Devnote Tuesdays: The "Welcome Back" Edition

[SQUAD]

<p><img src="https://31.media.tumblr.com/0ff9377afa68dc3ad3fe6844aaf1bd38/tumblr_inline_nhs58r3lRJ1rr2wit.jpg"/></p>

<p><strong>Felipe (HarvesteR)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> After a </span><span>much</span><span> (and I mean much) needed rest, we’re getting set up again to start working on the Beta. This promises to be a very interesting period, and I’m very much looking forward to what’s coming up. Not many more news than that though, we’re really just getting back online again… For me, quite literally in fact. From the last 2 weeks before the 0.90 release to just a few minutes ago, all my internets were coming through a 3G tether… Just now the ISP techs finished up and I’m properly hooked up with a fiber link. Other than that, we had a few chats about what’s coming and saying happy new year to each other. Happy new year btw!</span></p>

<p><span><strong>Alex (aLeXmOrA):</strong> </span><span>I spent two amazing vacation weeks doing some family stuff and celebrating holidays. It was a really good quality time. Now that we’re back, I had to do a clean installation of OS to my computer here at the office. I think that after 3 years that I’ve been working with it, it had never been formatted… so, it was already necessary. I’m glad I did it, tho! It is running smoother than before and I can work even better. Now, I have to help with support and some little tasks in accounting to keep everything on track for the start of the year. Also, we’re still deciding what activities each dev will be doing for next releases. </span></p>

<p><strong>Mike (Mu):</strong><span> The, long overdue, holiday season over and it’s back to work. We are in the design and prototype stages for the upcoming tasks. Should be a fun few months ahead!</span></p>

<p><strong>Marco (Samssonart): </strong><span>After a good vacation with family and friends it’s time to get back to reality. I did my best to provide at least a bit of support during our vacation time, but I fell short, very short, so these first few days I’ve been answering the mountain of support email from the last few weeks. On the development side, we’re still throwing ideas around about what each one of us will do, but it looks like I will be involved in the making of a new demo.</span></p>

<p><span>Happy New Year everyone, let’s make this year rock!</span></p>

<p><strong>Daniel (danRosas)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> getting back into action after that awesome holiday period. Did some local traveling, and if you ever come to Mexico you should visit Guadalajara and it’s surroundings, very nice places. Since we’re still not full steam ahead into the new features, I’m going to spend some time this week improving the Kerbal rig for the animations. We are looking into making those again this year if the art related stuff that we need to create during beta allows it. </span></p>

<p><strong>Jim (Romfarer)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> .I had a great holiday and i hope you did as well. We have already been assigned the main tasks to work on during the beta, in fact we knew before the holiday so i had some time to prepare, as i said it was a great holiday.<br/></span></p>

<p><span><strong>Max (Maxmaps):</strong> .</span><span>Vacations are clearly over and we hit the ground running. Planning for the next update is going swiftly, with aerodynamic design proving to be as large as we imagined (which is pretty large). I spent two lovely weeks in Ottawa and am glad to be back home. So much to do, trying to get you guys a blog by Friday.</span></p>

<p><strong>Ted (Ted):</strong><span> Second day back and things are already moving quickly! Had an excellent break away relaxing and recuperating after 0.90, recharged and ready to go.</span></p>

<p><span>As Marco says, we’re working on refining the tasks we’ve all got for the next update. I’ve been assigned the responsibility of balancing out the game, this includes finer things such as part config values (engine stats) as well as contract rewards and advances. Understandably, it’s a pretty monstrous task, so I’m whittling it all down into prioritized changes that we can make while planning and discussing the grander changes and refinements to be made. All-in-all, this is going to be a great new year! Hope you’re all looking forward to it as much as us.</span></p>

<p><span><strong>Anthony (Rowsdower):</strong> I ate too much during my holiday. It was very gluttonous. I’m on a bit of a sweets detox right now. Pass the kale, please. In the world of KSP, yesterday was both a bit of a bummer and the greatest thing ever. I came to find out that the stuff I was doing research for and booking meetings about won’t be working out in the end. That’s business for ya! On the bright side, it’s for good reasons that I hope can be elaborated on in the near future. It also doesn’t stop all the other cool things coming for you in 2015, which Max will hopefully detail real soon.<br/></span></p>

<p><span>On the “greatest thing ever” front, how bout those Elon Musk comments? We’re completely floored. We all admire his accomplishments and the advancements he and his companies have made, so hearing something as simple as “Kerbal is awesome” coming from him made us giddy. And don’t even get us started on how it got picked up by places like <a href="http://mashable.com/2015/01/06/elon-musk-kerbal-space-program/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link"><strong>MASHABLE</strong></a>. That’s just the cherry on the cake.</span></p>

<p><strong id="docs-internal-guid-84edc34a-c1cc-ad86-e5f4-d5256b462214"><br/><span>Kasper (KasperVld): </span></strong>The two weeks of vacation flew by, I remember snippets of Christmas, new years eve and helping a friend move house. The World Championship of Darts seems to have placed me in front of the TV for a few hours per day too, and yielded a well deserved champion. Back to KSP then, we’ve got an exciting time ahead of us in beta and things are looking good. We’re looking for moderators who speak Polish, Russian or French, so if you speak one of these languages natively and you’re over 18 years of age, have an active history on these forums and are willing to help out then please send me a private message!</p>

[Elthy]

I’ve been assigned the responsibility of balancing out the game, this includes finer things such as part config values (engine stats) as well as contract rewards and advances

That sound realy good, the engine balance is a bit off...

[RazorWolf19]

New Demo?

Awww Yisss

Get developin'!

[NoMrBond]

Any chance of folding the ISP/massflow correction into the aero update?

Doing this before the engine balance pass and aero updates seems like a reasonable time to implement the fix, as both would need subsequent adjustment if this was implemented after.

[tuckjohn]

On the “greatest thing ever†front, how bout those Elon Musk comments? We’re completely floored. We all admire his accomplishments and the advancements he and his companies have made, so hearing something as simple as “Kerbal is awesome†coming from him made us giddy. And don’t even get us started on how it got picked up by places like <a href="http://mashable.com/2015/01/06/elon-musk-kerbal-space-program/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link"><strong>MASHABLE</strong></a>. That’s just the cherry on the cake.>

Wow that is going to bring some SERIOUS attention to this game!!! Wahoo! This is amazing! On mashable there was 400+ likes, which means probably 1000+ people saw it. That is a lot of new players even if only 10% look up the game and play it. INCREDIBLE!!!11!

[Aragosnat]

Good to hear you are all alive and not in some form of rehab.

[meve12]

<p><span><strong>Max (Maxmaps):</strong> .</span><span>Vacations are clearly over and we hit the ground running. Planning for the next update is going swiftly, with aerodynamic design proving to be as large as we imagined (which is pretty large). I spent two lovely weeks in Ottawa and am glad to be back home. So much to do, trying to get you guys a blog by Friday.</span></p>

I find it a bit odd that no one seems to have picked up on this.

[pxi]

Happy new year guys! Something tells me it's going to be a good one.

[vexx32]

I find it a bit odd that no one seems to have picked up on this.

He mentioned it on his Twitter account a week ago, or so. There're a couple threads in the Development & Suggestions section on it.

[SorryDave]

I have to admit that I missed Devnote Tuesdays, but well deserved rest after 0.90.

I just have one question for the dev team; do your families understand your passion for KSP?

Happy New Year!

[Tidus Klein]

I just have one comment...aerodynamic stuffs? Who ya gonna call? Ferram4 seriously thou...give him a call.

Owe an HAPPY NEW YEAR

[meve12]

He mentioned it on his Twitter account a week ago, or so. There're a couple threads in the Development & Suggestions section on it.

Oh really? I must'va missed that. Silly me.

[Robotengineer]

Good to have the dev notes back! I thought I might lose track of the days of the week without it! Looking forward to what will be happening this year, and super excited about balancing. I would also like to echo what NoMrBond said, it would be best to do those at the same time, IMHO. A new demo will be great, just make sure the demo required specs are the same as the game. The current demo runs on hardware that will not run .90 IIRC.

[DrD]

Happy New Year team. Welcome back. Congrats on the Elon Musk thing.

I continue to greatly enjoy the "game" after 298 hours and deeply appreciate all your efforts. Given what I paid for the game I feel a bit like I'm taking advantage. Please provide over-priced DLC so I can buy it as a way to support your company and redress what I feel is a great imbalance.

[Ikaneko]

Does the Elon Musk thing mean we'll get a SpaceX update in the near future?? *Boards Hype train*

[KerbMav]

Welcome to 2015 Squad!

Any chance of folding the ISP/massflow correction into the aero update?

Doing this before the engine balance pass and aero updates seems like a reasonable time to implement the fix, as both would need subsequent adjustment if this was implemented after.

Would like to second this!

Please provide over-priced DLC so I can buy it as a way to support your company and redress what I feel is a great imbalance.

No trouble with over-priced cosmetic DLC or nick-nack to show appreciation to the developer - but reasonable pricing for actual content DLC please.

[Red Iron Crown]

These devnotes read a bit like those "What I did on my Christmas holidays" essays kids do in school. Glad you guys got some well-deserved rest.

Any chance of folding the ISP/massflow correction into the aero update?

Doing this before the engine balance pass and aero updates seems like a reasonable time to implement the fix, as both would need subsequent adjustment if this was implemented after.

I third this. Since this update will likely break most craft anyway, now seems like a good time to implement thrust scaling with I_sp and the proper value for G₀ in the I_sp to V_e calculations.

[Alshain]

Welcome back!

As much as I am a plane guy, love FAR, and can't wait for stock aero and space refueling and more Mk3 parts... I would much rather you guys take a time out and just fix bugs (all that stuff Claw keeps so well documented). Some of them are getting downright infuriating. It is easy to want to cram in all the new shiny stuff but if you ignore the growing number of issues people are having, it's going to go supernova.

[klgraham1013]

<strong>Ted (Ted):</strong><p><span>As Marco says, we’re working on refining the tasks we’ve all got for the next update. I’ve been assigned the responsibility of balancing out the game, this includes finer things such as part config values (engine stats) as well as contract rewards and advances.</span></p>

Maybe an option for fuel in wings? This would very much help with realistic aircraft design, and, I'd guess, be a welcome addition with the new aerodynamics.

[JimmyAgent007]

Maybe an option for fuel in wings? This would very much help with realistic aircraft design, and, I'd guess, be a welcome addition with the new aerodynamics.

I made a suggestion a while back in a discussion on the old plane parts like this. Keep using the bigger old parts and put fuel in them. Newer thinner wings wouldnt have fuel. So we could still have both.

[2001kraft]

Planning for the next update is going swiftly, with aerodynamic design proving to be as large as we imagined (which is pretty large).

would love the control surface infiniglide glitch fixed!

life is hard without control surfaces in stock challenges

[Engineer of Stuff]

Where is the .90 trailer? Did I miss it?

[Yellowburn10]

Where is the .90 trailer? Did I miss it?

Unfortunately, they couldn't release one due to their art team being chained to their desks working on the new buildings. Also, they probably didn't contact anyone like nassalt in time before release, or at least that's what I'm speculating.

[Engineer of Stuff]

Unfortunately, they couldn't release one due to their art team being chained to their desks working on the new buildings. Also, they probably didn't contact anyone like nassalt in time before release, or at least that's what I'm speculating.

10chrspaceholder

[BudgetHedgehog]

Planning for the next update is going swiftly, with aerodynamic design proving to be as large as we imagined (which is pretty large).

Are you guys talking to ferram4? Because you should be. If you don't, you'll be making one of the biggest mistakes of KSPs development. None of you have remotely the level of knowledge on the subject as ferram4 does. If, for some reason, you decline to take any advice or help he gives, can you please not lock the code down so much that it kills FAR? Read this:

It's not like everything in stock is fixable or moddable. Let me give you an example of what would kill FAR and all other aerodynamic mods off completely:

1. The new aero model is coded with all its variables hardcoded. At this point, short of removing all atmospheres and trying to add my own, there's nothing I can do to remove the model.
   
2. The new aero model is coded so that all its fields and methods are private, and they are reset every frame to handle the aerodynamics changing. At this point, I'd need to run multiple reflection calls every frame, and that would be laggier than FAR has ever been.
   
3. The new aero model isn't private, but placing 0s in fields results in NaN errors everywhere and there's no way to shut it off completely.
   

Depending on how they do things, any of these are possible, and if they happen, there's not much I can do to keep FAR and NEAR alive. It is in their power to kill FAR and pretty much the entire realism-focused modding community with this. I really hope they don't, but I know better than to hope; it just makes things worse if it all falls apart.

In bac9s words: please don't do this.