This is the first update I decided to publish into the public beta branch first, because it has too many fixes and internal changes that could break something. It will stay there a week or two and will be released to the default branch once I will fix all issues found by players. You can find how to switch the game’s branch on Steam in the release notes section. Let's get started.
Mercury
The closest planet to the Sun and the smallest planet in the Solar system now in the game!
Procedural texturing rework
As I explained in the previous dev update, I have significantly improved the procedural texturing system and Earth and the Moon have been reworked and now use this new system for rendering. The only downside, is that it requires more VRAM because of 4x improved level of detail. I am planning to add a quality setting for planet texturing in the near future. Martian system procedural rework will come in the August update.
Finally what you see on the map will match to what you get during the flight
Planet's surface received much more details
Sometimes it produces slightly weird results, but this is a procedural approach, what can you do, eh
Moon was already good, but now it's simply great
Rocket Staging improvements
You can expand and collapse stages now. Rocket parts will be grouped by type and resource group when the stage is collapsed.
For each stage that contains engines I’ve added a dV and max TWR calculation. You can set a reference body and altitude for it. It will also update the remaining deltaV and max TWR calculation for the active stage during the flight.
New payload fairings
Payload fairings are section-based now, so you can basically launch a payload with any length. I’ve added two radiuses of farirings and adapters between them. Also I’ve added fairings to the rocket staging as a separate action, so you don’t need an additional decoupler for it.
Contracts enhancement
“Land in distance” contracts will now add a surface object marker on the planet, if it was not added though the mods. You can also set a surface object as a target and get a marker (similar to nearby spacecraft markers), when you will be near your target.
“Reach an orbit” contracts will add a reference orbit you need to reach. Unfortunately you can’t set this orbit as a target for now, to get ascending/descending nodes. This change turned out to be huge, so I moved it to the next update.
New content and other improvements
Three more rocket parts have been added to the game, In addition to the fairings, and three more contacts. Also you can find a new exposure compensation control on the camera modes panel. This will allow you to make a scene brighter or darker in cases when automatic exposure couldn’t handle it properly. Lastly, I’ve fixed an enormous amount of critical bugs in this update. Some of them lasted for a year and more and I can’t understand how the game even functioned in some cases.
I know, you are waiting a new parachute too, but it is crazy complicated process to make it. But it is coming sooner or later
That’s all for now, please let me know if you have any issues or will encounter any bugs.
Release notes v0.16.2: Public beta
This build was deployed to beta-builds branch. To switch to this branch right click on the Rocket Science in your library, and click on Properties. Select the Betas tab, and then select the beta-builds branch. Once you see it, select it and click OK.
Note: if you want to switch back to default branch after this beta, you will need to manually clean %USERPROFILE%/AppData/LocalLow/Unity/unbeGames_HDYLIEM folder or the game will not start.
Features:
- added Mercury and reworked its textures on solar system map;
- reworked Earth and Moon procedural texturing;
- added ability to collapse and expand stages during rocket assembly and flight;
- added approximate deltaV and TWR calculations for stages, that contains engines;
- payload fairings rework: they are section based now and can be any length.
- payload fairings are present in the rocket staging;
- you can focus camera on surface objects and set them as a target;
- added target markers for surface objects during the flight;
- contracts with "land in distance" goal will now add a surface object marker, if it wasn't already added (via mods, for example);
- contracts with "reach an orbit" goal will now add a target orbit that needs to be reached.
- added camera exposure compensation settings for flight and map cameras;
- added Venus heightmap to the game, this is a first step to actually adding Venus.
New rocket parts:
- Payload Fairing Base GO-1
- Payload Fairing Section GO-1 1.4m
- Payload Fairing Section GO-1 3.5m
- Payload Fairing Cap GO-1
- Payload Fairing Base GO-5
- Payload Fairing Section GO-5 2.1m
- Payload Fairing Section GO-5 5.25m
- Payload Fairing Cap GO-5
- Payload Fairing Adapter GO-1-5
- Payload Fairing Adapter GO-5-1
- Circular Extended Unit
- "Fluffy" Landing Strut
- Mini Decoupler
New content:
- added reach "Molniya" orbit contract;
- added reach "Tundra" orbit contract;
- added land on Mercury contract;
Part changes:
- deprecated Payload Fairing 3x7
Changes:
- the process of destroying a part by dragging it to the parts panel has been improved;
- improved rocket action group visuals;
- spacecraft will no longer create a ton of new spacecrafts if it was destroyed not in main simulation;
- added sounds for rocket stages UI;
- some parts of the game engine were updated to the newer version, which will help to migrate to the new Unity version in the future.
Fixes:
- rocket receives incorrect center of mass and could loose control after decoupling parts in some cases;
- if you remove maneuver in the middle of maneuvers chain, following manuvers can become invalid and just disappear, leaving orbit in the incorrect state;
- visible seams on the surface of planets in some places;
- [Control Center] sun light leaks into new buildings at summer;
- sometimes separated parts are positioned incorrectly during rocket explosion;
- [Assembly Shop] connection points are flickering;
- splitted decoupler sometimes explode on deploy;
- payload fairings explode on deploy without any reason;
- forces not applied to the decoupled rocket from docking port;
- context menu appears in the incorrect position when grounded spacecraft is selected;
- contract button stays in hovered state when contract was canceled or completed and the new one was accepted;
- game crashes, when the surface mod editor is loading and the left mouse button is pressed.