#patch 1.4.5

Just finished Year One of my casual, no cheats save :3

Not a perfect or minmaxed game at all, but still amazingly good! Found an ancient seed halfway through Spring and, thanks to a heavily blessed Traveling Cart, managed to get the Greenhouse build somewhere during Winter~

Didn’t quite max out the skills and haven’t started any romance (and heartbreak) yet. Only 5 hearts with their top ten frens... all shopkeepers, romantic targets, and the village moms lol. Religious mom got dropped for the Wizard tho, since she refused to leave her damned house, so I won’t be getting any Tea Leaves until I stalk her later.

BEST THINGS FROM THE UPDATE: Fish Ponds (I have 6!) Stackable Artisan Equipment

Welcome to KSP Weekly! Yesterday, scientists at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) made an announcement to reveal exciting findings from its IceCube observatory at the South Pole. IceCube – opened in 2010 – is designed to detect neutrinos from elsewhere in the cosmos that make their way to Earth. It uses 86 strings of detectors stretching 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) below the Antarctic ice to hunt for these particles. If a neutrino strikes an atom in the ice, it explodes in a shower of secondary particles, detected by the observatory, which then works out where the neutrino came from. Now for first time ever, an international team of astronomers has found the origin of some of these high-energy particles coming from the distant universe!

A neutrino is a fundamental subatomic particle just as tiny as an electron, but without any charge. Scientists know neutrinos have a tiny bit of mass, but they can't pin down exactly how little, because neutrinos don't interact with their surroundings very often, which makes them difficult for scientists to spot. However, on September 22, 2017, the IceCube observatory detected an incoming high-energy neutrino. This advanced detector has a real-time alert system, and broadcasted the coordinates of the detection to astronomers around the world just 43 seconds after its discovery.

About 20 observatories including NASA's orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope responded to the alert, and trained their views on the skies to try to work out where it was coming from. The process was possible because neutrinos, like photons of light, can cross extremely large distances in the universe in straight lines, without being pulled off course. Other types of high-energy particles can't do that because they are charged. The combined observations traced the neutrino's origin to an already-known blazar called TXS 0506+056, which lies about 4 billion light-years from Earth. Blazars are active galactic nuclei with a relativistic jet (a jet traveling at nearly the speed of light), in which the jet is directed very nearly toward the Earth, emitting gamma rays along other particles.

Physicists hope that by studying these particles, they can find clues about some of the biggest mysteries in the cosmos. One of those cosmic mysteries could include an explanation for dark matter. Dark matter has a gravitational pull on regular matter, and it has shaped the cosmic landscape throughout the history of the universe. Some theorists think dark matter could even be a new type of neutrino. We are now in an exciting new era of astronomy where we can study objects not just in electromagnetic radiation, but in the other particles they emit too. Incredible!

[Development news start here]

With an upcoming 1.4.5 patch about to come out of the oven, this week had the team performing various polish-related tasks. The QA team was particularly busy, testing and pushing to the limits all the fixes performed by the devs last week.

Meanwhile, the devs had also their good share of work. For instance, the version checking system has been fully established. This versioning system will trigger a warning dialog whenever there’s a problem with a save, craft or mission file due to incompatibility. Users will be able to load their files anyways, but at their own risk of course.

The work on KSP Enhanced Edition is also at a similar stage. BlitWorks has been performing a great deal of bug fixes, improvements, and feedback-based additions for an upcoming patch for the console versions of KSP, and we’re getting really close to its launch. So stay tuned to learn more about the patch and its official release date!

Remember that you can also share and download missions on Curse, KerbalX, and the KSP Forum.

That’s it for this week. Be sure to join us on our official forums, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news and development updates!

Happy launchings!

*Information Source:

Collaboration, I. (2018, July 13). Neutrino emission from the direction of the blazar TXS 0506 056 prior to the IceCube-170922A alert. Retrieved from http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/147

HAWC, Liverpool Telescope, Subaru, & VERITAS. (2018, July 13). Multimessenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A. Retrieved from http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/eaat1378

O`Callaghan, J. (2018, July 12). Incredible 'Ghost Particle' Discovery Heralds A New Era In Astronomy. Retrieved from http://www.iflscience.com/space/incredible-ghost-particle-discovery-heralds-a-new-era-in-astronomy/

Bartels, M. (2018, July 12). Here's Why IceCube's Neutrino Discovery Is a Big Deal. Retrieved from https://www.space.com/41142-what-are-neutrinos-why-they-matter.html

Welcome to KSP Weekly! Recently, a team of researchers from the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) in Rome presented evidence of a vast subglacial liquid water reservoir on Mars’ South Pole.

The team, led by Dr Roberto Orosei used data collected by a radar instrument, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS), on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft.

The data showed that there was a source of liquid water spanning about 20 kilometers across in a region called Planum Australe, about 1.5 kilometers below the surface. It was detected by sending 29 sets of radar pulses under the surface, with reflections showing a radar signal almost identical to that from lakes of liquid water found beneath the ice of Antarctica and Greenland on Earth, heavily suggesting it is liquid water.

The exact nature of the water is unclear though. The characteristics of this suspected water are complicated by the conditions it is in. On Earth, subglacial lakes reach temperatures of about -60°C. But the intense pressure of the ice above lowers the melting point of the water, to the point where it exists as a liquid in large freshwater lakes. However, under this region on Mars, it’s thought the temperatures drop to about -68°C. In order for the water to remain liquid here, it is probably full of salts like magnesium, calcium, and sodium.

On Earth, a handful of subglacial lakes have been drilled into and we have found bacteria within them, so this discovery is considered as a major step in the hopes of finding past or present life on Mars.

A few years ago, scientists found evidence for water trickling on the surface, known as recurring slope lineae (RSL). However, these features are short-lived, with the water quickly evaporating in the low-pressure environment on the Martian surface.

It’s long been theorized, though, that there may be more stable bodies of liquid beneath the surface, as evidenced in this research. To answer this, researchers hope to use more data from Mars Express over the next years.

Although there is still much to learn and an actual drilling operation is still out of our reach, this is a very exciting discovery. On Earth, liquid water almost always means life. Coupled with the recent discovery of the building blocks of life on Mars, we might end up finding that life is much more common than we thought in the universe.

[Development news start here]

Yesterday we released Patch 1.4.5 and with it, various improvements and bug fixes for both the base game and the expansion have been included. For instance, we have incorporated a quality-of-life feature that lets you dismiss pop-up dialogs with the ESC button. We also fixed several issues regarding the Steam Workshop in-game incorporation, and included a subscribe/unsubscribe button to the Mission Play dialog for Steam shared files on the Community tab for your convenience.  Click here to see the full release notes.

In addition to all the work that even a small release like 1.4.5 entails, we have kept ourselves occupied with other exciting tasks. KSP continues to be a great platform to be improved upon and we are dedicated to continue providing updates to the game and making it the best experience possible for all of our players. We will continue to keep our players updated on upcoming developments here on KSP Weekly.

Remember that you can also share and download missions on Curse, KerbalX, the KSP Forum and the KSP Steam Workshop.

That’s it for this week. Be sure to join us on our official forums, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news and development updates!

Happy launchings!  

*Information Source:

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://marsed.asu.edu/mep/ice/polar-caps/planum-australe

Anderson, G. (2015, September 28). NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today's Mars. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars

Bartels, M. (2018, July 25). Mars' South Pole May Hide a Large Underground Lake. Retrieved from https://www.space.com/41272-mars-liquid-water-below-ice-cap.html

E. (n.d.). Mars Express. Retrieved from https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express

O`Callaghan, J. (2018, July 26). A Huge Lake Of Liquid Water Has Been Found On Mars. Retrieved from http://www.iflscience.com/space/weve-finally-found-actual-liquid-water-on-mars/all/

Hello everyone!

Kerbal Space Program 1.4.5 and Making History 1.4 is about to go live!

 This patch includes various improvements and bug fixes for both the base game and the Making History Expansion, as well as a number of amends to the in-game integration of Steam Workshops and other Steam-related features!

 Check out this patch's Changelog for further details:

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1.4.5 Changelog - BaseGame ONLY (see below for MH changelog)

+++ Improvements

* Make mapnode behind body transparency configurable and improve behavior for pinned/hovered nodes (MAPNODE_BEHINDBODY_OPACITY in gamesettings). * Pop dialogs can now be closed/dismissed with ESC key. * Improvements to wheels/legs bouncing/sliding and oscillations. (Particularly when overloaded). * Removed pop-up which offers to delete incompatible saves and craft files and replaced with a pop-up which only warns of incompatibility when incompatible save/craft files are attempted to be opened.

+++ Localization

* Fix RnD Archives Biome Filter not showing spaces in biome names.

+++ Parts

+++ Bugfixes

* Fix populating steam items into the wrong tabs in the craft browser/play missions dialog if the user switches tabs whilst waiting for responses from Steam. * Fix Steam Workshop Craft will not download if deleted when subscribed to then resubscribed to when in the VAB. * Fixed a bug where EVA facial animations were corrupted when the kerbal was mid-air and a quicksave was loaded. * Fix settings showing for expansion when expansion not installed. * Fix log message text for gathering subscribed Steam Workshop craft files. * Handle steam item lists with correct Steam Workshop status in craft browser. * Save craft file before exporting to steam to persist Steam Workshop Item Id into the craft file that is shared on steam. * Update Steam Workshop Item Steam Author automatically in UI dialogs. * Fix wheel explosions on docking landed vessels. * Fix vessels jumping when docking landed to a large mass vessel. * Fix Engineers report not taking variants into account for size dimensions. * Fix Engineers report not showing correct part/mass/size restrictions when swapping between different level VAB/SPH using the switch editor button. * Fix Kerbal on EVA occlusion inside all cargo bays as well as when the enter/leave command seats inside cargo bays. * Revised the initial state of the Exploring Gilly scenario, so that vessels don’t bounce off the surface out of control on start. * Fix vessels splashed inside another splashed vessel being removed when outside physics bubble. * Fix undo in VAB/SPH not working when you delete all but the root part. * Fix Reentry FX on Fairings. * Adjust SRB Engine FX and Sparks. * Fix NRE on PQSCity if transform has not been parented to a CelestialBody. * Fix Aero FX appearing in IVA mode inside the models. * Fix a localization issue that caused the Station One scenario to be corrupted in asian languages.

+++ Mods

* Added localScale param and behaviour to EffectDefinitions: PREFAB_PARTICLE, PREFAB_MULTI_PARTICLE, MODEL_MULTI_PARTICLE and MODEL_PARTICLE

+++Miscellaneous

* Add distinguishing titles between Steam Workshop Author and in-game user supplied Author in UI. * Add warning messages for craft browser craft UI Steam Workshop items. * Add cloud available space and file count checks when exporting craft and mission files to Steam Workshop. * Add Steam Workshop subscribe/unsubscribe button to craft browser VAB/SPH tabs. * Better handling of Steam Workshop items that are not in a valid state to be used in dialog UIs. * Add option to delete in progress mission files when deleting a mission. * Add Unity Analytics dialog and link to the players Unity Privacy Data page for personal data opt-out management.

1.4 Changelog - Making History DLC ONLY

+++ Improvements

* Allow minimum of 10m on fly through node. * Added checks for vessel compatibility when loading missions.

+++ Localization

+++ Parts

* Added ModuleTestSubject for all of the MH Parts.

+++ Bugfixes

* Fixed Mission Builder exiting in some cases not closing the "Launch New Test" dialog. * Fix mission breaking and PauseMenu lockup when a node is deleted from end of mission path. * Fix nodes using Launch Sites as targets not detecting all Launch Sites. * Fix missing string for Snap to Grid tooltip in Builder. * Fix steam missions being out of sort order in mission lists. * Fix Asian fonts not showing in mission list for Steam Workshop Items. * Fix failure when going to the Tracking Station from the Mission Builder when there are no vessels. * Fix persistence for Ignoresurfacevelocity setting on nodes. * Fix Out of Range error when Vessel Explode action fires and disintegrates craft to separate vessels. * Fix where on the Mission App it was not displaying correctly the target Launch Site name with the nodes: Vessel Destroyed and Vessel Landed. * Some additional Loop protection in MEFlow Parser. * Fix SnapToGrid locking in Mission Builder. * Fix FlyThrough nodes waypoint being at surface and not the target location. * Fix Test Distance node throwing log spam when target vessel may not have spawned yet. * Fix slider percentage entries for part failure multipliers in Builder . * Fix canvas objects not scaling with the UIScale settings. * Fix DirectoryNotFound exception when playing a mission from Main Menu after previously testing a mission from the Mission Builder. * Removed Invalid “none” option on Resource Drain node creating KeyNotFound exceptions. * Fix when creating a new mission GAP size no longer resets to default. * Fix test Kerbal EVA node when assigning specific vessels to the node for EVA test. * Fix vessel landed node detection of launch sites. * Fix for GAP rendering in an incorrect scale for the Landed Vessel node

+++ Missions

+++Miscellaneous

* Add Steam Workshop subscribe/unsubscribe button to Mission Play dialog on Community tab.

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