Should we scale up our mods to match our EVA kerbals?

[duckunlimited2]

Seeing as our vanilla parts are getting upscale and upgraded to fit our bigger than expected kerbals, I wonder how our modded parts would be affected by this. Are we going to upscale our current mods to stay in proportion, or are we just going to leave them the same size. Will we be creating bigger mods to match the proportions, or keep building the same size as now? So many questions that need to be answered. I think we need to discuss and plan ahead.

[Panichio]

Yeah, I was wondering about that as well. I don\'t know how it is going to work.

[Capt'n Skunky]

If I am not mistaken, I recall Harv having said that the game is doing the scaling so nothing needs to be done with the parts themselves.

Cheers!

Capt\'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[TerranCmdr]

Our plan is to set up an automatic rescaling system for parts. That means mod-makers (and we) don\'t need to worry about rescaling models themselves. It will be done when the assets get loaded into the game, and it will be completely transparent. In fact, if it works as we want it to, no one will be any the wiser that things are now 2.5x as big as they were.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=13530.0

Yup, nothing needed on your end.

[Markus Reese]

If I remember reading, the stuff happens in the game, not the model itself. So all the mods will not be affected.

[Cykyrios]

Didn\'t he later say that in the end, they won\'t do the scaling automatically?

Well, I just checked, and the one saying that was Nova:

There\'s not going to be an auto-rescale. We decided not to risk destroying the entire system just for the convenience of having it done automatically. Believe me, it\'s much more difficult than it sounds.

Plus with him redoing most of the stock parts, it probably is easier that way (for them).

So, either they do add an automatic rescale for modders, or we will have to do it ourselves.

[Aegrim]

I think Nexis mentioned it was just going to open a can of worms, so you\'ll have to manually do it.

[Koschei]

I don\'t think parts should be scaled up at all; ever heard of compression fields?

[VincentMcConnell]

Some of these people need to pay attention to the updates it seems..

Auto Rescale will not be in the game, confirmed by NovaSilisko. Mods will have to be scaled manually by the makers. That\'s going to be such a huge hassle.

[E. F. Kranz]

Some of these people need to pay attention to the updates it seems..

Auto Rescale will not be in the game, confirmed by NovaSilisko. Mods will have to be scaled manually by the makers. That\'s going to be such a huge hassle.

I dunno. Seems like it\'s an opportunity to hit reset and start over, hopefully making tweaks and improvements and weeding out the wheat from the chaff.

Which reminds me, here is probably not the place to ask but... Why aren\'t there (or, are there?) any 2m capsules?

[HarvesteR]

We decided against auto-rescaling because of several reasons. The complexity and risk of such a system being one of them, but also, and not in the least less importantly, we don\'t really want to rescale every single part.

What we are doing is creating a new set of larger parts, which will be able to plausibly hold three Kerbals inside. That doesn\'t mean we\'re ditching all of the old parts though... only the ones we like the least.

Some parts will be replaced by larger versions of themselves, while others will likely remain the same. In the end, it boils down to this: why should we replace content if we can add more instead?

What this means for mods then, is that no updates will be necessary. Recommended, yes, in cases where the parts on the pack are meant to have specific sizes, but not mandatory. I think for the most part, this will just change the role in which parts are generally used. They\'ll still be useful, just not in the same way as before.

A 1m diameter command pod that holds three kerbals is implausible, yes, but the game doesn\'t really care. Such a craft should be meant to carry only a single crewmember, and when we get around to adding crew management features, that will surely be possible.

We will have to break craft (and SFS) compatiblity anyway though, since we are going to overhaul several of the stock parts.

Cheers

[Cykyrios]

I know you or Nova said that KSC facilities won\'t be scaled up, but what about the launchpad? Seeing as the more powerful stock rockets can be quite big, if the launchpad is not scaled up, then we will have some design troubles (and most rockets will stand taller than the tower).

[samstarman5]

Hearing that parts will get replaced, modified, and otherwise changed gives me goosebumps. I have been getting the feeling that we are getting to be too much of experts with the current parts. There needs to be more oopsies happening again.

[Tiberion]

Um...

I implore to to reconsider. This is going to be a catastrophe. First of all, KSP/Unity/PhysX craps out when creating parts any larger/heavier than the current top-end '3m' tanks like those in KW Challenger pack and NovaPunch, so even considering trying to scale them up to the \'new\' standard is frightening. And I think the game world is going to look pretty silly if the buildings are untouched. Something like a Saturn V on the new scale won\'t even fit in the VAB.

Manually editing (or even remaking) the dozen or so stock parts is all good, but we\'re talking about thousands of modded parts out there based on the current game world. NovaPunch has 200 by itself. I am worried that a lot of the \'retired\' authors won\'t do any updating at all if its more than just a config edit. That\'s a year of community development that had the tables flipped over.

At the very least, we need much more details about whats going on, so those of us who care to do it can begin trying to re-balance things so its not utter chaos around the new version launch.

Personally, I can\'t fathom manually re-importing, re-sizing, re-exporting 200 parts (without destroying the texture maps.) and then trying to figure out new config nodes, mass and fuel values, just to get back to where I already am right now. Nor can I see myself starting over. So it likely means the end of Novapunch.

And I can\'t even fathom how huge my up-scaled shuttle from Tiberdyne would be.

[samstarman5]

There is but one solution to all of this!

[BlackBicycle]

I implore you to reconsider. This is going to be a catastrophe. ...

I absolutely agree. And while I think the team is past reconsidering, they DO need to figure a way not to kill the modder base - since that\'s what is currently providing the incentive for newcomers to buy the game, as well as most of the publicity.

Maybe there is some workaround, like an automatic converter.

[Shuttle]

First of all, KSP/Unity/PhysX craps out when creating parts any larger/heavier than the current top-end '3m' tanks like those in KW Challenger pack and NovaPunch, so even considering trying to scale them up to the \'new\' standard is frightening.

I support this question, last time I tried to build a 2-stage rocket with KW it was jumping on a launch pad and its engines were wobbling.

[Awaras]

The devs mentioned that the new, up-scaled parts will represent \'second tier\' parts in the full game.

That is, once the game is complete, the parts we have now will be available at the start of the game, using a smaller, Mercury-style single seat command pod.

The \'up-scaled\' parts we are getting in 0.16 will, in the full game, be available only after some research, so you can think of them as being equivalent in size, power and function to the current modded 2-meter parts. That is what we should base the up-scaling of modded parts on.

As for the instability of parts larger than 3m, I am sure that that is caused by the fact the KSP physics simulation has been optimized for stock, 1m parts and larger modded parts are basically a \'hack\' that the game engine does not really know how to handle properly. This is not something that can\'t be fixed by the devs in the future.

[togfox]

I\'m more attached to craft looking the right scale than I am to my mods.

[VincentMcConnell]

The rockets are going to dwarf the launch tower and the facilities. I don\'t know where they came up with the idea to scale nothing but the rockets up... As for the modding thing, this DOES look like the end of mods. All of our old parts are going to be too small to do EVA and stuff.

They made a really...really...really... bad decision. I think if they have to scale ONE thing up, scale EVERYTHING up. And then make an auto-rescale so mod-makers don\'t have to do it themselves.

This disaster will be worse than both the nukes on Japan combined.

[zantkiller]

This disaster will be worse than both the nukes on Japan combined.

ok there is a point of sensibleness that we have quite clearly passed with that comment.

We have not seen any of the new parts in the game next to the launchpad and buildings, so it is silly to worry and go against Squads judgement, who have acess to all the parts.

Just wait till we have video footage or images of the game with scaled up parts like Harv promised.

[Cykyrios]

Plus the game is still in (early?) alpha, it is to be expected that changes occur. EVAs are a major step forward, and they required the Kerbals to be scaled up so the physics don\'t go nuts. Scaling the rockets up is only natural then, but doing the same to the whole universe is pointless.

Sure, modders see this as a 'dangerous move' for their mods, but when you think about it, it\'s never going to happen again (except if something smaller than Kerbal-size appears, but I can\'t think of anything).

My only real concerns are the size of the launchpad (but then again, they can\'t go wrong with this, they just have to build a few rockets) and the physics, which indeed seem to cause some problems as of now with large parts (one of my modded rockets wobbles as hell).

[Corax]

[snip]

We have not seen any of the new parts in the game next to the launchpad and buildings, so it is silly to worry and go against Squads judgement, who have acess to all the parts.

[snip]

Plus the game is still in (early?) alpha, it is to be expected that changes occur. EVAs are a major step forward, and they required the Kerbals to be scaled up so the physics don\'t go nuts. Scaling the rockets up is only natural then, but doing the same to the whole universe is pointless.

[snip]

My only real concerns are the size of the launchpad (but then again, they can\'t go wrong with this, they just have to build a few rockets) and the physics, which indeed seem to cause some problems as of now with large parts (one of my modded rockets wobbles as hell).

Very much agreed.

Plus, if the unscaled launchpad actually turns out to be too small, how much of a hassle do you think it would be to adjust that in a quick bugfix, or (heavens forbid) in the next major patch...

[grawl]

I agree too with the devs decision, it seems like a nightmare to develop an auto-rescale thingy (scale from what to what?how to detect it is not just a 1m part?, etc)

And all the mods are going to be obsolete with the new patch anyway. So old mods with no more support will just disappear, a bit sooner than without patch, and mods with support will be updated very quickly I guess.

In the meantime we will got new stock parts to try ! And EVAs ! That\'s exciting me more than the possible loss of old mods.

[BlackBicycle]

Set up a poll related to this. Modders only please (although others are welcome to take a look).

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=15146.0