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KSP Loading... Preview: New Altimeter Toggle!


SQUAD

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Coming to Update 1.7, we are including a long requested quality-of-life feature that will allow you to toggle the altitude mode from Above Sea Level (ASL) to Above Ground Level (AGL) by simply clicking on the altimeter box. Hopefully this will help Kerbals avoid some crashes!

via Gfycat

 

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Nope. Don’t like it. It sucks. Ruins the challenge. Can we toggle it off?

Well, that’s how we’re supposed to react to everything Squad announces, right?

Seriously though, thanks!  It looks like you guys are going through the list of “what little features should be there but aren’t?” Keep up the good work!

*coughAp&Peinflightmodecough*

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Yes, I like the idea (duh) but I think a little change in design would be nice - now you created a bit of unnecessary grey space below the vertical speed gauge, and that looks off. I suggest widening the whole thing and put a short button on the right side of the altimeter or something like that.

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Nice in concept, but does it need to take up so much vertical space on the UI? maybe have just two buttons to the left of the altimeter that collapse when not hovered over? 

I really don't like the idea of more of the screen being taken up by stock UI, especially if its just for the words "Altitude Mode" that never change plus 3 letters. Will this be able to be disabled? anyone know how hard it would be for a plugin to remove it?

Edited by cineboxandrew
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Its a great quality of life addition but the actual UI element looks pretty bad. I hope that this is a proof of concept rather than a final implementation. It pushes the whole Altimeter UI further down the screen into prime real estate and, from an aesthetical point of view, now makes the bottom Atmospheric Pressure readout no longer align nicely, slightly offset from the rest of that UI module. It would have been much more visually natural if a small toggleable button was positioned, maybe, so the left side of the Pressure readout.

As @The Aziz points out above, you now have this very odd, strange looking blank area of grey UI.

EDIT: Couldn't you make the new toggleable button area collapsible so that that it expands when mouseover is true? That way we wouldn't have to see the out of place, garish stock typeface on a characterized UI element.

EDIT EDIT: Not sure why we're bothering to say this though as you've probably shown it to a few people in the Tester group who must have said similar things so you've probably already got this feedback.

Edited by Poodmund
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I was thinking it would be nice to replace the vertical speed dial with an analogue radar altimeter instead, and have the vertical speed as just a number inside the dial, or something like that :)

But I'm so happy to have the feature, at least.

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1 hour ago, SQUAD said:

Coming to Update 1.7, we are including a long requested quality-of-life feature that will allow you to toggle the altitude mode from Above Sea Level (ASL) to Above Ground Level (AGL) by simply clicking on the altimeter box. Hopefully this will help Kerbals avoid some crashes!

Avoid crashes??? Inconceivable!

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Yep, now that  I look at it. I'd rather the UI not reach even lower onto the screen...Maybe radio buttons on the left next to the Abort slider? You just need it to say "AGL" and "ASL". You don't need all that text

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Yesyesyesyes! 

Is SQUAD trying to systematically stockify the useful features of Kerbal Engineer? Who knows, this is great!

But like others above have said, maybe that empty space under the vertical speed indicator could be filled with another useful indicator/readout rather than wasting valuable screen real-estate.

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Now while I like the feature, I do come from an era when screens had more vertical space relative to their horizontal space, so this feature, further impinging on the main screen is rather annoying. Is there a way of making it so that it can go away either on command, or automatically when we go on orbit (or into physics-less timewarp altitude)?

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51 minutes ago, T1mo98 said:

Amazingly useful feature! Only feedback I have is to change the bar the setting is currently in to a Toggle like for the Lights, Brakes and Landing gear.

Agreed. Some sort of toggle to the left of the readout would be better than stretching further down into the viewport. 

1 hour ago, Mikki said:

Does the cockpit/ rootpart serve as reference or the lowest point of a vessel? Great feature!

Excellent question, also. 

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13 minutes ago, wizzlebippi said:

@SQUAD

Please make that altitude MSL (Mean Sea Level) instead of ASL. MSL is the actual name for pressure altitudes referenced to sea level.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altitude

I just looked it up...Since Kerbin doesn't experience climate change, seasons or tides ASL is actually appropriate  :) 

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metres_above_sea_level 

"Mean sea levels are affected by climate change and other factors and change over time. For this and other reasons, recorded measurements of elevation above sea level might differ from the actual elevation of a given location over sea level at a given moment."

Edited by Tyko
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Pardon me for asking a second question, but how will behavior change for values on Kerbin, Laythe, and Eve that are under the surface of the local ocean? Will the new AGL give a value relative to the maximum depth at that point, or will it simply revert to the current below sea level behavior?

Edited by TimothyC
Typos!
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