Warn when any vessel is low on electricity

[Not a Cylon]

It's deeply infuriating to find out that you forgot to unfurl your solar panels, when you only find out after you've done a bunch of other crap in the meantime and it's too late because they need power to deploy. (I would also suggest that it seems reasonable that the panels would keep a bit of power in reserve so that this can't happen.)

This kinda goes on a list of things that make Career Mode a lot less than it should be. I'm clearly supposed to interleave missions in order to undertake contracts and such, but the game is really not set up to support it. Kerbal Alarm Clock should not be as necessary as it is, for example.

[pandaman]

Yes. I think a pop up warning that 'this vessel' is running low on electricity would not be put of place.   IRL teams are constantly monitoring flights and keeping an eye on this sort of stuff, but in KSP you do it all on your own, so this would seem a good compromise.

[John FX]

I find it frustrating that we have hardly any clue as to whether a vehicle will have enough electricity or not enough to power itself until we are in space and run out.

Fusebox and similar mods do a fair job but they often miss mod parts when calculating electricity.

Auto opening and closing solar panels would help but some form of electricity monitoring (better than a tiny number in the resources tab) so you can see if your batteries are draining and when they will run out would be a big help.

[Hcube]

2 hours ago, John FX said:

I find it frustrating that we have hardly any clue as to whether a vehicle will have enough electricity or not enough to power itself until we are in space and run out.

Fusebox and similar mods do a fair job but they often miss mod parts when calculating electricity.

Auto opening and closing solar panels would help but some form of electricity monitoring (better than a tiny number in the resources tab) so you can see if your batteries are draining and when they will run out would be a big help.

It's actually fairly easy to calculate how much power you will need since each part's power consumption or production value is given in it's description... Just add them all up and add solar panels until the sum is positive

Much easier than calculating ∆v

[Matt77]

1 hour ago, Hcube said:

It's actually fairly easy to calculate how much power you will need since each part's power consumption or production value is given in it's description... Just add them all up and add solar panels until the sum is positive

Much easier than calculating ∆v

But be careful because some parts list electric charge per second, and some list it per minute.  The first hex core for example uses 1.2 charge per minute, which is 0.02 per second I think.  My first few comsats are mainly made up of batteries because of that ;-)

I'm not sure how to calculate the darkness time of a probe in a 150km orbit around a body with a diameter of 600km (as an example) - I don't think that's a trivial problem.

On top of that, not all vessels have all solar panels facing the sun, especially early on when you only have fixed panels.

This website will tell you the darkness time and how much electric charge is required.

I use TAC Life Support, which does give you a warning about vessels running low on supplies (including power).  Pretty sure you could install that and disable everything except electric charge if you don't want the food / O2 etc.

[John FX]

2 hours ago, Hcube said:

It's actually fairly easy to calculate how much power you will need since each part's power consumption or production value is given in it's description... Just add them all up and add solar panels until the sum is positive

Much easier than calculating ∆v

Yeah, how about no.

Why not just calculate your entire rocket mission just on paper?

Oh, wait. That`s just not fun for the majority of players. I know some players like that and having a widget you could make invisible would not detract from their (and your) playing style at all so why not let us have an electrical display?

I would like a little widget that shows me the amount of time I have left at the current rate of usage and the dark time I have left if I retract the solar panels or enter shadow. Actively updating based on the instantaneous values of my craft.

[Hcube]

yeah, i don't do it either, i was just saying ^^

i usually just use regular panels and never had any issues... but i'm sure that if there was an indicator in the VAB i would use it all the time

 

calculating how much darkness time there will be in an orbit can be fun though. (for a circular orbit, otherwise it gets nasty)

[MKI]

12 hours ago, Not a Cylon said:

It's deeply infuriating to find out that you forgot to unfurl your solar panels, when you only find out after you've done a bunch of other crap in the meantime and it's too late because they need power to deploy. (I would also suggest that it seems reasonable that the panels would keep a bit of power in reserve so that this can't happen.)

This kinda goes on a list of things that make Career Mode a lot less than it should be. I'm clearly supposed to interleave missions in order to undertake contracts and such, but the game is really not set up to support it. Kerbal Alarm Clock should not be as necessary as it is, for example.

Forgetting things like this gets me more than almost anything else in the game. I wont argue that there is a correct way to play Career mode this time around, ill stick to the main issue I have with suggesting a warning for low power.  There are no real warnings in this game outside of when you build the craft. 

Flying there are no alerts if you are running out of fuel, about to hit land, things are happening in the background , just nothing. It just lets you do what you want to do without any forgiveness. So this isn't localized to just electricity, its across the whole game. 

Game play wise the best way I fix running out of electricity in any probe ship is keeping the electricity in the probe core off limits. So if I find im out of power I ALWAYS have power in reserve. Now I have forgotten to do this many times and really its 100% my fault for not thinking things through and ultimately the extra aspect of using probes instead of manned missions. 

So should we have warnings about power while in flight? It would help counter these problems, but then aren't having this problems part of the game and fun? Its not like the game is unfair by doing this, rather its being 100% fair. To the point you screw up your done, no help, no hand in hand, no warnings "hey bro you screwed up and are about to lose power", just your probe is out of power and you should of flown it better or designed it better. 

Now on the topic of if we need more warnings in general I actually like how it is. If you were to play this game with moderate amounts of warnings alarms like a real space craft you would defiantly have less fun doing dumb things. Newer players also would be spammed with messages as they have their Jeb smiling as he re-enters Kerbin without a parachute. Yea having alarms and warnings is realistic and helpful for practical spaceflight, but this game is as much impractical as practical. As such its also brutally unhelpful, and leaves everything up to me which is why its not considered an easy game and thus shouldn't have alarms. 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2016 by MKI