Will there be procedural parts in ksp 2? Should there be?

[Superfluous J]

Just like in KSP(1) I think there should be a procedural INTERFACE to the static granular (Lego) part paradigm.

Place a tank, and procedurally drag it larger and smaller to snap between all the tanks you have currently unlocked, both by length AND width. Have the nosecones auto change to fit, but also let me set them manually (and procedurally) too. And let me change what engine is on the bottom without having to take the engine off and put on another one.

But letting me set the isp or twr or vacuum/atmo ratios of engines? No. No no no.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Superfluous J

[Gydra54]

Why not have procedural tanks but also have presets in the part picker. That way, new players and people that prefer building lego-like can still do that and completely ignore the procedural system, while those that do care can utilise it.

[Single stage to ocean]

Procedural parts kill the spirit of the game. The game is supposed to have you make do wit hwhat you have.

[eekee]

On 4/10/2021 at 3:32 PM, Bej Kerman said:

Making everything completely procedural might alienate people in the LEGO camp, but I don't see why all those tank profiles have to all be separate parts.

I grew up with LEGO. I absolutely think KSP should have procedural wings, fuel tanks and cargo bays. I've been balancing lifting-body spaceplanes by rearranging fuel tanks & cargo bays. It was a lot of work and repeatedly veered into the 'not fun' category. Wings -- to bridge gaps in the lifting-body structure or make the overall shape into a delta - would have been both much less work and neater if they were procedural.

Granted, if wings were procedural, I might never have discovered that wings buried in bodies still count for lift. What an interesting feature that is... Mweheheheheeeee

Quote

Procedural parts kill the spirit of the game. The game is supposed to have you make do wit hwhat you have.

I must disagree. Real-life making-do has always had a procedural element. Consider saws, knives, hammers, and just plain bending and snapping stuff.

Edited April 16, 2021 by eekee

[Jack Mcslay]

KSP's hard body physics relies on the craft having multiple parts in order to simulate flex so I don't expect to be able to generate huge parts procedurally. However it would be really useful if we were able to shorten fuel tanks and solid rocket boosters when the extra fuel is unnecessary.

Alternatively, I think there should be an interface that procedurally builds large wings and panels out of the currently unlocked parts, so we don't need to put it together one by one.

[eekee]

4 minutes ago, Jack Mcslay said:

I think there should be an interface that procedurally builds large wings and panels out of the currently unlocked parts, so we don't need to put it together one by one.

For wings, I want precise fitting with the shape of my craft. Procedurally building them out of parts wouldn't work. I want to place panels and trim them to fit. Otherwise, I agree with your post.

Thinking a bit more, what I really want for fuselages is to place lengths of generic fuselage and divide it into sections with different purposes: Passengers, fuel/ox, fuel only, cargo bay. However, this really would conflict with the found-parts theme described by Single stage to ocean above.

[Jack Mcslay]

14 minutes ago, eekee said:

For wings, I want precise fitting with the shape of my craft. Procedurally building them out of parts wouldn't work. I want to place panels and trim them to fit. Otherwise, I agree with your post.

Thinking a bit more, what I really want for fuselages is to place lengths of generic fuselage and divide it into sections with different purposes: Passengers, fuel/ox, fuel only, cargo bay. However, this really would conflict with the found-parts theme described by Single stage to ocean above.

If they were to implement the idea of being able to shrink existing parts down to an extent on wings you would still be able to get pretty precise on wing size as well.

Dividing fuselages into compartments seems like a pain to implement, although I think there could be 1-meter long fuselage housings as a better alternative to having cargo bays to put other parts inside.

[PlutoISaPlanet]

It is nice to have standard,but procedural parts definitely get in the way.

[determinationmaster]

ok, i guess they decided on procedural wings and nothing else, good choice.

[Dientus]

I agree. I sit in the pro procedural wings and tanks camp to keep part numbers low. Fuel tanks would have been nice but give and take you know? So I will gladly take the wings.

[K^2]

On 6/16/2021 at 8:56 AM, determinationmaster said:

ok, i guess they decided on procedural wings and nothing else, good choice.

I'm sure fairings will make a return. But yeah, I still want tanks. It'd be very easy to add and would make way more sense to have adjustable length of particular tank type than have separate parts that only differ by length.

[Terminal Velocity]

but isn't procedural wings coming? only wings though

[Ben J. Kerman]

I think procedural parts (Now that I think I know what they mean. Yes, I didn't know what procedural parts were until recently. Yeah, laugh it up.) would be nice in KSP 2 so you can make your craft look individualized, and mostly so you can have just the parts you need. Wings, definitely. Tanks, yes. Fairings, yes. Robotic parts, totally! (Please add robotic parts in KSP 2!!!!). Also, if they add robotic parts in KSP 2, I really hope they make parts that are similar to the servos from Breaking Ground, but 1 piece, non-floppy, shorter, and about 1 meter wide (a diameter range of 0.5 meters to 5 meters would be nice. I need parts that are like crane slew bearings. Why? Well, you need those kinds of parts in Kerbal Crane Simulator! )

Sorry, that quick rant should have gone in the KSP 2 suggestions section, but whatever. It will go there later.

[K^2]

3 hours ago, Rocketry101 said:

but isn't procedural wings coming? only wings though

Wings are confirmed, yeah. And I'm just guessing that there is no reason for fairings not to return. But we haven't heard or seen any indication of any other procedural parts so far.

We're pretty sure engines et cetera won't be procedural - might even have confirmation on that - but there is still possibility of other parts, and as I've said above, I'm holding fingers crossed for fuel tanks. Even if they just snap to the same sizes we would have gotten in KSP by stacking different lengths of the same tank type, that'd still be an improvement.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, K^2 said:

Wings are confirmed, yeah. And I'm just guessing that there is no reason for fairings not to return. But we haven't heard or seen any indication of any other procedural parts so far.

We're pretty sure engines et cetera won't be procedural - might even have confirmation on that - but there is still possibility of other parts, and as I've said above, I'm holding fingers crossed for fuel tanks. Even if they just snap to the same sizes we would have gotten in KSP by stacking different lengths of the same tank type, that'd still be an improvement.

This, I'm even against going fully procedural, but there's no reason to have every single tank length be its own separate part.

Procedural length with a slider that snaps with increments that are the smallest possible tank and goes up to the longest possible one.

Then it shoul have a selector for the content of the thank with the model changing accordingly (we have seen containers and we know there will be more than one resource to manage, so I'd say that this is a given).

That way you have 1 tank part for each possible diameter decluttering a lot the whole category.

[cubinator]

I want procedural wings and procedural tanks. The thing I dislike the most about the tanks in KSP is not being able to fill a regular tank with JUST liquid fuel for a NTR. You get less than half capacity by volume unless you clip parts. Being able to make a fuel tank with whatever fuel and length you want would be great.

[K^2]

13 hours ago, Master39 said:

Then it shoul have a selector for the content of the thank with the model changing accordingly

That one isn't as much of a want for me, but it's certainly a nice QoL feature. In some cases, just taking a working design and swapping out the fuel in a particular tank might be worthwhile, and it's certainly easier to change it in tank's settings than to replace the part.

[mattinoz]

14 hours ago, Master39 said:

This, I'm even against going fully procedural, but there's no reason to have every single tank length be its own separate part.

Procedural length with a slider that snaps with increments that are the smallest possible tank and goes up to the longest possible one.

Then it shoul have a selector for the content of the thank with the model changing accordingly (we have seen containers and we know there will be more than one resource to manage, so I'd say that this is a given).

That way you have 1 tank part for each possible diameter decluttering a lot the whole category.

Lego rockets had procedural tanks, ie I could build a tank as many modules long as I could find the pieces for. 

I really don't get why the approach above shouldn't be considered more lego not less. 

Agree fully it shouldn't be blanket procedural or no procedural it should depend on the part family and what makes sense to balance the game. If tanks and cargo bays are procedurally along with already confirmed wings then there can still be limits to length that could still be unlock as player advances. 

[reducing]

I'd love if the game had a procedural option for each part class. Something like a procedural pod would open up so much flexibility for design and reduce the number of parts needed to make a functional ship.

It extends the life of the game and makes it more interesting for experienced players, it also reduces part counts while providing better designs options. 

[StarSlay3r]

Hello! We recently created a new KSP 2 Suggestions & Development Discussion section, so we'll be moving all related posts (including this one) over there.

[OofPoof681]

On 4/9/2021 at 11:04 PM, Wubslin said:

There's obvious dos and don'ts, and some I think fall in a grey area. Fairings? Duh. Daedalus engines? No way. Aero surfaces and lengths of X diameter tanks? Well...

Personally I think it's really only parts that interface with high winds that should be given the time of day in terms of procedural building. Do you really need infinitely adjustable radiators and power plants? Just add more or use larger ones. We already get like three or four flavors of Orion engine. There's probably going to be enough part diversity. Wings and fairings, that's probably all that should be procedural.  How many times have YOU wanted to build a big wing and it ended up a game like shingling a roof?

 

P.S. we need high temp and low temp radiators, and panel mount versions of both

I'd love a mod that has a procedural Daedalus engine.

[determinationmaster]

On 4/10/2021 at 6:19 AM, mcwaffles2003 said:

No, there wont be. Yes, there should be.

actually, procedural wings are confirmed.

[mcwaffles2003]

2 minutes ago, determinationmaster said:

actually, procedural wings are confirmed.

If you look at the date I made this statement and compare it to when it was revealed procedural parts would be in the game.....

[Space Kerbalisation Tech]

procedural stuff would be nice, as this allows for more level of creativity for rocket building without making the part count really high (e.g. with procedural fuel tanks: if someone tried to build a 20m diameter rocket because moar boosters then there will be around 20-50parts. without procedural parts a rocket with 20m diameter using clustered tanks and farings would be 200+ parts. this will greatly reduce FPS), but one drawback is the texture. i have played with the mod procedural parts, and i think there needs to be some kind of major overhaul of procedural textures from that to be able to let it fit in nicely with stock ksp

[shdwlrd]

3 hours ago, Space Kerbalisation Tech said:

procedural stuff would be nice, as this allows for more level of creativity for rocket building without making the part count really high (e.g. with procedural fuel tanks: if someone tried to build a 20m diameter rocket because moar boosters then there will be around 20-50parts. without procedural parts a rocket with 20m diameter using clustered tanks and farings would be 200+ parts. this will greatly reduce FPS), but one drawback is the texture. i have played with the mod procedural parts, and i think there needs to be some kind of major overhaul of procedural textures from that to be able to let it fit in nicely with stock ksp

Ok, there will be procedural wings, because creating wings with Lego-like parts suck. But the idea of procedural tanks is either never going to happen or be very limited in scope. The problem with procedural tanks is the wide variety of diameters involved in the game. With a diameter range of 0.6m to 15+m, having procedural widths doesn't make sense. Adjustable lengths does make sense, but more than likely, it will be limited if the devs go that direction. Nate has said that they want to keep the Lego-like feel for the game. That would mean you will still have to stack tanks.