Devnote Tuesday: Everyone Pitches In

[federicoaa]

8 hours ago, regex said:

ADD A FREAKIN' ALARM CLOCK TO THE GAME

I wonder why we still don't have a stock alarm in game

[SessoSaidSo]

10 hours ago, TMS said:

N...n...n...n...

Which stuttering?

is this different to the one that's been present since 0.5 and is probably GC-related?

Yea! That's the stuttering! The one that has been there since 0.15 and is still in the game after it's full release in 1.0.5. Thank you for pointing out this has been an issue for so long.

Edited January 21, 2016 by SessoSaidSo

[Dr.K Kerbal]

cool

[Jasper_f]

Thank you for another excellent set of devnotes! These are always anticipated and appreciated. A lot of testing and preparations appears to be in the works for the next step (experimentals). I've not played KSP during the anticipation for the 1.1 update, and hence have not really played for several months. With the update taking its time, I have now come to the point where I might consider doing my own preparations for 1.1 in the form of PC hardware upgrades (considering upgrading my CPU from an i5 750 to an i7 4790k). Together with the 1.1 update and Unity5, I might end up experiencing KSP in a completely new (and hopefully better-running) way. Does anyone have experiences with regard to the i7 4790k and KSP performance?

[Daveroski]

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a building where we could see all of the individual bodies and perhaps register interest to gain contracts for that body or disinterest to stop future contracts for that body there.

Hey.. we DO have such a building. The job is already half done. Crack on!

 

Edited January 21, 2016 by Daveroski
typo

[Vallius]

One thing I haven't seen discussed yet about the weighted contract system is the fact that everybody starts on Kerbin. Due to the way career start, almost everybody starts the early game with a lot of missions around Kerbin's SOI.

Doesn't this mean that contracts will tend to be weighted towards Kerbin?  Squad should definitely give the player the option of choosing one or two destinations to focus on.

[Racescort666]

13 hours ago, Vallius said:

One thing I haven't seen discussed yet about the weighted contract system is the fact that everybody starts on Kerbin. Due to the way career start, almost everybody starts the early game with a lot of missions around Kerbin's SOI.

Doesn't this mean that contracts will tend to be weighted towards Kerbin?  Squad should definitely give the player the option of choosing one or two destinations to focus on.

I was thinking that too when this was mentioned. In the past, I was tending to do a lot of missions to Minmus and to a lesser extent Mun before I had the tech level to get to other planets. Once getting a transfer window to Duna, then Duna and Ike become my preferred destination because it's pretty easy to land and take off from there and it's fun to go to other planets.

In general, I go to the Mun because I have to and can't really get anywhere else without a huge, high part count, and cumbersome ship. Once I unlock NERVs, going other places are way more practical. 

[MrFancyPL]

I really can't wait for this new update and my eyes getting bigger when I see new dov notes  Guys, will you relase it on next, maybe second next week ? I will have winter holidays and I will play KSP day and night !!!

[juanml82]

Huh, those tutorials have walls of text. I'd either split them or set two types of tutorial messages: the full information one and the quick and dirty one. So, the return from the Mun tutorial could be simplified to "to eject inwards, burn here. To eject outwards, here" for people who would rather have a TL;DR version.

Walls of text tend to put people off, at least initially.

[mcirish3]

14 minutes ago, juanml82 said:

Huh, those tutorials have walls of text. I'd either split them or set two types of tutorial messages: the full information one and the quick and dirty one. So, the return from the Mun tutorial could be simplified to "to eject inwards, burn here. To eject outwards, here" for people who would rather have a TL;DR version.

Walls of text tend to put people off, at least initially.

Especially for the under 12 crowd.

[federicoaa]

7 hours ago, MrFancyPL said:

I really can't wait for this new update and my eyes getting bigger when I see new dov notes  Guys, will you relase it on next, maybe second next week ? I will have winter holidays and I will play KSP day and night !!!

They are still QAing the unity update, suppose they finish that by now, give it 2 weeks at least for QAing the 1.1 things (like the antennas) and another 2 weeks for experimentals, then we get the game. It'd be safer to assume we get the game around march

[mcirish3]

Beware of the Ides of march.

[Jim DiGriz]

On 1/20/2016 at 9:41 AM, regex said:

Right now we have a slot-machine that doles out side quests.  I want a career.

So much this ^^^^

On 1/21/2016 at 6:35 PM, federicoaa said:

I wonder why we still don't have a stock alarm in game

'cuz everyone uses the mod, and it works really well?  i'd rather see things fixed that aren't or can't be addressed in mods (unity 5) than just spend dev resources pulling mods into stock.

[klgraham1013]

19 hours ago, mcirish3 said:

Especially for the under 12 crowd.

I think you're giving the over 12 crowd to much credit. 

[r_rolo1]

17 hours ago, Jim DiGriz said:

 

On 21/01/2016 at 2:35 AM, federicoaa said:

I wonder why we still don't have a stock alarm in game

'cuz everyone uses the mod, and it works really well?  i'd rather see things fixed that aren't or can't be addressed in mods (unity 5) than just spend dev resources pulling mods into stock.

Well, that is a terrible line of thought given the incoming console versions, as they don't deal with mods as easily as PC, especially in cases of partially conflicting mods ( you can never assure that there isn't any other mod that will conflict with yours and unless you have a very good inbuilt tool to adress those conflicts ( KSP has not ), you can have nasty issues in front of you ).

And in general, devs, listen to me: in general, if your game at some point encourages the player to stop the game and pick a out of the game notebook or a calculator, you're doing your game wrong, since that breaks immersion ( especially in console games ). Unless your objective is making a  Nintendo Hard game , that is ...

[Cornholio]

It's probably too late for this, but I feel that Minmus would be a better target for a tutorial for a couple of reasons.

1. A lower gravity and smoother surface make it an ideal place for novice players to first land
2. Minmus has an inclined orbit, a common obstacle for travel between bodies outside of the Kerbin system

[mcirish3]

7 hours ago, Cornholio said:

It's probably too late for this, but I feel that Minmus would be a better target for a tutorial for a couple of reasons.

1. A lower gravity and smoother surface make it an ideal place for novice players to first land
2. Minmus has an inclined orbit, a common obstacle for travel between bodies outside of the Kerbin system

3. Lower DV requirements,  makes it more forgiving to novice designs, and amateur maneuvers.

Edited January 25, 2016 by mcirish3

[NathanKell]

The delta V required to land on Minmus is so small (and TWRs are so high) that we can't meaningfully teach a reverse gravity turn.

[mcirish3]

4 minutes ago, NathanKell said:

The delta V required to land on Minmus is so small (and TWRs are so high) that we can't meaningfully teach a reverse gravity turn.

Sounds like Kerbin needs a third moon between Kerbin and the Mun with a mass in between Minmus and Mun.  We could call it Maxmus.

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, mcirish3 said:

Sounds like Kerbin needs a third moon between Kerbin and the Mun with a mass in between Minmus and Mun.  We could call it Maxmus.

No.  Munmas.

[Red Iron Crown]

I think the Mun is best for the tutorial, just about every player goes for the Mun first because it's so visible and because Apollo. 

[Elthy]

On 23.1.2016 at 3:44 AM, juanml82 said:

Huh, those tutorials have walls of text. I'd either split them or set two types of tutorial messages: the full information one and the quick and dirty one. So, the return from the Mun tutorial could be simplified to "to eject inwards, burn here. To eject outwards, here" for people who would rather have a TL;DR version.

Walls of text tend to put people off, at least initially.

That is not a bad thing. When i remember how often someone just replies to a mod-thread with "how download" because he didnt even read the first post, it could benefit the community...

[Cornholio]

3 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I think the Mun is best for the tutorial, just about every player goes for the Mun first because it's so visible and because Apollo. 

I think more people would go to Minmus first if the tutorial showed just how much more accessible it is. 

[Red Iron Crown]

11 minutes ago, Cornholio said:

I think more people would go to Minmus first if the tutorial showed just how much more accessible it is. 

How would it show it's easier when there's only one tutorial? You need to go to both to make a comparison.

[Cornholio]

Maybe I worded that poorly.  My own experience in my first few attempts at career/science mode were straight to Mun because it was closest.  If I knew better, I would have gone for Minmus first.  Any new player I introduce to the game I always strongly suggest Minmus first.  I may be nitpicking, I guess, but of the two, Minmus fits better in the learning curve in my opinion.