Suggestion for Workspace/Vehicle Craft File Organization

[Presto200]

A lot of people have been frustrated with the way the game handles craft files, there is a lot of confusion around the differences between workspace save names and vehicle save names. The developers have talked about this and are not satisfied with the way it is coming across to players. 

From what I have gathered from interviews and such is that the original idea was that vehicle name is the name you want it to be called, but workspace name is for you to be able to save versions of the same vehicle. So you can have different workspace saves for V1.0, V2.0, V3.0 ect... having a name for each can allow you to recognize what was added each time or what was changed. Anyways it was made to have a separate save for each time you need to improve your design.

This is how the craft file saves work currently:

As you can see if I had many more versions of this ship (I just made this craft to explain this post) the screen gets very cramped and seems wasteful. Also it isn't shown in the save but I named the vehicle name "My Ship" for all of these but it just shows the workspace name. Another thing to point out, It puts them all in alphabetical order instead of order they were created, you can see the "design process" throughout but they are placed randomly in the craft file folder. This could be done so much better.

 

Now I think the idea behind the system is great but the implementation is lacking as stated by a lot of the community. My idea to improve this system is to instead of making a new save space for each implementation, it would be a drop down with the vehicle name as the base name and then the drop down will show each workspace. It would look something like this:

I don't know how to make something legitimate so please use your imagination.  It would pretty much be something that looks like a single craft file above that would have the vehicle name and image/date/time of the most recent (or selected default version) and then you could click a drop down on it to reveal all the workspace names/ versions of the craft in the drop down you could also set which workspace you want to be your default load. The idea would be if you click the large image vehicle name then it loads your default workspace.

I think this would be the best way to go about organizing all the craft files while keeping the functionality of getting to save  multiple versions of a craft without changing its vehicle name

It should also let you rename your vehicle names and workspace names

[steveman0]

I like this and wanted to add that it'd really help clean up all of the autosave workspaces that get saved as separate copies that inevitably get saved over as the original, but not actually the original such that they get retained as permanent duplicate copies.

[Presto200]

1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

I like this and wanted to add that it'd really help clean up all of the autosave workspaces that get saved as separate copies that inevitably get saved over as the original, but not actually the original such that they get retained as permanent duplicate copies.

I completely forgot about autosave when making this post, thats a great point! I think this system is the best way to go about this issue but would be open to any other ideas, pretty much anything is better than saving everything separately

[Presto200]

I’m hoping others can give opinions or suggestions of other systems

[Fizzlebop Smith]

I think was well thought out. 

I use the workspace for 'in process' designs. 

Pieces string out all over the place. Sub Assemblies I wanna add. Sometimes you have to pull the much of the rocket apart and your way would allow be to select the appropriate drop down (w/ preview).

 

The management system is not intuitive.  Vessel names should allow for iterations of the same name but workspace would require unique naming.

Additionally I would like to say this structure is mirrored in the sub folder showing the .json, .meta, .png file for ships with folders by vehicle.

If full redesign of system is too much.. your organizational idea could be done with folder / sub folder

A vehicle parent with separate workspace could replace the current system without an overhaul.

Menu A -- vehicle Names

Sub Menu (vehicle) -- Workspaces

 

Currently the system is very messy, is there a way to edit a .cfg and turn autosave off?

Edited March 21 by Fizzlebop Smith

[sgt_flyer]

I think there's also a problem with having no subassembly tab like in KSP1 - currently, the workspace can basically serve for storing subassemblies, which is quite tedious compared to the ease of use of KSP1 subassembly tab.
(However, KSP1 Subassemblies were saved globally)

it seems the Workspaces are currently supposed to try to tackle Folders,Versionning and subassemblies all in one.

What i thought about it :
it could be nice to get back to 1 craft Workspace = 1 Ship, (however, custom Subfolders or custom Tagging would be needed for sorting ships), which would be less confusing i think.

in this version, the current workspace menu would only be there to allow you to manage Versionning and / or subfolder/tagging.:
i would say at least 1 or 2 autosaves (in case of game crash) and 3 manual saves back (so you could revert in case you saved your craft after you deleted something)
The name of the workspace would be the name of the ship (like in ksp1)
The workspace could also save the name and / or ID of the currently loaded "world" (so you could easily hide rockets that have been created in other "worlds")

Then, return of the subassembly tabs in the assembly building, However, you could have 2 subassembly tabs instead of 1 :
- 1 Global subassembly tab (only subject to the whole game save - similar to the one in KSP1), (easy sharing of small parts, like custom RCS clusters between workspaces)
- 1 Per craft save subassembly tab (so you could store for exemple side boosters for a specific rocket, so you could customise the rocket by swapping boosters, like Ariane 4 or Delta IV)
Subfolders for subassemblies tabs could be a plus, but i don't think it would be that much needed. However, naming the subassemblies could be useful.

When Merging workspaces, you could be allowed to pick what you want to merge :
Craft, per craft subassemblies, or both.