Kerbal Space Program DLC: “Breaking Gound” Grand Discussion Thread

[Superfluous J]

17 minutes ago, boomchacle said:

ever since the performance update, 200 part ships are pretty much my average ship now. It really depends on how powerful your computer is. Yeah, you're not going to be getting 60 fps, but frame rate is not what I am not complaining about. I am talking about the kraken deciding that it wants to invade my space. my 200 part boats tend to explode for no reason which is really annoying, but whatever.

Assuming you want help, post a few of the craft files in the help section. Maybe you're doing something specific that someone can point out.

[micha]

37 minutes ago, boomchacle said:

my 200 part boats tend to explode for no reason which is really annoying, but whatever.

Not trying to white-knight the game, but it sounds like you're pushing the boundaries a little.. firstly part-counts, secondly non-core aspects of the game ("boats"?; the core is -space-).  Regardless, the devs will probably be very happy if you can provide them with easily reproducible crash scenarios, ideally non-modded, which they can use to debug. Just complaining about stuff won't fix it though.

[Klapaucius]

@boomchacle

Yeah, I think there may be some PC issues here. While I can get a bit of lag, I've never had exploding issues or crashes with this beast, and it has 396 parts.

I have, however, had other stuff randomly explode on me regardless of part count, so I will agree that there is a bug there. They fixed it in Mission Builder, but it still occasionally rears its head in the standard game.

 

https://kerbalx.com/Klapaucius/Gormenghast-300-Person-Luxo-Liner

 

Addendum: I just noticed I have been promoted from Junior Rocket Scientist to Rocket Scientist. Does that mean I now head my own department?

Edited May 10, 2019 by Klapaucius

[Gargamel]

7 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

Addendum: I just noticed I have been promoted from Junior Rocket Scientist to Rocket Scientist. Does that mean I now head my own department?

No, that would be at Senior Rocket Scientist.   You just don't have to bring coffee and donuts for everybody at the meetings now. 

[FrostBird347]

[OLD_POST_REMOVED]

Edited December 30, 2019 by FrostBird347

[Xavven]

I don't buy the argument that just because mods have done something, Squad should avoid building something similar into stock, regardless of whether it would be paid DLC or free.

First off, as someone already pointed out, there is probably a considerable chunk of the player base that does not use mods. They might not know they exist, or might not have the know-how to install them, might not care, or might have this game on console.

Second, as I pointed out in the DLC's announcement thread, it doesn't make business sense for a company to avoid implementing good ideas just because the customers can add it themselves later. If car manufacturers adopted this practice, none would sell a car with a stereo built in because there are already aftermarket options.

Third, personally I don't want to have to build my own game by handpicking mods from a list and comparing similar ones to try to find which one is better, and then deal with crashing and have to figure out which one is the culprit, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Just like some people don't want to build their own PC part-by-part -- they just go out and buy some pre-built Dell or ASUS gaming desktop, plug in their keyboard and go. There are likewise plenty of gamers who want to buy a complete gaming experience out of the box, from one place, and know that it was all designed to work and already quality-tested as-is.

Fourth, pretend you are a software developer with enough funding to afford a team of 10 programmers/artists/etc. You think you can get the base game completed and released in 4 years, and there are a bunch of features you want to add after release, in years 5 through 7.  You allow players to get your game in early access, and by the time you reach version 1.0, there are already 500 modders, and they have already implemented every feature you planned for years 5-7 of development, naturally because they outnumber you 50 to 1, but they made those features slightly differently than you had in mind. Should you just abandon your roadmap now because someone else finished the game for you, albeit not quite in the direction you would have done it? What if a mod that implements one of those features you had roadmapped gets abandoned by its creator? THEN do you scramble to fill this now gaping hole in your game, but now you're behind your timeline because you relied on some random internet stranger with no ties to your company and no obligations to support that mod to make your game good? IMO that's a really, really bad business model. You are ill advised to allow your product to be dependent on the whims of a fan with some programming ability who whips something up in their spare time, the code of which you do not own any rights to whatsoever.

 

Edited May 11, 2019 by Xavven

[RedSun Rocketry]

I hope that they do more involving the kerbals, the engineers could be used outside of the VAB/SPH to change specific settings on parts, the pilots could make controlling arms and such easier, and scientists seem to be getting more than enough to do in this update

[doodlemh]

i completely disagree about this being replaceable by mods because all the robot part mods don't even work in 1.7 anymore and sure kis does make science like this possible, its just the same old science modules detached with no real advantage.

[Miner 36]

Will it have the telescopic cameras I love them!!!!!

[Daniel Prates]

18 hours ago, doodlemh said:

i completely disagree about this being replaceable by mods because all the robot part mods don't even work in 1.7 anymore and sure kis does make science like this possible, its just the same old science modules detached with no real advantage.

Infernal Robotics does work, I know because I use it.  It only takes some attention to recomendations found in the mod's forum page. 

Giving that I am one to defend mods frequently in this forum, I should go ahead and say that I TOO DISAGREE THAT THE DEVELOPER SHOULD HAMPER OR HALT ITS OWN DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS AND AIMS JUST BECAUSE SOME MOD ALREADY EXISTS. 

I think that some mods far surpass what the base game has done. For instance, life suport. However it is ridiculous to say that the developer can't improve the game creating its own, new life suport, just because there already are some LS mods our there. The game is theirs, isn't it? And they owe something to their console user customers too.

[cfds]

On 5/9/2019 at 10:47 AM, micha said:

Just a quick point on the ludicrous assertions that the Devs haven't been improving the game.

I'm really sorry, but **where** have people been since 1.0?  The base-game has been **significantly** changed/improved **for free* (to the players) since then. The people that bought the first DLC have **probably** (I don't have access to Squad's accounts so no way to prove/disprove this claim) helped fund some of that development.

Again, on the claim that the devs have only increased "technical debt", what a load of bllcks.  Many many bugs have gotten squashed. Sadly others have been introduced, but that's par-for-course for a complex piece of software.  Regardless, it's definitely provable that the game, overall, is far more playable and stable than it used to be, as well as more feature-rich. Most of the old versions are still available for download; just run one against the current version and see for yourself.

Now, whether any of those changes have been things **you personally** have wanted or not is immaterial.  The fact is that many changes and improvements have been made that at least some people have wanted. Can't please everybody all the time and all that.

1.0 is setting a very low bar, though. Yes, there have been improvements, but you can also argue that a lot of these improvements the developers a giving us from the goodness of their hearts are actually just bringing the game to a state that can be considered "released". And we still do not have a career mode that is worth the name...

[Loskene]

On 5/10/2019 at 8:21 AM, boomchacle said:

ever since the performance update, 200 part ships are pretty much my average ship now. It really depends on how powerful your computer is. Yeah, you're not going to be getting 60 fps, but frame rate is not what I am not complaining about. I am talking about the kraken deciding that it wants to invade my space. my 200 part boats tend to explode for no reason which is really annoying, but whatever.

So do mine, that's just what happens when you try to operate beyond the scope of what the game was intended for. This is a fun little cartoony rocket simulator we've turned into everything from a colonisation simulator to a full fledged real time strategy game with multiplayer. It just means you have to adapt to the game's limitations to pull these things off, not expect it to adapt to your specific use cases, even though to their credit Squad have been trying to cover as many of these as they can lately. Eventually stuff stops exploding at the outer limits if you work with them rather than against them.

 

and sooner or later stuff only explodes when you want it to.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Loskene

[MechBFP]

3 hours ago, cfds said:

1.0 is setting a very low bar, though. Yes, there have been improvements, but you can also argue that a lot of these improvements the developers a giving us from the goodness of their hearts are actually just bringing the game to a state that can be considered "released". And we still do not have a career mode that is worth the name...

Then why did you buy the game?

[Starhawk]

Some off-topic content has been removed from this thread and placed in add-on discussions.

Please keep the discussion at least within the SoI of the posted topic.
 

Thank you,
KSP Moderation Team

[Cataclism]

All right! The NEWS are good; the "OLDs" still suck.

Just imagine: all those new, COOL stuff for science and, suddenly, the airstream/fairing which is carrying´em decides just to remain unreliable and auto-decouple from the rest of the vessel.

In practical terms:
It would be REALLY great if I could properly launch all the new stuff from Kerbin´s ground, instead of cheating them to orbit because the fairings still don´t work fine.

[eddiew]

First time I've checked these forums since Christmas and the new expansion is barely 2 weeks away?

Win.

[RedSun Rocketry]

On 5/8/2019 at 3:14 PM, Snark said:

it is not okay to be a jerk by making personal attacks on other people.

I really appreciate that not clogging up the discussion on a DISCUSSION THREAD,

I'm so glad this forum has moderators to keep these forums from becoming violent cesspools.without you guys I'd enjoy these forums a lot less,

keep up the good work ( :

Edited May 14, 2019 by RedSun Rocketry
original comment was not clear in it's statement

[cfds]

15 hours ago, MechBFP said:

Then why did you buy the game?

I did buy the game when it was still called an alpha (and paid more than what it now costs on steam...) and there was some hope that it might actually turn into a game that lets you "create and manage your own space program".

[Superfluous J]

38 minutes ago, cfds said:

I did buy the game when it was still called an alpha (and paid more than what it now costs on steam...) and there was some hope that it might actually turn into a game that lets you "create and manage your own space program".

And when you did that, you should have been willing to accept that all development could have stopped the very next day. That's the chance you take with early access.

The fact that half a dozen years later the game is still in active development is a bonus.

[klgraham1013]

18 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

And when you did that, you should have been willing to accept that all development could have stopped the very next day. That's the chance you take with early access.

Thus, why I no longer contribute to early access games.  I was originally under the impression it was akin to hiring an artist to paint a painting.  I soon learned it's hiring an artist for a stick figure in hopes it might one day be a Mona Lisa.

[Klapaucius]

19 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

Thus, why I no longer contribute to early access games.  I was originally under the impression it was akin to hiring an artist to paint a painting.  I soon learned it's hiring an artist for a stick figure in hopes it might one day be a Mona Lisa.

I think that depends on the developer.  I agree, a lot of early access is risky, but then you get ones like Re-entry, where he is soliciting feedback from the community.  I was immediately invited onto the Discord page to contribute.  Alas, I've had other things going on and have not been active, but the point is, the developer is using early access as a way to improve his game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/882140/Reentry__An_Orbital_Simulator/

 

Edited May 15, 2019 by Klapaucius

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, klgraham1013 said:

Thus, why I no longer contribute to early access games.  I was originally under the impression it was akin to hiring an artist to paint a painting.  I soon learned it's hiring an artist for a stick figure in hopes it might one day be a Mona Lisa.

...even though the artist told you that you were buying the stick figure with no promise of a painting.

I'm personally more wary of Early Access than I was in the past (thank you Space Engineers) but I still find many that are well with the cost even though they're not done yet (thank you Factorio).

[Kerbart]

2 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Thus, why I no longer contribute to early access games.  I was originally under the impression it was akin to hiring an artist to paint a painting.  I soon learned it's hiring an artist for a stick figure in hopes it might one day be a Mona Lisa.

Picasso: “It took me four years to paint like Rafael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

But what a stick figure it is! Seriously, it was also offered at a steep discount. There have been some disappointments (the 0.24-0.95-1.0 progression comes to mind), but on the whole I have no complaints.

[Gargamel]

Just a small reminder guys, this thread is about the DLC, not the pros and cons of early access.  Let's keep it on the rails.   Feel free to start another thread on this topic if you'd like. 

[Kerbart]

After watching the few videos posted my fear is that the new science experiments will just be a variant on surface samples and not unlock a whole new aspect of explorational activities. Time will tell.