Kerbal Space Program update 1.4 Grand Discussion thread.

[SwissSpace93]

I tested the new Parachutes and landed on the VAB, it looks interesting but i need to wait for my many mods to Update.

There is something like a realPlume Smoke when flying a rocket (Without any mod), i like it 

 

[RealKerbal3x]

Question: 

When will it be on GOG? I've watched a bunch of summary videos and read this entire thread. It looks AWESOME, but I bought KSP on GOG and it's not there yet. 

But it's looking great. Looking forward to do a Felix Baumgartner-style space jump with the EVA 'chutes!!!

[Raptor9]

I'm curious as to whether the other two stack RCS tanks (the FL-R25 and the FL-R10) are getting the re-textures previewed HERE. (I don't think it was ever explicitly stated the FL-R10 0.625m tank would get a new texture, however)

After seeing only the FL-R1 2.5m stack RCS tank in it's new textures in 1.4, and watching some preview videos of the DLC from guys like Matt Lowne, the part selection in the VAB still has the legacy textures for the FL-R25 and FL-R10.  I understand there is a 1.4.1 patch coming and the DLC previews were pre-release builds that may not represent the final product, but I hope the other two stack RCS tanks get the better-looking revamps so they fit into rocket stack aesthetics better.  (I will admit some forum users expressed their displeasure at the new textures/models, but I personally like them)
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EDIT: I'm betting someone will soon make a KSP challenge that involves in-flight vessel boarding where someone has to board a pod in flight by guiding a parachuting Kerbal to a crew pod parachuting down as well. 

Edited March 8, 2018 by Raptor9

[XB-70A]

I know it may be annoying to read... but would it be possible to make the old parts available again in the list in the future fix? It's not that I care about the X200 family, I've always found them ugly, but many other users loved them for their Kerbalized style. For my part, I really wish I could have access to the old Jumbo-64 and, much more important, to the old fairings again. Yes, they were not exceptional with their horizontal yellow lines, but I liked them this way, and used them frequently.

Here is how the stock Ariane 5-like launcher I made some time ago is looking now:

It's not possible to use the first fairing option neither, as it got some kind of ugly venting slots every 5 m (just like the dark ones).

 

Another small problems is with the third faring option, the Soyuz-like:

Only a small portion of the fairing is with the paint job, after some length it became fully white, as we can see here on the stages 0 and 1.

 

What do you think about, could it be possible to make the older parts available again?

Otherwise, everything seemed to work really well about the save, and it's working super nicely with the newest x86 option.

Edited March 8, 2018 by XB-70A

[Redneck]

3 hours ago, RockyTV said:

What changes will 1.4.1 have for modders and when will it come out?

What Rocky said and also what about a new PartTools?

[Delay]

Are there lots of problems/incompatibilities between 1.3.1 and 1.4?

In other words: Is it safe for me to use a 1.3.1 save in 1.4.0 (and later 1.4.1) without having to worry about disruptions in the gameplay?

[dreadanaught]

When will we see the wiki updated? I know that the changelog was updated, but the parts list has not been. Also, not sure if I like the new texture switcher tool, as it takes out some of the "Kerbalness" of severely mismatched color schemes on rockets, and I definitely disagree with the redo orange texture of the Rockomax Jumbo-64, as the orange color does not look very good, and it is much less detailed.

[Tyko]

1 hour ago, pizzaoverhead said:

Astronaut Complex level and/or unlocking a specific tech tree item could work. It would be nice to see different varieties of space suit on the tech tree: Start out with a flight suit, then research a vacuum-capable space suit. You could even have tradeoffs in equipment: Should you add a parachute or a jetpack? Maybe a small non-steerable parachute could fit alongside a low-fuel SAFER-style jetpack if you research both technologies enough.

Yeah, those are great ideas...the simple near-term fix they could do would be to tie the existing parachute behavior to the Astronaut Complex advancement or a single tech node in the tree.

In the future I'd love to see them implement the rest of your idea.

[severedsolo]

6 minutes ago, Tyko said:

Yeah, those are great ideas...the simple near-term fix they could do would be to tie the existing parachute behavior to the Astronaut Complex advancement or a single tech node in the tree.

I agree, but honestly if you want them to see it, you should put it on the bugtracker as feedback (or add weight to an existing item if it exists)

[Mokmo]

I can't access my account page to download the new version on the site, is that a known issue ? i can login, i get The "welcome, x" and two things i can buy but clicking "my account" sends me back to the homepage...

EDIT: Nvm, it started working again

EDIT2: Having very little time before it logs me out, could start the game download but not get the language patch page before i had to log back in

Edited March 8, 2018 by Mokmo

[Zhetaan]

@Tyko, @Jimmidii, @severedsolo, @pizzaoverhead

(And any others who would like to see suit 'chutes as part of a building upgrade and not Kerbal experience):

I added https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/17912 to the bug tracker, if you're interested.

[shdwlrd]

7 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Ok so I was just being an idiot, it is already in there lol.

My bad, been working too much. Thanks!

No problem. Don't know how many times I've missed an ampersan or a bracket.

[Tomator]

I like new rocket engines sound but vacuum cleaner that replaced sound of Whesley must be a mistake!

[EvenFlow]

Not certain if it's an issue with the update, but ever since installing 1.4 I've been having odd Z-fighting issues on some craft. Mind you the parts are offset to not cause Z-fighting (they did not in 1.3 after all). Before considering submitting a bug report I'd like to ask whether anyone else has encountered this issue.
 

 

[Rocket In My Pocket]

8 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

No problem. Don't know how many times I've missed an ampersan or a bracket.

Yeah I was out in my truck all night plowing, my brain was fried lol.

Just put it up for DL as an MM patch.

Gave you a credit. 

[MechBFP]

13 minutes ago, EvenFlow said:

Not certain if it's an issue with the update, but ever since installing 1.4 I've been having odd Z-fighting issues on some craft. Mind you the parts are offset to not cause Z-fighting (they did not in 1.3 after all). Before considering submitting a bug report I'd like to ask whether anyone else has encountered this issue.
 

 

There is already a ticket opened for z-fighting issue. 

[EvenFlow]

1 minute ago, MechBFP said:

There is already a ticket opened for z-fighting issue. 

Oh, did not notice it while briefly scrolling through this thread. Thank you!

[Mako]

8 minutes ago, Zhetaan said:

@Tyko, @Jimmidii, @severedsolo, @pizzaoverhead

(And any others who would like to see suit 'chutes as part of a building upgrade and not Kerbal experience):

I added https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/17912 to the bug tracker, if you're interested.

Nice. Personally, I though it would make more logical sense to be tied to a building upgrade, similar to the EVA ability, than to astronaut level.

It seems like they're trying to make astronaut levels more meaningful, and, while I understand that motivation, I don't think this is a good way to do that. Though I guess it hardly matters how parachutes are awarded; the haphazard gamification of career mode to what is largely a toy/sim arguably means all the restrictions are arbitrary and therefore don't need to make any actual sense.

KSP remains great for what it is, but still feels like it has untapped potential in terms of a compelling career mode. To be fair, I don't have many suggestions on how to fix it, but I'm also not a game designer. It would likely need a lot of work. It all functions, which certainly counts for something.

[KerbolExplorer]

the engines has new sounds and effects! love this update

could you make some more parts have reskins

[Daniel Prates]

It sure was a weird design choice to make parachutes available only for 3-stars-or-higher kerbals. I mean,   pilots are good enough to pilot rockets into space, but not to pull a string? This does not affect my gameplay since I use a heavily modded KSP, and there are at least two very good parachute mods out there. But I feel sorry for the non-modders.  Historically, the very first astronaut (that had, up till that point, 'zero' stars so to speak, since he hasn't returned to Baikonur to 'level up' yet  ) had to parachute out of his capsule. 

Now, I know this is a sour and grouchy thing to say, but I'll say it anyway: what is all this mega-hype for? This is my perception of 1.4 so far:

1 - There is literally just one command pod added and it hasn't even a properly working IVA - so the thing was released in a bugged state (!!);

2 - The changeable textures reveled to be nothing more than two choices of texture (the release pics leads you to believe otherwise. Where's '"grey and orange", "gold", "bare" etc.?);

3 - The post mentions "quality of life" improvements, but I detected only the button to jump directly from VAB to SPH (which is good, granted, but the "improvements to the UI and quality of life upgrades" announcement is a little too much). 

Some may say that the new Unity version is an improvement. An "under the hood" improvement, let's call it. I sure hope it pays off. I could see no discernible difference, but I shiver just to think on how this will impact the already-extant mods (with all the thousands of work-hours that went into it).

Some may also say that this is a stepping-stone towards future better versions of the game, including making history etc. Ok ok ... but couldn't squad just release everything when it is done? Does it really takes all this milking of the news? After all, in the weekly announcements i have seen voshkod parts, soyuz fuel tanks, and so many promising new parts... where are they? Are all of them going to be it's own "point-something'?

Soon enough we will be getting a 1.4.1. that simply corrects the EVA, and then several point-somethings, then 'making history' will be 1.4.x. or 1.5 ... ok, if that is the way the team works, so be it ...  but until then, do we really need super-stoked weekly announcements as if something gigantic was being changed, when it isn't? 

All I'm saying, less releases with more relevant upgrades per batch: that would be ideal. Insofar I can't rip my hair off just because of a faulty command pod and 3-star parachutes. 

Keep up the work, though! 

 

Edited March 8, 2018 by Daniel Prates

[mostlydave]

I couldn't agree more, with over a year in development the amount of bugs in this release is crazy. I cannot believe they shipped this update a few days ahead of the making history update in it's current state. The only reason I can think of to do it is to try to have the community find all of the bugs before the first DLC releases. I thought other releases were tested by the community, but that doesn't seem to be the case now.

[MechBFP]

All software releases have bugs, but some of these bugs are so glaringly obvious that they either had so many bigger problems to fix that they literally didn’t have time to fix these, or they accidentally released the wrong build lol. 

[mostlydave]

The missing IVA is ridiculous, especially since the release announcement hyped the new part. Someone over at Squad should be embarrassed this build shipped.

They also didn't update that release notice to indicate the IVA is missing, even though they new it was before the update was released. It's also not mentioned in the change log.

Edited March 8, 2018 by mostlydave
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[Theflyingfox]

Amazing update, but I have an issue where the thumbnails for the top row of parts in each section has the top chopped off in the editor.

\/ Broken mods \/

Spoiler

Hyperedit and vessel mover seem fine, KER is fine in editor, but is broken in flight, KAS seems fine but KIS is broken, module manager works as far as I've seen, KAC and TWP both don't work, BDa is semi-functional,  mod thumbs are glitched.

 

[Redneck]

12 minutes ago, mostlydave said:

The missing IVA is ridiculous, especially since the release announcement hyped the new part. Someone over at Squad should be embarrassed this build shipped.

They also didn't update that release notice to indicate the IVA is missing, even though they new it was before the update was released. It's also not mentioned in the change log.

But rest assured one thing you can bet on that wont have a bug and thats the EULA/TOS window. Did you see that performance and shiny new GUI window? Man she sure was purdy...and bug free to.