Hotfix Summer

[Periple]

Super cool that you’ve got your hotfix process figured out! I know just how tricky that can be when you don’t want it to create a lot of extra work for regular development. Nice thing is that after you’ve got a few of them out you’ll feel a lot more comfortable pushing out the big updates too because you know you can fix things quickly in case something catches fire, even if the goal is not to need them in the first place!

I’m also really happy to see some disappointed fans starting to regain their trust in you. Keep up the good work! 

[Alexoff]

9 hours ago, PlanetExpressCaptain said:

I actually disagree with this. It’s a way of letting the community know this is something a part of the team would like to work on but they need to hear that from the community and not just the team. 

And for me, hearing the answer "to the forum" seems not very pleasant and looks like the answer of a bureaucrat. Instead of unanswered questions, it would be better to choose the remaining questions that were not raised at the AMA.

[jacksawild]

15 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

This would probably be the most amazing thing since the original EA launch itself.  We all want this fixed in a patch, but if you manage this in a hot fix?  Gosh darned it all to heck this would be cool.  Cooler than the first time I figured out how to actually get to the Mun.  If you guys make this happen, my faith in the company, and the franchise, would be restored, and this would give me reason to play KSP2.  I can deal with the orbital decay bug.  SOI transitions...not so much.  So thank you for working to get this one squashed!

Yes, it isn't playable for me without trajectories. I don't want to be building massively over engineered rockets just to deal with transfer inefficiencies, which increase exponentialy down the stack. I'd be bored of the game before it even starts.

[Rudolf Meier]

17 hours ago, Nate Simpson said:

..., two other non-feature items also feature in our top ten:

• Rockets are still too wobbly
• ...

Lots to do! Thanks again for submitting such detailed and well-documented bug reports. It’s going to be a busy month!

Well, the wobbliness comes from the game engine itself. It is a known problem. Developers have a pretty good understanding of it and what can be done against it. I tried to present solutions for KSP in KJR next which works not that bad (of course, that's my opinion) and honestly, I don't see why it is such a big deal to present at least a first version of a solution.

(I'm planning to port this to KSP2, but at the moment I have way to many uncertainties about how modding should look like in the future in KSP2.)

[Redneck]

17 hours ago, Nate Simpson said:

Good afternoon, intrepid Kerbonauts!

Lots of stuff to talk about today! As many of you know, a couple of new bugs were introduced with last week’s v0.1.3.0 patch. The most significant of these bugs relates to a loss of atmospheric drag (and physics in general) when capsules are decoupled. For the first time ever, we issued a hotfix to correct that issue yesterday morning.

Yesterday’s v0.1.3.1 hotfix also contained a fix for a VAB bug in which fairing editor UI elements were drawing on top of one another.

We discovered after yesterday’s hotfix that people were unable to launch the game outside of the Private Division launcher. This was not intentional, and has been fixed — due to a configuration error on our end, we accidentally included Steam’s built-in DRM. KSP2 is DRM-free, just like KSP1. The fixed update was pushed to Steam this morning. Sorry for the headache!

We’re testing a second hotfix (timing TBD) that corrects the blurry navball issue. And because we’re sneaky little devils, we’re also doing some testing around a fix for the SOI transition trajectory bug. If these fixes prove stable and low-risk, we’ll release a second hotfix. Fingers crossed! The work that’s gone into the SOI transition issue — number 2 on our top-ten most wanted bugs list — deserves a special mention. Engineers David Tregoning, Mark Jones, and Shalma Wegsman put in colossal efforts to both track down the cause of the issue and to craft a solution. This one has been a long time coming, and it’s great to be able to knock such a big item off the list.

The credit for the fast turnaround on all the latest fixes goes to a well-coordinated joint effort between engineers, production, and QA. We’re still learning as we go, but things are feeling good.

Bugs: The Next Generation

Based on the Bug Reports subforum, these are the community’s 10 most-upvoted bugs:

1. Orbital Decay [25 votes]
2. Incorrect Maneuver on Inclination Change [10 votes]
3. Cannot Change Craft/Vessel Name in Tracking Station [9 votes]
4. AIRBRAKES Deploying on Roll [9 votes]
5. Camera Resets Position Map View [8 votes]
6. Graphic Glitches on AMD [8 votes]
7. Engine Sound Effects Not Playing [7 votes]
8. Cannot Change Symmetry While Holding Strut [7 votes]
9. Center of Mass/Thrust/Pressure Vectors sitting on VAB Floor [6 votes]
10. UI Artifacting [6 votes]

Note: Navball Blurry [18 votes] and SOI Trajectory Line Issues [18 votes] have been left out of the above list since we're considering them for the second hotfix.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit bugs in the subforum. Even if you don’t have a new issue to report, your upvotes help us determine the relative priority of the bugs that have already been posted. While we investigate the bugs above, two other non-feature items also feature in our top ten:

• Rockets are still too wobbly
• SAS causes runaway pitch oscillation for aircraft in flight

Lots to do! Thanks again for submitting such detailed and well-documented bug reports. It’s going to be a busy month!

Art Director Kristina Ness AMA

Did you catch our Art Director’s AMA yesterday? She was asked lots of interesting questions, many of which ranged well beyond the domain of art. She gave fantastic and detailed answers, and if you missed the stream, it’s definitely worth watching here. With the help of streaming-wizard Dakota, she even got to show off some visuals as well! You can find a transcript of the AMA here as well. Thanks, Ness!

KSP2 Steam Sale

This is the second week of Private Division’s 20% off sale for KSP2, which ends on July 13th. If you’ve got any friends who you think might enjoy the last little bit of heat-free reentry during Early Access, now’s a great time to tell them about the sale!

Weekly Challenge

Last week’s Jool 5 challenge produced some of the coolest, most ambitious craft designs we’ve seen in KSP2. Check out this absolute unit from DarlesChickens:

Or this beauty from Razorback:

And here’s a unique one from Tr1gonometry:

We know that in the Wobbly Rocket Era, missions of this kind can be extra challenging. Kudos to everybody who braved the bugs and slipped the surly bonds of Kerbin regardless!

This week’s challenge? You’re putting on an air show! Build a maneuverable stunt plane and show off your fancy flying skills. Buzz the tower! Under the bridge! Do some barrel rolls! To get specific:

• Primary goal: Fly an inside loop, an Immelmann turn, and a split-s turn
• Secondary goal: Fly an outside loop, a barrel roll, and a hammerhead stall turn
• Jeb-level goal: Fly under the R&D Bridge as fast as you can
• Val-level goal: Fly under the parking garage bridges (from the water), under the R&D bridge, and then back through the parking bridges
• Tim C-level goal: Fly a loop arouund the R&D bridge so that you pass under it twice in one maneuver

Don’t forget to wear your G-suit — you’re about generate some wing loads that’ll make your crew chief very grumpy! While your screenshots are always welcome, video capture will be the best way to show off your maneuvering prowess. Good luck!

Summer Changes

Now that summer’s here, with all its vacation-related comings and goings, I’ll be letting other parts of our team handle forum posting for a while. In the coming month, you’ll still see the following on the forums:

• Bug report updates
• More AMAs
• Challenges

In addition, we’ll be uploading more gameplay clips to our social channels.

I’ll still be lurking both here and on Discord, so you’ll see me in the comments from time to time. We’ve got a lot of good momentum coming off the last update and we’re already making great headway on the next one. I’m looking forward to sharing our progress with you soon.

@Nate Simpsonthank you sir! Buy a round of beers for the devs! :cheers:  Ill pass on the PR fluff AMA . As far as recommending the game ill pass on that as well game is not in a state yet worth recommending its close but not yet. After the second hotfix and after reentry VFX imo the game will have a solid foundation i will then recommend the game AND change my steam review

Edited July 1, 2023 by Redneck

[The Aziz]

As far as recommendations go, I'm in that weird position where I cannot recommend it to someone, but also I wouldn't not recommend it.

also I don't have people whom I'd recommend it to, no hardcore space nerds in my circles.

[pbau5]

Still no roadmap for fixing invalid trajectories when making interplanetary transfers? It truly confuses me how every single challenge continues to have "return to Kerbin" in it, yet the game won't allow you to plan that return. Blows my mind.

[The Aziz]

What roadmap? It literally says in the first post that if the fix is low risk it will be pushed into next hotfix.

[NoNameWonder]

Why is no one talking about the large wings? The control surfaces have been like a teeter tot since launch but I haven’t seen ANYONE talking about them? 

[PDCWolf]

Said it on another thread, and I'll echo it here: Hotfixes and fast patching is the way EA should go. Congrats on your first Hotfix, DRM mess aside (no one tested the deployed build?). Right now, it feels like a repeat of KSP1, where Squad shied away of public experimentals and fast patches, and used the same "more time to QA" excuse to still present buggy updates anyways. This is specially hurtful when it takes a player 5 minutes to find a bug, bringing forth the obvious argument of "how does QA miss such a thing?".

I'll also repeat myself on another topic: Wobble needs to go. You're punishing players for something they can't predict or solve, and whatever use case for wobble you can imagine can instantly be invalidated by a proper use case for the wobbly construct in a different set of circumstances: the parts are too generalist to have specific wobble constrains, that weird tank config on a rocket, which could instinctively wobble, could also be built the same way as part of a ground base or space station, where it shouldn't wobble. Plus, since we're in a more demanding product, our part budget is lower, yet we're still punished to spent that limited budget on struts or whatever other solution.

 

[RocketRockington]

55 minutes ago, NoNameWonder said:

Why is no one talking about the large wings? The control surfaces have been like a teeter tot since launch but I haven’t seen ANYONE talking about them? 

Because of the much more serious problems in the game.  And because expectations are so low that people hardly notice/complain about stuff like that anymore 

[KUAR]

1 hour ago, NoNameWonder said:

Why is no one talking about the large wings? The control surfaces have been like a teeter tot since launch but I haven’t seen ANYONE talking about them? 

There's a space for suggestions/bug reports here.

[Nate Simpson]

1 hour ago, NoNameWonder said:

Why is no one talking about the large wings? The control surfaces have been like a teeter tot since launch but I haven’t seen ANYONE talking about them? 

I think you may be referring to the same phenomenon listed in the original post as "SAS causes runaway pitch oscillation for aircraft in flight." SAS does not currently like to provide incremental control surface commands - it's very all or nothing right now, which leads to the up-down seesawing. It's bad enough that I don't really even attempt SAS when I'm flying aircraft these days. It's a high-priority issue for us.

[Dakota]

4 hours ago, Redneck said:

Ill pass on the PR fluff AMA

As the one who has been championing these and produced the new video version, what would make you want to tune in?

Honestly, we did it because we think Ness is great and wanted her to have a platform to talk about her art and how things work behind-the-scenes - not really for any PR reason.

[Wheehaw Kerman]

21 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

Showerthought of the day:

If being a software engineer required professional licensure like other disciplines, game releases like this wouldn't happen, because people could (rightfully) lose their privilege to practice.

Yes, I've seen the counterarguments, but software is so integral to our daily lives, it's well past time to put some responsible constraints on the industry.

Where software matters, I mean really matters in the life and death sense, its engineering is taken very, very seriously indeed.  Take a look at avionics.  Engineers are gonna engineer, making cool things, pushing envelopes,  and doing so in increasingly safer and less Kerbal fashion, and they get the importance of safety.

Games don’t matter in that sense.  If a niche game has a buggy EA release, the worst that happens is that a few diehard fans spend a few months yelling at clouds on the forums until it gets patched to the point that the rage subsides.  

Edited July 1, 2023 by Wheehaw Kerman

[JayGrizzLE]

Matt Lowne made a great video on wobbly rockets, please watch this because I think it does a great job covering the player POV on this subject and tackles it from many angles (player experience, lore accuracy, nostalgia).

 

(It's not ripping on KSP 2 btw, the thumbnail just makes it seem that way)

 

 

[Wheehaw Kerman]

20 hours ago, Dakota said:

Don't have a current timeframe in-mind. Depends on a variety of factors, considering these updates are a whole lot of work from a whole lot of people!

We aren't fully disconnecting either, we just wanted to set the expectation that there might not be a message from Nate next week.

Our other planned comms will still happen though - and of course if there's a hotfix/patch, there will be release notes posted here as well.

Productive work first and upNates only when you won’t be delaying fixes and features to deliver them please.  You’ve established that you are on a roll and things are getting better.  

[Periple]

17 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

Where software matters, I mean really matters in the life and death sense, its engineering is taken very, very seriously indeed.  Take a look at avionics.  Engineers are gonna engineer, making cool things, pushing envelopes,  and doing so in increasingly safer and less Kerbal fashion, and they get the importance of safety.

Too true! And even there, licensing engineers like you license doctors, lawyers, or electricians wouldn’t help because software is a collective effort and it’s usually impossible to determine exactly whose fault any given problem is.

Every programmer makes mistakes, and teams that are able to produce relatively bug-free software do so not because they have better engineers but because they have better collective practices that catch and fix most bugs before they make it to production. If an electrician makes an illegal installation which causes a fire it’s quite clear whose fault it was; this isn’t the case in software.

I do agree that software should be better regulated — Tesla’s FSD should never have been allowed on public roads in its current state for example — and even games could use some more regulation related to information security and, say, abusive monetization practices — but I don’t think we’d get too many cool games if you needed a license to practice gamedev and the license was revoked if you released a buggy build! 

[NoNameWonder]

50 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

I think you may be referring to the same phenomenon listed in the original post as "SAS causes runaway pitch oscillation for aircraft in flight." SAS does not currently like to provide incremental control surface commands - it's very all or nothing right now, which leads to the up-down seesawing. It's bad enough that I don't really even attempt SAS when I'm flying aircraft these days. It's a high-priority issue for us.

Thank you for the response! I apologize for the lack of specificity, previously I had an issue where on the large wings, the control surface of the large wing would only seem to be attached in the middle, so the left and right would rotate up and down around the center of the control surface. I guess the issue was actually fixed and I just did not retest it after this latest patch. I went to go grab an image of the problem I was having and it was fixed! Thanks for the hard work the team is putting in!

[mattihase]

23 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

If being a software engineer required professional licensure like other disciplines, game releases like this wouldn't happen, because people could (rightfully) lose their privilege to practice.

Yes, I've seen the counterarguments, but software is so integral to our daily lives, it's well past time to put some responsible constraints on the industry.

No, no, a thousand times no!
You're not going to solve bugs by banishing programmers to the cornfield. I mean, who's gonna fix those bugs if you get rid of us. Besides, something like that would disproportionately hurt indie devs and FOSS contributors.

[jost]

21 minutes ago, mattihase said:

No, no, a thousand times no!
You're not going to solve bugs by banishing programmers to the cornfield. I mean, who's gonna fix those bugs if you get rid of us. Besides, something like that would disproportionately hurt indie devs and FOSS contributors.

I think that a  middle path should be aimed for. 
First: Commercial providers should be treated different than hobbyists (so an open source company like RedHat or Ubuntu should still be liable for any bad things resulting from bugs in their software but hobbyists can still work on fun projects)
Second: I can see why working on high risk things (like medicical  or military stuff/controlling power plants) etc should be regulated. In some way it's already: If you apply for a job in a government or otherwise sensitive area (like military supplier) you need to agree to a lot of background checks. Even in my current job as an sysadmin for one of Germanys public employers insurance agencies  I needed to provide a police certificate of good conduct. 
Of course this doesn't help if the company (or state agency see NSA and wikileaks) have a messy mode of operation. But this is more of an missmanagment issue than bad engineering
Third: There are bugs which should have consequences especially in information security since most of them are actually avoidable or at least possible to migtate with relative simple effort. Bugs can and will happen. Not talking about them and not issuing a patch if it's presence means that your web shop or whole hospitals/universitys etc can be taken hostage by ransomware gangs should have consequences. Not so much for the software engineers ( I thin it's enough if they might be lose their job because of it although I think I woudn't fire them in any case, depends of the kind of bug and how stupid the error was or not) but for managment. Because: Not communicating and not publishing a patch is not a engeneering decision. So: Companys should be fined when they mess up information security. And I can imagine other bughs which should be fined this way.
Third: To put software engineers out of future jobs or fine them with an occupational ban due to bugs in a video game, a web shop or something else which is not actually hurting anybody if it doesn't work like expected seems a little bit harsh to me.

[asmi]

15 hours ago, Dakota said:

As the one who has been championing these and produced the new video version, what would make you want to tune in?

I can't speak for Redneck, but since I'm a software developer, I would love to hear technical folks. I know they tend to be camera-shy and not really into talking, but still - I want to learn more about ins and outs of KSP2 from technical standpoint. Creative side - not so much, sorry, since my professional deformation (abstract reasoning) allows me to see the beauty in ugly pictures which demostrate some cool technology at work.

Edited July 2, 2023 by asmi

[Redneck]

3 hours ago, Dakota said:

As the one who has been championing these and produced the new video version, what would make you want to tune in?

Honestly, we did it because we think Ness is great and wanted her to have a platform to talk about her art and how things work behind-the-scenes - not really for any PR reason.

well  @Dakota nothing against the host or anybody in particular but i would like to see a honest non PR fluff true AMA (ask me anything) ksp 2 type questions that are on the fly or asked in a chat room during the live event. I dont think a bunch of users in a discord asking questions and those questions going into a pool of sorts where they are then cherry-picked and only the "good ones" are addressed is the way to go and just seems a bit dishonest or fake. To me a true AMA event should be exactly that "Ask me anything" in regards to KSP2. And that includes the hard questions as well such as "When is the next patch due out ?" "Why was the game released in the condition it was ?" When will This bug or that bug be fixed ?" THESE are the REAL questions people want to ask. Now granted if some of those are covered by NDA then be honest and say "NDA, I cant talk about that !" people respect that more than PR double-speak and evasion of the question OR the question not being asked at all. And to solve the problem of multiple questions of the same topic being answered repeatedly perhaps when each question is asked AND answered then the question with the answer should be posted or pinned in the chat for late joining people or people that refuse to read can see it. And after that if someone does come in the chat asking a question that has been asked and is pinned then you can expect the other people in the chat to correct that person at which time the moderators of the chat will take care of the punishments of repeat offenders just trying to troll. Other people may add more to this if they like i just thinking off the top of my head. Perhaps this question or topic deserves its own thread. Ill leave that to the very capable moderators in this forum to decide. Lets see how it goes.

EDIT:  After thinking about it i came up with an example. Have you ever watched sitcom on tv and its not in front of a live audience? They add that what they call "canned laughter' to the program and you get the sound of laughter when the joke they telling wasnt even funny. THATS what im talking about. We need something more genuine. More down to earth. A REAL connection between the people at IG and its player base. Anyways yeah umm if more people want to add to this agree or disagree or better ideas please respond to this. They want to hear from us. Tell em nows your chance 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Redneck

[kdaviper]

26 minutes ago, Redneck said:

well  @Dakota nothing against the host or anybody in particular but i would like to see a honest non PR fluff true AMA (ask me anything) ksp 2 type questions that are on the fly or asked in a chat room during the live event. I dont think a bunch of users in a discord asking questions and those questions going into a pool of sorts where they are then cherry-picked and only the "good ones" are addressed is the way to go and just seems a bit dishonest or fake. To me a true AMA event should be exactly that "Ask me anything" in regards to KSP2. And that includes the hard questions as well such as "When is the next patch due out ?" "Why was the game released in the condition it was ?" When will This bug or that bug be fixed ?" THESE are the REAL questions people want to ask. Now granted if some of those are covered by NDA then be honest and say "NDA, I cant talk about that !" people respect that more than PR double-speak and evasion of the question OR the question not being asked at all. And to solve the problem of multiple questions of the same topic being answered repeatedly perhaps when each question is asked AND answered then the question with the answer should be posted or pinned in the chat for late joining people or people that refuse to read can see it. And after that if someone does come in the chat asking a question that has been asked and is pinned then you can expect the other people in the chat to correct that person at which time the moderators of the chat will take care of the punishments of repeat offenders just trying to troll. Other people may add more to this if they like i just thinking off the top of my head. Perhaps this question or topic deserves its own thread. Ill leave that to the very capable moderators in this forum to decide. Lets see how it goes.

What good is it if the answer will be "we don't know" or "that's not my area of expertise?"

 

[Redneck]

16 minutes ago, kdaviper said:

What good is it if the answer will be "we don't know" or "that's not my area of expertise?"

 

you tell me. What would you like to see not see or change? And how would you change it?

Edited July 1, 2023 by Redneck