How to futureproof a career for 1.1?

[eddiew]

Hey chaps and chappettes,

So... 1.1 is delayed for quality reasons. Which is better than giving it to us a day before the holiday season, then not being able to support all the bugs in it :) On the other hand, I'm jonesin' for some KSP and I play pretty slowly, so I was wondering:
[B]
[COLOR=#008080]What would I need to do in a 1.0.5 career such that nothing stops working in 1.1?[/COLOR]

[/B]I suspect the antennae thing will come into play, but I haven't really paid any attention to it. Would it just mean there must always be an antenna on every ship? Would I need to use a certain size to cover a certain distance?

Any further aero/heat changes anticipated? I'd hate to send out return-vessels that completed a 2-month real-time voyage, only to burn up in an atmosphere that's suddenly harsher than they were designed for at launch...

Advice appreciated :)

[Snark]

You're potentially going to lose control of anything uncrewed. From the release notes, I gather that they're going to be implementing something much like RemoteTech, but slightly more forgiving.

From reading the release notes, I gather that to control an uncrewed vessel, you need an antenna; it has to have enough range to reach either Kerbin or the next link in the chain to Kerbin; and if you're not connecting directly, you need to have a continuous unbroken chain of relays back to Kerbin. Plus there's some provision for crewed ships to serve as remote-control sources (i.e. you can link back to them instead of linking all the way back to Kerbin), though the exact details of that are unclear.

Their [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/content/350"]release notes[/URL] don't mention changes to game physics (such as reentry heat)... but Squad has a track record of tinkering and rebalancing with each major update, so it's best not to count on everything staying exactly the same.

All in all: It's going to be an extremely heavy-hitting change. I don't know how reverse-compatible it will be; it may be that career breakage is unavoidable. I doubt that there's any really reliable way to know, prior to 1.1, whether you're guaranteed to work. It's also highly likely that many if not all mods will break, so if you use career-affecting mods (e.g. new parts, etc.) then that would make breakage more likely, I would think.

Personally, I plan on starting a fresh career with 1.1.

I would suggest one of the following:


[LIST]
[*]Plan on starting a new career with 1.1.
[*]If you have a pre-1.1 career that you really can't bear the thought of ditching when 1.1 hits: Before 1.1, copy your whole KSP install tree to a new folder. That way you can play your old career in 1.0.5, and any new careers in 1.1.
[/LIST] Edited November 26, 2015 by Snark

[waterlubber]

I just installed RemoteTech. Easy peasy.

[KerikBalm]

I'm going to .cfg edit better antennas on all of my craft that i've already launched, and launch all my craft with the biggest antennas that I can ... but I know they are going to introduce even bigger ones... for now I'm also at times using the asteroid day ant - I hope the asteroid day antenna is updated to work with 1.1.

[Claw]

Right now, the only thing that's been announced that will have a big impact on saves is the CommNetwork (whatever it's going to be called). As Snark said, it'll cause some control issues for uncrewed (probe) vessels. For probes that are already in place, it probably won't be an impact except that you'll have to go back and add in communication nodes to get back to controlling them. The issue will be for anything enroute. If it's out of communication range on the way to another planet, you'll probably not be able to do the capture burn at it's destination. The fix for that will be preemptive, and make sure you don't have anything enroute while moving the save from 1.0.5 to 1.1.

Cheers,
~Claw

[eddiew]

[quote name='Snark']I would suggest one of the following:


[LIST]
[*]Plan on starting a new career with 1.1.
[*]If you have a pre-1.1 career that you really can't bear the thought of ditching when 1.1 hits: Before 1.1, copy your whole KSP install tree to a new folder. That way you can play your old career in 1.0.5, and any new careers in 1.1.
[/LIST]
[/QUOTE]

I don't really have a problem with abandoning careers, but tbh, I've never sent a crew beyond Duna/Ike/Eve/Gilly because of all the major patches! 0.90 was my longest, and I still didn't have time for Dres...

Turns out I'm a slow old duffer wrt gameplay :<


[quote name='Claw']The fix for that will be preemptive, and make sure you don't have anything enroute while moving the save from 1.0.5 to 1.1.[/QUOTE]

That is eminently doable, actually. My promise-to-self for next career is less parallelism so's to actually [I]go[/I] to more places rather than hit Mun+Minmus 10 times each while a single probe slowly flies towards Jool :)

[KerikBalm]

[quote]For probes that are already in place, it probably won't be an impact except that you'll have to go back and add in communication nodes to get back to controlling them[/quote]
What if my probe has no antenna at all?
Will probe cores have a basic built in receiver/transmitter s othat if I get another vessel with an antenna close enough to them, then I can control them?

Many of my probes are not there for science, but to go out an intercept an asteroid, or mine ore and bring it to a depot, or just "tugs" to push/pull payloads around in orbit.
If probes don't have a basic control range without having to add an antenna, all these craft will become debris unless I .cfg file edit.