my notes so far

[chainchomp]

I write notes as I play, recording things I see which could be ironed a bit with relatively little alteration, from my view on the outside looking in, so some may be unworkable with minimal effort, but that's not up to me to decide. This is the truncated version as most of what I wonder about is more explicitly denied than even my thoughts below the bold disclaimer line in this post.

1. I primarily have to ask, plead, beg to have the seam between the two local scenes patched up.

In this case I only mean hide the seam better. It creates a crazy scan-line in water landings, and look at what it does to this intensely large satellite. Pretty ugly.

2. I assume it would be far more difficult, but I would like provisions to grant planet terrain the ability to interact with non-Convex-checked mesh colliders at least a little better.

3. Not sure if it's still a bug as I've been building mods mostly since 0.23, but in 0.22 at very least, there were many incidents in vehicle assembly which would remove some green hard points from displaying and functioning when adding a new 'first part' after removing the last one. Resuming construction on that assembly then became very difficult. I have no suggestion for this other than it should be smoothed out a bit if it wasn't in 0.23.

4. Please grant transmission equiptment the ability to stay 'extended' after transmission.

5. I don't think this is a function of weather, so I'll suggest it. Mun and Minmus should be brighter in the night sky, and while in space. Since even dark objects with direct sunlight on them are much brighter than stars, let alone the brightly-coloured moons Kerbin has.

6. Umbilical refuelling in space. I know a flexible material is not currently in the game plan, but it would assist Modders a lot if there was a framework for it - in much the same way there's a framework for struts based on end-points. My current thoughts are that a series of joints, with a procedural coating spanning the space between the joints to form a length of umbilical would work - joint number and rigidity could be defined by the part.cfg and you have yourself another cheap thing to do in LKO.

7. Implement spoiler tags into forum BBcode posting options.

8. With things like the Occulus Rift well underway, looking at 2014/15, stereoscopic 3D rendering compatability is something I would suggest heavy consideration for. I don't know the feasibility, but then I also don't think anyone really knows to what magnitude people will grab this new technology and games that allow for it. But really, no screen will ever capture the scope of space like immersive 3D virtual reality.

Those are my thoughts, please consider them.

Much love.

"but also..." he slipped into the end of his statement.

DISCLAIMER: So as to not break the rules, do not take the following as suggestions. You've been warned, they're NOT suggestions, just my thinking in post form which can be used freely if you were to read them and like them. So just ignore below this line or else you're accepting responsibility (and credit, ey? ey?) in my place for what could well be taken as a suggestion by accident.

1. Visually, Arora is a big part of LEO if you have a window and aren't orbiting equatorially. It seems like it could be a weather effect so I put it "below the line", but this one seems like a no-brainer. Then again so does (taboo)lagrange(/taboo), but that has better reasons to be exempt from the game. Perhaps look to the methods implemented by games like World of Warcraft, which does half-decent arora rendering on the extreme-cheap.

2. When the (taboo)Multiplayer(/taboo) is created for 1.0 (or whenever) you could address the problem of launch platform occupation by utilizing Different Countries with thier own efforts, and facilities. After all, there is almost nothing that embodies our own Space Trips like multi-national collaboration - ie NASA rides the Soyuz from the snow now instead of just Russian engines from sunny Florida, why? Because working together gets you places. Countries, it's amazing.

3. Considering Kerbals are little green men, inhabiting a different stellarsystem, they would do some things differently to Humanity. Where Kerbals live is a much hated issue it seems, since the processing cost of rendering anything is enormous. However I came up with a cheap and exciting solution! Mexico-city based architectural firm BNKR Arquitectura made a big fuss a while back about the concept of what was coined "Earthscraper". The way I see it, there is a very small amount of triangles in what is effectively a lid - which due to it's form-factor can easily be rendered as very low-res 2D sprite graphics at a distance.

[chainchomp]

Additionally, Marco (Samsonart) and Miguel (Maxmaps) mentioned (in the recent Devnotes thread about the NASA Mission Pack unveiling) they'll be giving the rapidly aging tutorials an overhaul. My thoughts headed into making development easier territory.

>crowd sourcing some content (with some quality control) would be an interesting and cost effective way to approach some of these things.

>It wouldn't be too difficult to add a flight recorder into the game

>a web portal to upload flights for scrutiny

>slightly more of a challenge to compile recorded flights into general goals

Upon reflection, I don't think this would be difficult at all, and could prove to be a Major feature of the game with very little effort, comparably. Example being the way some old RTS games had a booming industry of user-generated content involving maps and campaign design. Considering you already host mod content upload/download from servers, surely resources for holding a mission portal for a community focused collaboration aren't so much of a problem, but I wouldn't know.

Thus suggestions:

9. Build a UI function which can deliver mission directives to the HUD as a mission is selected from a window (pre-launch? post-launch?). The window acting as a download interface for a xx-kilobyte mission file.

10. Build a tool for designing lightweight/superficial mission files (ie, doesn't require downloading new hard content, just directives, time-frames, etcetera). The cheap version is a part to tag flights to record, but would be a bit clumsy to use, and frustrating if a cool mission hasn't got the part, and thus misses out. With this I'm thinking that Supreme Commander does a good job of game recording, as it stores all certain variables of a previous match in volatile memory in case after a match you suddenly feel like you wanted it to be recorded - in KSP however, if all flights were stored in a similar way to this, it would limit mission recording to isolated blocks of "while computer is on", which I suppose could be fairly easily sewn back together if they were all recorded, checking to see if end and begin positions of a flight are the same for authentication purposes... this recording could be augmented with the tool initially mentioned in this suggestion (10). Alternatively, you could allow the engaging of a mission recording within the same session as launch occurred. Alternatively again you could allow for a mission to determine whether it starts from launch or from being docked in whichever altitude situation the station is in around the planet its orbiting. THAT is a good idea, anyway, enough thinking 'aloud'.

11-a. Build a lightweight, local executable which KSP feeds any mission files created by the user, which talks with a mission file server and acts as an upload interface.

11-b. Build and have hosted a portal which can find and list mission files without browsing, in order to upload them using a web-based interface.

11-ideal. Have KSP talk with a mission file server and have a UI window element act as an upload interface, as well as the browse/filter/download interface.

12. Pardon my reality but this would definitely create a lot of unreasonable content, so as I said to start with, this would require some quality control. Even if it was just a user-generated ranking function for mission listings with any negative listings that don't appear to be returning to a positive rank after x-timeframe being removed from mission file servers perhaps to save on space. This would ensure that there would be a similar sense of aiming high to that which exists in the Modding Community, because I mean... nobody wants to be the author of a terrible mod, but it happens, and their rank feedback is visible enough that avoiding or engaging with that content is easy pancakes instead of hours of tedious trial and error sifting.

Again, these are just suggestions and I'm sure we all know that here, but the more I think about this, the more I can't find anything wrong with it. I would love anyone's thoughts on this latter post, whether you can add to it or poke holes in it there will be progress. Discuss.

Much love.

[chainchomp]

More.

These are almost "below the line" type suggestions, but it's not been expressly condemned, so I can't really tell.

Second celestial body I landed on was Eve (Mun, Eve, Minmus, etcetera). Venus analogue, is, unbelievably enough, a tremendously boring place. When I got into orbit there, I was hoping for dense atmosphere that posed all sorts of challenges, I had not looked too closely, again, this was early in my experience. (spoilers) I was disappointed to find a vague visual atmosphere. I wasn't depressed by this, I was still simply Jebediah to be there, in orbit around Eve. However, the story goes on, and to more relevant places. (spoilers) I land, after a very exciting trip down (not sarcasm, I was nearly dying of excitement), I roved the terrain for a while, and decided it was a tragic waste of time outside of the cold hard science points (going to another planet for a numerical score IS depressing though). I decided it would be far more interesting with biomes to attempt to reach, and something, anything (except long boring distances) standing in your roving way. Now... (spoilers) I had solar panels, which as we all know = infinite energy to travel infinte distances by wheels. This killed my enjoyment of Eve to the point where I'm very unlikely to ever go back, even for the numerical score.

However, there are a small few things that could create a wriggling serpent out of Eve. Thus, suggestions (Warning! Harshness incoming):

13. Obscuring atmosphere which requires the use of scanning technology to determine at very least a safe place to land. Which may well already be contained within mods for satellite tech and clouds, respectively, but that doesn't mean "any place is fine - it doesn't matter" is a good motto for interplanetary landing (not that anyone has said that to my knowledge, but that's what the game is currently saying).

14. Atmospheric heat affecting parts. Ok, so maybe degrading parts is expressly condemned, but I mean wear and tear aren't necessary in a game like this, I completely agree! (spoilers) But you can land on the surface of the local star, get out, and walk around, warp time to 100,000. And everything is fine. (spoilers) So what happens after "Everything is melting, including the electronicsssss..."? You have a picnic on the sun, of course. What would cause Eve to pose a challenge? If your rover melted in the insane atmospheric conditions.

15. Finite energy. Unlike fuel, there is infinite energy out there as well as on Kerbin. Maybe it's unimportant, because for example, the Mars rovers' power supplies all last and have lasted far longer than any of my MET durations. This is also something worth discussing heavily. Rovers have, literally, no reason to be resupplied, and outside of both removing any science from them for transport back home and exploring biomes which are >50km apart, no reason to be followed if they contain enough experiments, have wheels, and solar panels. Ok, so 15 is more like: Give us a good reason to follow a rover somewhere.

So these were a slashing, in contrast to my other, more positive posts. Surely not everyone elses' suggestions are positive though, right? Or am I about to encounter some kind of secret inexhaustible vortex of TL;DR that consumes all negative feedback? I'm new to the forums so I don't know the MO very well yet.

Much love.

[KvickFlygarn87]

Implement spoiler tags

They had that, but you could write breaky-break-break HTML code in them.

[tetryds]

You have some good points there, I don't agree with all of them but they make sense.

The most constructive posts are usually negative (you cannot improve something if everyone says it's good enough, right?)

There is a difference between criticism and outrage, your post fits the former.

I would like the idea of an ingame web-interface or GUI (like consoles) that brings me spaceport to get mods and crafts right away.

I don't know if it's possible to load plugins from ingame, but there is nothing wrong about a "this mod has a plugin, you must reload the game in order for it to work" and provide a quick reload game button.

Btw, multiplayer is not taboo anymore, it's a feature we waiting for.

[chainchomp]

>you could write breaky-break-break HTML code in them.

Ah, that makes sense then. I don't know if there's a safer container out there yet... I think probably not.

I would like the idea of an ingame web-interface or GUI (like consoles) that brings me spaceport to get mods and crafts right away.

I don't know if it's possible to load plugins from ingame, but there is nothing wrong about a "this mod has a plugin, you must reload the game in order for it to work" and provide a quick reload game button.

Btw, multiplayer is not taboo anymore, it's a feature we waiting for.

From what I've experienced, you can load at least the following from KSC:

• config.xml
  
• .dll
  
• plugin UI files
  
• part.cfg
  
• models
  
• textures
  

...and at least from the Menu:

• .craft
  
• persistent.cfg
  

Dunno about Scenario banners or Flags, I assume they'd be like the plugin UI files though.

I was mainly thinking for missions, considering the NASA Mission Pack is definitely going to steer missions into the light in a big way, but looking at the way most platforms are trending these days, it wouldn't be abnormal if KSP had it's own internal Media-PC-like OS similar to Steam's Big Picture, Xbox interface, PS3 interface, etcetera. The community and such being internal. That could be so promising. I do think that at very least missions should be this way though, considering that a mission file containing some checkboxes for achieving mission directives would be ultra lightweight, and easy to download on the fly. It's a step in that direction.

Good news about multiplayer... that will need some heavy discussion to help iron out.

[frizzank]

I like the idea of community created missions and a way to share them in-game. I am sure it is on the drawing board along with real missions when they come about.

[tetryds]

chainchomp:

You can actually load .craft files from the SPH/VAB right away.

Just put them on the folder and open the "Load" tab and they will show up.

(Didn't try to paste them with the tab open but I think it needs to be open to refresh)