Rocket Science News

This update brings you one of the main pillars of a good space simulator: mod support. At this stage the game will support two kinds of mods: Surface Objects and Localization. Rocket parts, rocket sharing, configurable celestial bodies and other types will come later.

Mod creation and configuration process is available in-game so there is no need to run any external applications (apart from models and textures authoring software).



I’ve created a rather detailed guide about mods with examples and lots of screenshots, so if you have never created mods but always wanted to, it's your chance to dive right into it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2326439478
The most natural thing you can do with mods is to let other players play them. Steam Workshop integration provides an ability to share your mods with the community and download new hand-made mods for yourself. Just click '+ Subscribe' and the mod you liked will be available in the game.



Only one mod is published right now, but expect more in the near future.

[h2]Solar System Map[/h2]
Apart from mods there are other changes. A lot of improvements have been made to the Solar system map. First of all, 166 new celestial bodies were added to the solar system map of which 6 are dwarf planets and other are missing moons of planets.



Map gives you a lot more information now and supports not only orbit nodes, but spacecrafts, celestial bodies and surface objects.

Up to 8 grouped tooltips will be shown If more than 1 object with tooltip is under the cursor.



And last but not least, the Milky Way was finally added to the map!



[h2]Other Improvements[/h2]
Some systems received a substantial redesign of internal code. I’ve described it partially in the previous post. But I want to bring your attention to several key changes.

First of all, rockets can finally physically interact with the previously launched spacecrafts that have landed or reached orbit. You can try to guess which currently missing important rocket part this change was made for to support it in the future. ;)

Secondly, the surface objects mod configuration scene helped me to identify and fix a bunch of bugs that couldn't be fixed without it. For example, exploding rockets in the air in the certain areas of Earth and Moon, or huge surface artefacts in some places.

Artefacts like this are no longer exists

The final technical tool that was added is the save migration system. It will not only help you to avoid broken saves on each game release, but could be also used to migrate old mods to the new game version.

That’s all for you today. If you have any questions or comments, please put them below. Goodbye and happy holidays!


[h3]Features:[/h3]

• added mods support for surface objects and localization;
  
• added Steam Workshop support;
  
• added 166 new celestial bodies to the solar system map (6 dwarf planets and moons of giant planets);
  
• Solar system map improvements:
  
  
  
  • added tooltips for all celestial bodies and spacecrafts with name and useful info;
    
  • added marks and tooltips for surface objects;
    
  • several tooltip items will be shown if there is more than one object under the mouse pointer;
    
  • tooltips are colored the same way as the orbit node under it now;
    
• added Milky Way;
  
• improved autocorrection PID controller: it works much more precisely and equally well on rockets of any mass and shape;
  
• implemented save migration system: no more broken saves on small data format changes!
  
• added support for ultrawide aspect ratios like 21:9;
  
• added Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese fonts to the game.
  

[h3]Changes:[/h3]

• added predicted impact coordinates to the tooltip for impact node;
  
• remaining rocket parts from previous stage will be moved to the new one during the staging;
  
• rocket no longer moved into Physics simulation, when you rotate it using direct controls in space;
  
• added two more save slots;
  
• increased size of assembly shop;
  
• changed assembly shop architecture a bit;
  
• improved performance for rockets with a lot of parts;
  
• improved performance of noise functions, used during planet generation;
  
• reduced aliasing on UI icons and small UI elements;
  
• unify font sizes in most game interfaces;
  
• applied kerning to fonts;
  
• improved dropdown visuals;
  
• added smooth transition when exiting to main menu;
  
• marker size settings affect all markers on the solar system map now.
  

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

• game stuck when selecting any far planet and then the Sun on the Solar system map;
  
• huge artefacts on planet surface in areas where fields transition to hills and hills transition to mountains;
  
• game stuck on spacecraft launch, when previous spacecraft stayed on the launchpad and was manually removed from control center;
  
• sometimes second launchpad appeared in totally wrong orientation when launching the rocket;
  
• building and rocket parts outlines sometimes stop working, when you are in the spaceport and at least one rocket is landed on Moon;
  
• solar system map not properly updated, when time is paused and you have selected another celestial body or spacecraft;
  
• atmosphere sometimes not switch off, when selecting another planet without atmosphere;
  
• rocket incorrectly decouples, when the parent rocket is in space and was rotated after the engines are off;
  
• rocket incorrectly positioned after rotation on 180 degrees in space and turning engines on;
  
• bad performance in assembly shop for old GPUs;
  
• rotational period for planets with sync rotation is incorrect;
  
• height sampling is incorrect in certain areas of the planet, that can lead to rocket explosion in the air or fall through the surface;
  
• orientation of most planets and moons except Earth is incorrect;
  
• light leaks on certain sun angles in the assembly shop;
  
• exception in the console, if one of the rocket parts was destroyed during the flight at the distance around 1000 km from the launch pad.
  
• parachute sometimes breaks when deployed on low altitude, even if the speed was acceptable;
  
• missing localization of force and duration units in the engine module window.
  

Quick update here. Last two months I’ve been busy improving the game's internal code and structure. The main purpose of these changes is that I want the game to support thousands of flying spacecrafts and most Celestial bodies in the Solar system. It was not possible before, and that’s why.

So, a typical rocket consists of several parts. Every rocket part may have several modules which determine what exactly the part can do. For example, every engine could have up to 4 modules:

• Engine Module (engine itself);
  
• Engine Gimbal Module (thrust vector control);
  
• Engine Generator (energy production if engine is on);
  
• Engine Effects (engine sounds and visual effects).
  

Previously, the simulation system executed an "Update" function of each module of each part of each rocket every frame. But a lot of rocket parts have only config-like modules without any behaviour (like engine effects) or no modules at all, so the time spent on updating such parts is wasted. And if you have more than 20-30 rockets (which I have repeatedly observed in some videos on YouTube), that time becomes considerable.

I’ve rewrote a simulation system such that it directly updates only modules with functionality. Combined with the drag calculation performance improvements introduced in the last update, it makes my initial goal reachable.

Likewise with the Solar system. To support not only 8 planets and their main satellites, I needed to unify orbit calculation (which is already crazy fast) and celestial body positioning and rendering, to not perform the same calculations several times.

There are also more underhood changes I made and some new features I implemented, but I will talk about them in the next update release. If everything goes well it is expected on December 18. If not then December 24 is the day.

Here is a small teaser specially for you.



And another one. What it can be?

Greetings.

Today’s update is the first step in making rocket construction a more enjoyable experience. I have also rewritten a lot of game internals which allowed me to implement new features that weren't possible before. Below I will focus on the most impactful changes, and the full patch notes will be at the end of the post.

[h2]Assembly Shop[/h2]
Yes it’s finally here. You can build your rockets, using symmetry now! Since rocket parts can be attached to each other only using attachment points, symmetry in “How do you like it, Elon Musk?” works a bit differently than in other games.

First of all, there is a new symmetry control panel where you can change symmetry count in different ways.

You can also use X and Shift-X to do the same thing

Radial symmetry supported not only on side attachments:



but also on one attachment with several slots.



More complex cases are supported too:



Lastly, you can cycle symmetry count just before connecting the parts:



But there are some constraints to this system. If symmetry count does not match with available attachments or one of the attachments is already occupied, it will not work. Also symmetry is calculated relative to the root part. Root part is the first part of the rocket. Since there are no constraints on what part could be the first at this moment, symmetry can give you weird results, if you start building your rocket from the fin, for example.

One thing that is missing right now is the symmetric part removing. This is a bit more complicated, because I store no info about what parts were added using symmetry. So you need to set symmetry before removing and it will remove all parts that will match the symmetry count. I need to think about it and test this feature a bit more before shipping.

The next feature that this update brings is parts copying. Press Shift and click or drag any part to copy it and all connected to it parts.



I’ve also added a toggle to show the rocket center of mass, improved tools panel and fixed some bugs (especially with undo/redo).

[h2]Flights[/h2]
After a bunch of refactorings the data about each part position and rotation relative to the rocket is now available in the spacecraft simulation system. This allowed me to implement several features that were not possible before.

First of all, I can correctly calculate rocket bounds now. This means that spacecrafts in most configurations will be precisely placed on the launchpad (no more floating in the air).

Secondly, since solar panels orientation is available in the simulation, their energy production depends on angle between panel and Sun. Solar panels also no longer produce energy, while the Sun is occluded by the planet.

Lastly, payload fairing and cargo modules start to actually protect the parts placed into them from the atmospheric drag! This is a huge change, because this makes a whole class of parts useful during rocket construction.

And finally, command pod or probe core can have any orientation relative to the rocket. Navball and velocity markers will be oriented relative command pod orientation and not rocket up direction, like before.

Last change is also very impactful, because you can finally put satellites into orbit, using a launch vehicle.



[h2]General[/h2]
There are many changes here, but here are some most interesting:

• rockets in the assembly are sorted by update time now, spacecrafts in the control center are sorted by mission time (newest first);
  
• added icons for ships, probes and debris in the control center and for the Solar system map. I will add proper spacecrafts filters in the next update, so you could show and hide spacecrafts by category;
  
• added 4 new rocket parts and changed the shape or parameters of some fuel tanks and adapters.
  

And last thing I want to point out is the game size on disk. Previously it was around 8Gb and I managed to reduce it by 2Gb using compression for Earth and Moon heightmaps. If you don’t see the change in size after the update, try to reinstall the game (Steam sometimes doesn't remove redundant files).

Once you've downloaded the update, you may need to restart your Steam client. In the off chance the game isn't working properly for you after the update, please try verifying the game files:
- right-click on How do you like it, Elon Musk? in your Steam Library
- select 'Properties...', then select the 'Local Files' tab
- select 'Verify Integrity of Game Files...'

That's all for today, I hope you will enjoy this update.

P.S. Note: saves from the previous versions of the game doesn't compatible with current version. I will think about adding save migration tool in the next update.



Features:

• reduced build size by 2 GB by applying compression for planet heightmaps;
  
• [Assembly shop] symmetry tools are available during rocket construction;
  
• [Assembly shop] you can duplicate part or part group using hotkey;
  
• [Assembly shop] added toggle to show rocket center of mass;
  
• [Assembly shop] undo and redo now supports rocket part rotations;
  
• [Assembly shop] spacecraft will keep rotation that was set for it (after exiting an edit mode and during the flight);
  
• angular drag is now calculated and applied to rockets flying in the atmosphere;
  
• payload fairing and cargo modules start to actually protect the parts placed into them from the atmospheric drag;
  
• spacecrafts support any command pod rotation relative to the rocket and will appropriately orient navball, markers and direct controls;
  
• added icons for ships, probes and debris in the Control Center and for the Solar system map;
  
• total playtime is recorded into save slot (not counting loading time).
  

New parts:

• Adapter 1.2-0.35;
  
• Series S Fuel Tank;
  
• Spherical Fuel Tank;
  
• L-shaped Block.
  

Part changes:

• increased radius of Payload Fairing;
  
• reduced energy capcity for probe core "Sputnik-2" from 42 to 36;
  
• decreased diameter of "FT-800 Fuel Tank" from, 1.2m to 0.7m and adjusted its paramters;
  
• changed shape of Adapter 1.2-H and renamed to Adapter 0.35-0.6-H;
  
• added porthole to "Vys" Command Module;
  
• decreased length of "Adapter 0.35-0.55";
  
• changed shape of "Basic adapter" and added 3 more connection variants for it.
  

Settings:

• [Assembly shop] hold Shift and click or drag rocket part to duplicate part and all connected to it parts;
  
• [Assembly shop] Press Ctrl+S to save the rocket
  
• [Assembly shop] Press X to cycle through symmetry count;
  
• [Assembly shop] Press Shift+X to cycle through symmetry count backwards;
  

Changes:

• changed the way rocket bounds is calculated, as a result fixed floating rockets over launchpad before launch;
  
• solar panels don't produce energy, while Sun is occluded by planet;
  
• solar panels energy production depends on angle between panel and Sun;
  
• added status, occlusion and production values into solar panel control window;
  
• improved parts attachment positioning for all the parts with only one attachment during rocket assembly;
  
• [Assembly shop] rocket parts keep pivot during rotation;
  
• [Assembly shop] added undo and redo buttons on UI;
  
• [Assembly shop] added sorting by update time for rockets in the Assembly Shop (last updated goes first);
  
• [Assembly shop] changed spacecraft orientation, so the command pod porthole is turned up;
  
• mission time for spacecraft is now calculated since liftoff;
  
• [Control Center] added sorting by mission time for spacecrafts (newest spacecrafts go first);
  
• improved performance of drag calculations (5-10x speedup);
  
• decoupler no longer disappears after use;
  
• decoupler is applying force to original rocket too during activation;
  
• reduced memory consumption, when there are a lot of rockets in the Math simulation;
  
• probe cores constantly consume electric charge, they will not recieve any control commands without it;
  
• rockets without command pod or probe core (for example, debris) could not receive any commands or open part windows.
  

Fixes:

• reaction wheels not working if the spacecraft was decoupled from other spacecraft;
  
• rocket sometimes fall through Earth surface after collision on high speed;
  
• a lot of issues, when using "Undo" and "Redo" in the Assembly shop;
  
• exception thrown, if the rocket on the launchpad was removed through Control Center, and the next one was launched;
  
• some elliptic orbits flicker, when time lapse is enabled;
  
• rocket constantly move between Physics and Math world, if it landed and one of the rocket parts was destroyed at the same time;
  
• spacecraft icon sometimes is not shown on the map;
  
• rockets from previous save appear in the new save, if save slot was not cleared before starting new game;
  
• sometimes game freezes, when trying to launch spacecraft with a lot of parts.
  

So the update is finally here. I couldn’t even imagine that it would take so long, but I am far more satisfied with the current state of the game, than with the original release. So let's talk about new features and changes that this update brings.

[h2]The Moon and interplanetary flights[/h2]
New celestial body to explore and new challenges to overcome. While first stable orbit around and first impact into no-Moon were already achieved by Admiral Andre in February, landing, let alone returning to Earth after that, is like playing in the hardmode with enabled Iron Man right now. That’s because there are not enough rocket parts and tools to precisely configure your spacecraft for such mission. Also you have no way save during the flight and to revert the game to the last save point. It is an interesting experience, but it always feels bad, if you lost your spacecraft during landing, because of some unfortunate bug. So I will add the ability to save current flight and revert it to that save point in one of the following updates. More parts and better tools are in the roadmap too.



[h2]Obits system rework and Maneuver Planner[/h2]
Orbits have a solid foundation right now. I am pretty happy with the current performance and quality of this system. Maneuver Planner is based on that foundation, and despite its a bit rough state, it is great and must-have addition to the game. There are plenty of features that are missing right now, for example, ascending and descending nodes, closest approach nodes, target system, etc... But this will be relatively easy to add in the future. By the way, you can use Maneuver Planner directly in the Control Center without going into flight mode. Pausing the game (~ by default) will help with that.



[h2]Better interaction between spacecraft and the world[/h2]
Spacecrafts no longer explode 10 meters above the ground. Part animation, like extending solar panels, will change physics shape and part parameters. Rocket parts could explode on collision with each other during the flight, if impact force will exceed the impact tolerance of the part.



[h2]Improved aerodynamics[/h2]
The game is calculating up to three drag force vectors per rocket part and applying it to the actual physics shape, instead of only one combined vector, applied to the part’s center of mass. As a result, rockets with a small number of parts will be more affected by aerodynamics, than before.

In the previous version of the game command module would recive no torque at all

[h2]Rocket assembly improvements[/h2]
Not much here, but I fixed two critical bugs during rocket construction. Also I improved attachments raycasting, so it will be a bit easier to attach parts to the rocket.

[h2]New parts and parts changes[/h2]
Parachute and landing struts were a new challenge to implement, because they have internal state and animation, they should react to the world around and be aware of the main spacecraft state too. But despite all problems, they are in the game now. Another important addition is the new probe core, which is much lighter than “Vys” command module, but has no builtin reaction wheels and very little electric charge. This probe core also introduces a new rectangle socket, which will perfectly combine with some other existing connectors. Last but not least, the dry mass of all fuel tanks was reduced by around 15%. It should help you to put more payload into an orbit.



[h2]Extended soundtrack[/h2]
11 new tracks were added into the game along with new ingame music system that would track your spacecraft state position and will change tracks depending on that. These tracks were also added into “How do you like it, Elon Musk? Soundtrack”, so all owners of this package will automatically receive them for free.

A bunch of rockets were destroyed during development of this update

There are a lot of other changes, fixes and improvements (as well as new bugs =/). You can see the full changelog below. But I want to talk about what's next. The weakest part of the game right now is the rocket construction. As I said earlier, it has a lot of missing tools and quality of life features. It also requires rewriting some parts of the whole assembly system, to make things like symmetry and saving subassemblies possible. This will be my top priority goal and I will focus on it the next month or two. Before that I will probably release small update, that will add analytics into the game, so I could see, which rocket parts are popular, and which have never been used

That’s all for today. Thank you all for your support, feedback and reviews! This update wouldn’t be possible without that. See you in the next one.

P.S. If you have any problems with this update, try to verify integrity of game files first. Sometimes Steam doesn’t download a file or two for some reason. Also this update is compatible with old save files, but rocket part changes will not affect already constructed rockets. So if you have problems there, try to start the new game.



[h3]Features:[/h3]

• added support for interplanetary flight;
  
• added the Moon;
  
• implemented maneuver planner and encounters prediction;
  
• added 11 new tracks and improved playlist selection during flight;
  
• improved aerodynamics for rockets with small number of parts;
  
• added proper support for parabolic and hyperbolic orbits;
  
• game is now supporting up to 500 orbits rendering at the same time without dropping fps on the average PC;
  
• new orbit nodes: impact, encounter, escape;
  
• approach time to orbit nodes and maneuvers is showing now, when hovering mouse over them;
  
• added proper environment shadows during flight;
  
• new 16-bit temperature map for Earth, it will make planet texturing more smooth and reduce noisiness,
  
• new high quality color and normal maps for Moon on the Solar System map;
  
• added automatic camera exposure control and adjusted values during flight and on the Solar System map;
  
• added sun flares;
  
• updated main menu scene;
  
• animated rocket parts not only change visual appearance, but affect physics shape and rocket parameters;
  
• new autostabilization mode: maneuver;
  
• new socket types: rectangle, dualhex.
  

[h3]New parts:[/h3]

• Frontal Parachute is working now! (kinda of)
  
• "Feather" Landing Strut;
  
• Standard Reaction Wheel;
  
• Payload Fairing 3x7;
  
• Micro Decoupler with 3+2 variants
  
• two more variants of "Seeker" Decoupler.
  

[h3]Part changes:[/h3]

• "Vys" Command Module:
  
  • reduced max torque from 20 kN to 18 kN;
    
  • reduced consumed power from 0.53 to 0.48;
    
  • increased mass from 740 kg to 850 kg;
    
  • reduced electric charge amoun from 135 to 120;
    
• Small Reaction Wheel: increased max torque from 4.5kN to 6kN and consumed power from 0.1 to 0.14;
  
• reduced dry mass of all fuel tanks by ~15%;
  
• changed visual appearance of Adapter 1.2-0.55 C-4 to make the compartibility with "Clicker" Longitudinal Decoupler more obviuos;
  
• added single socket on top of the "Sputnik-2" Probe Core;
  
• "Energia-C8.95" Liquid Fuel Engine increased thrust and fuel consumption a bit (impulse didn't change).
  

[h3]Settings:[/h3]

• added orbit markers size configuration;
  
• added scroll sensitivity for manever planner handle;
  
• new hotkey G - to toggle landing gear;
  
• press "Delete" while on map view to remove selected maneuver node.
  

[h3]Changes:[/h3]

• changed collision detection method, it will no longer produce phantom colissions, but sometimes may miss collision on fast moving objects;
  
• rocket parts could explode on collision with each other;
  
• improved attachment search while assembling the rocket;
  
• spacecrafts with applied torque will continue infinitely rotate in space (if auto stabilization is turned off);
  
• rocket consumes correct amount of electric charge when it is in Math simulation;
  
• spacecrafts position is checking against planet heightmap in Math simulation;
  
• increased max possible angular speed of all bodies;
  
• orbit markers and text have the same size no matter how far they are from the camera;
  
• antialiasing is now applied to orbits;
  
• improved orbit colors and rendering;
  
• only section of orbit is generated and rendered in some cases (like when part of the orbit is bellow the surface);
  
• improved perfomance in spaceport;
  
• sun is more yellowish now in the map view;
  
• autocorrection in Math simulation is more precise;
  
• last activated stage in flight will be saved with spacecraft;
  
• reordering action groups shift folowing groups instead of swap;
  
• spaceport authorities have finally continued construction of launchpad!
  

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

• rockets explode in air far from ground;
  
• stage activation breaks after some rocket stages was destroyed by impact;
  
• rocket can not be crashed onto launchpad (fixed for most of launchpad, except the exact start point to avoid rocket exploding on engine start);
  
• seams on planet, visible from certain distance and light angles;
  
• higher level of detail of planet surface sometimes doesn't load;
  
• when rocket flying on hyperbolic orbit, it is going into abyss after some time;
  
• game freezes when entering atmoshpere with huge time warp multipler;
  
• decoupled rocket part moves strangly to the sides sometimes;
  
• rocket fall through the surface of planet and continue flying sometimes;
  
• different artefacts on planet in flight mode on very high orbit;
  
• incorrect normals in map view on all planets;
  
• grid-like artefacts on oceans on Earth in the map view;
  
• ocean flickers a bit when rocket is falling down;
  
• rocket shadows not changing, when changing rockets in assembly shop;
  
• various light leaks in spaceport;
  
• broken shadows in spaceport during the summer;
  
• vcam popping on when changing view from spaceport to map;
  
• you can attach three "Raduga-52" engines to one fuel tank;
  
• different issues with action groups moving and updating;
  
• wrong spacecraft velocity after you reached speed of 5km/sec in the atmosphere;
  
• spacecraft flying sideways relative the ground under some conditions (again);
  
• Assembly Shop completely broken, when deleting rocket part using Delete key and not detaching it from the rocket before that;
  
• sometimes parts do not detach from the rocket in the Assembly Shop;
  
• part slots / connectors incorrectly highlighting in Assembly Shop or flight;
  
• orbit node text sometimes clipped by the planet.
  

[h3]Known issues:[/h3]

• incorrect rocket palcement on the launchpad during launch;
  
• part of the rocket explode below the surface, if the command module was destroyed.
  

[h2]26.08.2020[/h2]
[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed crash during roclet construction
  
• Fixed buildings not highlighting when hovering over them
  

I know it's been a while, but after a lot of work, research and experiments I am almost ready to release the next big update of "How do you like it, Elon Musk"? I needed to setup a release date for this update, so I wasn't be tempted to delay it again. It will include the Moon, support for interplanetary flight, Maneuver Planner, over 50 changes and fixes, and new parts, including the most requested one — the parachute! And it will arrive on Steam on August 25, 2020!

Stay tuned and see you soon.

This is the first iteration and there is a lot to improve, but it is finally working.