Skip to main content

Kerbal Space Program version 1.0 will add new physics model and female astronauts

Day 7 - Clamber
Kerbal Space Program is one of those few games you can hold up as a paragon of how the Early Access system should work. With its first playable build released back in 2011 as an early alpha, it’s slowly progressed through many versions and iterations, with its developer, Squad, adding features, planets and fixing bugs along the way. Now though, we’re just a few days out from the biggest release of its space-faring life. Version 1.0.

Squad announced a few weeks ago that the release version of the game had entered the experimental stage, which meant that its 100 or so closest collaborators had been given access to it to complete some final testing. Although many speculated that multiple months of tweaking might be required for such a release, less than three weeks have gone by and Squad has already begun teasing the buildup to its official release on April 27.

KSP 1.0 brings a lot more with it than just the final version number. It’s also fixing up a lot of longstanding problems with the game and adding a lot of long-requested features. These include things like female Kerbals, an overhauled and revamped aerodynamics model — including lift and drag — and new parts such as larger wings and landing gears.

There will be a new ‘Game Over’ screen in the launch version of the game, so players will need to be a little more careful with their funds and reputation when in the new and improved career mode. However, they’ll also get a lot of new toys to play with, many of which have previously only been available through mods. An engineering system will give Kerbanauts access to important information like delta V for each stage, thrust-to-weight ratio, and more, along with a new warp-to function, which will make jumping to your next node, or apoapsis, a bit easier.

Kerbal Space Program 1.0 officially launches in just six days’ time, but that won’t be the end of its development. Squad has promised other long-requested features, including an official multiplayer mode, which it will begin work on as soon as the developers have enjoyed a serious celebration.

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…
4 CPUs you should buy instead of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D sitting on a motherboard.

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is one of the best gaming processors you can buy, and it's easy to see why. It's easily the fastest gaming CPU on the market, it's reasonably priced, and it's available on a platform that AMD says it will support for several years. But it's not the right chip for everyone.

Although the Ryzen 7 7800X3D ticks all the right boxes, there are several alternatives available. Some are cheaper while still offering great performance, while others are more powerful in applications outside of gaming. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is a great CPU, but if you want to do a little more shopping, these are the other processors you should consider.
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

Read more
Even the new mid-tier Snapdragon X Plus beats Apple’s M3
A photo of the Snapdragon X Plus CPU in the die

You might have already heard of the Snapdragon X Elite, the upcoming chips from Qualcomm that everyone's excited about. They're not out yet, but Qualcomm is already announcing another configuration to live alongside it: the Snapdragon X Plus.

The Snapdragon X Plus is pretty similar to the flagship Snapdragon X Elite in terms of everyday performance but, as a new chip tier, aims to bring AI capabilities to a wider portfolio of ARM-powered laptops. To be clear, though, this one is a step down from the flagship Snapdragon X Elite, in the same way that an Intel Core Ultra 7 is a step down from Core Ultra 9.

Read more
Gigabyte just confirmed AMD’s Ryzen 9000 CPUs
Pads on the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Gigabyte spoiled AMD's surprise a bit by confirming the company's next-gen CPUs. In a press release announcing a new BIOS for X670, B650, and A620 motherboards, Gigabyte not only confirmed that support has been added for next-gen AMD CPUs, but specifically referred to them as "AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors."

We've already seen MSI and Asus add support for next-gen AMD CPUs through BIOS updates, but neither of them called the CPUs Ryzen 9000. They didn't put out a dedicated press release for the updates, either. It should go without saying, but we don't often see a press release for new BIOS versions, suggesting Gigabyte wanted to make a splash with its support.

Read more