Squadcast Summary (2016/01/14) - Squad have a doggy edition

[Curveball Anders]

22 hours ago, MiniMatt said:

Console work doesn't limit PC branch. Console work has helped PC branch by "forcing" better work practices & clean up/optimisation of code.

This is something that I personally have experienced in many different projects.

The 'restriction' imposed by having to make sure that the project is portable (in our cases it's been making sure that the same code base works in both MS and Un*x environments) has always lead to much better structure, less desperate hacks, faster upgrades and ports to new or upgraded platforms, better documentation and most of all, far less bugs in the end products.

There will always be induhviduals who whine over not being allowed to use some special hacks that "are just soo cool and efficient" on their preferred platform but they are often very quiet when the supplier of their preferred system change their system (as in Microsoft NT, Me, 2k, Vista, 8 ... ) forcing a serious re-write of large chunks of the software.

With the exception of bare metal software written in assembler I've not come across a single case in 30+ years where a generic documented structure and good portability hasn't made the end product better and more stable.

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, selfish_meme said:

Sorry you said moving parts, was not aware it was IR you were talking about

Other than the claw (which does it by default), there is no way to attach anything to a moving part in the stock game. and no, I'm not talking about cargo bay doors. Or landing gear. I'm talking building a ship so that in flight, you can activate something that causes the ship to change shape, which is what was wanted when talking about hinges.

Edited January 16, 2016 by 5thHorseman

[selfish_meme]

5 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Other than the claw (which does it by default), there is no way to attach anything to a moving part in the stock game. and no, I'm not talking about cargo bay doors. Or landing gear. I'm talking building a ship so that in flight, you can activate something that causes the ship to change shape, which is what was wanted when talking about hinges.

You can get a craft to change from one attachment to another using moving parts like airbrakes, there are examples of stock elevators and doors in the spacecraft exchange.

[Rune]

3 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Other than the claw (which does it by default), there is no way to attach anything to a moving part in the stock game. and no, I'm not talking about cargo bay doors. Or landing gear. I'm talking building a ship so that in flight, you can activate something that causes the ship to change shape, which is what was wanted when talking about hinges.

IIRC, it's the part coordinate system that is the source of the problem. When you change the position/dimensions of one part, you have to essentially rewrite the whole ship (and yeah, when you dock a ship, you essentially rewrite the whole thing into a new ship file). And the Klaw is buggy as heck, still and always. As a guys that docks a lot, I can surely attest to that. Even plain docking ports will sometimes create issues, still, due to that rewriting of ship files, if you search for the corner case (double/triple dockings, same vessel dockings, decouple into an instant dock...). And not light stuff either, you can break ships and savegames with them (right now I have to clean my savefile every two docks or so of "docked (same vessel)" bugs to keep it viable).

It would be great if they somehow managed to fix it, but I fear it is so ingrained in the way KSP works, you might as well rewrite the whole thing from the ground up and create a while new game. At most we could get some hack that short of works most of the time... which is what IR is. That said, the guys behind IR as true masters of modding, and mad respects to them.

Oh, and BTW, thanks for doing this! I enjoy a lot the condensed info I can read at my own leisure.

 

Rune. The real question is why KAS isn't stock, it suffers no more inherent risks than docking.

[selfish_meme]

9 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Other than the claw (which does it by default), there is no way to attach anything to a moving part in the stock game. and no, I'm not talking about cargo bay doors. Or landing gear. I'm talking building a ship so that in flight, you can activate something that causes the ship to change shape, which is what was wanted when talking about hinges.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/60345-work-in-progress-wip-design-thread/&do=findComment&comment=2364870 I know it's a hack, and does not work the way a real hinge should, and it needs docking ports to work, but it is a stock way of creating something that you can activate that cause the ship to change shape.

[Superfluous J]

On 1/16/2016 at 7:36 AM, selfish_meme said:

You can get a craft to change from one attachment to another using moving parts like airbrakes, there are examples of stock elevators and doors in the spacecraft exchange.

Are you talking about using airbrakes to "climb" or "walk" so docking ports can connect, or a ship can move across another ship? That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about a single craft that can - the way IR does it - rotate a hinge or something to change the way the ship looks. This causes bugs that are very apparent, reproducible, unavoidable, and (it seems) unfixable. Introducing that level of bug into the game on purpose just for "yay hinges" would be a terrible idea.

[selfish_meme]

2 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Are you talking about using airbrakes to "climb" or "walk" so docking ports can connect, or a ship can move across another ship? That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about a single craft that can - the way IR does it - rotate a hinge or something to change the way the ship looks. This causes bugs that are very apparent, reproducible, unavoidable, and (it seems) unfixable. Introducing that level of bug into the game on purpose just for "yay hinges" would be a terrible idea.

Did you even look at the link? The wings fold out via a 'hinge' and then 'dock' in position.

[Padishar]

On ‎15‎/‎01‎/‎2016 at 1:06 PM, MiniMatt said:

Console work has helped PC branch by "forcing" better work practices & clean up/optimisation of code.

Hopefully that means they've had to rewrite all the resource (as in LF/O/Mono/EC etc.) handling code to make the game run acceptably on consoles...

[Superfluous J]

7 hours ago, selfish_meme said:

Did you even look at the link? The wings fold out via a 'hinge' and then 'dock' in position.

I did not. I swear it wasn't there when I first read your post. Or, I totally blanked on it. That's probably more likely but I really did not see it.

However, "Look at this crazy kludge involving cramming a bunch of thermometers together" is a far cry from "hinges now work and should be implemented in the stock game."

[selfish_meme]

7 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I did not. I swear it wasn't there when I first read your post. Or, I totally blanked on it. That's probably more likely but I really did not see it.

However, "Look at this crazy kludge involving cramming a bunch of thermometers together" is a far cry from "hinges now work and should be implemented in the stock game."

I agree that we need hinges and bearings in stock, I want them desperately. But there are ways to make them in stock now,  and some work quite well, like bearings.

We don't think it's crazy, it does make our builds part heavy though.

Edited January 18, 2016 by selfish_meme

[Guest]

On January 15, 2016 at 8:06 AM, MiniMatt said:

<SNIP>

DasValdez is making a Dreamchaser in stock KSP.

<SNIP>

 

 

Let's hope they don't send a cease and desist to Squad...

KITTEN!!!!!

Edited January 18, 2016 by Guest

[NoMrBond]

The quaternion math to do with moving joints (i.e. robotics) is difficult (and prone to explosions), however Sirkut did show off a different version (than is used in MSI/IR) based on direct transform manipulation which was apparently much more stable, perhaps that would be suitable?

As for Unity version, @Dr_Turkey said 5.3.4, which (unfortunately) doesn't exist, since prior 1.1 builds were on 5.2.1 (and 5.2.4 does exist), I'm going to assume 1.1 is currently being QA'd on Unity 5.2.4

[WWEdeadman]

On the topic of achievements: If you're already doing it for console, then there is literally no harm in including it on Steam. Honestly, I'd find it a nice addition.

[KasperVld]

1 hour ago, NoMrBond said:

The quaternion math to do with moving joints (i.e. robotics) is difficult (and prone to explosions), however Sirkut did show off a different version (than is used in MSI/IR) based on direct transform manipulation which was apparently much more stable, perhaps that would be suitable?

As for Unity version, @Dr_Turkey said 5.3.4, which (unfortunately) doesn't exist, since prior 1.1 builds were on 5.2.1 (and 5.2.4 does exist), I'm going to assume 1.1 is currently being QA'd on Unity 5.2.4

I'm pretty sure we've moved to 5.3.

[klgraham1013]

18 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I'm talking about a single craft that can - the way IR does it - rotate a hinge or something to change the way the ship looks. This causes bugs that are very apparent, reproducible, unavoidable, and (it seems) unfixable. Introducing that level of bug into the game on purpose just for "yay hinges" would be a terrible idea.

Saying any problem is unavoidable and unfixable seems very defeatist.  Tackling these sort of problems is how innovation happens.  ...but, hey, I'm no programmer.

[m4v]

6 hours ago, WWEdeadman said:

On the topic of achievements: If you're already doing it for console, then there is literally no harm in including it on Steam. Honestly, I'd find it a nice addition.

Depends if the achievements are added for the sake of getting the certification or if they're added because Squad genuinely believes they improve the game.

Edited January 18, 2016 by m4v

[NoMrBond]

10 hours ago, KasperVld said:

I'm pretty sure we've moved to 5.3.

That man will be the death of me!

[Edit] @KasperVld Could you please confirm this one way or the other (5.2.4 vs 5.3.1p3), or put it in the devNotes tomorrow or something

5.3.x would be neat, some good stuff in there.

Edited January 18, 2016 by NoMrBond

[KasperVld]

1 hour ago, NoMrBond said:

That man will be the death of me!

[Edit] @KasperVld Could you please confirm this one way or the other (5.2.4 vs 5.3.1p3), or put it in the devNotes tomorrow or something

5.3.x would be neat, some good stuff in there.

I double checked but we're currently on 5.2.4 still. That's subject to change of course.

[Superfluous J]

21 hours ago, selfish_meme said:

I agree that we need hinges and bearings in stock, I want them desperately. But there are ways to make them in stock now,  and some work quite well, like bearings.

We don't think it's crazy, it does make our builds part heavy though.

I didn't mean the workarounds the community has come up with are BAD. Just that using that technique in a stock part would be bad. It's a kludge. It works in spite of the programming, not because of it.

12 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Saying any problem is unavoidable and unfixable seems very defeatist.  Tackling these sort of problems is how innovation happens.  ...but, hey, I'm no programmer.

Neither am I. I'm going by the fact that IR has been a mod for longer than I've been playing KSP and it's always been buggy. I hate to be defeatist but a lot of very smart people have looked at it and it's still buggy.

[NoMrBond]

1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:

either am I. I'm going by the fact that IR has been a mod for longer than I've been playing KSP and it's always been buggy. I hate to be defeatist but a lot of very smart people have looked at it and it's still buggy.

Sirkut did work out a much better way of doing it, there was a preview called Robotic Arms or something, but I haven't heard anything about it for a while, maybe it didn't pan out? I remember it being a lot more stable

[WWEdeadman]

22 hours ago, m4v said:

Depends if the achievements are added for the sake of getting the certification or if they're added because Squad genuinely believes they improve the game.

How does that make a difference? If the achievements turn out to be stupid, I'll just ignore them, as with 99% of my steam library. If they're fun, I'll go get them all. So, worst case scenario is you don't change anything by adding them, except for upsetting some completionists who think they'd HAVE TO get all achievements, or they'd die.

[Superfluous J]

On 1/15/2016 at 8:06 AM, MiniMatt said:

Look forward to 5thHorseman (and Owl before him) writing up the Squadcasts each week but I think he's been busy the last couple.

I hate to do this, but I'm officially going to bow out from doing these. I just don't have the time to watch them anymore with other things taking up my "gaming" time and less gaming time overall.

I hope someone else can take the reins and I'll happily read and rep "like" any summaries that come along!

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I hate to do this, but I'm officially going to bow out from doing these. I just don't have the time to watch them anymore with other things taking up my "gaming" time and less gaming time overall.

I hope someone else can take the reins and I'll happily read and rep "like" any summaries that come along!

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....

[StarStreak2109]

7 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I hate to do this, but I'm officially going to bow out from doing these. I just don't have the time to watch them anymore with other things taking up my "gaming" time and less gaming time overall.

I hope someone else can take the reins and I'll happily read and rep "like" any summaries that come along!

Shame, but as you said unavoidable. Thanks for your work, it was a pleasure to read them!

[MiniMatt]

9 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I hate to do this, but I'm officially going to bow out from doing these. I just don't have the time to watch them anymore with other things taking up my "gaming" time and less gaming time overall.

I hope someone else can take the reins and I'll happily read and rep "like" any summaries that come along!

Sorry to hear that, 5th, but understand your position and you've intimated as much in the past.

As you've also noted, I suspect Squadcast is at a bit of a crossroads. To be fair to Squad, having both a weekly Devnotes and a weekly Squadcast packed with juicy development info is a tall ask; I'd be surprised if they're not considering shaking things up a bit and perhaps focusing on a less frequent but more polished and exclusive content heavy video feature.

That said, Squadcast is quite a draw to KSPTV - and whilst Twitch streamers might not be everyone's cup of tea, they are undeniably a successful and talented bunch who deserve their place in modern culture and modern game marketing. The "market" for Squadcast summaries is..... perhaps not the Twitch audience - we're not hugely interested in watching someone play the game, we're more interested in the buried dev info - and having someone summarise this for us without us having to watch an hour of rocket flipping was perfect. So two different audiences, and as the "squadcast summary audience" it's important to remember we're not the only voice.

My suggestion, for what it's worth, would be for Squad to tie these into the Devnotes. If a week's devnotes has some particularly juicy bits, or things they want to show off, state "to find out more, watch TwitchStreamerX's feed on Thursday where we'll be exclusively showcasing these features". Make Squadcast a 15 minute jump in with an established KSPTV streamer. It makes Squad's contribution more dense and less rambling, and acts as a marketing pull for streamers themselves - "tune in this week where I'll be joined by Squad and exclusively revealing new video of their upcoming release".

Anyway, I'll keep an eye out, if I have time I'll do, if not, I won't. If everyone with an interest does the same, we're covered.

By the looks of things, for those wondering, it appears there wasn't a Squadcast this (last) week.