KSP Weekly: Edwin Hubble

[SQUAD]

Welcome to KSP Weekly everyone. On Monday we celebrated the 128th anniversary of  Edwin Powell Hubble’s birth. Regarded as one of the most important astronomers of all time, Hubble played central role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Born in Marshfield, Missouri, Edwin was a gifted athlete in his younger days, but it was his intense interest in astronomy that would dictate his fate. However, upon his father’s request he had to study law, though he managed to take a few math and science courses. After his father’s demise in 1913, and as he did not have the motivation to practice law, he proceeded to teach Spanish, physics and mathematics at a high school in Indiana, where he also coached the boys’ basketball team. After a year of high-school teaching, he entered graduate school with the help of a former professor to study astronomy at the University of Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory, where he received his PhD in 1917. Shortly after, he volunteered for the United States Army and even though his Division was sent overseas to join the Great War, he never saw combat. After the end of the war, Hubble spent a year in Cambridge, where he renewed his studies of Astronomy, and in 1919, Hubble was offered a staff position at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Mount Wilson Observatory, near Pasadena, California, by George Ellery Hale, the founder and director of the observatory. Hubble remained on staff at Mount Wilson until his death in 1953. Shortly before his death, Hubble became the first astronomer to use the newly completed giant 5.1 m (200-inch) reflector Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California.

Hubble discovered that many objects previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas and classified as “nebulae” were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way. He used the strong direct relationship between a classical Cepheid variable’s luminosity and pulsation period (discovered in 1908 by Henrietta Swan Leavitt - another astronomical legend by herself) for scaling galactic and extragalactic distances. He also devised the most commonly used system for classifying galaxies, grouping them according to their appearance in photographic images. He arranged the different groups of galaxies in what became known as the Hubble Sequence.

In 1929 Hubble examined the relation between distance and redshift of galaxies. Combining his measurements of galaxy distances with measurements of the redshifts of the galaxies by Vesto Slipher, and by his assistant Milton L. Humason, he found a roughly linear relation between the distances of the galaxies and their redshifts, a discovery that later became known as Hubble’s Law. This meant, the greater the distance between any two galaxies, the greater their relative speed of separation. This law is considered the first observational basis for the expansion of the universe and today serves as one of the pieces of evidence most often cited in support of the Big Bang model.

Hubble did not receive the Nobel Prize, since the Nobel Prize in Physics did not recognize work done in astronomy. Nevertheless, the Hubble Space Telescope was rightfully named in his honor and, now, his name is most widely recognized for that. What an extraordinary life for an extraordinary scientist, whose findings fundamentally changed the scientific view of the universe. After this small homage, let’s move on and talk about KSP development.

[Development news start here]

This week was not short of progress. The Making History Expansion continues to take shape as components and features continue to be implemented. For instance, the team recently finished implementing Story Messages into playable Missions. This task involved three elements. The first was the Action Message Dialog, which is a new node that displays a dialog during Mission play similar to the Tutorial dialogs. The Creator will be able to choose a character to present the message and text to display. Secondly, the developers added storage capabilities for the mission messages by having the Screen and Dialog Messages for missions store into the Messages App so they can be reviewed at any time by the Mission Player.

The team also worked on a small enhancement to the Graphic Action Pane (GAP) that will minimize it to the bottom of the right panel when there is nothing being displayed in it. It will re-expand automatically when there is a parameter selected that has a GAP display. We are trying to include these sort of quality of life features to make the process of mission creation easier and friendlier for Creators.

We are looking to improve the experience for Mission Players as well. One of such improvement that the team worked on this week is a feature that will allow players to see mission objectives visualized both on Map and Flight modes (depending on the objective), not only for Orbits and Celestial Bodies (which are already in place), but also for Ground and Overfly Targets.

Simultaneously, the team was busy designing the Tracking Station Display of Mission Objectives. The idea here is to have an overview for the  Mission Creator by using the Tracking Station with time frozen at the start of the mission. It’s not 100% locked in but we are trying to add node information to the vessel list portion of the UI, while showing vessels, targets, orbits, and so on, instead of just Vessels widgets. We also want players to be able to access relevant parts of this info in the Tracking Station during Mission play.

On the artistic side of development, the team is working on finalizing some of the UI graphics and layouts in the builder scene, so the expansion is starting to look rather sleek.

The development of Update 1.4 also continues, which this week involved a lot of work on the Unity Upgrade branch and PartTools updates to support the new version of Unity.

In other news KSP on consoles is looking great as we approach the January release. The last builds are very stable and it’s getting more difficult for testers to find serious issues. The test team however are always up for a challenge, and they have been working hard at finding bugs, albeit minor ones, which have been fixed this week. An example include a minor bug that was triggered when zooming in and out in one specific controller preset with the reticle unlocked and it caused a momentum that kept the camera moving towards or away from the object even after the buttons were released.

That’s it for this week. Be sure to join us on our official forums, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news and development updates!  

Happy launchings!  

[SamBelanger]

GG

[Just Jim]

Oh, I love the idea of the story messages. I could have a lot of fun with those.  

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Oh, I love the idea of the story messages. I could have a lot of fun with those.  

Yes, and care will need to be taken in how the missions are shared, since those message windows could end up full of profanity. The easy way around that is for the mission sharing aspect to be “unrated” instead of (I assume KSP is rated) “E” 

Edited November 25, 2017 by StrandedonEarth

[Just Jim]

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Yes, and care will need to be taken in how the missions are shared, since those message windows could end up full of profanity. The easy way around that is for the mission sharing aspect to be “unrated” instead of (I assume KSP is rated) “E” 

I'm not sure why anybody would want to do that... 

[StrandedonEarth]

4 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

I'm not sure why anybody would want to do that... 

Adolescent humor.

[XLjedi]

Squashing bugs is always good...  was hoping to hear a certain (not minor) bouncy one was being addressed in 1.4.  I'll assume you're on it.

Edited November 25, 2017 by XLjedi

[flying turd]

cant wait till January for xbox update console commands n everything. dont forget to test the asteroids u guys they are freezing my xbox when i grab em.

[EwingKang]

10 hours ago, SQUAD said:

We are looking to improve the experience for Mission Players as well. One of such improvement that the team worked on this week is a feature that will allow players to see mission objectives visualized both on Map and Flight modes (depending on the objective), not only for Orbits and Celestial Bodies (which are already in place), but also for Ground and Overfly Targets.

Speaking of mission targets, I really wish we could have retrograde target marker on the navball for normal career mission or kerbNet target. It would make target flying much more easier.

Edited November 25, 2017 by EwingKang

[Deddly]

Some off-topic posts were removed. As was pointed out, we don't do contentless posts here, including variations of that "first" thing, sorry

[NSEP]

Nice to see development going well and active. Can't wait to see for what KSP 1.4 has to offer!

[mystik]

On 11/25/2017 at 1:22 AM, StrandedonEarth said:

Yes, and care will need to be taken in how the missions are shared, since those message windows could end up full of profanity. The easy way around that is for the mission sharing aspect to be “unrated” instead of (I assume KSP is rated) “E” 

If someone wants to be edgy I see no problem. Just put a warning when loading a custom mission that it is not reviewed. In general I could not care less if somebody drops some F-bombs. You're not going to stop kids from swearing if they want to. Over protection is just as harmful as overexposure. Good parenting cannot be replaced by any lame rating and missing ratings are not an excuse for bad parenting. Only idiotic journalists claim that video games make children violent or retarded or smth. I grew up playing GTA and many other games when I was underage. I could tell it is a game and I was taught on what is good and what is bad by my parents. Parents that hope the media (games included) will educate their children for them are dumb. You don't need media to be a bad person. You can do it without violent games or naughty language. You had bad people before fire was discovered. It's not an excuse. Stop clogging developers with rules and regulations because they are not substitute for educating people's children. Only moral puritans trip over naughty words. The rest of people just want to have fun and don't scream for the world to stop just because someone said a bad word.

Edited November 27, 2017 by mystik

[Deddly]

Adult content (including profanity) will be treated just the same as any other such content: Not permitted on this forum and not allowed to link to it, either. Whatever a person's ideological opinions, profanity is profanity and is not welcome in this community. You'll have to go somewhere else for that.

[mystik]

I am curious how you're going to "protect the children" when custom missions are released. Are you going to play each one to check it? I was being on the developers side by being against being bogged down in all the stupid rules and regulations. Digital downloads are not like cigarettes. You can't buy cigarettes as a child, but you can download anything you want. This is why I brought up that proper parenting is the best filter. Hiding children from "naughty" words will only impress them or traumatize them when they get accidentally exposed to them. This isn't an ideology. It's child psychology. And don't worry, KerbalX will most likely add the option to share missions and won't be so scared that Jeb may make a fart joke. The horror....

Edited November 27, 2017 by mystik

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, mystik said:

I was being on the developers side by being against being bogged down in all the stupid rules and regulations. 

You or any other developer are free to create whatever content you want. Per General Order Rule 34, it's extremely likely that extremely rude content will be created if it hasn't been already. But this forum's rules do not permit sharing such content here. As you point out, there are plenty of other places online where you can do so. 

Edited November 27, 2017 by Kuzzter

[Mako]

@mystik

I imagine that the plan is for missions to be sought out by the user in the same way that mods are. There are no restrictions for mod content that the game will load, rather there's only restrictions on mods you can discuss and link to in these forums.

If I want to make a mod that is offensive no one will stop me from doing so. No one will stop me from making it available and distributing it to other players from a server that is not associated with Squad. Moderators and Staff will stop me from posting about it and/or linking to it on these forums, but that's about it. So far it seems like player-made missions will be treated pretty much exactly like mods.

I anticipate a new section to be added to the forums with the release of the he expansion. I imagine it will be very similar to the mod section, and would provide a place for sharing, linking to, and discussing user-made missions. I suspect Curse will be named the official mission repository just as it's the official mod repository. I also suspect that the community-run mods site(s) would adapt to host missions as well. I wouldn't be suprised if CKAN was extended (or another, similar application was created) to index and facilitate finding and installing new missions to play.

This is all speculation based on the lack of information provided by Squad and some applied logic. It seems likely it will go this way, and in doing so missions will not be regulated by Squad in any way except for discussions on these forums and possibly moderation of official hosting locations. I've not seen any evidence that there's any more reason to be concerned about censorship or moderation than there is for mods. Likewise, with what you quoted from @StrandedonEarth, mods already present that scenario and are apparently accounted for to the general satisfaction of users and any regulatory organizations.

 

TL;DR - User-made missions will likely be treated just like user-made mods in pretty much every way you can think of.

[Deddly]

29 minutes ago, mystik said:

... proper parenting is the best filter.. . 

On this, we are in complete agreement. As for the rest, the forum rules are intended to make the community a nice and pleasant environment for everybody. It would be a shame if good parents would have to forbid their children from coming here. 

[Shadowmage]

On 11/24/2017 at 2:19 PM, SQUAD said:

PartTools updates

@SQUAD @JPLRepo  Any chance that the updated part tools will support blend-shape/shapekey animated models, and loading of models with arbitrary shaders?  (along with a method to load non-KSP-standard shaders into a place where they can be found by PartLoader to be used on the models?)  Seems like both should be very doable, and neither are very large undertakings.

 

[Arizal]

You talk a lot about the new mission builder, but I probably won't use it that much, as I am still a beginner and mostly want to play in career mode. Is there someplace where I could see an overview of the features planned for the expansion?

[Not Sure]

Is a multiplayer going to be tinkered with in 1.4???????!

[klesh]

1 hour ago, Not Sure said:

Is a multiplayer going to be tinkered with in 1.4???????!

IMHO, MP is hanging out in the pasture next to the corpses of schmelta-vee and porkjets gorgeous looking revamp.

[0111narwhalz]

1 hour ago, Not Sure said:

Is a multiplayer going to be tinkered with in 1.4???????!

I'm… not sure.
  

I'm sorry, I had to.

[XLjedi]

I still do not get the concept of why anyone would want multiplayer? 

...unless it still had a way to use accel time?  Which I don't think I've seen implemented in a multi-player game before?

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, Not Sure said:

Is a multiplayer going to be tinkered with in 1.4???????!

Let's put it this way. Multiplayer would be a big project for SQUAD to implement, requiring the time of most of their developers and QA team and probably at least a little artist time. So far they have made zero announcements that any of that is happening, and it's not because they're secretive about what they're working on: the weeklies have gone into detail about the parts of the Making History expansion and the console re-port that are being worked on by each role. So the likelihood of multiplayer in 1.4 is about as close to 0% as it can get without SQUAD flat-out saying No.

[Deddly]

16 minutes ago, XLjedi said:

I still do not get the concept of why anyone would want multiplayer? 

...unless it still had a way to use accel time?  Which I don't think I've seen implemented in a multi-player game before?

Please see here for a discussion on that, or here for a more recent one. The discussion invariably goes the same way, so anyone wanting to address this question, please go to that thread instead of replying here, thanks