New Player Suggestions

[Long Finger]

Hi all,

I've been playing for about a week or so now and have come across a few things and a few niggles that I thought I would bring up and also make some suggestions for. If any of these features are already in the game and I've just overlooked them please do tell me!

 

1. A UI button in map mode which brings up a window with a list of all map features with a checkbox by each item to make them visible/invisible. I think this would be really useful with things like orbital rendezvous where you are looking for intercepts and want to see the intersection markers and you don't want to see the ascending/descending nodes or the apoapsis/periapsis for both orbits. Also if you need to return to the normal view to orient your ship's solar panels into Sun lets say, and then go back to map view again, it would be nice if the map opened with the same information display rather than me having to re-pin what I was looking at.

2. A "look at" option for celestials so the camera centres on the celestial and not your ship. Also useful for orbital rendezvous!

3. I can't seem to read the reputation index at the top of the screen at KSC. I can see the number when I load the game but it doesn't seem to match up with the displayed index. Could we get a mouse over digital read-out or a clearer index?

4. Like all stupid noobs I decided to go all-in from the beginning and started my first career on hard difficulty. After losing my first Kerbal to a blazing fireball, it seemed a bit odd to go from the crash report straight back to the KSC where the birds were chirping and everything carried on as normal. (after the second one died and I realised how expensive replacements were, I switched to normal difficulty) I realise the dead are listed on the roster in the astronaut complex but it would be cool if there was a hall of fame that opened up with some fitting music that would also list their achievements and where they died. I'm kind of thinking like in XCOM. Anyway this seems like it should be a really big deal for a space program and at the moment it doesn't really seem like it is.

5. It seems I can launch a rocket, land and recover it, and launch another a few minutes later with the same pilot. This being the case it sort of makes it pointless to hire new pilots as you never really need to rest the one's that you have. It would seem a bit more realistic if Kerbals experienced fatigue when returning to KSC and were unusable for a duration based on the length of their last mission with some sensible time cap. I guess a bit like footballers in FIFA games.

6. I have seen some of the discussions about life support on the forums and I have to say I'm happy with the way it is now, however as a new player the first time I put a Kerbal into orbit I did suddenly wonder how long they could stay there. (As it turned out the pod electricity ran out after I ditched the last engine and I was dead lucky to get him back in one piece). Could we just get a line of info in all the Kerbal modules that says something like; "This module contains all of the things necessary to keep a Kerbal alive in space for a ludicrously long time"?

7. Revert to last quicksave in the options menu.

 

I think that's about it so far! Cheers,

LF

 

[Tex]

Welcome to the forums!

For your suggestion number 2, just double click on the celestial body. It will focus on that body. Then I think there's some other keybinding to revert focus back to a certain ship, I forget what it is just now.

And number 6 I honestly sort of think wouldn't be much worth adding. There is a popular theory that Kerbals are simply plant-based (somehow) and that's how they don't need as much sustenance as long as they have light. It's really not perfect, but it's a fun way to explain it away.

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, Long Finger said:

2. A "look at" option for celestials so the camera centres on the celestial and not your ship. Also useful for orbital rendezvous!

In addition to the double clicking Maximus mentioned, you can also click the planet or moon's orbit (or the world itself) and select "Focus View."

3 hours ago, Long Finger said:

3. I can't seem to read the reputation index at the top of the screen at KSC. I can see the number when I load the game but it doesn't seem to match up with the displayed index. Could we get a mouse over digital read-out or a clearer index?

Yes please. A++ would love this.

3 hours ago, Long Finger said:

5. It seems I can launch a rocket, land and recover it, and launch another a few minutes later with the same pilot.

The best is when you launch your second rocket WHILE THE DEBRIS FROM THE FIRST ONE IS STILL FALLING FROM THE SKY. Seriously it's awesome. But yeah, time is kind of not really a concern in the game, and it's on purpose. It's actually a pretty big contention in the forums. Most time-based (or more accurately wait-based) mechanics just simply don't exist in the game.

3 hours ago, Long Finger said:

7. Revert to last quicksave in the options menu.

I suppose that would be nice. Note you can load a quicksave from the Space Center by hitting Escape and selecting the appropriate button.

[Dman979]

22 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

In addition to the double clicking Maximus mentioned, you can also click the planet or moon's orbit (or the world itself) and select "Focus View."

And if you want to cycle through every planet and moon in the game, press Tab.

[ZooNamedGames]

1 hour ago, Dman979 said:

And if you want to cycle through every planet and moon in the game, press Tab.

And revert back to your ship with backspace in map mode! 

As to Kerbal fatigue, I'm all for it. As he's right completely. It's very... Off putting when you can go from first manned mission to the Mun within an in game hour whereas it took 8 years for us. Fine, spawn vehicles but let the Kerbals rest.

[Francois424]

3 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

And revert back to your ship with backspace in map mode! 

As to Kerbal fatigue, I'm all for it. As he's right completely. It's very... Off putting when you can go from first manned mission to the Mun within an in game hour whereas it took 8 years for us. Fine, spawn vehicles but let the Kerbals rest.

And then when we finished a few moon missions it's 40 years after and we have yet to go anywhere else but LEO.  Humans are such lazy bums.

Okay for a Kerbal fatigue mechanic.  It's be pretty cool actually

[TheGuyNamedAlan]

On 9/27/2016 at 7:38 PM, Long Finger said:

Hi all,

I've been playing for about a week or so now and have come across a few things and a few niggles that I thought I would bring up and also make some suggestions for. If any of these features are already in the game and I've just overlooked them please do tell me!

 

1. A UI button in map mode which brings up a window with a list of all map features with a checkbox by each item to make them visible/invisible. I think this would be really useful with things like orbital rendezvous where you are looking for intercepts and want to see the intersection markers and you don't want to see the ascending/descending nodes or the apoapsis/periapsis for both orbits. Also if you need to return to the normal view to orient your ship's solar panels into Sun lets say, and then go back to map view again, it would be nice if the map opened with the same information display rather than me having to re-pin what I was looking at.

2. A "look at" option for celestials so the camera centres on the celestial and not your ship. Also useful for orbital rendezvous!

3. I can't seem to read the reputation index at the top of the screen at KSC. I can see the number when I load the game but it doesn't seem to match up with the displayed index. Could we get a mouse over digital read-out or a clearer index?

4. Like all stupid noobs I decided to go all-in from the beginning and started my first career on hard difficulty. After losing my first Kerbal to a blazing fireball, it seemed a bit odd to go from the crash report straight back to the KSC where the birds were chirping and everything carried on as normal. (after the second one died and I realised how expensive replacements were, I switched to normal difficulty) I realise the dead are listed on the roster in the astronaut complex but it would be cool if there was a hall of fame that opened up with some fitting music that would also list their achievements and where they died. I'm kind of thinking like in XCOM. Anyway this seems like it should be a really big deal for a space program and at the moment it doesn't really seem like it is.

5. It seems I can launch a rocket, land and recover it, and launch another a few minutes later with the same pilot. This being the case it sort of makes it pointless to hire new pilots as you never really need to rest the one's that you have. It would seem a bit more realistic if Kerbals experienced fatigue when returning to KSC and were unusable for a duration based on the length of their last mission with some sensible time cap. I guess a bit like footballers in FIFA games.

6. I have seen some of the discussions about life support on the forums and I have to say I'm happy with the way it is now, however as a new player the first time I put a Kerbal into orbit I did suddenly wonder how long they could stay there. (As it turned out the pod electricity ran out after I ditched the last engine and I was dead lucky to get him back in one piece). Could we just get a line of info in all the Kerbal modules that says something like; "This module contains all of the things necessary to keep a Kerbal alive in space for a ludicrously long time"?

7. Revert to last quicksave in the options menu.

 

I think that's about it so far! Cheers,

LF

 

i would suggest search google for thesebfeatures before gou ask here. google might even suggest reddit answers which might be better than the ones here. thats all

-TGNA

j did wrote this via my kindle so plz ignore my bsd spelling

Edited September 29, 2016 by Red Iron Crown
Fixed multiquote.

[Long Finger]

Quote

22 hours ago, Maximus97 said:

For your suggestion number 2, just double click on the celestial body. It will focus on that body. Then I think there's some other keybinding to revert focus back to a certain ship, I forget what it is just now.

 

21 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

In addition to the double clicking Maximus mentioned, you can also click the planet or moon's orbit (or the world itself) and select "Focus View."

 

20 hours ago, Dman979 said:

And if you want to cycle through every planet and moon in the game, press Tab.

 

19 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

And revert back to your ship with backspace in map mode! 

 

Thanks guys! This has made life much easier. Actually it prompted me to go and find a keyboard bindings chart and wow, there's a whole load of useful stuff I had no clue about.

As to my Kerbal fatigue suggestion, although it made sense to me when I proposed it, I guess I am personifying the Kerbals a bit too much and assuming that they require similar things to Humans when there is no such in-game indication. For all I know they never eat, sleep, or drink. Maybe they live on absorbed soil nutrients (a bit like too many of the creatures in No Man's Sky). The oceans on Kerbin however are somewhat suggestive that water has at least something to do with their existence, but I suppose they could absorb water moisture from the air in their environment, explaining that one away as well!