What areas of KSP need to be improved? I may make mods to fill these niches.

[fallout2077]

Hey there, KSP community! I posted a couple years ago a thread regarding my desire to create probe parts, as I felt probes in KSP were desperately lacking the love they deserve. Unfortunately, despite the kind words and encouraging comments, the process quickly overwhelmed me, as I was unsure how to process with the mod-creation process, and my texture work leaves alot to be desired.

Well, that was two years ago, and now I ask all of you a seemingly simple question: which areas of the game do you believe need improving upon; what niche or niches need to be filled to make the game more of what it can be? Of course, Squad provides us with the results of their hard work and we appreciate what they give us, but there are many of us that are left wanting more. Perhaps we feel that the game should be more realistic, and thus we want more mods like FAR, DRE, RemoteTech, and Kerbalism. Or maybe we feel that our dreams cannot be fulfilled by the limited collection of parts, so we yearn for more parts. Whatever the reason, there are many who are left wanting more. And that is where this thread comes in.

So, please, don't hold back, and tell me what you all would love to see. My main area is in 3D Modeling, with a little basic programming under my belt. What I don't know, I am willing to learn, so even if it seems complex, I will try my darndest at making it happen.

Thank you for your time, and I can't wait to see what my fellow members of the KSP community have to say regarding this subject!

[HebaruSan]

Here's a previous version of this thread:

 

[theJesuit]

Something I've wanted for a while is a mod to intergrate with texture replacer so that if a kerbal is standing within a closed fairing or cargo bay, then you are able to remote the kerbal's helmet, even off world such as in orbit or on the mün.  I figure this may be possible with something like the occlusion thing for reentry heat or hiding parts in fairings and cargo bays from the atmospheric drag model.

Also a mod that could replace a kerbal head with a more human looking one, with a GUI to adjust the model to my kids faces.

Peace.

[cxg2827]

An X-20 would be pretty cool.

[Nightside]

Definitely not as cool as an X-20, but I've recently wanted more realish communication and military satellite parts. I always end up sticking lots of extra antennas and stuff on just to get the payload up to a resonable mass. 

[dboi88]

You should make the ship from passengers, that'd be cool.

[fallout2077]

I'm looking into all of these ships as we speak!

3 hours ago, Nightside said:

Definitely not as cool as an X-20, but I've recently wanted more realish communication and military satellite parts. I always end up sticking lots of extra antennas and stuff on just to get the payload up to a resonable mass. 

 

Last night when I was coming up with mod ideas, I did have an idea for more realistic communications where different types of vessels use different frequencies (such as the varying frequencies that the Iridium satellites have). The problem with that is it would seem to more of an irritation than anything all that novel.

And if you're worried about increasing the mass of your satellite, I'd use Procedural Parts in conjunction with Community Resource Pack. PP allows you to create a tank and fill it with any substance from the CRP (for the sake of simply increasing mass, you'd want to add lead ballast).

Oh, and when I look at the Dyna-Soar, it appears that for the sake of the wings, you can achieve that wing design with Procedural Wings. The fuselage, though, I could model; from what I've heard about IVAs though, they are difficult as heck to model and take a lot of time, so if I did start work on that it would take a while to release.

Edited April 17, 2017 by fallout2077

[FlyMeToTheMinmus]

Perhaps you could look into parts for some larger satellite busses and structures, like Hubble, JWST or KH11 Hexagon parts? I've been trying to figure out payloads for my shuttle flights that aren't space station parts for a while.

[fallout2077]

6 minutes ago, FlyMeToTheMinmus said:

Perhaps you could look into parts for some larger satellite busses and structures, like Hubble, JWST or KH11 Hexagon parts? I've been trying to figure out payloads for my shuttle flights that aren't space station parts for a while.

Satellite and probe parts have actually been at the top of my list for parts to add to the game for a long while!

[Jas0n]

9 hours ago, fallout2077 said:

different frequencies (such as the varying frequencies that the Iridium satellites have).

I'm pretty sure I saw a mod that does that not too long ago. Can't remember what it's called, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with Remote Tech.

Found it: 

 

Edited April 18, 2017 by Jas0n

[fallout2077]

Just now, Jas0n said:

I'm pretty sure I saw a mod that does that not too long ago. Can't remember what it's called, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with Remote Tech.

Hah, I know if I released such a mod I would definitely have RemoteTech as a dependency. I can't imagine such a feature fitting in too well with the simplicity of the stock comms system.

[fallout2077]

2 hours ago, Jas0n said:

Found it: 

 

I see that the author is a member of the RT team, which makes me wonder if this feature will eventually be integrated into RT.

I actually had another idea concerning contracts revolving around launching satellites for media providers on the planet... think of the equivalent of DISH Network, DirecTV, Iridium, EchoStar, etc). I figured it would make Kerbin (or Earth, if one is playing with RSS) feel a lot more populated.

[Jas0n]

8 hours ago, fallout2077 said:

I see that the author is a member of the RT team, which makes me wonder if this feature will eventually be integrated into RT.

The post says that it's a test bed for a proposed feature for RT. 

 

That type of contracts would be interesting. Maybe require a specific type of antenna and a geosynchronous orbit. 

[TheOtherDave]

I've often want to build my craft with a fuel tank or something in place of a cargo bay because I don't necessarily have the satellite/rover/"generic payload" ready yet, and using something heavy as a substitute lets me prove the design works. The problem is that if the placeholder part is in the middle, or has any precisely-placed components attached to it, there can be some difficulty in getting the craft reassembled correctly (and even if it's relatively easy to get at, it's still annoying). A mod that lets you swap any part with another that's the same shape and size would be great.

[HebaruSan]

I'd like to have a version of a procedural tank with automatic scaling based on staged TWR. I should be able to place a special tank and any engine and have the tank shrink and enlarge itself until the initial TWR column of KER reads 1.6 all the way down (for example). That's essentially what I do anyway, but by adding and removing and replacing tanks, so this would let me cut out some of the "no brainer" design work.

[fallout2077]

3 hours ago, TheOtherDave said:

I've often want to build my craft with a fuel tank or something in place of a cargo bay because I don't necessarily have the satellite/rover/"generic payload" ready yet, and using something heavy as a substitute lets me prove the design works. The problem is that if the placeholder part is in the middle, or has any precisely-placed components attached to it, there can be some difficulty in getting the craft reassembled correctly (and even if it's relatively easy to get at, it's still annoying). A mod that lets you swap any part with another that's the same shape and size would be great.

You could try using Procedural Parts; PP allows you to build a fuel tank and fill it with lead ballast (or any fuel from the Community Resource Pack library). PP also allows you to fill said tank with whatever amount of fuel that you wish. Give it a try here: https://github.com/Starwaster/ProceduralParts/releases

3 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

I'd like to have a version of a procedural tank with automatic scaling based on staged TWR. I should be able to place a special tank and any engine and have the tank shrink and enlarge itself until the initial TWR column of KER reads 1.6 all the way down (for example). That's essentially what I do anyway, but by adding and removing and replacing tanks, so this would let me cut out some of the "no brainer" design work.

That's an ingenious idea! Unfortunately, I don't have the mathematical know-how and programming knowledge that I believe would be required to pull this off. I'll go through the code for Kerbal Engineer and Procedural Parts one of these days and see what I can glean from the code. Also, Real Fuels is a factor that would have to be considered, at least eventually.

I think for now I'm going to focus on the more simpler side of KSP modding... Parts. I've been wanting to model and implement more satellite and probe parts into the game for a while. Over the past few days I've been working on the original series of Iridium satellite (my favorite of the communications sats around Earth).

Edited April 22, 2017 by fallout2077

[TheOtherDave]

57 minutes ago, fallout2077 said:

You could try using Procedural Parts; PP allows you to build a fuel tank and fill it with lead ballast (or any fuel from the Community Resource Pack library). PP also allows you to fill said tank with whatever amount of fuel that you wish. Give it a try here: https://github.com/Starwaster/ProceduralParts/releases

I don't think PP can match up with any of the non-cylinderical hull profiles (mk2, s2, etc), but for everything else, that's a really good idea.

[fallout2077]

1 hour ago, TheOtherDave said:

I don't think PP can match up with any of the non-cylinderical hull profiles (mk2, s2, etc), but for everything else, that's a really good idea.

Theoretically, one could attempt to craft basic non-cylindrical profiles with procedural wings... I know the one that I primarily use (B9 Procedural Wings) allows you to edit the width, height and offset of leading and trailing edges of wings. B9 PWings also treats its wings as fuel tanks, so you could fill these wings with lead ballast or any fuel you wish. Here's the link: https://github.com/Crzyrndm/B9-PWings-Fork/releases

[fourfa]

I keep looking for a mod that makes spacecraft thermal management more interesting.  Real spacecraft have huge thermal problems: you almost always need both heating and cooling systems and significant power to run them.  The difference between being in sun and shadow is way more dramatic than KSP makes it.  Temperature extremes cause part failure (and astronaut failure too).  Currently in stock KSP there is a wide range of suitable radiator parts, and absolutely no reason to use them or even unlock them in career (not talking about mining here - but steady-state spacecraft ECLSS)

There was a RealHeat mod, which mostly was about reentry heating and seems to have been abandoned after KSP made reentry heating better.

The life-support mod Kerbalism has talked about a more detailed heating model but it's a complex and heavy mod, and so far it's just talk in the dev channel

[fallout2077]

I couldn't agree more in regards to the state of thermals in the game; I also have a similar opinion regarding radiation.

RealHeat actually has been updated. I am using it in my GPP and RO/RSS installs.

[fourfa]

24 minutes ago, fallout2077 said:

I couldn't agree more in regards to the state of thermals in the game; I also have a similar opinion regarding radiation.

RealHeat actually has been updated. I am using it in my GPP and RO/RSS installs.

Got a link? Does it go beyond aerodynamic heating now?

[fallout2077]

40 minutes ago, fourfa said:

Got a link? Does it go beyond aerodynamic heating now?

https://github.com/KSP-RO/RealHeat/releases

In regards to the scope of its heating model, you'd have to ask over in the RO forum or the Real Heat forum, as I'm ignorant to how expansive the heating is in the mod.

[cantab]

Something very simple that I've not seen: Cargo bay dividers/ends. Just flat structural pieces in Mk2 and Mk3 profile to split up or cap off the cargo bays.

Something a bit more involved that I've not seen, or at least not done well: Realistic car parts. I'm thinking if you could come up with a few standard cross-sections to use and then you could have separate parts for the hood section, cabin, and trunk, something so that the player can mix parts to get various styles. There'd also be the possibility to get into coding some more realistic engine and drivetrain behaviour.

[Maxsimal]

On 18/04/2017 at 1:25 AM, fallout2077 said:

Satellite and probe parts have actually been at the top of my list for parts to add to the game for a long while!

I'd really like a mod that alters missions to both ask for a variety of payload sizes to be sent and varies the rewards based off of the payload.

Satellite contracts would be a lot more fun if you had to build rockets that sometimes delivered a little 100kg comsat and sometimes a 10 ton behemoth military sat.

[Martian Music]

If you're looking for something advanced (I believe) you can check this request I made if you haven't