Kerbal Space Program 0.21 is out!

[FlowerChild]

Woot! <dances>

Perfect timing too, as I was just thinking I could use a night off from the mod :)

[abzu93]

Hell yes! This is a major improvement over their last release and thank monkey they fixed SAS so it doesn't shake your vehicles apart. Also reworking the End Flight and Recover options added much needed functionality.

They also improved some of the graphics and very nice cratering of the moon. Looking forward to restarting a whole new program.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, the moon cratering is very nice indeed. I've yet to land on it, but I've gone through my own personal beginning stages for my new game this evening by putting a satellite into orbit, putting a manned orbiter up then returning it to KSP (well, he landed in the nearby mountain range but close enough for the recovery), and then putting a satellite around the Mun.

At a 10 km orbit above the Mun, I was actually a tad worried I might collide with a couple of the mountain ranges the satellite was passing over, so the terrain is definitely much more varied :)

As an added bonus, I spotted an arch while flying over, so I'm going to attempt to land my manned mission near that.

Rockets seem much more stable in flight, but I'm still finding the SAS a little fiddly, at least without an advanced SAS installed (haven't tried with). IMO, it tends to still be a bit wobbly when you're making active course corrections with it engaged, and I find myself toggling it on and off as a result. Pre-release they were making it sound like you could just leave it engaged all the time, even while maneuvering, but I'm not finding that to be the case, at least not for rockets. It might be better with a joystick, so I may give that a try soon.

"Career mode" is unfortunately barely a glimmer in Jeb's eye though. All that's there is the crew manifest, which seems to make very little difference in practice.

[Gormador]

I'm going to begin playing KSP when I get back home. And I don't know if I need to find a good online tutorial first or not.

Any advice ?

[FlowerChild]

After doing the in-game tutorials, I started off with these originally, which are recreations of historical space missions that take you through all the basics of play:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki ... _Sputnik_1

I liked the historical approach quite a bit. No idea if those designs will work well with .21 though. A few tweaks may be required.

[FlowerChild]

Oh worth mentioning: landing on the Mun seems quite a bit trickier with the new topography.

I just got within a few hundred meters of the aforementioned arch, brought my unmanned probe down nice and gently, slid down a slope, and wound up with a fiery wreck. I think from now on I'll be aiming for the center of craters for landings :)

[Gormador]

Ok thanks for the info :-)

[abzu93]

Any advice ?

Take the route (as FC mentioned above) of following in the footsteps of real world space agencies.
Set yourself tasks that will help you learn the mechanics of the game.

1) Build an probe that can achieve orbit height and return safely.
2) Build an probe that can achieve orbit.
3) Put a probe in a polar orbit
4) Put a probe in geosynchronous orbit (2868.75km)
5) Build a probe that can fly by the moon at a height of 10km and safely return

If you can do those things, you can extrapolate how to do most everything else.

With .21 I'm starting over. I had just gotten my program up to the point where I sent a manned mission to Duna and stranded them. The last brilliant plan I had to get them back failed when the unmanned transporter I sent to rendezvous with them failed to deploy it's solar panels in a timely fashion; and is currently in a solar orbit-- forever. Soooo, it's a probably a good time to scrap the program and start again.

Here are the kinds of things other people do that are far more brilliant than I.

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[TheAnarchitect]

I like to play with the RemoteTech mod installed. This is one of those mods that adds gameplay by creating a subsystem requiring additional thinking. In this case, remote control actually requires a radio link, and you can bounce radio signals through other ships. The reason I like it is because it encourages me to make satellite constellations to bounce signals, and to do manned missions until I have the remote infrastructure in place. Getting my 3 geosyncronous satellites in stable orbit exactly 120 degrees off from each other to provide full planet radio coverage was the high point of my space program.

[BinoAl]

I like to play with the RemoteTech mod installed. This is one of those mods that adds gameplay by creating a subsystem requiring additional thinking. In this case, remote control actually requires a radio link, and you can bounce radio signals through other ships. The reason I like it is because it encourages me to make satellite constellations to bounce signals, and to do manned missions until I have the remote infrastructure in place. Getting my 3 geosyncronous satellites in stable orbit exactly 120 degrees off from each other to provide full planet radio coverage was the high point of my space program.

One of my friends recommended that mod to me, it looks interesting. I mainly want it just because it would force me to get better with orbits. For example, trying to get a geosynchronous orbit... Totally clueless. I could google it, but what's the fun in that? :p

[TheGatesofLogic]

gotta make the return trip from duna before I update, I'm worried I may shatter my ship from some of the updated things...

[MAZD1X1E]

Here are the kinds of things other people do that are far more brilliant than I.

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That kinda puts my feeble attempts to even get into orbit without some kind of crash minor technical fault occuring into perspective.

Never mind. I'll just start considering myself the China of the Kerbal world and everything will be fine...

[FlowerChild]

That kinda puts my feeble attempts to even get into orbit without some kind of crash minor technical fault occuring into perspective.

Have you done the in game tutorials? I'm always surprised when I hear about people that can't reach orbit, as while I've certainly experienced the occasional screw-up on launch when building rather large rockets, it's pretty rare that I can't just slap something together in a couple of minutes that will put me into a stable orbit.

The physics model is *extremely* loose at the moment where nose cones aren't even required to reduce drag on big exposed parts. One of the first mods I'll likely be installing will be to correct that and bump the difficulty up.

[DaveYanakov]

That video is freaking humbling right from the start.

And then you start wondering why we aren't already on the way there.

[FlowerChild]

And then you start wondering why we aren't already on the way there.

Because most of the progress we've made into space has been militarily or politically motivated and there just isn't much incentive in that direction at present? :)

Commercial motivation is probably becoming our best hope and there's very little in the way of guaranteed returns there to really push it.

I have a friend that works in space exploration, and our get togethers usually consist of him and I hanging out, getting drunk, and then returning to the same debate we have had many times before: not whether we can or should, or whether we will cease to be, but whether we'll get to the stage of colonizing other planets before we wipe ourselves out.

We both share a very similar love of space (which is why I was initially a physics major), but I'm a pessimist in that regard, so I make video games. He *chooses* to be an optimist in that regard (he doesn't fully believe we can make it in time but feels compelled to try), so he builds spaceships.

It's something we both agree needs to be done, but as is seen with many issues, kicking humanity as a whole in the pants (and the scale of these kinds of projects practically necessitates global support) to take the long view on such things is nigh impossible without some other form of motivation at play.

[Shengji]

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What do you make of the idea that there is some barrier that any sentient species has to face before developing to the stage where it can colonise other planets - The idea being that if there were no barrier, even taking the most pessimistic estimates, the universe would be teeming with life.

That we cannot detect any life yet indicates that the universe in emptier than it should be thus there is a barrier, but no-one knows what that barrier is or if humanity has already gone through it yet!

[FlowerChild]

Here are the kinds of things other people do that are far more brilliant than I.

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Oh wow. I finally got around to watching this thing (I was a little hesitant as I haven't been to Duna and didn't want to spoil the experience), and...wow :)

I think this may have just convinced me that KSP may be the next MC for the technically inclined. I've been enjoying the hell out of it, but I don't think I fully realized its potential before now. I think it also just convinced me that I'm going to start installing mods like crazy once they're updated to .21 ;)

[FlowerChild]

What do you make of the idea that there is some barrier that any sentient species has to face before developing to the stage where it can colonise other planets - The idea being that if there were no barrier, even taking the most pessimistic estimates, the universe would be teeming with life.

That we cannot detect any life yet indicates that the universe in emptier than it should be thus there is a barrier, but no-one knows what that barrier is or if humanity has already gone through it yet!

Well, I'm not convinced that our primitive detection methods really indicate anything either way.

BUT (and this is a rather central point in the discussions between my friend and I), if there is a barrier, I think it may revolve around the technology required for interplanetary travel also being incredibly dangerous and a good way for a species to destroy itself.

I'm not a doomsday profit in terms of thinking that global warming is going to wipe us out, or nuclear war is going to wipe us out, or that anything in particular is going to wipe us out. I had a rather defining moment twenty years ago when I was on a business trip and was watching some PBS in my hotel room. I happened upon an interview with a former head of research from IBM (forget his name) that was basically pleading the case for a slowdown or outright stop in human scientific progress.

Being a young man totally obsessed with tech in general, I thought this was completely fucked, but of course had to watch just for the "wtf?" factor.

His argument was basically that as we progress in various disciplines (pretty much all of them) we are rapidly progressing towards the point where every single one of us will have the ability to wipe us all out either through intentional or accidental misuse of that technology. At present, we're kinda trying to put our finger in the dyke already, and attempt to control who gets access to particular kinds of tech (nukes for example), for precisely that reason, but as we progress further along, it becomes easier and easier for people to gain access to more and more dangerous toys.

The point at which a sufficient number of us have that kind of power, our life expectancy is basically reduced to zero (imagine for a moment a world in which any one of us could "push the button"...how many minutes/seconds do you think we'd last?).

Anyways, by the time I had finished listening to this dude speak, my whole world view had been turned on its ear, because I personally knew he was absolutely right. I've had a distinctly love/hate relationship with tech ever since. Heck, you even see my underlying "technological progress always comes at a price" philosophy in BTW :)

The way I see it, we're basically at a stage that roughly equivalent to a single tribe of humans. If the wrong guy gets his hands on a stone axe, he can easily kill us all in our sleep, and that would be the end of the tribe. Here though, our "tribe" is limited to the globe we live on. In both scenarios, though, the only solution that really ensures the survival of the species is breaking up into multiple "tribes" so that if one gets wiped out in such a manner, there are still others elsewhere. In our case, the only vaguely feasible way of doing that seems to be expanding to other planets.

Granted..."we" as in the people having this discussion, are dead either way, so whether the continuation of the species is of personal significance or not is an entirely different matter. Given most of the world still seems to think that our survival is somehow divinely ordained and that the concept of us just being gone is entirely laughable, it's also fairly impossible to convince most that this is something that we should be concerned about.

So yeah...I like making games :)

[DaveYanakov]

Now you have me waiting for a doomsday clock mod where you have to get a sustainable offworld settlement up and running before time runs out and Kerbal goes away.

[FlowerChild]

Now you have me waiting for a doomsday clock mod where you have to get a sustainable offworld settlement up and running before time runs out and Kerbal goes away.

Lol...that would be something :)

KSP is probably the game I've been most tempted to mod in a long time. Not for the parts or physics features I see people mostly doing mind you (I'd feel bad even attempting something like that without a few degrees under my belt), but more for the meta-game stuff. Like, I could totally see myself doing an R&D mod for it where you have to invest part of your budget into R&D to gain access to new parts and facilities, which I don't think is something they have planned for their career mode. Would really love to see the campaign start with really basic rocketry of the V-2 variety and work its way slowly up from there.

But...must stay focused on RTH... ;)

EDIT: AHHHH!!!! My design-mind is taking over and I have visions of military contracts for building ICMBs netting heavy profit but upping your doomsday clock significantly!

[MAZD1X1E]

That kinda puts my feeble attempts to even get into orbit without some kind of crash minor technical fault occuring into perspective.

Have you done the in game tutorials? I'm always surprised when I hear about people that can't reach orbit, as while I've certainly experienced the occasional screw-up on launch when building rather large rockets, it's pretty rare that I can't just slap something together in a couple of minutes that will put me into a stable orbit.

The physics model is *extremely* loose at the moment where nose cones aren't even required to reduce drag on big exposed parts. One of the first mods I'll likely be installing will be to correct that and bump the difficulty up.

Okay, I maybe overplayed my noobishness for dramatic effect...

However I am spending an awful lot of time making cool looking and/or massive rockets that have little chance of achieving orbit due to the centres of mass, thrust and lift being nowhere near the centre. The large number of craters littered with scrap metal and bits of Kerbal scattered around my launch facility prove this fact admirably.

[FlowerChild]

AHHHH! Now testing of parts in-game is resulting in reduced failure rates as the last stage of researching new technology!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_%28nuclear_test%29

AHHHHH!!!!!

Somebody please make this mod so I can silence the voices in my head :(

[abzu93]

That was quick --

.21.1 Patch is out

Changelog:

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v0.21.1
Bug Fixes and Tweaks:
* Removed some unused assets from KSP/Parts.
* Fixed an issue with some scenery meshes that could cause bits of the UI to become unresponsive in some cases (mainly in the VAB and SPH).
* Tweaked some object scales slightly.
* Tweaked the ocean color at sea level on Kerbin (was way too dark).
* Fixed an issue that would cause lag while moving parts around the editor scenes if too many crews were hired at the same time.
* Fixed an issue with the new SAS not properly maintaining attitude. Should be much better now.
* Tweaked some parameters on the SAS to make it more responsive.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/content.php/203-0.21.1-Patch-News

[FlowerChild]

Booyah! (warning, spoiler image in the spoilers)

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Man, my landings are really getting better. Plopped that sucker down right where I wanted it :)

And btw, that slope in the background next to the arch is the one my last probe tumbled down ;)

I've also began the slippery slope into mod-land. Mun Probe Mark II had a nice procedural fairing installed on it at launch:

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Bonus points because it makes all rockets look way more phallic :)

[FlowerChild]

The thick plottens!

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