Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion Grand Discussion thread.

[linuxgurugamer]

2 hours ago, b0ss said:

Not necessarily. It usually comes as a given that when someone asks a question about the game they are playing full stock. If Squad releases console exclusives, pre-orders bonuses, etc. then hundreds of players will become unable to help each other or communicate fully about the game.

13 hours ago, Tyko said:

That's a very, ummmm, tunnel-vision sort of view.  On this forum, the first question usually asked of someone is which mods they have installed.

And, in fact, there are separate topics for modded and unmodded.  According to the forum home page, the counts are mostly equal, close enough to be statistically insignificant

[HebaruSan]

4 hours ago, theJesuit said:

So in a non DLC 1.4 career, parts can fail?  Great!  Thanks for clearing that up

With DangIt! installed? Sure, why not?

4 hours ago, theJesuit said:

Peace.

Cheers.

[severedsolo]

10 hours ago, theJesuit said:

I also can see some cross over though with some mods making life difficult.  The launch sites is a good example with KK - or maybe part failures with dang it.  If part failures are only dlc and not 1.4.x then supporting both is going to be a hassle.  Will launch sites and part failures be available in career mode as well or just with mission builder mode? 

My two cents.

Speaking as the author of a part failure mod, I can almost categorically say that this won't be an issue.

KSP does not officially support part failures, but that doesn't stop me.

To give a specific example: when UPFM fails an engine, it basically clicks that little button that says "shut down engine". That isn't going anywhere, because that would break basic functionality (staging).

If anything, the dlc might make this a bit easier for me, maybe there's a stock hook I can use to fail a part (assuming this is in the base game).

either way the functionality of my mod won't be affected

Edited March 9, 2018 by severedsolo

[AngryBadger]

All the techincal stuff aside, I'm really looking forward to building a Saturn V using the DLC parts.  13/03 can't get here soon enough.

Edited March 9, 2018 by AngryBadger

[Snark]

5 hours ago, b0ss said:

The word "DLC" makes me very nervous, especially if it's touching a project I love. DLC used to be just some french fries that you could order with your burger if you wanted, but nowadays DLC determines what kind of burger you are going to get in the first place based on what you can afford and what system you use, and sometimes even just luck. I would feel pretty rotten if something like that poisoned such a revolution in sandbox games as KSP.

Sure.  If a terrible thing happened then it would be terrible.  But that's not even slightly indicative that a terrible thing is, indeed, going to happen.

People have PTSD over the term DLC because of what some games have done in some circumstances.  On the other hand, game companies have been selling "expansion packs" for decades, and it's been great.  Good for gaming companies, good for customers.  Find me a player of the original StarCraft game who didn't immediately run out and purchase the Brood War expansion pack.  Or who bought it and then was upset that it didn't provide good value.

There are many, many, many examples of great expansion packs to existing games that made their respective gaming communities happy.  So, why borrow trouble?  In the absence of any evidence whatsoever, why get all stressed out over something that hasn't actually happened and has no particular reason to happen?  And, in fact, has good reasons not to happen, from the company's point of view?

Speaking for myself:  I'm perfectly willing to get stressed out over real things, but it seems a poor use of my time and energy to get stressed over imaginary hypotheticals, so I prefer not to.    If-and-when the situation changes, then I'll reconsider.

7 hours ago, Foxster said:

Is everyone with KSP getting the new DLC craft parts (engines etc) even if they don't buy the DLC i.e. will buying the DLC just provide the mission-setting feature?

KSP 1.4 does have a little bit of new content in it.  The new Mk1-3 pod is in stock.  The new stack decouplers are, too.  The Rockomax tanks got a new paint job and switchable textures.

However, just about all of the other parts (engines, crew pods, 1.875m parts, etc.) are part of Making History, yes.

[Donchielo]

Hello, 

Looking at videos showcasing the new DLC, something odd appeared to me. It looks like the new parts are meant to be played with RSS, looking at their trust and ISP, it s definitly not blanced for the regular kerbin system. Is there something planed about including an upscaled version of the Kerbin System? 

Edited March 9, 2018 by Donchielo

[Foxster]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

...just about all of the other parts (engines, crew pods, 1.875m parts, etc.) are part of Making History, yes.

Right, thanks.

[snip]

 

[GrandProtectorDark]

3 hours ago, Snark said:

People have PTSD over the term DLC because of what some games have done in some circumstances.  On the other hand, game companies have been selling "expansion packs" for decades, and it's been great.  

Pretty much one of the reasons why I rather avoid calling it a DLC and personally insist in calling it an Expansion.
Historical Spacecraft Parts + Historical Missions. That's exactly what an Official Expansion for a Rocketbuilding game should be.

[GrandProtectorDark]

Not really. Those parts are probably aren't balanced for an actual real scale earth, but rather are the usual kerbalised real world parts. 

[Daze]

The only thing that bother me is that if we want to make a Soyuz-style spacecraft we will have the "orbital module" and not the "descent module" 

 

 

[Devnull.13]

As far as I've seen until now, it will be worth the money.

I really hope Take 2 doesn't mess the game and the modding community

[b0ss]

So far it looks like they've been pretty respectful of what KSP has made of itself on its own.

 

...i take back what i said about Making History now >.>

[blspblackdeath]

Will the created mission from the mission builder be able to be played in the KSP campaign?

Of the previews I saw it seemed that you can only create missions to be played seperately. That would be a shame because I like the immersion in the campaign with my trained kerbonauts.

Edited March 10, 2018 by blspblackdeath

[Kapitan_]

Just learned that I bought the game 5 days too late to get the DLC for free

Oh well, I'm buying it anyway. The new parts look cool and I can't wait to play with the new mission builder!

[drhay53]

I watched Scott Manley's video about the DLC (haven't started playing 1.4 yet myself, so some of these changes I could already see), and I have to say:

1) The new parts really look very nice. It is definitely good to have a lot of the new parts and functionality available without mods.

2) The new particle effects look really spectacular, as do the new aero effects

3) While I have literally zero interest in creating missions, and I wish there was a way for missions to be linked to a career, I can appreciate that creative players will be able to do some really awesome things there. I'm a little concerned that the long-term viability of the primary feature of the DLC is heavily dependent on the community adopting the feature and using it to create new content.... but, I think it will work out just fine, at least at first. I hope future updates don't break any missions though, as one day the community will of course slow down, and at that point, I hope all of the great mission content remains viable. 

[CVerts]

Aside from space missions aside. I can imagine missions like Search-and-rescue, rover/plane courses being made. Maybe even BDArmoury missions. (Ace Combat-style levels anyone?)

 

[idamoofus]

So I assume part failures will be turned off for any in-progress saves?

[severedsolo]

1 minute ago, MrLake said:

So I assume part failures will be turned off for any in-progress saves?

AFAICT Part Failures are a Missions only thing. You won't see it in a normal save.

[klesh]

So I watched some preview videos of the new expansion.  I really hope this new launch location is more than just this lonely launchpad. No buildings, no tanks, no nothing!?!

 

 

I am willing to bet that it is the same mesh and model of the planetary launchpads to be used in missions.

It seems like the Kerbals would make a more substantial secondary launchpad to me.

[LukasKerman]

It would be cool if these could only be spawnd whereever you have placed a new launch site. In career mode you could for example define a region you want to place a new launch site and then you had to deliver a certain amount of raw materials. Once finished a new location would be build. These raw materials could be simply new parts. A stack of steel, a stack of cement and machine parts. You could of course do the same on other planets. That would actually be quite cool thinking about it. Each planet had a unique launch site style and building rockets on other bodies you also had to feed them with raw materials for the sake of balance. To make it a little easier it could just be a new transformer that turns ore into metal instead of fuel. So either you launch some off Kerbin or you mine it. More asteroid mining <3 I think it would really be a much bigger motivation to mine resources to actually build and launch rockets off other bodies.

Edited March 11, 2018 by LukasKerman

[Kerbart]

On 3/9/2018 at 2:18 PM, GrandProtectorDark said:

Pretty much one of the reasons why I rather avoid calling it a DLC and personally insist in calling it an Expansion.
Historical Spacecraft Parts + Historical Missions. That's exactly what an Official Expansion for a Rocketbuilding game should be.

That's not how it works though. The torches & pitchfork crowd pretty much wants the DLC to be per-launch micropayments, and T2 telling mod developers “that's a nice mod, we'll take it from here for our next DLC and here's a cease & desist letter from an aggressive lawyer so stop working on it” Because they'll look silly if it doesn't.

As it turns out, the Expansion pack turns out what you pointed out; ...an expansion pack. So now there's going to be major disappointment over that. I'm sure we'll hear complaining that there's only parts in it and I don't care for missions.

Based on the previews, I like what seems to be in it, I'm used to paying $25-$50 for a single airplane for MS Flightsim. $15 for a big bag of goodies and a new play mode with an extensive workflow-style editor? Count me in!

[sevenperforce]

What do the engine thrust plates do that you can't do with a standard fairing?

Does anyone have a MH partlist yet?

[fourfa]

In pure stock, you need to spend the cost and mass of a fuel-flowing surface-attachable part (like an Octagonal Strut), per engine, to surface-attach arbitrary numbers of engines to a fairing base.  Plus a central decoupler and a few struts if you want to use it as an interstage fairing without wobbling all over the place.  All that is a single part now, configurable to whatever you like (I think up to 9x)

[sevenperforce]

20 minutes ago, fourfa said:

In pure stock, you need to spend the cost and mass of a fuel-flowing surface-attachable part (like an Octagonal Strut), per engine, to surface-attach arbitrary numbers of engines to a fairing base.  Plus a central decoupler and a few struts if you want to use it as an interstage fairing without wobbling all over the place.  All that is a single part now, configurable to whatever you like (I think up to 9x)

I would always just drop a fairing faceup on the bottom node of the tank I was going to be putting my engines on, shift it down with the offset tool, and then use cubic octagonal struts placed directly on the upper tank base to set up my engines before closing the fairing around the whole affair. But this is cool, I guess. Can it accommodate changing diameters?

[JPLRepo]

On 3/9/2018 at 6:07 PM, theJesuit said:

So in a non DLC 1.4 career, parts can fail?  Great!  Thanks for clearing that up

Peace.

Not quite correct. The DLC is required for part failure to work. Even if modded to occur in a career/sandbox game.