Elendel Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 (edited) Seems silly to start a new thread for this, but there doesn't seem to be one for "I got this bit of info from a dev while chatting at Pax, but I didn't interview him or anything." Anyway... While I was waiting in line for the KSP2 demo presentation, chatted with one of the devs, learned something I thought was interesting for modders. He mentioned: The craft files are now in Lua. Me: Does this mean I can insert arbitrary logic into the craft files? Dev: No comment. Also one thing I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere, I asked Nate (head dev guy, super nice) about the fidelity of the rings - do we get rocks and dust if we fly to them? He gave me a non-committal answer (they are big on the no comments right now). So... maybe? Hopefully this info will be obsolete soon, as they give us more details, but just thought I would share. Edited September 2, 2019 by Elendel Autocorrect not correct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 2 hours ago, Elendel said: The craft files are now in Lua. Me: Does this mean I can insert arbitrary logic into the craft files? Dev: No comment. That strikes me as a trifle questionable. Mods are one thing but I wouldn't like craft from KerbalX to be a potential virus vector. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xd the great Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 2 hours ago, Elendel said: Also one thing I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere, I asked Nate (head dev guy, super nice) about the fidelity of the rings - do we get rocks and dust if we fly to them? He gave me a non-committal answer (they are big on the no comments right now). So... maybe? Maybe dust, but definitely not rocks. It will be too hard to avoid high speed crashing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldForest Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 2 minutes ago, Xd the great said: Maybe dust, but definitely not rocks. It will be too hard to avoid high speed crashing. Or or… Non-collidable rocks kind of like KSP's trees and rocks on the mun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xd the great Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 (edited) 9 minutes ago, GoldForest said: Or or… Non-collidable rocks kind of like KSP's trees and rocks on the mun. And please add a science biome to the rings. Someone WILL turn those rocks into ones with meshes just for fun. Edited September 2, 2019 by Xd the great Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldForest Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Xd the great said: And please add a science biome to the rings. Someone WILL turn those rocks into ones with meshes just for fun. Oh gosh. I can imagine someone using Project Daedalus and forgetting they have solid rings installed. 12% of C + Ringed Planet fly by = Sad time "Neat, I can do a fly by of that giant to get a speed boost to the next solar system. I'll fly through the rings for fun." *Parts start exploding* "Oops." Edited September 2, 2019 by GoldForest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ModZero Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 21 minutes ago, Xd the great said: Maybe dust, but definitely not rocks. It will be too hard to avoid high speed crashing. Isn't Lua usually ran sandboxed? If so, then I don't really see much difference from any other complex file format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 I think it'd be really cool if rings really were hazardous. Obviously they can't model every rock in them, but they could magic some in if you get close. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 4 hours ago, Elendel said: The craft files are now in Lua. Me: Does this mean I can insert arbitrary logic into the craft files? Dev: No comment. Could this mean that we will have a K-Os with Lua? *start searcing my old Master-Os that i made in Lua for Computercraft* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ModZero Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 (edited) 3 hours ago, Brikoleur said: I think it'd be really cool if rings really were hazardous. Obviously they can't model every rock in them, but they could magic some in if you get close. I mean, while my preference is for rings to generally be "mist that hurts a lot if you enter it at wrong velocity" with relatively sparse larger objects, but with a bit of mathematical trickery you can ensure effectively infinite supply of objects, as long as you don't need to keep any data on them permanently. That's exactly what Elite does, and people actually map the rings. I'd actually love this for sparse-but-enormous asteroid belts, though I suspect the mix of "the asteroids don't exist until you start looking" and having a usable planning UI would be treacherous. Edited September 2, 2019 by ModZero Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 Asteroid belts aren't really all that hazardous, there's way more space than asteroids. Rings OTOH are. The optical opacity of Saturn's rings is over 90% in places and they're only a few metres thick, which means they have to be rather full of stuff. I'd expect a spacecraft flying through them (and not through a division) would be quite likely to get... dinged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ModZero Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 Actually after writing the above I went ahead and checked, and Cassini intentionally crossed the rings a few times, and it was considered risky, but it went okay. Also, some of the rings are, um, clumpier than I thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubinator Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 5 hours ago, ModZero said: Actually after writing the above I went ahead and checked, and Cassini intentionally crossed the rings a few times, and it was considered risky, but it went okay. Also, some of the rings are, um, clumpier than I thought. Cassini crossed the ring plane in the space between the ring and the planet, where there was very little material. If it had crossed any thicker parts of the rings it likely would have been terribly damaged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ModZero Posted September 2, 2019 Share Posted September 2, 2019 (edited) 17 minutes ago, cubinator said: Cassini crossed the ring plane in the space between the ring and the planet, where there was very little material. If it had crossed any thicker parts of the rings it likely would have been terribly damaged. It usually did that, but during the "grand finale" it went into the actual rings a few times (see here) and even "recorded" the plasma discharge from particles impacting the instruments. It is mentioned that the entire thing was rather risky, as there's plenty of material bigger than the microns it actually encountered, but it was end of mission anyway. Edit: in particular, re our expectations: Quote During this orbit’s ring-plane crossing, the spacecraft was originally planned to be oriented with its high-gain antenna (the big dish) facing forward to help shield the spacecraft from ring particles. However, during the two earlier dives through the D ring (orbits 276 and 277), the ring particle environment was found to be benign. Because of this, mission planners decided to remove the shielding requirement for this orbit. The antenna was once again be used as a shield on the following orbit (orbit 282) Edited September 2, 2019 by ModZero Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snark Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 On 9/2/2019 at 12:31 AM, Elendel said: I asked Nate (head dev guy, super nice) about the fidelity of the rings - do we get rocks and dust if we fly to them? He gave me a non-committal answer (they are big on the no comments right now). So... maybe? I can give you a bit more than that. Yes, they have fidelity if you get close, and yes, there are rocks. When we were at Star Theory's studio last Wednesday, among the demos they showed us was a closeup of the rings. When you get up-close-and-personal with the rings, they resolve into a swarm of irregular rocks of various sizes. It's gorgeous, like watching a scene from The Expanse. Naturally, immediately the first thing we asked was "do those rocks have colliders?", to which Nate's answer was "no comment." So it looks like there will be eye-candy rocks, at the very least. No word yet, however, on whether they'll just be eye candy, or would have actual gameplay effect such as colliders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerbart Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 On 9/2/2019 at 3:31 AM, Elendel said: He gave me a non-committal answer (they are big on the no comments right now) That’s the downside of developers being aware of the community. Given how a casual remark might haunt them for the rest of eternity (“still no [feature x]” as a comment on every single upgrade even when it’s clear that it will never be implented) they will not commit to anything unless it’s 100% sure and can you blame them? Lua seems to be very popular as a scripting language for games. And perhaps they mean it’s following a Lua syntax. So it can be processed with any program that can evaluate Lua scripts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snark Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 5 minutes ago, Kerbart said: That’s the downside of developers being aware of the community. Given how a casual remark might haunt them for the rest of eternity (“still no [feature x]” as a comment on every single upgrade even when it’s clear that it will never be implented) they will not commit to anything unless it’s 100% sure and can you blame them? ^ Very much this. The wise company knows that it's far better to say "no comment" than to give a definite statement that something will/won't be the case, and then later turn out to be wrong. At this stage of development, there's still a whole lot of stuff that's in flux and won't have been finally decided yet, so they're just being prudent by no-commenting a lot. On 9/2/2019 at 12:31 AM, Elendel said: The craft files are now in Lua. Me: Does this mean I can insert arbitrary logic into the craft files? Dev: No comment. A bit more clarity on the Lua thing here: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Concodroid Posted September 5, 2019 Share Posted September 5, 2019 That would be awesome, as long as they're not on rails. Then you can't start a game of asteroid bowling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts