Infos, Bilder und Kritik zu zukünftigen Updates

Felipe (HarvesteR): So last
week I got the new UI widgets pretty much in a presentable state, now
moving forward with the rest of the to-do list. Funds are implemented to
an essential level, which means they’re far from complete, but the game
does already calculate the cost of vessels and charges you for it, or
prevents you from launching altogether if you can’t foot the bill.
Figuring the cost of a vessel was an interesting thing to work on.
Initially, the idea was that the cost of vessels would just be the sum
of the cost of every part, but it seemed much more interesting to factor
in the cost of the resources contained in each part as well. So for
instance, the 10.0 units of Monopropellant on a mk1 pod make up for
12.00 of its 600.00 total cost. On an SRB, on the other hand, the cost
of the fuel is a much more significant percentage of the total. Also,
this does mean that if you set the amount of fuel in the Editors to less
than full, you can make the part slightly cheaper (or a lot in case of
SRBs). This system was a lot more tricky to put together than just
adding up fixed costs, but it should be much more interesting to play
with. I had to go over the cfg values for a lot of parts, to make sure
their costs weren’t set to anything less than the cost of the resources
they contained (that would have been awkward). Several parts have had
some stats tweaked, but most importantly, I’ve tweaked the costs and Isp
values on the Mainsail and the Kerbodyne LF Booster. The Mainsail is
now the more efficient one, so it should be a more appealing option now,
when comparing the two.

Alex (aLeXmOrA): I left everything ready to do
the upgrade of the KSP Forums last Thursday, but due to some last
minute issues we had to postpone it for today. As you can see, the
Forums are now in maintenance mode while I’m running the upgrade script.
This process should be completed for this Thursday’s afternoon and then
the Forums will be running in the last vBulletin 5.1.1 version. After
that, I will start implementing the project I’ve been working with Bob
and Miguel (more about that later).

Mike (Mu): Well it’s been a week of changes
and improvements to the contract systems and adding some new features to
really push the game towards having an actual career mode! Have also
created some new controls which add colour and variety to our text.
We’re finally moving towards a much more consolidated UI which feels a
lot better.

Daniel (danRosas): Going
through the polishing of the animation. And since it’s the first time
that we are more than 2 guys doing art for different Kerbal related
things, I’m starting to supervise those processes, with a little help
from Lalo. It’s being fun and challenging I’m really confident that
there will be plenty of new stuff to show in upcoming months. And
probably you have noticed that the name Hugo has appeared on the lower
section of the Dev Notes. Hugo is helping out during his summer break,
say hi!

Miguel (Maxmaps): Working on some
organizational reporting systems for my work as well as helping scout
small, cool things that can be thrown into 0.24 for a better experience.

Anthony (Rowsdower): Well the forum is down so
you know what that means? Fun with spreadsheets! It’s time to organize
things and get into ship shape. It’s also time for some creative
thinking. I’ve got a contest idea that you all may have a lot of fun
with. In a World Cup sort of mood yet?

Jim (Romfarer):
As Mike mentioned, I’m in the middle of consolidating the UI’s in order
to make them look more similar. We have also had a lot of small changes
and additions to the ui’s over the last months so many of them are due
for a polish.

Rogelio (Roger): It’s been a long week polishing textures and lightning the set but the render is looking pretty good.

Hugo (the intern): Finished a couple pieces
(OMS Engine and Vernier Engine) for the game. Im now helping Daniel and
Rogelio with models for their animations. I just finished a firecracker
and I’m currently working on a kitbash of a space rocket. Im excited to
see how these things start turning out.

• Das Spiel kalkuliert jetzt kosten für die Rakete und verhindert das man Raketen startet die man sich nicht leisten kann
• Nicht nur die Teile kosten etwas, sondern auch der Treibstoff: Das heißt, je weniger Treibstoff man nimmt (natürlich nicht zu wenig), je weniger kostet die Rakete - und das will man doch: Sonden und Satelliten günstig ins all starten, ohne zu viel auszugeben
• Die Kosten und der ISP des Mainsails wurden höhergesetzt sowie die des Kerbodyne LF Booster+
• Der Karrieremodus soll jetzt ein richtiger Karrieremodus sein, durch einige Änderungen und das Geldsystem soll es jetzt richtig cool sein!
• Das geplate Forenupdate, welches ursprünglich für den 22. Mai angesetzt war, wurde durch einige Probleme auf den 27. verschoben, das Forum sollte ab Donnerstag Nachmittag (Squad Zeit) wieder erreichbar sein
• UI`s werden angepasst (?)
• Es gibt ein Aushilfsarbeiter für den Sommer, Hugo
• Dieser Satz hier ("Finished a couple pieces (OMS Engine and Vernier Engine) for the game) deutet darauf hin das es ein paar neue Teile geben wird, ein OMS Triebwerk (OMS= Orbital Manuevering System, verwendet als Space Shuttle Orbital Trirbwerk) und ein Korrekturtriebwerk

Felipe (HarvesteR): Another week working on Contracts, but we have an end in sight now. Rather than just fill you in on the items from my to-do list though, I’ve written an article about where we are in development. You can check it out HERE.

Alex (aLeXmOrA): It’s been a busy week of hard work. I finished the implementation of the marketing project I’ve been working with Miguel and Bob and, hopefully, it will be launched this week. Just messing with the last configuration settings, but it is ready to go live. Also, I’ve been dealing with some billing issues from our hosting (yeah, still on that). I think I’m going to scream at them at some point if those issues don’t get fixed asap. For now, I started working on the implementation of the new sounds of some Parts of the game.

Mike (Mu): Yet more work plowed into contracts and user interface this week. We’ve changed how contracts are generated, making them easier for modders to create but also giving them more power and functionality.

Daniel (danRosas): Interesting week so far. The polishing of the animation is nearly done, and we’ve just started rendering tests. We managed to get from 30min per frame to 7, which is great. About the rope rig, it wasn’t a joint driven rig after all, and no dynamics, since we don’t have the power to do those calculations. It turned out good with a combination of deformers and clusters to a single motion driven curve (or several, if we count that each shot is animated separately). Hopefully by the end of the week we can start thinking of post-production and vfx.

Jim (Romfarer): Working on the physics for a small, goofy surprise we will announce soon.

Miguel (Maxmaps): Wrapped up work on the design of the upcoming little surprise. Hoping you guys will have fun with this lighthearted addition. Also making sure that all of our awesome content creators get a big dose of Squad love soon.

Bob (Calisker): I’m writing this while on my flight en route to Los Angeles for E3. While we don’t have any big, exciting news to share at the conference (sorry!), I am meeting with several folks about KSP at the show. One thing I am excited to share is that Nassault, one of the best KSP videographers has joined the team on an intern basis. He’ll be delivering some epic gameplay trailers and working with our animators. We are also in the process of rolling out an affiliate program for our video partners on YouTube and Twitch.TV. We think this will be an exciting way to support those creating content on KSP and help us introduce new players to the game. We’ll be sending out more information about this as we get everything lined up very soon.

Ted (Ted): This past week I’ve been continuing with the increased QA documentation, keeping up with the many changes to 0.24 that the developers are working on and fighting a grim case of man flu. Oh, I’m also writing a Dev Blog on what has gone into 0.24 and 0.23.5 from a QA perspective, should hopefully provide some good insight.

Anthony (Rowsdower): I’ve been responding to, reviewing and analyzing some of the hotter community topics that have popped up over the last few days. I’ve also been bugging the crap out of some members of the team regarding them. I hope that what you see in these devnotes and especially in Felipe’s article can give you a better indication of where things are headed and why. Please just remember to keep things respectful and constructive when those topics come up. I know you’re passionate about many issues that surround the game, but it’s imperative to remember that everyone from Squad to each member of our community teams is working hard to keep you happy and informed. Speaking of which, I’m also pleased that I’ll be able to talk about what THIS is very soon.

Eduardo (Lalo): Reviewing the progress for the next update, according with Dan and Felipe the following tasks, im very happy because we are doing great things for the next release, stay tuned.

Rogelio (Roger): This week I’ve been cleaning the scene (reducing the polycount, modifying lights and optimizing textures) because the first render tests were taking too much time, so we reduced the render time from 30 minutes per frame to 7-8 minutes and it still looks very well!. I’ve also been doing some stuff for the upcoming project.

Hugo (The Intern): This has been a fun week. Lots of things going on. I mainly worked on continuing the work on some parts within the game and started the process of selecting and planning visual improvements on some of the existing pieces. Also there have been a lot of challenging and exciting moments trying to get the little surprise to work. I’m confident that it will bring many new fun opportunities for the users to create inside the game.

Work continues with Contracts, the weeks are starting to blur together as a continuous stream of work. As you all know by now, Chad is moving on to other projects.

At this stage in the project, bringing in someone new as a straight up replacement isn't a possibility. The level of familiarity a developer gains after working for years on a project can only be gained by working, well, for years on a project. We have new people on the team as well, Hugo is doing some very good work, Rogelio is helping Dan with the animations, which frees him to take on some of the roles Chad used to do, and Nick, who modelled several of the parts in the ARM patch, is also working on other design jobs for things still some ways away. The plan then is not to replace, but to adapt to this new team structure.

Not all is gloom and woe though. On the development side, we now have ahead of us what is unmistakably the last stretch for Contracts and Budgets on this update, so we shouldn’t be far now from a system which will obviously still need a lot of content added to it, sure, but should be able to handle just about any idea we can throw at it.

To put this into perspective, I may have said this before, but I’m quite convinced now that the only existing system that is similar to the Contracts system in magnitude and robustness is PartModules. Now, consider that PartModules, while it made its first appearance in the 0.17 update with the LaunchClamps and got going in 0.18 with docking ports and all the other bits, the basic system itself actually entered development around the time of 0.15. About 6 months or more of development before it was even announced. it did turn out to be a system so important to the game, it was worthy of an entire talk to itself at the GDC.

With Contracts, we are faced with a task that is similar in many ways. However, this time we are under very different circumstances. Most obviously, the game is now much, much larger than it was when the first Module-based parts were added, but perhaps not as immediately apparent, the level of quality expected of such a system today is orders of magnitude greater than what it was about a year and a half ago.

This is by no means a bad thing. If the expectation of quality is ever rising, it means at the very least that we aren’t making the game worse.

But therein also lies the main issue of recent times, and also the reason why we decided to push the 0.24 release back. If we had released Contracts as they were last week, back in the days of 0.17, it would have been pretty ok, and about on par with the rest of the game. However, because everything else is so much further developed, every new feature must be implemented, from scratch, up to the same levels of quality as the rest of the game, which is a lot of work to cram into a single update.

The plan then was to split up the update into two smaller chunks: Contracts first, generate missions based on this progress-aware, semi-procedural framework, then create some placeholder contracts to make sure the thing worked. On the next update then, tie it together with budget management and add in some proper contracts.

Of course, that plan didn’t quite work out. Not because of any technical problems, though, but because of a game design one. As I explained earlier on another article, there was no point to having contracts in before budgets, nor would have there been much use for budgets without contracts. The two systems, while technically separate, were one big gameplay mechanic.

That was the focus of the first week or so of our ‘extended time’ with 0.24. We added enough of the budget functionality to make sure Contracts had a proper purpose and reason for being in the game, and that much I can say, has worked. Being required to purchase your vessels before you launch, and being rewarded for the things you achieve adds a whole new dimension to the game. Arguably, the missing link between a Space Exploration Sandbox and an actual Space Agency Game. There are other Career mechanics still left to add, of course, but nothing of this scale. With Contracts and Budgets in, Career Mode is now finally reaching a point in development where we can start to appreciate the entirety of what KSP will be.

This not-so-distant point now, is what we set out to achieve after we declared KSP to be Sandbox-Complete, just as we finished up updates 0.19 and 0.20, and started in earnest to add Career oriented features. We are now looking, albeit still from a couple of updates away, at Scope Completion.

If you weren’t around when we announced Scope Completion as our goal back then, let me recap: Scope-Complete means that every major gameplay system in the game is implemented, even if its content is limited. It means all the necessary support for the game’s content exists and can be expanded upon.

I do need to make one thing very very clear: Reaching Scope Completion does not mean, by any means, that we’re done with the game, or even that the features we have are now finished and beyond improvement. Quite the opposite in fact. It means there are (or will be, as we’re not quite there yet) no more base systems left to do, and from there on, the focus shifts to improvements, optimization, and content.

Of course, we have to to make sure we add enough content to show our new systems in function (imagine building yourself a top-notch gaming PC and having no games to play), but for a lot of areas, the amount of content we have added so far is symbolic at best. In some cases, like Biomes, it's actually the minimum needed to make sure the system is able to function, and scale as more content is added onto it later.

This is how we’ve developed KSP from the start. Always focused on what I call the ‘area of least development’. Whichever part of the game is the least close to completion, or furthest behind in comparison to others, is the area to focus next.

Working with minimal content during development isn't a bad thing for developers. I can't count how many times I've dreaded the prospect of having to go through all the 170+ parts and their configs, to make some tweak or another. Having less parts in the game would have certainly made life easier for us on many a situation... It would also have made for a much less interesting game. This, as with so many other things, is something we have to maintain in balance.

Walking this line is not an easy thing to do. It's very easy to get tempted to follow some feature or another all the way through, rushing through it on that surge of ideas that pop up as you work on it. Other times, an opportunity may present itself which cannot be delayed (like a very recent one featuring asteroids, you may remember it). On yet other times, you feel the urge to just start chucking in everything that is missing, in the crudest way possible.. I don't have to explain why that last one is a bad idea...

Naturally then, we have taken a few side steps along the way, adding features of opportunity here and there as they presented themselves, or killing off some annoying bug that had just pestered everyone for too long. For extremely large projects, like Multiplayer, we’re working on it in the background from several months in advance, so by the time we are ready to start focusing every effort on it, we won’t be starting from scratch. Sometimes it's worth it to leave the path to pursue something unique and interesting, other times however, we have to force ourselves to not work on that thing we've been itching to do for so long now, but won't get the game any closer to completion.

In any case, the bottom line is that ever since 0.19-0.20 were released, our main goal has been to reach Scope Completion: Not finishing up what we started, but starting what still doesn’t exist.

I do have to say this very clearly: Releasing 0.24 does not mark Scope-Completion. There will be at least one, possibly more updates still before that. However, after 3.5 years of work, a couple more updates is really not such a long way to go.

We're getting there. Perhaps not as quickly as we would like, but we are getting where we want to be.

Cheers