A bunch of random ideas for KSP

[DundraL]

Well, just as the title says this is a list of ideas I don't think merit an entire thread by themselves. If an idea gets alot of interest, or if I cant explain it properly in a paragraph, I may give it its own thread.

TLDR: Dont post.

1: Add a fuel pumping function to docking node context menus: A click of a button starts evenly draining fuel from tanks on one side of the docking port and putting them evenly into the fuel tanks on the other side of the docking port. Simply moves fuel from one side of the part tree to the other (relative to the dockingport) . Fuel flow logic would still apply. (no effect on locked tanks or tanks separated with a decoupler.) This is to allow for an easy fill up at orbital depots, without coding to try to keep track of what parts are new to the current part tree.

2: Clicking altimeter to toggle between the display between sea-level and radar altimeter. Pretty self explanatory for the reason. Maybe a little indicator telling you which mode its in.

3:Jet engines: handle intake air indirectly to prevent asymmetric thrust. (its still a thing) by calculating TOTAL intake air rate (from all intakes) and TOTAL intake demand (from all engines) you can use that to apply the resulting performance changes to ALL engines. Directly subtracting intake air from each engine will eventually result in the last engine to take its slice of the pie to get less pie than the rest so to speak.

4:Handle the mass of intakes and jet engines as a system, not as independent components. This will allow more control of an aircraft's CoM. That or reduce weight on jet engines by a fixed amount and add that much weight to intakes. please note this thread has nothing to do with aero, thrust, altitudes etc. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92819-An-arguement-for-a-simple-intake-jet-engine-tweak for more into on that problem.

5:Move electrical and thermal parts to their own tab in the editor. The utilities tab is getting over-crowded. Moving solar panels, batteries, fuel cells etc to their own tab. 14 parts I think. Make the tab have a lightning bolt on it. Should be pretty easy to learn.

6:Solar cells: Change the texture to show that it has a radiator on the back. This will help players realize the additional function of solar cells faster.

7:Science parts: Add a new science tab beside the resources tab for the in-flight UI. Clicking it should show you a clickable list of science parts on your vessel. Clicking one should result in "using" that experiment. Unusable ones should be greyed out or list the reason they are unusable/ already used. Should highlight the part like hovering your mouse over the part. Keeps you from having to mess with the camera to get it inside those service bays.

8:Bacon: make it crispy and delicious. Dang now I'm hungry.

9: Probe cores: give them a stand-by or hibernation mode in their right click menu. This makes the vessel uncontrollable, but the core stops using power. You can of course still bring it back out of standby. BONUS: put probe cores in standby when their battery gets really low. Make it a slider in the right click menu labeled "standby at power %" It would give us one last chance to deploy solar panels before a probe is lost.

10:An extra level of time warp available only on solar orbit above 50,000,000M.... Even at current max warp, it takes ages for things to happen way out there.

11:An easy way to do inline fairings based on squads UI. (assuming you are in the process of making a fairing already) click the rim of the fairing you are making (or press space?) to leave the top of the fairing open and create TWO (2) attachment nodes at the height of the farthest fairing section. yay, now we can have engine clusters for mid-stages.;Fail, this is already almost done and I didnt know it. Just add the ability to terminate fairing construction at any point and add a node there.

12:Improve fuel flow logic. Treat fuel tanks connected directly and inline to eachother as a single large tank...a "tankset". Drain each fuel-containing part in a "tankset" evenly. This prevents CoM from swinging so far towards the bottom of your rockets near the end of your first stage and causing a tumble. Fuel lines would still pull from other tanksets first. It would have no effect that would change existing designs, other than making CoM move around less. You wouldn't even need to change your design in 99% of cases.

... So thats a dozen ideas that I think would have a good effect on KSP gameplay overall compared to the amount of work required to implement. Sorry if some parts don't make much sense, I'm running on about 2 hours of sleep atm.

Edited June 16, 2015 by DundraL

[Lord Aurelius]

Great list, I especially like the idea of a tank set for rockets and jet engines as a system.

[GluttonyReaper]

Number 8: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/94648-1-0-2-Burger-Mod!-0-3-%282015-04-28%29

[Darnok]

9. you can do that by simple disabling battery in probe core in craft editor

[DundraL]

I DO do that... but IMO, I think it would be nice to be able disable a probe core on a manned flight till I need it for automated return for example. Or maybe I don't need 5 probe cores draining batteries when I launch a rocket delivering multiple satellites to orbit.

[Hobbes Novakoff]

11:An easy way to do inline fairings based on squads UI. (assuming you are in the process of making a fairing already) click the rim of the fairing you are making (or press space?) to leave the top of the fairing open and create TWO (2) attachment nodes at the height of the farthest fairing section. yay, now we can have engine clusters for mid-stages.;

Already a thing. Just click on a part while building a fairing, the fairing will close on that part.

[Orbital Vagabond]

Yeah, I want to see the intake air logic improved. I think it makes sense to run the logic for all the intakes first, THEN the consumptions/sinks.

I think a big, simple improvement would be to lock all the engines that use intakeAir on a single throttle, so when one starts coming down automatically, they ALL do. without other logic improvements, that throttle might bounce around a bit at the equilibrium point, but MAN it would make flight a lot easier.

[DundraL]

Wow, I didnt know about the inline fairing bit... still wont let me build the fairing first to allow for easier engine clusters.. but ... thats good enough I guess

Edited June 1, 2015 by DundraL

[John Nowak]

I'd vote for #1. It's annoying to find every single tank on a ship and pump from one tank to one other tank. I think this is a very elegant solution to a complex problem.

[tg626]

TAC fuel balancer.

[mattinoz]

Another vote for all of these items especially 1 and 8.

1 well why not it makes life so much easier when there is no reason to complex.

8 because Bacon

[Windspren]

What if we could make our own part tabs?

[EngineerBill]

I approve

[Hobbes Novakoff]

What if we could make our own part tabs?

You can. Just use Advanced mode in the editor.

[Rath]

9:Probe cores: give them a stand-by or hibernation mode in their right click menu. This makes the vessel uncontrollable, but the core stops using power. You can of course still bring it back out of standby. BONUS: put probe cores in standby when their battery gets really low. Make it a slider in the right click menu labeled "standby at power %" It would give us one last chance to deploy solar panels before a probe is lost.

You can do this by locking all of the electricty flow from all the batteries on a craft, Even with no control they can still be told to open.