[1.8.1-1] [PLEASE FORK ME] Kopernicus & KittopiaTech

[linuxgurugamer]

3 hours ago, Sigma88 said:

yes that could be the cause, does KRASH let you save during a simulation? in that case you might be able to fix the issue by simply quicksavind an reloading

KRASH does not allow saves

[eddiew]

On 2/4/2020 at 2:12 AM, Galileo said:

The OP will be updated when Thomas has time. For now, just make your way to the GitHub release page and find the new update for 1.8.1 there.

thank you @Sigma88 

thank you @Thomas P.

Yaaaasss!

Thank you to everyone who has been involved!   

...the question now is whether I p-p-p-pick up a planet pack and play a new career, or learn how to give Tylo an atmosphere and some dust storms... I feel like a lot of stock bodies would benefit from a hint of sky.

[Quoniam Kerman]

If you want Tylo to have an atmo, just take JNSQ.

[OhioBob]

38 minutes ago, eddiew said:

...the question now is whether I p-p-p-pick up a planet pack and play a new career, or learn how to give Tylo an atmosphere and some dust storms... 

Realistic Atmospheres also gives Tylo an atmosphere.  No dust storms though.
 

Edited February 6, 2020 by OhioBob

[Alvi]

14 hours ago, AccidentsHappen said:

I'm having some trouble clicking the menu buttons following loading. I've tried clearing the input locks but it makes no difference. I'm playing KSP 1.8.1 and the problem only occurs when Kopernicus is loaded. Additionally, it removes the custom skybox and reverts it to the stock one. I am running a pretty modded game, however most if not all my mods are up to date and have no conflicts unless Kopernicus is loaded. If it helps, im running AVP for clouds, etc. Any help would be appreciated.

Log: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1574TzgDovbVlL8wCDMIvI-2hWVCZlZ9A/view?usp=sharing

Pretty much any mod that's not up to date, unless it's specifically parts only, is going to break 1.8.1 Kopernicus when loaded

[eddiew]

5 minutes ago, OhioBob said:

Realistic Atmospheres also gives Tylo an atmosphere.  No dust storms though.

Great tip, thank you! Maybe I can look to write a little patch for the dust later

[OhioBob]

2 minutes ago, eddiew said:

Great tip, thank you! Maybe I can look to write a little patch for the dust later

It just occurred to me that I haven't updated Realistic Atmospheres for 1.8.1.  I have a small config change to make.  I'll release an update shortly.
 

Edited February 6, 2020 by OhioBob

[Mircea The Young]

Before I begin, I have to say that I fully understand and appreciate the effort that modders put into their mods,  for free, out of their own free time and with no recompense whatsoever. That said, something has to be said about the time it took for this mod to be updated. Were it any other mod, it might not have mattered as much, but this is not something that can be overlooked. This mod is not just version-locked, it is a vital dependency for an entire genre of mods. I am not here to put pressure on modders, I am here to point out that if you can not release an update for such a vital mod within a reasonable time frame, then you need help. So let me as you this, should a mod as important as this, actually take so long to update to one version of the game that the game devs actually started talking about the next one?

[ArXen42]

26 minutes ago, Mircea The Young said:

Before I begin, I have to say that I fully understand and appreciate the effort that modders put into their mods,  for free, out of their own free time and with no recompense whatsoever. That said, something has to be said about the time it took for this mod to be updated. Were it any other mod, it might not have mattered as much, but this is not something that can be overlooked. This mod is not just version-locked, it is a vital dependency for an entire genre of mods. I am not here to put pressure on modders, I am here to point out that if you can not release an update for such a vital mod within a reasonable time frame, then you need help. So let me as you this, should a mod as important as this, actually take so long to update to one version of the game that the game devs actually started talking about the next one?

I personally haven't been around all that drama and decided to try KSP after very long break just in time for Kopernicus update. But as far as I understand, there was a long going emotional discussion here. AFAIK the problem is that Thomas P. and Sigma88 are the only people who know and understand Kopernicus codebase and worked on that update. And Thomas expressed somewhere in this thread that he lost his interest in all this and continues to maintain only because a lot of people depend on this mod.

And it seems that despite all that, there weren't anyone else who wanted this update so desperately that he/she would take a few days off the work, fork the mod on github, figure out how it all works and implement a patch for 1.8.1 faster then maintainers. There was no help you were talking about.

Maybe I understood this situation incorrectly though and there were something else going on here. But anyway, all sources were open on github all along, for anyone to fiddle with them.

Edited February 6, 2020 by ArXen42

[Snark]

2 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

That said, something has to be said about the time it took for this mod to be updated.

It sure does.  I guess that means there was really a lot of work to do, so we should be extra grateful for all the time and hard work they put in.

So, thank you to the hard-working folks who keep Kopernicus up and running so we can all have our free shiny toys.

2 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

This mod is not just version-locked, it is a vital dependency for an entire genre of mods.

Yup, that's basically why it's version-locked.

Given that all those mods freely chose to take the dependency out of convenience, though, and given that all the people who use those mods freely chose to do so in full knowledge of the Kopernicus dependency, and given that the Kopernicus authors don't owe anybody anything whatsoever, it's kinda beside the point.

2 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

I am here to point out that if you can not release an update for such a vital mod within a reasonable time frame, then you need help.

I could totally believe that.  I'm sure they'll consult the lengthy roster of qualified developers who are all lining up to contribute endless hours of their spare time for free, to help them get this out the door.  Assuming that it exists, of course.

2 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

So let me as you this, should a mod as important as this, actually take so long to update to one version of the game that the game devs actually started talking about the next one?

Why, yes, now that you mention it, I'd say it absolutely should.  After all, there was a lot of work to get done, and only unpaid volunteers able to do it in their spare time, and I sure wouldn't want them to hurry and compromise quality and risk everyone's saves.

I assume that the people actually doing the work have a pretty good idea of what's required.  If it takes 'em that long, then that's how long it ought to take, and I don't think anyone else who hasn't done that work is in any position whatsoever to suggest that it should take less time.  It's a big job.

Or are you saying it ought to be released without proper testing, putting at risk the savegames of tens of thousands of users?

Or are you volunteering to take on the work yourself, because you think you could put it out faster than they did while maintaining an appropriate level of quality control?

Look, it's frustrating, I get that.  Heck, I get frustrated, too.  It's a great shiny toy.  The fact that it's frustrating is simply a testament to how shiny it is.

But things take as much time as they take, and I for one am not about to complain about someone who's putting in lots of hard work for free to give me that shiny toy.  They owe me (and everyone else) nothing.  I (along with everyone else who uses Kopernicus) owe them a debt of gratitude.  If you don't like waiting for the free shiny toy, then go play with some other shiny toy.  It's as simple as that.

[Mircea The Young]

You've misunderstood. I am not complaining. I don't deny modding is time-consuming, and I am grateful. Again, it is not my intention to pressure or rush anything. Mod-making should take as long as it needs, but precisely because it is so time-consuming, am I suggesting seeking help. Are there really no people willing to lend a hand in maintaining and updating this mod in this great community? THAT is what I am saying.

[Polaris0352]

Just found out JNSQ *AND* Kopernicus are updated for 1.8.x? So excite! Your hard work is most appreciated. My holy trinity of mods can finally be installed! 

[Sigma88]

11 hours ago, ZobrAA said:

Yes, I've cheaty teleported to Eve and find this bug while testing scatterer atmo config... But any save-loading did not fix the problem, it is constantly reapearing. Investigation lead me to Kopernicus as a source, which I proved on fresh install without any other mods and planet packs (configs) except Kopernicus+dependencies. Also one of my buddies confirm same issue independently...

I'll look into this futher then

11 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

KRASH does not allow saves

I am confused, doesn't this happen on stock as well?

I remember this being an issue in stock when cheating a vessel from one body to another

[Sigma88]

9 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

Before I begin, I have to say that I fully understand and appreciate the effort that modders put into their mods,  for free, out of their own free time and with no recompense whatsoever. That said, something has to be said about the time it took for this mod to be updated. Were it any other mod, it might not have mattered as much, but this is not something that can be overlooked. This mod is not just version-locked, it is a vital dependency for an entire genre of mods. I am not here to put pressure on modders, I am here to point out that if you can not release an update for such a vital mod within a reasonable time frame, then you need help. So let me as you this, should a mod as important as this, actually take so long to update to one version of the game that the game devs actually started talking about the next one?

This is exactly the attitude that caused the delayed release.

If you want to make sure there will be no 1.9 release you're on the right track.

[Mircea The Young]

Is it wrong to wish there were more people helping you?

[ExtremeSquared]

I like the slower Kopernicus release cadence. It seems like a great way to maximize the quality to effort ratio given a finite number of coding hours regardless of the number of contributors. Other mods update unreasonably often.

And I can see being antsy in the pre-1.2 stage of KSP development, where the core game went from a crippled wreck to a slightly less crippled wreck every update. But now KSP is a mostly-working product sort of coasting through late development. You don't miss out on much at all being a couple KSP releases behind.

Edited February 7, 2020 by ExtremeSquared

[Flibble]

3 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

Is it wrong to wish there were more people helping you?

If you want to help constructively, fork the repo and start producing pull requests.

[Drew Kerman]

3 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

Is it wrong to wish there were more people helping you?

it's just pointless in general to voice opinions or wishes about how people should use their free time, in any respect. You have to accept that you'll get what others decide to give and if you want more than that then you'll have to do more for yourself

[linuxgurugamer]

7 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

You've misunderstood. I am not complaining. I don't deny modding is time-consuming, and I am grateful. Again, it is not my intention to pressure or rush anything. Mod-making should take as long as it needs, but precisely because it is so time-consuming, am I suggesting seeking help. Are there really no people willing to lend a hand in maintaining and updating this mod in this great community? THAT is what I am saying.

First off, various people, including myself, have forked it, worked on it and submitted bug fixes and improvements.

Second, keep in mind that this is done for FREE, on a modder's free time, with no compensation.  If you then add into that the need to manage multiple people who's coding ability is unknown, you will end up with the possibility of either a buggy release, or an even slower release cadence.

Third, being delayed is not that much of a problem.  All the other mods which depend on this, depend on this working correctly.  Being a half to one release cycle behind KSP is not too much to ask for, you will end up with a more stable and feature-filled result.

Fourth, if you really, really want it, you are free to download and compile it for yourself.  But be prepared to find and fix any bugs yourself, and if you do, submit a PR so that the bug fix can be incorporated.

Finally, my understanding was that some new features were being added (check the changelog for details).  It takes time to do these things.  Also, they have a whole suite of test cases which need to be gone through, and if something fails, they need to fix it and try again.

[mcwaffles2003]

4 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

Is it wrong to wish there were more people helping you?

Please, be quiet. You're ruining it for the rest of us. Go do it yourself if you think they need help and you are capable, if not, say thank you and go play.

[Galileo]

5 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

Is it wrong to wish there were more people helping you?

There is nothing wrong with that, but in my opinion, the tone you set in your comment painted the devs as incompetent, and that they should get help if they can't produce an update fast enough. If that's not what you meant,  then I would have reworded that a little better.

[Poodmund]

I think Mircea has been misunderstood in that I think the statement of intent was more one of "if the current dev team do not have the time or wish to put an incredible amount of spare time into the mod, is it time to look for new dev blood?"... which is not a bad sentiment... however, I think the current dev team have always been open to new blood to help with Kopernicus to a competent level but volunteers are hard to find.

In short, everyone can wish the best for the dev team but if no one steps forward with the capability and enthusiasm to help Thomas, Sigma et al, then it makes no difference either way. We can wish the mod gets updated when a new KSP version comes out but that's all you can do as a consumer, wish.

[Mircea The Young]

Oh, I did by no means mean to say that the devs are incompetent, far from it. I apologise for the misunderstanding. I must have been more tired than I realised when I wrote that. To clarify, what I mean is that a mod as vital as this, and which is also version-locked, shouldn't be dependent on when the devs have free time. It makes an entire community reliant on the free time of one or more people, which is not fair to either party and creates unnecessary tension and frustration. The devs have a right to use their free time as they wish, but the mod can not be left hanging either, hence why I said more people should be involved.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Mircea The Young

[Norcalplanner]

@Mircea The Young

I agree that this mod is vital and important. It's right up there with Module Manager and B9 Partswitch. I for one am very grateful for the 1.8.1 release. Kudos to the mod devs.

P.S. Please put down the shovel and stop digging. Consider hitting the tip jar instead.

[Galileo]

2 hours ago, Mircea The Young said:

but the mod can not be left hanging either

I’d just like to point out that at no point was the mod left hanging. Kopernicus has multiple devs, and while the main one did get busy with school and real life and general motivation to mod, other devs bridged the gap. 

Just understand, a mod taking longer to release an update does not mean that work is not being done. Devs do not get copies of ksp prior to a major release, to prepare their own mod (they used to). They can only start updating once Squad releases their update, and this was a major release and an upgrade on the unity engine. Not once was this mod left flapping in the wind. 

The average user has no idea just how complex a mod Kopernicus is, and it shows every update, but especially this last one, and one only has to look as far as the GitHub repo to see the work that was being done.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Galileo