Devnote Tuesday: On the eighth day before Christmas, Squad gave to me...

[p_gper]

Inflatable? Heatshield? So, we 're gonna protect from EVE re-entry heat with a ...baloon? That RoverDude! Lol!

[nosirrbro]

Woo! Excited for the progress of 1.1, cant wait for it to come out, even if its a little while away.

[acc]

please add a setting option to disable the 50% auto-throttle on launchpad/runway. should'nt be a big deal to get in and makes the life of some of us people much more easyer

[Phineas Freak]

1 hour ago, acc said:

please add a setting option to disable the 50% auto-throttle on launchpad/runway. should'nt be a big deal to get in and makes the life of some of us people much more easyer

In another note, if you want to change it now and not waiting, you can use the following MM patch:

@PHYSICSGLOBALS
{
	%prelaunchDefaultThrottle = 0
}

And it will make the throttle to default to zero on launch. But i agree, a GUI (like a slider) would be much better.

[acc]

15 minutes ago, Phineas Freak said:

In another note, if you want to change it now and not waiting, you can use the following MM patch:

@PHYSICSGLOBALS
{
	%prelaunchDefaultThrottle = 0
}

And it will make the throttle to default to zero on launch. But i agree, a GUI (like a slider) would be much better.

oh, nice, thank you. last time I looked into that it was'nt possible. then I'm fine

[klgraham1013]

4 hours ago, acc said:

please add a setting option to disable the 50% auto-throttle on launchpad/runway. should'nt be a big deal to get in and makes the life of some of us people much more easyer

Having throttle start at 50% doesn't help anyone.  Why that decision was ever made is beyond me.

[softweir]

It's there to let newcomers know that their engines have started up. I assume it isn't put at 100% so there is less chance of a rocket shooting up before the new player has had a chance to get their fingers on the controls.

That first launch is important to new players. If things don't work out well because of sudden surprises then that can cloud a person's entire experience towards a game. KSP is hard enough as it is, let's not throw yet another difficulty at a struggling newcomer!

[swjr-swis]

32 minutes ago, softweir said:

That first launch is important to new players. If things don't work out well because of sudden surprises then that can cloud a person's entire experience towards a game. KSP is hard enough as it is, let's not throw yet another difficulty at a struggling newcomer!

If a total beginner's experience was going to be 'clouded' on the currently many-hurdled UI road from starting the game to launching the first craft, I highly doubt that they would even get as far as staging.

When they do get that far, it means they've already managed to overcome several other more blocking UI mysteries, and are likely just as capable of figuring out that they need to look for the throttle control to make an engine go vroom.

 

[RoverDude]

12 hours ago, p_gper said:

Inflatable? Heatshield? So, we 're gonna protect from EVE re-entry heat with a ...baloon? That RoverDude! Lol!

It's kinda a real thing

http://www.space.com/16695-nasa-launches-hypersonic-inflatable-heat-shield.html

[Kobymaru]

26 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

It's kinda a real thing

http://www.space.com/16695-nasa-launches-hypersonic-inflatable-heat-shield.html

Edited December 17, 2015 by Kobymaru

[0111narwhalz]

3 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Having throttle start at 50% doesn't help anyone.  Why that decision was ever made is beyond me.

It seems that the 50% throttle thing is for very large ships that can't hold themselves up by themselves, so you can engage engines at the very moment of physics load. Rather than "T Z Spacebar" you can do "Spacebar T Z" so that the ship won't collapse.

As for the inflatable heatshields, they look glorious. 10m in a 2m attached profile? Excellent...

[klgraham1013]

1 hour ago, 0111narwhalz said:

It seems that the 50% throttle thing is for very large ships that can't hold themselves up by themselves, so you can engage engines at the very moment of physics load. Rather than "T Z Spacebar" you can do "Spacebar T Z" so that the ship won't collapse.

As for the inflatable heatshields, they look glorious. 10m in a 2m attached profile? Excellent...

That seems like a very specific example for a default setting.

3 hours ago, softweir said:

It's there to let newcomers know that their engines have started up. I assume it isn't put at 100% so there is less chance of a rocket shooting up before the new player has had a chance to get their fingers on the controls.

That first launch is important to new players. If things don't work out well because of sudden surprises then that can cloud a person's entire experience towards a game. KSP is hard enough as it is, let's not throw yet another difficulty at a struggling newcomer!

...or you could just teach newcomers what a throttle is.  Do racing games have the gas pedal held at 50% at the start of a race?  Do shooters have sporadic bursts of fire just in case a newcomer doesn't know how to play?  Give me an example of another game that does this because a new player might not know the controls.

[ronnie4444]

Guys, really, stop fighting over throttle defaults. If you don't like it, then use the patch Phineas Freak posted. I mean, can't we be discussing more intelligent topics?

13 hours ago, Phineas Freak said:

In another note, if you want to change it now and not waiting, you can use the following MM patch:

@PHYSICSGLOBALS
{
	%prelaunchDefaultThrottle = 0
}

And it will make the throttle to default to zero on launch. But i agree, a GUI (like a slider) would be much better.

Cheers,

//Ron

[J.Random]

Why are there disgusting yellow stains on the heatshield? Once again, this obsession with dirt amuses me. Other than that, looks good. Maybe the cap could look better without resizing. Edit: also, needs moar wrinkles.

Edited December 18, 2015 by J.Random

[Bloody_looser]

7 hours ago, J.Random said:

Why are there disgusting yellow stains on the heatshield? Once again, this obsession with dirt amuses me.

Should it be sparkling white? It's not a bidet or something.

P.S. Awesome heatshield, @RoverDude!

 

[Azimech]

On 16-12-2015 01:27:10, SQUAD said:

and of course the wheel modules have been completely rewritten by Felipe (HarvesteR)

Ehm ... own design or an implementation of Vehicle Physics Pro as earlier announced?

[J.Random]

14 hours ago, Bloody_looser said:

Should it be sparkling white? It's not a bidet or something.

No, just white, tiled and a bit crumpled, not covered in something I hope isn't Jeb's urine.

11 hours ago, Azimech said:

Ehm ... own design or an implementation of Vehicle Physics Pro as earlier announced?

I think I recall HarvesteR devnoting that it wasn't good enough because KSP rover may have wheels anywhere but the library expects car-like cars.

Edited December 19, 2015 by J.Random
seriously, Squad? pee-ai-ess-ess is a swear word now?

[softweir]

3 hours ago, J.Random said:

I think I recall HarvesteR devnoting that it wasn't good enough because KSP rover may have wheels anywhere but the library expects car-like cars.

Exactly: when you design a vehicle in the Unity 5 dev kit it assigns values to the suspension etc appropriate to that vehicle. If you create a bare-bones wheel, those values are insane soft, and useless when you take that wheel into the KSP SPH and try to add them to a rover! Therefore, KSP has to calculate values for suspension that are suitable for your rover.

[John FX]

On 17/12/2015 at 1:44 PM, klgraham1013 said:

Having throttle start at 50% doesn't help anyone.  Why that decision was ever made is beyond me.

It`s because some wanted 100% and some wanted 0% so they picked a compromise nobody wanted.

[Temstar]

I wonder what kind of gas the heat shield is filled with when it's inflated. If it's close to Kerbin/Earth atmosphere (say, 100% nitrogen) does that not mean the heat shield would actually act as a balloon in dense atmosphere like Eve/Jool?

That would be extremely interesting for Eve ascent where the heat shield serve both as a heat shield and first stage. When you want to take off just jettison some ballast and let your craft float up before jettisoning the heat shield and igniting the rocket engines.

[swjr-swis]

27 minutes ago, Temstar said:

If it's close to Kerbin/Earth atmosphere (say, 100% nitrogen) does that not mean the heat shield would actually act as a balloon in dense atmosphere like Eve/Jool?

Hmm, I wonder. My first instinct says not necessarily, in fact, not likely. 'Inflatable' implies that it is also 'compressible'. To keep the material inflated the pressure inside the part would have to equalize or exceed the pressure outside. At the same time, to keep the part's floatability the density of the gas (liquid?) inside at a given equal or higher pressure would need to be less than the outside. So it would depend: it would need to be a mixture that remains less dense at all times than the atmosphere.

Not too sure about Eve, but Jool's equivalent in another universe is actually mostly hydrogen and a bit of helium. It's basically a star that failed to accumulate enough mass to ignite. Do we know any element lighter than hydrogen, which could fill an inflatable inside an atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and helium, and remain lighter at an equal or higher pressure? I think anything alike Kerbin atmosphere would pretty much sink...

[Skalou]

hey roverdude,

Are you planning to release a version packed in a cylindrical box, so we can stack it on the both side, like these one for the HEART project?

( High Energy Atmospheric Reentry Test)

Too much kerbal, they forgot the chutes! 

 

Also, something tunnable like in the flash game could be very cool to adapt it  perfectly to our project, something a bit like the actual stock fairing?

HIAD - the game

 

Edited December 21, 2015 by Skalou