Rocket Science News

Welcome, fellow rocket scientists and pilots, to Update v0.23 “Ascended Assembly”!

This time I brought you:

[h2]Dynamic attachments[/h2]

I've talked about this attachment system rework in depth in my blog post. Long story short: you can finally place rocket parts radially almost whenever you want.



The game will create radial attachments automatically for you. This will unlock the full potential of vessel crafting. Not only that, but there are more advantages to the new system:

Dynamic attachments work great especially for planes, they can finally be properly balanced.



You will be able to attach most engines to the sides of fuel tanks. Some interesting rocket designs are incoming!



Cargo parts will be much more useful, as you'll be able to attach other parts anywhere inside it.



Payload fairings now attach to the side of any cylindrical part of the appropriate radius. It should be much easier to use them now.



This system is a bit different than what you are used to so I strongly recommend finishing a newly added “Dynamic attachments” tutorial in the control center. That helps you understand how this system works and also teaches you some useful hotkeys.

Also, it’s worth noting that a lot of rocket parts were reworked by changing size, shape or other parameters especially from the structure category. Now part radius and number of sockets are much more consistent.

[h2]Transonic / supersonic drag calculations and effects[/h2]

I’ve been asked about this since day one after release. It is better to add it later than never, so here we go.



[h2]Multiple launch sites support[/h2]

Another highly requested feature. Now you can launch spacecrafts from different locations. I’ve added the Baikonur cosmodrome as a feature test case. It consists only of a launchpad now, but I will expand it into a proper launch site in the future. Since the location of Baikonur is a bit superior to the main space center, it will be locked until you complete the “Land on the Moon” contract.

Those players, who are following the development of the game since the begining, may recognize this launchpad

More importantly, you can add launch facilities to the surface mods now. So I am looking forward to mod where I can launch my rocket from Kennedy Space Center…

There are a lot of other changes and improvements in the game. Like now you can control camera in the assembly shop using WASD or recover vessels that landed safely (or not so) on Earth. This update is not as big as the last one in terms of game-changing content, I mostly did the groundwork in preparation for v0.24 which will be huge feature and content wise.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[h2]v0.23.4 release notes[/h2]

PREVIOUS SAVES ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THIS VERSION OF THE GAME.
If you want to continue plaing your save or you have problems with this update, please switch to v0.22.x branch.

Spacecrafts in mods are not compatible with this version of the game. You need to remade them and republish your mod.

[h3]Features:[/h3]
🔸 added dynamic attachments for almost all rocket parts;
🔸 implemented radial and linear snapping for dynamic attachments;
🔸 added transonic / supersonic drag calculations;
🔸 added reaching transonic / supersonic speed effects;
🔸 added support for multiple launch sites;
🔸 added rewards and unlocks system;
🔸 added Baikonur launchpad (unlocked after completing Land on Moon contract);
🔸 surface objects mod now support launch facilities;
🔸 added WASD camera movement to the Assembly shop;
🔸 you can recover vessels and debris from the surface of Earth.

[h3]New rocket parts:[/h3]
🔸 "Hose" Longitudinal Decoupler
🔸 FT "Cubatic" О

[h3]New content:[/h3]
🔸 added tutorial explaining dynamic attachments system.

[h3]Part changes:[/h3]
🔸 all part variants with side attachments are gone;
🔸 removed line socket (as it no longer needed);
🔸 F now sets the part pivot point to the next available attachment instead of just flipping the part;
🔸 all cube and hexagon structures were decreased in size;
🔸 payload fairings now can be attached to the side of fuel tank;
🔸 changed longitude sockets on most reaction wheels, making them correspond to its size;
🔸 "Rumble" Decoupler no longer consist from two parts and can be attached directly to the side;
🔸 changed or reworked shape (or size) and basic properties for many parts, mostly in “structures” category.

[h3]Changes:[/h3]
🔸 physics representation of rocket now loads synchronously;
🔸 you can attach up to 65536 parts to another part (previously was 256);
🔸 reduced amount of snapping during rocket assembly;
🔸 improved color outlines highlighting during assembly;
🔸 adjusted all tutorials because of dynamic attachments;
🔸 changed how fuel consumption works: now engines consume fuel evenly relative to total volume between all tanks;
🔸 added additional tutorial steps into basic tutorial.
🔸 reworked how force for payload fairings is calculated, now it only account for total payload fairing mass, not the rocket mass.

[h3]Settings:[/h3]
🔸 [Assembly] hotkey for "select" mode is now E instead of S (because S used for moving camera).

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]
🔸 countless bugs related to part async loading when making quick changes to rocket in assembly;
🔸 planet generation stop working when CPU have only 2 cores;
🔸 symmetry not working on top of rovers;
🔸 crash when switching heat shield type on not attached part;
🔸 [Assembly] sometimes selection switches to another part when you try to rotate current part;
🔸 [Assembly] attachment detection is working worse when the rocket is in the vertical orientation;
🔸 [Assembly] game is broken when detaching engines when symmetry is enabled and then undo this action;
🔸 exception when trying to save modified heightmap first time in the surface mod;
🔸 engine flames sometimes slightly offset relative to combustion chamber;
🔸 removed loud car honking from assembly ambient sounds;
🔸 game loading stuck when mods with unsupported rockets is enabled.

[h3]Known issues:[/h3]
🔸 facilities doesn’t properly save and update when created for the first time;
🔸 facilities offset doesn’t match launch coordinates.

Hello,

It's time to reveal what I was working on last month. Long story short: big changes to the rocket assembly are coming!

You can read the full post on my blog.

These two weeks were very productive. I’ve spent them stabilizing the game after the release of v0.22.0 update. I got a lot of good feedback and bug reports and fixed most of them. Now I'm satisfied with the quality of the update and can move to the development of v0.23 version. I have big plans for it and prepared a huge list of changes I want to make. As always I will uncover some of them in a future dev update.

Now let’s move to highlights for this patch. First of all, I’ve added an ablative variant for each heat shield. You can now configure the thickness of the ablation layer and it will resist the radiative heating which appears when you enter the atmosphere at speeds higher than 9 km/sec. This allows you to make a return mission from the Moon or break against the planet’s atmosphere in the interplanetary flights. Be careful tho, this heat shield will not save you if the re-entry angle will be too steep.



A small but pleasant change: the heated shields are now emitting light.



I also fixed a lot of bugs that were in the game for years. For example, I finally found a way to deal with those circle artifacts visible on high Earth orbit. You can still notice the small ones, but they are much less prominent.



Earth no longer loses its atmosphere when you enter the Moon’s sphere of influence.



And a quick load made during the flight will finally load you directly into the flight!

You can find a full list of changes since v0.22.1 below. Thank you and see you in the v0.23 update!

[h2]v0.22.5 release notes[/h2]

[h3]Features:[/h3]
🔸 added ablative configuration variant for all heat shields;
🔸 you can change pass resources state on decoupler during the flight;
🔸 quick load during the flight will load directly into the flight;
🔸 state indicator on probe cores now change color depending on the state of probe core;
🔸 you can directly switch to select mode when right click on the part and the assembly is in rotate mode;
🔸 heat shields now glow when heated;
🔸 added "Lock thrust limiter" toggle to engines, so when it is enabled engines will ignore any global thrust limiter changes and keep its configured value;
🔸 added several additional tutorial steps to the base tutorial that explain side attachments and part configuration;
🔸 added protective "shadow cone" for heat shields, so side attached parts will not receive heating if they are covered by reentry shadow from the heat shield.

[h3]Changes:[/h3]
🔸 improved bluntness calculations for reentry: partially occluded surfaces should not receive increased reentry heating like it was before;
🔸 significantly optimized spacecrafts list in the control center if it contains a lot of spacecrafts;
🔸 optimized thermodynamics system performance on time warps greater than 1h/sec
🔸 improved heat shield part tooltip in the assembly shop;
🔸 adjusted heat shields center of mass to make them more stable;
🔸 parts no longer heat at when they are oriented at 85-90 degrees relative to airflow;
🔸 increased max internal temperature for all decouplers;
🔸 scroll speed is the same in both directions, when adjusting maneuver using scroll wheel;
🔸 improved logging when rocket part is destroyed because of overheating;
🔸 activating the next stage will no longer override thrust limiter if it was previously set to any value other than 100%;
🔸 twr and burn time now recalculated for stage when changing the thrust limiter for engine in the assembly;
🔸 thrust limiter in part config in the assembly now have proper rangnes;
🔸 moved center of mass for all probe cores down a bit, to make them more aerodynamically stable;
🔸 tweaked parameters of parachute, so it is more resistant to reentry heating.

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]
🔸 unstable thermodynamic simulation on high time warp;
🔸 exception after that part stats stop properly update in the part window;
🔸 "Clap" longitudinal decoupler not passing resources after docking;
🔸 sometimes game crashes when quick loading;
🔸 a lot of small bugs related to resource transfer via docking port module;
🔸 sudden rotation around y axis of spacecrafts when docking;
🔸 empty dropdowns in the navball mod;
🔸 fonts have different sizes in the surface mod;
🔸 part attachment systems sometimes breaks when reattaching small parts;
🔸 rare crash on reentry;
🔸 negative total mass when adding some parts, changing variants and then removing it;
🔸 planet atmosphere disappears in main menu if you replace spacecraft with custom one;
🔸 rotated heat shields generate wrong heat shadow;
🔸 fixed Earth losing its atmosphere on SOI change;
🔸 greatly reduced dot artifacts on planet surface on high altitudes;
🔸 Rumble decoupler overheat very quickly;
🔸 rocket state in flight (amount of fuel, etc) reset after save loading;
🔸 fins used as a rudder work incorrectly on some attachments;
🔸 fins control surfaces not correctly shown when symmetry is enabled;
🔸 infinite exception loop when trying to change side booster parameters;
🔸 combustion chamber rotates around up axis for no reason;
🔸 thrust limiter is showing as 0 in flight / assembly windows, when it set exactly to 50%;
🔸 memory leak when duplicating rocket;
🔸 tutorial stuck if you attached more parts to the rocket than was requested by the tutorial;
🔸 exception when opening the map using button in the control center (and back to spaceport);
🔸 engines attached to cockpit or rover become start rotating 90 degrees down if they have TVC;
🔸 not saved window close button doesn't work (Assembly);
🔸 can't attach anything small into side slots of Adapter 1.2-0.55;
🔸 when changing fuel tank attachments and it is a root part, attachment positions become broken;
🔸 removed launch button from the UI in the rocket assembly mod;
🔸 "in", "out" buttons and fuel amount slider doesn't update and change state in docking port window.

[h3]Known issues:[/h3]
🔸 game crashes when opening any mod preview and then trying to continue the game (Unity issue, can't do much about it for now)

Rocket Science v0.22.1 “Foundation” update has finally arrived! I’ve decided to change my update highlights format a bit and made a video that clearly demonstrates the most important changes. As always, you can find full release notes below.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I want to touch on some things that were not included in the video. Firstly, there are not many implications of thermodynamics at the moment other than engines, re-entry and solar radiation overheating. So you will be able to try it out and tell me if it is working as expected in all cases and all possible part combinations (it is not possible to test everything by myself). I hope to have all the thermodynamics related bugs fixed and any missing thermal control parts added for the next update. Since I am going to introduce operating temperature ranges for some parts, you will have to pay even more attention to spacecraft thermal control in the future.

Secondly, I will spend the next couple of weeks not only fixing new and already reported bugs by players, but working on a thermodynamics tutorial, where I will try to explain all processes that are happening in this system. Also I am planning to add several parts that I didn't have time to work on this time.

That’s all, thank you for your support and have a nice flight!

[h2]v0.22.1 release notes[/h2]

Some spacecrafts may be broken because of these changes.

[h3]Features:[/h3]
🔸 thermodynamics was introduced to the game;
🔸 added re-entry effect;
🔸 extended Earth and Mars atmospheres density, pressure and temperature calculations up to its maximum altitudes supported by models;
🔸 [Flight] total rework of all part windows;
🔸 [Assembly] rocket stages now support undo / redo;
🔸 [Assembly] added an ability to change root part;
🔸 [Assembly] you can change side attachments on already placed part;
🔸 [Assembly] you can configure any module on placed part;
🔸 [Map] you can now pin any tooltip on right mouse click;
🔸 fins are aerodynamic surfaces now that can be used to control the rocket;
🔸 you can disable and hibernate probe cores now to reduce electricity consumption;
🔸 you can disable reaction wheels;
🔸 added new fuel pair: kerosene - lox and engines that support it;
🔸 engine plume was completely reworked;
🔸 all tutorial windows can be dragged now;
🔸 added new thermal part category.

[h3]New rocket parts:[/h3]
🔸 "Razryad-518", “Zaryad-021”, “Duga-8” liquid fuel engines;
🔸 General-Purpose Heat Source (RTG) and Multihundred-watt RTG;
🔸 Payload Fairing Strait Base GO-5;
🔸 Small Fin;
🔸 Passive Heat Shields for 0.55 m, 1.2 m and 2.5 m
🔸 Passive Radiator Panel and Passive Radiator R-2.

[h3]Part changes:[/h3]
🔸 Basic Fin now have control surfaces
🔸 “Vega-072” engine was made bigger and now requires star socket to attach to;
🔸 tweaked ISP and thrust for “Iskra-758”, “Energia-C8.95” and "Yuzhniy-348" engines to be inline with real analogs;
🔸 Structural Adapter 1.2-Cube and Structural Adapter 1.2-Module were moved from structures category to adapters.

[h3]Changes:[/h3]
🔸 flight part window now opens on right mouse click for consistency with assembly;
🔸 engine system performance was increased by a factor of 5 in some cases;
🔸 engine heat emission is no longer fake;
🔸 reworked "warp to" algorithm, it is now much more precise;
🔸 improved precision at which drag data is baked;
🔸 reaction wheels consume energy evenly (previously small wheels consumed first);
🔸 camera will continue to follow spacecraft if its command module was destroyed;
🔸 [Assembly] you can now open part config by right clicking on part;
🔸 [Assembly] removed angle restrictions from all socket types for attached part rotation;
🔸 [Assembly] you can't reattach already attached part to another one;
🔸 [Assembly] significantly improved "Reset all stages" algorithm, that composes stages better now;
🔸 all selection and hover outlines now brighter;
🔸 increased electricity capacity up to 2x for all batteries, probe cores and command modules;
🔸 collapsed solar panel partially produce electricity, reduced by amount of area hidden from the Sun;
🔸 solar panels energy production now depends on distance to the Sun.
🔸 added "burnTime" into engines tooltip. This is the amount of time an engine can burn in vacuum continuously without overheating.
🔸 added area and volume parameters to all tooltips;
🔸 all single side attachments were rotated 90 degrees to be consistent with the direction of line attachments;
🔸 some positions of side attachments were swapped to better support changing them on already placed part;
🔸 cleanup a lot of code and assets related to old timeline system;
🔸 build size was reduced by 2 GB.

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]
🔸 when clicking on item on parts panel, click event happens twice;
🔸 reaction wheels consume 2x time more energy than in spec under heavy load;
🔸 Rocket does not reset if you make changes to it and then exit to space center via main menu;
🔸 if you create new rocket, not make any changes to it and then try to exit from editing mode, not saved window is not shown;
🔸 orbit raycast sometimes not working on highly eccentric orbits (again).
🔸 game freezes when entering atmosphere on high time warp;
🔸 sometimes rocket parts suddenly rotate after coupling;
🔸 [Assembly] center markers get wrong positions if you move spacecraft and then attach any part to it;
🔸 [Assembly] part resets its rotation when reattaching from one socket to other;
🔸 navball autocorrection buttons not change state, when autocorrection was changed from command module window;
🔸 Seeker Decoupler can not be clicked during the flight
🔸 exception when changing part config when part is not attached to the rocket;
🔸 sometimes fuel indicator near navball stuck after decoupling;
🔸 rocket with extended landing struts / solar panels has incorrect bounds when loading from save;
🔸 wrong tooltip for reaction wheel status indicator;
🔸 countless bugs tied to old flight window system;
🔸 stage loses selection outline, when stage button was pressed and there are no more stages left;
🔸 all aerodynamic surfaces have wrong position of lift force application point;
🔸 if aero surface had no control surface, it doesn't change when selecting any other one in part config;
🔸 you can not hover or select engine during the flight if it was placed inside tail block 0 and was smaller that it;
🔸 when spacecraft is in physics simulation, time in spaceport is at 10x speed, not 1x
🔸 infinite exception loop, when you have part selected with symmetry, and then closing spacecraft with changes reset;
🔸exception related to orbit panel when you first time load flight.

When I started working on thermodynamics for “Rocket Science” I couldn’t even imagine how deep a rabbit hole. I am close to a finish line and now I understand why some recent space simulators choosed a very simplified model of thermal processes. Because everything appeared to be much more complicated compared to what I told in the previous dev update. To describe all of this I wrote an article that is so big, that doesn't even fit into a standard Steam news post. It also contains a bunch of formulas written using LaTeX, which also is not supported by Steam. So I'm suggesting to read the full version of article in my blog.

For starters, here is some screenshots from that artickle:

Interesting, what is happening here?

And there?

You can also find some pretty interesting gifs in that article. As for the release date of v0.22.0, I can't provide any yet, but I am pretty sure it will be ready no later than at the end of summer.

Thank you and have a nice flight!