Squadcast Summary 2015/08/07 - The Duna Attempt

[Superfluous J]

Every 10 minutes I drop a time stamp, so if you can find a spot in the video more easily. Something in "quotes" means it was directly said, though I frequently don't bother with that. [brackets] are those rare times where the accent barrier keeps me from understanding something, and italics are descriptions of what Max is doing in the game, with asides and commentary by me where I feel the desire.

0:00

The video started with Max in the tracking station, waiting for a Duna transfer window. He's eyeballing the transfer window.

He uses the default staging the VAB gave him, which releases his rocket from the launch clamps, crashing into the pad. He reverts.

He launches again, notices Bill is flying it instead of a pilot.

He tries to... land? Back on the launch pad. He realizes that's a really bad idea, so throttles up to go to Duna without a pilot anyway. The rocket flips, and he eventually gives up.

He does not revert, though. He lands, and is totally broke. Which is honorable, at least.

10:00

Then he takes a ton of rep-hurting loans, geting a total of about $140k

He launches again, remembering to bring his pilot. He also follows what the chat says and removes 2 of his 5 engines, making his rocket only 2x more powerful than it needs to be, not 3x. He spends a decent amount of time fiddling with fins and engines and whatnot.

The rocket has < 1.0 TWR with the throttle at 50%. Which is great, if he throttled up to max.

He of course throttles up to 2/3

He gets to space...

20:00

...and then to orbit.

He realizes that his ship has no RCS jets, so docking at Duna to come home will be fun.

He ejects to Duna with little problems. Quite a well done all-eyeballed transfer.

He expects he will not have the fuel to return. I agree with that.

Q: Atmospheric scattering?

A: There are "doors that are opening with Unity 5. We can't share what the end result will be because we don't know what the end result will be."

"The way we feel about the game curently is that it's a fun game - it's a good game. But it still is missing a bit regarding the artistic and visual quality of it. So we are going to do stuff about it... after 1.1."

He uses all of his "return trip" fuel getting the Kerbin ejection burn. Too bad there isn't some sort of readout to find out how far a given ship can expect to go...

He gets an encounter with Duna, with a small burn in the Sun's SOI.

30:00

Midway to Duna, he plans another node to get his encounter periapsis close.

He uses the mouse scroll wheel to pretty good effect, doing what I would normally use PreciseNode for.

I think I'm going to actually try it next time I play.

He ends up with a periapsis over the North pole. He then burns south for a collision course, and in the SOI corrects it.

"We have... 28 cups of fuel." (In the "return" stage)

He asks the chat where Duna's atmosphere starts.

Chat tells him to put his periapsis at 15km. Sounds good to me.

He has 9 cups of fuel left. He ditches his "return" stage to be lost forever. He's committed to a rescue mission. Assuming he lands and gets back to space.

He totally, completely, and surprisingly fails to time warp past the Periapsis.

He suddenly panics. He's accepted NO contracts!

Back to the space center, he takes the "Explore Duna" contract and no others.

Problem: That requires you to orbit before landing, which he was not planning to do. Though I think a 15km periapsis will get you into orbit.

40:00

Chat says to put periapsis at 30km, 20km, and 35km. He opts for 25km.

Squad HQ news:

Remodeling is almost done. Huge pain, but the office will be fantastic.

He'll do a video tour of the studio when it's all done.

U5 going forward. PS4 is going great. Taking longer than originally thought. No release date.

"I believe the Unity 5 upgrade is just about ready to go to QA, but don't quote me on that."

[Oops!]

He thinks next week for QA of U5. Then they will do analysis to see if it should be its own update, or it should be rolled into 1.1.

Also, Filipe has been working deep into multiplayer.

"Multiplayer KSP is going to be fantastic."

Backend works great. Communication works great. Mechanics are being worked on now.

Sandbox is simple, but they want to set up rule sets, and have career work as well.

Q: Performance Increases?

A: Yes, but Max is "very uncomfortable" saying any numbers. He'd love to, but it would be "super irresponsible" until a lot of people have tested it. But it is "certainly performing better."

His aerocapture periapsis is too high, but he gets a VERY fortunate Ike encounter that will totally get him into a nice and circular - if high and retrograde - orbit.

He complains that Ike is getting in the way, so burns a bunch to avoid it.

He almost time warps into the surface, then burns to get a full orbit, getting the 2nd part of the Duna contract. All that's left is landing, and transmitting space and surface science.

He burns down to get a circular orbit, then puts his periapsis down on the sunny side.

He jokes that this is Hilisa's retirement trip. As in, she's retiring on the surface of Duna

He transmits space science from Duna, nailing that part of the contract.

He discusses the seams in Duna as he's coming down. "Part of the overall visual upgrade that we want to do with the game." But first, U5. He's excited to have it done, becasue then he can go back teasing fun stuff.

50:00

He's comign down way low, and not really slowing much, so he kickes the engines on.

"And yes 64 bit is something we definitely definitely definitely want to dig our fangs into as soon as Unity 5 is out."

Chutes deployed, engine off, he's coming down onto a slope at 15m/s.

Q: Planned enhancements like EVE to stock?

A: Currently the memory limit is a problem. But if U5 goes great AND 64 bit works, then it can happen.

He burns, to slow under 7m/s... 2m/s... and he lands without falling over.

Q: Will you have to buy U5/64 bit?

A: Yes. Kidding! No.

He transmits from the surface, completing all of the contract.

And yes, as I suspected last week, the hatch is obscured by the solar panel. However, Max explains, it doesn't matter because he hasn't upgraded the Astronaut Complex so she can't go EVA anyway.

However, with no EVA there is no repacking chutes, so even if the ship COULD get back to Kerbin, it'd never be able to land there.

He throttles up. I have no idea why. It may have just been a mistake, but he was talking about how he'd missed the goo reading from space around Duna, so maybe he thought... I don't know.

The ship goes sideways (possibly becuase of landigng gear stuck in the ground) and he panics like we've all done, hits the gas, hits the ground, and everything explodes. The lander can survives somehow, but not much else.

"Okay so we're probably not going to get that goo data from space around Duna."

The lander can rolls and slides down the longest, gentlest slope on Duna. It finally stops.

Q: Will the 32 bit version have clouds? (I think this means, "assuming the 64 bit version gets them")

A: Sure, but if it can't, then it would "not be wise" to be held back by it. (I read this as, if 32 bit can't have them, then 64 bit will get them anyway).

Back to the space center, all the contracts are 1 star becasue the rep is so bad.

He upgrades the Astronaut Complex.

He wonders if she can EVA now. She can.

So the solar panel does NOT block the door. Though it gets in the way.

He plants a flag, does an EVA report, getgs back in the pod, transmits the data.

R&D, he has 217 science, enough for a single tech node. He opts for "Fuel Systems" so that next time, he can get nukes.

[bakanando]

Oh god, this is bad. I can't complain about anything.

Thanks for the summary. I haven't played in a long time now, but I like to keep up with development.

[AlanP]

Great report as always. I think max is the real life jeb.

go 64

[Alshain]

Glad to hear about visual enhancements, I'm almost certain clouds would be the first of those (almost). That is the one mod I wont mind getting rid of because it is just so finicky (no offense to rbray of course, it's still a masterpiece, just a finicky masterpiece).

[pincushionman]

I don't see how the U5 update could be at anything except 1.1. If it's not ready, it's not time for 1.1 yet.

[Alshain]

I don't see how the U5 update could be at anything except 1.1. If it's not ready, it's not time for 1.1 yet.

He already said the U5 conversion is going very well and nearing completion but might get released by itself as a 1.0.5 or something like that. That would indicate to me that U5 is nearly ready but the other parts of 1.1 are not or possibly that they just want to test separately.

[Whirligig Girl]

Captain Hilisa Kerman in...

Kerbal Space Program: Adventuring in a Nightmare Rolling Duna Capsule, Part II: This time it's kerbersonal.

Captain Hilisa Kerman in...

Kerbal Space Program: Maxmap's Decent into Madness! Part XIV

Captain Hilisa Kerman in...

Kerbal Space Program: My Door Won't Open Because How Do I Spacewalk?

See the Adventures of Maxmaps and the Future of Captain Hilisa's Unintentional Exile in Space in the next exciting episode of:

SQUADCAST

Where Valentina is resurected from the dead, the Kerbal Space Center goes bankrupt for the second time this month, and Maxmaps accidentally leaks info regarding the new 1.0 features!

Edited August 8, 2015 by GregroxMun

[regex]

Well, at least there's some sort of commitment to visual tweaks, which is good because this game looks terribly long in the tooth. Maybe we can get a nicer looking concept of "stockalike" instead of the clunky stuff we're getting.

[Geschosskopf]

I really need to watch these Squadcasts myself, if they weren't in my work hours. They sound quite hilarious

[pincushionman]

He already said the U5 conversion is going very well and nearing completion but might get released by itself as a 1.0.5 or something like that. That would indicate to me that U5 is nearly ready but the other parts of 1.1 are not or possibly that they just want to test separately.

I…can dig that. But if that's the case, an engine change is a big enough by iself to be the entirety of a major point release. It would certainly be advantageous in identifying porting bugs.

[regex]

But if that's the case, an engine change is a big enough by iself to be the entirety of a major point release.

If KSP's dev cycle has taught me anything it's that Squad knows (and cares) jack-all about consistent versioning

[CalculusWarrior]

He already said the U5 conversion is going very well and nearing completion but might get released by itself as a 1.0.5 or something like that. That would indicate to me that U5 is nearly ready but the other parts of 1.1 are not or possibly that they just want to test separately.

I agree completely. Scatterer and EVE are two fantastic mods, but nothing makes me happier to hear that the game is getting a visual enhancement of its own. I wonder if they'll improve other things on the planets as well as visuals, like the long-ago mentioned Laythe cryovolcanoes?

[Alshain]

The numbers are meaningless anyway. They are only there to reference after the fact, so you can tell the versions apart. This is true for any software.

[cantab]

"I believe the Unity 5 upgrade is just about ready to go to QA, but don't quote me on that."

[Oops!]

He thinks next week for QA of U5. Then they will do analysis to see if it should be its own update, or it should be rolled into 1.1.

This seems strange. I was under the impression that the main aspect of 1.1 was to be Unity 5 with all its attendant improvements and potential problems.

Unity 5 as a revision before 1.1, ie a "1.0.5", seems like a very bad idea because it's almost certain to break loads of mods, quite probably requiring mod devs to do more than a simple recompile to get them working again, and Squad don't make previous revisions available. Imagine if the available KSP versions were the archaic 0.90 and the brand-new devoid of mods 1.1.5, with 1.1.4 no longer available for download! And I truly doubt there's anything else critical that would stop Squad simply calling it 1.1 and kicking whatever other stuff there is to either a 1.1.x revision if it's minor or a 1.2 release if it's more significant.

Unity 5 after 1.1 could make more sense. It would be an unexpected development, implying that U5 has given Squad enough trouble that they instead opted to spend their time improving the game on the older Unity version, potentially including bugfixes to code that U5 will render redundant.

[Superfluous J]

I…can dig that. But if that's the case, an engine change is a big enough by iself to be the entirety of a major point release. It would certainly be advantageous in identifying porting bugs.

I think it could be argued that switching from U4 to U5 demands - or at least suggests - a major number change. As KSP 1.0 just came out, it's reasonable to consider what we have now some sort of pseudo pre-release of what will actually be KSP 1.0 when U5 is implemented.

Also:

If KSP's dev cycle has taught me anything it's that Squad knows (and cares) jack-all about consistent versioning

This. In spades.

[yorshee]

"'Aerobrake at an altitude of 15k' says Yorshee - talented artist and engineer."

[boxman]

I don't see how the U5 update could be at anything except 1.1. If it's not ready, it's not time for 1.1 yet.

It might be a good idea to actually let the public test the unity5 ports before releasing 1.1 with even more additional features.

And they also already said that this is what they might do.

- - - Updated - - -

If KSP's dev cycle has taught me anything it's that Squad knows (and cares) jack-all about consistent versioning

It seems like no one really does... They all use completely different standards.

- - - Updated - - -

This seems strange. I was under the impression that the main aspect of 1.1 was to be Unity 5 with all its attendant improvements and potential problems.

Unity 5 as a revision before 1.1, ie a "1.0.5", seems like a very bad idea because it's almost certain to break loads of mods, quite probably requiring mod devs to do more than a simple recompile to get them working again, and Squad don't make previous revisions available. Imagine if the available KSP versions were the archaic 0.90 and the brand-new devoid of mods 1.1.5, with 1.1.4 no longer available for download! And I truly doubt there's anything else critical that would stop Squad simply calling it 1.1 and kicking whatever other stuff there is to either a 1.1.x revision if it's minor or a 1.2 release if it's more significant.

Unity 5 after 1.1 could make more sense. It would be an unexpected development, implying that U5 has given Squad enough trouble that they instead opted to spend their time improving the game on the older Unity version, potentially including bugfixes to code that U5 will render redundant.

At least that would give modders time to mostly have mods ready for 1.1. And to even add the features of 1.1, I would think unity5 build would be pretty necesarry as they have been developed around the new engine. I personally think it is best to release unity5 before 1.1 if it is ready, so that there wont be any more unexpected unity5 bugs showing up during 1.1 release. I also bet that one reason why mods are slow to update these days is because they know they have to make huge changes with the coming unity5 version, so getting that out the door might even make that situtation better.

[basic.syntax]

If the upgrade to Unity 5 improves on the 1.0.4 experience of today, it could be the "no new features - fix bugs!" release, that some have asked for. Then, a v1.1 with new features could be the "ice cream on top" of that Unity 5 pie or cake.

[regex]

If the upgrade to Unity 5 improves on the 1.0.4 experience of today, it could be the "no new features - fix bugs!" release, that some have asked for.

No, a Unity 5 upgrade will be an API upgrade. Some bugs will be fixed, others will appear, but calling a massive API upgrade a "bug-fixing update" is suspect at best. This update will break many, many things, and we will be reporting bugs on it for quite some time. Edited August 8, 2015 by regex

[BudgetHedgehog]

I really need to watch these Squadcasts myself, if they weren't in my work hours. They sound quite hilarious

They're (pretty much) all available to watch on the KSPTVs Twitch profile, under 'past broadcasts'. Here's the link to this one.

Anyway, nice work again, 5th. Excited to hear 64bit news, especially stock clouds (possibly), EVE is the one mod I would choose to run if I could only have 1.

[basic.syntax]

No, a Unity 5 upgrade will be an API upgrade. Some bugs will be fixed, others will appear, but calling a massive API upgrade a "bug-fixing update" is suspect at best. This update will break many, many things, and we will be reporting bugs on it for quite some time.

I don't doubt that new bugs will emerge, but a couple major improvements may eliminate some legacy bugs: the UI rewrite, and a new wheel system.

[regex]

I don't doubt that new bugs will emerge, but a couple major improvements may eliminate some legacy bugs: the UI rewrite, and a new wheel system.

That's exactly my point, it's not a "bug fixing update", it's an API change. It's not like they're sitting down for two~three months doing nothing but bug-fixing... The Unity 5 changeover will introduce as many bugs as it squashes, that's just simple development, has nothing to do with Squad in particular.

[metl]

Come on 64 bit! We're so close!

[Robotengineer]

If SQUAD does go ahead with clouds post 1.1, I hope they go with Proot to do the artwork. While the in-house stuff has been pretty decent, modders have been providing the content that is really blowing players minds.

Is it to much to ask that you put a nice API together while you're doing the U5 update SQUAD?

@5thHorseman: You da man for doing these.

[Alshain]

If SQUAD does go ahead with clouds post 1.1, I hope they go with Proot to do the artwork. While the in-house stuff has been pretty decent, modders have been providing the content that is really blowing players minds.

Is it to much to ask that you put a nice API together while you're doing the U5 update SQUAD?

@5thHorseman: You da man for doing these.

Proot does some beautiful work but he is far from the only one. Have you seen pingopete's work with the EVE overhaul? I don't use RSS but never the less, it is absolutely beautiful. Personally I would prefer Squad provide the infrastructure and some artwork of their own as well. Then make sure that, like EVE, artists can substitute their own easily. While they are at it, they can add a native ability to add other artwork like Texture Replacer. These mods are fine, but it would certainly be better if the game could auto-detect new textures the same way it does new parts.