Just two small gripes

[RocketBlam]

1. Why does the Stayputnik use power? It has no SAS, but you can't turn it off. I mean, you can turn the battery off, but why would you ever do that? Which leads me to...

2. What is the point of being able to turn your batteries off if you can't turn them back on when you run out of power? It used to be that you could fly with some batteries off, to save them on the way to say, the Mun, on your first trip without solar panels with your Stayputnik probe, and when you got to the Mun, you could turn the batteries on and have control again. Now, if you run out of power, you are out of luck, even if you have some energy in batteries that are turned off. You can't turn them back on again.

[StarStreak2109]

I agree, some kind of "hibernation" mode should be possible!

[Deddly]

What you describe, @RocketBlam, was an exploit that got fixed. All probes consume power, as indeed they should - think of it as a computer. If the probe runs out of power, comms go down, so how would mission control be able to activate any reserve power without comms?

[Biff Space]

I prefer the old behaviour too, so I wrote a mod called Battery Activator (link in my sig). It just detects when an unmanned vessel has no power available but power in a locked battery, and when these conditions are met it offers a button to unlock the batteries. (The mod is the 1.1.2 version, but it seems to work fine in 1.1.3)

 

[Blaarkies]

37 minutes ago, Deddly said:

What you describe, @RocketBlam, was an exploit that got fixed. All probes consume power, as indeed they should - think of it as a computer. If the probe runs out of power, comms go down, so how would mission control be able to activate any reserve power without comms?

But what if you shutdown the probe with a timer function that will boot up again after 20days ?
Since KSP is a singleplayer game, but space missions are orchestrated by 100's of professionals...that exploit was kind of like "someone did all the research and calculated that we need the probe active when it reaches Mun SOI, or x amount of time from now...in the meanwhile it can run in low power mode"
*something like this is possible with RemoteTech(sending future commands), but it is hard to overthink every little aspect of missions without a team of 100's

[KerikBalm]

Yea, I always viewed it as a hibernation mode. If we can't reactivate batteries, we should be able to deactivate a probe from drawing power... especially when there is a kerballed command pod anyway.

A hibernation mode would be great... perhaps you can set a maneuver node that will "wake up the probe" when the probe reaches it - but the probe is unresponsie before reaching it.

Besides, how is it any more exploity than switching to another vessel outside the physics bubble/going to KSC to prevent further power draw (which I also view as the probe going into hibernation)

[RocketBlam]

A Mark I capsule doesn't use any electricity if SAS is off. I would think it would use much more than a probe core.... for life support, for example.

[THX1138]

I would like it if vessels, when about to run out of power, deployed solar panels if they weren't deployed already. That can probably be done with one of the mods. I just enable infinite power via Alt + F12 and pretend that's what happened. I guess you could do the same and pretend you got the feature you wanted  

 

I love the way you tagged the thread btw

Edited July 14, 2016 by THX1138

[Deddly]

Whilst I do agree with you from a realism point of view, @RocketBlam, that decision was made more for balancing. In real life, probes are better and cheaper than sending a crew in almost every way. But the decision was made to balance it in KSP because Squad wanted to make it useful and fun to bring a crew.

[John FX]

Ampyear is a mod which gives you reserve batteries which you can turn on when you run out of power. You could put enough main batteries on to get on the way to Mun, enough reserve batteries to turn on enough secondary batteries to do the stuff on or around mun that you need and enough reserve to run on another final battery for landing.

I agree that as career is `that which must be balanced for gameplay` it makes sense to restrict options (including batteries) in the early game to encourage the player to get better stuff.

Would be nice to have more options in sandbox but then I know me, I`d like everything from the current game to a full realism overhaul to be possible with the options for sandbox...

[FyunchClick]

On ‎14‎-‎7‎-‎2016 at 0:00 PM, RocketBlam said:

A Mark I capsule doesn't use any electricity if SAS is off. I would think it would use much more than a probe core.... for life support, for example.

Get USI life support (or one of the other similar mods); with usi pods start consuming power when crewed. I recently started with it and I find it adds a lot of immersion (and challenge) to have to consider life support needs when designing crewed missions.

[Corona688]

On 7/14/2016 at 1:58 AM, RocketBlam said:

1. Why does the Stayputnik use power? It has no SAS, but you can't turn it off.  I mean, you can turn the battery off, but why would you ever do that?

"Sleep mode" would mean turning off nonessential features, and a stayputnik has none.  It receives signals from ground control, that's what it does, turn it off and it stops doing that.

The ability of a lone stayputnik to turn itself off maybe isn't obviously useful, but don't forget the game's origins.  In the early game which had nothing but kerbin, mun, and basic engines, we had to budget power just like we budgeted fuel.  When probes got involved, we didn't want to turn them off but were sometimes forced to, if we ever wanted to use them again.

One example -- orbital rescues.  Without solar cells, your robot ship can't linger and correct for days on end.  You must pick the right moment to launch, find a good 0.1km intercept ASAP, then turn off the probe.  Your rescuee thus gets a live craft instead of a dead one.

Another use -- remote craft where a kerbal will be sent to retrieve something later.  If your VAB can't support enough parts to send everything to the mun in one big launch, instruments can be landed by robot and results grabbed by a kerbal on EVA after.  That is, if you turned off the probe core, to prevent the batteries going flat.

On 7/14/2016 at 4:00 AM, RocketBlam said:

A Mark I capsule doesn't use any electricity if SAS is off. I would think it would use much more than a probe core.... for life support, for example.

A Mk 1 has no life support -- a spacesuit is worn inside it which can sustain one kerbal for a good while.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Corona688

[Alshain]

What I have never understood is what exactly do you do with a Stayputnik?  It has no SAS, but it has no torque either.  It's really just a dead weight part.  Sure you could add a reaction wheel, but that isn't worth it when you could just as easily use a different probe core.  You could use it as a shuttle deployed science sattelite, but by the time you have that capability you have the QBE which has almost the same stats, is smaller, and friendlier stack nodes.  They could just remove the thing and very few people would care.  Honestly I've used the Micronode more often than the Stayputnik since it was nerfed.  There is just no good niche for the part.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Alshain

[samstarman5]

The Stayputnik is handy for a few early testing missions to get you some bumps in funds, and gives you a bit of an added challenge in piloting when things seem to feel a bit too easy.  There's no reason to remove it just because you have no reason to use it.  I'm willing to bet there are a couple of other parts you have yet to use but haven't.  There are those I don't use but I don't call out for their removal, because I know others do find a use for them.

As Elastigirl said, "You just have to learn to be more flexible."

[Corona688]

20 minutes ago, Alshain said:

They could just remove the thing and very few people would care.

It's an early-game part, like the RT-10.  Removing it would make career mode a lot harder.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

As I've said before the Stayputnik should open like a cargo boy into two halves so you can place stuff inside of it without messy clipping. This would make it far more useful, as well as unique.

This should only be available to do in the VAB/SPH like how non retractable solar panels work.

Real life Sputnik:

[Corona688]

That's a really neat idea, and once the cargo bay bug is fixed I'd love to see it.  Until then, probably impractical.  Imagine the stayputnik hitting you with 'cannot deploy while stowed' when the antenna's on the outside.

OTOH, the Stayputnik isn't a hollow shell either, it does things.  Maybe one hemisphere is occupied and the other is free?

[editing the edited edit]  Acually, stuff on the inside of an unopenable satellite would be unusable without action groups.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Corona688

[Corona688]

They're not about to put that sort of AI in the game, there's lots of situations where enabling hardware without asking you can cause disaster.  Hilarious comedies of error shouldn't be the game's fault.

One example, an ion craft in low Kerbin orbit making a long burn.  Night happens, as it does, and the primary batteries run dry.  The game reacts by opening your emergency batteries and dropping out of physwarp -- draining them instantly.  Annoying but not the end of the world.  3 years later, you make an insertion burn into close Jool orbit and launch your first probe -- which tumbles away with 0.07/200 battery.  Oh, right...  The probe WAS the emergency battery, and gets used first since it was the root of your spacecraft.

So, one solution is not god for all.  It'd be nice to tell it what to do in an emergency.  A 'power low' action group, maybe.  Action groups -> power low,  ion drive -> shutdown, battery -> enable, solar cells -> extend, voila.  Foolproof.

...unless it decides to do so 5 seconds off the launch pad, but then it's just hilarious.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Corona688

[Waxing_Kibbous]

Can a kerbal activate a battery when on EVA?

[Corona688]

I suspect so.  They can interact with most parts on EVA.

[Alshain]

3 hours ago, samstarman5 said:

The Stayputnik is handy for a few early testing missions to get you some bumps in funds, and gives you a bit of an added challenge in piloting when things seem to feel a bit too easy.  There's no reason to remove it just because you have no reason to use it.  I'm willing to bet there are a couple of other parts you have yet to use but haven't.  There are those I don't use but I don't call out for their removal, because I know others do find a use for them.

As Elastigirl said, "You just have to learn to be more flexible."

I didn't say they should remove it, I said if they did not many would care.  Big difference there.  What they should do is put a very limited torque back on it.  You can't even turn it in space, at all.  So you have to use high level solar panels with it that will turn themselves.  That doesn't fit because you get better probe cores before those solar panels.  It just doesn't make sense where it is in the tech tree without some torque.  Or you have to use a reaction wheel with it, which again doesn't make much sense. It doesn't have to be enough torque to fly a rocket with it, it does have to be enough to turn a small satellite around so it's solar panels face the sun.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Alshain

[ZooNamedGames]

I say that batteries should be togglable as long as they have power in them since the game hasn't ever really worked on a basis of comms but rather just control. There's never been a control delay based on distance or an extension of time for transmissions based on distance. It's just down to control.

[THX1138]

16 hours ago, WildLynx said:

Powered probe should detect low power conditions and:

- stop the timewarp

- issue a warning

- enable all disabled batteries.

 

and don't forget deploy undeployed solar panels? Possibly rotate so a solar panel is facing the sun if applicable, also...

[Hasegawa]

15 hours ago, Alshain said:

I didn't say they should remove it, I said if they did not many would care.  Big difference there.  What they should do is put a very limited torque back on it.  You can't even turn it in space, at all.  So you have to use high level solar panels with it that will turn themselves.  That doesn't fit because you get better probe cores before those solar panels. 

I would be one of those that would. It is the probe core that I tend to do my first munar flyby in career, even if the only attitude control I have comes from engine gimbals (The first time I did the mission I checked through my control options; no inbuilt torque, okay. Not enough science to unlock the reaction wheel unit. Fine. RCS? Wait, that's how much further up the tree?! Hm. Both the upper and lower stage engines I have chosen have gimbals. Okay, good enough, lets do it. And I did.). Okay, so it gets about as much use as the RT-5 Flea, but it's an important milestone.

Putting limited torque on it? How limited do you propose? Because in space, you don't need much torque to provide attitude control, due to the lack of other forces.

As for turning it in space, yeah, I've done that. Okay, so it required a LV-909 engine burn to start the turn, but it turned .

As for strapping solar panels to it, in stock you get the Octo in the same tech node as the OX-STAT panels, so you get a more capable probe core in the same node as you get the first solar panels...

Quote

It just doesn't make sense where it is in the tech tree without some torque.  Or you have to use a reaction wheel with it, which again doesn't make much sense. It doesn't have to be enough torque to fly a rocket with it, it does have to be enough to turn a small satellite around so it's solar panels face the sun.

It does make a degree of sense from a historical perspective that the first probes you build don't have attitude control. Because the earliest ones? They didn't.
It also makes a degree of sense from a game play progression perspective, as you go along you unlock more capable parts and therefore can do more and go further.

A pity so much of the rest of the tech tree fails to match those concepts...

Edited July 16, 2016 by Hasegawa

[Alshain]

5 hours ago, Hasegawa said:

Putting limited torque on it? How limited do you propose? Because in space, you don't need much torque to provide attitude control, due to the lack of other forces.

Exactly my point.   It doesn't need much, but it does need more than 0.

 

5 hours ago, Hasegawa said:

It does make a degree of sense from a historical perspective that the first probes you build don't have attitude control. Because the earliest ones? They didn't.

It also makes a degree of sense from a game play progression perspective, as you go along you unlock more capable parts and therefore can do more and go further.

A pity so much of the rest of the tech tree fails to match those concepts...

Historical accuracy is irrelevant if it hinders gameplay.  KSP is not the real world, it does not directly translate into the real world scenarios.