Newest Squadcast: Highlights, lots of new info about .24

[RocketPilot573]

Okay, .24 and that DLC are going to be AWESOME! All those things such as multiplayer, money, contracts, Career, and Asteroids, we've always been told that it was all in the far, far future, but now it's actually happening!

Edited February 8, 2014 by RocketPilot573

[sjwt]

This is what I find the most interesting, albeit purely from a technical standpoint. If they are not 'on rails', then as far as I can see the game will need to do physics on them to calculate their velocity and draw their orbits, just like flights in progress that you can see from map view. This is fine with small numbers, but as demonstrated here, as the number of flights increases, it has a very noticeable effect on the framerate. I wonder if, unlike part count, it will be possible to address this source of poor performance. I hope this gives the devs the incentive to try.

My guess (and not as a Mod) Would be that due to the Asteroides being so small as to not have gravity and that they can not create thrust on their own, that Squad would be putting in a extremely optimised sub routine to handle asteroids to lower the overhead, numbers would only need to be crunched when they impact with something or enter gravity wells.

Remembering that the biggest CPU drain is not 'per ship' or even 'Per part' but rather the Gestalt effect of multiple parts.

[Comrade Jenkens]

Hmmm... does this mean will finally get SRBs that will work well on space shuttles?

[sjwt]

If somebody didn't expect this to happen like CAREER MODE, or SCIENCE!, or MULTIPLAYER!, really, they are missing a few candies on their jar.

You seem to have this backwards.. Its silly Squad for not anticipating working on something with NASA, they should of had resources on standby to be allocated to NASA at the drop of a hat. Have you considered that NASA might have *requested* a deadline. They dont let every tom dick and harry sign on.

Called it, skyrim style "infinite quests" contracts. Exactly what I get for expecting more.

<golf clap="">umm golf clap?

Will keep some hope for this one.

I'm not sure your point here, unless you are saying you are taking on anything you can perceive as negative as a guarantee and any thing you can perceive as a positive as rather unlikely..

Kind of a contradicting statement.

Not sure what the misunderstanding is here, Tutorials are going to be open and suggestive rather than 'Insert Tab A into Slot A', I would guess you will be seeing scripting that looks for outcomes, not specific movements. ie 'Now add enough thrust and fuel to this payload so that it can reach orbit'

I really want to see how "asteroids not on tracks" work.

Don't we all, my guess is as a single item that does not have gravity its self, nore a way to exert force directly we will see a dedicated subroutine to handle them, as a single part the overhead should be minimal. REmember its not the physics of where the ship is going or what is doing that is the big over head, but rather the gestalt feedback from the total number of parts.

So instead of asteroids we get loner rocks. I hope at least there's a lot of them.

Dont forget to scale those asteroids.</golf>

[Albert VDS]

Okay, .24 and that DLC are going to be AWESOME! All those things such as multiplayer, money, contracts, Career, and Asteroids, we've always been told that it was all in the far, far future, but now it's actually happening!

Don't count on multiplayer in 0.24 as mentioned before. IIRC it's going to be a few updates before we use it.

[jcraft]

Called it, skyrim style "infinite quests" contracts. Exactly what I get for expecting more.

I'm not sure what you actually expected from this feature - dynamically generated missions seem like perfect fit for the type of gameplay KSP is offering.

Edited February 8, 2014 by jcraft

[Comrade Jenkens]

Called it, skyrim style "infinite quests" contracts. Exactly what I get for expecting more.

Eh? Would you rather have more than infinite quests??

[RocketPilot573]

Hmmm... does this mean will finally get SRBs that will work well on space shuttles?

I just realized that too, the current stock SRBs are practically useless...

And isn't the SLS SRBs just modified Shuttle ones?

[RTS321]

Remembering that the biggest CPU drain is not 'per ship' or even 'Per part' but rather the Gestalt effect of multiple parts.

I agree with you that the biggest CPU drain is a result of parts, however, I and many others have found that large numbers of flights (which these asteroids will have to be treated as if not 'on rails') do significantly detract from the framerate. For example, I have found that a Kerbal X on the launchpad and no other flights will give me 40 fps, whereas with 50 other flights it drops to 26 fps (the full results can be seen in the thread linked in my above post). I very much hope that if Squad does find a way to optimise the effect that asteroids will have on performance, the optimisation will be applicable to ships as well. For people who tend to stick to one save for a long time and in the process accumulate many flights, this will be incredibly helpful.

Edited February 8, 2014 by RTS321

[Soda Popinski]

Wow. The Jumbo 64s can be boosters on the SLS style system. They mentioned one of these new bigger rockets will be like a 6 part Jumbo asparagus.

What will Whackjob do with these?!

[arq]

When they say asteroids will not be 'on rails', I can only imagine they mean to say that they will not be like Mun or Duna or another celestial body. I expect they will behave exactly like ships or debris. With Keplerian physics, there's no point in simulating these in real-time, since the orbital predictions are exact (up to error accumulation from finite precision arithmetic). They will load in to physics at 2.5km and otherwise use patched conics, exactly like vessels. Even the active vessel uses 'rails' during timewarp.

[Ravenchant]

Eh? Would you rather have more than infinite quests??

I'd guess he was expecting something more...inspired than the equivalent of grindy "Bring me 20 wolf pelts and you get some gold" quests. Though as KSP has neither a story nor diverse characters, that may be difficult.

Good thing the rest of news sounds awesome

[Gojira]

Wow. The Jumbo 64s can be boosters on the SLS style system. They mentioned one of these new bigger rockets will be like a 6 part Jumbo asparagus.

What will Whackjob do with these?!

Whatever you do...

Never summon the Whackjob.

[Whackjob]

Whatever you do...

Never summon the Whackjob.

Wow. The Jumbo 64s can be boosters on the SLS style system. They mentioned one of these new bigger rockets will be like a 6 part Jumbo asparagus.

What will Whackjob do with these?!

Especially given that the rigidity factors are going to be redone? I can't say exactly, but I imagine it will mean bigger big things.

[m4rt14n]

Give me faster optimized game engine any day before multiplayer...

[m4rt14n]

Also, I wonder if more stable joints mean the end of Kraken Drive....

[Comrade Jenkens]

http://i.imgur.com/JViSryI.jpg

Especially given that the rigidity factors are going to be redone? I can't say exactly, but I imagine it will mean bigger big things.

I have so much beard envy right now...

Edit: It may not mean the end of the Kraken drive but it will probably be more difficult to push the pieces around to cause the effect. the game still runs in the same way so the Kraken will still be lurking in the void...

[Rowsdower]

In case you want to watch the video for yourselves, you can find it here in this article.

[czokletmuss]

BTW Rowsdower I hope you guys are planning more things like this interview in the future - this was a great idea

[The Destroyer]

New size parts, movable astreroids, missions, part testing, new turorials...

ALMOST.

BEST.

UPDATE EVER.

(0.18 and 0.17 were the best... and 0.22 for science!)

[Rowsdower]

BTW Rowsdower I hope you guys are planning more things like this interview in the future - this was a great idea

It depends on everyone's schedules. I'd love to see more live guests on Squadcast, myself, but considering this one with Harv worked well for a pre-recorded interview, we'll see.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

#SaveTheMagicBoulder

[RocketPilot573]

Seriously, the awesomeness of this update will challenge .18 and .17!

[Whackjob]

I wonder, given the new mechanic of moveable asteroids, if the #MagicBoulder will now not only return, but be recoverable. If so, I'm going to decorate the VAB with it.

[Scotius]

If you can find a way to safely dock with it. As couple of AARs shown us, close contact with Magic Boulder might mean sudden and explosive end to unlucky ship.