Kerbal Space Program update 1.4 Grand Discussion thread.

[RoverDude]

3 hours ago, s_powers said:

7. The golden donut tanks don't sink in to each other a little when stacked. That was the whole point of them, that they save physical space and can stack.

That was not the point - parts with bad nodes that cause clipping are actually bugs

5 hours ago, Yargnit said:

@RoverDude With the new decouplers/seperators, is there any chance we could get their colliders tweaked a bit for 1.4.1/MH (also the new 5m decoupler if it shares the same collider). In this picture you can see the 3.75m version of the decoupler/seperator on the left with it's collider, and the 1.25m on the far right. In the middle are two 1.25m parts (structural fuselage and doughnut tank) showing example colliders. It would be extremely helpful for advanced building techniques if we could get the decoupler/seperator colliders to be tweaked to do something more in-line with how the fuselage or doughnut's collders are. (Basically so the collider hugs the inside shape of the ring instead of only having the hollow square in the middle) This would, among other uses, allow for using them for portals to docking bays and so forth for orbital stations.

Much appreciated! <3

I hear ya, but it's also a performance consideration.  Best thing to do is log this as feedback on the tracker so it does not get lost in the shuffle

[viperwolf]

5 minutes ago, EthanKerbman said:

1) The new EULA are utterly ridiculous and most likely unenforceable in some of the saner parts of the world (as most EULAs really, it mostly relies on the fact that it would be prohibitive to challenge them).

2) There's no added DRM (yet).

3) The new jet engine sounds are an unmitigated disaster.

4) The game works fine by selectively using the 1.3.1 parts with the 1.4.0 code, making transition require little work (you will want to keep the "new" Cargo and Service Bays, as well as Internal configs though, all other parts can be replaced by their old version without adverse effect in sandbox mode so far).

5) Stock performances have improved a bit.

6) Personal parachutes are great.

 

Now to try and migrate my circa 300 mods install...

Im a little slow, so we can just add the old capsule part to keep a save vehicle from 1.3.1?

[Dark Lion]

My heart soared as I saw the update, so I got right to it. Salty forum users won't stop my glorious mood.
Then I played 1.4.
In short, I'm sore as Jeb back from Jool. Talk about over-sellin' it. Thanks for the paint jobs and parachutes? 
Why rush out the update like that? So half-throttle... 

[RoverDude]

1 minute ago, viperwolf said:

Im a little slow, so we can just add the old capsule part to keep a save vehicle from 1.3.1?

We did not remove the old parts -they are hidden.  This ensures backwards compatibility and no breaking craft or saves.  But for new craft, you will need to use the new parts (though someone could get enterprising with module manager and make the old parts visible... like if you wanted the old 2.5 tanks to make 'Kerbal Oil Refinery Program'

[viperwolf]

2 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

We did not remove the old parts -they are hidden.  This ensures backwards compatibility and no breaking craft or saves.  But for new craft, you will need to use the new parts (though someone could get enterprising with module manager and make the old parts visible... like if you wanted the old 2.5 tanks to make 'Kerbal Oil Refinery Program'

Oh wow! thank you, that is really great to hear.

[kapteenipirk]

Normally, i don't want to complain about anything that Squad does (as i never have before this), but i gotta say that i agree that the new engine-sounds need a change.

It's not that their bad per-say, but they just don't fit the type of engines their given to.

The new sound for the Juno engine fit's just fine as that's kinda what you would expect from a smaller engine.

But as for the others, the Wheesley and the Goliath should go back to using the old engine sounds.

While the Panther and the Whiplash, i was thinking something more in the line of this:

(sorry for the bad frame-rate, but i didn't bother optimizing the settings for OBS as this is more about the sound)

Something with more grunt and something that sounds like it has real power behind it...like the engine-sound of the Thunderhawk from JustCause3.

[ndiver]

Concerning the fairings, i'm surprised that the 1.3 fairing style was completely removed. I'm clearly not a fan of the new 3 fairing colors

[Adelaar]

I'd like to throw in my few cents on the update. In general I am quite pleased, but there are a few things that occured to me:

1) The Enginesounds, like so many responses here, I am not terribly enthousiastic about them. The Rapier is an improvement, the rest is either marginally better than what it was or just outright bad (Panther, Whiplash). The last two don't sound at all like powerful jet engines, they lack both the high pitched noises a turbojet engine makes, as well as the low pitch grunt.
The turbofan engines miss a lot of the low pitch vibration noises that usually comes from turbofan engines, although in general their noise is alright now. The Juno is probably the engine I like the most, although I do miss the screeching high pitch noise that those engines ought to make.
Example given:

Yes, I do realize that those are not the original Jumo 004 engines, due to their appalling reliability, but the sound is much the same. There used to be an jet sound mod, perhaps that could be implemented in stock?

The rocket engines meanwhile lack the powerful noise they should make, especially the higher end engines.

 

2) I approve of being able to chose the colour of my fuel tanks... But why are there so little tanks/parts which actually have colouring options? Just having an option for standard white and a black option would be great.

 

3) in the builder GUI, there is a plus mark on parts which, once clicked, reveals a button which is not configured well and which gives me no idea what it's supposed to do...

[Temeter]

28 minutes ago, EthanKerbman said:

3) The new jet engine sounds are an unmitigated disaster.

That's actually how real jets sound, even moreso high performance military/aerospace jets.

Those turbines produce really ugly whine. Panther seemed fine to me, and actually sounded like a powerful engine.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Temeter

[GoSlash27]

A minor note that'll probably get lost in the shuffle:

The LV-T45 has been de-buffed and the Twin-Boar now costs a little more. I don't see either of these changes as a bad thing.

Best,
-Slashy

^ Not true. Operator error.

Edited March 7, 2018 by GoSlash27
Brainfart

[RoverDude]

6 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

A minor note that'll probably get lost in the shuffle:

The LV-T45 has been de-buffed and the Twin-Boar now costs a little more. I don't see either of these changes as a bad thing.

Best,
-Slashy

ummm....  we did not change the stats of either of those engines...

[Temeter]

In regards to the jet engine sounds, I will definitly say that they should be a lot quieter in IVA view.

[sarbian]

@UomoCapra I see that you added RedShell to track the game usage. Does it respect the old "I don't wish to send data" (forgot the exact wording) setting of the game ?

Edit: the DONT_SEND_IP and SEND_PROGRESS_DATA settings.

Edited March 7, 2018 by sarbian

[EthanKerbman]

2 minutes ago, Temeter said:

That's actually how real jets sound, even moreso high performance military/aerospace jets.

Those turbines produce really ugly whine. Panther seemed fine to me, and actually sounded like a powerful engine.

Some of the engines are passable, but the Whiplash and Panthers, nope, they sound nothing like what they are trying to depict, they are closer to 50's era jets than anything they're supposed to be.

Yes, they sound fine if your only reference point is jets taxiing at relatively close range or some static engine tests, but in reality the whine is quickly covered by the growl, even once you take into account the doppler effect. And in Afterburner, yeah, the whine is the least of your worries.

Moreover, the whine fades fairly quickly with distance, meaning that viewing your craft it shouldn't be predominant, likewise, from the inside, between the sound transmitted through the structure and the doppler effect, the whine is fairly different and attenuated compared to an observer outside.

That's where the sound fail, it takes a very specific case and makes it the general case.

[DragonsForce]

Oooookay, so:

Parachutes: cool, only thing I would have done differently is to make it an equipment option for all Kerbals, not a thing EVERY high-level Kerbal has.

Colour options: Neat! (Although I wish there was more than a teaser for the DLC)

The flash explosions now produce, visible even from kilometers away: Neat!

Editor switching: Thank god!

Pre-naming vessel parts: Useful, I'll probably never use it

New parts: Kinda neat, I guess.

Bug: Symmetry mode indicator not working (may not be consistent, have not tested)

Engine sounds: Okay, this will be longer.

   -Startup/shutdown sounds on rocket engines are louder and more powerful than actual engine sounds. This is bad.

   -Also, why is the shutdown (or on some engines, the startup) sound a cymbal? I'm no expert, but I don't think engines sound like that.

   -Thumper SRB lacks a bit of power, other SRBs are good.

   -Panther engine: That sound is just bad, and the afterburner (especially the change between modes) is even worse.

   -The new sounds for the Juno and Wheesley are ok IMO, but the old ones were better.

   -Spoolup/spooldown on the airbreathing engines (soundwise) takes to long, especially on the engines with several modes.

   -Comparing the Rhino to the Twin-boar, the Rhino is to weak.

 

[Streetwind]

4 hours ago, s_powers said:

7. The golden donut tanks don't sink in to each other a little when stacked. That was the whole point of them, that they save physical space and can stack.

You can use the move tool to push any and all stackable parts into each other at will. Works even with the good old Jumbo tanks if you really need a lot of fuel in a physically improbable volume.  How the part's nodes are set up doesn't change anything about that.

[Temeter]

1 minute ago, EthanKerbman said:

Some of the engines are passable, but the Whiplash and Panthers, nope, they sound nothing like what they are trying to depict, they are closer to 50's era jets than anything they're supposed to be.

Yes, they sound fine if your only reference point is jets taxiing at relatively close range or some static engine tests, but in reality the whine is quickly covered by the growl, even once you take into account the doppler effect. And in Afterburner, yeah, the whine is the least of your worries.

Moreover, the whine fades fairly quickly with distance, meaning that viewing your craft it shouldn't be predominant, likewise, from the inside, between the sound transmitted through the structure and the doppler effect, the whine is fairly different and attenuated compared to an observer outside.

That's where the sound fail, it takes a very specific case and makes it the general case.

Makes me wonder, are those engines supposed to be 60s or 00s jet engines?

Looking at something like this:

The engines in game do kind of sound like modern engines running at low RPMs?

[GoSlash27]

1 hour ago, RoverDude said:

ummm....  we did not change the stats of either of those engines...

You're right, Disregard my last....

Best,
-Slashy

1 hour ago, DragonsForce said:

-Comparing the Rhino to the Twin-boar, the Rhino is to weak.

DragonsForce,

 It always was, especially as a lifter.

Best,
-Slashy

[EthanKerbman]

1 hour ago, Temeter said:

Makes me wonder, are those engines supposed to be 60s or 00s jet engines?

The engines in game do kind of sound like modern engines running at low RPMs?

The Panther is meant to be a F404 analogue, a late 70's/80's engine design.

The Whiplash is a modern take on the J58, itself a 60's design, but the Whiplash performances make it unlikely to be anything other than at least a late 80's tech (of course it's a game and the lore might be different but if we were to draw a parallel with real engines).

Let me elaborate (we'll disregard IVA and doppler effect to tackle only problem at a time).

In the real world, as the distance between the observer and the engine increases, the high frequencies become quickly less present, until they're not heard anymore, the low frequencies can be heard from further away. You quickly lose the hoovering whine and hear the low rumble of exhaust from a longer distance.

In KSP, as the distance between the observer and the engine increases, the sound level of both components (whine and rumble) fade away equally, but since the whine volume is higher than the rumble, there's a distance where the rumble (yes, the rumble of many jets is still quite high pitched) almost disappears and the whine is still present, exactly the reverse of what should happen in reality. This was already the case in previous versions, but 1.4.0 made the whine more predominant and annoying, making the problem much more noticeable than previously.

So while the sounds are "accurate-ish" from the perspective of someone close to a jet taxiing, starting its take-off dry or looking at an engine testbed, they are wildly inaccurate and inappropriate for engine mounted on an actual craft, flying, seen from either a distance or from the cockpit, which will be your points of view most of the time.

If you want to understand the problem, look at : 

 

Take note how the sound evolves with the distance and engine regime. 0:18, that's how 1.4.0 engines sound, it's fine for that part... 1:26 notice how fast the whine fades away with distance (the speed isn't enough for the Doppler effect to be a major factor)... 2:14 where is the whine gone ?

My problem is not that the sound modelling is simplistic, but that the sound they've chosen as their basis is not accurate for a craft in flight, seen from a distance, as will be the case for 90% of the time we'll be using these engines.

Also, keep in mind that most of the videos you will find (including the example above) are not entirely representative of how engines sound because of the limitations of the recording equipment and audio codecs (and to a lower degree the player side of things), missing components both in the high and low frequencies.

Edited March 7, 2018 by EthanKerbman

[MechBFP]

6 hours ago, Ace in Space said:

Well that's because it was jagged to begin with. But the texturing on it is much smoother than it was. I posted a comparison earlier.

Ya mine doesn’t look like that lol. I’ll have to take a screenshot. 

[mostlydave]

1 hour ago, sarbian said:

@UomoCapra I see that you added RedShell to track the game usage. Does it respect the old "I don't wish to send data" (forgot the exact wording) setting of the game ?

Edit: the DONT_SEND_IP and SEND_PROGRESS_DATA settings.

Anyone know what we need to block with pi-hole to prevent this tracking?

[snkiz]

13 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Will every DLC release come with a hotfix that breaks mods?

All of mine "worked". Well the game didn't crash at least. some textures and menus are jank, but hey I didn't expect it to start.

[Nightfury]

Just saw it and tested it right away.

Looks very nice I like the texture switching the most tbh

Yeah, some sounds (mostly turn on and off) sound weird, but this is the first time we hear this and there are going to be changes

 

 

Can't find the Bugtracker right now (maybe it's pretty obvious, but yeah)

On an trans-Minmus reentry , some part's of the effect are visible trough the capsule(which is transparent in this case). Besides this, the effect has some gaps between.

Spoiler

 

[sarbian]

11 hours ago, mafiaphreak said:

Anything on Vulkan Api support or did you all just build it with it off? If you did build it with the support on what is the force command for it? I know unity 2017.1.3p1 should have it fully supported 

Please and thank you! 

It seems to be -force-vulkan from what I found on Unity forums. Can't test with KSP right now however.

3 minutes ago, mostlydave said:

Anyone know what we need to block with pi-hole to prevent this tracking?

api.redshell.io

[Majorjim!]

11 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

craft files are broken as they don’t use the old fuel tanks

This is totally unacceptable.