Squadcast Summary (2015-01-31) - The 'Wait For It..' Edition

[Nemrav]

Sorry Regex, but I wish for you to "unmoddable" away these mods

custom asteroids

better than starting manned

Karbonite (the thing they are kinda-copying-ish into stock with its creator)

can't say about the new aero system, because it hasn't been released yet. And as far as buildings go, what is the real point of modding them ?

edit: my main concern is going to be how many new parts, cause currently in stock, I'm using 3.2 of my 3.8 gb of ram, may try some of those graphical error in return for more ram things soon.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Nemrav

[klgraham1013]

And the resources ... magical unicorn poop. Despite the claims of making it moddable, the asteroid generation, tech tree, and KSC upgrades say no, it won't be moddable.

This right here.

[KerrMü]

Yeah Im surprised anyone is against using heat shields. To my thinking some parts should have them automatically, (spaceplanes and command pods) and other parts should be vulnerable. There should probably even be a difficulty slider on this. My thinking is entering at a shallow angle from LKO you should be pretty much fine without a shield, but on an aerobreaking dive from the Mun or higher you'll need a shield.

Agreed.

There should be a few of them, the larger ones inflatable, and be balanced with cost and weight.

Or a hexagonal heat shield part. So you can stack them together and adjust the size to your needs. If you need a small shield, 1 part. A bigger one, 7 parts. And so on. This is for interplanetary transfer ships and probes. Personally I always assumed the cone-shaped command pods had an heatshield anyway.

[Superfluous J]

To those who refer to pretty much any resource system proposed or used (Including both Kethane and Karbonite) as terrible, unrealistic, unfun, and a sign of the apocalypse akin to dogs and cats living together, is there a proposed system you DO like? Why? Is it ridiculously complicated? Just terribly complicated? Merely complicated? I am truthfully curious here.

I don't really like how Karbonite allows you to just spit out all you need to fly rockets, but I don't want to need degrees in geology and chemistry to set up a Minmus base.

[PDCWolf]

Sorry Regex, but I wish for you to "unmoddable" away these mods

custom asteroids

better than starting manned

Karbonite (the thing they are kinda-copying-ish into stock with its creator)

can't say about the new aero system, because it hasn't been released yet. And as far as buildings go, what is the real point of modding them ?

edit: my main concern is going to be how many new parts, cause currently in stock, I'm using 3.2 of my 3.8 gb of ram, may try some of those graphical error in return for more ram things soon.

Custom asteroids uses an entirely new spawner system, doesn't use the stock one because it is not moddable.

Better than starting manned does the same thing, custom systems while hiding/blocking the stock ones

Karbonite is pretty much a from-scratch thing, really, you can just see there's a load of code and uses nothing from stock.

Being able to integrate something from stock (like using the asteroids as resource containers) != mod-ability

To those who refer to pretty much any resource system proposed or used (Including both Kethane and Karbonite) as terrible, unrealistic, unfun, and a sign of the apocalypse akin to dogs and cats living together, is there a proposed system you DO like? Why? Is it ridiculously complicated? Just terribly complicated? Merely complicated? I am truthfully curious here.

I don't really like how Karbonite allows you to just spit out all you need to fly rockets, but I don't want to need degrees in geology and chemistry to set up a Minmus base.

I personally realize the old resource chart may look daunting at first, but I kinda like it. I would prefer, though, anything non "1 magic resource for everything" system, and that was what the old stock system originally was, it just needed a small simplification here and there and to be shown in a different way.

Also, it seems my album is linked in the OP, guess I'll have to rename it from "ded" to "not so ded"

[Pthigrivi]

Oh I don't mind the Karbonite idea. There are some alternatives and adjustments being discussed in the Suggestions forum.

[Frozen_Heart]

Bear in mind we're also probably going to have a significantly lower dV-to-orbit requirement with the revised aerodynamics. I don't think we can really get away with keeping the engines as they are, they need to be nerfed for atmospheric use, at the very least.

dV to orbit isn't the problem. If I build huge, purely spacefaring motherships currently and they are heavily nerfed due to engine changes, I don't benefit from the new aerodynamics at all.

[Renegrade]

(easier to remember Mainsail or Skipper than S1 SRB-KD25k, for example).

Gesundheit! Also thanks for the summary

I hope they don't forget to nerf the turbojet into submission (or completely out of existence)

Seconded. Well, on the 'into submission' bit. I'd actually like to see the basic jet act like a high-bypass subsonic engine, and the TJ like a low-bypass afterburning engine..

More was mentioned last week, but yeah, Valentina is the codename for a specific female kerbal being added (presumably her real name as well, as that account here exists) and for the female kerbal model in general. Squad are going with, IIRC, no lipstick, rounder faces, slimmer bodies, no breasts.. basically just feminine versions of the current masculine kerbal body shape.

Speaking of new kerbal models.. is there any sign or report that we'll be seeing more diversity in the appearance aside from boys/girls? I used to play with Texture Replacer, and it was kinda nice having kerbals look a little more unique:

(Jeb's rockin' with that handlebar 'stash)

And the resources ... magical unicorn poop. Despite the claims of making it moddable, the asteroid generation, tech tree, and KSC upgrades say no, it won't be moddable. Squad really needs to work on making things moddable, maybe Harv should take some classes on program architecture or something.

Just because something happened N times in a row, doesn't mean it will happen on the N+1 iteration, even if N is a large number.

That being said, I'm having trouble remaining positive on this point myself. My pattern recognition sense is tingling!

While I'll miss putting 48-7Ss on everything, it'll be nice to use other engines in... well... all situations ever.

Agreed. Although, I'm a bit worried based on their previous nerfings that the 48-7S will have NO niche rather than a smaller one (as desired) after they're done with it.

better than starting manned

FlowerChild would be one of the first people to express concerns over the lack of moddability in recent features.

[Dazpoet]

I'm using 3.2 of my 3.8 gb of ram

KSP is using 3.2GB of RAM running just stock? I run 38 mods atm and upon startup I'm at ~1.8GB and even after really long sessions I'm rarely above 3GB. That is using DDSLoader and Opengl though but it still sounds insane to have 3.2 usage...

[razark]

Just because something happened N times in a row, doesn't mean it will happen on the N+1 iteration, even if N is a large number.

That works with flipping coins or rolling dice.

It doesn't work with things such as patterns in human behavior.

[metl]

They completely reworked the way parts and plugins were handled, just so they were easier to mod. How does that compute with the supposed "pattern of behavior?"

[Brotoro]

Bear in mind we're also probably going to have a significantly lower dV-to-orbit requirement with the revised aerodynamics. I don't think we can really get away with keeping the engines as they are, they need to be nerfed for atmospheric use, at the very least.

That only considers launching from Kerbin (and other bodies with an atmosphere)! If all of the engines are nerfed, you are going to kill the capabilities of ships in vacuum and especially for ships taking off from airless bodies. Try landing and returning a ship from TYLO before you get too happy with the balance of nerfed engines.

[Alshain]

To those who refer to pretty much any resource system proposed or used (Including both Kethane and Karbonite) as terrible, unrealistic, unfun, and a sign of the apocalypse akin to dogs and cats living together, is there a proposed system you DO like? Why? Is it ridiculously complicated? Just terribly complicated? Merely complicated? I am truthfully curious here.

I don't really like how Karbonite allows you to just spit out all you need to fly rockets, but I don't want to need degrees in geology and chemistry to set up a Minmus base.

I like Kethane, except for the scanning part (boring). Karbonite fixes that problem except Karbonite is so heavy, it costs more fuel to lift it from the surface of most the planetary bodiies than it returns when processed, so a net loss except maybe on Minmus.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Alshain

[tater]

As someone who has not used karbonite, why would you not process it on the ground, breaking it into fuel there?

[Renegrade]

That works with flipping coins or rolling dice.

It doesn't work with things such as patterns in human behavior.

The second line was supposed to clue the reader in that it was a joke. I guess I should have included sarcasm tags after all. My bad.

At least, I hope it's a joke. I'd be sad to find out that Squad's actions are controlled by a magic eight ball or such.

That only considers launching from Kerbin (and other bodies with an atmosphere)! If all of the engines are nerfed, you are going to kill the capabilities of ships in vacuum and especially for ships taking off from airless bodies. Try landing and returning a ship from TYLO before you get too happy with the balance of nerfed engines.

He was talking about only changing the sea-level pressure performance. Unfortunately, that would have almost no effect outside of Eve as the atmosphere gives way to near vacuum almost instantly.

That being said, reducing Isp across the board would make the system feel larger, without actually making it larger.

[Liowen]

As someone who has not used karbonite, why would you not process it on the ground, breaking it into fuel there?

The only reason I could think of is for a contract needing Karbonite returned from a certain body, other than that you could process it on the ground. Maybe it is a power issue?

[Alshain]

As someone who has not used karbonite, why would you not process it on the ground, breaking it into fuel there?

Well if that is the intent, forget Karbonite and just make LFO mineable. Karbonite adds a bunch of giant tanks that only hold Karbonite and if your converting as soon as you drill, why waste the memory on all those parts.

My concern is the stock system will be the same and therefore completely useless waste of memory, like Karbonite.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Alshain

[NFUN]

Roverdude is a god. This should be good.

[OrtwinS]

There must come separate heat-shield parts, how else can we protect our wacky contraptions during atmospheric decent?

[tater]

I was rereading papers from a symposium that turned into a class I took (rather along time ago), and to get 100,000kg of hydrogen (about a what a shuttle launch used according to this paper from guys at Johnson Space Center), they'd need to mine about 400,000 m^3 of lunar regolith, then process it. A small operation compared to terrestrial mining, apparently. I suppose to role-play something like the proposed system, you build a munar base for like 100 kerbals, supply them with bulldozers, etc, then place your one "mining" part.

Edited January 31, 2015 by tater

[Brotoro]

...He was talking about only changing the sea-level pressure performance. Unfortunately, that would have almost no effect outside of Eve as the atmosphere gives way to near vacuum almost instantly.

That being said, reducing Isp across the board would make the system feel larger, without actually making it larger.

People are saying that the new aerodynamics is going to require an overall engine nerfing, because it will be easier to get to Kerbin orbit. But that will make all the rest of the game (once you get outside the atmosphere) harder. I don't think it's a good idea if the new aerodynamics makes everything else harder (or makes the system "feel larger", as you say). I was hoping that improved aerodynamics would just improve the aerodynamics...NOT result in messing up everything else.

So the rebalancers should be sure to put a Tylo landing and return mission to their test suite to see how their engine changes are going to affect things.

[Alizerin]

I would imagine that a standard testing procedure in the development process is to create a stock craft of some kind as a baseline and launch it from every body in the system.

[Brotoro]

I would imagine that a standard testing procedure in the development process is to create a stock craft of some kind as a baseline and launch it from every body in the system.

With Tylo, it's not launching that's the hard part...it's the landing of a ship that has enough delta-V to get back to orbit that is the killer.

[Vanamonde]

If folks could talk about this without a) using insulting terms for fellow KSP players and stating their opinions about things that haven't happened yet as if they are objective and established facts, that would be great.

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah I mean inevitably changing aerodynamics is going to change the entire engine balance and everything is going to need a tweak. So long as we're in a good place where each engine has its roll and no one engine dominates the others there are going to be tradeoffs and design challenges, which is the real heart of the game. I'm personally not too worried about it.