KSP Making History

[pandaman]

I'm looking forward to this. 

I do agree that kerbal parachutes should really be a standard stock game item. But other than that specific parts for the 'historical' missions makes some sense.  Although the current stock parts definitely need a revamp IMO, there's no reason they need to be the same sizes as, or even compatible with, the expansion ones.

[Snark]

47 minutes ago, tater said:

@Snark I think most of my posts effectively agree with you, the bit you quoted by me above pretty much exclusively relates to the extant, ugly rocket parts. When new aircraft parts have been released, we've been consistently told that the tanks, engines, etc would get a rework or retexture to bring them up to consistency with the plane parts.

Well, sure, no disagreement there.  As a person who flies rockets almost exclusively, seeing all the love furnished on spaceplane parts for release after release made me frustrated.  And hearing that they were working on a rocket parts revamp made me happy.  And then seeing that not happen made me sad.

47 minutes ago, tater said:

If that work is already being done as part of the DLC, it seems not unreasonable that it get done to the base game.

Well, not being a Squad employee, I don't have any insider information on this, but based on everything that Squad has said over the last quite a while, my understanding is that the earlier-referenced "rocket parts revamp" is basically dead.  Porkjet's the one who was working on that, and he left back in October, along with a bunch of other devs.  They went ahead and released his stuff-so-far for free, as a separate downloadable package.  So, they're done with that.

What I've heard from the OP for this expansion pack makes it sound to me like they're talking about something different.

42 minutes ago, Alpha_Mike_741 said:

by finished i meant getting rid of the placeholders in the stock game .Parts for example. Just a qiuck glance tells me (not others maybe) there's a LOT left incomplete . The mk2 command pod , see all those rcs ports? what they do now? nothing. Engines , a complete mess . vacuum engines have the tiniest nozzles on the planet and atmospherics ones are , huge .

Again:  "placeholders" and "incomplete" are basically just saying the same thing as "unfinished".

By the literal meaning of the words:  No, they're not "placeholders", because that would imply that they intend to replace them, which I see no evidence of.  And no, they're not incomplete, because that implies that they intend to add more stuff, which it sounds like they don't.

By the sense of "not what I, personally, like":  Well, sure.  But there are plenty of people who don't have a problem with the same things that you do.  And it would be a poor decision on Squad's part to spend a lot of expensive development time working on features that are unlikely to generate any revenue.

35 minutes ago, Hotaru said:

should is completely subjective

^ Right.  That was exactly my point.  Which is why there's not really any such thing as "should", here.

Unless you can define exactly what you mean?

35 minutes ago, Hotaru said:

What I think Squad should do, what you think they should do, what they think they should do, all of those things are perfectly valid opinions.

Yup.  Which is precisely why I said this:

1 hour ago, Snark said:

However, it's important to remember that there's a crucial distinction between these two statements:

• "I would like it better if the game did X."
• "The game should X."

The former is absolutely valid, and an excellent way to express a sentiment.  The latter is simply nonsense.

It's fine if you say "I would like it better if <whatever>."

But when you say "the game should <whatever>," it's as if you're stating some kind of absolute moral rule (like "you shouldn't steal"), which is not the case here.

Perhaps this seems like splitting hairs.  "Well, of course when I say 'the game should', I mean that that's just my opinion.  This is obvious."

And yes, that is obvious... to some.  However, that sort of "should" is an awfully slippery and beguiling concept, and I've seen a lot of folks use it in an attitude of moral outrage that makes it seem that they think Squad has broken some sort of universal moral rule, when they haven't.

35 minutes ago, Hotaru said:

For instance, I stand by my comment that parachutes should be free-update material, not paid-DLC material. Not must but should. Because, in my opinion, making people pay for them is bad form.

Okay, fine, I'll re-word this statement in a way that doesn't imply universal judgment:

"I would like it better if the parachutes were free-update material, not paid-DLC material."

^ That's what you really mean, yes?

35 minutes ago, Hotaru said:

Because, in my opinion, making people pay for them is bad form. Not necessarily bad for business, but bad form, in the same way microtransactions, while possibly good for business, would be bad form.

Define "bad form", please?

Because "Squad spent money on developing a thing, therefore they charge money for that thing" seems perfectly reasonable and obvious to me.  It's how businesses work.  So, what motivation would they have to hand out freebies?

35 minutes ago, Hotaru said:

I think paying for Kerbal survivability crosses the line from "additional content" to "pay-to-win,"

But it is additional content.  And there's no such thing as "winning" in KSP, not least because you're not playing against anyone.  Does it provide an additional way to play the game?  Yes.  Does it let you design things in a way that you couldn't, otherwise?  Yes.  But the same could be said about any new parts or functions.

35 minutes ago, Hotaru said:

if that were the only thing in the DLC I almost certainly wouldn't be buying it. Fortunately that is far from the only thing in the DLC

...I don't think "fortunately" is quite the right word.  I think it's no accident that there's other stuff, too.  If they released each tiny new feature, onesie-twosie, and charged a smidgeon of money for it... that would be micro-transaction, wouldn't it?  "New!  EVA parachutes for $1!"  Which I suspect most folks would hate.

So, since there has to be a transaction (because transaction = money = what every business has to have in order to stay in business), and you're not gonna do micro-transactions, that leaves... macro-transactions, yes?  As in, "bundle a bunch of stuff all together and sell it for a bigger amount all in one lump", yes?  As in, an expansion pack.  As in, that's exactly what they're doing. 

35 minutes ago, Hotaru said:

something I notice and dislike.

You dislike that they're releasing a spiffy new feature?  Or you dislike that they expect to get paid for doing work?

So you'd like it if they simply didn't provide the new feature at all, and sold the expansion pack without it?  How does anyone win, then?

(Yes, I'm being facetious there.  You've said you'd rather have that feature for free in the stock game.  But heck, every player wants every feature for free in the stock game.  No company can keep doing that.  Eventually, they're going to have to charge money for features.  "We do work" = "we get paid".  In the KSP community, we've really been spoiled, up to now.  I think "eventually" has finally arrived.)

[KSK]

I'm curious to see how the historical missions are going to work, since most of the 'golden era' space flights (Vostok and Mercury through to Apollo and the early Soyuz missions) were essentially step by step test flights to validate procedures and equipment that are either hugely simplified in KSP (e.g. communications, navigation) or, at present, entirely absent (e.g. life support). Also, with a few obvious exceptions, the vast majority of space missions haven't gone beyond LEO. A KSP player who has a) launched a crewed spacecraft to orbit, b) docked two craft together in orbit and c) constructed any kind of space station has basically recapitulated the sum total of human spaceflight, less the Apollo programme.

Sure, it's going to be fun to launch Jeb to orbit in a Vostok-alike capsule atop an official R7 replica (or the kerbalised equivalent at any rate) and I can see the historical missions in general being a lot of fun for new players, but I'm not seeing a lot there for established players. Of course, we've only seen the headline features of a work in progress, so it's far too early to come to any conclusions yet. 

I'll be reading any news about Making History with great interest and if it looks good, I'll have no issues with plunking down my money for it. At the moment though, I'm undecided.

Edited March 17, 2017 by KSK

[JPLRepo]

5 minutes ago, Cooly568 said:

Okay that's good to hear. What about the other way around, and more specifically custom missions?

Not sure I get you there? Custom missions? That is the point of the mission builder? Create your own custom misions.
If you mean modding the expansion then yes that will be possible. But of course only if the player has the expansion installed. Mods made to work specifically with the expansion will have some requirements around how they can determine if the expansion is installed or not.

As per above. The design is that the core will contain the interfaces to any expansions, along with determining if any are installed or not.
Interfacing to anything within any expansion may or may not require seperate mod versions depending on what you are doing. Modding specific components of an expansion would in all likelihood require seperate linkage to DLC DLLs. Given the extend of modding that occurs today on stock KSP I'd expect there will be cases of this. But other types of mods that don't go that deep would probably only need to interface via the core expansion Interfaces.
It's still heavily in development, so not a lot more details at this point in time. But those details will become available as we get closer.

[Azimech]

12 minutes ago, metalmouth7 said:

You miss the point of this issue.

KSP is not a finished game. Numerous bugs dating as far back as 0.19 (many of them extremely serious,) have sat unresolved since being reported nearly 4 years ago. Major features introduced in 0.90, and others dating from long before, introduced only in placeholder format have been left unfinished for well over a year while the game has been announced as being "finished."

It's not a matter of it being stupid because the content is available from mods, or because it's a bunch of simple-to-make assets that the community has almost certainly implemented in a better fashion. It's a matter of it being stupid because Squad has no business making a cash grab like this when they have yet to finish the game itself. This is anti-consumer and shows a serious lack of honesty regarding the state of the "complete" game they've been selling to people for years now. Even more so when the funding they were collecting during Early Access was being funneled to projects other than KSP itself, while the game was developed on a shoestring budget, if the accounts of the former team members that have come forward are to be believed.

Extremely serious? Got any examples?

[Ant432]

14 minutes ago, metalmouth7 said:

You miss the point of this issue.

KSP is not a finished game. Numerous bugs dating as far back as 0.19 (many of them extremely serious,) have sat unresolved since being reported nearly 4 years ago. Major features introduced in 0.90, and other dating from long before, introduced only in placeholder format have been left unfinished for well over a year while the game has been announced as being "finished."

It's not a matter of it being stupid because the content is available from mods, or because it's a bunch of simple-to-make assets that the community has almost certainly implemented in a better fashion. It's a matter of it being stupid because Squad has no business making a cash grab like this when they have yet to finish the game itself yet. This is anti-consumer and shows a serious lack of honesty regarding the state of the "complete" game they've been selling to people for years now. Even more when the funding they were collecting during Early Access was being funneled to projects other than KSP itself, while the game itself was developed on a shoestring budget, if the accounts of the former team members that have come forward to to be believed.

This confuses me. All games have bugs, according to that logic ALL games are unfinished.

[metalmouth7]

Just now, Azimech said:

Extremely serious? Got any examples?

AMD Users on Linux cannot play the game using official drivers.
Users of non-US keyboard configs cannot bind many keys.
Render layer bugs resulting in most/all of the UI vanishing.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Antonio432 said:

This confuses me. All games have bugs, according to that logic ALL games are unfinished.

It's one thing for, say, spacecraft landed on the second KSC on the other side of the planet to prevent you from launching from your KSC. It's another for half of the users on one of your three supported OS families to be unable to run the game on official drivers.

[Angelo Kerman]

If we ended up getting 1.875m Gemini-like parts similar to M.O.L.E. in the historical pack, then I've done my job. If not, then I've still got MOLE. These expansions sound intriguing. Mission Builder sounds like something that would be really useful for the mission challenges crowd. Create a series of missions like @eloquentJane's SLS missions, and the post your scores. I could see a mod for that where you post your score to a server somewhere, and in-game you can see the high scores.

[sal_vager]

By the way KSP works fine with the open source RadeonSI driver, and the proprietary Crimson driver, fglrx is deprecated anyway, KSP even works fine on the AMDGPU driver I'm told  

[KJ2022]

Depending on the price and content, I'd be more than happy to pay for this. Is there any way to check when you bought the game? Hoping it's close to Realism Overhaul, but I know it probably wont be.

[jdub3350]

19 minutes ago, Snark said:

^ Right.  That was exactly my point.  Which is why there's not really any such thing as "should", here.

Unless you can define exactly what you mean?

Yup.  Which is precisely why I said this:

It's fine if you say "I would like it better if <whatever>."

But when you say "the game should <whatever>," it's as if you're stating some kind of absolute moral rule (like "you shouldn't steal"), which is not the case here.

Perhaps this seems like splitting hairs.  "Well, of course when I say 'the game should', I mean that that's just my opinion.  This is obvious."

And yes, that is obvious... to some.  However, that sort of "should" is an awfully slippery and beguiling concept, and I've seen a lot of folks use it in an attitude of moral outrage that makes it seem that they think Squad has broken some sort of universal moral rule, when they haven't.

 

As someone who got his Bachelor's in Philosophy and later developed an interest in spaceflight almost solely because of KSP...this thread has now delivered everything for me. 

[Hotaru]

2 minutes ago, Snark said:

"I would like it better if the parachutes were free-update material, not paid-DLC material."

^ That's what you really mean, yes?

No, that is not what I really mean. It's not even true, frankly. I don't particularly care one way or the other, seeing as I'll be buying the expansion pack anyway. Please don't put words in my mouth. I meant exactly what I said.

Which is, in my opinion parachutes should be free. You seem to be reading that as I am entitled to free parachutes, which is a completely different statement.

Let me put it another way. Squad is perfectly entitled to develop and sell whatever they want, and we will buy it or we won't. We the users are also perfectly entitled to our opinions on what Squad should and shouldn't sell, for whatever reason. Maybe we think they shouldn't do a thing because we believe it would be bad for business. Maybe we think it's dishonest. Maybe we feel we're being taken advantage of. Maybe we just don't like the direction they're taking the game we care so much about. Any of those are perfectly valid reasons for saying Squad should or shouldn't do a thing.

 

10 minutes ago, Snark said:

And yes, that is obvious... to some.  However, that sort of "should" is an awfully slippery and beguiling concept, and I've seen a lot of folks use it in an attitude of moral outrage that makes it seem that they think Squad has broken some sort of universal moral rule, when they haven't.

You seem to be intentionally making a point of misunderstanding the word "should," for reasons I don't understand. It's not an "absolute moral judgement" or any such thing, it's the opinion of whoever says it. "Should," "would be best if," "would be wrong not to (for some reason)," "would prefer if," all those are roughly equivalent. Even saying something as universal as "you shouldn't steal" is not far off from saying "based on the system of morality I subscribe too, stealing is wrong," which is still just a statement of opinion.

[sal_vager]

Oh don't forget the tracker cleanup, lots of old bugs were found to no longer occur.

[metalmouth7]

1 minute ago, sal_vager said:

By the way KSP works fine with the open source RadeonSI driver, and the proprietary Crimson driver, fglrx is deprecated anyway, KSP even works fine on the AMDGPU driver I'm told  

It's chipset dependent - many chipsets are not capable of using the newer Crimson drivers (which have significant issues on Linux systems on newer chipsets as well, leaving them a subpar choice anyway,) RadeonSI lacks support for a number of fglrx chipsets, as does AMDGPU.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

8 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

If we ended up getting 1.875m Gemini-like parts similar to M.O.L.E. in the historical pack, then I've done my job. If not, then I've still got MOLE. These expansions sound intriguing. Mission Builder sounds like something that would be really useful for the mission challenges crowd. Create a series of missions like @eloquentJane's SLS missions, and the post your scores. I could see a mod for that where you post your score to a server somewhere, and in-game you can see the high scores.

1.875m parts would be amazing, it's a good size for soyuz/vostok/voskhod-alike parts too.

[sal_vager]

Just now, metalmouth7 said:

It's chipset dependent - many chipsets are not capable of using the newer Crimson drivers (which have significant issues on Linux systems on newer chipsets as well, leaving them a subpar choice anyway,) RadeonSI lacks support for a number of fglrx chipsets, as does AMDGPU.

Not sure why this is Squads fault, but hey ho.

Also please check the pre-release for keyboard localization.

[RoverDude]

1 minute ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

1.875m parts would be amazing, it's a good size for soyuz/vostok/voskhod-alike parts too.

I agree, they would be amazing

[minepagan]

@Snark to sum it up, I have to say this: DLCs are great. I would buy the @#?! out of them. But this should not be a DLC. From what we know so far, every single feature lines up more with a normal update, or an official mod, than a DLC. Especially seeing as that it seems many things can already be done with mods. A DLC should add something new.

Look at Fallout 4, for example: anotger game with a large modding community, and DLCs. That game's DLCs added new gameplay mechanics, and/or made things that, sure, could have been DLCs, but were much, much larger than any DLCs to-date.

On to the "game not finished" debate....yes, many things are placeholders. Have you seen all the glitches around the not-max-level KSC? Or what about the 1.25m and 2.5m parts?

[Temeter]

10 minutes ago, minepagan said:

@Snark to sum it up, I have to say this: DLCs are great. I would buy the @#?! out of them. But this should not be a DLC. From what we know so far, every single feature lines up more with a normal update, or an official mod, than a DLC. Especially seeing as that it seems many things can already be done with mods. A DLC should add something new.

What are you talking about? This sounds like a completely new system to create and play missions, of course its a new feature.

[mcirish3]

I have a couple commenst and 1 question. 

WOOT THIS AWSOME WHY WAS THIS NOT THE BIG ANOUCEMENT.

Glad to see Squad gettiong additional revinue sources.  

@SQUAD so i know you have confirmed you will keep your promise. Great news!  But for those of us who bought before April 2013 like myself but who transfered to steam during the 1.1 testing fiasko will that transfer complicate you keeping your promise?

 

Edited March 17, 2017 by mcirish3

[sal_vager]

1 minute ago, Temeter said:

This sounds like a completely new system to create and play missions, of course its a new feature.

Yes, this is correct, I can't wait for you guys to see it

[minepagan]

5 minutes ago, Temeter said:

What are you talking about? This sounds like a completely new system to create and play missions, of course its a new feature.

That's the new part that should be a DLC....if it's what I hope it is. If it is, in fact, a new system. @sal_vager can you confrim it is, and not than just a UI to help make scenarios?

Ninja'd by the man himself, well then.

Edited March 17, 2017 by minepagan

[Kosmonaut]

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

OH 

 

MY

 

GOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDD

 

This is so cool

[sal_vager]

Just now, minepagan said:

That's the new part that should be a DLC....if it's what I hope it is. If it is, in fact, a new system. @sal_vager can you confrim it is, and not than just a UI to help make scenarios?

It's more than just a UI, a UI change wouldn't make what's planned work.

I can't say more, maybe @Robbonaut can later.

[0111narwhalz]

"Look at this other game with DLC and mods!" they say, as an argument that this is not a good DLC.

To them I reply, "Look at all these other games which include a level editor as DLC!" The mission creator is a level editor if ever I've seen one.