Patch 1.4.3 to be released next week!

[Lisias]

5 hours ago, Fourjays said:

As a developer myself (10+ years web dev, 3 years leading a team of modders and recently started game dev), I think some people in this thread are being too harsh.

20 years of software development here. I did realtime programming for embedded devices for autos. If I ever made a huge little mistake as typing the decimal point in the wrong place, I could had killed someone. A friend of mine gone working for medical appliances. One of his colleagues made a little mistake on the FSM that handled the temperature of a incubator for premature babies, and a baby died.

Welcome to the desert of the real. #matrixFeelings

Your time on web development had given you a somewhat distorted view from the reality. You should not use a development model where the end user has everything for "free" (and the cash cow is fed by third parties) on a business model where the end user effectively *pays* for the software.

Last time someone tried this stunt, we got Windows 95. =D (and God knows that was only the infinite deep pockets of Microsoft that saved their sorry backs - things just became really stable on Win98se, by the way - a little before they did it again with WinME! =D)

5 hours ago, Fourjays said:

I also think others here are being too forgiving. [...] It'd be fine if the QA was very thorough, but it isn't. It wouldn't be unreasonable if KSP was still early access either, but it isn't. It is probably down to pressure from above to meet a specific date, but regardless it isn't a good look for a "complete" game.

On the other hand, perhaps I was too hasty on my last post, and that years on mission critical development gave me a harsher than needed view of the reality.

My apologies - I will try to control my anxiety and avoid to answer things without reading it *twice* in the future.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Lisias
unneeded and unfair statement about the guy. Sorry.

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, MechBFP said:

I am seeing a lot of changes to scratchpad_3 as of 30 mins ago, I think it is coming out today for sure.

Bug tracking is nice to control what's being done, and to find explanations/causes/whatever about what happened once it happened.

But I would not rely on it for foreseeing the future. It can be done sometimes, but in the general it causes more trouble than anything.

Another possible explanation is that someone finally found time to work on it. Another good one is that the guy that was handling it got sick and just came back (or vacancy, or whatever). Or the guy had already solved it, was reallocated to something urgent, and just came back to update what he did sometime ago.

Or you are right and the thing is being prep for shipping.

But please note that without inside information, your guess is so good as the others of mine. :-)

Edited April 26, 2018 by Lisias
kind of typo...

[RafaCRz]

27 minutes ago, klesh said:

 

 

What, may I ask, is scratchpad_3?

If you take a look down this page, you'll see in Branches an entry named scratchpad_3.

From the explanation quoted below I assume it's QA test builds:

"An application can have multiple branches. Other than the "public" branch, there can be other branches. Other branches are often used for storing an older version of the game for people to downgrade to, or for testing new patches/content."

[hraban]

Please @UomoCapra close this post and make a new one, with a specific deadline, if you're sure.

[Curveball Anders]

31 minutes ago, hraban said:

Please @UomoCapra close this post and make a new one, with a specific deadline, if you're sure.

And remove a channel for forum warriors to whine?

Not likely.

[DeliriumTrigger]

3 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

And remove a channel for forum warriors to whine?

Not likely.

And yet here you are, whining about whining.  Funny that.

[Lisias]

45 minutes ago, hraban said:

Please @UomoCapra close this post and make a new one, with a specific deadline, if you're sure.

Please don't. People need to vent, and it's better to have them venting on one single place, where you can watch and manage the situation easier, than scattered over the forum.

I understand that this can be annoying for some people, but my solution for this is simple: don't read this thread if you don't want to see what's on this thread.

As a side note, I would only publish a launching date when the artifact to be launched is 100% ready for launching. Or just publish an announce with the launching and that's it. The vast majority of the KSP users are not software developers, and they don't cope well when something wrong happens and you can't fulfill a promise (what's essentially what a launching announce is: a promise).

[LoSBoL]

4 minutes ago, Lisias said:

As a side note, I would only publish a launching date when the artifact to be launched is 100% ready for launching.

I would love to see above become a common habit in future releases. Announce an update after finishing bug testing. There is no hurry in normal circumstances. We can a week after finishing development. 

I can understand though as to why in this case the urge to announce the update before it was finished was preferable. But when there is no such urge, it shouldn't be needed to announce before definitive development and bug testing has taken place. 

[Capt. Hunt]

37 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

I would love to see above become a common habit in future releases. Announce an update after finishing bug testing. There is no hurry in normal circumstances. We can a week after finishing development. 

I can understand though as to why in this case the urge to announce the update before it was finished was preferable. But when there is no such urge, it shouldn't be needed to announce before definitive development and bug testing has taken place. 

in this case, there were a lot of people complaining about squad not giving a timeline for updates/fixes during the wait for MH and 1.4.2.  I think that's what led to the "next week" timetable.  I agree with you though, promising the date and then missing it for unforeseen circumstances probably caused more drama then it was worth.  I'd have been happy with "It'll be done when it's ready."

[LoSBoL]

11 minutes ago, Capt. Hunt said:

in this case, there were a lot of people complaining about squad not giving a timeline for updates/fixes during the wait for MH and 1.4.2.  I think that's what led to the "next week" timetable.  I agree with you though, promising the date and then missing it for unforeseen circumstances probably caused more drama then it was worth.  I'd have been happy with "It'll be done when it's ready."

Thanks for the addendum, those are exactly my thoughts as well. 

[sp1989]

23 hours ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

Just for kicks, I fired up an old copy of 0.21 and launched a capsule straight up. The reentry effects didn't kick in until you were down to about 25km, had no effect at all on the craft (purely visual), and were pretty minimal. IMO, they still looked better than what we currently have, though.

Now, for those of you complaining about the landing gear bug and other "game breaking bugs" in 1.4.2, I forgot that 0.21 had an AWESOME bug in it: back then, the biggest fuel tank was the Jumbo-64 (the orange tank) and the biggest engine was the Mainsail. And if you put a Mainsail directly below a Jumbo-64 tank, the Mainsail would overheat in seconds and explode! How's that for a bug? You had to work around it by sticking another small fuel tank between the Jumbo-64 and the Mainsail, and then the engine would still start to overheat but it wouldn't get hot enough to explode.

Memories!! Also was .21 pre docking ports?

[Johnny Wishbone]

6 minutes ago, sp1989 said:

Memories!! Also was .21 pre docking ports?

No, though it did take them several releases to fix all the bugs and issues associated with docking.

v0.18.0

Released 1^st December, 2012

New

• Docking: Connecting vessels together is now possible! Build space stations, surface bases, or assemble huge spacecraft in orbit.

 

 

Version 0.20 introduced the large docking port

v0.20

Released 21^st May, 2013

New

• Large Docking Clamp.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Johnny Wishbone

[Fourjays]

8 hours ago, steve_v said:

Really? QA wouldn't involve launching a craft with landing legs? Docking I can understand, but for the exploding gear a pod with landing legs spawned on the launchpad is all the testing required.

I hope too... But I've been hoping for this since 1.0.

It depends. The game I develop mods for (Arma) it is impossible for us to test every single aspect for every single change and update (we're also depending on other mods). What we do though is test the things we know have been touched. This means of course, that if a change impacts something we don't envision from changelogs, a bug possibly slips through. The question regards KSP is was there any reason for Squad's QA to suspect that the landing legs may be broken? Or did they make a change without ever suspecting the landing legs would be broken? I've no idea, but I can give them the benefit of the doubt on that.

8 hours ago, Andrey.gr said:

May be problem in your development skills and team, with lack of the architecture and design patterns from the beginning? Because if you unable to track down and fix fatal bug, then may be  better to stay away from game development? Because Web development way more easy than game development? Where solid knowledge of  data structures and algorithms are essential, and you should able to do k-d tree traversal on the paper with pencil when you awakened early at the night?

You've obviously never developed mods for Arma. It's a mess and often the logic you'd expect to find doesn't exist. I'm sure we'll find the bug eventually and what the difference is between the items that works and the items that don't, but it is a weird one.

3 hours ago, Lisias said:

20 years of software development here. I did realtime programming for embedded devices for autos. If I ever made a huge little mistake as typing the decimal point in the wrong place, I could had killed someone. A friend of mine gone working for medical appliances. One of his colleagues made a little mistake on the FSM that handled the temperature of a incubator for premature babies, and a baby died.

Welcome to the desert of the real. #matrixFeelings

Your time on web development had given you a somewhat distorted view from the reality. You should not use a development model where the end user has everything for "free" (and the cash cow is fed by third parties) on a business model where the end user effectively *pays* for the software.

Last time someone tried this stunt, we got Windows 95. =D (and God knows that was only the infinite deep pockets of Microsoft that saved their sorry backs - things just became really stable on Win98se, by the way - a little before they did it again with WinME! =D)

On the other hand, perhaps I was too hasty on my last post, and that years on mission critical development gave me a harsher than needed view of the reality.

My apologies - I will try to control my anxiety and avoid to answer things without reading it *twice* in the future.

With all due respect to what you do, KSP isn't life critical but a game. I'd have a similarly harsh attitude if it was.

[Tyko]

7 minutes ago, Fourjays said:

With all due respect to what you do, KSP isn't life critical but a game. I'd have a similarly harsh attitude if it was.

Oh, but it is life critical - Jeb and Bob are trapped on the Mun with only 36 hours of Supplies left...

[TheKurgan]

36 hours!! then it's already too late!!

[Jackaroo0505]

Is it out yet?

[PietrOZ]

On 4/13/2018 at 12:05 AM, UomoCapra said:

Hello everyone,

Next week we will be releasing patch 1.4.3, which will include various bug fixes and a few improvements for both the base game and the Making History Expansion.

You’ll be glad to hear that this patch will fix the contracts parameter completion log and SMS App firing in all cases. We are also eliminating the possibility of having two tourist/recovery contracts with Kerbals that share the same first name, something that was causing trouble for some of our players.

The issues with the wheels and legs have also been reviewed for this patch. For instance, 1.4.3 fixes the suspension issue for wheels and legs that made them bounce uncontrollably, as well as the issue that caused legs to explode when these got in contact with the ground in some situations. There has also been a lot of work put into improving the ground positioning routines for landed vessels.

Additionally, 1.4.3 will also include localization of the History Pack missions, plus 3 brand new stock missions for the Making History Expansion. What sort of missions you say? Let’s go into some details:

Sally Hut 1

This mission takes inspiration from Salyut 1, the first space station of any kind, launched into low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union. So help Kerbals take their next major step in space exploration by launching the Sally Hut 1 into Kerbin orbit where it will become the first permanent space station! Just like its analogue, Sally Hut 1 will launch without a crew and will be later populated, but this time around, success lays in your hands.

Acapello 13

In this mission you’ll have to reach the Mun, land, plant a flag, pick up a surface sample, and return safely to Kerbin, but space is a dangerous place, and your crew needs to be ready to tackle any obstacles they might face.

Ziggy Kerman and the Spiders from Duna

This mission does not only have a cool name, but its goal is to disprove some mysterious rumors about the nature of Duna, something that can only be accomplished by exploring Kerbin’s nearest neighbor. Be prepared to build an unmanned probe equipped with scientific instruments to explore the Red Planet, just like the Mariner and Viking missions did for humankind in the past.

And that’s not all, we are including a brand new airfield and launchpad, which you’ll be able to use in all game modes as long as you have the expansion installed. And for mission creators, we are also adding the capability to place mobile launchpads on the surface of water bodies. Now you could try out some of those cool SpaceX missions, if  you’re into that kind of thing!

We hope you enjoy these new missions and updates in 1.4.3. We are committed to improving upon KSP, so please continue letting us know if you run into issues by submitting to the Bugtracker and/or the Technical Support Subforums.

Happy launchings!

[UPDATE]
During the final testing stages of the patch 1.4.3 release we identified an unexpected issue that unfortunately has made us take the decision of holding the release until next week. The good news is that we already have a fix in the works, so we are confident that we’ll have the the patch ready by then.

What happened?

Next week was already two weeks ago!

can't find news anywhere...

[Capt. Hunt]

9 minutes ago, PietrOZ said:

What happened?

Next week was already two weeks ago!

can't find news anywhere...

try reading the post you quoted.  It says right there on the bottom that they encountered another issue with the new content.  Since then they've also run across a couple more bugs in 1.4.2 that needed fixing.  It'll come out eventually.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Capt. Hunt

[RoboRay]

Next week is always next week!

[Alexoff]

I remember something about 1.1. Squad told us it had deadline as a Christmas-2015 but 1.1 was released in april 2016 with a lot of bugs... But we get 64-bit game! Now we get several (non-perfect) new parts and broken game...

[MechBFP]

Guys this is nothing compared to the delays of Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar. 

[silverfox101]

Then again....maybe not....who knows

[Skystorm]

1 hour ago, Tyko said:

Oh, but it is life critical - Jeb and Bob are trapped on the Mun with only 36 hours of Supplies left...

@Tyko I believe you can survive 15 days without Supplies so actually you have 21 days left.  You can easily get to the Mun in about a day though.

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, Fourjays said:

With all due respect to what you do, KSP isn't life critical but a game. I'd have a similarly harsh attitude if it was.

I did. This kind of development is not viable anymore where I live (everything gone to Mexico, god damned local government), so I moved on.

About KSP being not life critical, well.. It is for Squad. It's how they make their living. And besides nobody (except by Jebediah, but he's used to it) being killed by the bugs, people reacts somewhat as it does it - and customer's perception (and expectations) talk louder than facts on the Game industry!

When people are being paid for using a Software (or take it for 'free'), the expectations and perceptions are somewhat... relaxed.

But when people pay for the product (even by a few pennies), things change. And change a lot. I did a lot of Android development when I quit that business I mentioned. And it's one of the reasons for In-game advertising being somewhat a problem nowadays on Android - people that pays 1 or 2 bucks for the game are usually very vocal on the Store's Evaluation, while people that gets the game "for free" are a lot more... tolerating.

(and I didn't even touched the personal time invested on the gaming, that it's something that people usually values even more than the money spent on the license)

This is not web development. All you learnt about that business model doesn't works exactly as you is used to. People don't need to die to you be put out of business...

[Wallygator]

1 hour ago, RoboRay said:

Next week is always next week!

"uh, lets see here...
this week was next week last week...
that makes this week last week,
and next week isn't this week,
until next...

Or so the conversation went between a duck and a rabbit.