Air Bugs

[ArmchairGravy]

I've noticed there's been no mention of thermal systems for a while. What is the status of thermal effects?

[Alexoff]

9 hours ago, ArmchairGravy said:

What is the status of thermal effects?

Status: experiments ongoing

[Bej Kerman]

On 6/10/2023 at 10:14 PM, Alexoff said:

The answer was to specific criticism of the game on the facts, this is fundamentally different from senseless abuse.

You know full well 90% of those criticisms hardly fall under constructive.

[Redneck]

I still think if they were to open up modding now it could help spot some of these bugs. In essence you would have a whole modding community testing and not just a handful of engineers. And yes i know what all is involved with modding and modders not keeping up with development. This is not about a debate on that aspect . imagine modders being able to call out red flags on individual methods or functions. I know i know that just makes to much sense!  And when I referred modding i mean a API

Edited June 12, 2023 by Redneck

[Spicat]

25 minutes ago, Redneck said:

I still think if they were to open up modding now it could help spot some of these bugs. In essence you would have a whole modding community testing and not just a handful of engineers. And yes i know what all is involved with modding and modders not keeping up with development. This is not about a debate on that aspect . imagine modders being able to call out red flags on individual methods or functions. I know i know that just makes to much sense! 

The game is already "open to modding" (at least in the same way as ksp1), there are plenty of mods being developed for ksp2. Some that fixes some bugs between patches:

Also the one that helps fill bug reports:

And there are some discussion about it, for instance on the official discord and the ksp2 modding discord where some CMs are.

 

[Stephensan]

On 6/9/2023 at 2:04 PM, Nate Simpson said:

Hello, fellow Kerbonauts.

The Intercept Games office is buzzing with activity as we submit our last check-ins for the upcoming v0.1.3.0 update and QA puts all the changes through their paces. We’re currently aiming for a June 20 update, but as usual I’ll hedge a bit by pointing out that QA always makes the final determination about whether the final build is release-ready. As we near that date, we should have more confidence about release timing, as well as more details about exactly what fixes and changes will be present in the update. As always, we’ll share detailed patch notes before the update goes live.

Bug Status
We have seen movement on most of the items in our top 10 list this week! It’s very exciting:

1. Vehicles in stable coasting orbits sometimes experience orbit instability/decay
   • Status: fix in progress
     We’ve figured out what’s going on here: when an orbiting vehicle is not under on-rails time warp, the effects of minor joint fluctuations within the vehicle rigidbody cause tiny but cumulatively significant changes to the vehicle’s velocity. The outcome of this is that orbital parameters can change due to all of this subtle wiggling. A system is now being crafted to prevent orbital velocity changes when a vehicle is not under thrust. This change will likely not make it into v0.1.3.0 update, but we know what’s wrong and the steps to fixing it are well understood.
      
2. Trajectories change when vehicles cross SOI boundaries
   • Status: fix in progress
     Engineers believe they understand the cause of this issue and are working on a comprehensive solution (at time of writing, there is a rumor that we've fixed this, but this news is so hot off the presses that I won't update the status quite yet. If it is in fact fixed, it will make its way into the 0.1.3.0 update)
     
     
3. Certain inline parts cause aerodynamic drag numbers to spike
   • Status: fix being tested
     Next week, Chris Adderley will be posting a dev blog entry describing the aero occlusion saga. It’s a doozy. The fix is in and being tested by QA. We believe it is solid for v0.1.3.0.
     
     
4. Returning to craft from VAB causes craft to go underground (possibly related to Kerbals and landed vehicles dropping through terrain while being approached)
   • Status: multiple fixes being tested
     This was actually two unrelated bugs, but happily we have submitted fixes for both of them and they’re both looking good for v0.1.3.0.
      
5. Decoupling and/or undocking events result in various issues including loss of control, incorrect controllability of decoupled subassemblies, loss of camera focus, and other issues
   • Status: may have many causes, but some fixes in progress
     This bug describes a nebulous family of bugs that have one thing in common: decoupling sometimes causes weird things to happen, and sometimes those weird things result in loss of control or other flight-killing outcomes. Our engineers have submitted six separate changes that address an array of decoupling-related issues, and they’re all being tested right now. These will be broken down in detail when we release patch notes for v0.1.3.0, but it’s a good bet that some edge case issues will still persist after the update. This is an area where public information submitted to the Bug Reports subforum can help shine a light on player stories that may be difficult for us to replicate internally.
     
     
6. Save files get bigger over time (TravelLog experiencing "landed" status spam)
   • Status: fix being tested
     We are cautiously optimistic that a fix has eliminated the runaway filesize issue. It is being tested for inclusion in v0.1.3.0.
     
     
7. Opening part manager causes major frame lag
   • Status: experiments ongoing
     We’ve been working on this issue from different angles for quite a while, with varying results. Currently, engineer Patrick DeVarney is working on a method of invoking entries within the part manager on an as-needed basis, rather than always loading all part attributes simultaneously on PAM deployment. This fix will not make it into v0.1.3.0, but if the experiment bears fruit in the future it will have a significant impact on PAM deployment lag. 
      
8. Major post-liftoff frame rate lag immediately above launchpad (associated with engine exhaust lighting)
   • Status: fix being tested
     As we said last week, the short-term remedy for this issue was to turn off shadow casting for point lights associated with engine exhaust. We’ll likely revisit this once we’ve got other performance-impacting issues sorted out.
     
     
9. Root parts placed below decouplers cause issues with stage separation
   • Status: fix being tested
     This is actually related to bug 5, and relates to engine plates being the root part. It has been fixed and is in QA review.
      
10. Vehicle joints unusually wobbly, some part connections unusually weak
    • Status: under investigation, some fixes in progress
      We are testing a fix for one of the most irksome manifestations of this issue, and I’ll elaborate below...

Wings be poppin'

One of the trending bugs on the Bug Reports subforum relates to wings spontaneously popping off of vehicles. This phenomenon is exacerbated by wings in KSP2 being large, unitary parts with a single connection point - a situation that was less problematic in KSP1, where wing stresses were spread out across a large number of parts and joints. You may have been aware that for some inline stack nodes, we automatically apply a trio of additional joints to increase the rigidity of the connection. Engineer Jamie Leighton has implemented a new system that applies a similar multi-joint reinforcement to wing roots, and does so in a way that is physically correct. Now, the surface attach node of a wing element is augmented by additional joints that are placed linearly along the wing’s root, and the distance between those joints is controlled by the length of the wing’s root. Check it out:

Magenta circles show the positions of wing root joint reinforcements

This fix is being tested and is slated for release in the v0.1.3.0 update.

There are lots of other bugs going down this week as we’ve entered the cherry-picking process going into the final stretch on v0.1.3.0. It's important to keep in mind that while we've been focusing on sharing our progress on top community issues in these dev updates, a lot of work has been done to solve a lot of lesser-known issues as well. We’ve fixed the issue with not being able to rename vehicles in the tracking station, for example. We also think we’ve knocked out an inertia tensor bug that was causing radial decouplers to eject with inconsistent force directions and magnitudes (and messing up our Korolev Crosses).

While we’ve knocked out quite a few big bugs over the past couple of months, there’s still plenty of work to do. We’re hoping that this upcoming update makes a big dent in some of the most frustrating issues you’ve been encountering, but we don’t intend to let up at all in our pursuit of the remaining bugs and performance issues standing in the way of a stable, reliably performant gameplay experience. Our bug-hunting momentum is good and morale is high.

Bug Reports Subforum

I mentioned last week that Dakota Callahan and the Community Team were continuing to add new functionality to the Bug Reports Subforum. You can now upvote issues that you have encountered, add additional information to existing bugs (especially handy to the devs when a bug is caused by a weird or complex edge case - for example, it’s already been instrumental in helping us to track down a VAB "not enough resources" issue), and see the list sorted by prevalence. This will give our team an up-to-date view of the community’s most requested fixes. After the v0.1.3.0 update goes out, our hope is that both we and the community can get a faster and clearer picture of community priorities via this subforum. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Weekly Challenge

Last week’s challenge produced some very clever Gilly landers dockers, and some very original low-gravity rovers.

How about this space dualie by Socraticrat?

Or this incredible lander by ChaddingtonDuck:

In addition to celebrating all the challenge-inspired community creations over the past week, we also posted a Player Highlight calling out Coriolis, one of our most prolific vehicle builders. We’ve been enjoying their creations for a long time, and we can’t wait to see what they come up with next!

Another Coriolis masterpiece

This week, we’re challenging you to make bases! Sure, you can land in a cool spot. But can you land other stuff near the same spot to make an off-planet village? We’ll have colonies one day, but that’s no reason not to do some early scouting for the best camping spots! Here are your goals:

• Primary goal: land a habitat that can hold at least 20 kerbals on the surface of the Mun or Minmus. It should have solar panels and at least one antenna
• Secondary goal: Near your initial habitat, land a pressurized rover that can hold at least 6 Kerbals, and land an observation tower that is as tall as possible (for scanning the horizon for interesting rocks from the comfort of a sofa or beanbag chair)
• Jeb-level goal: Use the same transport vehicle design (booster, transfer stages, sky crane, etc.) to deliver each of the above base elements
• Val-level goal: Build this base on a body outside Kerbin's sphere of influence.
• Tim C-level goal: Build this base within 1km of a unique point of interest (e.g. the mohole, Dres canyon, Vall crevasse, etc.)

Good luck, space campers!

P.S.: The title of this post is not my fault. Please blame our Art Director, Kristina Ness. 

Can you please talk about or briefly as a side note in the next dev update even if its another photo of the effects, or a sentence? 

• Thermal/Re-entry effects/aero effects
• and how the HDRP test/implementaion is going?

 

i would much rather have something that is said by a person that knows what's going on.. I think that some people might be interested in how the implementation of the HDRP is going or the Thermal/Re-entry/aero effects.

[Alexoff]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

You know full well 90% of those criticisms hardly fall under constructive.

And thanks to the developers for the "updates", in which they tell how they are working on fixing bugs, are they constructive?

1 hour ago, Spicat said:

there are plenty of mods being developed for ksp2

The variety of mods for KSP2 is just a pale shadow of what has been done for KSP1.

[Spicat]

5 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

The variety of mods for KSP2 is just a pale shadow of what has been done for KSP1.

When you compare less than 4 months of modding to 10 years of mods, obviously yes. That's irrelevant to the conversation though.

[Bej Kerman]

7 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

You know full well 90% of those criticisms hardly fall under constructive.

And thanks to the developers for the "updates", in which they tell how they are working on fixing bugs, are they constructive?

They're giving you the transparency you asked for. Or are you saying you would rather they be opaque instead?

[Alexoff]

31 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

They're giving you the transparency you asked for. Or are you saying you would rather they be opaque instead?

Where is this transparency? What will science look like? Does anyone work with thermal effects?

31 minutes ago, Spicat said:

When you compare less than 4 months of modding to 10 years of mods, obviously yes. That's irrelevant to the conversation though.

Have you seen the letter from the modders?

Edited June 12, 2023 by Alexoff

[Spicat]

19 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Have you seen the letter from the modders?

What's the point that you are trying to make?

You compare a 4 months old game to a 10 years modding scene, obviously there are less mods in ksp2.

And from what I can see from the modding ksp discord, there are some promising modders out there. Multiplayer mod, tech tree mod, parts mods (check the SORRY mod, pretty great) , graphics mods (the waterfall equivalent is already there), planet making mod, QoL mods...

Give them time and they will make the game great alongside devs, I'm sure about that. The same way ksp1 built a great community.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Spicat

[Bej Kerman]

19 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

24 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

They're giving you the transparency you asked for. Or are you saying you would rather they be opaque instead?

Where is this transparency?

Is this one of those goalposts with wheels?

[LoSBoL]

20 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Have you seen the letter from the modders?

So why didn't you refer to the letter in your first post, you know the cause why there are so few mods right now, why be so opaque?

[Alexoff]

3 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

So why didn't you refer to the letter in your first post, you know the cause why there are so few mods right now, why be so opaque?

Yes, indeed, I completely forgot! I apologize to everyone whose feelings I hurt! Added! Now I have the right to ask questions about transparency?

15 minutes ago, Spicat said:

What's the point that you are trying to make?

You compare a 4 months old game to a 10 years modding scene, obviously there are less mods in ksp2.

How is the KSP2 system different from the KSP1? For example, the addition of a mechjeb, in my opinion, would not require many years of development now, it would be enough to upgrade it.

[LoSBoL]

49 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Now I have the right to ask questions about transparency?

You can see the general reaction to the new formatting for yourself. 

[RocketRockington]

35 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

You can see the general reaction to the new formatting for yourself. 

The reaction to transparency was good initially.  It's going to be less and less good if it continues to only be about 10 bugs.  

[cocoscacao]

16 hours ago, ArmchairGravy said:

there's been no mention of thermal systems for a while. What is the status of thermal effects?

Probably in the next update, after the drag is fixed. 

[Spicat]

1 hour ago, Alexoff said:

How is the KSP2 system different from the KSP1? For example, the addition of a mechjeb, in my opinion, would not require many years of development now, it would be enough to upgrade it.

https://spacedock.info/pack/487/MechJeb Lite

4 months is not that much time to replicate all the mods from ksp1 but there are some early implementation.

[razark]

If the weekly reports they're submitting aren't up to your standards, perhaps you should talk to them about their performance, see if you can get them some additional training, or just talk to HR and have them replaced.

[Wheehaw Kerman]

3 hours ago, Alexoff said:

And thanks to the developers for the "updates", in which they tell how they are working on fixing bugs, are they constructive?

The variety of mods for KSP2 is just a pale shadow of what has been done for KSP1.

Three-four months isn’t a lot of time.  Give the modding community a decade or so, and we might have as many mods.  I say “might”, because I expect that KSP2 1.0 is going to be much more complete and far broader in scope than KSP, and won’t need as much modding.

[Alexoff]

2 hours ago, Spicat said:

https://spacedock.info/pack/487/MechJeb Lite

4 months is not that much time to replicate all the mods from ksp1 but there are some early implementation.

1 hour ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

Three-four months isn’t a lot of time.  Give the modding community a decade or so, and we might have as many mods.  I say “might”, because I expect that KSP2 1.0 is going to be much more complete and far broader in scope than KSP, and won’t need as much modding.

And then what can be discussed in the game until 10 years or so have passed?

[kdaviper]

3 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

The reaction to transparency was good initially.  It's going to be less and less good if it continues to only be about 10 bugs.  

How many bugs do you want them to talk about?

[RocketRockington]

22 minutes ago, kdaviper said:

How many bugs do you want them to talk about?

They need to start talking about the genuine progress of the feature roadmap, not just bugs.  EG: What's the state of science.  What's the state of reentry heating.  What's the state of other feature work.    Also about the state of the team - eg: How many people are actually still working full time on KSP2 nowadays and how many have shifted over to the new project. 

That is, if they want people to actually have genuine knowledge about what they're buying if they're buying it for the 'potential' vs the 'reality'.

And most people bought based off of potential - go read the steam reviews if you disagree - most of the positive steam reviews - especially early on when most of the sales happened - are based off of hope for the future vs the reality of the game as launched.  People who actually are getting value out of the game as it is right now, are getting fewer and fewer - this weekend KSP2 didn't even break 300 peak users.  

Edited June 12, 2023 by RocketRockington

[kanabeach83]

20 hours ago, ArmchairGravy said:

J'ai remarqué qu'il n'y avait aucune mention de systèmes thermiques depuis un moment. Quel est le statut des effets thermiques ?

Translation: I noticed that there hasn't been any mention of thermal systems for a while. What is the status of thermal effects?

ils n'arrivent même pas à faire tourner le jeu convenablement, autant dire que des ajouts de réalisme comme le système thermique risque de prendre des mois, voir des années avant leur implantation.

ne rêvez pa, le jeu est déjà mort. c'est un "early access" tamponné à vie.

Translation:  They can't even run the game properly, so realism additions like the thermal system may take months or even years before they are implemented.

Don't dream, the game is already dead. It is an "early access" stamped for life.

Edited June 12, 2023 by adsii1970
This post has been edited by a member of the moderation team. English translation added.

[nestor]

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we are trying find a balance between bug fixing, performance improvements, new content and update releasing. That means that we are making progress in all of the above but probably none of them is as fast as people would like to. 

We have been sharing more on the bug fixing side because we have seen a lot of interest in that area but that doesn't mean we are not making progress in other areas.

We are actually making very good progress on Science and we already have a bunch of stuff ready to be shared in the following weeks (if you don't mind us showing in-progress stuff).

On Re-entry, the team working on that has been exploring several solutions but they all come with challenges and they are working through those challenges in order to pick the best solution. There is great material for a future Dev post for sure.