An idea to think about: multiple joints in craft editor

[Snikersnee]

Pictured is a little craft that I put together for demonstration. The joints on it will hold, but if I were to add fuel tanks, or long wings, then it would flop all over the place, especially in timewarp. On the right, is my idea. When two attachment nodes are within a certain distance from each other, they will both turn blue, and after you let go, then they will be attached not only there, but also where they were attached to the command pod. And to stop it from happening, you could hold down Ctrl, for example. This will make it more stable, and the demo craft I showed is only a very basic way to demonstrate my idea.

EDIT: I have no idea why it duplicated. Feel free to delete them all, just not this one.

Edited February 27, 2016 by Play_LORD

[Im The One]

I like this idea and i think it would help to in builds of warships and replica ships

[nikokespprfan]

I think this should be in the form of a "welding" option alongside the "place", "rotate", "offset" and "root" tools, just so that things without attachment point (like structural wing pieces) can work with that as well. It is nice to have your custom wing be welded toroughly together instad of having a "tree of welds" holding it together.

Edited February 27, 2016 by nikokespprfan

[Snikersnee]

5 minutes ago, nikokespprfan said:

I think this should be in the form of a "welding" option alongside the "place", "rotate", "offset" and "root" tools, ...so that things without attachment point can work...

Yes please

[sal_vager]

This is why we have struts.

KSP uses a tree hierarchy for craft, just like the file system on your PC has files and folders within a single parent folder, KSP craft have child parts to a single parent.

Like this.

 

A part cannot have two parents, just as a file can't be in two folders, you can only have a copy of the file in another folder.

But that's where struts come in.

Struts are like links to files, allowing you to have a link to a file from one folder in another, struts tell KSP that a part is attached to another part (via the strut).

So your suggestion already exists, just not in the way you expect.

[omelaw]

37 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

just as a file can't be in two folders, you can only have a copy of the file in another folder.

actually, a file CAN be in two folders same time. that's what hard link does.
 

Quote

in wiki:Hard link

Creating a hard link has the effect of giving one file multiple names (e.g. different names in different directories) all of which independently connect to the same data on the disc, none of which depends on any of the others.

 

you can even make it in windows with mklink /h.
 

Edited February 28, 2016 by omelaw

[nikokespprfan]

Is it possible to use the strut code for this welding tool, without essentially creating a new part, though. For certain things that is preferable above struts. For example look at the second picture of this post: 

This guy needed 12 extra parts in order for his wings to be a coherent structure. In this case, that is not a bog deal (it's mostly ugly), but a mk 3 plane would need bigger wings, and we know some people like to scale up.

Edited February 28, 2016 by nikokespprfan

[Sir_Robert]

1 hour ago, sal_vager said:

This is why we have struts.

KSP uses a tree hierarchy for craft, just like the file system on your PC has files and folders within a single parent folder, KSP craft have child parts to a single parent.

Like this.

 

A part cannot have two parents, just as a file can't be in two folders, you can only have a copy of the file in another folder.

But that's where struts come in.

Struts are like links to files, allowing you to have a link to a file from one folder in another, struts tell KSP that a part is attached to another part (via the strut).

So your suggestion already exists, just not in the way you expect.

So how does that work when you dock things in a circle?

[sal_vager]

@omelaw, those are still links, but if you delete the hard link to a file you also delete the file it links to.

@Sir_Robert, it's a different link, it's more like a surface attach than a strut though, the docking ports are not connected via their nodes (so won't occlude from airflow for example) when docked, but if connected in the editor they are node attached, that's why there's the option to decouple and undock on docking ports.

[nikokespprfan]

@Sir_Robert, it's a different link, it's more like a surface attach than a strut though, the docking ports are not connected via their nodes (so won't occlude from airflow for example) when docked, but if connected in the editor they are node attached, that's why there's the option to decouple and undock on docking ports.

I think I don't understand you.  Does it mean that it has multiple root parts, or that it roots through just one of the docking ports (destroying that one would let the pieces fly apart, even although there is another docking port), or something else? Can you explain how a surface attach is different from a strut link.  

Edited February 28, 2016 by nikokespprfan

[sal_vager]

It's not like a strut because it doesn't come apart when the vessel is staged and has nothing to bind them except the strut.

Docking port connections aren't struts, nor are they node attached like in the VAB, they are closer to being a surface attached part, but aren't really those either.

[Majorjim!]

Yup as Sal says it cannot be done. I have wanted this for a long time but again as mentioned by Sal, I just use struts to close the 'loop'. It is a very satisfactory work around.

[Snikersnee]

Aw. Struts are glitchy and ugly, I just thought there might be a better alternative.

[Sir_Robert]

1 hour ago, sal_vager said:

@omelaw, those are still links, but if you delete the hard link to a file you also delete the file it links to.

@Sir_Robert, it's a different link, it's more like a surface attach than a strut though, the docking ports are not connected via their nodes (so won't occlude from airflow for example) when docked, but if connected in the editor they are node attached, that's why there's the option to decouple and undock on docking ports.

That sounds more technical than I understand, so I'll just file it under 'different'

Thanks

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Snikersnee said:

Aw. Struts are glitchy and ugly, I just thought there might be a better alternative.

"Ugly" is a matter of taste, but I've never encountered what I'd consider a glitch with struts. Could you elaborate?

They can be fussy to work with but that's more due to the fact that you're building a spaceship with a mouse than anything to do with struts in particular.

[StrandedonEarth]

4 hours ago, Snikersnee said:

Aw. Struts are glitchy and ugly, I just thought there might be a better alternative.

Another way is to put docking ports on those nodes you want connected, so they are pretty much touching. The translation gizmos make that even easier. Once the craft loads on the pad, the ports will snap together. I know, it increases the part count, but it's pretty sturdy, and docking ports can be staged now too. I've used this method instead of struts to attach huge radial boosters, and it was quite rigid.

Edited February 28, 2016 by StrandedonEarth

[Snikersnee]

Sometimes they don't attach to anything, sometimes when you fly a ship they disappear/are connected to air, and when attaching things in mirrored mode sometimes only the one you placed show up. And their not the ugliest, but when working with smaller parts like the structural panels they show through, and when connecting things on really short differences they don't look the best, although I understand it's my opinion.

[Blaarkies]

19 hours ago, sal_vager said:

This is why we have struts.

KSP uses a tree hierarchy for craft, just like the file system on your PC has files and folders within a single parent folder, KSP craft have child parts to a single parent.

Like this.

 

A part cannot have two parents, just as a file can't be in two folders, you can only have a copy of the file in another folder.

But what if it did not have multiple parents? What I mean is, keep tree structure as is, where green nodes add children to parent parts...but when a specific parent has extra blue nodes, then a child's extra blue nodes may attach to those, as long as the child green node is actually connected to the parent green node.

(Blue nodes are only possible if the green nodes are actually attached to each other, and blue nodes have no influence on the mapping of the tree)

[sal_vager]

@Blaarkies, you mean dock them as if there were a pair of docking ports there?

Because that would be the only way to do it and would currently require adding the docking module to every part, this would cause parts to connect at launch if their nodes were close enough.

But unless your craft is absolutely perfect it'd be forced into a slightly new shape, this would make craft much more "interesting" to fly.

[KrazyKrl]

1 hour ago, sal_vager said:

@Blaarkies, you mean dock them as if there were a pair of docking ports there?

Because that would be the only way to do it and would currently require adding the docking module to every part, this would cause parts to connect at launch if their nodes were close enough.

But unless your craft is absolutely perfect it'd be forced into a slightly new shape, this would make craft much more "interesting" to fly.

 

Other than the docking port snapping on physics load portion, this would be an amazing feature. Possibly with using a strut on two parts which their colliders intersect (since struts do about the same thing anyhow.) Essentially it would surface attach them without the strut. The cool part would be that just like docking ports, if you break or decouple the other node/attachment point; the craft should reroot through this surface attach point if it hasn't already broken.

[nikokespprfan]

7 hours ago, sal_vager said:

But unless your craft is absolutely perfect it'd be forced into a slightly new shape, this would make craft much more "interesting" to fly.

Why would it?

OK I can imagine that it would when using the exact same docking module, but can't you modify the module in such a way that the parts are connected without them being pulled together? You do not need the docking magnet to create the link, I suppose.

Edited February 29, 2016 by nikokespprfan

[sal_vager]

9 minutes ago, nikokespprfan said:

Why would it?

You were not around when parts of the same craft could hit each other were you?

No planes flew in a straight line because wings and other parts were colliding and forced apart by physics.

[nikokespprfan]

14 hours ago, sal_vager said:

You were not around when parts of the same craft could hit each other were you?

No planes flew in a straight line because wings and other parts were colliding and forced apart by physics.

I understand your point in that a reshaped craft can cause problems. That is not what I meant, I proposed a way to circumvent the reshaping of crafts you described altogether, and I messed up explaining it, apologies for that. That proposal might not work , I am aware of that (I am not an expert in coding, I'm just curious to this topic ).

 

What I thought the docking module would do while docking is the following:

-Two docking ports become close.

-The game registers that.

-The magnets turn on and a force will pull the two ports together.

-the docking ports get in a position where the docking can finish.

-the game registers that, and as result creates the link and stops the force pulling the things together.

-the ships are docked

-(the actual process will most likely be more complicated and involve more steps)

 

The ship reforming you talked about I assumed to be due to the magnets pulling the docking nodes together so that it can make the link. What I proposed for the modified version of the docking module is, that as soon as the physics start, you start by saying to the game, "parts in the right position to make a docking link  = true", essentially skipping over the part where the magnet force is even created, preventing that from reshaping anything. Then the game can make the desired link, without the ship reforming. After that, no problems could happen, as a surface attached part that you offset to leave space in between parts, or to clip inside that part, also doesn't cause problems either. By doing this, the reshaping could be circumvented, or so I assumed.

That was how I understood the case from what was said in the thread, and from the behaviour of docking ports in the game. It was based upon my own assumptions, though.

Edited March 1, 2016 by nikokespprfan

[Blaarkies]

22 hours ago, sal_vager said:

@Blaarkies, you mean dock them as if there were a pair of docking ports there?

No not dock, but rather strut them together, without the actual strut part. I realize this could become difficult if the modules need to be added to parts, since they are written into the persistence/craft files. What I meant is, whatever is strengthening parts relative to each other because of the link made by a strut, should be added automatically when surplus green nodes match and align properly.

Imagine building this:

MK1 capsule
Tri-coupler
3x RT-10
Tri-coupler(upside-down)
stuff...

Starting traditionally with the Command pod and working down, we find a dilemma when placing the upside-down Tri-coupler. When a newbie builds this, they don't see the problem...we expect the 3 nodes to connect to each SRB. Only after a wobbly launch do we find that only one is connected. To counter this, we add two struts: each from the position of the surplus node to its corresponding SRB.

That is what I mean.
(No claims are made that any person will pursue manufacturing of the above mentioned vehicle. No Kerbals were harmed in the making of this product. Buy now and save up to 100%, or your money back!)

[pandaman]

So what think is suggested here is that green nodes that 'look' like they should connect, but can't because of the tree structure could automatically create  a strut joint across the node without the actual strut part.

I like the sound of it, but have no idea if it will work in practice. Even if the game had to generate a strut part to make it work it wouldn't be too bad.  Would it be possible for the strut to be created through the node centres?  That way it knows where to place it and as a bonus it would be hidden inside.