Devnote Tuesday: Full Steam Ahead!

[Hobbes Novakoff]

Woo, an actual working launcher on OSX... Which I don't even use as I just plop the thing labeled "KSP" in my dock and call it good. The patcher, though, that's really nice. I was getting sick of losing all my things every update... Although, since 1.0 basically changes the entire game... Yeah... Why am I so addicted to ellipsises. Ellipsi? Whatever. Anyway. Waiting for 1.0: The Update That Fixes All The Things That Were Annoying But Not That Game-Breaking And Could Usually Be Fixed With Mods And Oh Yeah We're Replacing Half the Physics Engine Too.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, can I put that in the running for the name of the update?

[TeeGee]

Secret feature:

Planetshine.

We already know clouds are being put in the game so I don't think that is what they are talking about.

[Ringotuna]

We already know clouds are being put in the game so I don't think that is what they are talking about.

When did they say clouds were being put in?

Even if it hasn't been confirmed, I'm almost positive clouds will be added to the game in this update as the 'secret feature' considering the other atmospheric changes they're adding

The secret feature could also be something like Planetshine. Perhaps we might have light coming from planets which will illuminate spacecraft and maybe other planets, and hopefully the horizon won't be brighter than the sun.

Just gotta wait until it's revealed

Honestly I just hope it doesn't flop like the destructible buildings

Edited February 18, 2015 by Ringotuna

[Daze]

We already know clouds are being put in the game so I don't think that is what they are talking about.

Wot? Surely we know that in future there's an high percentage of having it but for now...

Anyway i really hope that they will use a similar interstage to the one in Procedural Fairings mod. It would be amazing and we could fit a 1.25 engine on a 2.5 fuel tank without difference

[Linear]

That and the one where you crash when changing scenes sometimes and sometimes when you recover stuff. Which I suspect is caused by the memory leak problems.

For all the good stuff you are putting into this game I say THANK YOU!

But I think it is time for you, SQUAD, to answer to a question that many of us have.

WHEN WILL YOU ADDRESS THE GAME BREAKING BUG WHICH IS THE CONSTANT MEMORY LEAK THAT OCCURS WHEN WE ARE JUMPING INSTANCES?

Seriously i've played a lot of this game and have crashed literally 6 times, and most of those were from updating mods without using texture reduction.

[Rune]

I like the idea that Environmental Visual Enhancements is going to be stock. It matches the very spotty data we have and who doesn't want clouds?

I'd also like actual cities located where those lights are on the map, or wherever they put city lights at night, assuming of course that they integrate that part of EVE which - also of course - assumes they are integrating EVE in the first place.

There, have I assumed 6 impossible things yet? I've already had breakfast so it's too late to come in under that wire.

Hear, hear! Putting that many textures in would not only make me take out yet one mod (meaning I woudl be really close to playing full stock, seeign as how it's likely I will be able to take out KER and Kethane). It would also force squad to solve the memory issues, if they don't want the game crashing every half an hour.

Rune. Which is still my biggest fear for 1.0, everything else looks fantastic.

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Seriously i've played a lot of this game and have crashed literally 6 times, and most of those were from updating mods without using texture reduction.

You must not use a lot of mods then, or be one of the lucky guys that runs linux and thus can work in 64 bits. Either that, or you play in half an hour stretches without changing vessels much.

[John FX]

Reentry heat and procedural fairings?

That is sweet.

When we get those my apollo replica will be completely stock. The only mods it uses are FAR, DRE, and proc fairings.

Soon my pretty, soon...

Regarding fairings, can I add a plus vote for an interstage fairing that can be placed upside down and have the engines fire through it then be dropped halfway through the burn a la S-IVB

[monophonic]

A secret feature can become something else entirely without initiating a community dramastorm if it doesn't work out

Once people know what it is, you can't change it, or drop it, or anything else which might need doing

You think there wont be a dramastorm if they drop a secret feature? A secret feature that they have talked about but not told what it is, so that everyone thinks it is the one dream feature that makes the game perfect for them?

Would it not be better to keep the secret feature, ahem, secret? That is, not to even mention it until it is ready to be unveiled completely.

[Dodgey]

You think there wont be a dramastorm if they drop a secret feature? A secret feature that they have talked about but not told what it is, so that everyone thinks it is the one dream feature that makes the game perfect for them?

Would it not be better to keep the secret feature, ahem, secret? That is, not to even mention it until it is ready to be unveiled completely.

By drop I'm assuming you mean get rid of instead of unveil, if that isn't the case ignore my next statement. I think the point that NoMrBond was making was that they can change the feature to be anything and we wouldn't be none the wiser, ever drop it and put another feature in its place.

[Superfluous J]

You think there wont be a dramastorm if they drop a secret feature? A secret feature that they have talked about but not told what it is, so that everyone thinks it is the one dream feature that makes the game perfect for them?

Would it not be better to keep the secret feature, ahem, secret? That is, not to even mention it until it is ready to be unveiled completely.

"Oh no, we just found out we can't implement [feature_a] at all! And we were teasing a secret new feature all month!"

"No biggie, we've got [feature_b] almost ready to go and haven't really talked about it, so we'll just make that the secret feature."

[cantab]

WHEN WILL YOU ADDRESS THE GAME BREAKING BUG WHICH IS THE CONSTANT MEMORY LEAK THAT OCCURS WHEN WE ARE JUMPING INSTANCES?

SQUAD DON'T REALLY NEED TO MENTION EVERY SINGLE BUG THEY'RE FIXING IN THE DEVNOTES.

And the forum shouldn't be changing case in quoted text. /tangent

Edited February 18, 2015 by cantab

[FleetAdmiralJ]

<p><b>Max (Maxmaps):</b>

I’m considering cutting Squadcast down to half an hour and maybe prerecording the footage to make sure the gameplay doesn’t get in the way of the news sharing.

I hope not. I see your concern about playing the game getting in the way of information sharing, but I think the interactivity and ability to answer questions on the fly is very useful. Perhaps you can pre-record your game-playing video so it plays in the background while you are able to talk and answer questions live on stream so we still get to see your booms but you are better able to concentrate on answering our questions

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You think there wont be a dramastorm if they drop a secret feature? A secret feature that they have talked about but not told what it is, so that everyone thinks it is the one dream feature that makes the game perfect for them?

Would it not be better to keep the secret feature, ahem, secret? That is, not to even mention it until it is ready to be unveiled completely.

Yeah, but at least if they drop "secret feature x" rather than "planned feature x" they at least don't have 200 backseat developers telling them how squad could totally implement it if they were just as good as writing code as THEY were.

Also, yes, the purpose is to tease. It's marketing. Increasing hype is part of the point. The key is making sure you don't make the hype bigger than the feature you're revealing.

[Wallygator]

There's is a pub that was not to far from me when i lived in Bath with a sign out front that says "Come visit our secret [insert beverage name] garden".

It's not a secret if you tell people about it, rather it is a marketing ploy.

Frankly, I wouldn't fret about it. If it was a huge deal, we would for sure have seen it mentioned somewhere else.

[klgraham1013]

They could just not mention a "secret" feature at all. Isn't that the easiest solution?

[KospY]

No word about a sound overhaul ? This game is so quiet... They are a lot of sound lacking (rovers, ladders, kerbal, footstep, etc..)

Seem strange to release the game without finishing this. No one care about this ?

Edited February 18, 2015 by KospY

[Yellowburn10]

No word about a sound overhaul ? This game is so quiet... They are a lot of sound lacking (rovers, ladders, kerbal, footstep, etc..)

Seem strange to release the game without finishing this. No one care about this ?

I think they did say something about overhauling the sounds in their beyond beta post, they probably haven't quite gotten to them yet.

[MartGonzo]

No word about a sound overhaul ? This game is so quiet... They are a lot of sound lacking (rovers, ladders, kerbal, footstep, etc..)

Seem strange to release the game without finishing this. No one care about this ?

I do, I use KW Rocketry and the SRB's are deafening then when they detach the normal engines are really quiet, I usually play with headphones so as not to freak out my neighbors.

The audio normalizer in the options doesn't seem to do anything as far as I can tell, I'd love to see some work put into that.

[Sonny_Jim]

So, new aero model, mining resources and female kerbals?

Thumbs up! Keep up the good work!

[winn75]

No word about a sound overhaul ? This game is so quiet... They are a lot of sound lacking (rovers, ladders, kerbal, footstep, etc..)

Seem strange to release the game without finishing this. No one care about this ?

I think more is to come after 1.0 and sound improvement have been mentionned.

If not, let's do another mod about that

[Flef]

Remember that secret project I mentioned a few weeks ago?

[Dream mode on]

A new gas giant with rings and moons!

[Dream mode off]

[Hcube]

YES can't wait !

especially that secret feature is interesting, i wonder what it is...

Clouds ? ->i don't think so, otherwise you wouldnt have said "im not even sure if thats gonna be a thing" in the last devnotes...

I bet it's some new launchsite... like the ability to take off from the old airfield on that island... that'd be cool !

Im also really looking forward to the resources exploiting, and the aero model !

I hope that the female kerbals will look cool, cause everytime i try to imagine a female kerbal, i end up imagining some gross monster... I'm sure you're gonna make something real awesome on this one

and the BEST things from this devnote : FAIRINGS ! cant wait to decouple some huge inline fairings, ihope they will make an amazing sound, like a big decoupler...

Also i wish that we will get a big mission flag on the fairing ! right now the mission flags are really really small on the capsules, and sometimes a bigger one on the side of the engine cluster... really not enough.

last thing : i really love how you guys make a devnote every tuesday. Some other indie games (insurgency...?) let the players in the unknown all the time, and it's really annoying. What you guys do is really cool !

[Superfluous J]

They could just not mention a "secret" feature at all. Isn't that the easiest solution?

Then people would complain that so-and-so's not doing anything. Squad really can't win, so they may as well try to stoke the hype fires while people complain.

I think more is to come after 1.0 and sound improvement have been mentionned.

I distinctly recall a recent devnote mentioning new sounds for almost everything in the game, at least for GUI elements. I didn't pay that much attention because I don't really care about the sounds that much.

[rcp27]

For all the good stuff you are putting into this game I say THANK YOU!

But I think it is time for you, SQUAD, to answer to a question that many of us have.

WHEN WILL YOU ADDRESS THE GAME BREAKING BUG WHICH IS THE CONSTANT MEMORY LEAK THAT OCCURS WHEN WE ARE JUMPING INSTANCES?

The devote Tuesday posts tend to focus on developments that the player base is going to get excited about, primarily new features. In the "Aerodynamics Edition" (Jan 14), we had, "There’s been a few bugfixes here and there and we’ve upgraded to the latest version of unity, which also addresses some issues we were seeing". In the "Let's Do the Time Warp Again" (Jan 21) "also picking up long-standing issues". From "The Really Hot Edition" (Jan 28), "I’ve been working with the Experimental and QA Teams to ensure that the prioritised list of bugs to be fixed for 1.0 is accurate and reliable." From "The Greener Pastures Edition" (Feb 4th) "It’s been a week of fixing bugs" and "As is custom in QA it’s been a bit bumpy to start off with, but the progress that is being made is phenomenal and the bugs are dropping like.. well.. winged bugs that are no longer flying."

It could be buried in any one of those bug fixing/QA sessions.

[Lord Aurelius]

Max (Maxmaps): I’ve been in meetings: business meetings, travel planning, travel unplanning, and setting up timelines to make sure that all the parts of 1.0 are set in place. I’ve also had a blast testing the new aero system in QA, even if it meant horrific failures because my overly simple ways of doing things clash with a more realistic system. I’ve also been organizing negotiations to have the game show up in more storefronts, and I’m considering cutting Squadcast down to half an hour and maybe prerecording the footage to make sure the gameplay doesn’t get in the way of the news sharing.

I guess this explains why they're dead set on a 1.0 release. A lot of storefronts don't sell early access titles so they have to get to 1.0. It might be a stretch to assume this, but it seems to me like boxed copies might also be an option.

It would be great if a miracle occurred and Squad is somehow able to pull off a great 1.0 release with no major bugs or balance and progression issues, but given the current track record of updates I'm not terribly optimistic (far too many bugs and major balance issues have gone unresolved from update to update, and now they're basically promising to magically fix all of them without feedback from the community, while adding a bunch of major new features, all without introducing any new issues). I could be missing something here, but it seems logical to me that at least two more beta updates are needed, one to test the major new systems, and one to verify that any issues found from the previous beta have been fixed without introducing any new issues. I'm sure the QA team is very capable and talented, but it still isn't a match for the bug finding prowess of a large community with a wide variety of hardware, skill levels, and game breaking talents.

I've seen far too many games leave early access too early and get completely destroyed in the reviews (which will highlight everything that is broken, you won't have the luxury of people overlooking major issues anymore because of early access) which leaves a bad mark on the game that is nearly impossible to remove even if the game is fixed with a later update. A lot of reviewers will only review the game once (when it hits 1.0) and many more people will base their buying decisions on these reviews and not take the time to see if the game has been fixed since.

I really don't want to see this happen with this game, I guess I'll have to wait and see and hope for the best.

Edit: Still looking forward to new features after 1.0, I just hope that the 1.0 release is rock solid and can stand on its own so if I dig out a boxed copy in 20 years I can still run it (maybe with the help of a vm/emulator if needed) and enjoy it for what it is without having to deal with issues that should have been fixed before release, even if they were addressed in a later update that I might not have access to at that point.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Lord Aurelius

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

[Dream mode on]

A new gas giant with rings and moons!

[Dream mode off]

Try the Outer Planets mod. You'll get two of those.