Timer Activated Actions in Action Groups.

[A Pixie Killer]

It would be cool and very useful to be able to customize actions to be activated a set time after activating an action group.

As an example, i would have action group 1 with landing gears going up and the gear lights turning on. I would set the time of activation of the gear to null/0 and the time of the light to 3 seconds. After activating action group 1, it would immediately activate the gear going up, and then 3 seconds later the light would turn on.

As an application i think it could be great to drop probes onto the surface without leaving the ship which if done properly could automatically activate thrusters/parachutes, gears, antennas, solar panels ect. all without having to babysit a craft. It could be used for sending craft into space without being there. Maybe a rover that could be sent forward and told to break a days later, without you having to control it directly.

It could basically be used to control a lot of things without having to directly be there, it would be amazing.

[Azimech]

There are A LOT of things you can do with timers, and indeed I wish them too.

+rep.

[Capt Snuggler]

Timers would add so so much to the game.

Staging AND action group timers.

There are so many possibilities with this!

A drag and drop script builder would be my preferred choice way of doing it.

Imagine completely automating your rocket launch with this.

(It's not "auto pilot" if the player decides when things happen ahead of time)

Edited April 16, 2015 by Capt Snuggler

[Darnok]

I fully agree it would be amazing

It would work just like in real world where NASA sends probe to Mars and during atmospheric entry only software (basically coded time based actions) is piloting craft.

[h4didact]

Great idea. But regarding dropping probes and other stuff and let them do their things by themselves wouldn't be possible because of the limited physics bubble. Even with 25.5km physics bubble it wouldn't be possible at orbital speeds.

[klgraham1013]

Wasn't someone working on a simple drag and drop script for action groups at one point? I feel like more action group flexibility could be very useful.

[Vector-5]

Maybe a rover that could be sent forward and told to break a days later, without you having to control it directly.

But what if it rolled over or ran out of electricity? Would there be an if-then option for contingency planning? Other than that, this sounds like a pretty good idea. It could also teach a little bit about coding. Perhaps when you next got on, it could notify you of which plan your autonomous craft was on. Perhaps if a rover flipped over and broke its solar panels, it could then try to right itself and go into hibernation mode (brakes on, SAS torque off, etc). It could then notify you when you got to the space center view. You could then decide what to do next.

-Vec

[DoToH]

KOS?

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