Suggestions to improve Kerbal engineering.

[boolybooly]

• First and most useful would be not to disable Kerbal RCS maneuvers while carrying parts or while using the laser, in short never disable Kerbal RCS in engineering mode. It is a very fussy business when your Kerbal is drifting and the processes can impart velocity for example when a Kerbal turns to use the laser if they collide with part of the structure it can send them zooming off through no fault of the player, which is compounded by the fact that when they are doing this animation their velocity cannot be corrected until its over. 
• Likewise when moving a part, removing it can change relative velocity of Kerbal and structure so it is most unfair and not a little frustrating that you cannot correct this while the part is being carried as it were, to ensure the Kerbal drifts towards their target. Also if you could steer a kerbal while carrying a part you could have some fun with that.
• Also you need to know which inventory slot applies to which part, so for example if you have a bunch of Mk1 Crew Cabins (Mk1CC) and can see inventory space you need to have the cabin in question highlight itself in the model when mousing over the inventory space item in the list on the left side.*

e.g. I just had this happen where I had to stow a hose in a Mk1CC quickly because removing it caused a relative velocity change and the kerbal was drifting away and I was not confident that if I dropped such a small thing in space I would find it again. So I had to stow it in craft inventory because the kerbal's slots were full and I had to do it before I was out of range as I could not maneuver to stop the drift with the part in hand and had no idea which Mk1CC it was in but plunked the hose in there then lost it and did not find it again for ten minutes until the same part suddenly appeared on the engineers inventory list again entirely by luck. What's more, the part did not show when focussed on the structure in question when checking inventory space, because many of the inventory spaces in the structure built from spare parts of many ships simply do not show up even though they are all directly connected to the same structure, which I guess is a bug.

*The same principle also applies to crew allocation to multiple cabins in the VAB btw, if you have say 6 Mk1CC and kerbals in some of them which you want to keep and you are going to jettison some of the Mk1CC after achieving a mission, you need to know which cabins the Kerbals are in, which requires a highlight in the VAB when you mouse over the cabin in the crew list. Currently you have no way to tell which one the crew are in and have to check after launch or by taking them away in the VAB and checking the crew list.

[Jack White]

I would like to see better UI. It's already pretty legit but I'd like to have some improvements which some of mods provides. Overall game devs know what way they should go with a new game

[Kenny Kerman]

More sensors for use by KAL1000...  Also a "on launch" AG... Small hinge, passive hinges... Small hydraulic actuators... Gears & cams too...

Edited November 12, 2021 by Kenny Kerman