KSP 1.8.2?

[panarchist]

I've seen a number of mod makers say they're waiting until 1.8.2 drops before updating the mod for compatibility. Has Squad actually stated anywhere that a 1.8.2 release is being worked on? Did I miss it in the 1.8.1 release or discussion threads? 

[ExtremeSquared]

Makes sense regardless.
1.8.0 was a bit of a train wreck and 1.8.1 is still slightly rough around the edges. Releases usually go like this when developing with a lightened QA effort. Makes sense for mod coders to always wait for 1.X.2 in order to avoid wasting effort.

[klgraham1013]

My rule of thumb is to never play a x.x.0 Squad release.  Even the x.x.1 releases should be met with a suspicious gaze.

[airtrafficcontroller]

2 hours ago, panarchist said:

a number of mod makers say they're waiting until 1.8.2 drops

That makes sense but which mods are you talking about?

Edited November 20, 2019 by airtrafficcontroller
language mistakes

[panarchist]

1 hour ago, airtrafficcontroller said:

That makes sense but which mods are you talking about?

Doesn't matter. In the spirit of "don't pester the mod makers", I'd rather not say - and given the experience with 1.7.x, I don't blame anyone for wanting to wait until the dust settles.

2 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

My rule of thumb is to never play a x.x.0 Squad release.  Even the x.x.1 releases should be met with a suspicious gaze.

True that, but there were a few releases that never got past x.x.1

[klgraham1013]

1 hour ago, panarchist said:

Doesn't matter. In the spirit of "don't pester the mod makers", I'd rather not say - and given the experience with 1.7.x, I don't blame anyone for wanting to wait until the dust settles.

True that, but there were a few releases that never got past x.x.1

The exception to the rule.  1.3.1 was truly a miracle of the Kraken.

[micha]

Doubt that's true - revisions are bugfixes. 90% of mods even work fine across minor version number updates (ie 1.6 -> 1.7). 1.8 was a bit special because they changed the version of Unity; really that ought to have been a major version number change (1.x -> 2.0) but I can see why they wouldn't do that...  And 99% of mods work across patch updates (1.8.0 -> 1.8.1, 1.8.2, etc)

So from a modding perspective, unless an API your mod uses or the specific feature it interacts with in the game is known to be buggy, there's no reason to wait for patch updates before updating and releasing.

[Superfluous J]

Squad has not announced a 1.8.2 and I know of no reason to expect one.

I'd assume any modder that says they're waiting for 1.8.2 just wants a break around the holidays, and more power to them.

[kerbiloid]

The 1.8.0 was a Unity update →2019 plus some Squad's own API changes, so it caused some (in)compatibility issues.

The 1.8.1 was its quick (bug hotfix / hot bugfix), like it usually happens after major changes.

Almost all major and significant mods (about a hundred as I can see in the download directory) are already updated to 1.8 (compare it to the previous releases, some mods are still at 1.3.1).
Kopernicus, KerbalWheel, and several mods more still aren't. Most of others have at least a developer's 1.8 branch.

So, probably 1.8.2. will be mostly a planet and part textures upgrade, and unlikely some major API changes, I guess.

Edited November 21, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Stone Blue]

I havent been on the bugtracker in quite awhile, but I would like to see Squad address as many remaining bugs as they can. There have been many bugs that have been around for a long time. I would like to see a "Bug Squashing" update of KSP before final development/maintanance stops, rather than any added features or aesthetic or texture revamps. I assume that will be happening in within the next year, since I assume KSP 2 release will draw most of the community away from KSP.

I dont like that Squad has been overall, seemingly been mum about development, other than new features and aesthetic revamps, between update releases, over the past year or moar. I would like to see talk of bugfixes, and substantive feature changes/additions for upcoming updates, rather than marketing fluff and hype.

Looking at past update history, minors have generally released mostly around a 1 month or less timeframe from respective majors and minors. Seems there were only two significant exceptions, with 1.3.1 and 1.0.5.

I miss the mod dev pre-release access Squad used to allow to mod devs. Even tho there seemed to be a lot of issues with allowing community pre-release access, IMHO, I seem to remember at least there was moar transparancy about what was being worked on or at least considered for bugfixes and improvements. It also seemed to help keep the Mod-Update Scramble tolerable, quicker and easier. I would like to see Squad go back to that for KSP's final updates before EOL. IMHO, it would help extend KSP's legacy and playability, to have a final, really, solid-as-can-be playable game, that has the support of as many mods as can be. Unfortunately, thats counter-intuitive from a marketing/profitability standpoint, as it may holdback many people from spending $$ on KSP2 and future DLC's for *that* game.

Anyway, my amateur guess would be, that if we dont see a 1.8.2 by end of January, there wont be anything until at least 1.9.0 in late February/early March.

[panarchist]

10 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Squad has not announced a 1.8.2 and I know of no reason to expect one.

I'd assume any modder that says they're waiting for 1.8.2 just wants a break around the holidays, and more power to them.

Amen to that. Especially for the more popular mods. (although I expect MKS and the other USI mods are an exception given the inside track he has)

[PotatoPCuser1]

Unfortunately, it seems like squad is going straight to 1.9 and skipping a much-needed 1.8.2.

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, PotatoPCuser1 said:

Unfortunately, it seems like squad is going straight to 1.9 and skipping a much-needed 1.8.2.

Well... This is really unfortunate. I'm playing 1.7.3 yet due some glitches on 1.8.x series that rendered a almost my designs behaving weirdly. It's ok to start a new game on it, but any already ongoing gaming (i.e., all of mine!) didn't behave too well on 1.8.x

 

On 11/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Stone Blue said:

I miss the mod dev pre-release access Squad used to allow to mod devs. Even tho there seemed to be a lot of issues with allowing community pre-release access, IMHO, I seem to remember at least there was moar transparancy about what was being worked on or at least considered for bugfixes and improvements. It also seemed to help keep the Mod-Update Scramble tolerable, quicker and easier. I would like to see Squad go back to that for KSP's final updates before EOL. IMHO, it would help extend KSP's legacy and playability, to have a final, really, solid-as-can-be playable game, that has the support of as many mods as can be.

That's the point - every single newbie will be a veteran in 6 months, and if the ecosystem punishes veterans in favor of newbies, sooner than later you will have a shrinking user base at the same time you face some problems on acquiring new customers as the reputation spreads, as only casual gamers would accept spending some money on a game where your savegames don't survive to updates.

If the ecosystem (including the DLCs) had a reputation of keeping old versions of KSP updated and healthy (i.e., backporting when possible bigfixes and Add'Ons), then the need to upgrade would be minimised, aggregating value to the product as old gamers would still have access to new bugfixes, and new non casual gamers (the ones that really spend money on the eco-system) would not be pushed away.

For example, waving 1% of your user base to earn 10 newcomers every month only pays if your current user base is less than 1000 users. Above that, you lose more than you earn, and gets stuck on a low incoming vicious circle: you need to get new gamers no matter what, but by doing so you lose the veterans of your user base, eroding the ecosystem that would help on getting new users.

 

On 11/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Stone Blue said:

Unfortunately, thats counter-intuitive from a marketing/profitability standpoint, as it may holdback many people from spending $$ on KSP2 and future DLC's for *that* game.

I think it's counter-intuitive from the marketing point of view - Marketeers know how to get new users, not how to keep them. I'm not confident that Marketing would make a good strategy to keep your user base...

About profitability, GOG is proving that it's possible to make money with old games - again, the trick is to stop to pushing veterans away.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Lisias
cut the last phrase, as I mishead the charts. I will think more and then talk about again,

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, PotatoPCuser1 said:

Unfortunately, it seems like squad is going straight to 1.9 and skipping a much-needed 1.8.2.

I'm pretty sure anything they'd have put in 1.8.2 will go into 1.9.

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I'm pretty sure anything they'd have put in 1.8.2 will go into 1.9.

The problem will be what else 1.9 will bring additionally. I'm using 1.7.3 not because 1.8.x is bad, I'm using 1.7.3 because I need to, as my current games didn't coped to 1.8 due a lot of glitches that probably would not be that bad to new comers starting new games, but are killer to my ongoing games.

So, ok. 1.9 will have all the fixes that 1.8.2 would had. But 1.9 will have also a lot of new features that, historically, will render again my savegames kaput. So the bug fixes will be useless to me, and the aftermath is that I will still use 1.7.3, even with 1.8 having some very nice features that could worth the effort to migrate.

Moreover - by being locked on KSP 1.7.3, why I would spend money on DLCs that will not work on it? Or really develop Add'Ons for newer KSP versions, as I'm not going to use them anyway? You see, the "Eat your own dogfood" is the secret behind every successful piece of software under the Sun (and Kerbol also). So if I'm not going to use it, and I'm not hired to do it, why spend the effort? What would be my loot on this bargain?

Now multiply these issues by the number of old farts like me still playing the game.

[Superfluous J]

6 hours ago, Lisias said:

I'm using 1.7.3

So you wouldn't use 1.8.2 anyway

Flippancy aside I do see your point. However I don't know exactly what Squad should do about it. I personally just use the newest version at all times and if my favorite mods haven't updated, too bad I'll live without them. Others refuse to play without certain mods and won't update until all of their mods are updated. Still others won't update for other reasons. It's fragmenting the community and while that's a bad thing (tm) it's also unavoidable at this point.

About all Squad could do is just stop updating the game so we can be sure there will be no further changes, but that also means no minor version tweaks like people seem to want 1.8.2 for.

[Lisias]

8 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

So you wouldn't use 1.8.2 anyway 

Flippancy aside I do see your point. 

Spoiler

 

8 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

However I don't know exactly what Squad should do about it. [....]. It's fragmenting the community and while that's a bad thing (tm) it's also unavoidable at this point.

Neither do I. But I know what they should not do. Check the tragic history of Empyrion on Steam. Read the reviews. Don't let this go the same way.

And yeah, I was looking for KSP "replacements' - not because I don't like this game (I love it), but because I'm fearing it could be a good idea to leave it while I still like it.

TL;DR

Spoiler

There are no viable replacements for the marvellous technological silliness of this thing. This is Space-X run by the Animaniacs, there're no one "out there" that would replace this game.

And I suspect is the reason they are still going relatively well besides everything.

IMHO, they need to find a successful compromise between acquiring new users and losing old ones. They/we (this is for the whole ecosystem) need to rescue old gamers from old versions by building a path in which they can follow when they want (instead of the current Modus Operandi that tries to force them to upgrade but essentially makes it so hard to upgrade that some of them choose to simply lock themselves eternally on 1.3.1 or even 1.2.2 - some people finds easier to simply fork everything they uses and maintain themselves (and I'm not the only one neither the first one - there are more people running their own "kspu initiative" out there, I'm the only one doing it openly, as it appears).

You manage to realize the reasons such people do it, you get to the problem - and, perhaps, you could try to solve it.

I can think of tons os possible advices that could or could not be useful - I don't know enough about what's happening on TTI and Squad to really do some good on this involuntary (and perhaps unwanted) Advice business (I'm not a coach anyway).

But there's one single thing that it's essentially universal, and it should be took seriously by anyone on this trade (be doing it for a fee, be doing it for free): Users are your customers, not your subjects. Handle them as such.

You don't make money by making your life easier, the money comes when you make their lives easier.

Spoiler

Someone from Apple around? You can bet your Mac these idiots need to learn something about this.

Please, please, don't let KSP and Forum act like Apple. By God's sake, close shop first and let us live with the good memories.

 

8 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

About all Squad could do is just stop updating the game so we can be sure there will be no further changes, but that also means no minor version tweaks like people seem to want 1.8.2 for.

But so they would not earn money. They run a business. This thingy must be good for both sides.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Lisias
Simplifying a quote; Making Entertaining grammars less entertaining...

[dave1904]

@Lisias

Everybody borks. — Gregory Kerman.

I am a massive house fan and love this  

Edited January 23, 2020 by dave1904

[archiebald]

22 hours ago, Lisias said:

The problem will be what else 1.9 will bring additionally. I'm using 1.7.3 not because 1.8.x is bad, I'm using 1.7.3 because I need to, as my current games didn't coped to 1.8 due a lot of glitches that probably would not be that bad to new comers starting new games, but are killer to my ongoing games.

So, ok. 1.9 will have all the fixes that 1.8.2 would had. But 1.9 will have also a lot of new features that, historically, will render again my savegames kaput.

I'm curious about this statement.

I just started playing again on 1.8.1 after a bit of a break and imported an old career from a 1.6.1 version with about 65 mods installed.  I was careful, but I have had no problems whatsoever on anything, I just made sure to install all the same mods and even then a couple weren't available and I have had no problems over the last 4 weeks of play.

[Lisias]

15 hours ago, archiebald said:

I just started playing again on 1.8.1 after a bit of a break and imported an old career from a 1.6.1 version with about 65 mods installed.  I was careful, but I have had no problems whatsoever on anything, I just made sure to install all the same mods and even then a couple weren't available and I have had no problems over the last 4 weeks of play.

I don't know if you are lucky, or if me is terribly unlucky. But my crafts misbehave. Some just didn't took off, others had too less drag (and drag is something I depend to airbrakes be successful). I made some contraptions using Blades from the Robotics that worked well on 1.7.3, but rendered the craft completely uncontrollable on KSP 1.8 (this one I still didn't diagnosed, so I need to state that it can be something on an Add'On).

There're also the thermals. I make crafts that flies at the very thermal limits, 1150K on skin for the MK1 parts on one of them, and this is another source of headaches due the (lesser) drag. That also made my rockets overpowered, by the way, as there're less drag to overcome on the ascent.

And so on.

Other than that, I found KSP 1.8.1 pretty usable. But I spent about... TWO YEARS on some savegames, and I'm not willing to drop them and start from scratch due it. The performance gain on Unity 2019 is real, my old rig performed sensible better - but performance without my savegames doesn't interests me - and since I had to buy a new old rig  anyway, an old i7 (the older is an older i5), the performance gain was enough to make 1.7.3 as playable as (or better than) 1.8.x on the old rig - and I kept my savegames.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Lisias
Tyops, as usulla....

[PotatoPCuser1]

I really would like to see a 1.8.2 patch for some more bugs, as my computer uses outdated drivers and all textures in the game are now black on 1.8.0. I reverted back to 1.7.3, but I am downloading 1.8.1 to see if it is any better.

[Lisias]

12 hours ago, PotatoPCuser1 said:

I really would like to see a 1.8.2 patch for some more bugs, as my computer uses outdated drivers and all textures in the game are now black on 1.8.0. I reverted back to 1.7.3, but I am downloading 1.8.1 to see if it is any better.

Lower the Texture Quality on Main Menu's Settings. KSP 1.8 eats a lot more VRAM due the overhaul they are doing on Texturing, old rigs need to lowert the Texture Quality to 1/4Th or even 1/8Th to be useable. However, on the lower Texture Quality, some widgets on the screen (as the "ticks" on the Option Boxes) became invisible, as that textures are being loaded with MIPMAP - what's a mistake on User Interfaces glyphs.

[Daniel Prates]

It has been two months since this discussion started. Anyone knows or has heard gossip about 1.8.2 - if it is coming at all?

 

Also, a few threads below this one, there is one with a "pre 1.9"  tag... oh jeeez, please don't tell me a 1.9 is in the works! I just got my mods straightened out .... 

[Geonovast]

11 minutes ago, Daniel Prates said:

please don't tell me a 1.9 is in the works!

 

Personally I haven't had enough problems with 1.8.1 to even think about a 1.8.2.

[Daniel Prates]

3 hours ago, Geonovast said:

 

Personally I haven't had enough problems with 1.8.1 to even think about a 1.8.2.

Ah jeeeez, not another one so soon. 

I too am not having any issues with 1.8.1. I actually mentioned it because I do not like the avalanche of new versions we get sometimes.

In my experience 1.8.1 is doing fine, in fact I run lots of older stuff on it, maybe easier than I did during 1.7. 

Edited January 29, 2020 by Daniel Prates