Kerbal Space Program 1.7: “Room to Maneuver” Grand Discussion Thread

[Xurkitree]

yay! 1.7 is out! After playing on it, I can heartily recommend the advanced Maneuver node maker to everyone! Heck, even I have been missing this in my life!

But the one thing I don't like is the Spark nerf. It was better the way it was, and it ruins a lot of my tiny lander/launcher designs.

[JAFO]

5 hours ago, Maxsimal said:

There'll be a dev blog posted up about it soon (TM) and I'd rather have all our thinking posted there rather than address it in a quick comment here.

While you're at it, for your first round of 1.7 bugfixes, you might want to note that in the Advanced Manoeuvre Node editor, the word should be spelled "intercept", not "intersect".

I guess that, given that @UomoCapra confused "too" with "two" in the announcement above, I shouldn't really be surprised you messed it up.. but really? This is rocket science guys.. accuracy is important!

[Xurkitree]

There's a bug

These reported ISP numbers are all Wrong. If this is what your actual plans are, then the Ingame values have not been put correctly. If this is just your notes and the ingame one is correct, then these numbers are wrong.

Ingame Twitch - 

atmosphereCurve
        {
            key = 0 290
            key = 1 270
            key = 7 0.001
        }

As you can clearly see, the numbers are 290 Vac,270 ASL

While the Devblog says, the numbers are 290 Vac, 275 ASL

Same for the Spark

Ingame Spark -

atmosphereCurve
        {
            key = 0 320
            key = 1 260
            key = 7 0.001
        }

As you can clearly see, the numbers are 320 Vac,260 ASL

While the Devblog says, the numbers are 320 Vac, 265 ASL

This is a pretty major discrepancy. Can we have some clarification on this? For the record, I looked them up from the [Engine name]_v2 folders rather than the original.

[Jbailey23]

4 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

The Mun Launch Site is not currently available on PC. Would you like to see this launch site in a future update? 

Personally, I believe a Mun site would lose a lot of beginners interest because it takes out the biggest milestone for every beginner (getting to the Mun).

However if we were able to "build" a Mun base that would peak my interest! For example, land particular Mun base parts on the moon (hoping it would be EXCEPTIONALLY difficult) to build the base, then be able to use it from there on out. 

Maybe something like this could be used to build a base anywhere we want? Again, with extreme difficulty

Edited April 11, 2019 by Jbailey23
Add on

[Klapaucius]

4 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

The Mun Launch Site is not currently available on PC. Would you like to see this launch site in a future update? 

Great work guys. For me, I think I concur about not having it, but it would be great to add another airfield somewhere.  You have Woomerang with no airstrip, so perhaps an airfield with no launch pad?  It would be great to have a staging area somwhere in the southern hemisphere, perhaps around the Harvester Massif dish?

While I have the DLC, this would be a nice bonus for those who do not and would add value for all players.

[N_Danger]

Love the new Sky Box. Really like the Orbit info panel and toggling from ASL to AGL altitude. And I like the engine revamp.

One of the best updates in a while.

[GeneCash]

SQUAD FIXED IT! SQUAD FIXED IT!

Squad fixed the issue in 1.6 where you needed World Stabilizer because small probes on low-gravity moons would leap to their deaths "because physics" (they'd spawn slightly "under" the surface collider)

I loaded my test vehicle (48-7S engine, Oscar-8, Probodobodyne HECS, Z-200 battery, 88-88 antenna, and 3 LT-05 micro-struts) landed on a "flat" on Minmus, switched to the tracking center, switched back... and my probe just sat there!

Also, the landing gear spring/damper tweakables DO something now. After I landed, my probe was bouncing up and down, so I slid the damper strength up, and it stopped bouncing. That didn't work in 1.6 (and I think 1.5 too)

WHEEEEEEEEEE!

(edit: and the new "AGL" altimeter mode made landing much easier)

Edited April 11, 2019 by GeneCash

[gunt3rgam3r]

Just fired up 1.7 for a few hours.  I gotta say I'm really impressed with this update.  Loving the new Kerbal engineers-esk display, but my happiest surprise so far was flying one of my early airplane designs.  There was definitely a lot less 'jitteryness' and more stability in flight, and the runway bouncy was gone!

Still early career and lots remains to be tested, but first impression is that this is a fine update.

 

[GeneCash]

Bad news: I drove all the way to Titusville only to have Falcon Heavy scrub due to upper-level winds.

Good news: I get home and KSP 1.7 dropped, with tons of fixes to all of the things!

[TriggerAu]

1 hour ago, JAFO said:

While you're at it, for your first round of 1.7 bugfixes, you might want to note that in the Advanced Manoeuvre Node editor, the word should be spelled "intercept", not "intersect".

I guess that, given that @UomoCapra confused "too" with "two" in the announcement above, I shouldn't really be surprised you messed it up.. but really? This is rocket science guys.. accuracy is important!

The text in the Maneuver Mode tool was set to match the existing one on the map nodes, if you'd like a change to the text a feedback would be the best way to proceed as we would change all for consistency if we did - I didnt find one for this request in a quick search.

 

[scimas]

5 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

The Mun Launch Site is not currently available on PC. Would you like to see this launch site in a future update? 

No, please no. There are plenty of other ways to cheat your way to Mun on PC. The console players actually need it, due to either unavailability of mods or just part count of very big ships.

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

On a moderation side note folks, I see a lot of discussion about the Mun Launch site, which currently only on the Console version.  This feature is not available in the 1.7 PC version, which this thread is dedicated to.   We have a very robust discussion about the Mun Launch Site in this thread, please direct your comments about it there.  Future discussion here will most likely be merged into it.

UomoCapra literally asked the question in this thread?

[Gargamel]

10 minutes ago, scimas said:

UomoCapra literally asked the question in this thread?

You are absolutely right they did.   It is my error in forgetting that.  

But we would like the discussion to continue on the other thread if possible.  While responding to UomoCapra's post is fine, We don't want to detract from the overall point of this thread, which is the 1.7 release.  As long as it doesn't get out of hand, we won't get too upset. 

[klgraham1013]

15 minutes ago, TriggerAu said:

consistency

Consistency is very important.  I can respect this decision. 

[putnamto]

where would i report problems with the update?

i just launched a probe from my mothership that was built in 1.6, after landing the probe and switching back to the mothership the game locks up and needs force close.

[Gargamel]

2 minutes ago, putnamto said:

where would i report problems with the update?

i just launched a probe from my mothership that was built in 1.6, after landing the probe and switching back to the mothership the game locks up and needs force close.

I would start in the tech support section, post the scenario again, and then add some logs.   We'll see if we can diagnose it from there.  If not, it may need a bug tracker. 

[Snark]

1 hour ago, Xurkitree said:

This is a pretty major discrepancy.

Well, if a difference of under 2% in the portion of Isp that applies within <10km altitude is "major", sure.     In practice, the gap between those two quoted sets of numbers is going to be almost undetectably small in actual game play.

I doubt it's a "bug" per se.  More likely that they spent some time tweaking and tuning to get it "just so," and I'd guess that the numbers in the dev blog just got out of sync with the numbers in the config files (e.g. the latter might have been tweaked after the former was written, something like that).

In any case, the difference is so tiny that I find it had to get terribly worked up about.    I mean, it's not as if I'm using the Spark or Twitch to power airplanes that cruise at low altitude.

What is significant is the fairly hefty increase in mass to the Spark, which nerfs it fairly significantly.  The change in Isp is pretty minor in comparison, particularly given that the vacuum Isp (which is what matters most) was left alone.

[Xurkitree]

1 minute ago, Snark said:

Well, if a difference of under 2% in the portion of Isp that applies within <10km altitude is "major", sure.     In practice, the gap between those two quoted sets of numbers is going to be almost undetectably small in actual game play.

I doubt it's a "bug" per se.  More likely that they spent some time tweaking and tuning to get it "just so," and I'd guess that the numbers in the dev blog just got out of sync with the numbers in the config files (e.g. the latter might have been tweaked after the former was written, something like that).

In any case, the difference is so tiny that I find it had to get terribly worked up about.    I mean, it's not as if I'm using the Spark or Twitch to power airplanes that cruise at low altitude.

What is significant is the fairly hefty increase in mass to the Spark, which nerfs it fairly significantly.  The change in Isp is pretty minor in comparison, particularly given that the vacuum Isp (which is what matters most) was left alone.

But I am trying to create a Eve TSTO which relies on a fullblown cluster of Sparks for the second stage. Its like 7-8 Sparks. If there is a performance boost, no matter how tiny, ill take it. 

Honestly whether the devblog is correct or wrong, i'm getting ripped off.    I want a clarification from SQAUD, that's all.

[Aegolius13]

6 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

The Mun Launch Site is not currently available on PC. Would you like to see this launch site in a future update? 

I would only use this in good conscience if it was incorporated into some kind of more robust career mode, where you have to go through the steps of creating a Munbase.  That seems unlikely to happen, and I'm not sure how well it would even work with KSP's gameplay.

All that said, I don't really mind if it's available in the game; I just wouldn't use it.  

[MikeO89]

Right now I'm just laying back and reading. Won't touch this until I start seeing some mod activity and can be reasonably sure my mods are safe. I'm not one of those who plays this game from scratch after each update. Gotta have the mods and don't want to do it all over again after updating every time. Updates are always inevitable but each time one comes I hold my breath and cross my fingers. Tis the way of the mod player.

Edited April 11, 2019 by MikeO89

[JAFO]

1 hour ago, TriggerAu said:

The text in the Maneuver Mode tool was set to match the existing one on the map nodes, if you'd like a change to the text a feedback would be the best way to proceed as we would change all for consistency if we did - I didnt find one for this request in a quick search.

I see...

Hmm.. it's a little more of a tough call when you put it like that. Because orbital lines do 'intersect' each other. But physical objects 'intercept' one another. I guess that's why, particularly for non-native-English speakers (as is the case for the core devs), there was an apparent need for consistency.  But in proper English, there is no consistency issue, as they are talking about completely different things. Lines are imaginary, objects are not, and the different wordage reflects that fact (intersect is a purely mathematical term, whereas intercept is a physical term). So since the ultimate purpose of these markers in-game is for objects intercepting other objects, I'd have to go with making 'intercept' the consistent term, even though both are actually correct within their usage parameters. I'll see about putting all that into a formal feedback entry.

 

1 hour ago, klgraham1013 said:

Consistency is very important.  I can respect this decision. 

Agreed.. though in this case I'd argue they went with the wrong term.. see above for why.

Edited April 11, 2019 by JAFO

[micha]

Congrats on the update!  Looking forward to trying it out.. and then updating mods lol.  I only just got finished for 1.6! At least I'm back in the workflow I guess..

 

7 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

The Mun Launch Site is not currently available on PC. Would you like to see this launch site in a future update? 

No; or at least, not unless there is some sort of a progression to build it.  Ie, needing to complete a mission sequence to do so (land on the Mun, prospect suitable site, and either ferry materials there or perform ISRU before it gets constructed).

Makes no sense to have a launch site on other bodies when the early game has you trying to reach orbit first. But it would be pretty neat to be able to build new launch-sites as part of planetary bases.

 

[TriggerAu]

14 minutes ago, JAFO said:

I see...

Hmm.. it's a little more of a tough call when you put it like that. Because orbital lines do 'intersect' each other. But physical objects 'intercept' one another. I guess that's why, particularly for non-native-English speakers (as is the case for the core devs), there was an apparent need for consistency.  But in proper English, there is no consistency issue, as they are talking about completely different things. Lines are imaginary, objects are not, and the different wordage reflects that fact (intersect is a purely mathematical term, whereas intercept is a physical term). So since the ultimate purpose of these markers in-game is for objects intercepting other objects, I'd have to go with making 'intercept' the consistent term, even though both are actually correct within their usage parameters. I'll see about putting all that into a formal feedback entry.

 

Agreed.. though in this case I'd argue they went with the wrong term.. see above for why.

Not sure I'm across the entirety of the above, there's a few bits that feel like assumptions that I can expand on. There wasn't any call during the development cycle aside from using the in-place term - its been that for a super long time and no previous feedback, there's no apparent need for consistency, we aim for consistency as much as we can and the core devs have a significant ratio of native-English speakers (unless Australian English doesnt count  ). 

That expanded, I too like the term intercept as it includes the temporal component better than intersect. It's not been raised before, but hopefully others feel strongly about it and the feedback entry, I know I'll vote for it.

 

[JAFO]

1 minute ago, TriggerAu said:

(unless Australian English doesnt count  ). 

That expanded, I too like the term intercept as it includes the temporal component better than intersect. It's not been raised before, but hopefully others feel strongly about it and the feedback entry, I know I'll vote for it.

Dunno.. I'm an Aussie too.

So.. feedback goes on the bugtracker page as well?

[TriggerAu]

Just now, JAFO said:

Dunno.. I'm an Aussie too.

So.. feedback goes on the bugtracker page as well?

Yes sir. 

[Bill Phil]

Man am I excited to play this update!

Starting in May...