K.E.R.B. Feedback Megathread

[Dakota]

Making this thread to centralize feedback about the K.E.R.B. including the bug report forum and report listing.

Feel free to drop your feedback below!

[The Space Peacock]

Suggestion: If a bug's status is unchanged from the last K.E.R.B., leave it out and fill the slot with the next-in-line bug. This way we get updates on more of the top rated community bugs, and dont have some bug's status be stuck at 'under investigation' for weeks

[Paperzlel]

I think having a better way to access archives as a non-moderator would be a good way to streamline the process.
One of my gripes right now is when I check the subforum, and notice that there's no bug report, so I make my own, and then the next day I look and it's been merged with a formerly archived report, which I didn't know of until that point.
Being able to double-check for an archived report, and then linking it in a new one, or even a button that mentions that "hey a user has had this bug in the latest version" to forum mods could be a lot easier when making reports after a patch.
As for fixed bugs in said archive, perhaps another forum for the "fixed bugs" would be a good choice, if for anything else the number of fixed bugs
And for the bi-weekly K.E.R.B, having an extra section that's maybe a paragraph on the more optimisation-based problems (object rendering and surface shaders) to answer such questions, and if any more pop up, they still talked about, because while we do understand (hopefully) that they're not easy to fix, they're still important to know about, possibly something on the potential solutions to the issues as well.

[The Aziz]

If you need more help for certain bugs - better reproduction process, more data, logs, anything - say it loudly in the post. Last time I saw there was a problem with tidally locked planet flickering at high warp, it almost went unnoticed. I try to add as much as possible when I can but I bet more often than not even more would be helpful.

Also, just a wild thought: list of top priority bugs from every category, crashes, construction, flight, map, environment etc. I often take a look at the top 20 list and not see something that's bothering me very much, thus lose hope that it's gonna be touched anytime soon.

And yeah, that "controversial" decision about leaving out long-term bugs with no difference in status, at least mention them in a sentence or two.

Best of luck - a friendly QAer (who also has to now deal with user reports)

Edited November 1, 2023 by The Aziz

[Spicat]

9 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Also, just a wild thought: list of top priority bugs from every category, crashes, construction, flight, map, environment etc. I often take a look at the top 20 list and not see something that's bothering me very much, thus lose hope that it's gonna be touched anytime soon.

That's a great idea!

I try to share bug reports that are important (in my opinion) on the discord, and sometimes it works, but sometimes there are gamebreaking bugs that get only 2-3 upvotes and that I'm sure a lot of people encounter.

I don't know what's the best way to "advertise" them a bit.

Maybe we can select bug reports that has not a lot of upvotes but that we think are gamebreaking at the end of each KERB report. Different one each time. Maybe Bug Hunters can select those? As we have to check bug reports often and knows the ones that go unnoticed but shouldn't. Obviously, this is just to "advertise" those bug reports, and not to show a status.

[Vl3d]

The only issue I see is that when the bug reports get archived, a lot of them are lost if the QA team did not register and save them in their internal system.

It's difficult for players to recheck all the previously reported bugs and resubmit them.

Ideally every bug should get an UID from QA so we know it's been seen - that way even if a bug is not resubmitted, at least we know it's lost.

[Scarecrow71]

@Dakota

One question I have is how the bugs are prioritized by IG's internal teams.  We know that those of us on the forum can (and will) vote on reported bugs that show up in the bug reports subforum, and that those votes weigh pretty heavily on how things are categorized to be in the top 20 (or whatever number you wish to use).  But I'm quite certain that the internal team is finding their own bugs to be fixed, and that they have their own list of the bugs that need to be fixed because of reasons.  Things like they need this fixed because this system relies on it, or this bug actually causes these other bugs, or stuff like that.  So how does the internal team go about prioritizing bugs they find when the community has prioritized bugs they've found?  Especially when the 2 lists may not be in sync with each other.

Just curious.  I know the team is working hard to resolve all bugs, but I'm just curious on what happens with bugs the internal team finds that aren't yet reported here, and how those bugs are prioritized against the list the community gives them.

[Socraticat]

I've seen a few bugs I reported on get fixed, others got buried (particularly the one about getting turned on the runway). I'm not even sure that one is in the KERB.

I've also felt a bit discouraged from submitting new bug reports because progress on current bugs is so slow. Why should I submit a report for something that will get buried with other submissions? Are those still being looked at?

I know asking for communication from the community is sort of a double edged sword lately, but I do agree with the sentiment that if there is more data needed for certain bugs, you should be soliciting the few players who are engaged to help you get that data. Maybe instead of asking the community at large, ask players to sign up to be part of a volunteer focus group- Like an on call list of players willing to simply play the game with the intent of recreating bugs for the purpose of identifying how to fix it.

Why do I think this is going to help? I remember reading someone's comment about how they are not great at recreating bugs because they spend more time working on the game rather than playing. It's anecdotal, for sure, and maybe someone else remembers that post or comment, but the point remains that the players are REALLY good at finding bugs, lol. Asking a volunteer group would be a lot better than asking the community at large.

I'd sign an NDA for that, and be willing to be paid Zero Dollars, if it meant the game could get to a higher quality sooner rather than later.

[PDCWolf]

I think the point of the K.E.R.B is to tell us what you're working on rather than what you think is important. Have you been working 6 weeks on the same bug? the K.E.R.B. should reflect it. If an item is dropped from the list, it should be mentioned why (unless it shows up in patch notes, obviously). Otherwise what you end up doing is obscuring the process. You can easily see this reflected in the amount of questions on the K.E.R.B when the whole list changed and some of those bugs were indeed not fixed. 

This:

Quote

 

As a major change to the K.E.R.B., we are going to start removing entries to the K.E.R.B. that require fundamental feature overhauls to be "fixed" in the community's eyes, such as Surface Rendering Fragment Shaders are Inefficient and KSP2 is Calculating the Physics of all Parts of all Crafts. We see these as MAJOR issues to features, as you do, but we also understand the scope of what it would take to get these resolved. We really want the K.E.R.B. to be focused on issues that exist patch-to-patch instead of milestone-to-milestone. 

Is the absolute opposite of what you should do.

[dansiegel30]

IG can start by explaining what is K.E.R.B. actually - taking a swag, its your bug reports??  Can't be a bug reporting system, as that seems to simply be done with forum posts.  A definition would help too - I'm guessing "KSP2 Effortless Reported Bugs" (as the bugs with high Effort are being removed from K.E.R.B. as they cant be addressed until a major release/redesign, not in a corrective content release patch)

Edited November 9, 2023 by dansiegel30

[TFA3393]

The K.E.R.B. report itself is a good way of communicating in my opinion but when you go to the forums and look at the list of reports it looks like chaos.  Am I submitting a duplicate report, should I comment on a report and just say I have this issue too.  Am I creating more issues but submitting a sloppy report on an issue that is already well known.  I think at the very least we need a way to sort the forums by upvotes.  At the most we need something that looks like an in game reporting system.  It could be an opt in feature but a way to press a few buttons and possibly

-record the last 30 seconds of the game. (or at least record currently and try and duplicate the bug)

-record hardware specs

-give a description of what is happening

-see similar reports of what is happening and add to those reports

-submit a game file

Even if you only had 10% of the player base sign up for something like that I think the amount of quality reports you would get would be huge and it would all be better organized.

On 11/1/2023 at 3:23 PM, Socraticat said:

I'd sign an NDA for that, and be willing to be paid Zero Dollars, if it meant the game could get to a higher quality sooner rather than later.

Also totally agree with this^

[The Aziz]

A wild thought occured - perhaps, instead of literally copying our own reports that have been moved to the archive, could we just report them using the forum button, as still not fixed? 

Reports coming from different players coming separately make sense, but my own thread being merged with my own thread....

[dragonart777]

feed back :

so first off.  i must say  thank you team for this update.  i am really having a lot of fun.  and it is addictive really.  been playing none stop for days. i know this is just the start but it is a really big change from day one.   i got to admit you all did good on this update. 

bug report :    

1*  lights or not working.  if i turn them on they flash for a sic like i just blown the bulbs.    i been told to save and reload and it well fix this problem. but it does not always work.  

2*   had a problem with my kerbal  in the tin can.  i took him out in space and when i jump back in he is no longer in control of my  ship.

i go into space mode.  and i do not see the blue lines.  only thing  i can do it fly blindly with no markers or waypoints.     i reloaded save point and it same thing.   if you go where you switch the seats  there is no kerbal there.  more less saying it is a empty ship..

 

3*  biggest bug  is i am addictive to the game and can not pull away.  4am i been on since 7am.   i need sunlight

 

suggestion:

is there a better way to make the < building blocks >.   none of them line up.  this is like trying to trigger someone with OCD   no i don't have OCD  kind of.    tryed to build a truck for my rover and  yea  they over lap.  or do not line up at all.   so when i go and try to drive it,  they fall apart.      also i need a koffee maker.  

[DaveLChgo]

Good morning all!    kinda bugs me that the portraits don't seem to follow logic.   When launching an Apollo style craft.  You will see 2 portraits of empty seats with one occupied seat.  Scroll down and then you will see 2 occupied seats.  When you have mech parts in there the mech portraits are inserted as well.  

1. Toggle the mech portraits off.
2. Group the portraits by part.  And establish a hierarchy.  The CM portraits shouldn't be at the bottom in the example above.

Orbit lines are still hiding themselves in the map view. Have not found any correlation to what the cause might be.

Staging ..... when undocking and then redocking....  the staging gets totally "F'd" up.  I think the staging is being merged instead of appended.   Everything from the 1st stage of each craft gets combined into the new 1st stage.   Everything from the 2nd stage from each craft gets combine into a new 2nd stage. And so on....   "Wrong - Wrong"   On so many levels Wrong.   It should be something similar to this, All stages of the.... target craft or lighter craft or smaller craft.... gets put above or below the stages of the docking craft.   Two sets of pics below illustrate the "merging" of stages currently.

• Set one

1. Before seperation
2. CM after
3. LM after
4. After Dock  - a mess of staging now. 
   1. Oh lets also massively reduce the size of or simply toggle off the completion screens.....  "Please!!!"  Look at the big mostly empty  grey box that covers a third of my screen pop up and tell me that something happened.  "Yes I know... we just docked.  Now go back to your room."

  

• Set Two.

1.  Before Separation
2.  CM after
3.  LM after
4.  After Dock  - a mess of staging now. 

In the last pic I want to use the decoupler below the LM to separate from the booster.  But the staging has that merged with the decoupler in the CM.  Its coincidence that they happen to have the same stage number after sep so now that are mashed together after dock.  Now the manual task of select the correct decoupler and moving it to an empty stage.  I don't remember this behavior in KSP1.  Thanks for listening!

Edited January 6 by DaveLChgo

[The Space Peacock]

friendly reminder that this thread is for feedback about the K.E.R.B. only, not for bug reports or game feedback. those go here (bug reports) or here (feedback)

[Kwriss]

Ah sorry dont know what KERB is . I delete & copy paste

[Navoan]

My two cents here are: It is really quite difficult to search the forum for anything to check if an issue has been reported before.  And the effort to make a bug report is non-trivial.  I completely  understand the forum is old and has technical debt, thus it isn't worth 'fixing'.
Right now people don't know if their bug reports and/or requests etc, which get archived, are simply now in the void, or if they got recorded/discussed before that action was taken.  So they may feel disheartened due to the feeling that their effort was mostly pointless.

Potential fix?  How about a simple google sheets (or equivalent) with all the currently tracked bugs.  Imo this list wouldn't even need to have statuses for all bugs/requests/features/whatever, it could simply be a repository for the community to know what information has been gathered before.  A simple note in the docs saying 'need more info' with a link to the forum bug post would even allow the community to give help where it's beneficial.  And there would be one common, and searchable, place for us to go to find these things.  

Right now, if something is reported as a bug, and the devs feel it's working as intended, it simply gets archived and poof the community have no way to know.  If archived posts were still contained in this list (which granted would get large) at least we could still see X had been posted before and the resolution of said thing.  Can't be fun for you Bug Hunters to constantly need to merge reports because people searched but were still unable to find any matching issue.

[Flush Foot]

@Navoan I also do try to search to see if something is already known and in the end, known or not, I will usually still submit my report (the 'bug packager' tool/"mod" someone came up with is fairly useful there) and then in the forum post/report I will include the link to the existing bug if I think I found a match (and think/hope that I have more information to offer them about it, or at least just to show 'not a one-off')

But I do like your 'Google Sheet' idea as a single source of truth

[steveman0]

My biggest grip is that the forum search feature doesn't work very well. It often reports no posts found for simple one or two word searches despite a few minutes of googling pointing me to an active/open bug report for the subject I looked up. It's hard for me to feel confident in filing a bug report when I can't be sure it hasn't been reported a dozen+ times (like the case I was referring to above).

[Flush Foot]

I totally get that 'fear', and while I'm sure the likes of @Spicat and @Dakota can weigh in better than me here, I hope that the moderators/devs are "happier" with more reports than less (though ideally they're not just "not working" reports but actually contain files and 'what was happening when it broke' to [a] point the devs towards possible clues and also to help highlight how often things are happening in-game)

[allanp11]

Is there a place to see the entire list of bugs/things they are working on, not only the top 20ish? I made a few posts here with suggestions but have no idea if they are new ideas or if I'm just adding noise to what they already know. As already mentioned, with all the best intentions the forum search function isn't always the best.

[Scarecrow71]

6 hours ago, allanp11 said:

Is there a place to see the entire list of bugs/things they are working on, not only the top 20ish? I made a few posts here with suggestions but have no idea if they are new ideas or if I'm just adding noise to what they already know. As already mentioned, with all the best intentions the forum search function isn't always the best.

Unfortunately, the answer is "no".  In fact, it was stated that they are actually REMOVING things they are working on from the KERB reports.