Core features from Atmosphere Autopilot, KAC, and KER

[Guest]

The core features of AA, KAC, and KER ought to be part of the base game. Namely:

• AA: Standard fly-by-wire atmosphere autopilot. It really shouldn't be necessary to do continuous control input for straight-and-level flight or coordinated turns, especially for a game that's primarily played with mouse and keyboard.
• KER: Staged dV and TWR estimations (for different bodies) in the VAB and SPH.
• KER: Current dV estimation in flight. 
• KAC: Set alarm for next manoeuvre node at the craft or the tracking station.

[Gargamel]

I dunno bout the autopilot, but I'm definitely not against it!  I use one and do require it, but I don't see it being a thing for stock. 

An alarm clock is a necessity if you are trying to manage multiple missions at once. 

Dv readouts are a must to I'd say.  Stock shows you how much dv it will take to run the next burn, but won't tell you how much dv you have.   It will tell you how much fuel you have, but not how much you need.   There needs to be something like KER or MJ (readouts) in the stock game. 

[Guest]

Just now, Gargamel said:

I dunno bout the autopilot, but I'm definitely not against it!  I use one and do require it, but I don't see it being a thing for stock. 

I fly a lot of planes. Without AA, they need continuous control input for basic things like straight and level flight or coordinated turns. This just makes flying tedious, not fun, doubly so because the game is intended to be played primarily with a mouse and keyboard: while joystick support is there it's kind of rudimentary, and the camera doesn't really support "proper" flight sim flight. Moreover, these aren't supposed to be wicker-and-canvas WW1 era contraptions where you're directly operating on the control surfaces, they're supposed to be spaceplanes that fly to orbit at Mach 5 and up.

Having AA's standard fly-by-wire as default for atmospheric aerodynamic flight just makes things more fun, as well as lowers the barrier of entry to spaceplane design considerably, and it doesn't compromise the core of the game -- physics simulation -- at all. 

[Gargamel]

I fly a lot too, and I will agree, without piloting aids, it's not fun.  I just don't see them adding it as a core stock item any time soon.   I think it's one left better to mods, but I could be wrong.  

[klgraham1013]

There was a suggestion about adding Hold Horizon to the SAS on here.  I think, as far as "auto-pilot" goes, this is fairly equivalent to the already stock Hold Prograde and what not.

...and yes, these things should be stock, but they probably won't be.  My hope died a long time ago.

[Gaarst]

[I apparently can't read and mixed up Atmosphere Autopilot which I don't use with Pilot Assitstant which I do use] I use AA for atmospheric flight and while it's good for cruising it doesn't help for more active flight. What would be needed is a proper "flight" SAS setting, by that I mean decoupling roll/yaw/pitch control (so that banking for a turn doesn't send me crashing into the ground) and not resetting your trim everytime you even look at your keyboard (say I want to slightly pitch up, touching the control resets SAS and it will take ages for it to stabilise). With proper controls you wouldn't even need an altitude hold because your plane actually goes where you want it to.

I've stopped believing dV readouts will ever happen.

While I like KAC for managing multiple missions at once, there isn't any reason to do this in the game. Kerbals are immortal, there's no boiloff, no wear and tear, contract margins are ridiculous and so on. Would be nice to have but not a priority in my opinion.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Gaarst
Illetracy

[Boris-Barboris]

6 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

I use AA for atmospheric flight and while it's good for cruising it doesn't help for more active flight. What would be needed is a proper "flight" SAS setting, by that I mean decoupling roll/yaw/pitch control.

thinking.jpg

Are you talking about Pilot Assistant by any chance?

[Gaarst]

16 minutes ago, Boris-Barboris said:

thinking.jpg

Are you talking about Pilot Assistant by any chance?

Yes, I somehow assumed the first post was about PA because I can't read. I don't think I ever tried your mod, but now I will.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Gaarst

[John FX]

Never going to happen. The game has been restricted by the ideas of a young harvester. They wanted a game with no autopilot and minimal information displays and this idea has stayed even in the face of all reason.

Now the game has expanded beyond the original scope and is being crippled by those two design criteria. It is almost impossible to do interplanetary transfers without mods.

You should not need a mod to do activities that are core functions in the game.

[pandaman]

Agreed there are several 'essential tools' like those mentioned in the OP that really should have a place in stock.

The game and it's scope has expanded and evolved a lot over the years and i think i is time that these features were stock.

[SnailsAttack]

There's an autopilot mod for planes? Thank god.

Anyways, I agree that this game definitely needs some more QOL features such as these.

[klgraham1013]

On 2/24/2018 at 5:06 AM, John FX said:

Never going to happen. The game has been restricted by the ideas of a young harvester. They wanted a game with no autopilot and minimal information displays and this idea has stayed even in the face of all reason.

One of the first things every creator should learn is to "kill your darlings."  No matter how much you love something you've created, no matter how much you think it's a great idea, if it's not working, throw it away.  Preferably in a garbage fire.

It's been clear for a very long time that these original concepts, which can be seen to have a certain merit hypothetically, just don't actually work in this type of game.  That Squad holds on to certain ideas so tightly (the above, career mode) when core parts of them clearly aren't working, is just baffling to me.

 

I'm a musician.  This is one of the first rules of writing I learned.

[Guest]

They did improve SAS for atmospheric flight considerably in 1.2. It wouldn't be a big leap from that to AA's standard FBW.

[John FX]

2 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

One of the first things every creator should learn is to "kill your darlings."  No matter how much you love something you've created, no matter how much you think it's a great idea, if it's not working, throw it away.  Preferably in a garbage fire.

It's been clear for a very long time that these original concepts, which can be seen to have a certain merit hypothetically, just don't actually work in this type of game.  That Squad holds on to certain ideas so tightly (the above, career mode) when core parts of them clearly aren't working, is just baffling to me.

 

I'm a musician.  This is one of the first rules of writing I learned.

Very true. One of the first lessons I learned in business as not to be precious with my baby (the business/idea). I learned that every thing I held dear about the concept was liable to change, sometimes just be dropped, in the face of reality and the customer experience. No matter how much I think something is a good idea, if the people who I want to give me money do not think so they just will not give me money for it.

That Squad have failed to learn this after years shows just how much the game is wanted by the users, they have accepted, and sometimes even rejoiced in, poor quality game making. Sure the coding has been mostly good but that is a different concept.

You can code a bad game very well. It is the concepts that make up the game that are lacking, elements that have been started, then just left lying around to remind us of the plans for the game which have been half done, then left. Like the monoliths, kerbal stats like stupidity (what do they even do? Answer : Nothing!)

Then, while not removing any bad or defunct ideas, they refuse to add essential ones to the game.

Now they have moved on to paid DLC, there is slim to no hope that these issues will ever be addressed in KSP 1. It will always be a bunch of nearly finished parts of a game.

For years they operated on hope and promises of a good game, now they have most of the money they will ever get for the main game they have just dropped it like a stone and the hope and promises of the good game have evaporated into the lack of communication that is classic Squad...

[IncongruousGoat]

Despite my current extensive use of KER for readout purposes, I'm actually opposed to the inclusion of dV readouts in stock. My main gripe is that they aren't reliable enough. KER/MJ freak out at non-standard staging, and can often provide erroneous readouts. While this isn't a problem for a seasoned player, who knows how to recognize a problem and can do the calculations by hand in a pinch, a new player would just leave frustrated and confused. In a game like KSP, anything that steepens the learning curve is a really bad idea. Plus, learning to do without a dV readout gives one a much better sense of how changes in a design will affect dV.

Same goes for autopilots. They aren't foolproof, and as such can't be readily included into the stock game. Much as I may find them useful now, I would not be the KSP player I am today had I not learned to fly the hard way.

The problem is, both of these are really, really hard to program well. The mods that exist today do a good job, but not a perfect job, and with Squad's history of imperfect releases I doubt they'll be enthusiastic to add a feature that not only doesn't work all that well at initial release, but will never work well. There are lots of things we wish Squad would add to KSP, but regardless of how much we may individually find them useful it's worth stepping back and thinking about how they'll affect a new player. That's the group that matters most when it comes to these decisions, after all. Experienced players may heap praise or shout scorn from the rooftops (or both) at every update, but we aren't exactly a revenue source.

[qzgy]

3 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

My main gripe is that they aren't reliable enough. KER/MJ freak out at non-standard staging, and can often provide erroneous readouts. While this isn't a problem for a seasoned player, who knows how to recognize a problem and can do the calculations by hand in a pinch, a new player would just leave frustrated and confused. In a game like KSP, anything that steepens the learning curve is a really bad idea. Plus, learning to do without a dV readout gives one a much better sense of how changes in a design will affect dV.

While I do agree that nonsensical staging screws with dV readouts and that having it glitch would steepen the curve, it would at least make it simpler when doing the most basic of designs (a direct ascent or simple shuttle or something), thus reducing the curve of "I can't space help". I do very heavily appreciate my dV readouts though even when they are broken half the time.

3 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

They aren't foolproof, and as such can't be readily included into the stock game. Much as I may find them useful now, I would not be the KSP player I am today had I not learned to fly the hard way.

I agree with this sentiment to some degree. I don't want my rockets flying themselves, but a mod to maintain level flight in the atmosphere doesn't seem unreasonable does it?

[klgraham1013]

1 hour ago, qzgy said:

I do very heavily appreciate my dV readouts though even when they are broken half the time.

Let's be fair, my dV readouts are right 90% or more of the time.  That's better than what we have now.  Which is 0% of the time.

[qzgy]

2 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Let's be fair, my dV readouts are right 90% or more of the time.  That's better than what we have now.  Which is 0% of the time.

Fair enough.

[John FX]

13 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Let's be fair, my dV readouts are right 90% or more of the time.  That's better than what we have now.  Which is 0% of the time.

Yeah, this.

Also, sometimes I find that having a Dv readout that is wrong highlights times where I have put an engine or decoupler in the wrong staging point, which saves the whole mission.

[pandaman]

I suppose for the 'difficult' features (Dv readout etc) it may be acceptable for a stock version to do the best it can and when it encounters a tricky situation it could flag up a warning like 'unable to compute accurately due to x,y,z. But here is the best estimate'.

Far from ideal, but better than nothing and accurate for the simple stuff.  And it would hopefully inform you of the problem areas so you can either try to fix it or run with it.  A rough estimate when you KNOW it's a rough estimate is better than 'accurate' information that is wrong.  No idea how easy that would be to do, but it may be a workable solution.

[klgraham1013]

4 hours ago, pandaman said:

I suppose for the 'difficult' features

What I find to be a "difficult feature" is asking the player to guess what they're doing wrong over and over until they stumble across the answer or watch a Scott Manley video.