The Grand 0.25 Discussion Thread

[Cat Biscuits]

The parachute bug, exact same thing happened to me and killed Jebediah, I have also noticed myself strongly taking safety features into account and set up abort sequences with each new launch vehicle.

When failures happen Im forced to think in advance about how to save the pilot from fiery death rather than before... BOOM!.. ok revert game.

Ive also found that no reverts/saves give disasters and success a greater feeling of impact and have worked to give my games a feeling of history.

time for me to get back... Ive just unlocked the stayputnik and if this next flight doesnt achive free return trajectory from the mun Im going to be poor for quite some time

[Monger]

You wana go for a double forhead slap? Ask yourself this. Why didnt you just tweek the fuel to zero? No fuss no muss and you dont even have to pay for the fuel. 100% recovery on the launchpad after the test.

Yeah, definitely slap-worthy. :-/

Note to myself: try to think less complicated.

Btw. , another interesting side effect: test flights now are really expensive. Instead of trying some weird design and just reverting the flight, now every test costs money. I usually do that a lot, and now I have to rethink if my test flight is really worth the money.

[StainX]

Sadly, i think i have to stick with 0.24, at least it's stable now with all those mods (that will not be available to 0.25 win_x64), and i kinda feel more relaxed to know that my launchpad won't explode :/

[Algiark]

I lost a kerbal due to a bug: i was fast forwarding while deploying the chute. For some reason, the capsule didn't slow down and just crashed with high speed into the terrain.=

I also experienced this bug. Seems to be new to 0.25. The parachute never got deployed (green icon) or even semi-deployed (blue icon), it just went straight to cut (red icon).

[samstarman5]

New toys for my economic satellite launchers. I like to use aerojets to boost ballistic payloads, with smaller rocket engines to get the package into orbit. No wings, just boost.

[LordFjord]

Well, I've thrown myself into a new hardmode extreme career. Extreme, because I added FAR and deadly reenty to the mix and I haven't played with either of these mods so far.

DR reentry killed Jeb and Bill - probably because due to FAR the top section of my rocket swapped direction during reentry and the chute burned down. Bill's rocket went too fast and burned the chute while going up.

Bob was killed by FAR only - rocket didn't like my non-aerodynamic top stage and disintegrated in the upper atmosphere.

Until now, death count equals the launch count, but I'm not out of cash - yet. Will see where this goes and if there is a "game over" screen.

Failure can be fun

[UmbralRaptor]

Custom with:

• Allow Revert Flights: Yes
  
• Allow Quick Load: Yes
  
• Missing Crews Respawn: No (Though I edited in 3 new crew members)
  
• Auto-Hire Crewmembers before Flight: No
  
• No Entry Purchase Required on Research: No
  
• Indestructible Facilities: No
  
• Allow Stock Vessels: No (Why use them?)
  
• Starting Funds: 0
  
• Starting Science: 0
  
• Starting Reputation: -1000 (Complete 3 of the first 4 contracts, and you still get missions. Maybe even if you do less...)
  
• Science Rewards: 10%
  
• Funds Rewards: 10% (I think this is hurting more than the science at the moment)
  
• Reputation Rewards: 10%
  
• Funds Penalties: 1000%
  
• Reputation Penalties: 1000%
  

Also, I started a sandbox save. Let's see if I get bored...

[SkyRender]

Hard mode definitely gets a lot easier once you have craft in permanent orbit around Kerbin and the Mun that can collect and transmit science (even if it's valueless science). With a funds->science strategy at 25% and spamming the "transmit science from space around Kerbin/Mun" contracts that constantly come up, you can pretty much break any difficulty setting this way. The only real factor is how low you set funds/science rewards, and thus how much time it takes to grind out the contract spam to max the tech tree and then convert all incoming science to funds as a kicker.

[Jouni]

And a sfx overhaul with: no sound passed the shock cone of your craft, no sound in space except through IVA, RCS sfx when firing (in IVA only), chatterer in stock, awesome launch rocket sounds that sound exactly like real rockets do and sound different in close vs from afar.

The realistic approach would be having more sound in space. Kerbals apparently like to fly manually, and encoding useful information in sound effects would make it more natural. A trained pilot should be able to determine engine type, fuel levels, and thrust from suitably enhanced engine sounds. Docking and landing modes could tell target direction, distance to it, and the orientation of the ship relative to it using sound effects, making it possible to do both with eyes closed. Many similar improvements could be made, if we just stopped assuming that vehicle sounds should have something to do with the physical processes occurring in the vehicle.

[O-Doc]

Just looking at the aesthetic damage done to my fleet of 50 odd space planes and having some real wtf moments. I'd really like to understand the decision in regards to the black lining of the SP+ parts. Why not use the grey we already had is stock or, make those grey parts(swept wing, winglets, etc) black? Personally I think the grey was fine, the thick black lines that have been introduced look bizzare. Talk about contrast...

[samstarman5]

That does seem to defeat the purpose of leaving LKO or at least going beyond Munar orbit. There is bound to be tweaks to the system over the next few months, to be sure. It might even help keeping it to a certain control to where you have to buy back into the plan at certain points, like it will only perform for a certain timeframe. Get more reward with each new start, but the cost to buy back in does go up. That's just one thought.

[Alewx]

Sorry for the late reply:

http://i.imgur.com/SP24SVw.jpg

Thanks for the info.

Well yeah Bac9 suggestions would be really nice.

[Pawelk198604]

I heard that using new policy settings you can boost science?

With pf policy is best in you opinion?

[KerbMav]

What I missed to check yesterday, is transmitted science being converted?

[Alewx]

This is all spot on. Baffling why they don't contract him to work on any additions to the KSC, as the dude clearly knows what he's doing vastly beyond whatever new hire or intern they have trying to unsuccessfully duplicate his style. Lately seems that consistency has become an alien concept at Squad.

Bac9 was employed at SQUAD and created the KSC that we know. What happened then and why he no longer works for them is out of my knowledge.

[Wanderfound]

That does seem to defeat the purpose of leaving LKO or at least going beyond Munar orbit. There is bound to be tweaks to the system over the next few months, to be sure. It might even help keeping it to a certain control to where you have to buy back into the plan at certain points, like it will only perform for a certain timeframe. Get more reward with each new start, but the cost to buy back in does go up. That's just one thought.

It's balanced in part by the difficulty options. If you're playing on hard mode without reverts, you're unlikely to have the spare cash for outsourced R&D, especially once the cost of unlocking tech nodes kicks in. I'm having to scrape a balnce between money, science and rep.

[Sky_walker]

I feel like KSP doesn't have any ambition to challenge player with anything other than 1st orbit, 1st docking and 1st landing.

ps. Kraken fights don't count.

It's balanced in part by the difficulty options. If you're playing on hard mode without reverts, you're unlikely to have the spare cash for outsourced R&D, especially once the cost of unlocking tech nodes kicks in. I'm having to scrape a balnce between money, science and rep.

If you play with no reverts - you play against bugs (aka Krakens), nothing more.

ok, bugs and lack of basic tools, such a delta-V display or simulation envoirement that were invented by real scientists to MAKE LIFE EASIER (not more difficult / confusing like devs suggest).

That does seem to defeat the purpose of leaving LKO or at least going beyond Munar orbit.

What do you mean "defeat"?! There never was one in a first place. You always could max out the tech tree on Kerbin alone, not even visiting the Mun or Minimus.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Lukaszenko]

I've been playing ironman (with FAR and DRE) since .24, and I must say the most interesting change due to it was interplanetary manned missions. You now have to be VERY conservative with your aerobraking, and especially aerocapture as you only get one shot at it. This means you also have to bring a lot of extra fuel.

Due to this I only did one interplanetary mission so far, to Duna (well, two. I sent two separate simultaneous missions in case one failed :| ). And it was very nail-biting but very rewarding. The return was especially edge-of-my-seat as I didn't do a perfect transfer (I'm playing with life-support) which resulted in something like a 6 km/s reentry. With FAR and DRE that's pretty much suicide, but I had JUST enough fuel left to slow down sufficiently.

You don't get moments like that with with save-revert!

[Bluemoon]

Contracts made the game way easier (you only needed to go to the moon to max the tech tree) and strategies dumbed it down even more (no need to even get into orbit anymore, you can max out the tree in suborbital missions in a few hours, also in hard mode). While I like all the new parts and also contracts and strategies in general... Squad really needs to hire someone with a clue of game balancing and progression. All they do at the moment is adding the tech and the tools. And they leave it to the community/modders to turn it into an actual game. I'm fine with it being sandbox, but now we have a science and a career mode too, which are basicly sandbox mode after the first hour.

I don't know how to put it, but I'm abit disappointed by the last two patches (0.24 and 0.25). They turned KSP further into a playground (which is fun too, ofc), but I somehow wished they would turn it into a game instead (with a balanced progression/long term motivation/achievement kind of thing).

Thank god there are mods =)

[Streetwind]

Guys... the tech tree and science system is a placeholder. It was the first thing ever added to carreer mode. It does not account for infinitely repeatable asteroid science, it does not account for the extremely exploitable contract system, it does not account for strategies, and it will not account for biomes on every celestial body either.

It's pretty clear that it'll eventually get a rework once KSP is feature-complete.

Until then, there's Alternative Tree Configurator and the resource income sliders in the new difficulty panel to tide you over (and also a mod that removes random science payout from contracts). And you could, you know, also fly for the challenge of reaching a goal instead of flying for grinding out science points.

[Sky_walker]

Guys... the tech tree and science system is a placeholder.

Quote from devs or didn't happen.

(And I sure hope that you are right, but so far I didn't see any proof of that claim, even though I repeated it myself)

[Astronomer]

Sorry for the late reply:

http://i.imgur.com/SP24SVw.jpg

This a million times and through eternity.

[Sky_walker]

Misc

The GameDatabase code was tweaked to allow modders to write their own asset loaders. Added GameEvents.OnCrewTransferred, fired from CrewTransfer and EVAs leaving and boarding. Added SCREENSHOT_SUPERSIZE parameter to settings.cfg to allow taking ultra-high-res (multisampled) screenshots. Application Launcher added to tracking station (Messages and Contracts App visible).

Good patch. Hopefully it'll shut down people saying that KSP cannot have much more parts due to 4GB memory limit. Proper asset loaders very much migrate the problem. Hope we'll see them widely used in the game.

This...

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/49862089735365267/781A1B3C838E53F7ED5EEDA20CF1625AF14851A5/

...looks retarded. Was it so much trouble to format the doors of the clamp-o-tron to be inline with the payload bay doors, as they were in SP+?

And the admin building looks like a tumor growing out of the gorgeous bac9 KSC. Really disappointed with what you chose to do in this update. Sorry if this is overly negative, but I violently dislike both the way the new admin building fails to match the rest of the KSC, and the way the clamp-o-tron fails to match the payload bays.

Keeping parts logical and in-line with the design wasn't really their strong side in last few patches.

Just look at SLS parts and how they couldn't even make black stripes on a texture align correctly.

#

As for the other part... well... you get what you pay for. Interns are not really the best modellers. Though even that isn't an excuse to ignoring some great hints given on a forum.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Sky_walker]

I will play hard mode, but not without saving/loading.

KSP is so riddled with random, unexpected bugs that the last thing I want to see is being frustrated by stuff that's known to cause problems for 5+ patches and ever was resolved.

Oh, and lack of basic tools, such as stupid delta-v display that people been begging for ages, also needlessly adds to the frustration. This basically got nothing with "skill" or "good design" - it's just a random guesswork at this point in a stock game.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Sky_walker

[hawk_za]

hi there i first off congrats on ver 25 looking great and the plane parts sorely needed the love you showed them can not wait to see what you guys do with 26 however

I was just wondering i remembered a while back the devs were saying that they were hampered in there development of ksp until unity 5 came out

is there any new news on this front