The ARM megathread

[Nikolai]

I meant the "sidereal day or synodic day" thing.

The sidereal day is the time required to rotate once. The synodic day is the time required to go from noon to noon, which is slightly longer, since Kerbin has moved in its orbit in the meantime -- so it has to rotate a little more for the same spot to spin to "underneath" the sun. (On Earth, the synodic day is 24 hours long; the sidereal day is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds long, approximately.)

[Specialist290]

I meant the "sidereal day or synodic day" thing.

A sidereal day is the period of time it takes for the planet to complete a full planetary rotation relative to the celestial sphere, which is assumed for convenience to be fixed.

A synodic day is the period of time it takes for the planet to complete a full planetary rotation relative to its Sun (i.e. from noon to noon).

Hope this helps

EDIT: Ninja'd! Again!

[The Jedi Master]

The sidereal day is the time required to rotate once. The synodic day is the time required to go from noon to noon, which is slightly longer, since Kerbin has moved in its orbit in the meantime -- so it has to rotate a little more for the same spot to spin to "underneath" the sun. (On Earth, the synodic day is 24 hours long; the sidereal day is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds long, approximately.)

OK, that makes sense. Thanks.

[NovaSilisko]

I might just need new glasses (I do anyway) but I haven't noticed any normal maps on any of the asteroids we've seen so far. I think that would improve their appearance a ton. It would also be fantastic if random boulders could be scattered around their surfaces (not movable things, just stuck there for variety).

[problemecium]

tuuuuuuuuuuuueeeeeeeeesssssssssssdayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

(In other words, I predicted Tuesday a week ago and I'm sticking to it.)

[Nikolai]

I caught the end of Kofeyh's stream and during the marathon I did see a few bugs.

Here's another interesting bug, perhaps:

Apparently, it showed the velocity with respect to target continuing to increase even as the rocket and its target were at rest with respect to one another. This could be really frustrating for players trying to intercept asteroids.

Ultimately, I sympathize with you -- I can't wait to play with the new toys, either. But I'd rather they work according to the way they should, rather than have the new version rushed out to us based on a few minutes' worth of apparently bug-free running.

[Mr. Boncrete]

Here's another interesting bug, perhaps:

Apparently, it showed the velocity with respect to target continuing to increase even as the rocket and its target were at rest with respect to one another. This could be really frustrating for players trying to intercept asteroids.

Ultimately, I sympathize with you -- I can't wait to play with the new toys, either. But I'd rather they work according to the way they should, rather than have the new version rushed out to us based on a few minutes' worth of apparently bug-free running.

This isn't a new bug, I first saw it in August of last year (using the most up-to-date version of KSP, although I forget which). It used to happen to me fairly frequently, but I haven't seen it in a while. I actually thought they had fixed it. Either the original bug hasn't been fixed, or it popped up again in the case of heliocentric rendezvous.

It's pretty frustrating when that happens, but you can still dock. You just have to do it CAREFULLY

[Brotoro]

The Wiki lists the 6-hour day of Kerbin as its sidereal day.

[DMagic]

The Wiki lists the 6-hour day of Kerbin as its sidereal day.

Yep, a Kerbin solar day is 21650.81276574 seconds, or, about 51 seconds longer than a sidereal day. There are 426 sidereal days per Kerbin year, and therefore, by definition, 425 solar days. Why I know this to such a great degree of accuracy is not important.

[LethalDose]

Here's another interesting bug, perhaps:

Apparently, it showed the velocity with respect to target continuing to increase even as the rocket and its target were at rest with respect to one another. This could be really frustrating for players trying to intercept asteroids.

Ultimately, I sympathize with you -- I can't wait to play with the new toys, either. But I'd rather they work according to the way they should, rather than have the new version rushed out to us based on a few minutes' worth of apparently bug-free running.

I want to be clear about something. There are two issues here:

• How SQUAD updates & develops the game
  
• How SQUAD communicates about updates & developments to the game
  

My primary gripe, and the one that is relevant here, is about the second of these two points. I agree that if there are bugs, the bugs should be squashed before release.

But the community should be told that there were unexpected bugs and release will be delayed. If there were major unexpected bugs evident on Tuesday or Wednesday, the community should have been told the release is delayed, and more news will be forthcoming.

I'm sorry if you disagree, but when start selling pre-release software, there is an expectation that the developer will be communication with the consumer. And holding up statements like this:

People just complain.

But, really, people complain no matter what. We're complaning that the game's not released soon enough. We'd complain if it was but had bugs. We'd complain if it was released early and had no bugs but lacked some trivial feature. Honestly, someone will complain that rockets aren't wobbly enough after 0.23.5!

As some kind of legitimate counter-point is pretty condescending. Yes, someone will complain, but the vast majority of the community will be very pleased with the change. You don't have to make everyone happy with every patch. No one is asking for that.

Edited March 29, 2014 by LethalDose

[Nikolai]

The Wiki lists the 6-hour day of Kerbin as its sidereal day.

Thank you. This would seem to be out-of-step with Earth-keeping time as offered in the new ARM pack, but if you start to drill down into it, it gets hairy fast(*), so I don't care that much about that discrepancy. The six-hour period, then, is useful for maintaining a certain heading with respect to "fixed space"(**), not necessarily with respect to the sun's position as seen from the space center; that's what I wanted to know.

(*) There are around 366.25 Earth sidereal days in an Earth year... whether you're talking about an Earth tropical year (which our calendars measure, summer solstice to summer solstice, but Kerbin wouldn't have anyway because its perfectly perpendicular axis doesn't precess) or an Earth sidereal year. If I really started to insist that the developers be consistent with their timekeeping, and they relented and told me exactly what they meant, everyone else would likely find it useless. I just find the length of the day useful for calculating angles and launch times, and that's it.

(**) Yes, I know there isn't such a thing. But for mathematical purposes and setting coordinate axes, it can be useful to pretend there is.

[Sandworm]

To Squad's credit, it is well after 5pm on a friday and someone is still uploading stuff to steam. 9-5 doesn't really exist for indi developers. Late nights are the norm before releases and it is good to see that Squad hasn't packed up for the weekend. The really good news is that the most recent uploads were to 'experimentals' rather 'than scratchpad' -> progress.

[Tw1]

As of 0.24 you can choose between 1 day being a kerbal 6 hr day or Earth day ie 24 hrs.

Aww. Part of me is actually disappointed. I liked the idea of kerbals considering four rotations of their planet one calendar day.

[Nikolai]

But the community should be told that there were unexpected bugs and release will be delayed.

Why? We were never promised a release date initially. All a message of "It's going to be delayed" would do is prompt some people in the community to complain, accurately or not, that they'd happily have played it even in its buggy state and they should have released it when they were originally planning to -- which puts them in a tough spot.

Even if, to speak to your later point, they don't have to please everyone, it's in their best interest to avoid negative publicity whenever possible. Hinting that they could have released at a particular time, but didn't, puts them in a Catch-22 of negative publicity. Either they relent to the people who claim they would be happy with a buggy version, and get the grumblings of those who think this shows Squad to be unprofessional and uncaring about delivering the best-quality product that can to their customers, or they leave the hint and don't listen to the people who want the new things right away, causing some to grumble that Squad is being too persnickety and simply isn't letting its customers play with that which they paid money for.

Note that this is publicity related to fixing their own errors, which is different in an important way from choosing a direction (e.g., less wobbly rockets) and implementing what they say they will implement. One speaks to the professionalism of the outfit and how people perceive the quality of the product; the other is simply catering (or not) to the tastes of the public, and whether or not the product matches the taste of particular consumers. There's not much they can do about people's individual tastes, but there is a certain amount they can do to limit the evidence available to support accusations that may arise of the company's lack of professionalism. (Not issuing official release dates, and not hinting that they could have released earlier but chose not to, are ways to limit that evidence.)

[Dispatcher]

The latest from Squad: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/content/273-About-the-Release-and-Communication-of-ARM

Actually, "Soon" does not solely belong to Squad. Other developers have said "Soon" too. Bungie used to say that for games long before Halo came along. Its nothing new; just a part of getting a game perfected.

[FlexGunship]

As some kind of legitimate counter-point is pretty condescending. Yes, someone will complain, but the vast majority of the community will be very pleased with the change. You don't have to make everyone happy with every patch. No one is asking for that.

You misunderstand. My statement was that Squad COULD release now. They would suffer the slings and arrows all the same as if they resolved the "last few" bugs and waited to release it.

The devs of this game are genuinely something special. The type of mind that creates KSP is distinctly different from the type of mind that creates any other game.

As such, we should respect their chosen method of releasing the game in the same light that we accept that game they release.

And lastly, ignore all I said. RELEASE THE GAME NOW PLEASE!!!

[Sandworm]

The latest from Squad: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/content/273-About-the-Release-and-Communication-of-ARM

Actually, "Soon" does not solely belong to Squad. Other developers have said "Soon" too. Bungie used to say that for games long before Halo came along. Its nothing new; just a part of getting a game perfected.

They have issued an apology for not yet having the patch ready. That's something. It's not a full explanation, nor is it a promise to be more forthcoming in the future, but it's something. Anyone else remember the scene from The Shawshank Redemption where the protagonist was sending a letter every day to the state asking for money to setup a prison library? Eventually they relented and sent some books. His response: "Now I'm going to write two a day."

Added on request: I don't mean to say that complaining always yields positive results. I believe that Squad has reacted to valid requests for information regarding this update. That's new behavior for them. We now know they are listening and are willing to respond to criticism.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Sandworm

[ThermalShark]

A lot of pages back in this thread i saw people talking about with Unity 5 and it's "64-bit support". I'm not going to read all the pages from there to find out if someone already said this, so i apologize if it has already been said:

Unity's upcoming 64-bit support is for the editor only!

"Editor" is the program the developers use to make the game, not the program the players use to play.

So, for us end users this only means Squad may take slightly less time to make stuff. Besides, Unity 5 will take a long time to be released, probably after 0.24, and possibly after 0.25.

[Dispatcher]

A lot of pages back in this thread i saw people talking about with Unity 5 and it's "64-bit support". I'm not going to read all the pages from there to find out if someone already said this, so i apologize if it has already been said:

Unity's upcoming 64-bit support is for the editor only!

That's the way I read it, as far as their own site is concerned.

[FlexGunship]

A lot of pages back in this thread i saw people talking about with Unity 5 and it's "64-bit support". I'm not going to read all the pages from there to find out if someone already said this, so i apologize if it has already been said:

Unity's upcoming 64-bit support is for the editor only!

"Editor" is the program the developers use to make the game, not the program the players use to play.

So, for us end users this only means Squad may take slightly less time to make stuff. Besides, Unity 5 will take a long time to be released, probably after 0.24, and possibly after 0.25.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but two of the biggest drivers for 64-bit support are mods and mods.

On a high level all you gain is more memory. That's good for preloading parts and plug-ins. With 3.75m parts and stiffer rockets (via increased rigid body radial dynamic behavioral limits) some significant mods will be unneeded.

Let's wait and see.

The 64-bit request really should be reevaluated with each version

[r4pt0r]

my thread got merged and lost in the chaos that is the ARM mega thread. so they will release the Arm patch as 23.5, and then a few weeks after that is .24

is that right? i dont want to start playing untill i know i can play for at least a month without restarting career mode again due to update, so i might wait untill .24 if this is the case

[astropapi1]

...and then a few weeks...

There's the problem. They haven't given us a single release date as of yet for neither 0.23.5 or 0.24. They're working hard on the ARM update and then they're going to work on 0.24. The Dev team is "only" 15 people, so they can't work on two big patches at the same time. Now, they've obviously done some progress on 0.24, but I wouldn't expect it to come out too soon.

I hope that cleared it up.

[FlexGunship]

Sigh. Starting to sound like a real software project.

Merge the trunks.

[Frank_G]

Catch one, throw it on the moon of your desire... otherwise it think, the chance will be close or equal to zero.

[LethalDose]

Why? We were never promised a release date initially. All a message of "It's going to be delayed" would do is prompt some people in the community to complain, accurately or not, that they'd happily have played it even in its buggy state and they should have released it when they were originally planning to -- which puts them in a tough spot.

To answer "why [should the community be told that there were major bugs]", I would give two, separate reasons:

1. The earlier they address issues the less back-lash they'll see. This is my opinion, but I think SQUAD has shown poor judgment on when to address issues (not just this release). I think if they had come out and said "we wanted to get this out this week but hit major bugs, so it has to be pushed back", there would be less backlash and much less speculation on the forums. But they did this to themselves. Again. Rowsdower posted that the "Soon" meme has pretty much been worn down to the point of being painful. The situation SQUAD's fault, and I think being honest would have made it less painful.
   
2. The "Minecraft" pre-release model. I made it very clear in the post you incompletely cited that there is an expectation of a certain level of communication on the part of the developer. I refer to Minecraft here because they were important pioneers in how this "pre-release" system works. A lot of people on these forums like to dump on Minecraft for whatever reason, but the fact is they wouldn't be playing KSP right now if Minecraft hadn't paved the way for pre-release. SQUAD is capitalizing their release model, but they're doing a poor job of dealing with the model's pitfalls. Before and after the commercial release, they've been, IMO, very clear about the features they're working on and what to expect. They can effectively communicate with the community, but rarely give concrete release dates for patches. Features sometimes don't show up in the patches they were aiming for, but thats almost never a surprise when the patch launches. Failure to actively communicate with the community leads to the problems we see in this thread. There may be no explicit guarantee, but I think it's ignorant to say there's not an expectation.
   

Also, please note that at no point have demanded, expected, or even asked for a release date. Simply, I'd like to be told that there was misunderstanding between what they meant by "soon" and what was obvious perceived by a substantial portion of community here. /shrug. That's it. And I acknowledge the CM has done that. I think it would have been better handled on Tuesday or Wednesday when the storm was brewing, but this is a situation where late is better than never.

Even if, to speak to your later point, they don't have to please everyone,

I'm not expecting them to.

Even if, to speak to your later point, they don't have to please everyone, it's in their best interest to avoid negative publicity whenever possible. Hinting that they could have released at a particular time, but didn't, puts them in a Catch-22 of negative publicity.

This is what happened, and yes, they should want to avoid negative press. But it's their own fault hyping a product that wasn't ready for release and being vague with a timeline of "soon". I'm saying they failed to avoid negative community reactions and addressing it earlier would have avoided much of the frustration seen here in the forums.

Even if, to speak to your later point, they don't have to please everyone, it's in their best interest to avoid negative publicity whenever possible. Hinting that they could have released at a particular time, but didn't, puts them in a Catch-22 of negative publicity. Either they relent to the people who claim they would be happy with a buggy version, and get the grumblings of those who think this shows Squad to be unprofessional and uncaring about delivering the best-quality product that can to their customers, or they leave the hint and don't listen to the people who want the new things right away, causing some to grumble that Squad is being too persnickety and simply isn't letting its customers play with that which they paid money for.

Note that this is publicity related to fixing their own errors, which is different in an important way from choosing a direction (e.g., less wobbly rockets) and implementing what they say they will implement. One speaks to the professionalism of the outfit and how people perceive the quality of the product; the other is simply catering (or not) to the tastes of the public, and whether or not the product matches the taste of particular consumers. There's not much they can do about people's individual tastes, but there is a certain amount they can do to limit the evidence available to support accusations that may arise of the company's lack of professionalism. (Not issuing official release dates, and not hinting that they could have released earlier but chose not to, are ways to limit that evidence.)

A lot of this seems to be I think that they storm they created was foreseeable, and you draw a false dichotomy above saying they have to upset people wanting quality vs new toys now. Much of this, e.g. style and satisfying everyone with features, I explicitly stated I wasn't complaining about in the incompletely quoted message.

Again, just to be sure I'm staying on point with this message:

The sooner they address an issue (e.g. missed deadlines, miscommunications, canceled/shelved features, etc) and the more clearly they address the issues, the better the community will take it.

Anything else from this post is really unimportant in comparison to that message. I think Rowsdower's recent post was a good start and, again, I hope signs of change in the future.