Abort/Abandon

[SteveD80]

Sometimes I will hit [/] and get stuck on a piece of debris in the atmosphere and cannot leave it.  I would like it if I could go to the abort mission button and abandon my chunk of debris to suffer its fate without my supervision.

[Snark]

Great idea.

Another use case I've run into: I want to drop an expendable science probe into Jool's atmosphere on a one-way journey to oblivion. So I get all the science, while still many km high in the atmosphere... and am then trapped. Have to wait for-gosh-darn-EVER for the cussed thing to get all the way down to Jool's "surface" and go foom.

It's one of the very few genuinely rage-inducing situations I've run into in KSP. There should really be a way to escape from that.

A "scuttle" button would do the trick. We can destroy a ship from the tracking station, so why not from the ship itself?

[spacebrick3]

Maybe there could be a self-destruct part, to be put on sacrifice missions like these. Though, for debris, a "scuttle" button would work if they are unequipped with the part.

[Snark]

5 minutes ago, spacebrick3 said:

Maybe there could be a self-destruct part, to be put on sacrifice missions like these. Though, for debris, a "scuttle" button would work if they are unequipped with the part.

Sure, but what if you encounter the problem unexpectedly, such as what the OP mentions?

If we can destroy any ship at any time from the tracking station, without a self-destruct part, then we ought to be able to do it from the ship, too.

The problem only exists because the game has settled on "do it from the tracking station" as the solution to this problem. Nothing wrong with that per se, except that there are situations where the game won't let you go to the tracking station.

[pandaman]

Yes, this 'self destruct' button idea gets my vote.

As long as there is an 'Are you sure' pop up message check box like we get in the tracking station.  I can't imagine they would miss that critical safeguard out, but, obvious things do slip through the net occasionally.

Although what the OP seems to be asking for is a way to sidestep the 'can't switch to another vessel' issue that occurs, and is different to a 'self destruct' option.  In this case a similar confirmation to the 'abandoning vessel' warning message we get on pressing 'esc' would do the job, but would then allow switching directly to another vessel.

[Snark]

14 minutes ago, pandaman said:

Although what the OP seems to be asking for is a way to sidestep the 'can't switch to another vessel' issue that occurs, and is different to a 'self destruct' option.  In this case a similar confirmation to the 'abandoning vessel' warning message we get on pressing 'esc' would do the job, but would then allow switching directly to another vessel.

Isn't it the same thing?

KSP does let you switch to another vessel.  Usually.  The only time it doesn't let you do that is when doing so would result in instant destruction of the vessel, e.g. when it's flying in sufficiently thick atmosphere.  That's why it doesn't let you switch.

The problem that the OP is encountering is that he just wants to go.  Doesn't care what happens to the thing he's leaving, whether it's kept or destroyed or what, just wants to escape.

Since escaping would, in fact, be instant destruction, then might as well just have an instant-destroy button (with, as you say, an "are you sure?" option), which would accomplish essentially the same thing.

Here's a thread with some ideas about that, which I posted a long time ago but is still relevant:

Idea #3 in that post is basically what the OP here is asking for.

[pandaman]

@Snark  Ah, yes I remember, I gave that a like at the time too.

Yes, it does essentially amount to the same thing, which is ultimately the active ship's destruction, but the current UI does not let you switch directly to another vessel (even if there is one in range), it only lets you go to the space centre via the 'esc' button.  It would seem to me to make sense to enable the same functionality for vessel switching also, as they are essentially very similar.

In this case, as I see it, a direct 'self destruct' option would certainly be a useful thing, but slightly different to checking it's OK to abandon the current ship before switching to another vessel.

[Stoney3K]

It puzzles me why we even have the ability to switch to debris altogether. Debris are, by definition, not flyable ships and considered destroyed and/or uncontrollable. So why allow them to become the active vessel in the first place?

Giving the user a choice to at least disable switching to debris when scrolling through ships nearby would already make a lot of difference.

[MircoMars]

from the top of my hat, being able to switch to debris is kinda useful in three situations. a) you left debris as a marker somewhere, b) you need to check something before rendezvousing with it, c) you want it deorbited "properly" while it's on an orbit that should degrade, but doesn't because it's on rails (chutes being deployed while still controllable, heat-shielded yaddayadda or just wanna see da boom).

but especially in situations right after RUD it would be nice to be able to control whether you switch to debris or baled vessels. if I want to find out what has survived, I'm not interested in solar panels and decouplers, but in capsules... perhaps we could use the alt-key to tell the program if we want to switch to only controllable stuff or anything.

with regard to "not being able to leave a flight while under acceleration" (I think that's the correct term), this is also to prevent anyone from "cheating" their way out of atmosphere related catastrophes by making the vessel go on rails. thus, the self-destruct from flight scene would be the "fair" solution.

[sumghai]

I would definitely prefer the ability to abandon/terminate a mission from the flight scene, rather than relying a dedicated self-destruct part.

[Stoney3K]

22 hours ago, MircoMars said:

from the top of my hat, being able to switch to debris is kinda useful in three situations. a) you left debris as a marker somewhere, b) you need to check something before rendezvousing with it, c) you want it deorbited "properly" while it's on an orbit that should degrade, but doesn't because it's on rails (chutes being deployed while still controllable, heat-shielded yaddayadda or just wanna see da boom).

but especially in situations right after RUD it would be nice to be able to control whether you switch to debris or baled vessels. if I want to find out what has survived, I'm not interested in solar panels and decouplers, but in capsules... perhaps we could use the alt-key to tell the program if we want to switch to only controllable stuff or anything.

The way I see it, debris (and flags!) should be targetable if you use them as marker beacons, but not 'switchable to' by default. The same would be true for map view, where you could target debris but not switch to it (unless you explicitly want to, like in your second scenario). I lost count of how many times I missed my target vessel for rendezvous because I could only click on the debris (a decoupler) that was floating right next to it.

I would DEFINITELY be in favor of implementing [MOD]+[ or [MOD]+] to tell the game you explicitly want to switch to debris and flags, and ignore them in the switching logic otherwise.

13 hours ago, sumghai said:

I would definitely prefer the ability to abandon/terminate a mission from the flight scene, rather than relying a dedicated self-destruct part.

Agreed, in cases where switching to another vessel would result in immediate destruction of the active vessel, the user should be presented with a popup asking "Warning: You are in the atmosphere. Switching to a different vessel will cause the current vessel to terminate immediately, killing all crew on board." (Cancel) or (I know what I'm doing , proceed anyway!)

That would also eliminate the "cannot switch vessels while under acceleration" under certain cases which would just slam the vessel on rails and continue the burn from there, if the physics engine allows it. Would be a great solution for ion craft.

An explicit 'self-destruct' button next to the abort (or opposite it) would also be in the spirit of being Kerbal. Covered by a red-yellow button cover, you can click it (twice to confirm), it becomes active, and a 10-second countdown starts, after which the entire ship would explode in a big mess of parts blowing themselves all over the place.

That would be a great way of getting rid of satellites that have no means of control or do not have any purpose except your current flight (which you just completed), so you would not need to go back to the Space Center and clean them up from there, but instead, just enjoy the fireworks.

Edited June 1, 2016 by Stoney3K

[severedsolo]

I'm fully in favour of this idea, but quick question: What does the Space centre button do in this situation? I know you get a warning, but usually in my experience you don't "time travel" (as it suggests you will) but return at the point you left, I presume at that point the vessel would be destroyed anyway?

[Stoney3K]

Just now, severedsolo said:

I'm fully in favour of this idea, but quick question: What does the Space centre button do in this situation? I know you get a warning, but usually in my experience you don't "time travel" (as it suggests you will) but return at the point you left, I presume at that point the vessel would be destroyed anyway?

I believe that in previous versions there was no option of returning to the space center when in the atmosphere or when "about to crash".

I have not tried that in 1.1.2, but when going to the space center, it means the active vessel goes on rails, and the simulation logic will delete it when it goes below a certain altitude (I believe that's 40km for Kerbin, and zero for airless bodies) to simulate re-entry.

That's why you can 'cheat' if you flunk a re-entry which would only burn the craft up but it has a periapsis above 40km.