New CoM features for VAB/SPH

[Adelaar]

As someone who spends an aweful lot of time building aircraft, SSTO's and VTOL's, I am frequently annoyed by the balancing process of Center of lift, thrust and mass. The first two are to a large extent stationary (as in, by itself it doesn't move, unless flaps or hinges are being used), but the Center of Mass is inherently unstable as fuel drains from the craft's tanks, cargo is being added or dropped, tools are being loaded using KIS, et cetera.

During the construction process, this means that I find myself frequently draining fuel tanks manually to see how the CoM moves about, so that when I'm actually flying the thing, it doesn't sneak behind the CoL and crashes the craft due to stalling. This is especially true when building VTOL's, where the CoM shouldn't move at all, or at least as little as possible.

So what I would like to see implemented is the CoM button not as a On/Off state, but as a button that cycles through CoM view: off/current state/fully fueled/empty. Alternatively: Off/current state/fully fueled & empty (represented as two spheres with different colours or an F(ull)/E(mpty) mark on it.

This would at least shave off valuable time for me, especially when the craft is made up out of 100 parts or more...

[Brofessional]

The RCS Build Aid mod adds an extra marker for dry CoM.  I do think it's a feature that should be added to the stock game though.

[Ser]

Agreed. Alternatively this could be achieved by a slider that drains fuel from entire vessel in the correct order of tanks. This will help not only in building SSTO's but also rockets in career mode when you have to place a bunch of small tanks on top of each other and need to empty them one by one to see how the CoM behaves. Not only empty and dry positions are required but also intermediate states to determine the point when a rocket becomes stable and thus can be steered in flight.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Ser