Question about the MK1-3 command pod

[Star-Eagle]

Hi guys

I just updated KSP on my computer and while looking through the new/updated parts I noticed that the 1.25m node on the MK 1-3 command pad seemed to be a little bit off in size, has anyone else noticed this?

[Snark]

2 hours ago, Star-Eagle said:

I just updated KSP on my computer and while looking through the new/updated parts I noticed that the 1.25m node on the MK 1-3 command pad seemed to be a little bit off in size, has anyone else noticed this?

The short answer to your question is "no, it's exactly the same size as the nodes on all the other 1.25m parts, and would be physically impossible to be 'a little bit off'".  So your eyes are just playing tricks on you. 

Longer answer, with technical details for the curious, in spoiler section below.

Spoiler

It's not physically possible in KSP for an attachment node to be "a little bit off" in size.  KSP attachment nodes come in integer sizes:

• size 0 (0.625m)
• size 1 (1.25m)
• size 2 (2.5m)
• size 3 (3.75m)
• size 4 (5m)

It's not physically possible to have a "size 1.5" (or whatever) node.  In fact, the limitation of having integer sizes is baked so deeply into the game that when they released Making History with its 1.875m parts, they had to give them all size-2 nodes (i.e. the same size as 2.5m parts), because even the KSP devs themselves couldn't make a "size 1.5" node without radically rewriting the game.

Of course, it's always possible that someone could produce a part that erroneously has the wrong size for a node-- for example, a 1.25m part that has a size 0 node instead of a size 1 node as it should.  And that would be a bug.  But that wouldn't be "a little bit" off, it would be radically off, and would be extremely obvious.

And the Mk1-3 pod doesn't have that particular problem.  If you look at its config file, you can see this line:

node_stack_top = 0.0, 1.19319, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1

...see that "1" at the end there?  That means it's a size-1 node, i.e. the same size node as all the 1.25m parts.

 

[Kerbalstar]

13 minutes ago, Snark said:

The short answer to your question is "no, it's exactly the same size as the nodes on all the other 1.25m parts, and would be physically impossible to be 'a little bit off'".  So your eyes are just playing tricks on you. 

Longer answer, with technical details for the curious, in spoiler section below.

  Reveal hidden contents

It's not physically possible in KSP for an attachment node to be "a little bit off" in size.  KSP attachment nodes come in integer sizes:

• size 0 (0.625m)
• size 1 (1.25m)
• size 2 (2.5m)
• size 3 (3.75m)

It's not physically possible to have a "size 1.5" (or whatever) node.  In fact, the limitation of having integer sizes is baked so deeply into the game that when they released Making History with its 1.875m parts, they had to give them all size-2 nodes (i.e. the same size as 2.5m parts), because even the KSP devs themselves couldn't make a "size 1.5" node without radically rewriting the game.

Of course, it's always possible that someone could produce a part that erroneously has the wrong size for a node-- for example, a 1.25m part that has a size 0 node instead of a size 1 node as it should.  And that would be a bug.  But that wouldn't be "a little bit" off, it would be radically off, and would be extremely obvious.

And the Mk1-3 pod doesn't have that particular problem.  If you look at its config file, you can see this line:

node_stack_top = 0.0, 1.19319, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1

...see that "1" at the end there?  That means it's a size-1 node, i.e. the same size node as all the 1.25m parts.

 

Out of likes only a hour after I got up... Take this quote like.

Edited October 22, 2018 by Kerbalstar
Out not our! :)

[Star-Eagle]

Ok I can see what your saying, re-reading my first post I can see I didn't explain myself clearly.

It would be more accurate to say that the outer diameter of the the top attachment point for the MK1-3 command pod does not seem to line up with any of the 1.25m parts that I have tried attaching to it, except for the clamp-o-tron docking port. But that part seems to have a gap between it and the command instead of sitting flush as it does with other 1.25m parts.

I don't know if this is KSP working as it should or some kind of mistake, though I was sure that Squad addressed that point in one of the weekly's though I can't seem to find it. I'll try to post a screenshot but I've been having trouble getting onto Imgur.

[Snark]

11 minutes ago, Star-Eagle said:

It would be more accurate to say that the outer diameter of the the top attachment point for the MK1-3 command pod does not seem to line up with any of the 1.25m parts that I have tried attaching to it, except for the clamp-o-tron docking port. But that part seems to have a gap between it and the command instead of sitting flush as it does with other 1.25m parts.

Ah, okay.  You said

2 hours ago, Star-Eagle said:

the 1.25m node on the MK 1-3

...which greatly confused matters, since "node" has a very specific meaning.  The "node" is the thing represented by that checkered green "ball", and has nothing at all to do with the geometry of the part itself.

Anyway, what you're really saying is two things:

• that the top diameter of the Mk1-3 pod isn't precisely 1.25m (it's a bit smaller) so that 1.25m parts aren't perfectly flush, and
• that the vertical placement of the node is such that there's a teeny "gap" when you place a 1.25m docking port.

And yes, you are correct, both of those are the case, yes.  The not-quite-1.25m-size thing is a characteristic of the part model, and the placement of the node (i.e. "is there a gap") is a characteristic of the config file that specifies where the node is.

Doesn't affect gameplay at all, as far as I can tell, so how much this bugs any given player is going to be a function about how much they care about visual details like this.

(For example, I myself had never noticed this at all until you pointed it out, and then I had to go into the VAB and zoom in to see what you were talking about.  Doesn't bug me in the slightest-- to me, this is just a tiny, unnoticeable detail-- but then, I'm not a visual perfectionist.  I'm OCD about a lot of things, but not this particular thing.) 

[Tyko]

21 minutes ago, Snark said:

that the vertical placement of the node is such that there's a teeny "gap" when you place a 1.25m docking port.

The sad part is that the overly tall big grey rim at the top of the capsule is so tall that if you actually slide the docking port down that grey ring pokes through the edge of the docking port...

[Star-Eagle]

Snark

I can appreciate that this is a small detail but given that Squad went to the trouble of reworking the parts this seems to be a glaring over sight.

[Snark]

3 hours ago, Star-Eagle said:

I can appreciate that this is a small detail but given that Squad went to the trouble of reworking the parts this seems to be a glaring over sight.

There are a gazillion parts in the game, and Squad didn't re-work them all.  They re-worked a few specific ones.

Designing parts is like any other development task-- it's expensive.  It takes a lot of time from developers, artists, whatever other relevant staff.  There are only so many developers and only so much time available before releasing a given update.  It's physically impossible to do everything, which means they have to pick and choose.  Time spent doing a re-work of part A means time not spent working on part B, or fixing bugs, or adding new parts or features, or whatever else.

So, like everything else, it's a matter of prioritizing.  I don't work for Squad, so I don't have any more insight into their internal decision-making process than anyone else does.  But I have been shipping software for a living for a really long time, so I've got a pretty good idea how it always goes with this sort of thing.  The company's internal dialog goes something along the lines of:  "Okay everyone, we have a total budget of N developer-hours we can spend before the release.  And here's the list of <some number a lot bigger than N> developer-hours' worth of stuff we'd like to do.  Let's stack-rank everything to prioritize the most important and/or cheapest work items, so we can fit in as much goodness as possible before we release."

• Better burn indicator?  Oooo, shiny, the players will love that, they've been asking for something like this for years.  That's in.  (Big, major expensive item, I'm guessing.  That's a hard programming problem.)
• Fix <list of important bugs>.
• Art pass!  Let's pick the parts that people have been complaining about the most for the longest, and address those.

And so forth.

They didn't re-work all the parts-- only just a small minority of the worst offenders.  For example, the 1.25m tanks were in desperate need of an art overhaul and some variant options, so they did those.

As for the Mk1-3 pod?  That's a fairly recently-developed part.  Overall, players have been pretty happy with it-- there haven't been tons of complaints about it.  It looks reasonably nice to most players, it has a practical design for gameplay.  Is it perfect?  No, nothing is... but honestly, I would imagine it would be fairly low down the priority list if they're picking what to give an update.

In any case:  I can just about guarantee you that it's not an oversight.  Nobody just accidentally "forgot" about this part.  Someone decided that it was okay, at least for now, at least compared to other stuff they really wanted to work on in KSP 1.5.

That doesn't mean that it'll never get touched in a future update-- though I would expect that a future re-work would be unlikely unless such an update has large amount of public demand, which frankly I haven't seen much of.

[panzer1b]

6 hours ago, Snark said:

Doesn't affect gameplay at all, as far as I can tell, so how much this bugs any given player is going to be a function about how much they care about visual details like this.

I dont think the OP is the only one, i for 1 rarely if EVER use that pod (unless the application has the top be directly attached to a docking port) purely because of that diameter inconsistency (and in all other applications i have to clip the 1.25m part into the pod some to make it not look like crap).  Yeah maybee i focus too much on details, but im also one to pick up on almost every concieveable issue graphically in many games i play (specifically model and texture bugs).  Not that i dont enjoy KSP or anything, but due to that geometry bug i tend to avoid the MK1-3 pod (not to mention that rather ugly texture that has no specular mapping support, id make my own specular map, but i cant as the model doesnt load it anyway), and until 1.5, i also avoided the mk1 pod too for the exact same reason (looked stupid with anything but a parachute on it, and i dont think ive used parachutes ever in my entire time playing KSP with the notable exception of landing something on EVE).

 

So yeah, to each his own, but i think squad should take a 2nd look at that pod, fix the subpar texture, and make the top node actually mesh with 1.25m parts like every other thing in the game (docking port could also be a tad bigger but its not quite as glaring since those are almost always at the end of a stack or surface mounted on the sides of ships).

[Snark]

1 minute ago, panzer1b said:

I dont think the OP is the only one, i for 1 rarely if EVER use that pod (unless the application has the top be directly attached to a docking port) purely because of that diameter inconsistency

Sure.  There are a lot of KSP players out there.  I expect you could pick any part in the game and find plenty of people who'd want something different, no matter what they do.

The question isn't "does anyone want a rework", but rather "what percentage of the player base wants a rework", compared with the player demand for other features.

Me?  I use that pod all the time.  I love it.  It's a super practical size and shape, and the aesthetic things that bug you, I don't even notice-- wasn't even aware of them until this thread pointed out.  I suspect most players are in that boat, mainly because this isn't a part I've heard a lot of clamoring about (at least, not compared with other things such as the 1.25m fuel tanks).

3 minutes ago, panzer1b said:

So yeah, to each his own, but i think squad should take a 2nd look at that pod, fix the subpar texture, and make the top node actually mesh with 1.25m parts like every other thing in the game

I agree, it would be nice.  If they choose to give that part a rework, I'll cheerfully hold their hats and cheer them on. 

But... when it comes to prioritization, I can think of an awful lot of other bugfixes, new features, artwork, etc. that I'd like to see them do, that are considerably more important to me than this.  Should it be in line?  Sure.  I just think that there's a lot of other stuff that would be in front of it, in that particular line.

[OHara]

13 hours ago, Star-Eagle said:

has anyone else noticed this?

Yes. You see how other players handled it, here:

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/172343-part-observations/

Versions of the game before 1.4 had a Mk1-2 pod (now hidden unless you search for it) which also has a too-narrow top and slight gap to its attachment node.