Kerbal Space Program

[Prime Junta]

Not to be a sell-out, but it seems like they're actually making a lot of progress lately. Maybe there's a healthy balance between indie developers doing the creative part of the game and then a bigger company going forward with it?

Maybe? I'm pretty happy that they finally integrated features from some must-have mods into the base game, like the dV readouts from KER and atmospheric flight control that's reasonably decent from AA. Add alarms from KAC and I'd almost be ready to play vanilla. (Almost, KIS/KAS still rocks.)

They also need to do some serious optimisation. IMO they've been too autistic with physics realism at the cost of massive performance hits. It shouldn't be too difficult to implement an autoweld system that limited the number of physics parts in a craft to some reasonable number without noticeably affecting gameplay; they could also brute-force the problems with parked craft simply by removing landed craft from physics calculations unless something collides with them; this would also solve the huge framerate drops related to bases of any complexity.

But eh, one can always hope. And with the hours I've poured into it I really shouldn't complain.

 

[Drax]

Yes, the new features are really nice (mostly for those who don't use mods since they are basically importing them into vanilla) but they need to optimize the shit out this game.

 

[Perkel]

Not to be a sell-out, but it seems like they're actually making a lot of progress lately. Maybe there's a healthy balance between indie developers doing the creative part of the game and then a bigger company going forward with it?

The story behind Kerbal and how it was made is fucking nuts and explain a lot why it got so much downtime.

Basically some company from mexico who created normies stuff had this one guy who wanted to try something different. So with some luck he managed to get some funding from this company and do it as side project, turns out this was good idea and it started to sell but original company decided that it wasn't their specialty and wanted to scrap it. Most of people who worked there worked on it with barely any wages, some not paid at all. I am sure i butcher some part of this story but it is worth reading/watching on yt.

 

[Nutria]

Yeah, I've heard bits and pieces of this story but it's the kind of thing I don't really want to know too much about because I know it will make me feel bad.

 

[Hellraiser]

I have already thought of how I can use rotors and hinges.

Pistons will be useful for ground bases and uber-landers. Technically I think you could also use them to shift the center of mass by extending or retracting a long flat lander. I remember I had one problems with one of the surface base part mods because the COM was not aligned with the center of thrust, so I had to juggle fuel around and just barely landed the thing after multiple crashes.

Kerbal exosuits for base construction will be possible. They should have also added stock KAS-like winches but probably someone will port KAS to the new robotics system.

BTW one of the deployable experiments is a seismometer that detects only impacts, so you need to crash shit on purpose to have it gather science (instantly).

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

KAS doesn't need robotic system. And the new KAS version still doesn't have winches. What this expansion will make obsolete is Infernal Robotics, Surface Experiment Pack, and possibly KIS, as it was mentioned that inventory will be added to Kerbals for the deployable science instruments. They also mentioned that while the parts for the new inventory system won't be available in stock, the code itself will be, so mods can use it.

 

[Hellraiser]

DLC is out, free for early adopters same as last DLC. Can't find the changelog anywhere though :/

EDIT: I do not what did it (possibly a mod) but I had Nyancats flying all around the loading screen First time I saw that.

I need to purge some mods and reinstall the mandatory shit like waypoint HUD.

 

[Drax]

If you're using CKAN it shouldn't take long.

 

[Hellraiser]

I tried making a paddleboat with the rotors. Key things I learned:

You cannot place rotors in symmetry as rotation direction will be shared between all of them, individually inverting will not be possible. Gotta place them individually, I just used symmetrically places attachement nodes to add them one by one.

They have to be attached with the correct side otherwise the end without the attachment nodes will rotate.

And finally, if a paddleboat is too light the paddles will cause the boat body to also rotate around the rotation axis of the rotors. The end result was floating in place and spinning around until the power ran out as Jeb and the solar panels ended up on the underwater and not sunny side of the boat. Good thing he had his helmet on.

Also rotors for propellers seem kind of shit now. Main issue is there are no parts, especially very small parts, that can easily be used to build the propellers. Rumor mill said Squad wanted to add a proper electric propeller for release but there is no such thing. It would be enough if we just had a proper propeller arm in a few sizes. Would build electric planes for Duna again or some nice VTOLs with hinges.

I'm going to try to build a proper walker next to figure out the robotic controllers. Then probably some construction vehicles and hyperedit shit into soime body's orbit for some nice sandboxy base building larp.

 

[Irata]

Steam is selling the base game for 10 USD (which I believe is an all-time low). If you don't have the imagination to create your own scenarios do you need the DLC?

 

[Hellraiser]

Steam is selling the base game for 10 USD (which I believe is an all-time low). If you don't have the imagination to create your own scenarios do you need the DLC?

Which DLC - making history? Even the editor is not so good (no variables and math operators? seriously?) and I could not be arsed to do the stock scenarios anyway. It has some parts though but nothing critical. I would get that at a sale.

Breaking Ground? - Hard to say at the moment, the robotics are nice but it needs some QOL improvements. Even with them it will not be so easy to use. Still I am leaning towards the opinion it is mandatory because unlike making history it does add features that enhance the base game.

 

[Prime Junta]

You cannot place rotors in symmetry as rotation direction will be shared between all of them, individually inverting will not be possible. Gotta place them individually, I just used symmetrically places attachement nodes to add them one by one.

There's a "remove from symmetry" button that lets you do this after you've placed them.

I tried some propellers and they're ugly but they do work. Been mostly focusing on helicopters though, I've moved past this version but it's one of the first ones that flew acceptably:

 

[Hellraiser]

There's a "remove from symmetry" button that lets you do this after you've placed them.

I had to to go to the KSP reddit to figure out why I could not find it. Turns out that "advanced tweakables" such as this one are disabled by default in the game settings! You would think this feature is kind of basic and should not be hidden like that.

Also there is an extended burn indicator setting, wonder what that does so I enabled it as well. Probably Kerbal Engineer makes it redundant.

I started up career mode with some LARP settings and got a contract to hunt for a spesshul mun rock for recovery. I would say that besides the robotics which make life easier for somethings that is my favourite new feature. You just get a hint in what biomes it might be and gotta go look for it without a quest compass. I'm making a an exploration vehicle that uses rotating engines for some low altitude flights to go find one. Apparently these things are kilometers apart so aerial recon finally has a purpose.

Disappointed a bit with hinge and pneumatic force, I wanted to do a munar grasshopper for lulzy surface exploration as an alternative to rovers. Best results were with alligator hinges but the hops are not very impressive on the Mun and in general the acceleration and thus velocity is very low.

 

[Prime Junta]

Steam is selling the base game for 10 USD (which I believe is an all-time low). If you don't have the imagination to create your own scenarios do you need the DLC?

If you’ve never played it, it’ll be months until you get to the point of benefitting from the DLCs. Just buy the base game, if you do dig it you’ll know when you want the DLCs.

Of the two Breaking Ground is far and away the better one. Still a bit rough but IMO they hit it out of the park.

 

[Hellraiser]

I just noticed Nertea has added new sexy command pods in his near future spacecraft mod. Phoebe capsule looks very Dragon 2-ish, using that for my Munar Exploration Vehicle. Also he added some superdraco-like radial thrusters.

Drop test using a SRB and some parachutes proved new pistons can take 15 m/s landing velocity for this thing. Also thanks to being able to set extension directly, unlike with landing legs where only dampening could be changed, it is easier to balance the craft when landed or lower the rear for easier access or deployment. Rover deployment will now be much easier with pistons and hinges.

I don't like the empty truss structure in the middle of this design, as it separates the command pod from the rear with the cabin and airlock. Not something you would see in a real spacecraft.

I have 3 robotics controllers linked to action groups, each with a different preset for the servos I hid inside the fuel tanks along with good old spark engines, for the 3 angles I will be using (forward-down-reverse). The only issue is that if I switch to a target angle to one 180 degree different from the current one the servos rotate in different directions. That does not happen if I switch the target angle by 90 degrees with a robotics controller and it will cause spin if the engines are running during the transition. I guess I could also force engines to shutdown when the angle switch is triggered and turn them on when it finishes, but that might be too much work. Also the current "feature" has the potential to result in hilarious situations in true kerbal style.

Now I have to also figure out how to launch this into space.

 

[Prime Junta]

Still tooling around with rotary wing craft. The BAK-52 is now as good as it's gonna get, and it is a lot of fun to buzz around KSC with it. Here's a nighttime variant, powered by fuel cells instead of solar panels:

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-52N

I also made this -- it took a lot of tuning to make it flyable and make it so you can transition between level and hover without crashing most of the time:

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-22-Kestrel

 

[Drax]

Nice, a windmill plane

 

[Hellraiser]

Managed to build some VTOLs using Juno engines. The last model also came with a crane in the cargo bay that dropped or picked up a rover. The rover folded out (wheels on gator hinges). Only problem, besides the rover clipping past the cargo bay especially during sharp turns in flight, is that the wheels can break since it is wider than open cargo bay doors. I will probably use smaller hinges and maybe make it shorter.

Also tried to build an EVE SSTO using the project ELOO nucular hybrid turbojet/NTR engines from the near future jets or whatever mod. Biggest issue is landing the damn thing even on Kerbin, it just falls apart on a whim. It also had the problem even during flight, probably should not load it with enough liquid fuel to get 4k delta-v in nucular rocket mode

 

[Prime Junta]

Nice, a windmill plane

What's Dutch for osprey?

 

[Nutria]

Everything has to be vertical. Otherwise you're a heretic against Elon "Rocket Jesus" Musk.

 

[Prime Junta]

I've been having fun with offroad suspensions.

The all-around best-performing one is a simple solid-axle setup, with bogies for the rear wheels if it's a six-wheeler. NASA's rocker-bogie suspension is wack but if the payload is at all tall it gets really wobbly PDQ. After I figured out you can use servos as springs they became tuneable on the road, too -- you can make them so stiff they might as not be there at all, or completely floppy, or anything in-between.

 

[Prime Junta]

Still tinkering with helicopters. The work has not been entirely without setbacks.

On the other hand Jeb's gonna Jeb.

 

[Nutria]

This is probably more of an expansion for people like Prime Junta who know what they're doing than me. I congratulate myself because every time there's a patch I can still make it to the Mun. But I like that there's now a 1.5-diameter set of rockets and fuel tanks. It really does fill a needed gap.

If this was a bad game and they made a $10 DLC for it I would be mad. This is a game of the century and I'm not disappointed at what I got.

 

[Drax]

The surface exploration part is a nice addition.

 

[Prime Junta]

The surface exploration part is a nice addition.

Cool. I only just started a career so haven’t seen any of that yet.