Kerbal Space Program's 1.11 update lets the lil greenies do construction in space
In what will surely prove to be a terrible idea, one of the developers on Kerbal Space Program has given the little green frog people welding lasers. I can only imagine what horrors Jebediah Kerman will get up to with a handheld tool capable of cutting into the hull of his own ship.
Update 1.11, "Some Reassembly Required," for Kerbal Space Program released this week, adding a landmark feature to the best rocket, spaceflight, and space exploration simulator on the PC. Kerbals can now assemble and disassemble craft mid-mission, taking a feature that was once relegated to the surface of their home world into the stars. The patch also changes up the inventory system, letting both spacecraft and kerbals carry ship parts with them. Handy!
Kerbal engineers can adjust a certain range of parts while on EVA, and they can use the construction tools players are familiar with from the Vehicle Assembly Building: Place, rotate, move, center of mass, center of thrust, and center of lift. Kerbals are very small, however, and are limited in what they can reach to manipulate and what they can lift to move. They're also doing their construction in real-time, so the game isn't paused. "You’ll have to mind your surroundings," say the developers, "Maybe attempting to reassemble your spaceship during re-entry is not a great idea."
A few new parts have made it into the game as well, like two new smaller sizes of RCS modules for maneuvering little drones and probes along with a plethora of lamps and lighting modules for surface expeditions. The moons of gas giant Jool have also gotten a visual-textural overhaul and look quite nice now. Previously they looked a bit, uh, 2011. To say the least.
You can read the full patch notes on Steam. I'm glad we're still getting updates for KSP, since it's still on our list of best PC games, best flight sims, and has claimed a spot on The PC Gamer Top 100 for a while now. You know that last list is important because we capitalized every word in the title.
Kerbal Space Program 2 is in the works, but it's going to take more time than anyone would like. The developers want the game to be as good as possible, so they're not going to release it until 2022 at the earliest.