Ladders in KSP 1.0

[almagnus1]

One of the more frustrating aspects of KSP, especially when it comes to flying around Kerbin, is the lack of ladders as a crude ladder should be something unlocked with the aero parts as it's generally making anything involving aircraft not much fun. This would normally not be a problem, but with the way progression works, I'm spending more time flying around kerbin gathering science near KSP in my little plane with a service module carrying several science experiments.

What I would **REALLY** like to see is moving the lower tier ladder down to the same unlock as the first landing gear, as being able to easily get into/out of the cockpit of the plane would make this aspect of the game a lot more fun, as I'm not terribly keen on being forced to recover planes and pilot separately for a contract that needs EVA science on Kerbin.

Edited June 30, 2015 by Vanamonde

[RyanRising]

I don't know about this. Everybody knows that when planes were new, they didn't have ladders one way or another. Instead, they retracted their landing gear when stopped, lowering the plane to the ground and allowing passengers and pilots to enter via the wing.

You may have a point.

[klgraham1013]

This is a reasonable suggestion. I'd really like to know Squad's reasoning behind the ladder placement in the tech tree.

[Starhawk]

Now that we have Kerbal parkour (aka Kerbal clamber), ladders are mostly obsolete.

But yeah, lowering your gear works great.

Happy landings!

[justidutch]

This is a reasonable suggestion. I'd really like to know Squad's reasoning behind the ladder placement in the tech tree.

While I agree that having ladders and wheels and even lights much further along in the tech tree after engines and refined fuel doesn't make too much sense in terms of realism, I still do appreciate having to sort out the engineering puzzles that are a result of the logic snafu.

Sorry for the slightly run-on sentence!

[Vanamonde]

Moved to Suggestions.

[almagnus1]

Now that we have Kerbal parkour (aka Kerbal clamber), ladders are mostly obsolete.

But yeah, lowering your gear works great.

Happy landings!

If you're just starting out in career mode, which is when I do most of the flying around Kerbin, you don't get the retractable landing gear until at least the 90 science tech unlock, or later in the tree.

Once you do get the tech, yeah, it's a valid solution, but if you only have the fixed landing gear, you still need a ladder, or you're stuck on the ground. Yeah, it's theoretically possible to build the aircraft so that you don't need a ladder with a fixed wheel, but that's very difficult to pull off, as doing so risks having parts strike the ground when landing. You can basically forget about this if you give your wings any dihedral.

[klgraham1013]

Having the means to work around a bad idea does not make the bad idea ok.

[almagnus1]

I Had a look into the tech tree, and after you get the aero parts to build the first plane (at the 45 science node), you get the retractable gear at one of the 90 science nodes, but you don't get ladders for another tier or two AFTER that. As far as progression goes, there are far more important nodes for the long term game that need to be unlocked, as getting the retractable gear are a rather lower priority for that tier.

By that time that I have a ladder that can be used with the aircraft, I will be at a point in the game where I no longer need to fly around Kerbin anymore.

This also makes the early game a little more frustrating as you can't do something like build a two seater plane (with an engineer and a scientist) and go harvest science, because if one of the kerbals kiss the ground while the plane is parked to gather the science from the instruments, then the mission is likely over - especially if you happen to be in the mountains.

Basically, one part would greatly open up an aspect of the game because it allows you to plan round trips, rather than just expect to make one way flights.

[Kegereneku]

The problem is that the Tech-Tree seem to be built to be as independent as possible from user choices.

Hypothetically it make it fail-safe, you can't fail if you don't have the choice.

In practice it mean you'll be grinding forever to get ensemble of parts you should have logically developed 50 launch ago.

Someone could say that it "encourage creative design", except that this is Career mode in a quiet Complex game, that's not where you are supposed to exploit the FLAW in the physic engine to compensate for the lack of a Hyper-technologically-Advanced-Super-science-Static-Mobility-Enhancer aka : L.A.D.D.E.R

Until it get addressed (if ever) I recommend OpenTree.