Align pitch axis in VAB to East-West

[Temstar]

Consider this spacecraft:



Makes sense doesn't it? Once the crawler transport it to the launch pad it is already in the correct orientation so that it just needs to pitch down to initiate the gravity turn.

Pitching down is the standard manoeuvre for starting gravity turn in real life. In cases like Apollo spacecraft where it's going to a target on an inclined orbit they would first roll the rocket on launch to line up the pitch axis with the target orbit, then pitch down to start the gravity turn.

Yet in KSP when you first lay down a root part it has the pitch axis lined up to North-South. To build the above spacecraft you would first have to do a 90 degree clockwise turn with the capsule. I see very little benefit to make the pitch axis line up with North-South by default, we should instead change it so the pitch axis line up with East-West by default.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Temstar

[cantab]

+1 to this. Make life easier.

[Pthigrivi]

I do find that i basically always build my rockets first, then grab the root part and hit q right before launch. This can definitely cause headaches on revert revisions, especially if anything relies on mirror symmetry. 

I suppose the original vision of the game was that you see your rockets side-on and can see your angle to horizon clearly in the early stages of play. Given that, the controls appear more intuitive that way. I could see that change, but I could also quite easily accept that as a cross to bear. 

Edited December 28, 2015 by Pthigrivi

[MKI]

With manned launches as far as I know they fly "upside down" so its pitching "up", not down. Down gives negative Gs, which is harder to stay conscious through. So they pull back on the stick more or less and fly upside down into space. It doesn't matter what so ever in this game since Kerbals don't black out, but I always start my gravity turns the realistic way haha. 

 

I think they changed the orientation to its current default because thats how ships were setup with the old assembly tower. I also know the Space Shuttle ascended and turned before it started its gravity turn. It might be a practical thing with real space craft launches. IDK the idea behind it, but it does seem to be a trend, and thus is in this game. 

[Temstar]

Space shuttle roll and then pitch up (and so fly a bit inverted) to point its antenna at the ground. If it ever launched from Vandenberg it would actually do it the other way around and pitch down to point its antenna upwards at a satellite.

But yes the important part is they pitch up or down, they don't yaw to start the gravity turn.

[AlamoVampire]

sad thing is, that is how it USED to be. for what ever reason they chose to rotate it 90 degrees to where we have it now. I am all for putting it back the way it WAS.

[Kerbart]

3 hours ago, Temstar said:

Consider this spacecraft: (...)

You're showing a picture of Michael Jackson. Aside from having the same initials as MechJeb it's not really clear how this illustrates the story.

However, if your point was that the space shuttle is perfectly oriented for its pitch (or as we amateurs call it, “gravity roll”) — think again! The space shuttle had to make a 90° roll first before it would pitch over (simple geometry was cause to that: if oriented properly for pitching straight from the launch pad, the wings wouldn't fit through the doors of the VAB).

Which, kinda... invalidates the argument that “it's done like that in real life”

I’m pretty sure it is done the way it is right now (since it wasn’t always in the past) is because now at least the way your craft is oriented in the VAB is the same as it is oriented on the launch pad. Which makes sense as it is a straight run from the VAB to launch pad. Having your craft not make a magical 90° turn when it is put on the launch pad has advantages as well (as: no unpleasant surprises).

[AlamoVampire]

@Kerbart hey um, not sure what you are talking about. look at the shuttle mere moments before it rolls clear of the VAB as its being rolled to the pad:

and a few minutes later:

and sitting at the pad

as you see, its basically maintaining the same orientation as it had in the VAB. if you look at any of the 3 pics in this here post, THEN compare to our OP's pic, the orientation looks to be the same, so, ya, what IS with KSP and the odd orientation?

Edited December 28, 2015 by AlamoVampire

[cantab]

The Shuttle had to roll because the launchpad needed it in a certain orientation and the ascent needed a different orientation. Rebuilding the pad would have been expensive. This is not an issue in KSP where we have one launch pad (and one runway) and can launch anything we like from them in any orientation because the support infrastructure is ignored.

[monstah]

+1 to this.

Someone said this is how it used to be, but that's not quite true: ships in the VAB had the same orientation they have now, it's only when they went to the pad that they rotated.

People were (understandably) confused by this, rotating their rockets to match east-west inside the VAB and then seeing it all go to space (pun intended) when they reached the pad. So SQUAD did the SQUAD thing to do: fixed the wrong end of the stick.

[Red Iron Crown]

Funny to use the Space Shuttle as an example, it rolled ~90 degrees right after liftoff to align the pitch axis correctly.

To my mind there's not much difference between yawing or pitching for the gravity turn. Trivial to fix in the VAB if it bothers you.

[monstah]

I agree it's trivial, but... so many trivial things contribute to a less than optimal experience!

For example, if I want to edit a rocket, I'll either have to remember to unturn it, or look at it in the pad and realize it's got a 90-degree unalignment somewhere mid-design.

Like I said, trivial. But repeat those 10 seconds of frustration some three of four times per play, plus some other mild annoyances which are documented scattered throughout the forum, and you got some not-so-trivial annoyance building up!

[AlamoVampire]

@monstah you are mistaken. the original orientation in the VAB as I remember it from .21 until it changed some versions later, had you by DEFAULT looking out towards the launch pad. and the orientation was continued out to the pad. now, you are looking at the wall with your flag by default. the orientation has changed. 

@Red Iron Crown not sure why the shuttle was used, but, i recall <not who said it, but that it WAS said> that the orientation of the shuttle was what it was for clearances, and the pics i gave pretty much shot that claim down, as it came out belly first so to speak, or more accurately ET first lol.

Edited December 29, 2015 by AlamoVampire

[Red Iron Crown]

6 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

@Red Iron Crown not sure why the shuttle was used, but, i recall <not who said it, but that it WAS said> that the orientation of the shuttle was what it was for clearances, and the pics i gave pretty much shot that claim down, as it came out belly first so to speak, or more accurately ET first lol.

I've forgotten the technical details, but as I understand it the Shuttle's orientation and need for a roll program was due to wanting to reuse the crawler from the Saturn V with minimal modification.

@monstah I guess I don't see why there's any need to be rotating the rocket repeatedly. Turn the pod to the desired orientation when you start building and build it underneath, no further rotation necessary.

Control-wise there is literally no practical difference between pressing D when launching and pressing W or S, to my mind.

[Temstar]

19 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Turn the pod to the desired orientation when you start building and build it underneath, no further rotation necessary.

It causes problems with subassemblies too. If the root part of the subassembly is a cylindrical part (say a fuel tank in the middle) and you didn't rotate it when you place it then when you stage away that subassembly it's going to have a dodgy navball alignment compared to the other half of your craft. This is specially problematic if the subassembly is actually a plane of some sort.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Temstar

[worir4]

12 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I've forgotten the technical details, but as I understand it the Shuttle's orientation and need for a roll program was due to wanting to reuse the crawler from the Saturn V with minimal modification.

@monstah I guess I don't see why there's any need to be rotating the rocket repeatedly. Turn the pod to the desired orientation when you start building and build it underneath, no further rotation necessary.

Control-wise there is literally no practical difference between pressing D when launching and pressing W or S, to my mind.

Years of practice will go to waste if i have to use another key than D! How will I do my gravity turns with such precision when i must remap my brain after 3 years of using the D key so that i can into space?

 

Just joking, I use an Xbox 360 controller XD

[sal_vager]

Just going to throw this out there...

Spoiler

 

The Shuttle may have exited the VAB east/west but it was on the pad north/south, and there were a number of reasons for the Shuttle to perform a roll.

[monstah]

6 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

@monstah you are mistaken. the original orientation in the VAB as I remember it from .21 until it changed some versions later, had you by DEFAULT looking out towards the launch pad. and the orientation was continued out to the pad. now, you are looking at the wall with your flag by default. the orientation has changed.

Are you absolutely sure it stayed the same in the pad? I've been playing since .18, and as I remember, gravity turns with D instead of W or S have always been a thing. I could be wrong, but I don't think this discussion is recent. I suppose I could dig some old posts on that to be sure, but I'm too lazy and I don't think it's much of a point anyway, since we're discussing the current situation.

19 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

 

@monstah I guess I don't see why there's any need to be rotating the rocket repeatedly. Turn the pod to the desired orientation when you start building and build it underneath, no further rotation necessary.

Control-wise there is literally no practical difference between pressing D when launching and pressing W or S, to my mind.

(TLDR; it's a minor thing!) Say, I have a pod and a lab with panels, etc underneath. I launch, fail, revery to VAB to make adjustments.

When I remove the lab from beneath the pod for whatever reason, since in relation to the pod it wasn't rotated, then it'll align with the VAB, as will the solar panels, etc. When I return the pod to its position, I'll most likely not pay attention and place it as it is, which will mean it'll now be rotated 90 degrees in relation to the pod. So, relaunch-WTF-revert-fix-90-relaunch again. Not terrible, but midly annoying.

Sure, I could pay more attention, but even still, that's some extra clicks. As for why... you're absolutely correct. There's literally no practical difference between pressing D or W or S. Buuuuut. There's an aesthetical difference. I'm sorry to be nitpicking, but it sort of matters to me (and some others, judging by posts on the same subject from time to time).

And, by the way, personally I dont care the least what ship X or Y does in real life or in game W, I'm just saying how I feel about piloting my rockets in this game, and that's just my opinion! 

[Red Iron Crown]

43 minutes ago, Temstar said:

It causes problems with subassemblies too. If the root part of the subassembly is a cylindrical part (say a fuel tank in the middle) and you didn't rotate it when you place it then when you stage away that subassembly it's going to have a dodgy navball alignment compared to the other half of your craft. This is specially problematic if the subassembly is actually a plane of some sort.

I'm not really clear what you mean by this. Can you show an example?

24 minutes ago, monstah said:

Are you absolutely sure it stayed the same in the pad? I've been playing since .18, and as I remember, gravity turns with D instead of W or S have always been a thing. I could be wrong, but I don't think this discussion is recent. I suppose I could dig some old posts on that to be sure, but I'm too lazy and I don't think it's much of a point anyway, since we're discussing the current situation.

Pressing D to go east has always been the default orientation, at least for as long as I've been playing. What did change was the orientation in the VAB, it changed to match the pad orientation (at the time some felt the pad orientation should have changed).

[Temstar]

43 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I'm not really clear what you mean by this. Can you show an example?

Here is my spacecraft climbing to orbit with my preferred orientation. The root part is the 3.75m decoupler between the payload and the payload adapter which I have rotated in VAB to ensure no funny business.


Here is the launch vehicle with the payload and payload adapter released, notice the navball in an unexpected orientation. The root part for the launch vehicle is the Mk3 to 2.5m Adapter Slanted. Since I want to launch this stack facing east I had to rotate this root part 90 degrees so the flat side faces east at launch. By default the Mk3 to 2.5m Adapter Slanted has the flat side facing north because it assumes that's the orientation you want to launch in. In order to fix this I have to open up the cargo bay and pick out my probe core (the only pod on this vehicle) and select "Control From Here"


Here is my launch vehicle now with the corrected orientation.

The launch vehicle is the subassembly that was added to the payload. The Mk3 to 2.5m Adapter Slanted has to be the root part because the payload adaptor must be attached to the nose of the launch vehicle. you can imagine it won't fly very whell if you try to attach the launch vehicle off to the side.

Keep in mind too the launch vehicle was built in the SPH, where the default orientation for Mk3 to 2.5m Adapter Slanted is flat side facing the sky. That means if the navball was set assuming the default SPH orientation for this root part that I should see the sky and ground inverted in the navball, instead of rotated by 90 degrees. Inverted at least feels better to me than this wierd 90 degrees thing.


Here is the launch vehicle in the SPH, with a Mk3 to 2.5m Adapter Slanted in its default orientation


Here is the launch vehicle in the VAB with a a Mk3 to 2.5m Adapter Slanted in its default orientation. See what I mean when I say there's a 90 degree twist?

There's no "get use to it and use D for gravity turn" type solution here, you can't launch a spaceplane shaped vehicle vertically and expect it to turn properly if you have to yaw to start your gravity turn. The only way around this problem is for me to launch my launch vehicle in North-South orientation and then immediately do a roll to change my pitch axis to East-West before gravity turn starts, but that seems like a rather unreasonable thing to impose on the player.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Temstar

[Red Iron Crown]

@Temstar Oh that's odd, I would have expected the navball orientation after decoupling to be that of the pod on board. I can see how that's an annoyance.

[Mikki]

@Temstar

Hi there... but, but... i like to launch sometimes stuff towards north or west, or other directions... for testing issues. It is good how it is right now, in my opinion. And sometimes i launch rockets to high inclinated targets. Its not that hard to turn around the vessel before launching.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Mikki

[Temstar]

If you think one is bad, when your rocket is made up of four separate spaceplanes - each requiring an orientation reset once it orbit, it gets really confusing.

Let me tie back this line of conversation back to the topic at hand.

In the SPH/Runway, the pitch axis is lined up E-W
In the VAB/Launchpad, the pitch axis is lined up N-S

I don't see any chance of changing the default orientation in the SPH (imaging hitting A to take off from the runway!), so VAB/Launchpad must be made to fall in line. Otherwise importing vehicles between the two facility is endlessly confusing.