Playtest Build 5

Apogee Beta · published

Patch notes

Fixes

  • A craft with no engine had nothing to stage, so the staging panel's conversion re-ran every frame and cleared the selection — the Configuration panel ignored every click.
  • Six of the eight flight-view panel toggles (and the pause/warp controls) were being laid out on a second row of a 34px bar, which meant they were drawn off it.
  • The Objectives panel opened inside the Guidance panel, which occupies the same column.
  • The Controls panel grew sideways over the navball.
  • Rendezvous had a toggle button that opened nothing. It now opens either way, and says what it is waiting for.
  • The Load Path panel re-imposed its own height every frame, so it could not be resized.
  • A vehicle with a thrust-to-weight under 1 fell through the ground on launch. The flight's only surface was the planet's datum, and the launch complex sits 70.9m above it — it now settles onto the pad, and is destroyed if it arrives hard.

Career integrity

  • Engine thrust and specific impulse are fixed to the part in career mode, and enforced when a craft is loaded. One shipped craft was flying an engine at 1,800,000N and 361s against a part that is 900,000N and 315s.
  • Booster and tank diameter are fixed the same way — a solid motor's thrust is derived from its geometry, so a wider one is a bigger one.
  • Craft files whose parts name no catalogue part are loadable in sandbox only. Nothing about such a part can be checked.
  • The authored data (parts, tech tree, contracts, science) is compiled into the executable rather than read from a folder beside it. Mods are still loaded from disk.
  • Removed the Reload content button from the VAB.

Interface

  • The parts palette has a tab per category, wrapped across rows so every category is visible, and hides categories with nothing unlocked in them yet.
  • Craft File, Configuration and Crew are now one panel with tabs; Engineering, Staging and Load Path are another. Both can be moved and resized.
  • A flight now opens with Telemetry, Guidance, Objectives, Stage Info and Controls. Everything else has a button on the top bar.
  • Deploy Parachutes now reads Arm Parachutes, which is what the button does.
  • Removed the redundant Research section from the Program screen — the tech tree has its own view.