flexible resource transfer cable/hose

[omelaw]

acts like KAS links,(has port part, connected by eva) but make it flexible so physics aren't restricted in single thread.

maybe I should write this in KAS development thread.

Edited March 1, 2016 by omelaw

[tater]

KAS/KIS (or some light version) should have been made stock ages ago. It actually gives the kerbals something to DO other than click for an EVA report or take a surface sample.

[Snark]

Would love to have such a feature in stock, but I'd say that at this point, the chances for adding any more new features to 1.1 are zero. Squad's too busy working on getting 1.1 out the door to be further adding to it.

But yeah, would love to see this in a subsequent version!

[lajoswinkler]

Resource cable, strut placing, TETHER, those are all things we need to have in the game to make the Kerbals actually do something and be useful.

[DMagic]

2 hours ago, omelaw said:

acts like KAS links,(has port part, connected by eva) but make it flexible so physics aren't restricted in single thread.

maybe I should write this in KAS development thread.

 

You want a resource transfer cable and nothing else? The first mod listed here will do that. 

[radonek]

AFAIK Flexible stuff is hard to do. Ever noticed how older CGI movies never feature characters with long hair? KSP have enough physics on its table as it is. (and pushing it to more cores wont solve a lot, it will only make people design slightly bigger ships) Also, of all limitations this one even makes sense – high-throughput piping does not rhyme well with bends or even sharp curves.

[pandaman]

Oh the amount of times this has been requested! !

A well needed and very useful feature.

In the meantime the only stock solution is the 'claw' part. 

[radonek]

13 minutes ago, pandaman said:

In the meantime the only stock solution is the 'claw' part. 

Which is a famous krakenbait. I'd love to have stock KIS&KAS as much as anybody (and IR too for that matter) but if they can't be made bug-free, it does not make sense.

[pandaman]

2 hours ago, radonek said:

Which is a famous krakenbait. I'd love to have stock KIS&KAS as much as anybody (and IR too for that matter) but if they can't be made bug-free, it does not make sense.

I think most of the issues with the claw were fixed.  I haven't had any problems with it in 1.0.5. yet, and I've used it quite a bit.

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, pandaman said:

I think most of the issues with the claw were fixed.  I haven't had any problems with it in 1.0.5. yet, and I've used it quite a bit.

But it looks bad. And you still have to create some ridiculous rover-thing to refuel ships on the surface.

KIS/KAS should be stock. As @tater said, it gives kerbals things to do on Eva.

[pandaman]

9 hours ago, Veeltch said:

But it looks bad. And you still have to create some ridiculous rover-thing to refuel ships on the surface.

KIS/KAS should be stock. As @tater said, it gives kerbals things to do on Eva.

I don't disagree with you at all there.  

I don't really like the claw solution for surface refueling etc, but it does at least work.

[hieywiey]

By flexible do you mean that it is two(or three)-dimensional instead of one-dimensional? Orbiter had a mod like this called TetherMFD which had tethers that weren't a 3D model but instead a 2D texture (looked like a sine wave) that was stretched and squeezed in different dimensions to reflect the length and slack of the cable. It was glitchy sometimes and was significantly harder to use than KAS. You couldn't get non uniform shapes like shown in the picture below, but it definitely felt more realistic than the one in KAS. 

My main issue with KAS' tethers is that you cannot tell if it is too taute or has too much slack by just looking at it. For example, say I attach a winch to a command pod and nothing else and put it on the launch pad. If I unwind the winch halfway, it looks no different than if I fully unwound it. It should be coiling up or doing anything but being completely straight.