Devnote Tuesday: 1.2 is getting ever closer!

[Alshain]

25 minutes ago, Temeter said:

It is a bit weirdly formulated, feels as if they have some lock on what they can tell about the revamp or not (probably the case), but on the other hand 'these parts didn’t make it to this release' does carry the implication that they might come with the next one, when they originally planned to release some parts early.

Maybe they just want to release those beacuse they think it's a cool thing to do? Just cutting the development and not saying anything would be very weird and a bit dishonest.

EDIT: Just to say, Squad is small enough to make some unusual things like releasing assets, while they sometimes are just a tiny bit too secretive for their own good (assuming they aren't doing this to wait for some big announcement).^^'

I did use the word "dubious".

[passinglurker]

I personally won't tear my hair out one way or another if the asset dump eventually makes it into stock or not as long as the old parts are officially replaced eventually and the new parts come from porkjet. He does good work.

[taniwha]

On 11/09/2016 at 10:14 AM, ShotgunNinja said:

I was wondering what is the use-case of not using autostrut? Why is not desiderable to just have it enabled all the time?

Because the "auto" will turn around and bite you one day: you have very little control over the destination part (root or most massive, that's it (and if there's a tie for most massive, which one?)). This means that the automatic strut placement may be very suboptimal. The strongest shape is a triangle, but not all triangles are created equal: an equilateral triangle will be much stronger than a right triangle with one very short side, and a triangle with an angle approaching 180 degrees isn't worth even considering.

I'll take the control afforded by manual placement and enjoy the benefits of a few well-placed struts.

[Temeter]

8 minutes ago, taniwha said:

Because the "auto" will turn around and bite you one day: you have very little control over the destination part (root or most massive, that's it (and if there's a tie for most massive, which one?)). This means that the automatic strut placement may be very suboptimal. The strongest shape is a triangle, but not all triangles are created equal: an equilateral triangle will be much stronger than a right triangle with one very short side, and a triangle with an angle approaching 180 degrees isn't worth even considering.

I'll take the control afforded by manual placement and enjoy the benefits of a few well-placed struts.

Is the cost in physics performance between a placed strut and an auto-strut the same?

[taniwha]

53 minutes ago, Temeter said:

Is the cost in physics performance between a placed strut and an auto-strut the same?

I can't answer this for certain, but it should be the same as a joint is a joint. There will be slight rendering costs for a placed strut, of course. However, I'll take slight performance costs over lack of control over the struts any day.

[Temeter]

57 minutes ago, taniwha said:

I can't answer this for certain, but it should be the same as a joint is a joint. There will be slight rendering costs for a placed strut, of course. However, I'll take slight performance costs over lack of control over the struts any day.

Asking since you could potentially even save struts by placing only the important ones.

Don't think there are many alternatives for a straight, classic rocket, tho. Without auto struts, I had to put octagonal struts and normal struts to stabilize them. That was always a bit bothersome.

I do definitly like the option, tho, very appreciated! Finally allows you to work on a per craft basis.

[KerbMav]

Occlusion tolerance can be set, but bodies with atmospheres have extra leeway they said - I know this to be true for radio signals going beyond the horizon - but can you really bounce a signal from the atmosphere if you are above/outside of it?

[Terwin]

On 9/7/2016 at 5:50 AM, Capt Snuggler said:

But they haven't said it will be in the next release. They have only said the assets will be given to modders. other people in this thread have asked for clarity and have not gotten it.

Will Porkjet's Revamped Rocket Parts be made stock?     If the answer is not "yes" then it must be "No".

Of course I'd be delighted to be proven wrong. Please tell me I'm wrong!

At the very least you can have some scattering done by the atmosphere, I would expect a loss of signal strength and fidelity, but something would still get through(like how the atmosphere starts to glow while the sun is still behind the planet, the atmosphere is scattering the light, and some of it gets to places it could not get to without the atmosphere.

[Alshain]

@taniwha Can you answer which Unity 5 patch ended up being used?  I never actually heard a 'Squad answer' to that.  I know initially there was a hope that 5.4 would be out in time but if not 5.3 would be used, but after 5.4 got released I never heard anyone from Squad say it actually got out on time or if it was too late.

[Superfluous J]

Here's something I've not seen asked about Autostruts. Other than being invisible and automatic, are they otherwise like regular struts? In particular, will they fail to create if the thing they are strutting to is too far away? And will they strut to something else that gets between them and the root part? And to put those two questions together, will they connect to something between them and the root part that is close enough to strut to, even if the root part itself is too far away?

46 minutes ago, KerbMav said:

Occlusion tolerance can be set, but bodies with atmospheres have extra leeway they said - I know this to be true for radio signals going beyond the horizon - but can you really bounce a signal from the atmosphere if you are above/outside of it?

The signal does not know it originated in space. If it comes in from the side (which it must to be that close to reaching the station and just getting occluded by Kerbin's surface) then it can enter the atmosphere and then hit the signal-bounce-zone-thingy (I took Wherner Von Kerman's classes on telemetry, can you tell?) and be directed down toward the station.

Also, I believe the signals can hit the atmosphere and be bent, much like light bends when it goes between air and water. So the signal won't follow the path shown but instead hit the atmosphere above the station and bend toward it.

That is mostly moot, though, as I saw the phenomenon in Scott Manley's video... on the Mun.

Edited September 12, 2016 by 5thHorseman

[KerbMav]

23 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

That is mostly moot, though, as I saw the phenomenon in Scott Manley's video... on the Mun.

There is a setting for occlusion, standard is 0.98 I think, that makes it easier for the player, but NathenKell mentioned in one of the recorded streams on KSPTV that Kerbin had a built in tolerance of 0.75 too.

[Jovus]

50 minutes ago, Alshain said:

@taniwha Can you answer which Unity 5 patch ended up being used?  I never actually heard a 'Squad answer' to that.  I know initially there was a hope that 5.4 would be out in time but if not 5.3 would be used, but after 5.4 got released I never heard anyone from Squad say it actually got out on time or if it was too late.

I thought I remembered a throwaway line about updating to 5.4 a few DevNotes back.

Which is to say that I, too, am interested in the answer to this question.

[Alshain]

6 minutes ago, Jovus said:

I thought I remembered a throwaway line about updating to 5.4 a few DevNotes back.

Which is to say that I, too, am interested in the answer to this question.

I was watching closely and never saw it, but that doesn't mean I didn't miss it anyway.  If you can find the DevNote it would be nice.

Though if they open the pre-release today, which seems incredibly likely, then I think we can find out from the output log.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Alshain

[KerbMav]

@5thHorseman

https://www.twitch.tv/ksptv/v/88734961

About 22 mins into the video.

[Jovus]

@Alshain After a cursory search, all I could find was a bunch of (non-staff) people saying "Congratulations on using the latest Unity," and you asking this same question in a previous Dev Note thread.

Which is to say no good evidence either way as to whether KSP 1.2 is on Unity 5.3 or 5.4.

It's OK. We'll wait together. Maybe if we put some RAM sticks under our pillows and we're good little boys (and girls?) the KSP fairies will answer our question*.

 

*This was intended as humour, not a jab at the devs or anyone else.

[Archgeek]

On 9/7/2016 at 0:03 PM, Red Iron Crown said:

Boat tails.  

Boat tails?  What the heck are those?  Weird conical fairings with a hole in the back for expanding gas to escape, that somehow don't melt?

[Red Iron Crown]

Just now, Archgeek said:

Boat tails?  What the heck are those?  Weird conical fairings with a hole in the back for expanding gas to escape, that somehow don't melt?

It's a drag-reducing fairing around most of the rocket engine. The engine bell typically protrudes at least a little bit, sometimes a lot if it is gimballed. The classic example is the V2.

 

[Archgeek]

4 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

It's a drag-reducing fairing around most of the rocket engine. The engine bell typically protrudes at least a little bit, sometimes a lot if it is gimballed. The classic example is the V2.

 

Welp, that answers that.  Thanks!  

[Temeter]

Delta IV is probably the most famous boat tail:

 

16 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

It's a drag-reducing fairing around most of the rocket engine. The engine bell typically protrudes at least a little bit, sometimes a lot if it is gimballed. The classic example is the V2.

Although I've checked out of curiosity, and aparently the rocket increasing in diameter further up is aparently also called boat tail.

Spoiler

 

[Speadge]

2 hours ago, Jovus said:

@Alshain After a cursory search, all I could find was a bunch of (non-staff) people saying "Congratulations on using the latest Unity," and you asking this same question in a previous Dev Note thread.

Which is to say no good evidence either way as to whether KSP 1.2 is on Unity 5.3 or 5.4.

It's OK. We'll wait together. Maybe if we put some RAM sticks under our pillows and we're good little boys (and girls?) the KSP fairies will answer our question*.

 

*This was intended as humour, not a jab at the devs or anyone else.

its 5.4.

they started development on 5.4pre back then

@Temeter@Alshain

Quote

NathanKell had the Unity profiler running as well, so you could see the various performance stats, and at the start he showed the difference between 1.1.3 under Unity 5.2.4 and 1.2 under Unity 5.4...

 

Edited September 12, 2016 by Speadge

[Temeter]

Just now, Speadge said:

its 5.4.

they started development on 5.4pre back then

I'm fairly sure they've talked about 5.3 after the original 1.1 update, and said they were still deciding if it's 5.4.

Still, good to hear.

[Red Iron Crown]

@Temeter As I understand it the term is used for any part that reduces the rocket diameter moving toward the bottom of the rocket.

(Also: How could I forget Delta IV?)

[Temeter]

1 minute ago, Red Iron Crown said:

@Temeter As I understand it the term is used for any part that reduces the rocket diameter moving toward the bottom of the rocket.

(Also: How could I forget Delta IV?)

Yup, I didn't know. I think some mod also called that upper part on the soyuz core boat tail.

(dow could you :< )

Edited September 12, 2016 by Temeter

[KerbMav]

Something I just remember: What about the rest of the Asteroid Day Mod? Will the DLC be up to date or integrated into stock shortly after 1.2?

[Alshain]

34 minutes ago, KerbMav said:

Something I just remember: What about the rest of the Asteroid Day Mod? Will the DLC be up to date or integrated into stock shortly after 1.2?

They have never given any kind of indication that was planned.