Devnote Tuesday: A change of pace

[SQUAD]

Hello everyone!

With an internal deadline behind us we’re winding down a little, allowing everyone to feel a bit more human again. This is temporary mind you, as we have many more milestones to cross in the near future! Regardless, this change of pace is a very welcome one indeed and almost everyone took a well-deserved day off last Friday.

That still leaves quite a few days in the week to code, model and converse of course, and Felipe (HarvesteR) has spent them by starting the QA process for the wheels. The ‘new‘ wheels, implemented half a year ago already, still had quite a few unresolved issues that had remained unaddressed… until now!

A wide range of issues was fixed this week: from initialization issues that were caused by oversights from six months ago to more bizarre bugs such as the one that caused parked wheels to start drifting. We never quite discovered the root cause of the issue, but Felipe devised a plan (a very cunning plan) and simply corrected the phantom torque with an equal and opposite torque. Newton would be proud. The wheels now stay in place, which means that vehicles continue to not move as they should.

Another wheel related issue we ran into was that the wheel friction seemed far too low in low-gravity environments. As it turns out, this wasn’t a bug but rather an accurate display of physics: in low-gravity environments the load that is exerted on the vehicle by the mass that is placed on the wheels decreases, as the parts weigh less in their current state. The perceived problem existed because the wheels never compensated for the amount of gravity they were experiencing, and the wheels would spin out at the slightest touch of the controls. The solution is of course traction control. This system will now automatically adjust the amount of torque the wheels produce based on the gravity of the planet or moon you’re located at. Best of all perhaps, Felipe wants to let players override this system, which could lead to a lot of fun.

The last change related to wheels we want to discuss here should be welcome to a lot of you, as this has been a source of much grief: the ‘old’ wheels had an impossibly high lateral friction value, which caused takeoffs to be jittery if the wheels were ever so slightly misaligned, and caused rovers to flip end over end at the slightest provocation. With the new wheel system it’s much more likely that the rover will spin out and perhaps enter a roll if the forces are great enough. This could, of course, lead to even more fun.

Steve (Squelch) and Mathew (sal_vager) have definitely proven that the new wheels are behaving better and better: both have put in many hours to test their functionality, or rather break it in true Danny2462 style.

On the topic of bugs and testing, Nathanael (NathanKell) continues doing what he does best: squash them with might and fury. The most notable one this week was caused by a change in the RCS thrust calculations: in certain situations the RCS thrusters would visually show a low-power output when the thrusters were in fact working at maximum capacity. In other news, in order to be able to easily track pitch during ascent, and have yaw/pitch/roll rate measurements for wheel testing, pitch/heading/roll output was added to the AeroGUI and AeroGUI has been made a debug option from the aerodynamics tab of the debug toolbar. AeroGUI was originally written to help 1.0 aero QA and it’s been helpful in every QA session since, so ‘stockification’ of this development tool is worth the effort.

The KSPedia is a new feature for 1.1, and after Dave (TriggerAu)’s design work Mike (Mu) is now working to get the backend system into a working state and into the main project, as well as continuing work on the new PartTools project. The new PartTools uses Unity AssetBundles rather than .mu files and will therefore allow every standard Unity object to be included in mods. Hopefully this will lead to new and interesting mods after the release of 1.1. The AssetBundles can be loaded as part of the main loading method or delayed and loaded & unloaded on-demand whilst the game is running. The old Mu files and loading methods will of course still be supported.

Bob (RoverDude) spent this week building and refining the user interface for the telemetry and antenna relay systems, the network graph in particular. This part will show your current communications path back to Kerbin the map view. Aside from that the usual necessary tasks have also taken up some time: code documentation, design notes and testing instructions for the QA team.

The biggest change in pace is no doubt for Ted, who has taken on the task of representing Kerbal Space Program in the mainstream UK media. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, space is all the rage in the UK with astronaut Tim Peake currently aboard the International Space Station. Ted is currently in London and preparing to record radio and TV interviews which will be aired throughout the UK in the next week. After that is done Ted will fly out to Paris to join Kasper (KasperVld) and head to the iGamer conference for educational games. Preparations for the conference are coming along, and there’s a lot of things to take care of: a system to demonstrate the game, printing posters and flyers and of course taking care of accommodations for the developers. If you’re in the Paris area this weekend then feel free to come and say hi!

Joe (Dr Turkey) sends his regards, some bad chicken has thoroughly ruined his day so he was unable to contribute to this week’s devnotes.

That’s it for this week, be sure to read the KSP forums, follow the KSP Twitter and Facebook accounts or follow us in any other place you can think of.

[gonzo98x]

Hmm 1,100 words exactly. Otherwise as in other parts of the world 1.100 

1.1 confirmed! Waiting for steam to update my install. 

Edited January 26, 2016 by gonzo98x

[nukeboyt]

6 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

which caused takeoffs to be jittery if the wheels were ever so slightly misaligned, and caused rovers to flip end over end at the slightest provocation. With the new wheel system it’s much more likely that the rover will spin out and perhaps enter a roll if the forces are great enough. This could, of course, lead to even more fun.

This will be very nice.  Spin outs.... 

 

Edited January 26, 2016 by nukeboyt

[YargJay9991]

Looking forward to the new wheels! Will the aircraft landing gear be able to turn? It would be nice if they did. It would make taxiing much easier!

Happy Flying

YargJay9991

[cubinator]

Yay! Newtonian rover wheels!

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

8 minutes ago, gonzo98x said:

Hmm 1,100 words exactly. Otherwise as in other parts of the world 1.100 

1.1 confirmed! Waiting for steam to update my install. 

Actually, wordcounter.net gets 995 words 5679 characters.

Anyway, exciting devnotes!  Wheels!  RCS! 

[Skylar']

Forgot the poem !  make adjustible wheels suspension. so players can change it depending on graviti of planet they go

Edited January 26, 2016 by Skylar'

[Guest]

Goodbye blender mu import/export plugin.  I'm glad 1.1's going a bit more generic, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about using AssetBundles.  Question: can you provide en example of how we'd use it in the config.  I'm pretty sure it's going to be the same, right?

BTW, 1111 posts.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Guest

[legoclone09]

It is time. Time for drift rovers on Eeloo

[Superfluous J]

I hope applying an opposite force to the wheels to keep them from sliding doesn't come back to bite you as another bug.

[Hobbes Novakoff]

Oooh... Does this mean we can have drift racing competitions? Once multiplayer is implemented this is gonna be awesome.

[TMS]

Quote

We never quite discovered the root cause of the issue, but Felipe devised a plan (a very cunning plan) and simply corrected the phantom torque with an equal and opposite torque.

lol

Can't see that coming back to haunt you.

[DuoDex]

24 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

The new PartTools uses Unity AssetBundles rather than .mu files and will therefore allow every standard Unity object to be included in mods. Hopefully this will lead to new and interesting mods after the release of 1.1. The AssetBundles can be loaded as part of the main loading method or delayed and loaded & unloaded on-demand whilst the game is running. The old Mu files and loading methods will of course still be supported.

So.

Dynamic loading, this looks like.

Bra-vo.

[pandaman]

3 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I hope applying an opposite force to the wheels to keep them from sliding doesn't come back to bite you as another bug.

That's exactly what I thought when I read it.  But I suppose if the real cause can't be traced then it's better than just leaving it.

[juanml82]

Better rover wheels! Yes!

 

And to dampen the mood, any idea if adapting to the new wheel system will be troublesome for modders? As in,  we may have a longer than usual wait for mods which include wheels to be updated?

Edited January 26, 2016 by juanml82

[sumghai]

Nice to read about updates to the new wheel system. Any chance we'll see alternative steering options (e.g crab or sideways steering?)

17 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

The new PartTools uses Unity AssetBundles rather than .mu files and will therefore allow every standard Unity object to be included in mods. Hopefully this will lead to new and interesting mods after the release of 1.1. The AssetBundles can be loaded as part of the main loading method or delayed and loaded & unloaded on-demand whilst the game is running. The old Mu files and loading methods will of course still be supported.

Excited to see more updates to the PartTools package, especially the potential for loading/unloading assets on demand. I'm also relieved to hear that the Mu file method will still be retained.

I do, however, have a few questions regarding the new PartTools, KSP and the Unity 5 update:

 - Will the legacy animation system eventually be scrapped in favor of the new Animator component?

 - How would the new PartTools support animated textures/emissives? (e.g. lighted windows, engine heat emissives)

 - For IVAs/props using large shared textures, older versions of PartTools usually save the textures into the Unity scene files. Will the new PartTools allow dynamic loading/unloading of assets within the Unity editor?

 

[Alshain]

33 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

With the new wheel system it’s much more likely that the rover will spin out and perhaps enter a roll if the forces are great enough. This could, of course, lead to even more fun.
 

So the problem is going to be worse?  I'm confused by this statement.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Alshain

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

20 minutes ago, Skylar' said:

Forgot the poem !  make adjustible wheels suspension. so players can change it depending on graviti of planet they go

Yeah... Where's our poem? 

I can't wait for the wheel fixes...

[regex]

44 minutes ago, SQUAD said:

Best of all perhaps, Felipe wants to let players override this system, which could lead to a lot of fun.

When in doubt, give the player more options.  More options is always better.

[Gojira1000]

Oh yeah, I sense a Duna Dakkar Rally stage coming up in the 1.1 future

[NoMrBond]

Maybe Edy who developed the version of VPP which Squad is using for 1.1 could help debug the phantom torque stemming from the wheels? Actually I would be amazed if Squad hadn't already asked them so maybe that's a bit redundant. It would be nice if the PhysX debug was included in Unity though, unfortunately it's still in the development roadmap and hasn't been scheduled for 5.4 or 5.5

Would it be possible to get a old vs. new video of the wheels in action (as far as comparisons could be managed anyway)?  Even a couple of vine clips or something, it needn't be a highly produced video, set to Yakkety Sax a plus.

Will Squad be taking advantage of the asset bundles internally? i.e. unloading the space centre while you're in space, unloading other planets (except their scaled space versions) when you're on a surface or within a bodies SOI etc?

Sounds like things are going well, and hopefully @Dr_Turkey is feeling better soon

[Jeb Coleman]

The new wheels should help my Mun buggy.

[MKellerBR]

Great Work Guys!

Still waiting for 1.1!

 

[NBZ]

1 hour ago, SQUAD said:

Joe (Dr Turkey) sends his regards, some bad chicken has thoroughly ruined his day so he was unable to contribute to this week’s devnotes.

 

Feel better. Stick to turkey next time.

[Glaran K'erman]

33 minutes ago, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said:

Yeah... Where's our poem? 

Aside from no poem these were some great notes, particularly excited about the wheels and checking out KSPedia!