2HOT Thermometer - toggleable unit

[StanE]

The 2HOT thermometer showed the temperature in celsius units previously, but now it shows them in kelvin (I guess). Kelvin is used mostly in scientific areas but most people use celsius or fahrenheit. It would be nice to have following options:

1. Show the used unit
   
2. Allow to toggle between Kelvin, Celsius and Fahrenheit
   

[KrazyKrl]

Toggling displayed units is kind of a tertiary thing, just a button that switches between Kelvin and Celsius would be fine. The displayed temperature would only apply to the thermometer, scientific data would still save the temp in Kelvin.

Fahrenheit is depreciated, and I don't see why Kerbals would even know of it; they are fully metric, after all.

[StanE]

Toggling displayed units is kind of a tertiary thing, just a button that switches between Kelvin and Celsius would be fine.

Didn't I said this?

[tater]

No one operating spacecraft uses Fahrenheit. If NASA mentions it, it's for the rubes.

[Noah_Blade]

This would break the game a little and mods with heat resistance on parts due to how the game is coded

[StanE]

*Sigh*

You do not seem to understand me. I don't care about Fahrenheit. I just said in case some of you use it - just for fairness. I'm from Europe and normally use Celsius. I know what units space agencies use, you really don't need to tell me that.

I just would like to have a button next to the info popup of the HOT2 Thermometer. These kinds of buttons are used everywhere in the game for many parts (including the Thermometer). Currently, the thermometer shows only a number without a unit. I guess this is just a bug. The other thing was the suggestion to toggle the unit to show the another calculated value. E. g., 277K [> Click >] 14.85°C [> Click >] 277K. I really don't understand why such a simple suggestion needs to be discussed like that...

This would break the game a little and mods with heat resistance on parts due to how the game is coded

No, it wouldn't. This has absolutely nothing to do with it. Again: I'm talking about what the HOT2 Thermometer part shows - I'm not talking about the internal calculations of the game.

[sal_vager]

Just so you guys know, discussions on the units used for measurement always result in argument and have to be closed, it's worse than politics, seriously.

Squad changed to kelvin for 1.0 and are not likely to change again, from the readme:

=================================== v1.0.0 ============================================================

- All game temperatures changed from ‘Kervin’ to proper Kelvin.

I honestly don't think this suggestion will be taken on-board, so it may be best to just grin and bare it, and keep the calculator close by.

Never come between a man and his measuring stick.

[Murph]

I don't really see much point in adding complexity here. Kelvin and Celsius are actually exactly the same thing, just with a different zero point. Celsius = (Kelvin -273) (or -273.15, if you want to be really pedantic).

It's not even terribly difficult in human terms: >300K is a bit hot, 300K is moderately warm, 280K is getting chilly, 273K is literally "freezing".

Is there any practical advantage to the game giving you information in anything other than Kelvin, given that we don't actually use the temperature for anything, and it doesn't make any difference to anything (other than overheating, which has tolerances specified in Kelvin anyway)? Unless there is a clear practical benefit from having other scales available, I am against this suggestion.

This feels to me very much like a solution that is seeking a problem. Perhaps I'm missing something (which means Squad might not see it either), but I just don't see the point to this, I don't see the problem that it solves or the benefit that it brings.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Just so you guys know, discussions on the units used for measurement always result in argument and have to be closed, it's worse than politics, seriously.

I once suggested that rover speed be displayed in mph/kph and the suggestion was all but shot down amid cries of 'but that's just tradition, your suggestion makes no sense!'.. well, yeah, it's tradition, that's why I'm suggesting it.

Also, I'm in favour of OPs suggestion.

Also also, if "discussions on the units used for measurement always result in argument and have to be closed", how am I still able to reply to this?

- - - Updated - - -

I don't see the problem that it solves or the benefit that it brings.

Because if you said "this thing is 190°C!" to someone, they'd likely know that's it's pretty damn warm. If you said "this thing is 463.15K!", they'd be like 'whuuuut?' then burn themselves because people, on average as a majority, do not encounter Kelvin like, at all ever. It's just way more easier for the average person to relate to - there's no problem solving or anything, it's just that more people will quickly understand roughly how hot something is because it's presented in units more familiar to them.

Edited June 7, 2015 by ObsessedWithKSP

[sumghai]

Rather than having units toggleable in the flight scene, this could be relegated to the settings screen.

[Murph]

Because if you said "this thing is 190°C!" to someone, they'd likely know that's it's pretty damn warm. If you said "this thing is 463.15K!", they'd be like 'whuuuut?' then burn themselves because people, on average as a majority, do not encounter Kelvin like, at all ever. It's just way more easier for the average person to relate to - there's no problem solving or anything, it's just that more people will quickly understand roughly how hot something is because it's presented in units more familiar to them.

If they have studied even a fairly basic level of science in senior/secondary/high school (3 names for the same thing, the age 13–18 school level), they really should be familiar with "absolute zero" and Kelvin. If they are leaving school without having encountered it, that is a dreadful situation. If anything, that makes me want to keep KSP strictly in Kelvin, to fill in the gap in their education.

Aside from that, I don't see how your argument really demonstrates a need or benefit for having other scales in KSP, or a problem with the status quo. It's impossible to burn yourself, the temperatures don't matter for anything other than overheat. Overheat is just fine in Kelvin, and would have no tangible improvement if it could be changed to Celsius; it's still one number having to stay below another number, the units are entirely irrelevant as long as both numbers are actually on the same scale. If anything, adding the choice would add confusion, with people getting mixed up between cfg file values, in-game values, wiki values, values in forum posts, etc. A single scale used for all eliminates that likely confusion.

If someone really has never heard of Kelvin (within the subset of people who are able to comprehend KSP's simplified orbital mechanics), it's literally 30 seconds on Google, and you know all that you need to know to understand the Kelvin scale (assuming you're already familiar with Celsius), at least as far as interpreting the numbers for basic hot vs. cold. Here's the one line that is all anyone needs in KSP terms (although I'm not sure you even really need it, to be honest): 273K is 0C; 0K is -273C; delta-1K == delta-1C.

Where in the stock game would it make a real useful difference to have temperatures in Celsius?