Command pod orientation

[Daveroski]

Go into VAB or SPH and select any command pod.

It will be facing it's direction of travel.

If you launch the Rovemate, it will be looking out of it's bottom.

Let me make it clear now that the point of this suggestion is to fix the Rovemate so it faces 90 degrees down the runway on launch.

Currently in the hangar, one has to rotate the thing into a horizontal plane to build a rover with it and when launched it is facing the sky or the ground.

Another suggestion is to add optional orientation to all pods so that their orientation can be vertical or horizontal. Then any command pod could be used in rover design and have the navball facing the right way.

This would be best if it could be done on the fly.

A command pod should be able to be launched from Kerbin as a rocket, piloted to another planet or moon where it can change (if needed) to lander configuration then change and driven as a rover, launched again as a rocket and then return as aeroplane in the same mission.

Please keep in mind though that the main point of this suggestion is about the Rovemate.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Daveroski
Typo

[Tex]

7 hours ago, Daveroski said:

Please keep in mind though that the main point of this suggestion is about the Rovemate.

I mean, if that's the case, it might help to have that be in the title.

I personally rotate the command pods when I place them anyway, so that the Kerbals' seats will be facing in the right direction as the craft goes horizontal during flight. I think this is too small a suggestion to be worth implementing. As far as I know (probably changed, I never noticed), the RoveMate doesn't have command capability. I always stuck on another probe core or an external command seat to control it from there.

Edit: So it does have probe core capability. I still always just rotate it myself anyway if I have to use it.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Maximus97

[Matt77]

On 03/03/2016 at 4:17 PM, Maximus97 said:

I think this is too small a suggestion to be worth implementing.

Are you serious?  A trivial fix which would benefit almost anybody who has ever built a rover using a probe core is not worth bothering with?

I agree with the OP, a probes reference frame should be configurable in the VAB / SPH, as different designs have different orientations.

[tater]

It would help a great deal, I think. In addition, it would be nice to add a new symmetry type specifically for wheels. Mirror is obviously the way to go, but it would be nice to have a new "wheel mirror" mode which would but things on the corners if you selected 4X, but aligned them, well, like wheels.

[Tex]

6 minutes ago, Matt77 said:

Are you serious?

Hey hey, it's just my opinion. I'm just saying that one can get around the problem with a few keystrokes, not that big of a deal. I'm honestly not entirely certain what the problem is, I haven't ever noticed anything off about building probes. It's just how I thought the game worked.

Just now, tater said:

It would help a great deal, I think. In addition, it would be nice to add a new symmetry type specifically for wheels. Mirror is obviously the way to go, but it would be nice to have a new "wheel mirror" mode which would but things on the corners if you selected 4X, but aligned them, well, like wheels.

Now that I can get behind. It's always weird to try and get wheels perfectly level.

[Vim Razz]

An option to select an orientation for the rovemate (or other cores/pods) would be awesome, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it.  As long as it's necessary to pick one or the other, then vertical is more flexible, imho.  

Having a forward-facing navball on the ground is great for tracking targets or markers on the surface, but you've get command seats at the same tech or jr docking ports are already likely unlocked -- both work very well for that purpose and are very light.  Most of my own rover missions don't need to be able to spot target points on the horizon at all, so I can't really see the ability as essential.  Vertical orientation works well enough on the ground to hit up biomes for science or check ore concentrations.

Vertical control orientation is pretty critical to deploy a rover as a self-contained entity so that it can properly manage the LV and/or skycrane, though -- especially since it's COM is so far off-center from the front or back. If a separate control block is going to be required anyway, then I don't see any reason to insist that the rovemate core be the forward-facing one.

Overall, changing it would limit mission flexibility for some convenience that's already easy to obtain.  I don't think that's a good trade.

[Dreambish]

Vim Razz makes a good point for the uses of the vertical control orientation, but more tweakables are always nice.

[pandaman]

How about adding small LED type lights to all probe cores that indicate the 'up' axis.  They could be tied to the selected axis if tweakables are introduced.

 

Edit.  this just happens to be my 666th post, sorry guys, I just jinxed your thread.

Edited March 5, 2016 by pandaman

[Dr. Jet]

On 03.03.2016 at 11:28 AM, Daveroski said:

Go into VAB or SPH and select any command pod.

It will be facing it's direction of travel.

If you launch the Rovemate, it will be looking out of it's bottom.

Let me make it clear now that the point of this suggestion is to fix the Rovemate so it faces 90 degrees down the runway on launch.

Done in my mod. In fact my mod was started from it.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Dr. Jet