Ladder switching in 1.1+

[Fwiffo]

Getting kerbals who are in EVA to switch between two ladders got harder in 1.1 / 1.1.1 / 1.1.2.  Here's the bug report, so I'm not posting more details here (but can if needed).

I'm wondering if anyone has tips they've discovered for mitigating this, e.g. how to line up two perpendicular ladders in a manner that makes the transition more reliable, use of 45 degree connectors, etc.

Edited May 9, 2016 by Fwiffo

[bewing]

In our testing on that bug, Anquietas said that it was fairly easy to get the 45 degree connectors working (or, I assume, anything less than 45 degrees). I never bothered to test the 45 degree ones. And as I said on the bug report, I disagree with sal_vager's wording. It didn't just "get harder" to turn 90 degrees -- it's basically impossible.

[Fwiffo]

Thanks.  I've been trying 45 degree connectors, the kerbals still seem to get confused more often than not as to which way I want them to go, at least when the connectors aren't placed at the ends of the ladder.

[sal_vager]

Try not to place ladders too close together, as that confuses the game as to which collider you're closest to.

[Fwiffo]

On 5/9/2016 at 5:29 AM, sal_vager said:

Try not to place ladders too close together

At the ends, that's fine.  But when you want to make two ladders abut each other in the middle of one, you need to have some overlap.  Below is an example someone was kind enough to screenshot.  What I'm finding in situations like this is, climbing toward the main segment works fine.  But when you start from the bottom, climb up the main section and you get to the Y, the game gets confused whether you want to continue straight up or turn off.

 

Here's my craft file, maybe a kind soul here will have better luck than me making my ladders all connect seamlessly :-).

http://tinyurl.com/Rig-Mk2-PreweldC

Let me know if there are any other custom parts I forgot to include and I'll provide them.  If you need to move around heavier parts, keep in mind that I need to maintain craft balance along two axis (center stack mounted during launch/interplanetary, and via the 4 thuds during landing / suborbital hop.  Note the terrier is temporary to have a thrust pivot point for RCS Build Aid tweaking).

My current attempt is to make a big serpentine "S" path to remove T / Y joints altogether, but it's uglier than the nice clean 90-degrees connections we had in earlier versions.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Fwiffo
Second pic

[sal_vager]

4 minutes ago, Fwiffo said:

At the ends, that's fine.  But when you want to make two ladders abut each other in the middle of one, you need to have some overlap.

 

That looks a lot like my tests as well.

[Fwiffo]

@sal_vager Oh, that's your screenshot isn't it! Thanks :-)

Edited May 11, 2016 by Fwiffo

[Fwiffo]

@sal_vager, @bewing, and whoever else might stumble across similar difficulties in the future.  After an infuriating amount of tweaking I finally managed to get my ladders to work reliably enough by getting rid of all the junctions and following a serpentine pattern:

(ignore the Poodle engines, they're just there to help with balancing in the editor)

It's a shame as I might have wanted to stack additional parts onto the ore holding tanks and extend the longitudinal ladder segments along the rest of my ship.

Also, unfortunately due to the asymmetries the "S" approach introduced, a downside is that I had to resort to some silly looking weldments (or subassemblies, whatever approach you prefer) in order to avoid having to increase the number of distinct "drop in segments" required for my craft:

I'm mentioning it to show that the ladder thing really is causing my kerbgineers a bit of grief beyond just having to play with angles on parts.

@SQUAD please show bug #8715 some love and give us back reliable perpendicular ladder handoff!

Edited May 13, 2016 by Fwiffo

[sal_vager]

@Fwiffo, have you considered using the retractable ladders as a switchable junction?

[Fwiffo]

4 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

have you considered using the retractable ladders as switchable junction?

I hadn't; that's an interesting idea.  I think I follow what you mean, but do you have an example handy?

[sal_vager]

One sec I'll make a pic.

@Fwiffo

 

[Fwiffo]

55 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

One sec I'll make a pic.

Thanks!  It's a clever idea, although from the screenshots it seems that the junction does still need to be at the ends of the ladders rather than meeting in the middle of one (such as the way I was trying to connect to the research lab).  That said, it does eliminate the issue of kerbals getting confused at junctions, and it's great to have another tool in my toolbox.  Choo choo, chugga chugga chugga here comes the Kerbal!

Edited May 13, 2016 by Fwiffo