Cant switch vessel while under acceleration or in atmosphere??????

[Nikolas March]

why cant i do this, if i want to quick switch to some other vessel like the launcher i want to maneuver while the upper stage is accelerating then i SHOULD, if i put my ships at risk thats my choice! i cant believe this excrements IS STILL HERE!

[The Space Dino]

It seems that you can't switch in the atmosphere, happens to me too.

[Snark]

It can be frustrating, but there's also a good reason for it due to the way the fundamental design of the game.  (That is, it's not a bug... it's something that the devs did because they really had to, for technical reasons.)  Here's the deal:

There's no active simulation of ships when you switch away from them-- they run "on rails", which means,

1. ships in space move on purely ballistic trajectories, i.e. in free-fall with no engine input;
2. ships sitting on the surface just sit there where they're put
3. ships in atmosphere... vanish and are considered destroyed.

So, when the game doesn't let you switch, it's doing you a favor.  If it let you switch away from your ship in atmosphere, your ship would be instantly destroyed, which is not what most players want.  If it let you switch away from your ship while its engine is firing... its engine would instantly stop the moment you switch away, which is not what most players would want or expect.  Or, indeed, even realize that it happened (which is why it makes you turn the engine off yourself before you switch-- that way at least you know what's going on).

That's also why you also can't switch while moving over the surface (e.g. a rover that's moving).

I know it's aggravating, but there's no other practical way.  The only way for the game to do what you want would be for it to physically simulate all ships, not just the one you're currently controlling... and that would bring players' computers to their knees (too much processing to do).  So it's a compromise that allows the game to perform well enough to play.

In short:  it seems pretty unlikely that this particular restriction is going to change, at least completely.  (There might be room for minor fiddling around the edges-- e.g. it used to be that the "physics bubble" was only a couple of kilometers while in atmosphere, now they've expanded it to 20.  But the basic limitation remains.)  KSP is continuously solving some computationally difficult physics problems, and being completely faithful to real-world physics would be computationally impractical.  So they have to cut some expedient corners in places.

[The Aziz]

5 hours ago, Snark said:

 If it let you switch away from your ship in atmosphere, your ship would be instantly destroyed, which is not what most players want.  If it let you switch away from your ship while its engine is firing... its engine would instantly stop the moment you switch away, which is not what most players would want or expect.

Uh, no? There is physics bubble, (2.3km?) so not instantly. If it were the way you say it, dropped stages would disappear as soon as you hit spacebar.

I also made a drop probe and I could totally switch between it and the plane it dropped from, as long as they were within physics range. Also plane engines were still working.

[Snark]

3 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Uh, no? There is physics bubble, (2.3km?) so not instantly. If it were the way you say it, dropped stages would disappear as soon as you hit spacebar.

I also made a drop probe and I could totally switch between it and the plane it dropped from, as long as they were within physics range. Also plane engines were still working.

Yup. I was referring to switching away to something outside the physics bubble, since that's what the OP was complaining about.

[DrLicor]

A less passive aggressive approach would be nicer OP, but anyway as @Snark mentioned, you can only switch between crafts in a radius of 2.3 km in the game. 

If that isn't possible, there's something wrong with your game.

Edited June 10, 2017 by DrLicor

[jhousen]

On ‎6‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 6:07 PM, Snark said:

It can be frustrating, but there's also a good reason for it due to the way the fundamental design of the game.  (That is, it's not a bug... it's something that the devs did because they really had to, for technical reasons.)  Here's the deal:

There's no active simulation of ships when you switch away from them-- they run "on rails", which means,

1. ships in space move on purely ballistic trajectories, i.e. in free-fall with no engine input;
2. ships sitting on the surface just sit there where they're put
3. ships in atmosphere... vanish and are considered destroyed.

So, when the game doesn't let you switch, it's doing you a favor.  If it let you switch away from your ship in atmosphere, your ship would be instantly destroyed, which is not what most players want.  If it let you switch away from your ship while its engine is firing... its engine would instantly stop the moment you switch away, which is not what most players would want or expect.  Or, indeed, even realize that it happened (which is why it makes you turn the engine off yourself before you switch-- that way at least you know what's going on).

That's also why you also can't switch while moving over the surface (e.g. a rover that's moving).

I know it's aggravating, but there's no other practical way.  The only way for the game to do what you want would be for it to physically simulate all ships, not just the one you're currently controlling... and that would bring players' computers to their knees (too much processing to do).  So it's a compromise that allows the game to perform well enough to play.

In short:  it seems pretty unlikely that this particular restriction is going to change, at least completely.  (There might be room for minor fiddling around the edges-- e.g. it used to be that the "physics bubble" was only a couple of kilometers while in atmosphere, now they've expanded it to 20.  But the basic limitation remains.)  KSP is continuously solving some computationally difficult physics problems, and being completely faithful to real-world physics would be computationally impractical.  So they have to cut some expedient corners in places.

truth, my computer groans when I open this game as it is now, undoing this limitation would melt it.