The Grand KSP 1.2 Discussion Thread

[Melfice]

2 minutes ago, Fireheart318 said:

All previous versions worked perfectly for me

Doesn't answer the question one bit~

[Dire_Squid]

1.2 runs smoothly for me... way smoother than how 1.1.3 ran.

[FullMetalMachinist]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

I see room for exploiting shenanigans; put your 2km periapsis just over the landing site and time the flag planting very well = profit!!

Cannot. They have to be either splashed or landed. 

[DoubleDragon]

I noticed my TT-38K Radial Decoupler no longer functions properly. I can no longer progress in my early career game.

[peteletroll]

Yes, a few rocket engines parameters were changed.

[regex]

Well, off to the bug reporting forums with you. Maybe they can get some more meaningful information out of you people.

[ZooNamedGames]

1 hour ago, Dire_Squid said:

Well, spaceplanes, for me, in 1.1.3, would only be stable for short while at a certain elevation... and afterward it would start teetering up and down, faster and harder, until they eventually spin out of control and become completely unrightable, at about 8,000-10,000 m up, for one reason or another. It was clearly a bug.

Sounds like a design issue to me. Try to minimize control surfaces and or reaction wheels. 

[Deutherius]

2 hours ago, Dire_Squid said:

Well, spaceplanes, for me, in 1.1.3, would only be stable for short while at a certain elevation... and afterward it would start teetering up and down, faster and harder, until they eventually spin out of control and become completely unrightable, at about 8,000-10,000 m up, for one reason or another. It was clearly a bug.

Oh hey, I also had this problem. After transferring my Career mode to 1.1.3, most of my spaceplanes would sometimes do the exact same thing you described. It was sporadic though, sometimes going away after reverting and flying again (well, restarting the whole game more precisely). (edit: It also happened to my atmo only planes, at various altitudes and speeds, even close to the ground, which sucked btw)

I found the culprit by pressing F12. Turns out all of the smallest retractable landing gears were producing body lift opposite to what it should have been, and probably an order of magnitude stronger. Wings trying to push you up and wheels trying to push you down generally resulted in a rapid unplanned disassembly at high speeds and uncontrollable flight and nosedive at lower speeds.

I never observed anyone else having this problem, and I also never had this problem on fresh 1.1.3 saves, so it was probably some forgotten/missing line in persistent.sfs. Never managed to find any difference between the old save and a fresh one though, so I just learned to "deal with it".

Anyway, I'm never transferring saves to the next version of KSP again.

Edited October 12, 2016 by Deutherius

[flatbear]

is the gog version updated yet?

[AeroGav]

The change to fuel flow mechanic made things vastly easier.

The old system created a huge amount of "fake difficulty" if trying to make a bone stock craft to share on KerbalX.

Rockets were less impeded, provided you stuck to one fuel tank per stage, or went hog wild with some unaerodynamic arrangement of ducts and bicouplers.

[fommil]

2 hours ago, peteletroll said:

Yes, a few rocket engines parameters were changed.

I'll look forward to hopefully somebody updating the wiki. I should really write a scraper that reads this from the config files... if anybody would like to do that, it would be fantastic.

[Dire_Squid]

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Sounds like a design issue to me. Try to minimize control surfaces and or reaction wheels. 

Trust me when I say it wasn't a design issue. If the plane wasn't stable in the air "normally", it mostly likely wouldn't have gotten off of the ground, in the first place (without crashing). Wings and elevons were in the back, a pair of control surface-inladen wings to act like canards, and a few small tailfins in the back of the body to stabilize and add a bit more weight to the back.

Anyways, in 1.2 the craft is incredibly stable now: take-off, flight, and landing. So yeah, it was a bug issue.

Edited October 12, 2016 by Dire_Squid

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, Dire_Squid said:

1.2 runs smoothly for me... way smoother than how 1.1.3 ran.

Yes, its way faster, I wonder if this is an mod issue?

[Dire_Squid]

Just now, magnemoe said:

Yes, its way faster, I wonder if this is an mod issue?

I'm no programmer, but it's possible that it might very well be...

Also, do you have multiple windows up (IE, Microsoft Edge, Skype, etc) while playing? Sometimes having a lot of stuff up also affects the game's performance.

[RX2000]

2 hours ago, DoubleDragon said:

I noticed my TT-38K Radial Decoupler no longer functions properly. I can no longer progress in my early career game.

Whats wrong with it?

[Aegolius13]

Looks like the Swivel ASL ISP was reduced to 250, so probably a corresponding loss of thrust as well.  I don't get this change, as it means there is no go-to launch engine for small rockets.  Maybe they want us to use the Reliant or SRBs on first stages, but those are obviously a little fussier to fly without gimbal.

Also not sure what niche the Swivel is now suited for. Maybe it's supposed to be a sustainer, but the Terrier seems better in that role for smaller rockets, and the Poodle for bigger ones. Going from, say, a Reliant launch stage to a Swivel sustainer stage seems a little silly.  I guess it could pick up OK after a couple Hammers or Thumpers burned out.

Could be the Swivel is now just a basic early game engine that's not really supposed to be a competitive part later.  

 

[Clipperride]

I'm not keen on this merged super thread as it mixes up comments about KSP 1.2 and specific game related questions. Questions will simply get lost amongst so many posts as will any answers.  Especially as a fair number of "old hands" have been playing 1.2 for a little while now and may be able to answer those questions.

[ZooNamedGames]

41 minutes ago, Dire_Squid said:

Trust me when I say it wasn't a design issue. If the plane wasn't stable in the air "normally", it mostly likely wouldn't have gotten off of the ground, in the first place (without crashing). Wings and elevons were in the back, a pair of control surface-inladen wings to act like canards, and a few small tailfins in the back of the body to stabilize and add a bit more weight to the back.

Anyways, in 1.2 the craft is incredibly stable now: take-off, flight, and landing. So yeah, it was a bug issue.

I still think it's a design flaw rather than bug. You mentioned it flew erratically while above 10km, that sounds like your control surfaces are too powerful.

[Guest]

Yeah, planes in 1.2 are much easier to handle. 

I still can't wait for Atmosphere Autopilot though, tweaking control surfaces isn't all that much fun; these things ought to have fly-by-wire anyway.

[Guest]

(1) Yes there are some new parts. The science container is the most significant IMO as it makes return missions much more viable. I've started a career with a self-imposed limitation of no MPL's since they are so ridiculously overpowered. With the science can that's more than workable; without it it would not have been much fun.

(2) Yes 1.2 is finished, or as finished as this sort of thing ever gets anyway. Lots and lots of improvements, lots of highly annoying long-standing bugs fixed (intersect markers finally work like they should!), lots of optimisations, and a whole bunch of new feature. Nor did development stop after that... thing; they kept fixing bugs full steam.

[Foxster]

I thought that the boost in science from SkyNet CommNet and having the ESU would make running a probe-only space program a practical alternative. But I haven't found this so far. 

You are pretty much forced down the manned route at the outset by the available parts. It takes a while to get a decent probe core and a bit longer again to get the ESU. 

Then the main early experiments of the Science Jr and Goo are one-use without a scientist aboard to reset them. Which means carting around a bunch of them. (Maybe the ESU should permit these experiments to be reset?). You also can't get a surface sample or EVA report without a Kerbal. 

With even the really early parts that are available, taking a scientist along is not much harder, particularly with the lack of a need for life support consumables.  

Then there is the requirement to establish a radio network to be able to fly probe craft much beyond Kerbin orbit. 

So, other than for the considerable extra challenge, why would you want to use probes rather than manned craft for most missions? 

Edited October 12, 2016 by Foxster

[Jasper_f]

Pardon me if this has been discussed before, but did we lose actuation toggles on RCS from 1.1.3? That really is a shame. Nevertheless, compliments on an otherwise great upgrade, Squad :).

[powerhouse109]

I wasn't ready for this. I should have been paying attention. Have to wait for mods to update. I'm too lazy to re-install the older version.

[swjr-swis]

4 minutes ago, Jasper_f said:

did we lose actuation toggles on RCS from 1.1.3?

No, they are still there in 1.2.0, but you may have to enable 'Advanced Tweakables' in the game settings.

[RX2000]

You wouldnt.

The only real reason to use probes over manned missions is just for putting up some relay satellites......

Maybe 1.3 will finally add life support to stock. Then probes would be a lot more necessary for some things.