Extended Center Of Thrust Line / options

[Geonovast]

I think it would be really handy to have an extended Center Of Thrust line for the purpose of lining up the CoT/CoM.  Some kind of visual indicator (like the CoM ball changing color) when they're lined up would be a nice bonus.

Something like this:

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Another change to the CoT system I would like to see if for it to show CoT for the first stage ONLY.  Not every engine on the craft.  I can't tell you how annoying it is to find the CoT of a single stage by adjusting the thrust limiters on everything else.  It would be significantly better to simply move the stages around than messing with the limiters on possibly dozens of engines.

A "thrust range" taking into account gimble would be pretty sweet too, but that's probably a bit much.  Although being able to gimble the engines and watch the CoT change in real time would be incredible..

 

And yes, I know, I know, I know that all of this is probably capable of being done with mods / has been done already.  I think at least the extended CoT would be an appropriate addition to stock.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Absolutely a great idea, for a mod or for stock.

I'll take it anyway I can get it!

[pandaman]

Good idea.  

As you said, it could get quite fiddly when displaying this for selected and multiple stages, but i would assume the information and basic formulae are there because of what it displays already.   It would just need an easy way to filter the stages you want it to calculate for (click the engine icons in the stage display?) Then work it out and draw the line.

Sounds fairly easy, but i expect there are things that make it less straightorward than it appears.

 

[Aeroboi]

Very good suggestion, always wanted this, strange I haven't suggested this before myself.

Another thing, Sometimes i have cargo and a engine inside a service bay that is added to the alignment of the center of thrust indicator while it isn't part of the propulsion system to which the purple arrow should be drawn from.

So engines that aren't part of the 1st stage and can't produce thrust because they're blocked inside a service/cargo bay shouldn't be added to the thrust vector the Center of thrust indicator calculates.

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[FleshJeb]

On 5/11/2019 at 12:21 AM, pandaman said:

It would just need an easy way to filter the stages you want it to calculate for

The way you get around this with RCS Build Aid is to move the stage you want to the bottom of the staging list. It's not necessarily obvious, but it works.

Edited May 13, 2019 by FleshJeb