.24 Preview Vids are on Youtube

[Franklin]

I'm aware you can toggle Kerbal death already, but so far it's just been off by default and no menu option to toggle it. I guess my question more applies to there being contractual reputation now, and death is a consideration, so it's been turned on moving forward by default?

I mean I'm down with it, I hated how meaningless deaths were up to this point. Just curious if that's what he was hinting at in the video.

[jofwu]

Apparently it's a difference between the time it takes the planet to rotate and the length of the day (which is slightly different due to Kerbin orbiting the sun). Currently (according to the wiki), the rotation is 6 hours, but the "day" is actually 6 hours 51 seconds. So they changed the day to be 6 hours, which means the rotation will probably be something like 5 hours 59 minutes and 9 seconds.

Where did they announce that the day will be shorter?

The Kerbin sidereal day WAS 6 hours. You're saying they've sped up Kerbin's rotation such that the solar day will be 6 hours instead.

According to the wiki, this WAS:

length solar day = 21600s / (1 - 21600s / 9203544.6s) = 21650.8s = 6 hours 50.6 seconds

Assuming Kerbin's orbital period is the same, now we have:

length of sidreal day = 21600s / (1 + 21600s / 9203544.6s) = 21549.4s = 5 hours 59 min 9.4 seconds

The difference in-game is the switch to solar time- so the sun will always be overhead at "noon" (3:00:00?) on Kerbin. Before, the sun would gradually be lower in the sky every day until it becomes "midnight" at "noon". With the switch to "Kerbal time", I think the switch away from sidereal would make sense. Why would Kerbals count off their days relative to the stars and not their own sun?

So.. This is definitely going to be a thing in 0.24?

I'm curious what this means for the Kerbal year... Did they change Kerbin's orbital velocity to make 1 revolution = 1 year, or, if not, exactly how long do they arbitrarily define a year? The year used to flip over every time Kerbin completed a revolution (skipping over however many hours/minutes/seconds were left over and starting from 0:00:00 for the new year. But if the time is relative to the sun you can't just set the clock to 0 like this.

Edited July 14, 2014 by jofwu

[Holyvision]

I think we crashed the forums for a moment there.

Yea I saw that too

[Franklin]

It sounds sad, but I'm really glad they changed it so throttle starts at 50% on launch pad.

It's a change that means absolutely nothing to veteran players, but the first time I tried getting into the game I bloody well could not figure out how to get the thing to launch. Setting it to 50% will help so many of us stupid, new players.

[Alshain]

It sounds sad, but I'm really glad they changed it so throttle starts at 50% on launch pad.

It's a change that means absolutely nothing to veteran players, but the first time I tried getting into the game I bloody well could not figure out how to get the thing to launch. Setting it to 50% will help so many of us stupid, new players.

It means something to veteran players too, it's one less annoyance. 50% is a good starting point for a rocket of almost any kind unless your TWR is right at 1 and now there is one less tedious task that we have to do.

[FleetAdmiralJ]

Where did they announce that the day will be shorter?

...

So.. This is definitely going to be a thing in 0.24?

I'm curious what this means for the Kerbal year... Did they change Kerbin's orbital velocity to make 1 revolution = 1 year, or, if not, exactly how long do they arbitrarily define a year? The year used to flip over every time Kerbin completed a revolution (skipping over however many hours/minutes/seconds were left over and starting from 0:00:00 for the new year. But if the time is relative to the sun you can't just set the clock to 0 like this.

A couple of the preview videos had it. As for the year time. I don't know. But sync orbit is based on sidereal day, right? So now it won't just be "6 hours" to do a synch orbit. It will also change the altitude you put things into KSO. And I just memorized what it was too

[The Destroyer]

What exactly does "rep" do? Does rep mean you get more challenging contracts, and if you have a bad rep you might not get any contracts at all? Or does it alter money reward?

[FleetAdmiralJ]

What exactly does "rep" do? Does rep mean you get more challenging contracts, and if you have a bad rep you might not get any contracts at all? Or does it alter money reward?

Yep, that is how it works as I understand it

[megatiger78]

danny2462 has his up

[cantab]

It means something to veteran players too, it's one less annoyance. 50% is a good starting point for a rocket of almost any kind unless your TWR is right at 1 and now there is one less tedious task that we have to do.

Generally speaking I launch at full throttle. Firstly you want to get up to speed quickly, and secondly many of my rockets don't throttle back until the gravity turn anyway. Indeed I'd say a rocket capable of getting off the pad at half throttle (and not using SRBs) has way too much engine.

Edit: thanks! You just gave me an idea for a summer programming project! I'll write a "Hello, world!"-style 64-bit operating system using x86 assembly and VirtualBox. Hm. How will I find time to play 0.24? And how will I find time for my wife and my three kids? Choices, choices...

Off topic, but you could have a look at http://kolibrios.org/en/

[LadyAthena]

"That's a big Twinky."

That's what she said

[megatiger78]

also dannys video shows kerbal rescue iss possible

[John FX]

I found this on the net and thought of SQUAD.

Edited July 14, 2014 by John FX

[Korro]

danny2462 has his up

If you had read the Thread you would know that dannys's Video is for hours in FleetAdmiralJ's Playlist which containts all 0.24 Preview Videos

Here the link to FleetAdmiralJ Youtube-Playlist

[cpast]

also dannys video shows kerbal rescue iss possible

Who let *Danny* have a Kerbal rescue contract!?

[Francesco]

-Assemblies in VAB seem rotated 90* counterclockwise.

What. The. Hell.

The ship had to be rotated once on the launchpad, not inside the effin' VAB.

So now we have to pan the camera around the ship every time?

Am I missing something?

Because this just seems to be silly.

[Franklin]

I don't know and really dislike this mission type. I had hoped that mission would only appear if you would strand your own kerbals. This seems artificial and bad

Still an awesome update of course and really looking forward to it of course...

I unno, right now the planet seems dead, and devoid of any life beyond what's at the KSC. Having random Kerbals floating in space is a nice first step towards having a more populated planet. Maybe we'll even see competing space agencies down the road (the ones that lost that Kerbal up there), or civilian sites who fear the black magic flying skyscrapers.

Having some sign of life on your own planet is something I can get behind.

I'd also like to think perhaps you aren't the only one launching rockets at the KSC. Perhaps you're just put in charge of priority contracts, and meandering stuff is done off-camera.

edit: I mean who trains these dudes? Clearly there's a lot of action going on behind the scenes.

[biohazard15]

What. The. Hell.

The ship had to be rotated once on the launchpad, not inside the effin' VAB.

So now we have to pan the camera around the ship every time?

Am I missing something?

Because this just seems to be silly.

It actually makes sense, because now you'll get your rocket on a launchpad exactly in the same position as it was in VAB view. That won't be very useful for a simple rockets, but it allows an easier building of Delta IV-esque designs.

[Kerano]

Oh man I'm excited, not just because of the videos but because of this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/2ah3o5/first_contract_preview_video/civ2bke

We're playing this a weeeee bit closer to the vest this time, so the media group should be launching videos at earliest a day before, but probably not even that.

I hope this means in a few hours we'll be able to play.

[Rowsdower]

I think we crashed the forums for a moment there.

It's actually a bit of an ongoing issue that we're working on our host with at the moment. If you want to say that the colossal might of the community brought it down, though, go right ahead.

I hope this means in a few hours we'll be able to play.

We're close, but not quite "a few hours" close. Not just yet. We're still pushing out some new builds. Unlike last time, the fact that these videos are coming out now means that it's no longer a matter of weeks.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Rowsdower

[MonkeyFuzz]

I didn't see it picked apart by anyone, but several people have said that these video preview versions only get released to Scott Manley and the others only shortly before their release. In Manley's video he compares his parachute problem to a NASA test in Hawaii that happened "over the weekend".

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/28/nasa-launch-saucer-vehicle-parachute-hawaii-mars

That test was on Saturday, June 28. It would seem he made this video before the end of that week, so by Friday, July 4. They probably got their copies a week-and-a-half ago.

[LadyAthena]

I unno, right now the planet seems dead, and devoid of any life beyond what's at the KSC. Having random Kerbals floating in space is a nice first step towards having a more populated planet. Maybe we'll even see competing space agencies down the road (the ones that lost that Kerbal up there), or civilian sites who fear the black magic flying skyscrapers.

Having some sign of life on your own planet is something I can get behind.

I'd also like to think perhaps you aren't the only one launching rockets at the KSC. Perhaps you're just put in charge of priority contracts, and meandering stuff is done off-camera.

edit: I mean who trains these dudes? Clearly there's a lot of action going on behind the scenes.

^ This. While at first I thought "randomly generated kerbals spawning? !!!" But then I thought about it.. Well it makes sense if I'm not the only one launching rockets...

[cpast]

It's actually a bit of an ongoing issue that we're working on our host with at the moment. If you want to say that the colossal might of the community brought it down, though, go right ahead.

On another forum I'm on, we (well, I) call this "community DDOS".

[FleetAdmiralJ]

What. The. Hell.

The ship had to be rotated once on the launchpad, not inside the effin' VAB.

So now we have to pan the camera around the ship every time?

Am I missing something?

Because this just seems to be silly.

Interesting. It's something I didn't notice before. It's also a change made in the last 2 weeks because the videos done around the first of July have the capsule (which is what I assume the OP looked at as reference) facing the camera while the most recent videos have it facing sideways. Yet, the rocket is still facing pod door facing the camera on the pad.

Also interestingly is that neither video done by Scott Manley with the pod doing that actually noted that it did that.

This means that whatever you build "facing you" in the VAB would be turned sideways on the pad. For ships with 4x symmetry, this won't really matter, but ships with 2x symmetry it will. and it will make it so that if you put boosters on the side in the VAB, they'll actually be on the north-south axis on the launchpad (which is actually really the best way to have them).

Of course, the counter to that is that it may be confusing to have the ship turn 90 degrees from the VAB to the pad.

[FleetAdmiralJ]

We're close, but not quite "a few hours" close. Not just yet. We're still pushing out some new builds. Unlike last time, the fact that these videos are coming out now means that it's no longer a matter of weeks.

Well, considering "last time" the videos came out 8 days before release, if they're doing them closer than last time...