Kerbal Space Program Update 1.5 Grand Discussion thread

[dawg]

3 hours ago, MechBFP said:

Well that certainly explains why my rockets were rotating randomly for no obvious reason. 

I'm getting some super weird effects with Vernier engines. I put 4 of them on a rocket for the first making history since all my mods don't work right, but for some reason trying to turn had them rotating my craft instead of turning it. Epic crashes ensued. I tried many different designs and it just wouldn't turn properly, it'd spin to the right when turned right.

[Dafni]

3 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

- I suspect this is why KSP currently does not support flight-scene reflections, as they use dx9 by default)

thats a good point. would make a lot of sense.

[nestor]

13 hours ago, Jalaris said:

@TriggerAuCan we expect to see more updated parts in future updates? I love the new and updated parts, however, there are still a large number of parts in the game that have not been updated to the current standard set by the Making History expansion. Thanks for all your hard work!

 

11 hours ago, TriggerAu said:

Glad your liking em, the art guys will be glad to hear it

Unfortunately for your question though thats one of those question that I can neither confirm nor deny - I wish I could, sorry

I can! We want to update a few more, so expect more news on that.

[ThirdOfSeven]

Quote

Squad/Parts/$ find . -name "*.cfg" | xargs grep "impactResistanceRetracted"

./Electrical/1x6ShroudSolarPanels/1x6ShroudSolarPanels.cfg:        impactResistanceRetracted = 6
./Electrical/1x6SolarPanels/1x6SolarPanels.cfg:        impactResistanceRetracted = 4
./Electrical/gigantorXlSolarArray/gigantorXlSolarArray.cfg:        impactResistanceRetracted = 6
./Electrical/3x2SolarPanels/3x2SolarPanels.cfg:        impactResistanceRetracted = 4
./Electrical/3x2ShroudSolarPanels/3x2ShroudSolarPanels.cfg:        impactResistanceRetracted = 6

So it seems not all retractable parts got this improvement about impact resistance when retracted, but only 5 types of solar panels? Is it only in part.cfg but also part modules don't support them?

Edited October 16, 2018 by ThirdOfSeven
Added another question

[El Sancho]

Quoted from changelog -

"Allow pinning of PAWs and resource transfer for highlighted parts from Resources App."

Ahhhhh, this is Bravo Romeo Six actual. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

App? APP? this isn't a ******* cellphone we're talking about here, just what do they mean by "app", and what on earth is a PAW?

[rmaine]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

From which Galaxy are you from?

https://www.easeus.com/data-recovery/restore-lost-documents-after-windows-10-forced-update.html

Long time Windows user here. Every major Windows update broke half my productivity tools.

I'm now (for while at least) a MacOS user. Let me tell you something: it's even worse. 

 

Apparently a galaxy a long time ago and far, far away. :-) The tales I could tell.... are too long and too off topic for here, but just wow! (For both Windows and MacOS - I've got one of each on the desk in front of me right now. And for that matter, lots of breakage from OS updates of Linux and other Unix systems, but its been a while since I was in those worlds, and at least those updates didn't tend to be shoved down my throat while I wasn't looking - yes, I know, horrible mixed metaphor).

[Stone Blue]

1 minute ago, El Sancho said:

"Allow pinning of PAWs and resource transfer for highlighted parts from Resources App."

I ust learned recently, PAW is Part Action Window... the part UI window that opens with mouse rght-click

[linuxgurugamer]

2 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

This is why I've been an advocate for Squad finishing the game.  It gives all modders a solid, unchanging foundation to create from.

Then you will probably be waiting for a long time.  Yes, each new major version has bugs, but each new major version also has new content, and other significant improvements.  You want stable, then stick with a specific version (1.3.1, 1.4.1, 1.4.5).  Otherwise, expect issues when upgrades come out

1 hour ago, klgraham1013 said:

Windows doesn't break all my programs when it updates.

You are lucky.  Or maybe you don't use many programs.  

Among other things, Microsoft spends a huge amount of money on QA, and they still have problems

[Kerbart]

12 hours ago, Poodmund said:

It's almost as if the consumers are acting as the frontline QA Team a few days after a release is dropped. I hope that this does not set a precedent (...)

Time honored tradition, more.

 

12 hours ago, Poodmund said:

(...) this kind of thing is yet another strong argument for opt-in, public, pre-release versions that used to happen with Kerbal Space Program. It's always confused me as to why the decision was made to stop this way of letting the most involved community help SQUAD identify bugs so that the rest of the player base can have a smoother transition.

Because “and this is why we can’t have nice things”

Due to the nature of the pre-releases (rapid roll-outs, if I remember correct even multiple times per day) a single channel was used to push out the pre-releases. That did not go over well with those not on that channel who felt they were entitled to the pre-releases (never mind the fact that they were intended for bug fixes, not for early-access per sé).

So Squad did the only thing sensible: no pre-releases. And here we are.

[Zosma Procyon]

Would it be too much to ask for structural bulkheads in the MK2 and MK3 cross sections, and the ability to disable staging of engines, to be added to this update?

[Poodmund]

15 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Due to the nature of the pre-releases (rapid roll-outs, if I remember correct even multiple times per day) a single channel was used to push out the pre-releases. That did not go over well with those not on that channel who felt they were entitled to the pre-releases (never mind the fact that they were intended for bug fixes, not for early-access per sé).

For previous versions, can't remember exactly whats ones but definitely around the 1.0 - 1.2 era, you could opt-in to the Pre Releases around 2 weeks before the intial release via Steam... so everyone that had the game on Steam was able to do this... and a lot did and as a result a lot of bug reports were filed that caught a plethora of things before the patch dropped.

EDIT: To be clear, the Pre-Releases were intended for QA Testing purposes.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Poodmund

[JPLRepo]

1 hour ago, ThirdOfSeven said:

So it seems not all retractable parts got this improvement about impact resistance when retracted, but only 5 types of solar panels? Is it only in part.cfg but also part modules don't support them?

Correct.
Only the shrouded ones were changed to have higher impact tolerance. As they are shrouded.... The ones without shrouds were not.
That's not to say you could mod all of them.

1 hour ago, El Sancho said:

Quoted from changelog -

"Allow pinning of PAWs and resource transfer for highlighted parts from Resources App."

Ahhhhh, this is Bravo Romeo Six actual. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

App? APP? this isn't a ******* cellphone we're talking about here, just what do they mean by "app", and what on earth is a PAW?

There are apps in the game... (the icons at the bottom or right side of the screen depending on what scene you are in).
a PAW is the Part Action Window (when you right click a part)
The resources app is the one in flight that shows the resources on your currently active vessel.

The change was you can now Pin (the pin icon) a Part Action Window that is opened automatically when you highlight/select resources in the resources app. And when pinned you can now transfer resources between parts.

[Kerbart]

49 minutes ago, Poodmund said:

For previous versions, can't remember exactly whats ones but definitely around the 1.0 - 1.2 era, you could opt-in to the Pre Releases around 2 weeks before the intial release via Steam... so everyone that had the game on Steam was able to do this... and a lot did and as a result a lot of bug reports were filed that caught a plethora of things before the patch dropped.

EDIT: To be clear, the Pre-Releases were intended for QA Testing purposes.

Yes, and some of those not on Steam were very vocal about the fact the Squad “shortchanged” (to use a polite term) them. Despite the QA character of the whole thing they claimed that they were denied the “preview show-off.”

I always feel that the complaining it caused resulted in Squad “not making that mistake again.” Much to the detriment for all of us.

[Lord Aurelius]

I'm also in the camp of thinking that KSP really needs to be finished. It still feels like an Early Access game despite having "released" over 3 years ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy for the continued development, but everything I'm seeing (outside of the mission builder and some of the redundant parts in Making History) feels like things that should have been done before 1.0. All water under the bridge now though.

Very glad to see that Take Two is letting the devs focus on actually finishing things up and address the mountain of technical debt. Hopefully the parts revamp is just the first pass and they'll be able to also address other art assets, audio, game systems/balance (especially career) and possibly add some new things like life support and improved experiments on other planets.

Also, it would be great if we could get the prerelease branch back. They probably would have caught that drag/lift bug before release (and it gives modders an opportunity to test their mods on the new version ahead of release).

Would also be great to have more news on the console front. I'm still convinced that releasing on the console was probably the biggest mistake in KSP's development, but the players who did purchase console versions need to know if they're going to receive the same development support that the PC version has received (and hopefully eventually a finished game as well).

[TeslaPenguin1]

9 minutes ago, Lord Aurelius said:

like life support

I hope not. I like having the choice of being able to send my kerbals to the moon without caring about life support.

[KSPACE]

I love the new mk 1 pod

 

[Lord Aurelius]

13 minutes ago, TeslaPenguin1 said:

I hope not. I like having the choice of being able to send my kerbals to the moon without caring about life support.

If they do implement life support, I expect that you would have that choice. The comms network feature they added is a similar idea to life support for probes (an optional extra set of considerations that add some interesting challenges to mission planning) that can be enabled/disabled per save. If you don't want to play with it, then don't enable it. Same thing with reentry heating.

Life support would also help balance the game a lot since manned missions are completely overpowered compared to probes right now (manned pods can still be controlled if the battery is dead, have full control regardless of signal connection, infinite fuel via the "get out and push" exploit, the ability to repair certain broken parts with an engineer, and 3 extra free science experiments for the measly cost of 0.5 tons for the lightest capsule). With life support, this could be balanced (just like it is in real life) with the need to carry a significant amount of extra resources to support a long-duration manned mission. Missions to the Mun are short enough that the necessary life support would be pretty minimal (just like IRL where the extra weight/volume was roughly equivalent to a 1.25m monoprop tank).

Edited October 16, 2018 by Lord Aurelius

[klgraham1013]

55 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

Only the shrouded ones were changed to have higher impact tolerance.

Ah.  I only tested the "not a bug" with the unshielded panels.  Perhaps I can add this bandaid to the unshielded panels and bypass the...umm...non-issue.

Edited October 16, 2018 by klgraham1013

[Frozen_Heart]

3 hours ago, nestor said:

 

I can! We want to update a few more, so expect more news on that.

Woop!

 

Hopefully the old engine parts as most of them are ancient.

[FinalFan]

40 minutes ago, Lord Aurelius said:

If they do implement life support, I expect that you would have that choice. The comms network feature they added is a similar idea to life support for probes (an optional extra set of considerations that add some interesting challenges to mission planning) that can be enabled/disabled per save. If you don't want to play with it, then don't enable it. Same thing with reentry heating.

Life support would also help balance the game a lot since manned missions are completely overpowered compared to probes right now (manned pods can still be controlled if the battery is dead, have full control regardless of signal connection, infinite fuel via the "get out and push" exploit, the ability to repair certain broken parts with an engineer, and 3 extra free science experiments for the measly cost of 0.5 tons for the lightest capsule). With life support, this could be balanced (just like it is in real life) with the need to carry a significant amount of extra resources to support a long-duration manned mission. Missions to the Mun are short enough that the necessary life support would be pretty minimal (just like IRL where the extra weight/volume was roughly equivalent to a 1.25m monoprop tank).

In my opinion you are overstating your case.  You are right about retaining control, but I think characterizing the "EVA engine" as "infinite fuel" for the actual rocket is a gross misrepresentation, not to mention that it is an exploit that most people don't use and all can choose not to use.  Piloting and engineer repair are highly dependent on how leveled up your crew is, and of course only one can fit in the part you mention.  

I would add to that the fact that crew return missions inherently increase the difficulty of using them versus probes.  You could argue that crew return is optional but that gets expensive fast. 

[MechBFP]

21 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

I'll just leave these here for posterity.

  Hide contents

 

 

 

Ya I honestly can’t fathom how it is not a bug when you can make your own ramps with structural panels and it works just fine lol. 

[Lupi]

1 hour ago, JPLRepo said:

There are apps in the game... (the icons at the bottom or right side of the screen depending on what scene you are in).
a PAW is the Part Action Window (when you right click a part)
The resources app is the one in flight that shows the resources on your currently active vessel.

The change was you can now Pin (the pin icon) a Part Action Window that is opened automatically when you highlight/select resources in the resources app. And when pinned you can now transfer resources between parts.

Oh, so THAT'S what that means! Man, that's a great change and I love it!

That's gonna make fuel transfer so much easier!

[GrandProtectorDark]

1 hour ago, Lord Aurelius said:

If they do implement life support, I expect that you would have that choice. The comms network feature they added is a similar idea to life support for probes (an optional extra set of considerations that add some interesting challenges to mission planning) that can be enabled/disabled per save. If you don't want to play with it, then don't enable it. Same thing with reentry heating.

I'm rather fond of USI LS and think a slightly adjusted version would fit well into KSP. The high degree of penalty customization would most certainly be a good thing, as By default, kerbals turn into Tourists instead of dying but can be deactivated or made to temp or perma death.
Only complain is, In USI LS, the hab time function is rather hard to play with without any mods to play around it (like KPBS/SSPR or MKS), so that would have the crew cabins situation be a bit reworked (as the only hab like cabin is the hitchhiker).
But TBH, as of now,  I think it works better just as mod.
Also imagine all the try hard player, bragging about their super-efficient LS no mining no refueling TM missions

[Lord Aurelius]

7 minutes ago, FinalFan said:

In my opinion you are overstating your case.  You are right about retaining control, but I think characterizing the "EVA engine" as "infinite fuel" for the actual rocket is a gross misrepresentation, not to mention that it is an exploit that most people don't use and all can choose not to use.  Piloting and engineer repair are highly dependent on how leveled up your crew is, and of course only one can fit in the part you mention.  

I would add to that the fact that crew return missions inherently increase the difficulty of using them versus probes.  You could argue that crew return is optional but that gets expensive fast. 

I know that most people won't use the infinite EVA fuel exploit, but I've read enough mission reports on the forums to see that it's still pretty common. For a small spacecraft, the exploit is still a very viable method for maneuvering in space and getting lots of free dV. Sure, it's more for advanced players, but it's still an exploit that needs to be fixed (and was slated to be fixed when monoprop fuel was added to all the capsules only to be cancelled at the last minute). Seems like another candidate for difficulty settings if they're concerned about new players running out of EVA fuel.

No need to put a pilot in the capsule if a suitable probe core or the avionics part is present on the craft, so there's really no reason not to put an engineer or scientist in there for their bonuses.

Sure, return missions from places like the surface of Eve (and to a lesser degree Tylo) are difficult, but returning from nearly anywhere else is pretty much a gimme with how little dV is required to get back. The only thing the capsule needs to make it survive reentry is a heat shield and parachute which is still a trivial amount of weight. With how many free Kerbals I get from rescue missions, I could easily make them expendable for a few missions.

[Tyko]

3 minutes ago, GrandProtectorDark said:

I'm rather fond of USI LS and think a slightly adjusted version would fit well into KSP. The high degree of penalty customization would most certainly be a good thing, as By default, kerbals turn into Tourists instead of dying but can be deactivated or made to temp or perma death.
Only complain is, In USI LS, the hab time function is rather hard to play with without any mods to play around it (like KPBS/SSPR or MKS), so that would have the crew cabins situation be a bit reworked (as the only hab like cabin is the hitchhiker).
But TBH, as of now,  I think it works better just as mod.
Also imagine all the try hard player, bragging about their super-efficient LS no mining no refueling TM missions

 agree with both points - A) USI-LS is a great platform to work from and B) They'd need to add some more spaces that offer Hab. I play with SSPRX which solves that for me, but for a stock game they'd need some options.