Do you spend time Alt-Tabbed out?

[THX1138]

Do you often spend time Alt-Tabbed out of the game while fuel transfers or waiting for several orbits to complete at maximum time warp etc? I mask it by browsing this forum or Reddit but it's still a little annoying.

[p1t1o]

My KSP build take about 6-8 mins to load so I tab out whilst that is happening, usually I'll load KSP halfway through an episode of something.

[cantab]

I have two monitors, and yes, sometimes do something on the other monitor. Though it's rarely during things like burns or timewarping, more normally it's just through getting a bit distracted but not closing the game.

[kBob]

Sometimes.  Usually though I do it either to take a break or to look something up I've forgotten in those cases I usually pause the game, but sometimes if it's like going to take 20 minutes to reach a node I'll use that as good time to do something else for a bit.  I probably need to reinstall KAC though so I don't overshoot my goal or have to keep checking back.

[Terwin]

I generally play windowed, often with something else I am doing on the other screen and a browser open to the wiki(generally a tab on the science page for high/low boundary numbers).

 

[MDZhB]

I have this forum open a lot when I play, or I have music playing that needs changing every now and then.

[LordFerret]

I play full screen, and there are (were) often times I Alt-Tab out (check the Wiki on something, use a launch window planner, or a calculator), but I find the game doesn't like it and usually crashes. The likely reason (my guess) is because the laptop I play on has auto mode switching between the integrated graphics and higher-end Nvidia graphics card also onboard. Lately, I've taken to keeping a little 10" netbook by my side while playing KSP so I won't have to Alt-Tab out.

[adsii1970]

1 minute ago, LordFerret said:

I play full screen, and there are (were) often times I Alt-Tab out (check the Wiki on something, use a launch window planner, or a calculator), but I find the game doesn't like it and usually crashes. The likely reason (my guess) is because the laptop I play on has auto mode switching between the integrated graphics and higher-end Nvidia graphics card also onboard. Lately, I've taken to keeping a little 10" netbook by my side while playing KSP so I won't have to Alt-Tab out.

This is exactly what I do. I also have an excel spreadsheet that has all my key binding assignments listed by craft. This way, if I go from one mission to another, I'm less likely to deploy parachutes in space or solar panels while at the 6,000 km mark while reentering...

[LordFerret]

1 minute ago, adsii1970 said:

all my key binding assignments

Yes! This!

[TotallyNotHuman]

@cantab How do you get your dual-monitor setup working? I tried doing it (from a monitor I borrowed from a friend), but every time I needed to do something else on the secondary monitor KSP minimizes on my primary.

I know I can play windowed mode, but it's just so weird. 

[adsii1970]

39 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

Yes! This!

If I were to suggest one useful feature for KSP, it would be a function where one could, in flight, hit a key and have a small box that listed all the custom key bindings for that craft. Before I started the spreadsheet, there were literally times when I would forget what key I assigned to do what in various craft.  So, with that said, there were a few reverts in the early games...

[purpleivan]

Yep... I use Alt-Tab all the time. During loading is a must, as is on longer nuke or ion burns.

[Madrias]

I play in Windowed mode, and with two screens.  KSP and something else, constantly.  KSP in the SPH, I'm probably either watching a movie, looking at crafts on YouTube for inspiration, or listening to music and browsing the forum.  KSP in the World, it's probably music and the Forum.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

1 hour ago, WildLynx said:

There is a little pitfall: if you alt-tab or desktop-switch when loading a save from main menu, game loads with camera very low, and you cannot interact with anything. Happened to me in windows, in Linux, in various version, with mods and without.

Is it only for me, or not?

During gameplay, I task-switch a lot, since I usually operate a low-TWR ships, and also KAC stops timewarp and play alerts as needed.

That's not just for you.  There was a thread about it a while back, I think, and it happens to me too.

Yes, I alt-tab over to the forums while playing all the time.  

[AlamoVampire]

i dont alt-tab anymore in ksp as it tends to make it crash. This is also why i use mechjeb. I input a maneuver and hit execute. If its a long burn? I just let mj do its thing while i walk off to get a snack or watch tv or something. I come back and pick back up where mj left off.

[THX1138]

4 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

If I were to suggest one useful feature for KSP, it would be a function where one could, in flight, hit a key and have a small box that listed all the custom key bindings for that craft. Before I started the spreadsheet, there were literally times when I would forget what key I assigned to do what in various craft.  So, with that said, there were a few reverts in the early games...

I think it should go further than that - I don't see any reason why the action groups shouldn't be completely re-configurable post-launch. I have many craft in use that were launched before I found out what action groups meant.

2 hours ago, WildLynx said:

There is a little pitfall: if you alt-tab or desktop-switch when loading a save from main menu, game loads with camera very low, and you cannot interact with anything. Happened to me in windows, in Linux, in various version, with mods and without.

Is it only for me, or not?

During gameplay, I task-switch a lot, since I usually operate a low-TWR ships, and also KAC stops timewarp and play alerts as needed.

52 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

That's not just for you.  There was a thread about it a while back, I think, and it happens to me too.

Yes, I alt-tab over to the forums while playing all the time.  

Hey, I can help you with that. When that happens, press Alt + F12 and then "Show Input Lock Stack" and then "Clear Input Lock Stack". It's a long-standing bug and that's the work around for it.

Edited June 24, 2016 by THX1138

[DD_bwest]

i essentially always have youtube playing something at the same time,   both background noise, and something to flip to lol  especially if im using the ion thrusters.  some of those burns can get long, even with X4 warp lol

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

45 minutes ago, THX1138 said:

I think it should go further than that - I don't see any reason why the action groups shouldn't be completely re-configurable post-launch. I have many craft in use that were launched before I found out what action groups meant.

Hey, I can help you with that. When that happens, press Alt + F12 and then "Show Input Lock Stack" and then "Clear Input Lock Stack". It's a long-standing bug and that's the work around for it.

Thanks!

[magnemoe]

I play in a window and lots of time tabbed out, currently I do a 20 km/s Duna burn 

10 minute burn, the indicator get fooled as its pulsed. 

[SuperFastJellyfish]

5 hours ago, TotallyNotHuman_ said:

@cantab How do you get your dual-monitor setup working? I tried doing it (from a monitor I borrowed from a friend), but every time I needed to do something else on the secondary monitor KSP minimizes on my primary.

I know I can play windowed mode, but it's just so weird. 

Right click your KSP shortcut, goto properties, then the Shortcut tab, and add  ' -popupwindow' at the end of the Target field.  I haven't done this in a few versions, but that used to work.  Unity5 might not support that anymore. I'm not sure.   

[kBob]

4 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

If I were to suggest one useful feature for KSP, it would be a function where one could, in flight, hit a key and have a small box that listed all the custom key bindings for that craft. Before I started the spreadsheet, there were literally times when I would forget what key I assigned to do what in various craft.  So, with that said, there were a few reverts in the early games...

This has made me think.  Instead of having my own, usually outdated, keyboard map, maybe I should write a program that would take the keyboard bindings out of the settings.cfg and create a custom keyboard map for display and/or printing.  Have to look into that it would be very handy.  But if the Escape key settings menu had access to the key bindings that would be a big help.

[Corona688]

5 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

If I were to suggest one useful feature for KSP, it would be a function where one could, in flight, hit a key and have a small box that listed all the custom key bindings for that craft. Before I started the spreadsheet, there were literally times when I would forget what key I assigned to do what in various craft.  So, with that said, there were a few reverts in the early games...

Or even just the ability to bring up the craft's VAB notes from anywhere.

[AbacusWizard]

1 hour ago, THX1138 said:

I don't see any reason why the action groups shouldn't be completely re-configurable post-launch.

There was a great mod called Action Group Manager that allowed you to display--and modify--a vessel's action groups whenever you want... but it hasn't been updated in a long time. I like to use a consistent system of action group numbering for nearly all of my ships and stations and probes (and slightly different consistent systems for spaceplanes and fuel factories), so it's not usually an issue for me anymore, but on the rare occasion when I do need to make a modification (usually to correct for a symmetry bug in the VAB), I open up the persistent file with a text editor and make the change manually. Tedious but it gets the job done.

[Van Disaster]

3 hours ago, SuperFastJellyfish said:

Right click your KSP shortcut, goto properties, then the Shortcut tab, and add  ' -popupwindow' at the end of the Target field.  I haven't done this in a few versions, but that used to work.  Unity5 might not support that anymore. I'm not sure.   

Works fine, suspect it always will.