Devnote Tuesdays: The "QA Has Begun" Edition

[SQUAD]

<p><img src="https://31.media.tumblr.com/0ff9377afa68dc3ad3fe6844aaf1bd38/tumblr_inline_nbap1fdQI71rr2wit.jpg"/></p>

<p><strong>Felipe (HarvesteR)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> We got a lot of stuff done this week. I’ve been jumping from task to task, so I’ll try to remember everything. The difficulty options panel is implemented, and allows you to set gameplay options both when starting a new game, and also while in game, although the in-game options panel offers less parameters (which makes sense, since options like ‘starting funds’ don’t really apply after the game is started). This also prompted a thorough overhaul of the settings panel UI, which really was in need of attention. The difficulty options panel not only exposes the already-known tweaks you can see in the Debug toolbar, it also exposes new parameters we implemented, including being able to toggle crew auto-hiring, tweaking reward and penalty multipliers, and several others which I’m forgetting right now, but were pretty cool too.</span></p>

<p><span>I’ve also added a few other ‘features of opportunity’ here and there. Most notably, I’ve added a second button above the altimeter, which allows you to return to the Space Center whenever you’re in a stable situation. This button sits below the ‘Recover Vessel’ button (which moved up a bit), so if you are able to recover, the altimeter will slide down further and make both buttons available. This may seem like a small thing, but it has a great impact on gameplay. It allows you to return to KSC without having to pause the game, which always annoyed me because it meant returning to KSC required breaking the game flow. Pausing is an out-of-game type action, so now returning to KSC shouldn’t detract from immersion anymore.</span></p>

<p><span>After all that got done, we started integrating the many features in preparation for QA testing, which is starting this week. I’ve taken the opportunity to tinker a bit with the issue tracker, which finally got a much, much needed issue voting system, so we can rate issues for their subjective importance (which is really hard to tell without something like votes), and also a full CSS overhaul, which not only makes the tracker look much sleeker, it also should greatly improve readability and being able to spot the important issues among the less important ones.</span></p>

<p><span>Today I’m revising the Vessel Marker system that Marco started, to work consistently with other UI systems that were implemented earlier on this update. Consistency means less code for the same purpose, and less code means less places for things to break down, which hopefully should translate to less bugs.</span></p>

<p><span>That’s all I got for now.</span></p>

<p><strong id="docs-internal-guid-76a862d2-387a-721d-13a6-4e6d93f7c7b6"><br/><span>Alex (aLeXmOrA):</span></strong> Last week, I set everything for the Server migration our hosting provider needed to do for all their customers. However, at the end it wasn’t necessary for our services and it wasn’t done at all, so KSP sites are running without any issues. Right now, I have to go back and continue with the changes to KSP Store site.</p>

<p><span><strong>Marco (Samssonart):</strong> </span><span>Aside from QA for the features you guys know I’m working with Porkjet to integrate Spacelane Plus into the game, getting the textures to look just right, making sure all lines up perfectly and such. He wanted to make the models prettier, but in doing so the internal model of the cockpit came out of alignment and artifacts from the external model could be seen while EVAing. I helped him align the models without needing to redo the whole thing. </span></p>

<p><strong>Daniel (danRosas)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> I’m currently working on the backdrop for the Administration Building. It’s going to be something like the Astronaut Complex, a render with some 2d adjustments where you can see the scenario where the kerbals conduct their administrative stuff. Max gave me some cool references, and I’ve found some rather interesting ones too. </span></p>

<p><strong>Jim (Romfarer)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> This week i made two new additions to the rich text area component we use in a lot of the GUI’s. The first one cuts off the text at a certain line number and adds a string indicating the textfield has been cut off. The second addition was a feature to have the text wrap around an image. These additions was written on top of the rich text parser Mike wrote earlier to handle text areas with multiple colors, bold and italic fonts. Simply put, </span>this parser works like this: It reads through all the lines in the text area, splits it up into words, parses the tags and in the end puts it all together in a list of string with different fonts. And to make room for an image i just put in invisible strings of dots where the image should be.</p>

<p><strong>Max (Maxmaps): </strong><span>Coordinating stuff with the art time and looking over things like the implementation of all the new parts we’re adding to the game. Also trying to come up with an update name for 0.25, First Contract will surely be hard to beat.</span></p>

<p><strong>Bob (Calisker):</strong><span> I didn’t forget about all of the great folks who shared stories about playing KSP with their families but I haven’t quite figured out what I want to do with all of these stories. I would like to share them but how and when is always really important. We’re working hard on update 0.25, which means we’re going to be able to share more and more of it with everyone. Max is having some fun teasing stuff and I’m hopeful we can get together a few fun things as we get closer to finishing it. I had a really amazing conversation with one of our contacts at Steam, which is an amazing partner for our game and company. It’s nothing specific but it was very valuable. Also happy to report that our PAX Prime tournament was another success! The person in charge of the entire weekend of official PAX tournaments told us they filled the tournament and had to turn away players as it was so popular. </span></p>

<p><strong>Ted (Ted):</strong><span> The Testing department has been busy this week! As you may have seen, we’ve begun QA and it’s been a nice big stack of content for us to sift through and test/break/provide feedback for. Thankfully it started off nice and slow at the end of last week to get us back into the motions of QA, but this week has been full speed ahead with a lot to get through. Additionally, it’s the first QA period for a couple of new QA testers, so seeing them break in the builds has been very rewarding for all involved.</span></p>

<p><span>Moving on, we’ve finally got most of the new Experimental Testers on the Team and they’re getting acquainted with everything involved. There’s still a fair bit to get up to scratch on for them though and as we’re not at Experimentals yet, they’ve got the chance to slowly get settled in. Additionally, there’s still a handful of Testers that have yet to join, but they should be with us by the end of the day and questioning their decision to apply by tomorrow morning!</span></p>

<p><span>On the Bug Tracker front, we’ve installed (Felipe and Alex installed, I watched) a voting plugin on Redmine to allow you all to vote up/down issues based on your personal opinion of the issue. So now the priority field can truly be how much of an effect it has on the game, while the vote field reflects on how much it affects you as a player. Additionally, Felipe touched up the theme on the Bug Tracker a fair bit, so it should be a lot cleaner and a lot easier to see which issues are what priority and what status, just from the formatting. Hopefully it’s a lot better for all of you!</span></p>

<p><span>Lastly, the Article I’ve been working on for a while is up and ready for everyone to read over <strong><a href="http://bit.ly/1A2E0DK">HERE</a>.</strong> </span></p>

<p><strong>Anthony (Rowsdower): </strong><span>Our <a href="http://bit.ly/Y9rNSu"><strong>CONTEST</strong></a> with <a href="http://bit.ly/1qm4Be7"><strong>Coub</strong></a> is now underway and will last through October 2nd. Make a 10 second loop video and you could win an original drawing by danRosas that’s autographed by members of the KSP team. Oh, remember that survey I’ve been telling you about? It’s <a href="http://svy.mk/1sY0m6Z"><strong>HERE</strong></a>. It’s all about what you’d like to see from the devnotes, as well as some additional info to be used for internal purposes. We’d appreciate you filling this out as honestly as possible.</span></p>

<p><strong id="docs-internal-guid-76a862d2-3880-eaec-8b6b-5c851d184437"><br/><span>Eduardo (Lalo):</span></strong> Making some diagrams of administrative processes and their guidelines. This isn’t for the game, either. This is just some boring old business stuff.</p>

<p><strong id="docs-internal-guid-76a862d2-388f-80c2-114b-5689b4cdbbe1"><span>Rogelio (Roger):</span></strong> I’ve been modeling and texturing more stuff. Photoshop has become my new best friend because I’ve discovered new ways to paint faster and better. Time has become golden and I’ve been trying new and more efficient production techniques for both modeling and texturing assets. Believe me guys, something as simple as keyboard shortcuts has save me a lot of time lol. I’ve also been reading about how to unleash creative techniques and it has really helped me out to bring more ideas on how to effectively use maya tools to solve modeling issues and save time so I can achieve goals quicker.</p>

[Whirligig Girl]

#HypeTrain soon?

No. Not until Experimentals.

[hoojiwana]

That survey could do with allowing multiple responses on some of the questions.

[JSD]

This one is going fast! But I wonder, and hope to get a little bit of answer..

How much career stuff is going ahead? When is career for you guys done, set in stone bla bla bla?

You guys have a estimated plan on that one? Cause as many l don't really care about career. It's fun for those who want it, but for me.. well, in mine point of view career destroys the fun in any way possible. How much "updates" I have to sit out before the real stuff begins again? Just wanting a answer/estimation. Not starting a career flame here. What's the goal? The plan? I think career basics almost made it right now, and we can move on with the good stuff. Balancing. Details! Heat shields! Paint jobs! Thinks to do when you made it to a planet. A goal! I can wait a little bit longer. But for real, how many career based update are planned? Can you guys be open with that, or have any clue?

Edited September 2, 2014 by JSD

[Rowsdower]

That survey could do with allowing multiple responses on some of the questions.

We reckon some could, but it's simply a way of finding certain clear cut priorities.

[Endersmens]

Wow. Loving these devnotes! I actually forgot this was tuesday and was totally surprised by these popping up. Keep it up!

[Apollo13]

The hype train is no more. Three weeks of DevNotes loaded with info, plus Max's Grand Plan post. Hype has been replaced with info. Well done, lads.

That survey could do with allowing multiple responses on some of the questions.

Agreed. Edited September 2, 2014 by Apollo13

[Parkaboy]

Awesome devnotes, and earlier than usual, to boot!

[HafCoJoe]

So many posts already... I am looking forward to this update, and the secret... Still betting on scorch marks or something on that line .

[NecroBones]

<strong>Max (Maxmaps): </strong><span>Coordinating stuff with the art time and looking over things like the implementation of all the new parts we’re adding to the game. Also trying to come up with an update name for 0.25, First Contract will surely be hard to beat.</span></p>

Second Contract.

[regex]

The hype train is no more. Three weeks of DevNotes loaded with info, plus Max's Grand Plan post. Hype has been replaced with info. Well done, lads.

This, so much this. Hype* must die a painful death. Thank you for facilitating the process.

[HafCoJoe]

Rogelio (Roger): I’ve been modeling and texturing more stuff. Photoshop has become my new best friend because I’ve discovered new ways to paint faster and better. Time has become golden and I’ve been trying new and more efficient production techniques for both modeling and texturing assets. Believe me guys, something as simple as keyboard shortcuts has save me a lot of time lol. I’ve also been reading about how to unleash creative techniques and it has really helped me out to bring more ideas on how to effectively use maya tools to solve modeling issues and save time so I can achieve goals quicker.

Have you tried Paint.net? It's what I use xD

Oh and why are the devnotes packed full of long formatting? When I quote I have to replace:

with:

Is your HTLM more compicated? Or are you trying to be sophisticated...

Edited September 3, 2014 by Avera9eJoe

[Rowsdower]

Have you tried Paint.net? It's what I use xD

Oh and why are the devnotes packed full of long formatting? When I quote I have to replace:

http://i.imgur.com/ozJCu4B.png

with:

http://i.imgur.com/bojJlqC.png

Is your HTLM more compicated? Or are you trying to be sophisticated...

Tumblr pushes them to the forum that way.

[HafCoJoe]

Tumblr pushes them to the forum that way.

Ah that makes more sense.

That survey could do with allowing multiple responses on some of the questions.

Agreed. Also there was only one yes/no question and it was the only one WITH multiple choice xD.

About the hype train, in a game like this I believe the hype train never stops. It just sort of slows down until it sees experimentals. Than it floors it. Like the kraken never truly leaves. It just sort of lurks off screen watching and waiting...

[blizzy78]

Yay, surveys. Keep 'em coming.

[SkyRender]

About all I can come up for as a potential name for 0.25 is An Incendiary Proposal.

[NFUN]

Second Contract.

Next time they revamp the contracts they could call it Second First Contract if nobody's feeling creative that day (month).

[federicoaa]

Probably some pun with administration on it

[r4pt0r]

an admin building makes me think of bureaucracy, why not call it the "red tape" update?

edit: also, these devnotes have been phenominal. thanks everyone.

[NovaSilisko]

I find great amusement that most of the survey questions don't allow multiple answers... except for a Yes/No question

[smart013]

My proposal for the name of .25:

"Staging Plans"

"Planning Stages"

Edited September 3, 2014 by smart013

[federicoaa]

an admin building makes me think of bureaucracy, why not call it the "red tape" update?

edit: also, these devnotes have been phenominal. thanks everyone.

I was looking for that word before, damn english not being my first language XD.

The Red Tape Edition sounds nice

[Kasuha]

Thanks Squad for the devnote and good luck with QA, hopefully we'll get the new release soon!

Most notably, I’ve added a second button above the altimeter, which allows you to return to the Space Center whenever you’re in a stable situation. This button sits below the ‘Recover Vessel’ button (which moved up a bit), so if you are able to recover, the altimeter will slide down further and make both buttons available. This may seem like a small thing, but it has a great impact on gameplay. It allows you to return to KSC without having to pause the game, which always annoyed me because it meant returning to KSC required breaking the game flow.

Since I spend most of the game in map mode (that's the more informative mode for playing the game without mods) I don't see this as very useful as there is no altimeter in map mode. Going to the space center is itself about equally distracting as pausing the game and honestly I think altimeter is not the right place to grow a new menu.

If the pause is the problem, maybe the Esc menu doesn't have to pause the game? If you're going to revert, it's irrelevant whether you pause it or not. If you're going to space center, you don't need the pause. And the Settings item could pause the game as soon as you click on it,

[Kasuha]

Probably some pun with administration on it

A HL quote comes on the mind:

Administering Morphine

[Streetwind]

Rowsdower, question six in the survey is super dangerous... just by offering the option of a video devnote you're putting the idea into the minds of people. You and the entire team may soon find yourselves having to put a lot more time and effort into the devnotes if you tease people like that.

(For the record, I prefer the text format... )