Every new version of KSP.... driving me mad

[Tourist]

I honestly have not had a problem through any of the updates, with the exception that the thinning of the soup-o-sphere in 1.0x led to a minor redesign of one of my spaceplanes. All my lifters, transfer tugs, landers etc. Have all worked fine, in most cases since before beta. Frankly, if they didn't announce the updates, I may not have even noticed.

[Yakuzi]

I have similar feelings as the OP... From a personal point of view, having to redesign my craft every update because of the indecisosphere that is 1.0.x is quite frustrating, particularly since I spend *a lot* of time conceptualising and designing these.

Changes of the various core physics systems are completely acceptable when the game was in beta, however, continuously changing the aerodynamic system after release is very sloppy IMO. I hope Squad settles on a final aero system by 1.1 so my designs/limited time are not wasted every time a new update comes out.

[jwenting]

whiners will be whiners...

KSP's pretty stable. Sure it's not perfect. If you want perfection, you're never going to find it.
If you want poor release cycles, take a look at things like Master of Orion 2, Elite II (Frontier) and Elite (First Encounters).
Those were utterly unplayable because of bugs and missing content and took years to patch after release. In fact MOO2 was never patched.
The "good old days" were full of releases like that.

Rapid development cycles are good, gives an opportunity to quickly react to problems and feature requests. Of course you need to have good testing in place, and Squad's test squad isn't too shabby. Not perfect, but good.
And as stated, a lot of the limitations are due to the 3rd party game/physics engine the product relies on, an engine KSP pushes to its limits and sometimes beyond.

There is no bug free software, certainly no bug free software that's more complex than the few hundred lines of your average high school programming assignment (and most of those are so poorly written they'd not last a minute in a production environment).

[MrOsterman]

Well there's a legit complaint in "lost work" especially if you're deeply invested in Career Mode.

For me, and I'm new as of 1.0.4, I feel like I've put a LOT of time in on building up my tech tree. A lot of it was, sure, spent learning the game, the mechanisms, figuring out how to get science quickly, how to get into orbit, etc. I just spent a week trying to land a life boat on the Mun so I could get back a stranded kerbal and even that I'm not sure I did as well as I could.

But on that game I'm at a pile of funds, I've managed to upgrade my facilities enough that I'm not eyeballing everything in flight control, I have the parts to spare to build the rockets I want, etc etc. I'm not at all looking forward to the prospect of starting clean from scratch. (which I'm getting a new PC and I may have to if I can't get my head around the oddly buggy save game features.)

I think it's a little shallow to dismiss complaints of "I've been playing for X months and with this update nothing works!" with a counter of "well start a new career" or "meh, that happens". It's a legit complaint, especially with a game based on a physics model that is being constantly refined to include more realistic factors. I don't have a real "fix" except, perhaps, for Squad to include more ~toggles~ as they add more "realism". Don't want to have your rockets broken by heat factors? Toggle it off in settings.

Short of that.... dunno.

[r4pt0r]

[quote name='Dizzle']To be honest, it is kind of messed up that game-breaking changes are still happening after version 1.0.[/QUOTE]

Thats because they rushed the 1.0 release, remember? we are really on version .95 tbh.

[Kerbart]

[quote name='fisfis']You are so lucky and possibly better rocket designer than me. [/QUOTE]

As you pointed out, you probably build more complex things than me. My conviction though, is that when you develop craft based on "real world" criteria, you will need tweaks, not major overhauls to designs.

Pancake design is an excellent example. I know that many voiced the opinion back in the the 0.2x days that yes, pancakes worked better, but mainly because the aero model was non-existant and it was known that it *would* be updated. 1.0 comes along and with it the complaints that "Squad broke the game, non of my launchers work anymore"

i agree that if you reach Jool with a ship that was built when heat shields and radiators didn't exist you were borked. But most complaints seem to be about launch and Kerbin re-entry, and I have no sympathy for those complaints.

Are heat effects a setting in a game save? Perhaps the solution for Squad is to set the settings for those in new games to 0% ? I'm sure there's problems with that as well. The alternative is to not evolve the game though.

[Damien_The_Unbeliever]

[quote name='MrOsterman']I don't have a real "fix" except, perhaps, for Squad to include more ~toggles~[/QUOTE]

The problem is, people think that adding toggles will magically fix things. In fact, all a toggle does is increase the amount of testing that either [I]has to take place[/I] or gets [I]skipped[/I]. If you've seen things like the bug reports where an out-of-date Asteroid Day mod caused gender/profession issues, perhaps you'll start to realise that apparently unrelated pieces of software [I]can[/I] and [I]will[/I] interact in surprising ways.

So, you have 4 on/off toggles. In order to [I]thoroughly[/I] test your code, you out to try to run through a full test suite with every combination of those toggleable settings. So, that's 16 different combinations that should be tested. If you add one more toggleable option, you now have to test 32 different combinations of those settings. Every on/off toggle you add [I]doubles[/I] the numbers of potential combinations. Toggles with more than two possible positions explode the number of combinations even quicker.

So, people saying "please include more toggles" are either saying "please massively increase your testing workload" or "please release a system that has more and more untested configurations". Edited November 17, 2015 by Damien_The_Unbeliever
typo

[Kerbart]

[quote name='r4pt0r']Thats because they rushed the 1.0 release, remember? we are really on version .95 tbh.[/QUOTE]

Yes, that's a bit of a conondrum. On one hand we want the game to evolve. On the other we want some stability. The tone of these discussions would be different if the game was still in beta, where it should be, as features are added with each release. But alas...

[fisfis]

S1gmoid: Look at Linux Kernel developmnet lifecyce, the same for i.e. Netbeans... This is stadnard approach and nobody pays anything for that. Or do you think they can make drastical changes in minor releases so API and basiclly all software relaying on it will stop working? No, there are just slight improvements and bugfixes. And they work in paralel on next major version. Take a look on unity engine itself. There are additions in every new version which affects existing functions as less as possible or dont affect them at all. What means that bugs are fixed and you can use new minor version without stress that something will stop working.[COLOR=#333333]
[/COLOR] Edited November 17, 2015 by fisfis

[JTpopcorn]

So yes KSP will change, that is a good thing. It also does NOT destroy your progress. While you might have problems with long term missions, all craft, funds, science, rep CAN be transfered over game versions. While some craft might not work, building craft is part of the game, period.
While these changes cause craft to need changes, they allow great things like boats and mining.
The game will never be free of bugs, but no game is. The kraken can even be used for good if you have some creativity.
Finally, any mod support is great, and it normally takes a week for mods to be made compatible. Also, this is not squad's fault, squad (generally) doesn't make mods, the community does.

[jwenting]

[quote name='Kerbart']Yes, that's a bit of a conondrum. On one hand we want the game to evolve. On the other we want some stability. The tone of these discussions would be different if the game was still in beta, where it should be, as features are added with each release. But alas...[/QUOTE]

If the game were still in beta it would probably have been pulled.
It's more stable and playable than most released big ticket titles, far less problems.
The only difference is that there's this "community" where quite a few very loud mouthed people have a massively inflated sense of entitlement and constantly whine and complain as if every smallest glitch is the end of the world that's put in as a personal insult to them.

Those same bit ticket games don't have forums like this one for exactly that reason, and a lot of the big ticket gaming sites lined up with heavily paid for "reviews" months in advance.

[egoego]

I tend to agree with the OP about the point, that KSP changes to much in a minor release. I know it is hard to make a good physics simulation. But changing the atmospheric behaviour in a minor release after the game officially left Beta, is a thing I don't want to see. At least not everytime. Changes to something fundamental like the atmosphere make it necessary for me to relearn the game, and often I end up starting a new career, because some of my crafts already on a mission don't behave like tested.

Squad, please, settle for a certain physics model soon. You can't make it perfect for everyone, so stop changing it too often. If something doesn't seem right, maybe it's just some parts that need to be tweeked instead of the fundament everything is build on. You promised us a game that isn't beta anymore, so please give us a more consistent gaming experiance. As sooner as you settle for a physics setup you can move on to all the other bugs and missing things, like usefull tutorials (I imagine new players have a very hard time to get into the game at the current complexity level.)

[Guest]

Does Squad even have an actual plan for the game?

[ModZero]

[quote name='spink00']Does Squad even have an actual plan for the game?[/QUOTE]

World domination and sabotaging software development practices in chemical plants, obviously.

[KerbMav]

Since I induldged myself in some youtube comments I might as well write something in this thread as well.

Updates, Patches and new content are good and for career mode new and incompatible updates are a blessing, as there is not really a big reason to keep at it for too long before wanting to start over anyway.
I still havent been to Dres, I still havent landed kerbals on about four bodies - it keeps the game fresh in a way. :wink:
(That and not playing it every day as well as frequent months of abstinence for other games or TV series marathons.)

[Kerbart]

[quote name='jwenting']If the game were still in beta it would probably have been pulled.[/QUOTE]

Citation needed. Most of the people I think would be perfectly fine with a 0.9x status of the current release. The fact is that the game is far from feature complete, which is really what one would expect from a 1.0 version. At this point Squad should be adding content, not changing game mechanics. Don't get me wrong, I [I]like[/I] the fact that game mechanics are evolving but a 1.0 product code is raising expectations with some.

[quote name='jwenting']It's more stable and playable than most released big ticket titles, far less problems.[/QUOTE]
More playable? Yes, but that's the nature of the game. More stable? I don't play that many games, but KSP, even in its unmodded form, has crashed more than the other games (mostly valve games, warhammer 40k oldies, various versions of MS/LM Flight Simulator, and then a few) combined. Personally I don't mind the crashes that much; they're still relatively rare when playing vanilla, and far more common when modded, but you can't blame Squad for mods crashing the game. But the claim that it's more stable than other releases... I have my doubt on that. I guess it depends on the titles you compare it to.


[quote name='jwenting']The only difference is that there's this "community" where quite a few very loud mouthed people have a massively inflated sense of entitlement and constantly whine and complain as if every smallest glitch is the end of the world that's put in as a personal insult to them.[/QUOTE]

Spot on, yes. I could retire if I got a dollar for every "[I]KSP broke the game, I can't play it anymore[/I]" post that appears with new releases.

[quote name='jwenting']Those same bit ticket games don't have forums like this one for exactly that reason, and a lot of the big ticket gaming sites lined up with heavily paid for "reviews" months in advance.[/QUOTE]

I got the impression that that is what killed most game magazines way before the internet killed magazines... readers being fed up with always glowing reviews. Who uses review sites these days when you can get reviews on youtube that might not be as smooth but are at least not paid for?

[Yakuzi]

[quote name='jwenting']whiners will be whiners...
KSP's pretty stable. Sure it's not perfect. If you want perfection, you're never going to find it.
[/QUOTE]

That's a straw man fallacy; "don't give feedback/your opinion because perfection doesn't exist"...

[quote name='jwenting']If the game were still in beta it would probably have been pulled.
It's more stable and playable than most released big ticket titles, far less problems.
The only difference is that there's this "community" where quite a few very loud mouthed people have a massively inflated sense of entitlement and constantly whine and complain as if every smallest glitch is the end of the world that's put in as a personal insult to them.[/QUOTE]

That's an appeal to common practice fallacy; "don't give feedback/your opinion because most/all software companies do it"...


The fact is, Squad has stated KSP is out of beta, however, some core systems (like aero) are still under development which causes some people to be upset (rightfully so IMO). I don't care about non-core systems, but all physics related mechanics should've been properly designed before going out of beta, and committed to and rigorously tested so it won't require multiple game updates to iron out (5 since "1.0" and aero still seems to be under development). Edited November 17, 2015 by Yakuzi

[fisfis]

[quote name='Yakuzi']The fact is, Squad has stated KSP is out of beta, however, some core systems (like aero) are still under development which causes some people to be upset (rightfully so IMO). I don't care about non-core systems, but all physics related mechanics should've been properly designed before going out of beta, and committed to and rigorously tested so it won't require multiple game updates to iron out (5 since "1.0" and aero still seems to be under development).[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately, the fact also is there was a lot of stuff missing in 1.0 (such as heat shields and so on). And when they add these kind of parts they have to modify physics these parts are usfefull at all.

It is great they add such things. But again, please not in minor releases. If such thing is added it should be in major version. Minor version should contain just fixes and maybe some slight enhancements.


What I'd like to see that when a major version is released the worst bugs are fixed in some minor version releases. I.E. the warp bug in 1.0.4 - It could be simply fixed immediately with a patch. Edited November 17, 2015 by fisfis

[Choctofliatrio]

To be honest, I haven't had much issue with 1.0.5's release. I had to delete my career mode save because the new parts messed up the tech tree (I could put the Wheesley on my planes though it wasn't unlocked yet, and I couldn't put the Juno on, though it was unlocked. Course, I couldn't launch planes because the Wheesley, the only engine I had, wasn't unlocked)

But I didn't make it far in that career, so it was ok.

Learning new mechanics and such hasn't given me much trouble.

[Robet.G]

I don't know what's wrong with you people, I have no problems with. Any of these because I save zero space crafts. If I need a new craft I just build one, period.

[ExplorerKlatt]

Just to remind everyone, all the content in 1.0.5 was intended to be in the next major revision. I do believe they should have made it something like 1.0.8 or 1.0.9 to indicate it was a larger than normal minor revision. It got released as a minor revision because they realized that the major revision was going to take a fair bit longer than planned.

[Gaarst]

[quote name='ExplorerKlatt']Just to remind everyone, all the content in 1.0.5 was intended to be in the next major revision. I do believe they should have made it something like 1.0.8 or 1.0.9 to indicate it was a larger than normal minor revision. It got released as a minor revision because they realized that the major revision was going to take a fair bit longer than planned.[/QUOTE]

This.
Most, if not all, of the 1.0.5 features were supposed to be in 1.1, but it was decided to make a 1.0.5 version because the port to U5 was taking longer than expected.
KSP 1.0.5 is [I]not[/I] a minor release, like it or not.

And also, if your crafts do not work with a new version, just make new ones. KSP's goal is to make creative crafts, if the same rockets worked since 0.17.whatever there would be no point to the game anymore.

About mods: it is the modders' job to adapt their mods to the game, not the opposite. I use a lot of mods but I just wait for them to be updated and play the previous version in the meantime.

[problemecium]

Hmmm.
I do sort of agree with OP and some of the commenters on a few points. At some point, a bugfix-focused release that doesn't also involve adding a bunch of new parts is welcome in my book. Or perhaps that can also fall into the scope of a visual overhaul release where they add in the long-awaited stock clouds, etc. There's a lot of "missing features" and old, frustrating bugs that need tackling more than I personally need new parts at the moment.
I disagree with the complaints about new version breaking old ships. Your mindset is wrong. Despite SQUAD's claims that KSP is "1.0" and thus "scope complete", I still see it as a work in progress, so I never have any expectation that anything that works in one version will still work in another. I'm grateful when anything does and unsurprised when it doesn't. I'd rather have things fixed and improved than have SQUAD spend time keeping out-of-date ships and mods functional.
Now, in situations like we've had a few times in the past where a new minor version comes out every month, I can understand frustration when you keep trying to get through Career and finding everything breaking before you get to finish. It is reasonable to be slightly irritated when 1.0.2 breaks your 1.0.1 ship and then shortly thereafter 1.0.3 breaks your redesign, but of course when a "big" update like 1.1 arrives, it's only to be expected that a lot of things will change. My solution is this: When you get the new version, don't overwrite the old one - just install it in a new place and have two KSPs on your computer. Even Scott Manley has done this. This way you can finish up your old save and still get to play with the new stuff.

P.S. I also second Gaarst and ExplorerKatt in that perhaps this should have been called 1.1 and the next one called 1.2, but A: it's too late, and B: it was too late as soon as they decided in advance what the next version number would be and what would be in it, i.e. announcing that 1.1 would be the Unity 5 upgrade. If they then released something different, dumb people would get all confused (and not to be a downer but there are a lot more dumb people than not dumb people, in every community including this one). I guess in my ideal world they'd just number the versions on whatever day they come out, but it's really not a big deal in the end. Edited November 17, 2015 by parameciumkid
I'm not being mean, seriously! It's true! Sad, yes, but those are the facts.

[Van Disaster]

[quote name='Gaarst']
And also, if your crafts do not work with a new version, just make new ones. KSP's goal is to make creative crafts, if the same rockets worked since 0.17.whatever there would be no point to the game anymore.[/QUOTE]

Ignoring everything else - that's the same as saying "abandon your current missions", if you've happened to make use of something that doesn't work the same ( say...heating, which is pretty hard not to use ). That's a hell of a sink for someone on a tightly run career save, quite possibly a save-breaking one. So we're back to the start of the thread again. If KSP's goal was to make creative craft there'd be no career game.

[Korizan]

In regards to crafts getting broken during an upgrade.
I know there a methods to replace them manually and at one time wasn't there a mod to do it as well ?
And of coarse the other option is if you are playing a career mode and can't complete a mission do to a change.
Well F12 and complete it manually.
And the last and final answer is don't upgrade.