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

[Delay]

3 hours ago, Lisias said:

For some reason this made me laugh.

Just imagine we'd find this in our sky one night!

[Kerbart]

17 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

New players will obviously gravitate toward something called career.  To me, it's just more proof that Squad really needs to rethink career.  It just doesn't work to on board new players.  I'm actually not sure if science mode does any better.  There's less to consider, but it still doesn't really teach you anything.  Sure, there's the tutorials, but...let's be honest...most people are here to play a game, not go to school.  The school needs to be built into a standard mode in a fun and interesting way.  Career and science make basically no attempt at this

As @5thHorseman and @klgraham1013 (who with, being over ten centuries old, must be the oldest and wisest on the forum) both suggest, Career is not for beginners. Missions are? It’s not clear when you start the game. This has been mentioned a million times but perhaps someone from Squad will actually read this thread:

• KSP is a sandbox game—do as you please
• Career suggests a form of guided progression
• when games do this, the challenges thrown at the player get harder as they unlock more abilities.
• KSP’s challenges don’t get harder; the game just gets easier, and from a progression standpoint, less challenging.
• One can argue that the game is not about reaching a goal, but that’s not what a career mode suggests.

For me, a tighter controlled model that releases technology in a more purposeful way would be the way to go. A contract might give you 1.25 m tanks, engines, landing gear, etc, to land on Mun, maybe something more to land on Minmus, 2.5m tanks for Duna, etc.

Progression doesn’t have to be linear; there are comm networks to build, refueling stations, etc.

[CranialRectosis]

Just downloaded and started playing 1.7 last night.

I love love love the new skybox.

Love the new altitude switch from sea level to ground level.

I do wish the munar base could make it to PC. I agree with folks who say it would  be a cheat to just turn it on like Woomerang or Dessert for the same reasons I turn off the extra ground bases and build an actual sat network to effect comms. Instead of a fixed lunar base, I would LOVE to see the ability to build a launch pad on whatever rock or station I choose (without a mod). Put the parts high in the tech tree so people can't just cheat out of Kerbin atmo in science mode and make it cost a HUGE amount of money in career mode.

IMO it should be hard to build so it becomes an investment and be accompanied with a larger solar system.

I like to play the outer planets mod. I like to build sat nets around Sarnus and explore the moons of Urlum.

Played this way, I wouldn't see off-planet launchers as cheats but as a more realistic means of exploration of far away places.

 

Anyway, thanks SQUAD and Private Division for the update and you for reading my $.02.

[RealKerbal3x]

I’ve been playing with 1.7 for the past few days and my verdict is that it’s a pretty solid version. I’ve encountered no major bugs and just like every other post-1.4.x version, it hasn’t caused harm to any of my mods. Plus, it appears that some more performance improvements have been made.

The new manoeuvre mode is very well done. It’s nicely integrated into the existing UI and provides a good stock replacement for Precise Manoeuvre. I would, however, like some more of the features from PM to be integrated, such as the circularise button and the ability to add the manoeuvre to your Ap/Pe or ascending/descending node.

But good job overall, SQUAD!

[Lisias]

On 4/14/2019 at 8:31 AM, Delay said:

For some reason this made me laugh.

Just imagine we'd find this in our sky one night!

Extra bonus if you are live-streaming, and that textures come from forum-noncompliant-content-interesting-sites  

 

On 4/14/2019 at 8:51 AM, Kerbart said:

KSP’s challenges don’t get harder; the game just gets easier, and from a progression standpoint, less challenging.

Well. I think it's become 'easier" too on real live. It's god damned hard to get the thing working, but once it works, it almost just works. See Soyuz.

But I agree that new Contracts are needed. Very hard ones, but also not so hard ones - so people will take what they want.

 

On 4/14/2019 at 8:51 AM, Kerbart said:

One can argue that the game is not about reaching a goal, but that’s not what a career mode suggests.

The career mode adds constraints - you need science and money to get where you want. The game doesn't tells you what you want to do, just imposes a lot of restrictions about what you need to do to get there.

The Career Mode is still a SandBox game, as much as the Sand Box mode. what happens is that you need to earn a living while trying to get what you want.

Just like real Space Races by the way - a famous and young entrepreneur wants to sent people to Mars, but until he can secure the funding for that, he will be ferrying people to ISS and plan to ferry cargo to the Mün Moon.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Lisias
Manually merged some posts to prevent flooding the thread.

[Barzon]

It is amazing that they haven't had to release a 1.7.1 yet! Well done @SQUAD! Hopefully, this will be repeated in 1.8, 1.9, and onwards! 

Edited April 14, 2019 by Barzon Kerman

[jevry]

this is a really great update

it adds enough info to do anything someone using kerbal engineer can do. well except knowing when to suicide burn that is...

also a good performance boost, i never looked at the skybox that much so i haven't noticed that much change to it.

im fully confident that when you eventually get around fixing up planets you give them the love they need deserve (recently learned duna used to be much more beautifull until a time constrained update remopved all unique terrain features)

[pandaman]

11 hours ago, GeneCash said:

Well, at least on Linux you can copy your settings.cfg file and not have to do this.

I probably could do that on windows too, but never tried tbh.  I only change a few things from default, and any i forget i can do later anyway.

[sec3]

as far as i can see, my 80 mods are functioning.  Only once again for my savestate the Wolfshound engine had to be placed back in "heavyRocketry" (file is in the SquadExpansions Folder). 
And i still haven´t made it to Duna.  I didn´t remember when my probe was on Eve. long ago. on the 0.90 s Version or so.  

 

[Pthigrivi]

On 4/14/2019 at 7:51 AM, Kerbart said:

As @5thHorseman and @klgraham1013 (who with, being over ten centuries old, must be the oldest and wisest on the forum) both suggest, Career is not for beginners. Missions are? It’s not clear when you start the game. This has been mentioned a million times but perhaps someone from Squad will actually read this thread:

• KSP is a sandbox game—do as you please
• Career suggests a form of guided progression
• when games do this, the challenges thrown at the player get harder as they unlock more abilities.
• KSP’s challenges don’t get harder; the game just gets easier, and from a progression standpoint, less challenging.
• One can argue that the game is not about reaching a goal, but that’s not what a career mode suggests.
   

I do tend to agree with @klgraham1013 that locking out some of those values isn't necessarily the best mechanic, but I understand the impulse to try to keep things simple early. It's a fine balance. The problem for me isn't so much that we're given more tools over time, its that the goals are so open ended there's no turgor pressure upping the difficulty of the next task. There's nothing saying "Oh good you landed on the Mun? How about put a probe on Duna!" KSP is in the unique position that it has an invisible main quest. Obviously the headline missions, the ones that nearly everyone is most interested in, are the Milestones--going to and landing on other planets. They're plenty challenging, they've just been curiously omitted from Mission Control. Even the generative contracts only come up for a planet after you've been to its SOI. There's nothing nudging you before hand to just go out there and explore and challenge yourself. I don't think it needs or even wants to be linear, but somehow those Milestone Contracts need to appear and persist in Mission control well ahead of time so players know they can go do something more difficult and get bigger rewards for going father rather than puttering around Kerbin's moons until they've maxed the Tech Tree. 

Edited April 15, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[nierybecar]

After all this years and 413 hrs. i think is the moment to say that were the best $40 i've ever spend. Just thanks for all squad and community ! 

[Laie]

Has anything been done about the aerodynamics of the revamped engines (specifically, the why-is-my-rocket-flipping Terrier)?

Haven't had time to try it yet, and the changelog doesn't mention anything to that effect...

[Superfluous J]

7 minutes ago, Laie said:

Has anything been done about the aerodynamics of the revamped engines (specifically, the why-is-my-rocket-flipping Terrier)?

I've used the Terrier on multiple craft and not had a single problem, including none of my craft flipping.

[StrandedonEarth]

33 minutes ago, Laie said:

Has anything been done about the aerodynamics of the revamped engines (specifically, the why-is-my-rocket-flipping Terrier)?

Haven't had time to try it yet, and the changelog doesn't mention anything to that effect...

Were you using variants?

[Guest]

Tried the update... Looks neat, but I feel like maneuvers are a little less accurate in the new section. I tried a Duna mission and I got a more accurate maneuver when manually do it.

[RealKerbal3x]

9 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Tried the update... Looks neat, but I feel like maneuvers are a little less accurate in the new section. I tried a Duna mission and I got a more accurate maneuver when manually do it.

There's a slider next to the graphical manoeuvre editor that allows you to change the 'strength' (so to speak) of the editor. Also, you can enter numerical values to make it more accurate.

Edited April 17, 2019 by RealKerbal3x

[DMagic]

15 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I've used the Terrier on multiple craft and not had a single problem, including none of my craft flipping.

 

15 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Were you using variants?

Certain combinations of variants and engine placement can cause drag problems. Like using the smallest variant of the Terrier in the middle of a stack. Even with the engine shroud present, the game's drag system "sees" the Terrier as a much smaller part in the middle of what looks like a perfectly smooth cylinder. So you get a kind of stair-step drag problem in the middle of the vessel where the part below the Terrier receives much more drag than it should. If you used the bigger variants of the Terrier you won't see this problem.

This is because the drag system can't handle both engine variants, and engine shrouds at the same time. It either modifies the engine drag based on the variant size, or based on the presence or absence of the engine shroud, but it can't manage both.

While it won't always make a vessel unstable, the basic effect of this problem is that you are penalized for using the smaller variants of engines in the middle of a stack, even though visually everything looks like it should work fine.

[StrandedonEarth]

21 minutes ago, DMagic said:

While it won't always make a vessel unstable, the basic effect of this problem is that you are penalized for using the smaller variants of engines in the middle of a stack, even though visually everything looks like it should work fine.

But using a full fairing over that mess should get rid of the drag, right? Or does that bug persist through a proper fairing?

[DMagic]

9 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

But using a full fairing over that mess should get rid of the drag, right? Or does that bug persist through a proper fairing?

Yes, a fairing will block any drag effects on the parts inside of it. But that is not always a realistic solution. More flexible handling of engine drag from Squad is the only real way to get around these problems.

[TheOtherDave]

On 4/11/2019 at 12:41 PM, Nightside said:

@UomoCapra & @Maxsimal

Regarding the Mun base question (since you asked):

It is an interesting idea but please careful how it is implemented. I think it would make sense as mid-late game goal. Have a mission to deliver/mine x tons of ore at a certain site, then the base becomes available.

I could get behind this... I'd also say that the game should calculate the delivery costs for the raw materials needed to construct anything launching from off-world bases (so that you can't just build a base on Gilly or something and then have super low Δv to everywhere for free), and therefore you should have a "designated" origin point (Kerbin or an off-world "ore depot") and a designated cargo craft saved for each off-world base. That way you can update the cargo crafts and delivery mechanism ("local" ore refinery vs shipping in from off-world) for cheaper deliveries as new tech becomes available.

Also, you'd have to make the cargo run manually at least once for every cargo ship, so that the game knows a) it can actually do the job and b) how much fuel it'll cost.

[Theflyingfox]

Ever since updating to 1.7, I’ve experienced some severe problems: from performance issues to massive graphical glitches

Issue

During the flight, I noticed Kerbin’s atmosphere rapidly changing colour and brightness, probably inducing large amounts of lag. This issue gets worse in orbit, with Kerbin’s surface sometimes being hidden by the glitch.

 

Edited April 17, 2019 by Theflyingfox

[KerbolExplorer]

On 4/13/2019 at 12:34 AM, TonedMite133805 said:

LAUNCHER get fixed?

Day 17,Year 3000

The launcher is stil broken

[dok_377]

It seems like 1.7.1 is needed indeed. I found a bug with interstage fairings: https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/21915

[dok_377]

@JPLRepo  Check the previous post please. 

[Superfluous J]

55 minutes ago, dok_377 said:

It seems like 1.7.1 is needed indeed. I found a bug with interstage fairings: https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/21915

I'm not the one who decides these things but I don't think that bug is severe enough to warrant a special release to fix.