The Grand KSP 1.2 Discussion Thread

[Vanamonde]

Several more threads have been merged into this master. 

[Benji13]

Just wondering, how soon is too soon for a 1.3 hype train? I certainly don't plan on starting the thread but I'm just interested. 

[Jestersage]

51 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

In the game, hit ESC and click settings. Then click that button that everybody (me included) thinks at first is a header. It probably says "Difficulty Options: Custom"

Yes, it's a button. I promise. Click it and in there you can set the game-specific settings.

Yea, got it. Thanks.

[fourfa]

3 hours ago, bewing said:

Not New things:

PorkJet's handful of updated parts are not in here.

The bug in the spring equations in PhysX has not been fixed by Nvidia yet (after 16 months +), so wheels are still too bouncy. Better, but still bouncy.

New things:

CommNet: this game mode models signal strength. So in addition to science, funds, and reputation -- now you get to also manage the concept of signal loss if you want to. But this means that turning CommNet on makes the game a bit harder.

Within this new mode are many new details:
* Probe "limited control" mode assumes that even though you can't get full telemetry from Mission Control, you can still get enough signal through that your probes are not bricks outside of signal range. You can still turn SAS on/off. You can still select among SAS modes in order to give rudimentary steering. You can go to max throttle/zero throttle. You can send a message to set most of the values in the parts' context menus. If you add small thruster engines to your probe this all allows you to still complete satellite contracts -- or to land, if you are careful. You can't set maneuver nodes.
* Scientists, engineers, and tourists still have about the same piloting skills as in 1.1.3 when their ship is out of signal range. Inside signal range, a pilot at Mission Control can control the ship for them. Non-pilots with probe cores on their craft get a combination of the two "limited control" modes outside signal range.
* A pilot plus an advanced probe core plus a relay antenna can steer any probe or rover within signal range.
* Lots of new pretty signal visualization tools in map mode.
* Tracking stations in scenic locations on Kerbin.
* and lots more!

Antennas: Obviously, all the antenna choices are suddenly meaningful, where they never were before.
* You will need to research the antennas a lot before doing fully controlled interplanetary missions. (You can still use Kerbals or "limited control" mode, if you haven't got a powerful enough antenna.)
* All pods and probes have a built-in, short range antenna that allows control at Kerbin.
* There is a surface-mount Communotron16 antenna that is the only one you can use for flying in atmosphere or reenty.
* The whip antennas stack with no penalty, and all the other stack with diminishing returns.

KerbNet: probe cores that are in contact with Mission Control can display terrain and biome maps, depending on the tech level of the core. Kerbnet can detect interesting anomalies on the surface for you to visit! You can also create customized waypoints -- they are color coded according to the name you choose (identical names = same color).

Biomes: There is a huge project going on right now to update, tidy, and sanitize all the biomes, everywhere. The project is ongoing (ie. not finished yet).
* Kerbin has two new biomes, and the rest of the old biomes are scattered around a bit more.
* Your favorite old spots for science collection are probably gone.
* The maps that define the biomes are lower-res now (especially on Kerbin), so a biome "pixel" is bigger now.

SAS: Big improvements! Keep in mind that the same SAS algorithm covers jets, rockets in atmosphere, rockets in space, space stations, and rovers. So it can never be optimized to the point of being perfect. If you see it doing a silly thing with your ship, then try turning off some reaction wheels or gimballing. Maybe the "roll" axis still needs to be controlled a little more forcefully.

Autostruts: as long as the PhysX bugs in springs and joints are unfixed, the game has free autostruts as compensation. This probably means that they will get deleted in some future version, so don't get too attached to them. Try to avoid overusing them, too. More than 5 will sometimes cause your craft to shake itself into little pieces. Includes a visualization tool, too.

The Mobile Processing Lab:
* can level up Kerbals. So you don't have to take your crews all the way back to KSC and relaunch them -- they can stay permanently in space once you get them up there.
* has Kerbnet access (sometimes).

Ladders:
* much less sliding
* can't take "in flight over biome X" readings anymore -- you need to jump now
* when landed/splashed, can always take EVA and surface samples (landed & splashed) -- so you never have to climb all the way down off your craft anymore, except to plant a flag.

 

Manuever Nodes: should work better.

Orbital markers: lots of bugfixes here. Ship and SOI intercepts should be much more stable. Close approach markers should work better.

Fuel flow: has priority levels and a new visualization tool for those complicated asparagus designs.

New part categories in the editor to shrink down that darn "Utilities" category.

A few new ship types in the tracking station.

A new toy: aim camera! Right now it's attached to all parts -- that may change to reduce the number of buttons on things. Helps with docking. Fun to use with rovers. Attach the camera to a launch clamp and watch your launch!

Prettier highlighting -- even configurable colors (with some editing)

Drag: got reduced again. Be careful with those pod + heatshield + parachute combos! Don't forget your drogues.

Parachutes: New "deploy when safe" mode is now also the default. Stage them early -- you don't have to time it anymore if you don't want to. The point being that deploying parachutes was almost a minigame, and not a nice one.

Flag planting ceremonies: No longer necessary. One flag covers all Kerbals in physics range.

Contracts: more new types, and Explore contracts should always be available.

G force blackouts: Kerbals can pass out for a couple seconds from too many Gs now.

Science storage: a new part + relay antennas + advanced probe cores are all science containers now.

EVA: the SAS button now controls whether or not a Kerbonaut reorients to the camera on EVA.

There is an updated debug menu.

New text should be more readable and definitely uses less machine resources. (Yes, it still has a few artifacts.)

A lot of legacy bugs got nailed this time around, and this version should be really solid compared to v1.1.3.
 

Hope it isn't too rude to top this - but this is really helpful and got merged and buried at the bottom of this thread.  Required reading, and should answer a lot of the questions that are already recurring

[Protato]

My download failed. Perfect time to do a "server migration", on the release date of a major patch. So disappointed. Take that "Available Now" off the site if it isn't available.

Edited October 12, 2016 by Vanamonde
Language.

[Alshain]

3 hours ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

"Never Visiting Dres" -Loading Hint

Shots fired, Squad.

Wait till you see "Dusting Duna".

[Vanamonde]

It is available now, but lots of people are trying to download it at once, which, of course, can cause problems. 

[Alshain]

1 hour ago, katateochi said:

 

That is nice! So now I guess instead of flag planting parties, we'll have flag planting ceremonies where a bunch gather around and watch, with heads held high, while Jeb, or whoever, plants a flag. 

Even after doing the pre-release, I'm still somewhat surprised to find all the new part categories, and I'm loving them! Makes building much nicer. Just...why are lights not in the electrical section?

Forget gathering around.  This actually works if you leave them on the ship.

[richfiles]

3 hours ago, bewing said:

Flag planting ceremonies: No longer necessary. One flag covers all Kerbals in physics range.

Wait... So no more bus with 48 kerbals, each patiently waiting their turn to plant their very own flag (only to promptly take it down)...
And then they had to go back home! 

Spoiler

 

Edited October 12, 2016 by richfiles

[Protato]

I read somewhere in the patch notes that they did a lot of work with wheel/lander leg collisions. Can anyone that was able to download the game before the crash confirm that? The slow sliding glitch made KSP virtually unplayable for me for months on end.

[Wragie]

Well this is fun. I tried to download through steam and got the busy server indication, then tried a minute later and it updated. I went to play, it loaded up to the main screen. Then it briefly looked like weird graphics almost static as I clicked to load game. Next thing I am staring at a solid green screen. I couldnt get out of this and back to windoze. And after rebooting I can't even get windows to work past the login screen. I threw in a ubuntu boot disk and had no issues. I was happily  (more or less) playing 1.1.3 before remembering the update should be out and updating. So system was running perfectly fine earlier today.  I thought it might have been a video card issue ie vram but not after booting up ubuntu. So while I can't see how the update might have caused it, I went from a functioning system to paperweight at the click of a button. I am posting this to see if anyone else has this occur. 

Edited October 12, 2016 by Wragie

[Jestersage]

For the new multi-node fairing, do I still need decouplers?

[fourfa]

Yes.  Without them, you will be forever stuck to the fairing nodes.  Use the separators, not decouplers, if you want the space to be empty (for instance, Apollo style TDE)

Edited October 12, 2016 by fourfa

[Tarheel1999]

1 hour ago, Runescope said:

So I need some help understanding the new Fuel Flow.  I was taking a look at it, but it's not making sense to me.

I've tried changing the numbers, increased them, decreased them, reversed them totally and as far as I can tell, the numbers make ZERO difference. 

Am I missing something?

Sadly, the arrows do not work properly. This was raised during pre-release but there were no simple, obvious solution. I don't know why the diagram was messed up though. Maybe try using the engine to check for fuel request. 

[MagicFireCaster]

So yeah 1.2 is here, but i have an issue, i installed mods ande forgot to make a backup of the previous version XD, so how can i downgrade (Steam version) 

[Kerbal Kommander]

With two hours of 1.2 under my belt, I am very happy.  The nuisances that I always looked past just to continue enjoying the game are gone.  It almost feels weird to play without bugs!  Fast loading, silky smooth frame rates, dead bugs, and with all of that 1.2 has been a much more enjoyable release than 1.1.  Hip hip, hooray!

[AIRens]

I'm on a Mac and I can't get 1.2 to work no matter what I do  I did the update from the launcher for 1.1.3 and when the Squad synchronizer window starts after I've entered my account info it stops instantly saying that the "certificate verify failed". So I just went on to the KSP website and downloaded a fresh 1.2 launcher. The game starts but then gets stuck loading everything. I let it sit for a good few hours to no avail. It just says "loading asset bundle definitions". At least I got to see all the new, funny loading lines they added while I was intently waiting for the game to load. 

[Dire_Squid]

Basically, WOO-HOOOOO!

 

Now that SAS is stable enough to keep a Spaceplane from spastically teetering like a drinking bird toy, I've come to see how awesome the Panther engines truly are, when it comes to "speedy atmospheric flight" when you set them to Wet Mode (made a Spaceplane that can fly, in Wet Mode, up to over 20,000 m, at speeds at over 800 m/s... also I was FINALLY able to complete a Crew Report in mid-air contract, because of the combined-ness). This may be a new dawning for Spaceplane flight on Kerbin.

 

Thanks KSP 1.2

[StoneWall1463]

I have not played KSP in several months but all the hype and excitement of 1.2 has inspired me to start a new career mode (as it should because this update is amazing!!!). With that said could anyone help with an explanation of the settings and what effects they have or where I can find this. Some are obvious to me such as "Enable Comm Network", however some others settings leave me to question what they do.     

[blowfish]

2 hours ago, MagicFireCaster said:

So yeah 1.2 is here, but i have an issue, i installed mods ande forgot to make a backup of the previous version XD, so how can i downgrade (Steam version) 

Right click KSP in Steam, go to Properties, got the Betas tab, and in the dropdown select 1.1.3

And then copy your KSP folder out of Steam, do a fresh install of KSP, and never mod your Steam install again 

[HebaruSan]

Are we expecting there to be versions 1.2.1 or 1.2.2? I'm tempted to make a copy of 1.2 for mods, but it would be inconvenient to have to update it.

[Dafni]

6 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Are we expecting there to be versions 1.2.1 or 1.2.2? I'm tempted to make a copy of 1.2 for mods, but it would be inconvenient to have to update it.

Going by experience, probably yes, probably soon. Only time will tell though.

[Streetwind]

Which ones do you have questions about?

[Kertech]

2 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Are we expecting there to be versions 1.2.1 or 1.2.2? I'm tempted to make a copy of 1.2 for mods, but it would be inconvenient to have to update it.

I'm going to test the water for a couple of weeks (2 tops) should be long enough to see if serious bugs occur, if not then copying time...

Edited October 12, 2016 by Kertech

[LTRyan]

I have a Question.

Is it normal that Network Connections can transmit thru a planet to the KSC?

All the green transmit waypoints show me that they move thru the surface to the ksc to establish a connetion, and no I have set the control to KSC only