The Grand 0.24 Discussion Thread

[Uncle Mort]

Kerbal Engineer Redux is available in a version that works with 0.24 now

That's handy to know although I've always been a MJ user, thanks.

I completed my mission to rescue Philfen. I did over-engineer and ended up making a loss of 23,696 in funds.

[Uncle Mort]

Now Shelcal is stuck in orbit!

One question; in Contracts you get an advance and then more on completion. Does the completion amount include or exclude the advance?

I could test but does anyone know offhand?

[The Destroyer]

Has no one noticed that the throttle goes to 50% when switching to vessels as well? Imagine the scenario: You land your craft on the Mun, switch to another vessel, and when you come back it will automatically throttle up and take off with out your input.

I personally think there was absolutely nothing wrong with leaving throttle at 0 on start. Why did they have to change it?

I'm fine with launch but switching vessels- Imagine a space station!

Read your edit: Good, devs probably thought of this.

I found something while reading the change log a work today that makes me so happy. The ctrl+click feature is back!! I can't remember which version took it out but it was a few ago and I've missed it ever since. It's been improved too.

If you don't know what I'm babbling about, it's a small feature in the editors that allows you to ctrl+click on a part on your craft and it will take you to that part in the parts list. And now it also shows you the info about that the part which is nice.

That....

Is very useful! Like when you dont want to copy paste but find the part!

Edited July 19, 2014 by The Destroyer

[MarvinKitFox]

Some thoughts on contract content and pricing..

Part 2..

It is always a good idea to combine contracts in a single mission, that way one can save money.

For example, I am now combining my:

1) Rescue Dermal from orbit: 54000

and my

2) go to Duna, plant a flag, do science on the surface. 82000

with the incredibly difficult

3) fire a Kerbodyne KR-2L Advanced Engine in orbit of Kerbin... 956497 yes, 9 hundred thousand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny, I though landing a Kerbal on Duna would be a teensy bit more valuable than igniting an engine around Kerbin?

[Esme]

First impressions (bog-standard unmodded KSP 0.24): Thought I;d give teh contract system a gio, even though it wasn't something that I'd been interested in. The positive news - I found it reasonably fun! The bad - I'm puzzled. I've taken teh test an LVT 45 engine, and have flown it within the parameters stated twice, then staged it (it was fitted with chutres), and brought the capsule down safely. The chutes on the '45 stage certainly seemed to be having SOME effect as they instantly deployed and the capsule fell past it at quite a speed, until I deployed the capsule's chute. And on one of the flights, the last stage came down within 950m of the capsule, and clearly fully deployed chutes a few seconds after the capsule did. Yet I have not yet got contract complete for the engine test. Mind you, I've been presuming that the engineers will get the data they need on recovery of the engine - perhaps, I'm incorrect in this? So - what PRECISELY do I have to do to fulfill the contract, aside from fly the engine within the given parameters?

Other than that...

Mildly disappointed not to see sattellites available at the start, some form of wheels too. I am seeing improved performance on my usual settings, but those are very low. I know there's quite a way to go before the 1.0 release, but I do think it;d be a mistake to simply have the default settings be 'everything graphic fantastically high', as this could deter people who, like myself, simply can't afford the kind of PC that can run KSP with everything turned up to 11. KSP looks great even with things turned way down! I'd suggest low default settings and a big button asking if people want to try even better graphics, or some such. Doing it the other way around risks causing PC's to lock up if KSP is started on the high settings (as I did very first time I ran it), which could get newcomers thinking they can't run it at all.

[kenbobo]

First impressions (bog-standard unmodded KSP 0.24): Thought I;d give teh contract system a gio, even though it wasn't something that I'd been interested in. The positive news - I found it reasonably fun! The bad - I'm puzzled. I've taken teh test an LVT 45 engine, and have flown it within the parameters..... So - what PRECISELY do I have to do to fulfill the contract, aside from fly the engine within the given parameters?

right click engine and hit Run Test.

[BagelRabbit]

Heh. I've ben trying to have completely reusable rockets, and so far, it's been working out really well.

I managed to get from a single SRB on my first launch, to Mun orbit on my third. Funds were a bit high (~600,000) with that one, but because all parts were recovered, the total funds to launch were less than half that. (Oh, and during that launch, I fulfilled nine contracts!)

Advice: Place parts on your rocket's Launch Stability Enhancers to ground-test them, test and then immediately cut parachutes on the way up, and use five-sided symmetry when four is too few and six is too expensive.

Planning on rescuing a Kerbal, landing him on the Mun and/or Minmus, escaping the Kerbol system, and returning successfully with the next launch. Wish me luck!

[SciMan]

This is something confirmed as needing to get fixed.

While that fix is being done, can that part have it's mass and physics calculations re-enabled?

Right now both of the new parts have "PhysicsSignificance = 1" on them.

Same with both of the old RCS blocks.

Since when is it OK to disable physics on parts that both apply thrust to the ship and have significant mass?

After all, thrusters that have physics disabled will have an effective Thrust-to-Mass ratio of INFINITY.

Call me crazy, but that can't be right.

[cpast]

Why does the ratio of engine thrust to engine mass matter at all? The relevant criteria is engine thrust to *vessel* mass. Or is there something I'm missing?

[ArmchairGravy]

I've unlocked the tree and have a million in Funds. I've gotten missions to Duna, Ike, Eve, Gilly, and Jool. I've not yet been asked to plant a flag on Minmus or capture an asteroid. Are there contracts for asteroid captures? Is Minmus a red-head stepchild?

I like how planes and probes are useful!

[problemecium]

Forgive me if someone's mentioned this, but if not I figured I should: On the 64-bit client, I'm having trouble right-clicking things (EVAs, parts) - I have to click about eleventy zillion times before the menu shows up. I think the cause is either that the window for detecting clicks as such is too short, being only a small portion of the duration of each frame, or that the "timeout" for distinguishing right-clicks from clicks-and-drags is too short.

[Jim Kernan]

No issues here! Just wanted to thank Squad for this update and am looking forward to many more. Love this game!! Great job!!

[Fr8monkey]

Forgive me if someone's mentioned this, but if not I figured I should: On the 64-bit client, I'm having trouble right-clicking things (EVAs, parts) - I have to click about eleventy zillion times before the menu shows up. I think the cause is either that the window for detecting clicks as such is too short, being only a small portion of the duration of each frame, or that the "timeout" for distinguishing right-clicks from clicks-and-drags is too short.

Yeah... That is a problem a few people (including me) are having.

[Felsmak]

Career mode is actually a lot more fun now when there's something to do!

[LiveHereNow]

Is there a way to recover craft parts? As in, you dump a booster stage but put chutes on it and it lands. How do you recover that portion?

[Kerbart]

This version should have been called Quantum Leap

The impact contracting has on gameplay is amazing and reaches much, much further then science (a necessary part for contracts, I think). There were other versions that were major updates so I wouldn't call it "best update ever" but it's certainly out there.

After a few days, how has it impacted game play for me (and others?):

• As HarvesteR pointed out, we're now experimenting with our launches instead of clinically optimizing. No worries though, there's still room for highly optimized standardized designs!
  
• I now find myself much more playing mission control then in the past. Where, even for complex missions, the paradigm was basically "plan, build, fly" contracts have added a whole new dimension in planning. "Mmmmh perhaps this experiment can hitch along, and I can test that part as well... -- planning has become a whole new game
  
• In addition to planning mission control has matured immensely for me. Now I have to create real checklists for a mission. "Stage between 15000 and 18000m - keep velocity below 800m/s", making sure everything is done in the right order and no experiments and tests are forgotten...
  
• Finally, some parts that were questionable in the past suddenly become immensely valuable. Mobile processing lab not worth dragging into space? Well, now the investment (especially with going through the trouble of retrieving the splashed down launch vehicle) is well worth it, given all those "gather science around Kerbing" contracts. Yeah, I'll send the request to the boys upstairs... They're already on it!! and cashing in $30,000 per experiment is now trivial! I can only imagine the same for bases around, and at the surface, of Mun, Minmus, etc. In the past you'd have those for the satisfaction of setting up a base. NOW you have those for cold economic reasons. Roll in the dough!
  

The game got sooo much richer with this, unbelievable!

[jfull]

I definitely agree with you about the use of permanent stations and bases now.

Whenever a contract comes in for science on a certain location, you don't need to launch a mission if you already have something there

[WaveFunctionP]

I'd like to see the contract requirements relaxed a bit. They are a great idea, but tuned a bit too tightly. Some of them, like the m16 contract requirements I've received have required a very specific window that lies outside of an unpowered decent. I know there is room for creative solutions to meet those goals, but I still feel the restriction can be so tight that they start to be unfun.

[Whackjob]

Love the changes so far! Dabbled a bit with the new engines. Made nothing crazy with them yet. Still feeling everything out and playing with the new career mode.

[WhackyTech]

Scott Manley made a tutorial how to do it. To me it wasn't worth the effort.

[Brightideagaming]

I CANT REVERT MY FLIGHT!!!! HELP!!! Email me at [email protected] to help

[kiwiak]

How much rep do i lose when i kill kerbal?

[The Destroyer]

I've unlocked the tree and have a million in Funds. I've gotten missions to Duna, Ike, Eve, Gilly, and Jool. I've not yet been asked to plant a flag on Minmus or capture an asteroid. Are there contracts for asteroid captures? Is Minmus a red-head stepchild?

I like how planes and probes are useful!

I got a minmus contract right after mun.

[r4pt0r]

Love the changes so far! Dabbled a bit with the new engines. Made nothing crazy with them yet. Still feeling everything out and playing with the new career mode.

i can all ready envision you building the arkingthaad in career with funds

[Asmayus]

This version should have been called Quantum Leap

[*]Finally, some parts that were questionable in the past suddenly become immensely valuable. Mobile processing lab not worth dragging into space? Well, now the investment (especially with going through the trouble of retrieving the splashed down launch vehicle) is well worth it, given all those "gather science around Kerbing" contracts. Yeah, I'll send the request to the boys upstairs... They're already on it!! and cashing in $30,000 per experiment is now trivial! I can only imagine the same for bases around, and at the surface, of Mun, Minmus, etc. In the past you'd have those for the satisfaction of setting up a base. NOW you have those for cold economic reasons. Roll in the dough!

I didn't even think of that! I'd actually experimented with a processing lab to land on the mun but had decided against it after I discovered how terrible the science returns were. I'm still in the bottom third of the tech tree so rovers and return trips are way beyond what I can engineer without melting my cpu. I built a space station before, just for show... but now? oh, this is awesome. Thank you for sharing