Watch the update trailer here:
You no longer have to be content with basic cookie-cutter rocket engine variants, you can build your own with the eight new engine types, seven new nozzles, and six new fuel types that are available which allow for hundreds of possible rocket engine configurations. They also have slider options for size, nozzle length, throat radius, and chamber pressure so really there are infinite possible configurations.
The new Performance Analyzer window in the designer will give you immediate feedback. You can see how their performance characteristics change with altitude as you tweak the rocket engine's parameters.
This update also brings a lot of improvements and bug fixes for building airplanes. There is now a plane/rocket building mode option available on the command pod and a new tool to help visualize and adjust your pilot's orientation/direction of travel.
Features
- Added procedural rocket engines: You no-longer have to be content with basic cookie-cutter rocket engine variants, you can build your own with the eight new engine types, seven new nozzles, and six new fuel types, which allows for hundreds of possible rocket engine configurations. There are also slider options for size, nozzle length, throat radius, and chamber pressure so really there are infinite possible configurations.
- Improved engine exhaust to show over-expansion (shock diamonds) and under-expansion.
- Added new draggable Performance Analysis window to designer that shows engine performance and craft delta-V, Isp, TWR, etc.
- Added build mode so you can now switch between rocket building and plane building. You can find this under your command pod's part properties.
- Added pilot orientation gizmo to help player visualize the intended direction of travel of the craft
- Added ability to invert the airfoil of wings.
- Display which input a control surface is assigned to when it uses Auto.
- Added ability to restrict a auto-configured control surface to a single axis.
- Added button in designer to show wing lift vectors.
- Added option to show wing lift vectors during flight
- Activation Group Replication - When you have a craft with multiple command pods you can enable this option on a command pod to replicate the primary command pod's activation group states.
- Docking ports can be disabled to prevent docking. Disabling while docked will undock the ports.
- Added flight scene camera speed and sensitivity settings.
- Added Seamless Edges option to fuselage parts in Part Properties.
- Upgraded to Unity 2018.3
Enhancements
- Zooming via mouse wheel in the designer now works while moving parts.
- Starting designer camera from the right side instead of the front b/c it is a strange angle for airplanes and doesn't make much difference for rockets.
- RCS nozzle thrust is now mass-scaled. Existing crafts will be auto-updated to account for this.
- Improved Nav Sphere to reduce overshooting
- Improved water textures
- Tweaked the minimum distance from the craft's roll axis that engines are allow to respond to roll gimbal.
- When using the tinker panel to set stage activation to "None", the following items will no-longer auto-activate upon flight start: fairings, parachutes, and side detachers.
- Added the ability to tilt the game camera with middle mouse button drag.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed bug where solar panels would load at incorrect angles during rendezvous while warping
- Fixed a bug where the camera would jitter during warp after switching to another craft.
- Fixed bug where MovePartTool could grab and move the selected part w/o initially clicking on the part.
- Fixed bug in designer when wing has multiple control surfaces.
- Fixed issue where control surface axis contributions were not being calculated and therefore they could all be zero and render the control surface unusable.
- Fixed bug where DesignerCameraScript had DesignerCameraViewDirection.Left/Right backwards.
- Fixed bug causing null-ref after control surface has been removed in designer.
- Fixed issue where setting rotation via panel and hotkeys wouldn't respect connected rotations.
- Fixed undo not being updated properly for nudge/rotate.
- Fixed bug which could result in mirrored wings invert flag being set incorrectly.
- Fixed bug which would "corrupt" a flight state if a command which was "absorbed" by the original player craft is being controlled by the player before a docking occurs.
- Fixed a bug where the camera would jitter during warp after switching to another craft.
- Fixed issue which could result in the Flight Scene UI no-longer responding when the active craft changes after the player's craft has been destroyed.
- Fixed asymmetry in Pixie engine's model and fixed edges of inlets for hard corners.
- Fixed a bug where jet engines would not have access to air when on a craft that is separated during flight.
- Fixed a bug where very short inlets would report 100% occlusion.
- Fixed a bug where unoptimized XML generation activated parts.
- Fixed a bug where the engine particle effects could look incorrect with XML-modded engines.
- Fixed a bug where the designer would fail to load and the game would hang if the craft XML was corrupt/unreadable.
- Fixed a bug where the throttle percentage look different than the throttle slider's percentage.
- Fixed a bug with errors occurring every frame when a craft does not have a monopopellant or battery fuel source.
- Fixed a bug in the main menu that caused problems when a craft XML file fails to load. It should now fall back to a new craft file and show an error dialog.
- Fixed an bug with fairing colliders only showing up on one side.
- Fixed bug with smoke trails emitting far away from nozzle exit
- Fixed error which could occur if a maneuver node is orphaned while map-view is closed.
- Fixed issue which could cause errors when performing a hyperbolic burn node.
- Fixed MapView bug which could occur when a craft crashes and is broken up into new craft.
- Fixed bug which prevented add burn node icon from displaying over an orbit if a planet was behind the pointer.
- Fixed bug causing "target at cursor" to become stuck on the screen and not update/hide whenever a maneuver node is added which is a child of the current target.
- Fixed issue where orphaned maneuver nodes may not be adopted properly.
- Fixed a bug where parts would try to connect to themselves when moving an entire craft around with symmetry enabled.
- Fixed a bug that allowed the player to enable symmetry on the primary command pod/chip.
- XML-modded input controllers may now use the syntax "[Modifier ID].Data.[Property Name]" for inputs. [Modifier ID] is the ID of a part modifier (identified with an "id" XML attribute). [Property Name] is the name of a C# property on the targeted part modifier data class (currently supports floats, doubles, booleans).
- Fixed antialiasing on part icons.
- Properly restore joints which were "bent" when saved.
- Fixed a bug preventing image effects from working.
- Fixed antialiasing on part icons.
- Fixed a bug that could cause undefined behavior if two docking ports completing docking in the exact same frame.
- Fixed bug where translate/rotate gizmos can become sized incorrectly after using part-scale in the tinker panel.
@pedro16797 That is really cool, but yes unfortunately I have invested about all the time I can in the exhaust visuals so they likely won't change much from what they are now. Thank you for all of your help, I really appreciate it!