Devnote Tuesday: Wednesday Edition!

[Uldis]

Why developers dont make beta versions which users can get if they accept it. That would be nice way to get bugs out and get mods on final realise date?

 

Thank you developers for such interesting game!

[KerbMav]

For pure angst: Please do not accommodate the PC version for console UIs - whenever I have to deal with GTA5s craptastic console-ported UI ...

Add one more to the list "supporters of more craft classifications"!

Satellites, planes, boats, shuttles - think that is reasonable. Currently I use base for my comm sat network, as long as a base is in orbit it is a satellite - but it is kinda dirty that way. A shuttles class would be nice to quickly find crafts that are only meant for surface-to-orbit transportation. (Making this part of the UI moddable and extendable like the app-launcher would be enough for me. )

Also: Is there a way to manually set the class before launch/in the editor?

Edited December 10, 2015 by KerbMav

[Phineas Freak]

+1 for vessel type customization. Or, at least, allow modders to create custom vessel categories.

[Hobbes Novakoff]

59 minutes ago, Mako said:

 

-snipetty snip snip-

 

Really?  When I see diagrams depicting predictable motion, they usually have a solid line behind the object and a dotted line in front.

[Streetwind]

I'm going to add my voice to the chorus of people greatly enjoying the screenshots and what's shown on them

[Ljas]

12 hours ago, SQUAD said:

On to the development of KSP 1.1 then. Felipe (HarvesteR) put in some overtime to fix several critical issues with the port that were holding back the rest of the development team. It’s crunch time in that department as well then, as we’re gearing up for a winter-stretch to make sure 1.1 is released as soon as possible. We’ve postponed our traditional two week end-of-year vacation time to make this happen.

While on paper this sounds great, there's a high chance something will be very wrong with the initial release and having the entire team bail out for two weeks right afterwards might backfire on you.

[Curveball Anders]

1 hour ago, Uldis said:

Why developers dont make beta versions which users can get if they accept it. That would be nice way to get bugs out and get mods on final realise date?

Public betas only work if you have internal infrastructure and resources made available to process the data that is generated. A focussed testing group is often more effective for a small(-ish) dev team.

And adapting a mod to a beta release is often a bit tricky since every new fix to the beta can require a similar fix in the mod.

[Commander Zoom]

I can almost guarantee that the current implementation of orbit trails (which, by the way, I love) is inspired by standard practice in PPI radar displays (the sort with a bright sweeping line that illuminates blips, which then fade) and the response of the human eye to bright objects moving against a dark background (they appear to leave a fading trail, or 'streamers' behind them; this effect can be enhanced by various means ranging from long-exposure photography to hallucinogenic drugs).

I understand the desire to see the part of the orbit that's coming up, but I submit that if you can't see that (or project/extrapolate it) clearly enough, you should probably be turning up your monitor's contrast, or asking for an option to draw the lines thicker or at constant weight/brightness, rather than for the convention to be reversed.

[Skalou]

11 hours ago, Hobbes Novakoff said:

I think of it as a sort of trail, which gets fainter and fainter as you get farther away from the ship.

Ah you see squad, the confusion is beginning!

it's not a trail showing your past positions but an instantaneous predicted trajectory! (they can match under certain circumstances)

it's too late to look behind, look ahead...

the author of the mod Trajectories understood it:

[Speadge]

@Skalouyou know we were speaking about the lighter parts of the orbit in squads screenshots? which in this situation was clearly no prediction!

=> check Jool, duna & Minmus on those pics

Edited December 10, 2015 by Speadge

[Skalou]

4 minutes ago, Speadge said:

@Skalouyou know we were speaking about the lighter parts of the orbit in squads screenshots? which in this situation was clearly no prediction!

I know,

yes it is for me. (exept for the contract orbit to reach, it seems it is accelerated in time to show a motion)

[Speadge]

15 minutes ago, Skalou said:

I know,

yes it is for me. (exept for the contract orbit to reach, it seems it is accelerated in time to show a motion)

accelerating? the only "acc" here is up to reaching the PE like a craft would do. and throttling down after passing it, like a craft would do..

[Wallygator]

10 hours ago, johnnyhandsome said:

Not thrilled to hear that the developers are skipping their 2 week holiday vacation. 1.1 is super important, don't rush. Another month or two to tweak and perfect this would be totally fine. Because this is going to be HUGE, so let's get it right!

Well, they created the clown car*, so they best all climb inside**. Frankly, it doesn't matter, because what time is not spent appropriately before the 1.1 release will by nature have to be spent afterward in the form of a hotfix.  Squad can (and will) approach this in whatever manner they wish regardless of community opinion.

More on topic, I think the bit of UI polish that has been added looks great - hopefully that will translate into an improved UX. More of that please.

Holiday wish: I just hope that somewhere in the grand mix is the time and space to rethink some early (IMHO very poor) design decisions regarding Kerbal experience, lack of a kerbal training game mechanic, the inclusion of essential flight information, and also a more comprehensive take on science activities and EVA dynamics (An equal balance of flying about AND doing stuff when you get there).

*Schedule; **Follow it

[Mat2ch]

Wait, what, 1.1 maybe before christmas? One ticket for the hypetrain please!

[Skalou]

21 minutes ago, Speadge said:

accelerating? the only "acc" here is up to reaching the PE like a craft would do. and throttling down after passing it, like a craft would do..

yes you are right,

but in the .gif the motion is really fast, targets orbits to reach ( for a contract from Jebediah and Co agency)  with the fadding animation added to show the way of the motion (the same as the actual one withe the small balls on the orbit >> 1.05 target contract orbit ),

it doesn't change the fact it's a future trajectorie and not a trail for me (look what happen if you place a manoeuver node or get an other SOI encounter)

Edited December 10, 2015 by Skalou

[Perry Apsis]

9 hours ago, Venusgate said:

I've never been more excited for interfaces!

I really like the orbital lines. Sometimes it's hard to keep orbital direction straight in your head and that's a very subtle, unobtrusive cue. I am curious if the twitchy intercept splines are being dealt with for good though...

More importantly for me, will those lines be easier to click on? How often have I been unable to create a maneuver node because the line was just not interested in being clicked? How frequently is it way too hard to put the node where you want it because it won't just plop onto the point on the line that's closest to your cursor?

 

Spoiler

"A lot," and "very."

 

Edited December 10, 2015 by Perry Apsis

[The Flame Cat]

14 hours ago, SQUAD said:

(on PS4 of course

Thank god. I want my friend to try and play KSP and he has the demo on his laptop, but I think KSP PS4 should be nice, but any chance of a smaller version for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3? Less parts, worse(ish) graphics, and a planet and it's moons removed? Would that work well?

[SelectHalfling0]

I'm super excited! I love the cellular data look of the complex and expensive satellites. Very kerabal-esque.

 

"Verizon/Sprint/ATandT 4G now covers Jool, Eeloo coming soon!"

[Jetski]

14 hours ago, magico13 said:

Any chance of folders, hiding certain vessels, or custom vessel types in the Tracking Station? A big issue with RemoteTech (which will now become a Stock issue) is that setting up networks quickly fills up the Tracking Station list with vessels you aren't going to use frequently (if ever again), making it harder to find the vessels you're looking for. Minimally I think "Plane" and "Comm. Relay" vessel types would be useful additions.

 

E: Also, it looks awesome!

Yes, this!  A way to filter out relays, especially if there's a non memory intensive way to do it, maybe like the flags? My whole system starts bogging down as soon as I get a decent relay network up, and my tracking station fills with junk.  Right now I name them all as station type and then filter to not show stations, but this would be amazing. Also plane icons!

[Elthy]

13 minutes ago, The Flame Cat said:

Thank god. I want my friend to try and play KSP and he has the demo on his laptop, but I think KSP PS4 should be nice, but any chance of a smaller version for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3? Less parts, worse(ish) graphics, and a planet and it's moons removed? Would that work well?

The PS4/XBOX1 are allready so weak in their CPU that i wonder how they get KSP to run on them. The Xbox360/PS3 are way worse, also extremly limited by their memory. Also i doubt there are many players left on those age old consoles, which where obsolete 5 years ago...

[DuoDex]

6 minutes ago, Elthy said:

The PS4/XBOX1 are allready so weak in their CPU that i wonder how they get KSP to run on them. The Xbox360/PS3 are way worse, also extremly limited by their memory. Also i doubt there are many players left on those age old consoles, which where obsolete 5 years ago...

A lot of speculation has been going on about how KSP is going to run on those consoles. There were a few unofficial consensuses, I think that one was that multithreading is happening in U5 (which would allow even the weakest of CPUs to run KSP), or that GPU offloading has been greatly optimized.

Or that there is a 100-part hard cap on parts for consoles, but I personally doubt that

[Speadge]

37 minutes ago, The Flame Cat said:

Thank god. I want my friend to try and play KSP and he has the demo on his laptop, but I think KSP PS4 should be nice, but any chance of a smaller version for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3? Less parts, worse(ish) graphics, and a planet and it's moons removed? Would that work well?

AFAIK Unity 4 is not compatible to the old consoles.

U5 became support on PS4 & XB1. so without porting to Unity5, a console port would not be possible anyway - and a PS3 version is simply not possible after all.

[razark]

16 hours ago, SQUAD said:

While looking at these pictures you might have noticed that the Tracking Station has received a bit of a user interface update as well: the top bar layout is much cleaner and is now consistent with the top bars on the other KSC facilities (editors excluded) as well.

Any information on when y'all might implement some sort of custom groups for the Tracking Station so it's not showing a horrid cluttered mess of unrelated craft in every category?

[stibbles1000]

Exciting stuff. Looking forward to the new updated. Hopefully more stable on mac...

[TopHeavy11]

Guess we better warm up the Hype Train!

 

EDIT: LOL bars.

Edited December 10, 2015 by TopHeavy11