Which one?

[Whirligig Girl]

Every post i see as that guy posting pictures of [WHAT BOAT?] or GregroxMun only and no one else I swear going around saying "i drive the hype train"(he does indeed drive the HypeTrain) or posts eluding to it (Which are awesome).

SERIOUSLY. STAY ON TOPIC. MY NAME IS LINEAR AND I RUIN PEOPLE'S FUN.

EDIT: See above.

Fixed this for you.

[Rowsdower]

I'm not sure you can get away with a technicality like that. I know you guys didn't specify the specific date, but fire up the hypetrain on a Sunday or Monday and everyone will expect the reveal on Tuesday. The hypetrain is powered by speculation and lack of information; it will only accelerate until the news drops. Foolhardy is the person who thinks it's easily controllable.

I'm not worried, though. The hypetrain's a bit of fun for the community and I know you buy flame-retardant clothing in bulk.

Just trying to temper the expectations a bit here. Keep things cool. Hype's fine and info's on the way. Just don't get *too* out of hand is all I'm saying

[Renegrade]

Come on guys, it's clearly the banana..

(Although....what if they put in the poll at the top so they could decide which mod to include.... That which is seemed to be fait accompli is actually ..not?)

Just trying to temper the expectations a bit here. Keep things cool. Hype's fine and info's on the way. Just don't get *too* out of hand is all I'm saying

Comin' through.. I gotta get these ties and rails laid down here before the dev notes hit.. #hypetrain_railbuilding_crew~

[marce]

We never gave a specific date for when it'd be announced other than likely sometime this week. Please keep the pitchforks and torches down otherwise.

So it won’t be today most probably.

My personal opinion: they should not take over a parts pack. Parts are the thing modders can create most easily (and I don’t want to downplay the amazing work some modders have done here, I wouldn’t be able to do that ever) with very fine control of performance (at least on user side since unneeded parts can be easily deleted).

I think they should take one of the required plugins (which often have to waste performance due to workarounds first party code wouldn’t have to take), optimize and maintain it.

I consider the following plugin mods absolutely (=KSP is unplayable without them) required:

• ATM (until x64 build is stable)
  
• FAR
  
• DR
  
• KAS
  
• IR
  
• EditorExtensions
  
• Procedural parts
  
• Procedural fairings
  
• TweakScale
  
• (Kerbal Alarm Clock)
  
• (Alternate Resource Panel)
  

Personally I’d also add:

• TAC LS
  
• SCANSat
  
• Karbonite
  
• RPM
  
• KER or MJ
  

and a few more, but SQUAD doesn’t like life support, detailed numbers and resources.

However, considering that they recently added funds and refunding but somehow missed that stuff outside of the load range also has to be recovered (and I can’t even start to imagine how that could have happened) my money is on DebRefund which is also excellent and would have been in my must-have list above if not mentioned here

Edited August 19, 2014 by marce

[DaPatman]

I voted banana (because banana), but I actually think it'll be KAS, assuming Squad can fix the 64-bit grab bug.

(Seriously, I should really stop this)

Though I am also beginning to think it might be BULB, and all the stuff you're posting about other modders' recent activity is you trying to throw us off the scent.

[Red Iron Crown]

I'm guessing its NEAR (The devs probably think FAR in its current iteration is too complex for the stock game).

Though something not mentioned on the list of options is Kerbal Alarm Clock, which I think should be part of the game, even if it isn't the full bells and whistles with transfer windows part of it taken out etc

It's not NEAR or FAR, ferram has said as much in this thread.

KAC would be an excellent choice, but why take out the transfer planner? It's a big thing that's missing from KSP, and I suspect a lot of players never go interplanetary due to a lack of that functionality.

[magico13]

I'd love for it to be EVE or KAC. I don't think it will be anything like Karbonite, since that would likely crush the very open dreams of it (plus Squad's been pretty adamant that they want Resources done in a very specific way (so specific that they don't even know it)). SP+ would be interesting, but do we know how much Hugo got done with the plane parts? It'd be a shame for them to basically be replaced (this was probably discussed, but I don't want to read everything).

I hope it's not DebRefund, because that means a large majority of StageRecovery's mechanics will be made useless (except the new powered recovery), but I wouldn't be surprised to see similar functionality in the future (also, I don't know if Squad would have to buy that code, it's fairly simple code and you could implement it into the stock game really easily without too much overlap. Mission Controller, Kerbal Construction Time, StageRecovery, and now DebRefund all have or have had variations on the same code. If they did buy it, I would hope they'd talk to me and Malkuth as well, since I'm the author of two of those mods and have been working on that code since February, and MissionController has had it for who knows how long before that. And they certainly haven't been talking to me.)

[Random Tank]

Actually, some of the guys got really stoked over the banana this morning. I don't think we'll see that made stock, but it'd be a hoot to see it pop up unannounced if that were ever to happen.

Right, I'm setting you a deadline: The banana must be in the stock game in some form before January 2015. If you don't meet the deadline... well lets just say you better meet the deadline, okay?

[Whirligig Girl]

I'm not sure you can get away with a technicality like that. I know you guys didn't specify the specific date, but fire up the hypetrain on a Sunday or Monday and everyone will expect the reveal on Tuesday. The hypetrain is powered by speculation and lack of information; it will only accelerate until the news drops. Foolhardy is the person who thinks it's easily controllable.

I'm not worried, though. The hypetrain's a bit of fun for the community and I know you buy flame-retardant clothing in bulk.

Certainly it's difficult to control. I've received news that I have to take a mixed goods train to the end of the line and back, but HypePressure doesn't build unless there's passengers. So when I stop at the next station, y'all better get on board quickly. The HypeTrain is now on a journey to the HypeTrainStation of StockModficationHype.

[Red Iron Crown]

Just trying to temper the expectations a bit here. Keep things cool. Hype's fine and info's on the way. Just don't get *too* out of hand is all I'm saying

I figured as much. And this is a bit easier to manage than a release as it's just an announcement, not going to run into last minute delays (it is just an announcement and not a release, isn't it?).

Guess I'll try to find a seat on the train and go along for the ride. Any luxury berths still available? Will meals be served or should I pack something?

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I accidentally voted for other, but I would say all the planet factory planets, KSP is 64 bit, you have NO excuse any more, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Laie]

We never gave a specific date for when it'd be announced other than likely sometime this week.

I'm not sure you can get away with a technicality like that. I know you guys didn't specify the specific date, but fire up the hypetrain on a Sunday or Monday and

Well, noone wanted to fire up anything. Maxmaps(?) couldn't keep his mouth shut, that's all. I don't think this was intentional: now everyone has their hopes up, and when the other shoe finally drops, a large proportion will be disappointed that their wish didn't come true. A nice surprise is always welcome, but I've you've had a lot of time to imagine the best, "nice" doesn't quite cut it.

--

I suspect that it's something along the lines of KAS, ScanSat or an autopilot: actual functionality that has a lot of thought and/or trial-and-error behind it. Most other suggestions I've heard so far are things which Squad could just as well do themselves (delta-V maps, KAC, even parts -- apparently, the price of a well-made a part is one intern-week).

[Red Iron Crown]

Well, noone wanted to fire up anything. Maxmaps(?) couldn't keep his mouth shut, that's all. I don't think this was intentional: now everyone has their hopes up, and when the other shoe finally drops, a large proportion will be disappointed that their wish didn't come true. A nice surprise is always welcome, but I've you've had a lot of time to imagine the best, "nice" doesn't quite cut it.

I have a hard time believing the teaser was an accident, at least I hope not. Something's in the works that will be announced soon, this is pretty clearly meant to drive excitement about it. A bit of speculation and discussion of the mods we want brought into the core game is not all that harmful. Some people will be disappointed that their favorite wasn't selected, but that would be true no matter how it was announced.

[regex]

I consider the following plugin mods absolutely (=KSP is unplayable without them) required:

If we're going for "unplayable without" then we'd have to add Real Solar System to that list.

[Whirligig Girl]

If we're going for "unplayable without" then we'd have to add Real Solar System to that list.

All of these "unplayable without" mods are bull, because if KSP was unplayable without them it would have failed. Not everyone likes RSS, regex. I have a feeling the large majority of people don't use RSS.

I can't belive I have to keep saying this but

Kerbal Space Program is NOT meant to be realistic.

Squad have said over and over and over again that Real-Sized Planets are NOT going to be in KSP.

The big thing with R&D isn't to impose a grind where parts are unlocked as a reward for something. What I want to get out of it is a mechanic through which the game presents itself gradually to players, to not welcome you with an overwhelming wall of content right from the start.

As with the content, the tree itself is being designed to expand the further you get. At, first, you get a few general technologies to research, which in turn open up new nodes which are more specialized, and so on until you're getting to some really specialized stuff towards the higher levels.

We're assigning parts to each of these nodes now with this idea in mind, and so far I think it's going rather well. Each part seems to find its place nicely in the tree we have here.

As for how nodes will be researched, here are my thoughts:

We can't impose any amount of time to unlock something. You could just sit on the pad and timewarp if that were the case, and that's not the sort of gameplay we'd like to see.

I also don't like the idea of spending money directly to research something, as that would reduce R&D to be just a shop catalog.

Instead, I think the most authentic mechanic would be for nodes to require a 'science' rating, which you earn through experimentation (flying) and gathering data (packing science gear aboard possibly). This system opens up a lot of very cool possibilies for later, which will give a lot of meaning to what you can do out there on your missions, even before we have an actual game economy or contracts.

To paraphrase a friend developer, it's not about realism, it's about authenticity. Realism means putting you into a simulator cockpit and making you wait around for months to reach another planet. Authenticity means making sure what the game lets you do feels right, even if it's presented with some degree of abstraction, like using a numerical value to represent a more complicated process.

Edited August 19, 2014 by GregroxMun

[worir4]

There is always Orbiter.

[marce]

If we're going for "unplayable without" then we'd have to add Real Solar System to that list.

I can live with an alternative universe. I can also live with not really realistic physics.

But already during the tutorial, when I knew nothing about KSP and had no mods installed I kept looking for fairings and heat shields. I was skeptic about the "gravity turn" and you can't imagine my disappointment when the reentry heat did nothing.

But yes, I of course have a second install with RSS. However, I understand that if we aim for full realism we have to get rid of the engine and our simple PCs as well, right?

All of these "unplayable without" mods are bull, because if KSP was unplayable without them it would have failed. Not everyone likes RSS, regex. I have a feeling the large majority of people don't use RSS.

I can't belive I have to keep saying this but

Kerbal Space Program is NOT meant to be realistic.

Agreed. But if the most basic things are missing and the whole experience is a constant facepalm I personally wouldn’t be interested.

As I said before: I installed FAR+DR directly after the tutorial. Without them I wouldn’t have played KSP longer than one hour (instead of the 800+ I have now) and wouldn’t have recommended it to anyone.

Anyway, I'm allowed to have and express my own opinion. I wasn't aware that I insulted anyone, if that's the case I do apologize, but I don’t have a desire to discuss the matter further.

My main point was: please buy a good plugin and not a parts pack.

[regex]

Not everyone likes RSS, regex.

And? I find the game is virtually unplayable without it. If we're talking about what makes the game unplayable, I would include that.

I can live with an alternative universe.

I find it's important to point out, when people throw stuff like this around, that RSS is a mod that can do many things, like make the stock solar system bigger. It doesn't automatically mean "Sol". Thank you.

Edited August 19, 2014 by regex
Being nicer.

[KasperVld]

And? I find the game is virtually unplayable without it. If we're talking about what makes the game unplayable, I would include that. If you don't like my opinion, get out of my thread.

And if you talk down to people like that get out of my forums.

See? That's not very pleasant is it? Both of you stay away from the ad-hominem arguments here please. On the topic of RSS I can definitely understand why some people prefer the more realistic approach it provides, however the biggest effect of that experience is that basic things such as getting into orbit take longer. I can therefore fully understand that a lot of people don't like RSS. RSS does fine as a mod but is not suitable for a large part of the players, and so (again, in the humblest of my opinions) RSS would not be a great candidate for inclusion into the game.

[regex]

And if you talk down to people like that get out of my forums.

Sorry, I'm not talking down to anyone, insofar as I can see. I got somebody yelling at me upstream for sure, and I'm wondering how I'm somehow the bad guy here, but I don't understand where you get my hostility.

[KasperVld]

Sorry, I'm not talking down to anyone, insofar as I can see. I got somebody yelling at me upstream for sure, and I'm wondering how I'm somehow the bad guy here, but I don't understand where you get my hostility.

Talking down may not be the right term here, hostility would actually be better. Thank you for the suggestion. My post was directed at the both of you.

[regex]

Talking down may not be the right term here, hostility would actually be better. Thank you for the suggestion. My post was directed at the both of you.

My point being that I am entitled to my opinion of what makes this game "playable" or "unplayable", just as much as anyone else. I'm not in here telling people they're wrong.

[KasperVld]

I'll take this to PM - everyone, back on topic!

[jonr]

I'm guessing HotRockets/CoolRockets would probably not be a contender as they are more just modifications/refinement of existing functionality.

[regex]

I'm guessing HotRockets/CoolRockets would probably not be a contender as they are more just modifications/refinement of existing functionality.

Actually, given how much Maxmaps loves those mods I wouldn't be surprised if it was effects.