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Guessing my node burn time is pretty high on the list, as is guessing which biome I'm in for science purposes. I keep a little window from Mechjeb in the top left corner of my screen pretty much all the time, because it has the information I go looking for more than any other on it, and isn't available anywhere else. If this information, and these numbers, were at-a-glance available in the stock UI somewhere, I'd be happy as a clam. I don't honestly care how many units of fuel I have, I care how many nodes I can create and burn through, whether my vehicle is getting off the ground, how long my next node is going to take to execute, and where I'm going to be when I get there. Sneaky Kettle fucked around with this message at 15:03 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 14:58
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double nine posted:What's the impact on system performance? Depends what is flying by you. A station under 90k in equatorial orbit can be great fun while on the launch pad. I imagine it would be much much less if non-active craft in space were treated as 1 object (no internal forces).
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May 27, 2014 14:58
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The only thing really missing for good XBox 360 controller support (although I last checked a long time ago) was a way to map the left and right triggers (the analog ones) to decrease/increase throttle or do forward/reverse RCS. I think that what's going on is that the triggers are mapped to three analog axes. There's one shared axis which lets it work like a sort of rudder. So the axis is in the middle by default, left trigger decreases, right trigger increases. Then there's a separate axis for each trigger and the left increases its axis and the right increases its axis.
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May 27, 2014 15:11
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Falken posted:I'd like some EVA horse armor. Isn't that just procedural fairings?
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May 27, 2014 15:27
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I'd like some sort of hotkey in the VAB that selected the root part without having to click it. Sometimes if I start with a small probe core it ends up getting surrounded by parts and is a little fiddly to select when I need to move the whole rocket up later.
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May 27, 2014 15:58
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Platonicsolid posted:
Just some sort of vertical snap would be nice. Especially if it created snap points/planes where you already have parts attached to the same thing.
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May 27, 2014 16:03
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Bat Ham posted:I'd like some sort of hotkey in the VAB that selected the root part without having to click it. Sometimes if I start with a small probe core it ends up getting surrounded by parts and is a little fiddly to select when I need to move the whole rocket up later. Hold shift and click any part on the rocket to select the whole thing.
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May 27, 2014 16:07
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I love how "minor feature implementation" turned into three updates worth of suggested changes. 
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May 27, 2014 16:17
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Seconding mostly, if it's not alive it's still nice to see what people are looking at: A key or button to allow selecting the whole vehicle without clicking the pod (sometimes a big deal for rovers/unmanned). Enhanced navball. Call these guys, make that whole thing stock. Especially pointing to markers off the ball. Default show navball in all modes, including EVA (respect player choice to open/close universally). Docking Alignment Indicator. Again, should be stock. How about make "always select pilots before launch" a toggle somewhere? So when I'm in sandbox I can still Jeb all the way. A toggle to always show stage delta-v remaining. New players don't need the confusion, but longtime players are desperate for it. Luneshot posted:I love how "minor feature implementation" turned into three updates worth of suggested changes. It is a moddable simulation game that's in (pre-)beta, with a strong community, so that's not at all unusual. It is nice to see the fan involvement though. revdrkevind fucked around with this message at 16:22 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 16:20
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Shanakin posted:Are we still doing requests for simple changes? A more detailed event log would be really helpful. When you've got a big rocket seeing "decoupler failed" isn't that helpful to identifying the problem. While we're at it, an option to write those logs to disk at the end of a flight would be nice.
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May 27, 2014 16:20
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If the call for small changes is still open, the ability to change the name/designation of ships that are not controllable would be nice. Like being able to mark a deserted lander as debris after the kerbals have left. On a similar note, not having flags listed as active flights.
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May 27, 2014 16:55
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Tenebrais posted:If the call for small changes is still open, the ability to change the name/designation of ships that are not controllable would be nice. Like being able to mark a deserted lander as debris after the kerbals have left. If you really want to turn a lander into debris, the Kerbal course of action is to send an impactor probe and nuke it from orbit 
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May 27, 2014 16:58
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Actually, I have one issue that cropped up I had a booster stage that had a bit of RCS loaded to lower its periapsis and deorbit it. Unfortunately, I forgot to slap a solar panel on it and the core ran out of juice--but I didn't know that until I switched into it. The problem was, the engine was still throttled up from the staging, and couldn't be throttled down due to the dead core. And any attempt to swap out resulted in a "cannot exit while throttled up, need to revert to last save done 1h 43m ago" message Not sure what can be done about this, but it was a bit annoying.
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May 27, 2014 17:28
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Something small I think that modders will be able to get a lot of mileage out of is integrating action groups with tweakables. So when a solid booster burns out, there'd be a tweakable option to trigger an action group. There's a mod that does something like that but needs special parts. Also a tweakable slider for solid rockets that smoothly throttles to zero after some percentage of the fuel has been used up. So if it's set to 100%, it behaves like before. If it's set to 50%, then when half the fuel is used up, it reduces the thrust slowly to zero. So for a normally 120 second rocket, that means it'd burn full power for 60 seconds, then smoothly down to 90% at 72 seconds, 50% at 120 seconds, 10% at 168 seconds and finally burn out at 180 seconds. It's easy to calculate the amount of time needed since it's just twice the amount of time it'd take to use up the remaining fuel if you were burning at full power.
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May 27, 2014 17:29
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1337JiveTurkey posted:Also a tweakable slider for solid rockets that smoothly throttles to zero after some percentage of the fuel has been used up. So if it's set to 100%, it behaves like before. If it's set to 50%, then when half the fuel is used up, it reduces the thrust slowly to zero. So for a normally 120 second rocket, that means it'd burn full power for 60 seconds, then smoothly down to 90% at 72 seconds, 50% at 120 seconds, 10% at 168 seconds and finally burn out at 180 seconds. It's easy to calculate the amount of time needed since it's just twice the amount of time it'd take to use up the remaining fuel if you were burning at full power. Except you can't actually do that. Solid-fueled rockets can't be throttled. Once you light them, they burn at full power until they're expended.
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May 27, 2014 17:45
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fatman1683 posted:Except you can't actually do that. Solid-fueled rockets can't be throttled. Once you light them, they burn at full power until they're expended. Solid rockets have channels cut in them to expose more of the burning fuel since just burning the end would produce abysmal thrust. The surface area exposed by the channels determines the thrust, and as the solid fuel burns away the channels change their shape and ultimately the thrust produced. They always burn at full power, but the idea is that full power isn't always the same rate.
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May 27, 2014 17:52
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1337JiveTurkey posted:Solid rockets have channels cut in them to expose more of the burning fuel since just burning the end would produce abysmal thrust. The surface area exposed by the channels determines the thrust, and as the solid fuel burns away the channels change their shape and ultimately the thrust produced. They always burn at full power, but the idea is that full power isn't always the same rate. Right I get that, but the SRB has to be manufactured with that channel configuration. I don't see how it would make sense to make it a tweakable.
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May 27, 2014 18:03
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fatman1683 posted:Right I get that, but the SRB has to be manufactured with that channel configuration. I don't see how it would make sense to make it a tweakable. Where do you think the whole rest of the rocket comes from? Just pretend that the SRB was built to spec within the loading screen between the VAB and the pad.
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May 27, 2014 18:05
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fatman1683 posted:Right I get that, but the SRB has to be manufactured with that channel configuration. I don't see how it would make sense to make it a tweakable. If you define "tweakables" as specifying differences in the manufacture of the engine, it makes perfect sense. It just means you ordered that SRB with a different grain geometry.
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May 27, 2014 18:07
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Since you want small suggestions, how about being able to click the altimeter to swap between distance from ASL of current body and the actual distance above ground? The number is there in the game somewhere, but it would be nice to see it from the "game" perspective, since no altimeter in IVAs shows the exact number, and often I install something just to get radar altimeter telemetry.
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May 27, 2014 18:25
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haveblue posted:Where do you think the whole rest of the rocket comes from? Just pretend that the SRB was built to spec within the loading screen between the VAB and the pad. A good portion of it was "found on the side of the road," sooo...
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May 27, 2014 18:38
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DelphiAegis posted:Since you want small suggestions, how about being able to click the altimeter to swap between distance from ASL of current body and the actual distance above ground? The number is there in the game somewhere, but it would be nice to see it from the "game" perspective, since no altimeter in IVAs shows the exact number, and often I install something just to get radar altimeter telemetry. This is the best suggestion. Actual time to violent destruction is a pretty good number to have access to.
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May 27, 2014 18:40
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DelphiAegis posted:Since you want small suggestions, how about being able to click the altimeter to swap between distance from ASL of current body and the actual distance above ground? The number is there in the game somewhere, but it would be nice to see it from the "game" perspective, since no altimeter in IVAs shows the exact number, and often I install something just to get radar altimeter telemetry. And that one. Definitely that one.
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May 27, 2014 18:49
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OAquinas posted:Actually, I have one issue that cropped up Did you try hitting X? When I go to watch abandoned stages slowly decay their orbit, I run into similar time warp issues. But hitting X still sets the throttle to 0 so I can timewarp/exit/whatever.
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May 27, 2014 18:54
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1337JiveTurkey posted:Something small I think that modders will be able to get a lot of mileage out of is integrating action groups with tweakables. So when a solid booster burns out, there'd be a tweakable option to trigger an action group. There's a mod that does something like that but needs special parts. Stackable SRBs with tweakable burn profiles. Very fun to work with. Also, I'm testing out K3|Chris's HL cockpit for the B9 pack!    It's awfully nice. 
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May 27, 2014 18:58
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OAquinas posted:Actually, I have one issue that cropped up Definitely this. Even if it's just a debug/cheat function to force the throttle to zero despite having no control authority. Although ideally have the game consider a craft with no control authority and no available fuel, to always be throttled down, or force the throttle to zero the moment fuel runs out if no control is available. My own use case for this is de-orbiting liquid booster stages by setting a low throttle on the main craft with the booster still attached, and immediately decoupling the booster. Then switch control to the booster to make sure it actually burns to end. (Although the most common result is that it just rotates while burning and ends up in a strange orbit.)
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May 27, 2014 19:02
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I just can't figure out gimballing. Anytime I build a rocket that doesn't have a high degree of symmetry on all sides, everything goes to hell after roughly 15 seconds. Advice?
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May 27, 2014 19:02
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Tenebrais posted:If the call for small changes is still open, the ability to change the name/designation of ships that are not controllable would be nice. Like being able to mark a deserted lander as debris after the kerbals have left.
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May 27, 2014 19:07
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Ceciltron posted:I just can't figure out gimballing. Anytime I build a rocket that doesn't have a high degree of symmetry on all sides, everything goes to hell after roughly 15 seconds. Advice? It's pretty normal for an asymmetric rocket to go to hell after 15 seconds. How's the alignment between the center of thrust and the center of mass? Gimbaling won't automatically compensate for this, it will be applied as a reactive force by the SAS system only once the rocket starts to tilt.
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May 27, 2014 19:09
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haveblue posted:It's pretty normal for an asymmetric rocket to go to hell after 15 seconds. How's the alignment between the center of thrust and the center of mass? Also, Ferram or no? Trying to make a balanced craft that's also aerodynamic is Legit Hard Science. But there are buttons for charts which will attempt to help. Base game, CoT and CoM.
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May 27, 2014 19:23
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There's a couple mods that will help you fly asymmetric ships; the forums are down I guess at the moment but the one I use is: http://kerbalspaceport.com/davon-tc-systems-mod/ Lets different engines be throttled at different amounts in order to keep the rocket straight, I think it can gimbal some engines but not all to keep the rocket straight, and some other stuff. It's great for shuttle launches. There's also KerbCom Avionics, and Throttle Controlled Avionics which I've never used. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/29387-Plugin-0-20-2-KerbCom-Avionics-0-2-0-1-%28July-2013%29-includes-VTOL-balancing http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/67270-Throttle-Controlled-Avionics-1-3-0-23-5-(April-6) Although I have the Throttle Controlled Avionics downloaded, I just haven't tested the mod yet. It seems like it'd be useful for flying a VTOL craft since it claims to be able to balance the craft by controlling the VTOL engines while you control another engine group in the back. Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 19:52 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 19:48
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So far, the big winners in the "Add small changes" are: - Flags shouldn't be "Active flights" - Access to radar altimeter outside IVA For quick fixes before a patch is dropped, these two would take the cake. Maxmaps, please tell me that these are going to be addressed in a few weeks when the new patch releases. (Yes, I'm absolutely goading for a soft guesstimate on the .24 patch)
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May 27, 2014 20:19
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You can turn flags off in the tracking station, and they are incredibly handy for marking a potential offworld site.
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May 27, 2014 20:23
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One thing that I'm thinking with having the altimeter switch between sea level and radar, is that it might be tricky for players to tell if they're in sea level or radar mode. So make sure the radar altimeter looks different, just throwing the idea out there, but an idea might be to leave the regular altimeter as-is, but have the radar altimeter look like an LED display, so it's easy to tell at a quick glance if you're in sea-level or radar mode.
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May 27, 2014 20:26
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Falken posted:You can turn flags off in the tracking station, and they are incredibly handy for marking a potential offworld site. Well, make them off by default, like debris is.
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May 27, 2014 20:31
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Speaking of SRBs, it'd be really nice if you could build your own SRBs by stacking SRB fuel sections. This is actually what we do in real life, and it would resolve a lot of issues with having too much/too little delta-V from an SRB. This would probably break saves, though...
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May 27, 2014 20:46
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Hey if "small features" includes bugfixes, then there's apparently this weird problem where sunlight in IVA scenes casts shadows in completely the wrong direction, and it's distracting as all hell once you've noticed it. EDIT Here, this should illustrate what I'm talking about. Sun's dead ahead, but the shadows of the navball and the switches on the dash are being projected downward. Also left and right are reversed but im not at home and can't find a screenshot demonstrating that just now. 
Sam Hall fucked around with this message at 21:10 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 21:04
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Sam Hall posted:Hey if "small features" includes bugfixes, then there's apparently this weird problem where sunlight in IVA scenes casts shadows in completely the wrong direction, and it's distracting as all hell once you've noticed it. Handwave it with internal cockpit lighting. Honestly, it's not big enough a deal.
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May 27, 2014 21:14
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The light moves as the capsule rotates relative to the sun, except that it moves in a completely wrong direction. I took this shot the other day: Not only are the knob shadows casting in the wrong direction, the stanchion is casting a (also incorrect) shadow that's clearly from a light source outside the cockpit. I've also noticed that the shadows cast on the astronaut portraits in the lower right change based on which part you are controlling the ship from, that may have something to do with it. Someone probably just selected the wrong vector for the light source calculation or put in an extra minus sign or some other one-line bug, they may as well fix it. haveblue fucked around with this message at 21:22 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 21:17
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Avenging Dentist posted:Speaking of SRBs, it'd be really nice if you could build your own SRBs by stacking SRB fuel sections. This is actually what we do in real life, and it would resolve a lot of issues with having too much/too little delta-V from an SRB. This would probably break saves, though... This is brilliant. Do this.
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