Kerbal Space Program (in-dev retail game)

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brucewarren
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Post by brucewarren »

.25 is out

Unlike Mr Manley I have no plan to drop asteroids on the assembly buildings.
Bishop149
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Post by Bishop149 »

Aaaaaaaaand once again I won't be updating for quite a while until the ridiculous list of mods I use is all updated as well.

Most of them in fact are already, but in a massively irritating move whilst Squad have now integrated Spaceplane Plus into the game they have done it in such a way that it breaks the craft files of those of us already using it . . . because they have slightly changed the names and default rotations of all the parts.

Why they would do this I simply can't fathom.
Decide a mod is so good it should be part of the core game, implement in such a way as to punish those that agreed
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brucewarren
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Post by brucewarren »

Given that's it's still not officially finished, I don't blame them too much for that. If it were officially finished and boxed and they decided to break all the mods it would be a different story.

Of course I only use one mod - mechjeb, which they just broke, but many would argue that I ought to learn to fly without it anyway.

I would argue that if they were to promise to be compatible with all the mods it would prevent ongoing development of the game. it's the modder's job to follow the game. not the other way round.
softweir
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Post by softweir »

There was a comment that the Spaceplane Plus parts had to be tweaked to make them more generally useful - previously they didn't work well with all combinations of stock parts, now they work better.

And there is No Way that an in-dev game can be developed in such a way as to prevent this sort of thing. It is something that has been said time after time right from the beginning; backward compatibility at this stage is a luxury and a privilege, not something to depend on.
My new fave game (while waiting for Rebirth) - Kerbal Space Program
Bishop149
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Post by Bishop149 »

brucewarren wrote:It's the modder's job to follow the game. not the other way round.
Oh usually I'd agree but this case is a little different to normal in that they have merely added a perfectly working mod to the core game. In this case I'd say the onus is on those appropriating the work NOT to break it. All that would have been required is simply moving the files around to "officialise" them . . . or perhaps make some config file changes if they wanted tweak gameplay balance etc.

But no it must have taken a particular effort and lack of foresight to make changes that functionally change absolutely nothing but manage to mess up and existing save / craft files using those parts.

The changes really are totally inconsequential, for example:
mk2FuselageLong.LFO renamed to mk2FuselageLongLFO
structuralWing1 renamed to structuralWing while structuralWing2 is not renamed
It seems to me like a programmer who prefers THEIR naming convention with no internal constancy has taken umbridge with a DIFFERENT naming convention with no internal consistency and merely changed it all in a fit of pique.
"Shoot for the Moon. If you miss, you'll end up co-orbiting the Sun alongside Earth, living out your days alone in the void within sight of the lush, welcoming home you left behind." - XKCD
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Olterin
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Post by Olterin »

On a different note: if you're playing career and were wondering about how to make your science gains ridiculously easy - tech outsourcing strategy at anything over 5% commitment. If you're playing career and are interested in actual difficulty, avoid that strategy like the plague :P ("I can haz full tech tree after a flight to the Mun plus running a few part tests, yis")


... I'm kinda hoping it gets rebalanced before official game release :|
"Do or do not, there is no try"
"My Other Overwhelming Mixed Assault Fleet is a Brigantine" -Seleucius, commenting on my ship naming scheme
silenced
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Post by silenced »

Mods for KSP? Is there anything worth using? I didn't find anything in the last couple of years.

How did one of the KSP-Devs say about Mechjeb and Engineer? -> "It's kinda strange to see the game play itself!"
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Olterin
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Post by Olterin »

silenced wrote:Mods for KSP? Is there anything worth using? I didn't find anything in the last couple of years.

How did one of the KSP-Devs say about Mechjeb and Engineer? -> "It's kinda strange to see the game play itself!"
There's KAS (Kerbal Attachment System), there's RLA Stockalike (because surely more parts (mostly of the 0.625 variety for all your satellite needs) is better, yes?), there's Fine Print (because the stock contract varieties are a bit bland) and there's SCANsat for mapping terrain (mission planning and stuff). Rest sort of depends on what your take of the game is - hardcore space program simulator? For-fun blowing rockets up by crashing them somewhere? Something else entirely?
"Do or do not, there is no try"
"My Other Overwhelming Mixed Assault Fleet is a Brigantine" -Seleucius, commenting on my ship naming scheme
Dantrithor
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Post by Dantrithor »

This thread has been dead for a while, but I'm preparing myself for v1.0 madness by creating a strange sort of interplanetary mothership for small deployable vessels.

As of now, I have just created a rather simple version assembled in orbit. The main module, side engine pods, antenna array, and energy component, plus the kerbal crew and drop pods have been launched in different missions. Actually, the energy component was launched as the ship was already orbiting the Mun for it's test run (I forgot about it! Fortunately, I had a standard engine for 'high' speed maneuvering which gave me a bit of energy..) and the pod Mk1 didn't work so well, as it didn't have enough deltaV to make it back into orbit from the Mun so... I had to replace them with the Mk2, ~33% lighter.

This is the Space Bus Mk.1, bringing the engineers, and scientists, to their new home:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =418282204

Here, you can see the (as I thought back then, fully assembled) ship, with a "building assistant" which has a docking port and a claw in front (not visible) docked in it's right auxiliary pod:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =418282327

Here you can see the inner docking bay, lined with lights. Yes, I know, I have a poor ability to choose colors. The image was taken while assembling the antenna array, which also has a monopropellant auxiliary tank, used for the landers.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =418282298


Here we are, ready for departure! The auxiliary building ship will be undocked and left in kerbin orbit, for reuse. Two little boys (Mk I) can be seen in the cargobay. Their size was a little bit bigger than expected, so only two can be carried at once.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =418282437


And this is my ship, orbiting the Mun, after getting it's energy upgrade attacked to the second auxiliary docking port and three Mk.II drop pods.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =419064776


As a matter of fact, I expected the pods to double as rescue ships, but when redesigning them, I felt they would be of little use as only a maximum of four Kerbals (out of about 20) would be saved. The joy of creating this thing and assembling it in orbit is that I can create new modules to attach quite easily, and they can be rather big (as I use double docks in each side, as can be noticed in some images), thus I could make bigger side attachments with chutes. I could even make a small engine pod, and attack it to the actual side mounts ports (either the front protected port, or the aft open port).

Decisions, decisions... anyway, it's time to test out the landing pods!

Bonus: This kerbal wasn't happy about almost falling off his chair. This was a nice bug...
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =398169138

And no. The chair was straight when the flight begun, but it somehow "bended" or "moved" the kerbal after some aerodynamic stresses were suffered... don't ask, I don't know why happened, but it was cool nonetheless.
brucewarren
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Post by brucewarren »

Nice :thumb_up:

One of the things I found about .90 is that I can no longer use the old "Just shove more rockets on" approach now that we have to pay for them.

I started repeatedly doing the missions to put a satellite in solar orbit just for the moolah.

It's a better game for it of course, but it has made it harder for us MOAR POWAH types :lol:
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OmegaKnight
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Post by OmegaKnight »

Nice design Dantrithor.

I had a bit of a muck around in 0.90 but I’m really waiting on the 1.0 release to get back into it.
New aero/drag mechanics should be fun, or at least a new challenge to optimise.

The problem is that it’s all a bit easy still. I think I’m going to have to crank up the difficultly for the next go,
but even then it’s just an artificial restriction on a sandbox type game that just means contracts will become a grind till you level up (and if I wanted that I’d play WoW)
and while designing a short take off and landing seaplane, so I could take surface readings whether they where on a mountain side or the ocean was fun.
Doing it 20 or 30 times in a row just to unlock new parts is not.
Dantrithor
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Post by Dantrithor »

I actually play in sandbox mode, because I felt the career mode was too annoying. I didn't really have any financial issue but when I built a behemoth which failed in orbit (I made a big interplanetary ship, assembled in orbit, but using single joins between big modules. It was a spaguetti at anything above 3m/s^2) but having to grind to get access to stuff was too much of a burden for me.
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Usenko
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Post by Usenko »

OmegaKnight wrote: The problem is that it’s all a bit easy still. I think I’m going to have to crank up the difficultly for the next go,
*Looks up from yet another failed attempt to get something to Duna*

Mutter mutter mutter mutter mutter . . . :D
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OmegaKnight
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Post by OmegaKnight »

What went wrong Usenko?

Back in 0.19 when building interplanetary stuff, I found building a train worked better, with the engines pulling modules along, rather then pushing to avoid spaghetti Dantrithor
ie this post
Dantrithor
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Post by Dantrithor »

It seems to be an efficient design!

My ships tend to have a lot of stuff attached to the sides, and that's what tends to bend a lot. This is the reason why I have been practising docking through multiple nodes to help with this.
brucewarren
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Post by brucewarren »

I wish we had a more powerful air intake as a part.

It's possible to fit 8 - 12 of the black ones on each wing, but it feels a but underhand doing this, as well as making the plane downright ugly.

The trouble is that if you don't spam intakes you don't get the air, and if you don't get the air you can't get up to the 30 - 50 km you need before switchover to have a shot at getting into space in a single stage.
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OmegaKnight
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Post by OmegaKnight »

Oh yeah I know about things bending when you hang things off the side :D
a while back when I was building a Mun base, I was trying to figure out a way of getting the connection tubes there, to join all my modules together.
And well this happened
[ external image ]

Aye, the radial intakes don’t work too well when you get up high, so I’ve been making little nacelles
like so
[ external image ]
but it’s best to keep space planes as small and light as possible
[ external image ]
[ external image ]
and I like the bi-plane design as 1: you can hide all the ugly stuff between the wings.
2: angle the lower wings more giving you dihedral stable flight characteristics :)
pjknibbs
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Post by pjknibbs »

Dantrithor wrote:I didn't really have any financial issue but when I built a behemoth which failed in orbit (I made a big interplanetary ship, assembled in orbit, but using single joins between big modules. It was a spaguetti at anything above 3m/s^2) but having to grind to get access to stuff was too much of a burden for me.
I've planning to get back into KSP when 1.0 launches, and I've always planned to run career mode, but use sandbox mode to test complex designs before using them in career--I justify this by saying the sandbox test is a computer simulation of the mission run before the real thing. :wink:
Dantrithor
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Post by Dantrithor »

Well, pjknibbs, that's a good rationale to use sandbox mode, actually. I'm usually too lazy to do that, though!
Anyway, I found out it was way too boring to grind for cash, even considering that you can "exchange resources". I might, though, start a career game again when 1.0 shows up. Hopefully there will be enough changes to make it worth it!

Plus, I use quite a few mods. I played the game "vanilla" for ages, but eventually decided to try out some aircraft parts. Now, I use the Aerospace part mod, FAR for more realistic aerodynamics, for a while I used the Deadly Reentry mod (but abandoned it due to how complicated it was to land -anything- without it burning down), MechJeb for all that useful info which should be included in the cockpit anyway, ... It soon becomes a mess to play in career mode!
andrewas
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Post by andrewas »

You could use the kerbal construction time mod which adds simulations. I think you can disable the actual construction time, though that adds to the game as well, since you can't instantly throw together a rescue ship for a stranded kerbal. Adds some strategy and tension if you have TAC life support installed as well.

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