A few days ago, Squad announced a new expansion for Kerbal Space Program, a massive localization patch, and The Kerbal Chronicles digital magazine. The Making History expansion includes a mission builder and a set of premade missions based on historical events. The localization patch brings Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Russian, and Spanish localization to the client. The Kerbal Chronicles is a 16 page digital magazine based on player submissions.
The Kerbal Chronicles contest resulted in 93 entries and the publication includes the top four submissions chosen by players. The game’s lead artist kerbalized the four winners and created exclusive 3D printed models of these characters. The winners and the ten runner-ups also receive a limited edition print of the Chronicles. You can view the digital version of The Kerbal Chronicles here.
The localization patch is available on the prerelease branch now. Localizing software is a difficult process that requires converting every string literal into a data resource for every supported language. Localizing Kerbal required combing through four million lines of code, 456 images, and 684 wiki pages. In the end, the dev team and more than 20 volunteers translated over 82,000 words. Players are encouraged to try out the prerelease patch and report bugs. Guidelines for bug reporting are located on the forums.
The Making History expansion includes a mission builder, a history pack, and new parts to use in your builds. The mission builder features an intuitive drag and drop interface for designing missions and sharing them with your friends and the community at large. The history pack includes pre-made missions inspired by mankind’s real life quest for space. The expansion also includes new fuel tanks, adapters, decouplers, fairings, and command pods inspired by the American and Soviet space programs.
One of the new models included with this expansion is the American 1.875m lander—modeled after the Apollo LEM. The craft has space for two kerbals and comes with a reaction control system. It does not support a reaction wheel, although it has space for a LFO engine. The model supports connections to both 1.25m and 1.875m stacks.
The release date and price for the Making History DLC are, as of now, unreleased. Upon announcement of the paid DLC, the community was concerned that Squad would break their promises of free expansions for early adopters. Community Manager Badie put those fears to rest in a post confirming they would keep their promises. This expansion will be free for anyone who purchased Kerbal Space Program before April 2013.
