Resource Manager Parts Organization

[Fermentation]

I would like to see some improvement in the parts organization of the resource manager.   

My typical use case for the resource manager is to control a fuel transfer between vessels after docking.   Currently, when two vessels are docked, all of the fuel takes are grouped together, and if you have lots of small fuel tanks, it can be tedious to select all of the fuel tanks and configure them as Inputs and Outputs.   I would like to see the fuel tanks organized as into a tree  structure with the ability to select all fuel tanks parented to a specific vessel ( or arbitrary user-designated groups)

• Resources
  • Space Station   [ in  ] [ out X]
    • Tank 1     [ in ] [ out x ]
    • Tank 2     [ in ] [ out x ]
    • ...
    • Tank N    [ in ] [ out x]
  • Docking Vessel [ in x] [ out ]
    • Tank A      [ in ] [ out ]
    • Tank B      [ in ] [ out ]
    • ...
    • Tank N     [ in ] [ out ]

Further,  visually, it would be interesting to color code, highlight, or label the ship parts in the 'ship' view to indicate which takes are included in the fuel transfer, and the direction of fuel flow.     

[Donkey32]

I'd like to be able to group tanks together in the Parts Manager to make "virtual tanks" for these purposes.

 

[Lyneira]

Virtual tanks (could also call them tank groups or metatanks) that can be named would greatly help with fuel transfer between a docked craft and a space station, both of which may have many tanks!

But it does lead to new questions such as this one: Suppose you have a spaceplane with a tank group "MunTransfer", what should happen if you dock two identical ones (or two different craft which both happen to have a MunTransfer tank group) to a space station and you try to transfer fuel from it? Maybe you'd want to refill  the MunTransfer tank group for both, or maybe just one?

One solution could be to treat each assembly's tank group separately in the resource manager, but that might not be what you want if you're creating an interplanetary ship out of multiple launches docked together and you actually want each subassembly's tank group to merge together.

[Donkey32]

Good!! I'd not thought of that.
One idea is to have a tag (button) near the name that means "set this group together with others of the same name" or not.

Somewhere in the controls needs to be a way to set fuel flow/priority within tanks and virtual tank groups. The ability to  control how fuel flows, which tanks empty/fill first for keeping the COM consistent and other jobs is rather important. Seems most appropriately done in the Resource Manager but because of the natural order of operations, I'd make those settings while setting up my tank groups. Seems like it would be best to do this within one menu system rather than juggling two or more. I'm now wondering what the best arrangement of functionality in the menus would be.

Edited March 22, 2023 by Donkey32

[Donkey32]

First attach the tanks, then group and name them, then set fuel flow/priority while balancing the ship's COL/COM.
These activities require easy (simultaneous) control at both the Parts Manager and Resource Manager, the way the menus are currently defined (edit: that is, currently defined with our ideas tacked on ). Also needed is easy access to views of the COM, COL, COT with a slider to play through fuel use, from full wet to full dry weight.
Setting up RCS goes right along with the above and all of these tend to get readjusted a whole lot as the vessel gets tweaked.

It would be nice to have fewer windows, boxes and menus to negotiate, rather than more.

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Donkey32