Expanding vs. Quality control

[fireblade274]

So I was reading the article about the up and coming relay expansion of the game coming out in 1.1. You should go reading it now, its interesting. Any who, I started to question why there was no mention of bug fixes that were being implemented, and only new features. I commented on the article, and wanted to post it as a thread in an attempt to get more eyes on it. Here is it below:

"I mean yea this {the relay game mechanics} is cool, sounds like a good addition to the game.

But in my opinion, I wish more focus was put into de-bugging.

I've got to restart my career yet again due to the nullreferenceexception bug; its got something to do with the "claw" part, one of the buggiest parts in the game, and long story short it freezes parts of you craft/space-station while in orbit, tearing it {expensive space stations} apart. It has been named the Glue Kraken. One you get it, re-loading a save before the nonsense will not help you and however many hours you put into your career go down the drain.

The game is awesome, and I do want to start again, but one of the things i want to do is move asteroids to space stations so they can have fuel for a good while. Its a fantastic expansion of the game, but if I try to do it again, will I have to restart everything all over?

Will this new update of relays add another bad bug? I just want the game to work correctly. Bugs that don't crash you game file are overlook-able, but if I have to keep restarting my career and going back to square one after tens of hours of game time and ship designing, because of a stupid bug i may encounter again..... Sigh, I don't know what else to say.

I'm quite torn"

Does anyone else feel this way?

*I've known of the Bust thread started by Claw about the Glue Kraken and the glitchy-ness of the grabbing unit; the Glue Kraken is currently the bane of my career's existence. You should go read that now to. I will try to recreate the glitch and add to the discussion when I have a moment. First I need to find the will to start another career again. Should I even do that or wait for 1.1?

In the end, I trust and hope Squad knows best

EDIT - I would like to add I do not use mods and do not plan using them either.

Edited July 29, 2015 by fireblade274

[X-SR71]

I've said in more than one other thread that I hoped they'd focus on improving current features and squashing bugs, rather than focusing on new features. Even if there are various branches of development and parallel work being done, resources allocated into the development of new features means less resources into improving the game as it is.

There are many areas that can evolve and improve, the claw being one of them.

Personally, I'd like more effort into the whole resource mechanics, the obvious heating problems (read: spontenous explosions from SAS and probes and other parts), better stock parts, especially adapters and structural parts and such, and more biome diversity and testing results - not the same generic answers over and over.

Oh and let's not forget the tech tree!

Edited July 27, 2015 by X-SR71

[Alshain]

The focus is on Unity 5, not the relay network. Most likely many of the bugs you know will be fixed and replaced by a whole set of new ones. So, until that Unity 5 conversion is complete, debugging would be a waste of effort and will be the last thing they do before release OR an ongoing process during the conversion (most likely both).

[spudman2]

I concur that Squad should spend more time bugfixing. Maybe they want to add more features before patching bugs in the game? Sort of a "do it all at once" strategy? I don't know. I'd like a member of Squad will come forward and acknowledge the large amount of bugs in the game, and if they intend on fixing them or not, but that probably won't happen. If they tell the community that they have no intention of bugfixing, it would likely upset a lot of the game's fanbase/paying customers. If they do indeed not care to do the bugfixing, it would seem like a poor choice to them to inform the community, because the fans would get upset. And we're experiencing silence over the issue right now. Take it as you will.

[sal_vager]

With the move to Unity 5 for 1.1, Squad will be dedicating most of their time just to getting everything working, this does mean new wheels which will fix the bugs with the existing wheels, and a new UI which has increasingly been identified as the cause by members of our community of the memory errors and game lag, not to mention any number of little internal improvements that the Unity 5 engine brings over Unity 4, but we'll have to wait and see, most bugs that are addressed are listed in the change log for each release, and the readme file, rather than in some official announcement.

Also, the relay mechanic is being developed by RoverDude, this is separate to the work on the port to Unity 5 by the Squad developers, so rather than expanding verses quality, we're getting a bit of both.

That's not to say Unity 5 won't have new issues of its own, but we'll have to wait and see how it turns out, though as the core developers are concentrating on the issues that moving to Unity 5 entails, they are also spending more time on this iteration to see what's really going on with the bugs they couldn't address before, such as the 64bit career bugs.

1.1 will be better, not perfect, there will be a few rough spots as converting all that code to use the new engine features, stop using the deprecated commands, and still work and be playable at the end of the day is no small feat, some Unity customers have managed it and others are sticking with Unity 4 due to the difficulties, and Squads biggest issues so far have been the wheels which needed to be completely replaced, and the UI, which had to be replaced because Unity 5 completely changed how UI's are handled.

The rest is near never ending tinkering to get things the way they should be, but that takes time, all we can do is be patient and see how things develop

[Kerbart]

In the end, I trust and hope Squad knows best

I admire your optimism but the state in which 1.0 was released does not do justice to your beliefs.

[WinkAllKerb'']

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-5-release-date.235223/

may be they were already working on it // 1.0 release ... not sure

Edited July 27, 2015 by WinkAllKerb''

[nightingale]

Squad is using their core team to upgrade to Unity 5, which will involve a lot of bug fixing along the way. I'd also imagine that bugs fixes are happening concurrently, event though we don't get dev notes every week with every advertising how many bugs they've fixed. Along-side that activity, they've got their team of modders adding the cool features that were probably already on their roadmap. So although I'm sure there will be plenty of bugs left in 1.1, I'm happy to have RoverDude, Arsonide and Porkjet speeding things along by adding the features that Squad don't have time for because they're too busy on stuff that relates directly to the stability/buginess of the game!

[razark]

Yes! Squad needs to fix all the bugs now!

They need to spend all their time just fixing bugs and making every single bit of the program work correctly. After they finish that, they can move on to ripping out a large part of the program and replacing it with a completely new version. Then everything will work perfectly, and no one will ever complain again because everything will be all happy shiny rainbows of exquisite excellence.

[fireblade274]

First thank you so much Sal for your very helpful and informative response, that cleared a-lot of things up for me

Sal if your floating around out there, would you agree with this? Makes sense (zero knowledge of software enginearing)

{The focus is on Unity 5} Most likely many of the bugs you know will be fixed and replaced by a whole set of new ones. So, until that Unity 5 conversion is complete, debugging would be a waste of effort and will be the last thing they do before release OR an ongoing process during the conversion (most likely both).

Furtherly if so, do you know if it is likely the Glue Kraken will be fixed by unity 5?

I admire your optimism but the state in which 1.0 was released does not do justice to your beliefs.

u understands

I would also like to say I will like it when

everything will be all happy shiny rainbows of exquisite excellence.

*NOTE* After realizing my misspelling of engineering; yes gentlemen in fact i did leave it there

on purpose:P .

As an aspiring psychotherapist/psychologist, I will be wondering how many people scroll up to see if I even misspelled it, and how many who do not do that, particularly because of the fact I'm writing about it right now. Or how many do scroll up because I'm writing about it right now? I am crazy, but it's an asset to be if your major is Psychology. And once I figure out how to put something in my banner below my messages, I think I'm going to put this there.

[Alshain]

Furtherly if so, do you know if it is likely the Glue Kraken will be fixed by unity 5?

We don't know anything about what will be fixed at this time. Changing a game engine is huge.

[kreutzkevic]

You silly people. Always with the doom 'n gloom.

You know Squad could've released KSP 1.0 and called it a day, right? Hell, they could've gone the way of Towns or Spacebase DF-9. They didn't. There's a lot of love for this project. There will be improvements.

I advocate patience, a lost art on the internet.

[obsidian_x]

You do realise that a development team can work on multiple things at once yeah? If it was a lone developer building then yeah, it's expand features OR fix bugs. But it's not, it's a reasonable sized team, with different developers with no doubt different strengths, and weaknesses. Expanding vs QC isn't mutually exclusive.

[selfish_meme]

You do realise that a development team can work on multiple things at once yeah? If it was a lone developer building then yeah, it's expand features OR fix bugs. But it's not, it's a reasonable sized team, with different developers with no doubt different strengths, and weaknesses. Expanding vs QC isn't mutually exclusive.

it's not but trying to find old bugs in a new engine before you have even got the game working in the new engine is fruitless.

[obsidian_x]

it's not but trying to find old bugs in a new engine before you have even got the game working in the new engine is fruitless.

Definitely; But most comments here are complaining about the "new features adding more bugs" perceived issue, and they should be just squishing bugs, not expanding the game. But if there's a sub team working on the unity update, what are the rest going to do in the mean time? Work on other projects - then the complaints would be about the game stagnating or something... Damned if they do damned if they don't.

[selfish_meme]

Definitely; But most comments here are complaining about the "new features adding more bugs" perceived issue, and they should be just squishing bugs, not expanding the game. But if there's a sub team working on the unity update, what are the rest going to do in the mean time? Work on other projects - then the complaints would be about the game stagnating or something... Damned if they do damned if they don't.

They are all now working on the unity update after finishing Kerbal Edu. Roverdude is a modder who does work for them especially on parts.

[mrclucks]

I may be taking this wrong but everyone needs to stop complaining. We have a very good product that is a bit buggy, but we are also able to do almost anything we can think of.

Although I have only been around since .90, I've only seen a complete game that has just gotten better and smaller (file size wise) along with new features. Not saying there isn't anything I couldn't complain about, but is there any game that literally has no complaints? The devs are continuing to work on the game and will continue for quite a while.

So shut up, sit down, and enjoy what we have while other people continue making it better at no cost to us

[Vanamonde]

This discussion of the game's development has been moved to Development Discussions.

[fireblade274]

a bit buggy? I cant play my career yet again, have lost everything, and i have never used mods. The game has a standard amount of bugs that are overlook-able, and go away upon a reload of an earlier save file, but when a bug crashes your entire save 2 times in a row and you lose countless hours, AGAIN, you have a right to complain. In fact, this is the internet, you can complain about anything you want lol

It sounds to me like you are one of the players that has been lucky enough to not encounter any of the major bugs, and i'm quite envious of that.

Because of this, I sadly can not enjoy playing the game I have because unlike yourself, my **** gets ****** up and I have to restart. Did you even read my beginning post? I think you did but it still begs that question. I gave credit to Squad for making an amazing game, but in my opinion squashing serious bugs>adding features. It would seem from the info Sal gave us earlier in the thread that Squad is able to do both quality control and expansion; in my opinion it would be nice to see 100% of game development be devoted to polishing up the bugs, even if only for a short while. But hey if they say they can do both and moving to unity 5 is the best thing to do right now, I trust they are right and wish for much success on their part for the sake of all of us.

So shut up, sit down, and enjoy what we have while other people continue making it better at no cost to us

Please do not tell us to shut up, sit down, and enjoy what we (or at least I) don't have. Its very condescending actually.

It would also seem that you in fact have also become a complainer; complaining about other complaints

i forgive you <3

[kreutzkevic]

you have a right to complain. In fact, this is the internet, you can complain about anything you want lol

Sure and granted. Sometimes you need to complain in order to get what's rightfully yours.

But I think in this case constructive criticism (eg. bug reports) would be more helpful. Squad can't fix things they don't know exist.

I must admit I've never encountered any serious bugs nor Krakens. I don't think I've ever been able to carry over my saves from one version to the next, however.

I would, in your case, use freeware backup software to make an automated backup of your save folder every half hour or so, going back 10 iterations (that's five hours of gameplay). I agree that you shouldn't have to do this, but this would be good damage control. You would only lose one or two hours, tops.

Once again, I don't think you should have to do this because in an ideal world the game would be absolutely bug-free. Alas, last time I checked, the world is far from ideal.

And be patient. Squad's a small team. Upgrading the game's engine is no mean feat. They will probably crush a lot of bugs in the process and create countless new ones. They're still not done with KSP, however. Think of the possibilites if they get the upgrade right and manage to handle memory better: clouds, more planets, more parts,...

[Hobbes Novakoff]

There is no point whatsoever in fixing bugs now just before upgrading to a new engine. That's like performing seismic upgrades on a house just before you rebuild the entire foundation.

[spudman2]

The rest is near never ending tinkering to get things the way they should be, but that takes time, all we can do is be patient and see how things develop

Thank you, sal. It is really good to hear from a Squad team member. I wasn't that a switch to Unity 5 was in the works; that explains the lack of bugfixes.

[steve_v]

While I would like to believe that bugs will be fixed in due course, reality and past experience beg to differ.

The claw has been extremely buggy since the day it was added to the game - at version 0.25. No fixes have been released for this issue by Squad. Meanwhile, the issue has become so well known that a community fix is now becoming available (thanks Claw).

If this were an isolated incident, all good. But it's not. Each new release adds more features and more bugs, while old, well recognised bugs continue to be (or so it seems) ignored.

Maybe Unity 5 will be a silver bullet, but I have my doubts - just look at the appalling mess the 1.0 release was.

If it were only the new bugs that were unfixed, again, all good. But it's not. The claw bugs are old bugs, bugs that should have been sorted long before 1.0. Instead we get more save-breaking "features", even more bugs and some vague promises of undisclosed improvements with Unity 5.

Want to bet that will come with more bugs too?

I've been being patient regarding this particular issue since 0.25. My patience is finite.

So, when can we expect some fixes for the well recognised bugs?

I hope they will be sorted out with the Unity upgrade... but I doubt they will be, because history does repeat.

Edited July 30, 2015 by steve_v

[Kaos]

I think they should spread the effort in bug-fixing and inclusion of features; as already said, their team is big enough for doing so.

If they do not include new features, the project will be considered dead by many players. Of course this would not mean that, but nevertheless it would reduce the money Squad earns, which is what they obviously do not want, and we do not want also, as they would not be able to fix bugs or include new features then.

Then there are some easy implementable features, that would greatly enhance the gameplay, which would be a good investment in my opinion.

For bug fixing: They are fixing bugs, partially by complete reimplementation of broken things (wheels). As far as I have understood, they do so with quite some features with the change to unity 5.

But I concur, that fixing bugs should be of higher priority than new work intensive features.

[rkman]

The fact that bug fixing was not mentioned in a post about a new feature does not mean there will be no bug fixing.

Bug fixing was not mentioned simply because that post was about something else than bug fixing.