Devnote Tuesday: Going through Max-Bug

[Wjolcz]

1.25m Skipper? Yeeeeeebooooyyyyyyyyyy

[klgraham1013]

7 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Procedural fairings. Procedural engine butts. I hope this is a trend.

 

2 hours ago, SQUAD said:

...while staying true to the lego approach that KSP has.

I wouldn't get to excited.  I'm fine with either approach.

[SpacedCowboy]

14 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Procedural fairings. Procedural engine butts. I hope this is a trend.

Oh!, I hope this is main stay. (off topic, 5th, there are five dots)

[mattinoz]

So will this new engines reacting to attachment happen on both ends of the Engine?

 

[Superfluous J]

56 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

I wouldn't get to excited.  I'm fine with either approach.

I personally think there is a way to keep the "Lego" building feel while also allowing for proceduralness. How hard would it REALLY be to drag a tank end up and down, perhaps snapping to different sizes even?

48 minutes ago, SpacedCowboy said:

Oh!, I hope this is main stay. (off topic, 5th, there are five dots)

Star Trek, man. Star Trek. Google "four lights"

12 minutes ago, mattinoz said:

So will this new engines reacting to attachment happen on both ends of the Engine?

 

If you mean the fairings that appear (and disappear) as if by magic, then by all means I hope so.

If you mean the engine bells, then by all means I hope not

Edited January 6, 2016 by 5thHorseman

[HafCoJoe]

 

On 1/5/2016 at 3:45 PM, SQUAD said:

Chris (Porkjet) has continued planning the start of overhauling the rocket parts in future versions. Special attention is being paid to ways to make the parts more versatile while staying true to the lego approach that KSP has. We’re reading suggestions in the forums, and the QA & experimental test teams have also provided useful feedback for this process.

O-O

On 1/5/2016 at 3:45 PM, SQUAD said:

ways to make the parts more versatile while staying true to the lego approach that KSP has.

O-O

 

 

Please SQUAD... Please...

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2016 by Avera9eJoe

[NathanKell]

@NoMrBond I'm certainly looking into that, yes.

[Dman979]

I'm glad to hear that the Ant will now work on the ARM parts!

But what will happen if we put a 2.5m engine on a 1.25 or .625m tank? I imagine that there might be some overlap between the turbopumps and the tank bottom.

[monstah]

13 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

But what will happen if we put a 2.5m engine on a 1.25 or .625m tank?

What always happens: a brief period of immense fun.

[mattinoz]

37 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

If you mean the fairings that appear (and disappear) as if by magic, then by all means I hope so.
 

Yes this one, it would vastly improve the look of the rockets if this gets fixed to match sizes above and below. It would also make more sense structurally if there was a faring to carry the force upwards and not rely on the delicate engine to do the job.

Yes also annoying that they disappear and not stay as rings which coast back as the engine fires and burst in to flames. Lets face there is a reason almost every high lights package of a space launch includes the shot of the stage separation.

[LaytheDragon]

3 hours ago, SQUAD said:

After working with NASA, Asteroid day and ESA we’re even looking into other cool partnerships!

Based on evidence from previous devnotes, it looks apparent that SpaceX is the next partnership. And, if I remember correctly a tidbit in a previous devnote, they have already started this "looking into" for SpaceX.

[curtquarquesso]

2 hours ago, LaytheDragon said:

Based on evidence from previous devnotes, it looks apparent that SpaceX is the next partnership. And, if I remember correctly a tidbit in a previous devnote, they have already started this "looking into" for SpaceX.

I think regardless of a partnership with SpaceX, a landing pad or two at KSC, and a landing pad on or near the island would be great. Landing rockets on the KSC lawn has little challenge to it nowadays. It'd be nice to have a few different targets to aim for to up the challenge. 

I can't really think of anything that would come out of a SpaceX partnership that we don't have already. Decals are easily added, and there are a plethora of decent Falcon 9 and Dragon parts out there. Any plausible ideas as to what they'd want in a partnership?

 

[Streetwind]

2 hours ago, curtquarquesso said:

I can't really think of anything that would come out of a SpaceX partnership that we don't have already. Decals are easily added, and there are a plethora of decent Falcon 9 and Dragon parts out there. Any plausible ideas as to what they'd want in a partnership?

My thoughts as well. The NASA partnership gave new parts, but the ESA partnership already only gave flags and decals... despite my hopes for Vega or Ariane based 2.5m SRBs.

While ground infrastructure is a thing that some people might want more of, I don't personally think that such a thing has all that much relevance to SpaceX. I mean sure, they built landing pads, but they're essentially just slabs of concrete with roads leading to them. They're not SpaceX's exciting technology - that one's in the rockets themselves. But unless we're getting some sort of MechJeb like automated rocket flying and landing software, I can't really think of a way to replicate that (and just imagine the outcry ).

Also, what other options are there besides SpaceX? The precedent of previous partnerships suggests government and nonprofit organizations more than for-profit corporations (of which there have been zero so far). So perhaps JAXA, ISRO? China has also been looking rather actively for international space partnerships of all sorts lately, too, though admittedly it's unlikely. Roscosmos... well, with the huge overhaul they're going through, one has to wonder if there's time for videogames there. Though they probably have the most potential for adding new, different-looking parts (such as the Soyuz booster's sloped radial tanks).

Edited January 6, 2016 by Streetwind

[Fred Cop]

New model overhaul for specific parts?

Why don't you use the current version of the to-be-remodelled parts as an Easter egg by placing them around (or in a 'junk' pile) the Inland Space Center?

It could be like how the original Mk.l Pod, Liquid Fuel tank and Liquid Fuel engine were placed inside one of the Island Runway's hangers.

[Kobymaru]

11 hours ago, Hotblack Desiato said:

just one thing: nobody forced you to work through christmas. a few days off wouldn't hurt at all, and since we don't know your release date, we don't know either, if you had to delay it for a bit.

While it's true that nobody forced them, the statement "a few days off wouldn't hurt at all" is not entirely correct. Currently, everyone is very focused and very productive in working towards the release, and if all of a sudden everyone drops everything for 1-2 weeks, it will unfortunately break the flow. Getting back to the same amount of prodcutivity after holidays would take another few weeks.

You could assume I was talking out of my S,  if Dr_Turkey wouldn't have said such a thing in the last 2 devnotes.

 

That being said, with the crew skipping holidays, I assumed that the release was much closer. But now that it is still an unnamed number of "weeks" out, I do get increasingly afraid of an overworked team that produces more bugs than it fixes. Let's hope it doesn't come to this.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Kobymaru

[Redneck]

Any news on the new partTools Kasper?

[marce]

9 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I personally think there is a way to keep the "Lego" building feel while also allowing for proceduralness. How hard would it REALLY be to drag a tank end up and down, perhaps snapping to different sizes even?

For me there are two aspects to procedural parts (which I love and use wherever possible):

1. Ability to make a vessel look "right" (e.g. streamlined). This is somewhat possible with stock only parts, but if you consider FAR voxels you want to be as close as possible. Pretty sure we won't get that.
2. Reducing the number of parts. Even with U5 we need this imho. Either by adding real procedural parts or providing a stock welding option. There is no reason for having to calculate 25 parts if they are meant to act as a single piece anyway. Maybe something the devs can look into for 1.3 or beyond.

[klgraham1013]

9 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I personally think there is a way to keep the "Lego" building feel while also allowing for proceduralness. How hard would it REALLY be to drag a tank end up and down, perhaps snapping to different sizes even?

I like it.  Instead of cluttering up the parts catalog, simply have tanks for each size that snap to different lengths.  Sounds good to me.

[KerbMav]

58 minutes ago, Kobymaru said:

That being said, with the crew skipping holidays, I assumed that the release was much closer. But now that it is still an unnamed number of "weeks" out, I do get increasingly afraid of an overworked team that produces more bugs than it fixes. Let's hope it doesn't come to this.

I think as long as they do not work overtime and still get to do other stuff in there free time this still quite young team will be fine for a few weeks longer. Trust me, I am the Doctor.

[Kiro]

Glad to read about all this progress. Keep up the good work. I'm very excited and eager to get back to KSP when 1.1 is released.
Is there any plan to add some beautification to the stock game or re-texturing any of the rocket parts? Something like Ven's re-texture mod in stock would be great

Thanks guys and once again keep up the great work.

 

 

[magico13]

My hope now that they seem to be going more procedural is for a stock fuel switch system. I'd love to be able to switch between having LFO or just LF in the tanks as a stock feature. Combine it with texture switching and we could remove a decent number of the (essentially duplicate) plane parts.

[Kiro]

4 minutes ago, magico13 said:

My hope now that they seem to be going more procedural is for a stock fuel switch system. I'd love to be able to switch between having LFO or just LF in the tanks as a stock feature. Combine it with texture switching and we could remove a decent number of the (essentially duplicate) plane parts.

YES!!! This would be a great benefit to stock.

[Gojira1000]

Procedural tanks, even if it's simply setting contents, would be brilliant. I'd love to see both content and size being tweakable.

[Kiro]

Tweakable tanks and texture options would really go far in reducing VAB/SPH part clutter. I find myself wasting most of my time looking for a specific part.

[Rainbowtrout]

Very nice devnotes! Good to see that the console edition is coming along!