(Solved) How is a workspace intended to be used?

[Superluminaut]

I found an interview with Nate Simpson explaining how this works.  https://youtu.be/d6db1-dILgM?si=Q_GthA6T536iIJ5h

The "workspace file name" is the name of the file on your computer.

The "vehicle name" is the name of your rocket in game.

 

Original post ---

Each workspace has a name.

Each vehicle has a name.

A workspace can only contain one vehicle.

When you load a file it gives you the workspace name.

When you save a file it gives you the vehicle name to overwrite.

When you merge files, you merge workspaces.

 

My first impression was, a workspace allows you to build variations of a vehicle. Like a rocket family. However you can only have one vehicle in a workspace.

Is the intent that you're suppose to merge payload workspaces into a vehicles workspace and then combine them? Why then can you swap assembly anchor?

It feels like "assembly anchor" should be called "vehicle", and you should be able give each one a unique name. A workspace now contains multiple vehicles. You then merge other vehicles from other workspaces into your active workspace to add to the list of vehicles.

 

For example.

"Apollo workspace" (contains vehicles)

• Saturn V
• Command/service module
• LEM
• Apollo–Soyuz

Merge skylab from "space station workspace" into "apollo workspace".

But this is not possible.

 

I'm not sure what the intent here is...

Does anyone know?

Edited March 3 by Superluminaut

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

16 minutes ago, Superluminaut said:

Does anyone know?

No - and sometimes I can't find saved vehicles in the same 'save game' file I just left.  It's weird and needs explication.

[DeltaDave]

I'm glad I'm not alone here. I couldn't figure out how the devs intended it to be used for organizing things, so it's just one big mess for the moment. I've even accidentally overwritten a workspace by ignoring a save warning thinking it meant the ship itself and not the workspace. Some explanation would be helpful.

[Bej Kerman]

15 hours ago, Superluminaut said:

My first impression was, a workspace allows you to build variations of a vehicle. Like a rocket family. However you can only have one vehicle in a workspace.

"you can only have one vehicle in a workspace"?

[IronGremlin]

3 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

"you can only have one vehicle in a workspace"?

Yes, one NAME, anyway. As of right now there doesn't seem to be a way to give separate assemblies separate names.

 

 

15 hours ago, Superluminaut said:

 

I'm not sure what the intent here is...

Does anyone know?

I'm not 100% sure, but I -think- this system is partially implemented.

Like all the bits where you can "merge" workspaces together seem to more or less function, you CAN build multiple vehicles etc. in the workspace and only launch the ones that are selected, but you don't seem to be able to save individual assemblies with different names yet - so you get one name for all of the craft/bits & bobs that are in the workspace, which means you also don't get to "pick them out of" a workspace individually / move them around.

At least for now I think you're stuck saving what is essentially a multi-craft file as a single craft, which is still more flexible than what we got in KSP 1 at least.

Based on some of the drama you get when you dock / undock right now, I'm guessing they still haven't fully sorted out how to handle handing off / assigning the new root part when one craft becomes two, so it would follow that being able to do similar stuff in the VAB isn't quite ready for prime time -

EG, if you wanted to have an apollo mission, with the launch vehicle, the command module, and the LEM, I don't think they've finished working out the logic that would let the game know when the launch vehicle "hands off" to the command module, hence naming them all separately wouldn't really do a whole lot aside from making the glitches even more obvious.

[Bej Kerman]

1 minute ago, IronGremlin said:

14 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

"you can only have one vehicle in a workspace"?

Yes, one NAME, anyway. As of right now there doesn't seem to be a way to give separate assemblies separate names.

Yes, that's weird that vehicle names are tied to workspaces and not the vehicles in a workspace, but workspaces were introduced to let you put multiple vehicles in your space and save them together.

[The Aziz]

Ingame naming is confusing and badly implemented, but basically:

You have a workspace, which you can load and save in VAB, you can have multiple assemblies inside one. Despite the fact that load/save screen says "vehicle" it's still about workspace. You can have there whatever you want as long as you can name it properly (Workspace name), be it one family of rockets, pieces of space station, or a payload with 10 different launch vehicles, whatever. Merging workspaces joins everything you currently have on screen with everything the other workspace has. Thankfully, there's a Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V option, where you can simply copy the entire vehicle to the clipboard and paste it elsewhere, including notepad file. So there's no need to merge workspaces if all you want to do is to copy a certain craft.

Now, your "vehicle name" (more about it later) is the one you have chosen at the moment for launch - the green flag with a rocket above the root part, you've seen it. That's something that needs improvement fairly soon, because:

Vehicle is what you load if you launch straight through launchpad/runway. That's where you see the vehicle name, the one you chosen for save and launch earlier. The problem is, currently you can only have one saved vehicle name per workspace, as far as I'm concerned. So that's broken at the moment.

So in essence, for VAB what matters is workspace name, and you have to make sure not to overwrite it unless you want to lose previous builds. Vehicle name only matters for Launchpad, and it's borked.

[schlosrat]

I wonder if this has anything to do with why I get some weird vehicle names when launching. For example, I have a workspace caller Large Rover. If I select the craft in it (there’s only one) and launch I may find that what’s out on the pad is Large Rover-4, or Large Rover-18, or whatever. I think when I press Launch I’m generating an auto named instance of the selected craft.

Now keep in mind that even if KSP didn’t do this it would still be able to keep track of things that seem to have the exact same name since there’s a unique ID the game will also give it, and the human readable name is really just cosmetic

[The Aziz]

Yeah it just adds number for every launch of the same vehicle (Apollo, STS, Soyuz, SpaceX's CRS or Crew etc) lets you keep track of how many of those you already launched. Cosmetic and not exactly useful in any way but nice to have.

[ctbram]

one ship per workspace makes no sense at all to me and I feel that this is simply not implemented yet.  Currently I just treat Workspace and my unique vehicle name.

I tried implementing Workspace as class of ship - Space, Lander, Probe, Station ,,, and then Name as a ship in that class.  What I ended up with was every new ship in my class just overwrote the last ship I saved.  I'd go into load and the previous ship in Lander for instance would be gone and I would have the last ship saved as Lander.  You can name a ship but it does not show up anywhere in the load screen.

In any event, this is incredibly confusing and has caused me to lose at least 10 ship designs.  It needs to be fixed or put into the training room so they can demonstrate how the hell it is intended to  be used!!!!!!

[Superluminaut]

I found the solution. Update original post with it.