Autostruts should feel more like a ship design decision

[monstah]

They aren't just phantom forces; already they have their spatial position defined in the ship, and apply their forces as physical objects.

I think then that 3 things should change: first, they should also be an option only on the VAB/SPH, not flight! Strutting parts isn't magic! Then, they should appear visually as regular struts, and add mass to the ship. That way they feel like an actual part of the design process, you choose which parts strut to which, but it abstracts away having to pick the exact point of placement, and makes it easier to move tanks around and not have to re-configure your whole strut scaffolding.

Regarding autostruts that cross over other parts of the ship, it doesn't seem to be a problem to me: Physically, they have no colliders, so the only change (relative to current autostruts) in the ship's physics will be the added mass, no Kraken invited. Visually, having a strut clipping through a part shouldn't be different from a series of parts strutted to each other.

(I've edited the question after some feedback and added the poll. I didn't know you could add multiple questions, I think it makes perfect sense to split the question and poll for each individual change, since I'm proposing 3 that are related but could be implemented independently. I tried to rationalize each choice the best way I could, elaborating more than just "Yes/NO!", but not going the "No, because I'm stupid duh" route either. I hope I did a good job there  )

Edited September 29, 2016 by monstah
feedback and poll

[Red Iron Crown]

10 hours ago, monstah said:

they should appear as regular struts, with colliders and all, and add mass to the ship

There's not much of a collider on a regular strut, it's just the first endpoint placed as far as I know. Visuals of them with the display option off would be nice though, and having them be massless makes my "cheaty" sense tingle. Not that I ever listen to my cheaty sense.

[fireblade274]

IMO you should add a poll to this

[Van Disaster]

If they're meant to bring part count down, it rather defeats the object if they're actual parts. The way they work internally might be absolutely nothing like actual struts, just named & displayed like that as an analog we all know already.

They might also just be regular struts, *shrug*

[problemecium]

I don't think this is a practical idea. You may have noticed that the little orange autostrut line all but invariably goes right through parts, so if it were a physical object you're basically doomed to have horrendous kraken-bait part clipping all over everything.

[Superfluous J]

I said this somewhere else, but they should add some mass to the part they're on. I'm cool with locking the toggling of them on and off in the VAB, but once on they should be configurable to where they strut.

Autostruts almost single-handedly eliminate my own personal need for KAS. Please don't take that away from me!

[monstah]

11 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

There's not much of a collider on a regular strut, it's just the first endpoint placed as far as I know. Visuals of them with the display option off would be nice though, and having them be massless makes my "cheaty" sense tingle. Not that I ever listen to my cheaty sense.

7 hours ago, parameciumkid said:

I don't think this is a practical idea. You may have noticed that the little orange autostrut line all but invariably goes right through parts, so if it were a physical object you're basically doomed to have horrendous kraken-bait part clipping all over everything.

If Crown is right above, then this won't be a problem. Just add the mass and visuals, and keep their workings exactly as it is (the collider I don't feel is so important, I've never even noticed the usual struts have none).

9 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

If they're meant to bring part count down, it rather defeats the object if they're actual parts. The way they work internally might be absolutely nothing like actual struts, just named & displayed like that as an analog we all know already.

They might also just be regular struts, *shrug*

I don't care what they do for part count, and don't wish to change anything related to that. When I try to lower part counts on my ships, it's because of lag, not because of that arbitrary number on the VAB (for the record, I think the part count limitation for career is completely bogus). I don't propose any changes to physics (like I said above, the collider was a bad idea), so the lag will be the same as using autostruts as they are now.

9 hours ago, fireblade274 said:

IMO you should add a poll to this

Yeah, I will also clarify and change somethings after feedback from you guys. Thanks y'all.

[monstah]

7 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I'm cool with locking the toggling of them on and off in the VAB, but once on they should be configurable to where they strut.

Can you explain? I don't understand what you mean there  

[Superfluous J]

2 minutes ago, monstah said:

Can you explain? I don't understand what you mean there  

I mean that if you launch a craft with a part with no auto-strutting, then it's okay in my mind that you then cannot turn auto-strutting on for that part.

However, if you turn auto-strutting on for a part in the VAB, you should, later when you dock your craft to something else, be able to modify how that part is strutted.

[monstah]

4 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I mean that if you launch a craft with a part with no auto-strutting, then it's okay in my mind that you then cannot turn auto-strutting on for that part.

However, if you turn auto-strutting on for a part in the VAB, you should, later when you dock your craft to something else, be able to modify how that part is strutted.

Ah, okay. Well, if that were an EVA thing, I'd be all for it!  

[Van Disaster]

I wouild vote they change the name away from "strut" to avoid any misconceptions about the feature, then.

Struts should never have been a part to begin with. It's only because a) unity couldn't hold things together and b) they never did anything to make joints better ( KJR does wonders ) that the stupid things are there in the first place. I've yet to see any modern vehicle braced like a biplane.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Van Disaster

[Corona688]

3 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

Struts should never have been a part to begin with. It's only because a) unity couldn't hold things together and b) they never did anything to make joints better ( KJR does wonders ) that the stupid things are there in the first place. I've yet to see any modern vehicle braced like a biplane.

I disagree that joints are too weak and floppy, they've improved and strengthened them again and again - sometimes close to the point of absurdity.  I haven't needed to use struts lately for anything but aesthetic reasons, and in the past when I have, it's because I was building obviously elongated or noodly things.

The strut part is useful, I think, just because there should be some cost to building ridiculously floppy designs, but you should be able to do so if you really want.

Back on topic, I agree autostruts should be a VAB thing.  Basically you're telling it "This should be one giant part, not a taped-together noodle of 17" and changing that on the fly makes no sense.  Perhaps there should be some cost to being autostrutted -- it acts way stronger, but if per chance some part of it DOES break, so should the autostruts, maybe even a part it's strutted to.  Rigidity is always a tradeoff with brittleness IRL.

Also, it's really distracting to have it in the right-click menu.  We got so many more right-click options in 1.2, few of them actually useful.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Corona688

[Van Disaster]

1 hour ago, Corona688 said:

I disagree that joints are too weak and floppy, they've improved and strengthened them again and again - sometimes close to the point of absurdity.  I haven't needed to use struts lately for anything but aesthetic reasons, and in the past when I have, it's because I was building obviously elongated or noodly things.

I meant when they added struts it was a bandage over the lack of improvement over stock unity joints at the time. If the game had the modern joints I'm not sure it would have had a strut part, although we'd have had issues with cargo then ( which is mostly also game design, due to the tree structure... ).

[moogoob]

4 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

I wouild vote they change the name away from "strut" to avoid any misconceptions about the feature, then.

Struts should never have been a part to begin with. It's only because a) unity couldn't hold things together and b) they never did anything to make joints better ( KJR does wonders ) that the stupid things are there in the first place. I've yet to see any modern vehicle braced like a biplane.

Struts were the one biggest part that got me interested in KSP, that convinced me it was more than just a LOLSPLOSIONS toy. They are flexible and used for all sorts of things, cosmetic and functional.

Edited September 29, 2016 by moogoob

[Corona688]

1 hour ago, Van Disaster said:

I meant when they added struts it was a bandage over the lack of improvement over stock unity joints at the time.

Yes and no...  What's 3 parts now, was a stacked hexagon of junk at the time - no 2.5m stuff.  This meant really huge wacky designs for anything beyond your basic 1-man orbit goer, struts all but mandatory.  When 2.5m stuff was added, it more clearly illustrated the limitations of Unity joints and got fixed eventually.

I've finally remembered some simple situations where struts are still useful in modern KSP, like SRB's on radial decouplers.  Those are still floppy and rightly so, building them without bracing struts is structurally unsound.  It's really nice to have a way to strap them down.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Corona688

[swjr-swis]

Visuals for autostruts are problematic, since they reach right across the ship and attach from the parts' CoM, not the surface. Even in the best circumstances, the endpoints will always be clipped inside parts and will end up invisible anyway. I don't see how it can be visually pleasing or aesthetic in any way to see just sections of the bars sticking at random angles through the skin of parts. Think about it, it can come to no good.

And I simply do not understand this aversion to options. If you personally want to limit the functionality of autostruts to the VAB/SPH in your game, you can already do so right now: just don't use it in-flight. However, the reverse will not be possible if they hard-code it to only be available in the VAB/SPH. We can argue about 1001 possible situations where for one or the other it would be legitimate to use autostruts, but why do we need to justify everything? We all play this game our own way, and some of us don't even play the same way twice. It would be nice if people would stop trying to force their limits and constraints to this amazing sandbox on others.

As for autostruts being considered 'magic': I'm quite willing to concede to the realism of not being able to attach invisible struts that phase through parts... just as soon as the game realistically implements designing and building a ship's structural skeleton, skin, and internal parts separately and fit-to-specs instead of ready-made one-use-or-fit-intended-only lego pieces. Until then: autostruts, clipping, and every other trick to compensate for the lack of real world construction techniques are fair game, as far as I'm concerned.

[monstah]

4 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

And I simply do not understand this aversion to options. If you personally want to limit the functionality of autostruts to the VAB/SPH in your game, you can already do so right now: just don't use it in-flight.

Who said I'm averse to options? I'm loving the advanced tweakables, if anything I'd love to have more gameplay options.

I never said 'away with autostruts'. I think they're a perfectly valid building tool, and I liked their addition to the game. I don't mind having struts that place themselves automatically (which is what 'autostruts' sounds like it's supposed to be), I just don't want them to be a magical solution to bad ship design (or a workaround for other shortcomings of the game that could be solved instead: oh, a low tech rocket is like overcooked pasta because it's a lot of small tanks rather than a large one? Then fix that stupid techtree instead, and let us use the goddamned longer tank ). 

A soundly built rocket isn't floppy anymore, and hasn't been for a few versions already.

 

[Corona688]

24 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

And I simply do not understand this aversion to options. If you personally want to limit the functionality of autostruts to the VAB/SPH in your game, you can already do so right now: just don't use it in-flight.

The explosion of mostly-useless right-click options in 1.2 makes it difficult to find the ones you need.  Right now it's all-or-nothing, basic or advanced.

Quote

However, the reverse will not be possible if they hard-code it to only be available in the VAB/SPH.

You're...probably right.  All I really want is a way to prevent that option appearing outside the VAB for me.  I bet there's a way to change which options are considered 'advanced' by the game, I want a few advanced clickables but not all of them.

Quote

As for autostruts being considered 'magic': I'm quite willing to concede to the realism of not being able to attach invisible struts that phase through parts... just as soon as the game realistically implements designing and building a ship's structural skeleton, skin, and internal parts separately and fit-to-specs instead of ready-made one-use-or-fit-intended-only lego pieces.

I consider autostruts to be that structural design -- just as much as placing engines beneath tanks is.  It tells which parts should be built literally as one hull.  Whether the software achieves that with imaginary struts or a monocoque skin-part, whatever.

Which is why toggling outside the VAB feels wrong to me, there's no button on an airplane to make its skin dismantle and remantle itself.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Corona688

[swjr-swis]

31 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

All I really want is a way to prevent that option appearing outside the VAB for me.  I bet there's a way to change which options are considered 'advanced' by the game, I want a few advanced clickables but not all of them.

Support the cause There's a feedback report for this exact thing: http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/12596

Edited September 29, 2016 by swjr-swis
Because popularity contests are apparently a thing...

[monstah]

1 minute ago, swjr-swis said:

Support the cause: http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/12596

I've seen people talking about upvoting feedback on the tracker (your use of "support the cause" makes it seem so), but I don't see any interface there for doing so. Halp?

[Corona688]

The bug tracker is not a popularity contest, I don't have a lot to add to that except perhaps a link to this thread.  Done.

[swjr-swis]

19 minutes ago, monstah said:

A soundly built rocket isn't floppy anymore, and hasn't been for a few versions already.

They still are though. They wobble less, but they still do deform for rather uncontrollable reasons (invisible colliders, for one).

[Corona688]

Just now, swjr-swis said:

They still are though. They wobble less, but they still do deform for rather uncontrollable reasons (invisible colliders, for one).

Show me an example of something which you'd expect to be structurally sound and isn't, please.

[swjr-swis]

2 minutes ago, monstah said:

I've seen people talking about upvoting feedback on the tracker (your use of "support the cause" makes it seem so), but I don't see any interface there for doing so. Halp?

I actually don't know how. So never mind... instead of support the cause, just read 'there's a feedback report for it now', which is really what I meant to say.

[Corona688]

10 minutes ago, monstah said:

I've seen people talking about upvoting feedback on the tracker (your use of "support the cause" makes it seem so), but I don't see any interface there for doing so. Halp?

Mostly means keeping the bug at the top of the queue by updating it.  Note that I do not suggest or endorse pointless 'are we there yet' kind of bumps.  Explanations, links, attachments of craft or saves or screenshots illustrating a problem, and other relevant information are helpfu, which is the limit of how we can really influence what they do.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Corona688