Anyone struggling with fuel tanks?

[Scarecrow]

In earlier times, the only fuel tanks we had were 1.25m and 2.5m and it was fairly easy to tell them apart in the VAB or SPH menus as they were different colours or just looked different.  Now we have far more diameters to choose from, and with a lot of the paint schemes seemingly being standardised, it now takes me a lot of clicking on various tanks to finally find the one that is the correct diameter and capacity for the craft that I am building.  Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way of re-sorting them in the menu so that they go from the smallest to the biggest or perhaps could be grouped together by diameter.

[Phreakish]

Sorting by diameter, or intended diameter, would help with lots of parts, especially tanks. 

The more unified look/appearance of the many tanks has made it tougher to pick by sight, for sure. 

[MiscelanousItem]

You can just use Advanced mode in the VAB and the SPH

Edited March 11, 2019 by MiscelanousItem

[Foxster]

Yup, been saying this for a while. The parts' images need a little graphic on them with their part size. 

[Loskene]

Always a bit boggling to find the sort by size option in the VAB appears to sort them by height or volume (not sure, there's a lot of intermixing in the transitions between part sizes) rather than diameter, which is our most commonly needed metric for building rockets. Seems like it was just set up that way without thinking it through and never revisited since.

[MechBFP]

18 minutes ago, Foxster said:

Yup, been saying this for a while. The parts' images need a little graphic on them with their part size. 

That and logical sorting of parts in the first place. 

[Scarecrow]

2 hours ago, MiscelanousItem said:

You can just use Advanced mode in the VAB and the SPH

That's a useful feature but it's a bit of a faff to keep swapping the 'sort by' parameters when you are used to selecting items purely from looking at them.

[swjr-swis]

I think the part library and the texture variant schemes could be very usefully combined to make cross-section sizes immediately clear:

1. Decide on a primary/default texture set for each cross-section size to identify parts of that size. Create if needed (probably will need a couple extra texture sets to do this).
2. Make sure all same-sized parts have a default variant in the chosen identifying texture.
3. Here's the trick: make the part library thumbnails show in the identifying texture variant for each cross-section.
4. ...
5. Profit. I mean, Voilá: instant recognition of each size part set.

The 'primary' texture variants don't need to be exclusive to a cross-section (some players will still want to create craft with a unified look). As long as each cross-section has its own primary/default, this should help players to quickly identify the parts.

[Greenfire32]

In the long ago days, parts used to be ordered from smallest to largest. Somewhere along the way since then, that has seemingly been abandoned for a "toy box" style of order--meaning there is no order.

I would greatly appreciate going back to the old system of small to large.

[Starhawk]

This suggestion for game development has been moved to the Suggestions and Development Discussion section of the forum.

KSP Moderation Team

[Tyko]

I'd like to see a drop down menu up next to the search bar that lets you select a cross section. 

You could pick 1.25m from the drop down and then switch from one part tab to another and only see the 1.25 items. It would be great for building a stack in which you had a capsule, heat shield, decoupler, fuel tanks and an engine all in the same diameter.

 

 

Edited March 11, 2019 by Tyko

[Scarecrow]

49 minutes ago, Tyko said:

I'd like to see a drop down menu up next to the search bar that lets you select a cross section. 

You could pick 1.25m from the drop down and then switch from one part tab to another and only see the 1.25 items. It would be great for building a stack in which you had a capsule, heat shield, decoupler, fuel tanks and an engine all in the same diameter.

 

 

I think you can do something like that in the advanced editor.

 

[klesh]

I've always wanted to just type "1.25m" or "5m" in the search bar at the top of the parts list when looking at fuel tanks.   It doesn't work like that.

I fine it easier to scroll though and pull out wrong ones rather than open the advanced tab and try to remember which manufacturer or other minutiae about the tank I want is.

[evileye.x]

No reason not to use Filter Extensions mod, really helps. 

 

Edited March 12, 2019 by evileye.x

[Tyko]

7 hours ago, Scarecrow said:

I think you can do something like that in the advanced editor.

 

where? send a screen shot

[Scarecrow]

31 minutes ago, Tyko said:

where? send a screen shot

Select the 'Filter by Cross-Section Profile' tab, and then choose which size you want.

[klgraham1013]

13 hours ago, Loskene said:

Seems like it was just set up that way without thinking it through and never revisited since.

You solved the puzzle.

[Superfluous J]

I sort by mass and 90% of the part locations are instantly obvious to me. The rest take a time or two to get and I tend to memorize the ones I use often.

[klgraham1013]

The default sorting should be diameter and than height.  That it's not is just laziness and nothing more.

[Tyko]

6 hours ago, Scarecrow said:

Select the 'Filter by Cross-Section Profile' tab, and then choose which size you want.

No man...not what I was suggesting, but good try. I suggested being able to select a profile using a drop down menu and then ALSO use the tabs to select tanks or engines or pods, whatever. With my methods you could use a drop down to select 2.5m and then click on the fuel tanks tab and ONLY see 2.5m fuel tanks.

The way you demonstrated is still one dimensional - you're looking at ALL parts of a given size all jumbled together.

Edited March 12, 2019 by Tyko

[EchoLima]

 

[Tonka Crash]

I'm not averse to writing patches to make the game behave like I want, notice the number of part categories below for CCK. The tank sorting annoyed me, so I renamed the tanks to put them in my preferred sort order:  diameter then capacity.  I have a few tanks I create by rescaling other tanks (half smallest and double tallest) and then get more tanks from Missing History and Munar Industries Fuel Tank Expansion. All these get renamed to flow together. Just before I hit submit I noticed a 3.75m tank out of order I gotta go fix.

This is just a subset a PartTitle.cfg I run to set default sorting for my game. Besides fuel tanks, I also do batteries, ore tanks, fuel cells, reaction wheels and some engines.

Spoiler

@PART[Size1p5_Tank_01]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-TX0220 Fuel Tank }
@PART[Size1p5_Tank_02]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-TX0440 Fuel Tank }
@PART[Size1p5_Tank_03]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-TX0900 Fuel Tank }
@PART[Size1p5_Tank_04]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-TX1800 Fuel Tank }
@PART[Size4_EngineAdpater_01]:FINAL	{ @title = Kerbodyne S4-090 Engine Adapter Tank }
@PART[Size4_Tank_01]:FINAL		{ @title = Kerbodyne S4-064 Fuel Tank }
@PART[MI_Piepan]:FINAL			{ @title = FL-TX005 Rockomax "Piepan" Fuel Tank }
@PART[MI_Two5M_Adapt_S]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-A21S Short Tank Adapter }
@PART[MI_Two5M_Adapt]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-A21L Fuel Tank Adapter }
@PART[MI_Two5M_Dome]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-X006D Rockomax Fuel Tank }
@PART[MI_Two5M_Cone]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-X009C Rockomax Fuel Tank }
@PART[Rockomax8BW]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-X008 Rockomax Fuel Tank }
@PART[Rockomax16_BW]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-X016 Rockomax Fuel Tank }
@PART[Rockomax32_BW]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-X032 Rockomax Fuel Tank }
@PART[Rockomax64_BW]:FINAL		{ @title = FL-X064 Rockomax Fuel Tank }

 

 

[fulgur]

Filter by Cross Sectional Area works, but not with all the mods I run.

The arrow right at the top of the part selector, then the top blue circle thing, then one of the size options.