No New Comms System in 1.1

[Waxing_Kibbous]

On 2/7/2016 at 4:36 PM, Curveball Anders said:

Going from a community mod that seems to work for the fraction of users that have installed it is quite far from adding stuff to stock where it has to work for all users on all platforms.

Just to play Devil's Advocate here, AntennaRange *more than likely* has had more hours played and a more diverse testing group than the stock implementation so far, so in terms of testing a simple community mod can have a robust, mature codebase. [removed link to defunct website]

But I agree that Squad does have a bit more pressure to release something that is working flawlessly than the modding community does. The thing about coding though, sometimes it's best to reinvent the wheel, others it's best to take what is existing and tweak it. Then there are the complexities of implementing variously licensed mod code into a proprietary codebase, it's probably less headaches just to code something up from scratch

[Zoidos]

I really don't care, there's a mod for that. All I care about is 64bit and better yesterday than tomorrow.  

[Yellowburn10]

While it is a bit sad the coms system is being set back, 1.1 as it is has been pushed back enough as it is. Keep up the good work guys!

[Nansuchao]

3 hours ago, Raptor9 said:

I already made a KSP-analogue to this mars lander concept by Boeing...just need the heatshield now

But yeah, no clue how big the base mount will be.  As it stands, the 3.75m heatshield is just barely wide enough to cover my lander diameter, not that Duna really has much atmosphere though.

You can find that kind of heatshield in Chaka Monkey...

[FullMetalMachinist]

7 hours ago, steve_v said:

Excuse my ignorance (or the fragmentary information from Squad), but has stable Win64 actually been confirmed for 1.1? What about on OSX?

The "Where Did We Leave the Bugspray?" Devnotes from 12 January say:

Quote

Those of you using OSX will be happy to know that we’ve taken a significant hurdle there: Ted has decided that we’re ready to start testing the viability of OSX 64-bit builds! The OSX builds are now universal, meaning that we’re creating 32-bit and 64-bit packages in the same job and that we’re not looking at increased build times as a result. For those of you who facing an ontological or existential crisis after reading this: yes, we have 64 bit builds for Windows as well, and they’re rock steady so far.

Now, I know that this is from a few weeks ago, and things may have changed since then.  I also know that they're only talking about test builds that are stable so far, and that this is not solid confirmation that there will be 64-bit releases for either OSX or Windows.  However, it does seem very hopeful that they will be able to accomplish just that, and I for one and optimistic that they will.

And honestly, putting that info in the weekly devnotes doesn't seem so fragmented to me. 

Edited February 7, 2016 by FullMetalMachinist
Quoting issues

[RoverDude]

On 2/7/2016 at 3:32 PM, Mods_o_joy said:

How hard is it to Implement a Community Mod into the game?, We have this already in Mod form

A more thorough explanation below, but this is not adding an existing mod, it's a clean implementation and includes some bits that exist neither in AntennaRange nor RemoteTech.

On 2/7/2016 at 6:14 PM, Waxing_Kibbous said:

Both of you folkJust to play Devil's Advocate here, AntennaRange *more than likely* has had more hours played and a more diverse testing group than the stock implementation so far, so in terms of testing a simple community mod can have a robust, mature codebase. [removed link to defunct website]

But I agree that Squad does have a bit more pressure to release something that is working flawlessly than the modding community does. The thing about coding though, sometimes it's best to reinvent the wheel, others it's best to take what is existing and tweak it. Then there are the complexities of implementing variously licensed mod code into a proprietary codebase, it's probably less headaches just to code something up from scratch

Thing is, the maturity of an unrelated mod's codebase is pretty irrelevant (other than showing that a particular feature is of interest to the players).  Something important to remember is that modders kinda hack away at the edges of KSP via the publicly available interfaces.  So the way I code a mod is radically different than how I code a feature for stock.

There's a very huge difference between extending these existing public interfaces vs. having direct access to modify everything from how command and control works, through direct modification of the flight and map interfaces, being able to do fun things like add prefabs, change private members of existing part modules, etc.

In other words, even if we chose to roll in an existing mod (which we did not - this one was built from scratch), about the only thing that would make it in would be the name.  

[zKrieg]

I'm hoping for stability and performance enhancements. IMO adding new features acts as a filler to hide the inherent problems that effect nearly every single person that plays KSP. In it's current state i cannot, in good conscience, recommend KSP to anyone.

KSP recent releases are inexcusable due to the inherent problems that effect nearly every one of us. I see no point in releasing anything if it causes freezes and CTD's, performance issues, data loss and save corruption. IMO all recent updates were a waste of time. It's not fun having to restart a game that can take minutes to load and randomly crash on you within minutes.

 What we've ended up with is a community with a portion of it's population residing in the fact that this is as good as it's gonna get. No company should release any product with this many widely inherent issues that affect nearly every single person that plays. If this were any other industry we consumers wouldn't even consider purchasing a product that breaks this frequently on it's own. Internet goes out. You call your ISP and complain. If Your brand new tv, car or even a toaster broke as often as the KSP kraken rears it's ugly head than that product would be quickly boycotted. Not so in the gaming industry. Here we have double standards.

Everything I've read states that performance enhancements with 1.1 will be minor.  I exceed recommended specs. I don't want new features. I want a working product.

Edited February 7, 2016 by zKrieg

[Temeter]

I'm fine with this. Major points for me are 64bit, and performance (physx/multi/ui/etc)!

Too bad if some other stuff gets delayed, but I't's not like antennas are just going away. And there is already some fun stuff coming, like the new wheel physics.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Temeter

[AlamoVampire]

@zKrieg Squads under no obligation to release 1.1. Period. They consider the game full release, even tho, it by all rights is technically beta (at best, because they are STILL adding features). Getting upset is as futile as resisting the Borg. Is this game perfect? Nope. Is it playable? By and large yes. Something to keep in mind, this game is limited on windows to x32 and 4gb unless you hack it. My best advice: be patient, be thankful, enjoy what we have NOW as again they do not HAVE to give us free updates or even update at all.

[Raptor9]

2 hours ago, zKrieg said:

I'm hoping for stability and performance enhancements. IMO adding new features acts as a filler to hide the inherent problems that effect nearly every single person that plays KSP. In it's current state i cannot, in good conscience, recommend KSP to anyone.

KSP recent releases are inexcusable due to the inherent problems that effect nearly every one of us. I see no point in releasing anything if it causes freezes and CTD's, performance issues, data loss and save corruption. IMO all recent updates were a waste of time. It's not fun having to restart a game that can take minutes to load and randomly crash on you within minutes.

 What we've ended up with is a community with a portion of it's population residing in the fact that this is as good as it's gonna get. No company should release any product with this many widely inherent issues that affect nearly every single person that plays. If this were any other industry we consumers wouldn't even consider purchasing a product that breaks this frequently on it's own. Internet goes out. You call your ISP and complain. If Your brand new tv, car or even a toaster broke as often as the KSP kraken rears it's ugly head than that product would be quickly boycotted. Not so in the gaming industry. Here we have double standards.

Everything I've read states that performance enhancements with 1.1 will be minor.  I exceed recommended specs. I don't want new features. I want a working product.

I don't understand what freezes, CTD's, save corruption, etc you're talking about.  My KSP install runs beautifully; the only issues I encounter are when I install mods (which is few and far between, usually just to test them out).

[zKrieg]

@AlamoVampire  What I am hearing is shame on me for paying for a product and expecting it to work when you are heralding a fully released game but then proceed to call it a beta. Even you passively admitted KSP is buggy. I think you were correct when you stated it performs like a beta. Even with unmodded installs we experience CTDs, stutter, lost data, corrupted saves, top of the line systems experiencing FPS drops into single digits. The list goes on and on.

I don't pretend to fully comprehend the details of producing a video game but I am capable of recognizing when a game isn't working as intended. I see Squads continuing support as a good faith effort to get the game working as they envisioned. I have not lost faith in them and sincerely appreciate their efforts but I think KSP should perform like any other polished game. That's all I ask.

@Raptor9 Just because it works for you doesn't mean it works that way for everyone. Bugs don't always work that way. The evidence is on the forums, streams and even reddit.

Edited February 8, 2016 by zKrieg

[AlamoVampire]

@zKrieg You mistake me. I speak true when i tell you that (i cant locate the list as it may have been lost when we left vbulletin) but it had a line stating squad is under no obligation to update beyond the current version. 

Should we as paying customers want quality? Yes. But, you must temper that want with the following knowledge: Squad is NOT a computer game studio. They are an advertising company FIRST. This game is a project that they ALLOWED an employee to work on in his own time. Has it grown since? Yes. But that does not change the fact that only a HANDFUL of people are working on it with tight budget margins. 

Right now just enjoy what we have, for we never know when or if the game will run out of delta v.

this above ALL: be patient

Edited February 8, 2016 by AlamoVampire

[Virtualgenius]

Squad are there own worst enemy most of the time they show us new content and at the 12 th hour remove it why show us at all. They engage the community on some things then make a huge change that impacts us with no consultation then wonder why we get all upset and belligerent. To be honest  we are sadly lacking a community manager he was the bridge between us someone with a voice in both camps. To be honest I haven't been happy with squad for awhile they seem to have lost there community focus which is what bought me here in the first place

Edited February 8, 2016 by Virtualgenius

[godefroi]

4 hours ago, zKrieg said:

KSP recent releases are inexcusable due to the inherent problems that effect nearly every one of us. I see no point in releasing anything if it causes freezes and CTD's, performance issues, data loss and save corruption. IMO all recent updates were a waste of time. It's not fun having to restart a game that can take minutes to load and randomly crash on you within minutes.

I haven't seen a CTD for more than a year, and I play with a rather solid list of mods. On top of that, I've never, ever seen data loss or save corruption, and I've been playing since 0.23.

4 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

They consider the game full release, even tho, it by all rights is technically beta (at best, because they are STILL adding features).

By all rights? Only one right matters, and that's what Squad says. They're the only ones whose opinion matters on whether it's beta or not. There is no ISO standard for beta; it's a marketing label only.

[ModZero]

1 hour ago, zKrieg said:

but I think KSP should perform like any other polished game. That's all I ask.

You know, just today I've had X-Com 2 completely break a save at the end of a very dramatic extraction mission. Before that my ranger intercepted an enemy on another side of the map. In hand-to-hand combat. Stuff that happened to the horse in the Witcher 3 (probably most polished big game to come out recently) was hilarious. And that's the better things to come out last year. Fallout 4 was, well, Bethesda.

None of these games have to deal with physics systems as coupled as KSP (they may have many objects, but just look at any ragdoll in recent games, and that's the closest they get to what KSP does. And the size of the single object matters, in this case), or with the scale range (that's not "there's a huge planet", that's "there's a thermometer attached to a fuel tank orbiting a planet). And yet they manage to the terrifyingly buggy. In fact their forums are always full of people complaining that the game isn't polished any other game. Thing is, games aren't critical stuff, and them being out is more important than them being perfect.

[Raptor9]

At the risk of beating a dead horse, another thing that I don't understand is how belligerent and hostile people get when Squad changes plans (ie: this thread topic) or when updates take longer than expected.  Why are people so critical of Squad when they encounter unforeseen delays or unexpected issues?  They are human after all, and sometimes development (like Unity 5 update) takes longer than expected.  It's just a game...doesn't mean the forums should be lit on fire.

Welcome to a day at Squad...
Decision A: Hold update from release until development time can be allocated to ensure new comms system can be properly QA'ed and implemented in KSP 1.1 --> People complain update is delayed or is taking to long.
Decision B: Release KSP 1.1 update in accordance with internal deadline but remove new comms system feature from implementation due to time constraints --> People complain the new comms system isn't in update.
Decision C: Release KSP 1.1 update in accordance with internal deadline and include hastily QA'ed and possibly buggy new comms feature in update --> People complain the new comms system doesn't work right and/or buggy.

EDIT: (I forgot one) Decision D: Become even more tight-lipped about development progress or future plans to avoid above three outcomes in the future...

Edited February 8, 2016 by Raptor9

[Snark]

7 hours ago, zKrieg said:

In it's current state i cannot, in good conscience, recommend KSP to anyone.

Really?  I sure can.  In a heartbeat.  And the folks I've recommended it to have mostly become addicts themselves, and consider it money well spent.

I spent US$27 on KSP.  That's nothing.  These days, you can spend almost that much on a single movie.  And in exchange for that, I've gotten literally thousands of hours of bliss.  And I keep getting new shiny toys to play with, for free, every time Squad comes out with a release.  And I'm still happily playing after nearly two years of this game, having not given Squad one dime, beyond the initial purchase of the game.

I have never had anywhere near that much fun per dollar from any other product.  It's an incredible deal.  It's a steal.

7 hours ago, zKrieg said:

KSP recent releases are inexcusable due to the inherent problems that effect nearly every one of us. I see no point in releasing anything if it causes freezes and CTD's, performance issues, data loss and save corruption. IMO all recent updates were a waste of time. It's not fun having to restart a game that can take minutes to load and randomly crash on you within minutes.

Just out of curiosity, what mods are you running?  I've almost never had stock KSP crash.  Some careers I run a lot more mods than others.  The ones that are close to a stock experience are very stable.  When I'm running lots of mods (especially the crashier ones, like RemoteTech), then yeah, it goes blooie more often, but that's not Squad's fault.

7 hours ago, zKrieg said:

No company should release any product with this many widely inherent issues that affect nearly every single person that plays. If this were any other industry we consumers wouldn't even consider purchasing a product that breaks this frequently on it's own. Internet goes out. You call your ISP and complain. If Your brand new tv, car or even a toaster broke as often as the KSP kraken rears it's ugly head than that product would be quickly boycotted. Not so in the gaming industry. Here we have double standards.

Not a fair comparison.  Toasters and TV sets are consumer electronics.  They build one SKU, test it, send it out the door.  They have the resources of a multi-billion-dollar corporation behind it, probably hundreds of engineers working on it, and often a year or two of lead time to build something for one release.

This is computer software, and there's a lot more to go wrong with it than a toaster.  In effect, it has a lot more moving parts.  Furthermore, it's computer software by a small indie company.  Which brings me to my next point:

3 hours ago, zKrieg said:

I have not lost faith in them and sincerely appreciate their efforts but I think KSP should perform like any other polished game. That's all I ask.

...that's all?  That's all?  Do you have any idea the amount of money and manpower that goes into a big-name title by a major game studio?

Squad  is tiny.  They have, what, half a dozen engineers working on this?  They don't have the luxury of throwing hundreds of engineers at the thing and letting it bake for a year.  And they're charging peanuts for the game.  Maybe if they charged $100 for the game, or forced us to pony up $10/month for a "KSP subscription", or made us shell out another $10 every time they release an update, then they could afford to vastly increase the size of their operation and put a lot more polish on the game.  But I somehow doubt that that's what most KSP players would want.  I know I sure wouldn't.  I also suspect that if it were EA or Blizzard putting out this game, it would be a lot fancier-looking but would have a lot less "soul" and charm.  If I wanted to play Starcraft, I'd be playing Starcraft, not KSP.

So yeah, that means there are going to be some rough edges.  It's pretty much unavoidable, given that they're doing this on a shoestring. There's simply no way that they can compete with a company on the scale of Blizzard or EA, and faulting them for having some rough edges seems beside the point.

What would be reasonable to fault them for, would be if they have the wrong rough edges.  They have very limited manpower, so the question is, are they spending those limited resources on the right problems?

Much of the sentiment I've seen expressed in this thread-- from @zKrieg, from @steve_v, and similar-- is essentially saying "no, they're spending the effort in the wrong place.  They're putting effort into new features, when they should be putting it into performance and stability instead."

I certainly can't say that you're wrong, since that's is a subjective judgment.  But for myself, I gotta say I disagree.  I've been very happy with where they've spent their effort.

I joined KSP around 0.23.5.  If Squad had been spending their time mainly on performance since then-- if the game progressed to have fantastic framerates and eye-candy graphics-- without adding much in the way of new features... well, I don't think I'd still be playing it.  I would have enjoyed the hell out of it for a couple of months, maybe a few more than that, but eventually I would have gotten bored of it and wandered away to something else.  But instead, they keep coming out with all this great stuff and I've had more fun than any other game I've ever played.

And for me, really, that's the rub.  I've played quite a few games.  Except for KSP, those games have mostly been high-production-value, big-name games from top-tier game companies.  They were considerably more expensive than KSP.  Some of them, I played for a few years.  And not once have I enjoyed one of them anywhere near as much as I've enjoyed KSP.  Would I like having better eye candy and framerate?  Sure.  But not at the cost of taking away whatever-it-is that has kept me glued to KSP for the last couple of years.

I realize that what bugs me won't necessarily be the same as what bugs you, so I'm not trying to tell you that you're "wrong"... just that reasonable opinions differ on this. 

Edited February 8, 2016 by Snark

[Malah]

Hello, I don't know if it has already been answered before, but is it planned to have access to the new antennas in KSP 1.1? With them, in the time that you will make the new comms system works fine, we could play a career with RemoteTech or AntennaRange ... and make many long range mission with the good antennas for the next update. But without them we would have again an useless career in KSP 1.1 with useless probe which can't communicate when KSP 1.99 will be there

[AlamoVampire]

@Malah It was planned, but it seems its being pushed back. 

@godefroi that's kinda my point. I've said it twice, now thrice: squad has every right to call it quits right here. Right now. They do not owe me or you or anyone any more updates or an explanation should they decide to terminate production on this game. 

As for beta, beta usually has major features being developed and designed. Ksp still has major features in the pipes. Relay networks, gas planet 2 and a few others. By that standard ksp still is in beta. But that's only one of billions of ways to look.

[zKrieg]

3 hours ago, godefroi said:

I haven't seen a CTD for more than a year, and I play with a rather solid list of mods. On top of that, I've never, ever seen data loss or save corruption, and I've been playing since 0.23.

The old "It works perfect for me, it should work perfect for everyone" debate holds no merit. I suggest you watch a watch a stream or two. Consider yourself one of the lucky ones.

I'm not here to debate how well it works for you. I'm here to advocate for myself. Someone who has had a fair share of problems and still has faith the game will come to fruition.

[Virtualgenius]

Would it have made the release if the console ports been put to one side and all the resources focused on the release of 1.1 for PC 

[ModZero]

7 hours ago, Snark said:

Not a fair comparison.  Toasters and TV sets are consumer electronics.  They build one SKU, test it, send it out the door.  They have the resources of a multi-billion-dollar corporation behind it, probably hundreds of engineers working on it, and often a year or two of lead time to build something for one release.

Ah, you forgot one more thing (that actually supports your argument): the market is actually quite full of cheap consumer electronics devices made by a myriad of companies, many of them unsafe (poorly grounded, melting USB hubs, the recent hoverboard mess, unsafe "heated showers" and so much more); there're too many small entities that can change their name at will for boycott. That's despite their flaws being infinitely more important than the ones in KSP. So no, people don't really boycott you over crap, unsafe toasters unless your name is Bosh or something.

[WWEdeadman]

Well, on one hand I'm like "Oh come on...", on the other hand, if pushing that to 1.2 means I get to play 1.1 sooner, I'm gladly taking that. 

 

On a side note: Every time someone on the forums tries to tell Squad how to focus their work and resources, a kitten dies. Save the cats, stop the unqualified comments.

Edited February 8, 2016 by WWEdeadman
Had a look at some of the responses after writing mine, was appalled by the attitude some people comment with...

[marach]

On 08/02/2016 at 6:13 AM, Virtualgenius said:

Would it have made the release if the console ports been put to one side and all the resources focused on the release of 1.1 for PC 

Nope not one bit. The console version is being worked on by flying tiger entertainment not Squad itself, in fact it's probably helped them find more bugs and issues and squash them since they have to meet really annoying console publishing requirements.

 

As for the people demanding that squad should do things their way or not at all, they should do it themselves if it's so easy. Seriously  I'd be willing to bet the majority of players who are unmodded never have an issue. Why come to the forums to ask about a bug if you never encounter any? The player base of KSP is much much larger than it's forum user count would reveal and even on here there are FEW who have the problems these people think everyone has.

Sure there's slow down on large part counts (with large being relative to the IPS of 1 core of your CPU) but then KSP is doing a LOT of calculations/s. I'm actually struggling to think of another Unity based game that is  doing as many Rawrbots used to but thats gone and the only way it dealt with it was to implement a new physics engine... So yeah can't blame squad for Nvidia's bad coding...

There was a memory leak on scene switching but that seems to be mostly sorted now...  There are other bugs but those are the 2 most complained about.

Here's the thing will the bugs be gone next patch? Hell no!

They've  just done an engine switch that's HUGE I don't think people get just how much work it is, yes for some games the change was easier thanks to the translation code Unity provided but those were people who started on the latest version of U4 KSP started in Unity 3! KSP relied on some old kludges to get it's early code working in U4 those kludges are gone in U5 so they've had to update some of their earliest work has this allowed them to kill bugs? Definitely. Will it have introduced new bugs? Yes of course how could it not? U5 itself is still buggy, Squad had to actually skip one whole version of U5 because it had a bug that meant KSP couldn't work at all! So please remember that.

 

tl;dr

There will be more bugs in 1.1 many of them won't be Squads fault as U5 is still buggy and new it's just how games design works when you only have about 12 people working on a game rather than the 2-400 of AAA games

Edited February 16, 2016 by technicalfool
Insulting other users? Tut.

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

You know, while the game does offer some lag issues, and while it isn't the most optimized game, remember: Squad is NOT a game company. They're a marketing company that decided to make a game, and I think they did a pretty good job for what they're trying to do. Is it perfect? No. Am I satisfied? Absolutely.