Workspaces

[J.Random]

1 minute ago, Bej Kerman said:

Why does it need to be added later?

Because you may work on a project and think "hm,, nice booster/rover/whatever, I may want to reuse it again". A month later, working on another project, in another workspace, you may remember "hm, I have that rover/booster/whatever, where was it?" Even if this C-C, C-V trick works, you'd have to save current workspace, find and load that old workspace, C-C, reload the new workspace, C-V. Loading a previously saved subassembly directly from a library without having to reload workspaces would be simpler.

[Dakota]

I mentioned this to @Vl3d in Discord, but I've started a conversation with the team about how saves/workspaces are setup and named - so they know there's a good bit of confusion around it. We're going to look to help clear this up either with a short written tutorial, or maybe eventually an in-game explanation.

[Vl3d]

11 minutes ago, Dakota said:

I mentioned this to @Vl3d in Discord, but I've started a conversation with the team about how saves/workspaces are setup and named - so they know there's a good bit of confusion around it. We're going to look to help clear this up either with a short written tutorial, or maybe eventually an in-game explanation.

Thank you!

13 minutes ago, J.Random said:

Loading a previously saved subassembly directly from a library without having to reload workspaces would be simpler.

I agree - we should be able to group and name vehicles / assemblies inside workspaces. And it would be great if these objects keep their staging order and action groups.

[whatsEJstandfor]

If I see the phrase "project workspace snapshot" one more time I'm going to have a stroke

[Geredis]

5 hours ago, Dakota said:

I mentioned this to @Vl3d in Discord, but I've started a conversation with the team about how saves/workspaces are setup and named - so they know there's a good bit of confusion around it. We're going to look to help clear this up either with a short written tutorial, or maybe eventually an in-game explanation.

Another significant issue on this topic that we have is just how messy and cluttered and entirely unintuitive the screencaps of the workshop spaces are. If you could arrange everything nice and neat in the workspace and give us a standardized angle to take an image from, that'd help things so, so, much. As it stands it just looks messy and more than a little amateurish that a random workspace screenshot would suffice to tell us what we're looking at, doubly so when workspace/vehicle naming is in the state that it's in. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Geredis

[Drakenred65]

2 hours ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

If I see the phrase "project workspace snapshot" one more time I'm going to have a stroke

Hey guys let's start calling it to the Craft And Subassembly Hanger.

 

CASH for short so he we can say no there's no money, but check your CASH

Edited March 2, 2023 by Drakenred65
C was beter

[Initar]

Why not use a folder system, or categories of sub assemblies like in ksp1? This workspace mumbo-jumbo is not only confusing a lot of people, but possibly dangerous: I suspect if one of your crafts gets corrupted or a mod is removed, it might mess up the whole file and destroy several of your crafts instead of one.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Initar

[Angeloftruth]

On 3/1/2023 at 3:51 PM, Vl3d said:

No! In the game that is called the "vehicle". The "workspace" is just a snapshot (a save) of your current work on the Vehicle (Project). It's very bad naming.

The term "workspace" is not the root for the saves. Workspaces are the saves (iterations)! The root under which the saves live is the "vehicle". The in-game "vehicle" term refers to the whole project you're working on. And the term "workspace" refers to the snapshot save of your work progress.

Very confusing choice of concept names!

I came here to try and understand why I was deleting my vehicles by mistake - now I think I understand. Thanks! Yes the devs need to change that .

[OrbitalManeuvers]

I thought I'd add my beef with the workspaces ...

Here's the model we've all grown up with:

• you open a document
• you modify the document
• you click something labeled "save" and the document is permanently updated
• importantly, this "save" action presents no user interface, and requires no user interaction beyond the invocation of the action

Open -> Modify -> Save is not the same thing as Open -> Modify -> Save As, and shouldn't be treated the same. 

Open -> Modify -> Save is not the same thing as New -> Modify -> Save, and shouldn't be treated the same.

Follow me here:

1. I click the Open toolbar button
2. Ignoring the fact that what appears is utterly anti-user, I select what I think is the thing I want
3. I add 4 RCS jets to my craft
4. I click the Save toolbar button
5. The UI from hell is presented

This should silently save whatever the thing is that I loaded. I should not be prompted for anything - I literally just opened a thing, just save that same thing.

 

 

[Lyneira]

Agreed. Some workflow inspiration from productivity tools like document editors could make for UI improvements here.

And especially consistency in that when I open a document (workspace), I expect the name of the workspace and the vehicle to remain the same as long as I don't make any active effort to change it. iirc, that currently happens silently if you merge a workspace into the one you're working on.

Then there is the split between workspace name and vessel name. I originally thought the vessel name was supposed to be saved per assembly, but that is not the case. If it's not per assembly, it should be linked to the workspace. But this seems to be inconsistent as well, as there are situations where your vessel name gets silently changed too. Maybe it's when I switch the active (launch) vessel, or again when merging workspaces.

Document editors also helpfully show whether you have unsaved changes with a little asterisk next to the file name:

Copy of Untitled Document.ods*

Coupled with the above suggestion of making open -> modify -> save require no user interaction, this allows the user to quickly save the workspace and open something new without being presented with a dialog like "you have unsaved changes, are you sure?"

Speaking of which, if the user does have unsaved changes, the editor should warn the user when attempting to start a new workspace or open another one. If there are no unsaved changes, there should be no warning prompt.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Lyneira

[The Aziz]

It's clear that the UX needs work and current implementation is rough.

But the general idea of a workspace isn't wrong in itself, trouble is, it's now projecting the same problems KSP1 had, as in, throwing you into the middle of a lake with four planks and a string and telling you to work your way to make a raft and get to the shore.

[dr.phees]

Warning: I need to use the word idiotic.

I think the whole concept of workspaces is idiotic.

Why?

If you have to explain this and in that discussion several people come to completely different outcomes, as a game designer you have clearly failed.

Granted, I only 'play' KSP 2 quickly after an update and so far it couldn't capture my interest/calm my frustration enough to get interested. But the workspace/vehicle name concept is completely lost on me. It is unclear how the devs want it to be used, it is totally unique to KSP 2, different from any other game (which isn't bad per se). I overwrote two vehicles in the process and it utterly baffling that they thought this to be a good idea.

I like the idea of having more than one craft/assembly in place, but this is one of the worst solutions to the problem. Having a system that must be explained and is hard to understand may be OK for a version control system, where the thing is the product, but handling craft saves should be a no-brainer. Players want to build space craft, they don't want to keep thinking about the correct way to save and not overwrite other saves.

Honestly: This is completely bonkers, nay, I say it again: Idiotic.

[Angeloftruth]

Yes, dr. phees. I agree.

I've overwritten my craft a few times again! - even after trying to be careful 

[The Aziz]

I started my adventure with 3D modeling in Maya. Then switched to Blender and guess what, at start I didn't understand it either.

Also, how is overwriting a workspace different from overwriting a craft file in KSP1? It's the same thing.

Edited May 16, 2023 by The Aziz

[OrbitalManeuvers]

How about this one ... how do I get a vessel from one workspace into another?

 

edit: meh, ok, copy/paste. but that's not in the interface.

Edited May 16, 2023 by OrbitalManeuvers

[The Aziz]

Exactly like you would copy a piece of text from one document to another. It's not weird.

[OrbitalManeuvers]

4 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Exactly like you would copy a piece of text from one document to another. It's not weird.

sure, if the rest of the experience also mimics the standard document model ... which it absolutely does not.

[The Aziz]

How so? If you save a document (workspace) under the same name as the one already existing, it will overwrite the previous one.

Is there something else that doesn't match?

[OrbitalManeuvers]

34 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Is there something else that doesn't match?

Feel free to scroll up a little to my post on saturday for my thoughts.

[Pat20999]

I think it should be able to turn workspace on and off, if you just got ONE vessel.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Pat20999

[The Aziz]

What would be the difference then?

[Heretic391]

I've been using workspaces like craft files. I get confused with the auto saves when I want to load a craft too. Ksp1 crafts where way simpler, though I like having multiple assemblies in one workspace, the issue that comes up is performance when you have a couple large rockets