Two new engineer ability ideas, and a part idea

[jwbrase]

I have a set of entirely spacebound translunar/interplanetary shuttle vessels. They are, by design, entirely incapable of reentry or landing on Kerbin's surface, however, to save delta-V on return to Kerbin, I have outfitted them with heatshields to allow them to aerobrake into LKO. However, since ablator is a limited resource, I have had to implement the heatshields with docking ports so that they can be detached, discarded, and replaced when the ablator runs out. My first idea is this: Engineers could have a "Replace heatshield" ability, wherein you could launch a spaceplane with a heatshield on board to rendezvous with a vessel with a depleted heatshield. The engineer could then use his ability to swap the heatshields with each other (which would probably be implemented in game as just having ablator moved from one to the other). This would allow heatshields for non-landable vessels to be integrated into the vessel, rather than having to be docked to it.

 

The motivation for my second idea is as follows: I have an obsolete translunar shuttle that uses parts from several levels down the tech tree from where I currently am and is inadequate to my current needs, delta-V wise. I plan to have it dock in a spaceplane cargo bay, at which point the spaceplane would ferry it back to the KSC. The problem is that launching such vessels tends to require that the back end of the spacecraft be propped up with struts in the spaceplane cargo bay, or else the docking joint bends under the weight of the spacecraft and the back end of the spacecraft clips through the belly of the spaceplane. Therefore, I propose that engineers be given an ability to place a limited number of struts between two docked vessels to support deorbit operations.

 

My third idea is this: With current parts my shuttles have to have their engines and heatshields at opposite ends of the spacecraft. Game-mechanically this is fine, but it bugs me a bit, because I keep thinking of my poor Kerbals having to restow everything between an aerobrake and subsequent circularization burn, lest things secured against acceleration in one direction come loose during acceleration in the other direction. It would be really nice to have a heat shield part with a hole in it that can be covered for aerobraking and then uncovered to serve as an exhaust port for an engine.
 

[r4pt0r]

For your first Idea, I would like a part called a "Part Box" or something or other. They would hold 3 "parts". An engineer could EVA near one, right click "take part" and use that 1 part they grabbed to either "refill" 400 abalator(this would be imagined as replacing burned out tiles or something), repair a Tire, or fix a broken solar panel. You could rendezvous in orbit and refill a "part box" by docking with another part box craft, or have an engineer EVA back and fourth 3 times carrying parts to refill it. These parts dont need to be modeled, they would be like data, just an invisible value assigned to the part box or kerbal.


For the second idea, I like limting how many can be placed, so maybe something similar to my above idea, but with a "Construction Box"? it could have 4 or so struts in it? then you could send craft up with parts to reinforce craft after orbital assembly.



For the 3rd idea, is that needed? Look at the IVA views, everything is always stored in a closed drawer(the hitchhiker has  trash,refuse,junk, laundry, and food cabinets) , and kerbals are seated and strapped in.

Edited December 2, 2015 by r4pt0r

[Commander Zoom]

I trust you are aware that the first two items, and more, are made possible by a mod?

(KIS, successor to KAS.)

[jwbrase]

I thought of something along the lines of the part box idea while thinking this up. The reason I suggested the idea as I did is that it conserves mass (which a generic part box might well not). The 2.5m heat shield weighs about a ton, which is not insignificant, and an ablative heat shield like that would probably need to be replaced as a unit IRL, as opposed to changing shuttle tiles.

My process would be imagined as the Kerbal laboriously replacing one part with another in an hours-long EVA. It would be implemented in game as the ablator from one heat shield being instantaneously moved to another (with the restriction that they must both be the same part, no using a 2.5m to replace a 1.25m or anything like that).
 

[r4pt0r]

This is true, I was just thinking what would be good gameplay(imo), not necessarily more realistic.

[problemecium]

Regarding your second suggestion, I think I have a better one: Have cargo bays completely disable Physics calculations on parts inside them. This gives the dual benefit of improving structural stability and improving performance on crafts with cargo bays and a bunch of flimsy stuff inside.
Since people will probably find a need to run stuff inside closed cargo bays sometimes (maybe an ISRU converter or something), they could have a toggle button for whether to do this or leave Physics enabled for the contents.

[r4pt0r]

1 minute ago, parameciumkid said:

Regarding your second suggestion, I think I have a better one: Have cargo bays completely disable Physics calculations on parts inside them. This gives the dual benefit of improving structural stability and improving performance on crafts with cargo bays and a bunch of flimsy stuff inside.
Since people will probably find a need to run stuff inside closed cargo bays sometimes (maybe an ISRU converter or something), they could have a toggle button for whether to do this or leave Physics enabled for the contents.

I support that, but could still see the use of in-situ strut placement.

whynotboth.jpg

[problemecium]

I guess both would be good.

At the moment, Kerbal Attachment System lets Kerbals put struts on ships in space, but I feel like it's a little OP and introduces too many new mechanics to be made into stock. But perhaps a simplified version.
How about this: When placing a strut, you place the first end, then you could right-click to cancel placing the second end (sort of like with fairings). This gives you an unused strut nub. When in space, a Kerbal can EVA and run a strut between any two unused nubs that are within the maximum strut distance on the same vessel. Thus docked vessels can be greatly reinforced without a need for a bunch of auxiliary docking ports and the bug potential they introduce, and the "OP-ness" of KAS is eliminated by the need to pre-plan the placement of strut nubs.
Perhaps I (or anyone who wants to really) ought to look into making a mod for this... xD

Oh, and of course the best part of this idea is that it would give a use to those pointless strut nubs that get left whenever something with struts gets decoupled. ^^

Edited December 2, 2015 by parameciumkid

[r4pt0r]

I like that. it requires forethinking, and planing ahead. real design considerations and stuff.

[Wallygator]

I would think that replacing a heat shield while IN SPACE would be an incredibly design intensive and operationally risky activity - not that it is impossible.

If the OP is proposing a magic stick-on ablation rejuvenation compound - wow!  Ummm... no not for me.  I would rather designing a replaceable heatshield subassembly out stock parts - so I vote for the "incredibly design intensive and operationally risky" alternative.  ;-)

Just personal preference and not a critique of what others may find useful.

EDIT: FYI I'm not talking about troweling goop into a gap or crack to fix a fissure AKA space shuttle. That's ok.

Edited December 2, 2015 by Wallygator
clarification

[pandaman]

I like the concept of the 'Part Box' idea.  I think they could probably work in a similar way to how we assign crew.  So, you fit an empty 'Part Box' part to your ship when building it, then before launch you get to specify which parts go in it if not already defined in the VAB or SPH.  This way you could easily have (for example) a standard 'service shuttle' type craft fitted with 'Part Boxes' that you load up with the parts you need for a given repair mission before launch.

Or...  How about simply allowing spare parts to be carried in empty seats in the Hitchhiker and/or some other crew cabins?  Maybe a toggle for the cargo bays that gives them a certain number of 'slots' for spare parts.  No new or specialist parts needed that way.

I think the size of parts should probably be restricted depending on the size of the cabin used, maybe having larger parts occupy multiple seats/slots would be a simple solution.

[Wallygator]

5 hours ago, pandaman said:

like the concept of the 'Part Box' idea.

Wasn't there a mod awhile ago with a parts bin for "rocket parts"? Or am I thinking of Dang it!

[Chris_2]

12 hours ago, jwbrase said:

The problem is that launching such vessels tends to require that the back end of the spacecraft be propped up with struts in the spaceplane cargo bay, or else the docking joint bends under the weight of the spacecraft and the back end of the spacecraft clips through the belly of the spaceplane. Therefore, I propose that engineers be given an ability to place a limited number of struts between two docked vessels to support deorbit operations.

This should just be fixed by squad enabling internal collisions once 1.1 is out. (Think historically internal collisions were disabled as a performance optimisation, hope that isn't necessary anyomere with 1.1)

You could also install a mod "The colliders strike back"

[jwbrase]

20 hours ago, parameciumkid said:

Regarding your second suggestion, I think I have a better one: Have cargo bays completely disable Physics calculations on parts inside them. This gives the dual benefit of improving structural stability and improving performance on crafts with cargo bays and a bunch of flimsy stuff inside.
Since people will probably find a need to run stuff inside closed cargo bays sometimes (maybe an ISRU converter or something), they could have a toggle button for whether to do this or leave Physics enabled for the contents.

I sort of enjoyed the one time that I discovered "rescuing a Kerbal/Pod by enclosing them unsecured in a spaceplane cargo bay is not necessarily a great idea" the hard way. I didn't suffer an LOCV, but it was quite a close call with uncommanded maneuvers taking place as the pod banged back and forth in my cargo bay and shifted my COM every which way.

Disabling physics completely in cargo bays would remove that bit of "fun".
 

[jwbrase]

18 hours ago, Wallygator said:

I would think that replacing a heat shield while IN SPACE would be an incredibly design intensive and operationally risky activity - not that it is impossible.

If the OP is proposing a magic stick-on ablation rejuvenation compound - wow!  Ummm... no not for me.  I would rather designing a replaceable heatshield subassembly out stock parts - so I vote for the "incredibly design intensive and operationally risky" alternative.  ;-)

 

What I'm proposing is that the player would launch a new heat shield, rendezvous the heat shield with the vessel with the heatshield needing replacement, EVA an engineer, float over to the headshield to be replaced, select "replace heatshield" in a right click menu, float over to the other heatshield, select "use as replacement" in a right click menu, and the game would then swap the two heat shields (or, for the sake of simplicity in programming, probably just swap their ablator amounts).
 

[jros83]

Sometimes I feel the line between "Just get a mod" and "Suggestion for future update" has become much too blurred. Mods are nice, but, if the answer to everything is "there's a mod for it" then why should Squad bother making any changes at all...? I don't like to use mods, and honestly I feel sometimes the community makes modding more important than it ought to be.

[r4pt0r]

4 hours ago, jros83 said:

Sometimes I feel the line between "Just get a mod" and "Suggestion for future update" has become much too blurred. Mods are nice, but, if the answer to everything is "there's a mod for it" then why should Squad bother making any changes at all...? I don't like to use mods, and honestly I feel sometimes the community makes modding more important than it ought to be.

That's why I  mention in every suggestion thread I start "this is a suggestion for the stock game"

 

"There's a mod for that" is extremely unhelpful in the suggestions for the stock game forum.

 

 

#stock4lyfe

(Except for graphical/audio improvements)

Edited December 3, 2015 by r4pt0r

[evileye.x]

49 minutes ago, r4pt0r said:

"There's a mod for that" is extremely unhelpful in the suggestions for the stock game forum.

Yeah, but KAS/KIS really does all that in magnificient ways.
Orbital construction? sure
Satelite upgrade/maintance? sure
Buiding relay tower on Kerbin? definetly
Towing fallen lander? easy
Refueling on surface (or in space) without docking port or kraken tentacle (AKA The Klaw)? hell yeah

and dozens of  other interesting missions and opportunities....

It is one (two to be honest) little mod that makes so huge difference.

And you have to realize, many many cool thing will not get to orginal game (hard to implement, maintain, support and "there's a mod for that")

So why limit yourself after you have learn base parts and mechanics?

Mods are in developers scope, you know. They count on modders and eventually modders become developers for KSP eternal glory.

IMHO developers should focus on solidifying a platform for mods  (which is KSP) - perfomance, engine, memory limits, moar moddablity, not on features ALREADY DEVELOPED by talanted modding community.

Edited December 3, 2015 by evileye.x

[Wallygator]

On 3 December 2015 06:17:23, jwbrase said:

What I'm proposing is that the player would launch a new heat shield, rendezvous the heat shield with the vessel with the heatshield needing replacement, EVA an engineer, float over to the headshield to be replaced, select "replace heatshield" in a right click menu, float over to the other heatshield, select "use as replacement" in a right click menu, and the game would then swap the two heat shields (or, for the sake of simplicity in programming, probably just swap their ablator amounts).
 

I understand.  It simplifies the mechanic, and for many players would be acceptable.  I personally would not like it - but that is my own issue.