refund to every customer who doesn't have a degree in Aerospace Engineering. This is not a job, it is a game. People should not be expected to have the necessary skills to design aircraft that would work in real life to play this game. If the game tells the player that their aircraft design works, that should be enough.

The game is telling you whether your design works or not in the way that it either soars through the air, or makes a pretty debris cloud and explosions. So you crashed? Oh well, pick yourself up, tweak the design and try again.

A big part (some would say, the main part) of KSP is that it at least pays lip service to actual physics. That much has never been anything other than the case, even with the placeholder aerodynamics of <1.0.

It's very true that KSP is not a "press button to space" game. But then, it never was, and never pretended to be.

[Pixel of Life]

In my opinion kerbquake was better than the camera shake we have, deadly reentry was better than the current heating model and FAR is an improvement over the stock aero so why not reward the modders who have put so much love into the game?

Because KSP is meant to make the concepts of spaceflight simple and easy to learn. Newbros are already crying about the game being too difficult - how can you expect them to handle FAR and DRE? The point of these mods is to make the game more realistic and challenging when stock starts to feel too boring.

Edited June 27, 2015 by CaptainKorhonen

[MartGonzo]

Because KSP is meant to make the concepts of spaceflight simple and easy to learn. Newbros are already crying about the game being too difficult - how can you expect them to handle FAR and DRE? The point of these mods is to make the game more realistic and challenging when stock starts to feel too boring.

There could be options implemeted to tweak difficulty for all mods integrated into the game, these mods already have these options via in game configurations or ini files so it wouldn't require a major rewrite.

Edited June 27, 2015 by MartGonzo

[Foxster]

After the condescending sniping of a few here...

The bottom line for the OP (that I happen to agree with) is not about whether it is realistic or not, its about the constant tinkering that has been ongoing and adding 'realistic' stuff that adds nothing. Even if it is not perfectly realistic now, it just needs to be left alone for a while. Let us build craft that aren't going to be useless next week, get missions underway that aren't going to suddenly fail because the rules they were started under changed, let the modders catch up.

Much better now for the devs to put their effort into adding content and stop the tinkering that either adds nothing or makes things worse. I mean - what the hell does different core and skin temperatures actually add except smugness and some bugs that make craft explode?

Edited June 27, 2015 by Foxster

[Tankman101]

There could be options implemeted to tweak difficulty for all mods integrated into the game

There already is.

It's called not downloading FAR and DRE.

Seriously as a person that has used FAR, the current aero has nothing on it in terms of difficulty.

[technicalfool]

After the condescending sniping of a few here...

The bottom line for the OP (that I happen to agree with) is not about whether it is realistic or not, its about the constant tinkering that has been going and adding 'realistic' stuff that adds nothing. Even if it is not perfectly realistic now, it just needs to be left alone for a while. Let us build craft that aren't going to be useless next week, get missions underway that aren't going to suddenly fail because the rules they were started under changed, let the modders catch up.

Much better now for the devs to put their effort into adding content and stop the tinkering that either adds nothing or makes things worse. I mean - what the hell does different core and skin temperatures actually add except smugness and some bugs that make craft explode?

I would say this is why you should always keep a copy of the game around somewhere other than the Steamapps directory, assuming you use Steam, and run it from there. It's not really widely publicised outside of the forums, but there's nothing stopping you from doing that, and it certainly stops the problem of game mods breaking with new versions, or the physics being refined.

Of course, Steam's "don't update this game" option really being a placebo that means nothing because it can just be overridden is another argument entirely. One of a few reason why I won't touch Steam with a 10 foot barge pole, and a further reason of why it's a good idea to keep multiple copies of the game around on your HDD.

As for core and skin temperature, I kind of like the change, despite it being a change that broke my mod so I had to recode the thing to work with 1.0.3-4. Of course, as mentioned very early on in the thread, not everyone is going to like every change that happens. If the developers had stuck with trying to please everyone, we'd still be on 0.7.3.

[regex]

This argument will become valid the day Squad gives a refund to every customer who doesn't have a degree in Aerospace Engineering.

This argument would be valid if you actually needed a degree in Aerospace Engineering to make something that flies in KSP instead of a basic ability to look at pictures of IRL craft and translate that knowledge into something the game understands.

- - - Updated - - -

Because KSP is meant to make the concepts of spaceflight simple and easy to learn. Newbros are already crying about the game being too difficult - how can you expect them to handle FAR and DRE? The point of these mods is to make the game more realistic and challenging when stock starts to feel too boring.

FAR and DRE are not "hard" or "difficult", they're different, and they allow you to apply real world knowledge to the game. KSP took a big step in that direction in 1.0.x, and things generally work as expected now. Edited June 27, 2015 by regex

[longbyte1]

Come on guys, how many of these threads do we need?

Both Squad and the community know that Squad has screwed up in the past and that the scope of the game is being drastically changed from what it was before to minimize any additions to the code, etc.

Rigid/soft-body physics is managed by PhysX, and the dev team places hacks on top of PhysX to get an intended behavior at the cost of stability.

We need to stop playing video game politics with Squad and get serious. It is not easy making a game: people burn out, devs want their paycheck, code needs refactoring, scheduling is tight. Be thankful that we have the liberty of making plugins to parallel/surpass Squad's slow but nonetheless official production.

[Rixsaw]

Wow thanks for all the replies.

I am going to try to make a Meme that shows happy Kerbal smiling with 1.02 and then a scared Kerbal with 1.03, and then an explosion. Cuz thats what happened to half my Kerbals on various moons throughout the kerbalverse.

As the OP, I can clarify that I personally do not want changes to the Physics engine after I have ongoing multi ship missions, and the game is already successful and popular, so there is NO Reason to change it. Those of us happy with the existing physics engine are not vocal, we are playing the game. The small minority of players who wanted more complex physics apparently convinced the devs to implement features that the game wasn't ready for.

[Vanamonde]

I had something like 50 long-tested and reliable ship designs which I had been developing over the course of a couple of years. 1.00 forced me to discard them all, because even though their spaceborne components still worked, their launch vehicles could no longer get them to orbit through the new aerodynamics. Was that frustrating? Damn right it was. Am I looking forward to recreating all that lost work? No. Do I blame Squad for changing the game? Absolutely not. I appreciate that they're still working on it, still trying to make it a better experience, and not afraid even to rework fundamental aspects of the game.

[Murph]

I had something like 50 long-tested and reliable ship designs which I had been developing over the course of a couple of years. 1.00 forced me to discard them all, because even though their spaceborne components still worked, their launch vehicles could no longer get them to orbit through the new aerodynamics. Was that frustrating? Damn right it was. Am I looking forward to recreating all that lost work? No. Do I blame Squad for changing the game? Absolutely not. I appreciate that they're still working on it, still trying to make it a better experience, and not afraid even to rework fundamental aspects of the game.

That sums it up very nicely, and I agree entirely.

OP, I completely and utterly disagree with your demand that Squad stop breaking your ships. I understand where you are coming from, but your request is completely unreasonable.

Squad, please keep breaking stuff, as long as the long term result is improvement. I eagerly await you breaking everything in 1.1, when we get a completely new physics engine as part of Unity 5. I will be very happy when you break it a bit more in 1.1.1 and 1.1.2, to fix the inevitable issues that ship with 1.1. I will continue to be happy when you break it a bit more in 1.2, to put the polish on the major upgrade delivered in 1.1 beyond the fixes delivered in 1.1.x.

N.B. To the folks complaining about existing ships breaking: No pain, no gain, get over it! Also, once the dust settles on Unity 5.0, then 5.1, the per-release breakage for "old" stuff will very likely get progressively smaller, as the behaviour zeroes in on "perfect".

Frankly, the breakage between 1.0 and 1.0.4 hasn't even been that bad, it's really just entirely expected and reasonable fine tuning. Sure, stuff changes, but it's really not at all difficult to adapt existing >= 1.0 craft designs to the changes we have seen.

[basic.syntax]

I have a feeling 1.0.3 has brought the most changes we are going to see in a single patch, until the next major update.

From another thread -

I'm not too worried about big changes to the game, I expect v1.1 to deliver its own set of changes. It seems inevitable, due to the major game-engine upgrade we are expecting with v1.1: they've already announced a new procedural generation system for asteroids, and a new wheel method. I'll just launch a revised ship as a "rescue mission." We have months before the next major update will be ready, I'm not going to let worry about change stop me from enjoying the game we have today.

[PDCWolf]

They are, as developers, facing the consequences of procrastination and a very bad development cycle. They now have to face (post-release) all the problems they were postponing, all those placeholders they left in the game for later. And the players are facing the consequences they -probably- deserve for not calling squad out on their mistakes on time and being hopeful they would fix stuff in time just because they threw money at them. Welcome to the world. Hey, at least they are fixing it now, too bad you spent all those years designing stuff in a placeholder when you knew it actually was a placeholder, or was it you didn't pay attention to the multiple times they said so?

protip: they are now trying to "hotfix" everything they left undone (aero, reentry heat, sounds, the messy UI, etc).

[Alguien]

While unfortunate that KSP launched while it was still in beta (sorry devs, but it did)

I actually think KSP launched while in alpha since they were still adding features (in a half-way manner) even for 1.00, doesn't really change much, in both cases is pretty clear release was as rushed as a EA or Activision game

[Rixsaw]

How is a rocket over heating on the launchpad before launch an improvement? How is a lander module exploding halfway to orbit for no apparent reason an improvement? I believe that radial attachment points are not working properly, so forget trying to build creative objects with attachment points in places that aren't stock. Okay, so there is a bug, and after 2 hours of troubleshooting I decided to do away with radial attachment points and redesign the mission.

Get it safely to minimus, plant my flag, start the science module and head back to the space center to research some new parts for my next mission. When I returned to minimus lander to check on things, the science module exploded in 50 directions at once before I even switched to it. I was controlling the EVA.

The problem is two fold. It is a physics sandbox, focused around rockets, which seems to work fine until you start making changes to the physics model to improve aircraft performance. The radial heating thing I really don't understand why they added it. Yes heat is a problem in space, but you have more flexibility when you design each part for its intended purpose rather than having pre-built parts to choose from. The Apple Macbook vs the IBM thinkpad as an example. Both great products, but my 6 year old Apple will power up and perform exactly like it did the day I bought it, and I'm on my third Thinkpad in that same time.

So why try to model realistic physic with unrealistic engine performance and part selection? Its a game, we have parts , goals, and ongoing missions that are designed around the model as it is. Add more for us to do instead of more reasons to quit playing the game.

[Tankman101]

FAR and DRE are not "hard" or "difficult", they're different, and they allow you to apply real world knowledge to the game. KSP took a big step in that direction in 1.0.x, and things generally work as expected now.

When a single notch of rotation on the tailplane means the difference between flying and exploding, all "It's not difficult" arguments fly out of the window.

[Feradose]

When a single notch of rotation on the tailplane means the difference between flying and exploding, all "It's not difficult" arguments fly out of the window.

You take it too hard on yourself. I use FAR, I am not the brightest guy around but really, you can make cubes, umbrellas or even one winged planes fly. Even, one can do a makeshift SSTO in a few minutes, and flying with FAR is 300% easier. And with the SQUAD updating the aero engine, it should be a lot simpler to convert to FAR.

[Xannari Ferrows]

It's not our game. It's theirs. We're merely there for feedback.

[PDCWolf]

When a single notch of rotation on the tailplane means the difference between flying and exploding, all "It's not difficult" arguments fly out of the window.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107328-Far-is-hard

Just a reminder that this was written somewhere between 0.25 and 0.90

[Tankman101]

You take it too hard on yourself. I use FAR, I am not the brightest guy around but really, you can make cubes, umbrellas or even one winged planes fly. Even, one can do a makeshift SSTO in a few minutes, and flying with FAR is 300% easier. And with the SQUAD updating the aero engine, it should be a lot simpler to convert to FAR.

I made a plane with FAR.

Plane wouldn't take off the ground.

I pushed the tailplane one degree outward.

Plane suddenly flew.

I don't care if you can make a rubber ducky fly, that's dumb.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107328-Far-is-hard

Just a reminder that this was written somewhere between 0.25 and 0.90

Yes, I'm aware of the "It's not hard because I say so" argument. As a person that used FAR, I ran into it often when searching for plane designs.

[clivman]

I think they are done with the physics changes, and I am very happy how 1.0.4 turned out.

[John FX]

Myself, I have used FAR for long enough that it just feels wrong to make craft that are not aerodynamic. The closer stock KSP physics gets to actual real world aerodynamics the better my craft fly.

As there are plenty of books on physics and aerodynamics the Devs should have a baseline they can alter to give the best gameplay so it's odd that physics needs to be altered so often in the game but if each change brings it a bit closer to real world physics I'm happier.

Edit :

When a single notch of rotation on the tailplane means the difference between flying and exploding, all "It's not difficult" arguments fly out of the window.

It's not difficult for the majority of people to try a plane, see it does not fly, make the smallest possible adjustment then have a plane that will fly. That is what you are saying, yes?

Really, you are talking about the smallest possible change and calling it 'too difficult'.

Are you sure this game is for you? After all, the whole game is all about repeatedly trying different designs to find the ones that work best...

Edited June 29, 2015 by John FX

[Ryds]

Myself, I have used FAR for long enough that it just feels wrong to make craft that are not aerodynamic. The closer stock KSP physics gets to actual real world aerodynamics the better my craft fly.

As there are plenty of books on physics and aerodynamics the Devs should have a baseline they can alter to give the best gameplay so it's odd that physics needs to be altered so often in the game but if each change brings it a bit closer to real world physics I'm happier.

Edit :

It's not difficult for the majority of people to try a plane, see it does not fly, make the smallest possible adjustment then have a plane that will fly. That is what you are saying, yes?

Really, you are talking about the smallest possible change and calling it 'too difficult'.

Are you sure this game is for you? After all, the whole game is all about repeatedly trying different designs to find the ones that work best...

Agree with the bolded comment and therein lies the problem. The devs have made an arbitrary decision about what "feels right" for the physics model. The aero is a subjective model that doesn't follow rules from the physical world. This is why everyone that doesn't use far starts crying when the devs decide to change the model to something that "feels" more "right" - the changes don't feel right to the people who had become usd to the previous arbitrary version.

If Ferram had done the aero for stock right from the get go, these people would not be moaning now because even with its various iterations FAR has always "felt" right because it takes its physics from the real world. Squad should just model the aero on FAR - there will be a week of moaning, then people will see the light and then they will be safe in the knowledge that the "feel" of aero will never change again. Literally never in the game as it will be using real world physics.

I've absolutely no sympathy for people moaning about feels when they have only an arbitrary experience to go on.

[Tankman101]

Are you sure this game is for you? After all, the whole game is all about repeatedly trying different designs to find the ones that work best...

Oh boy, ye ol' "This game isn't for you" argument.

On an XCOM binge at the moment, so that's why it's so low

It's not difficult for the majority of people to try a plane, see it does not fly, make the smallest possible adjustment then have a plane that will fly. That is what you are saying, yes?

There's a difference between adding fuel and changing a tailplanes rotation by a single degree. The micromanagement involved in using FAR is absurd.