Imperial/Metric Discussion

[Alchemist]

If it wouldnt be a problem could we get a small button in the options menu to switch to imperial or United States customary measurements instead of metric

Why are you still using this nightmare? Sometimes when I see data in these I want to give the ansver in old Russian system ;D (something similar, but at least nobody really uses it nowadays)

Remembered an anecdode:

Airplane pilot contacts flight controller of the zone he enters. Transmits coordinaties, attitude... and ocassionally says 'altitude 30000 meters' (instead of 30000 feet)

The flight controller answers: '30000 meters? That\'s not for me. You should contact Baikonur'

[nivvydaskrl]

Why are you still using this nightmare? Sometimes when I see data in these I want to give the ansver in old Russian system ;D (something similar, but at least nobody really uses it nowadays)

Remembered an anecdode:

Airplane pilot contacts flight controller of the zone he enters. Transmits coordinaties, attitude... and ocassionally says 'altitude 30000 meters' (instead of 30000 feet)

The flight controller answers: '30000 meters? That\'s not for me. You should contact Baikonur'

Changing prevalent and government-mandated standards is very hard in this country -- people get really attached to 'the old way.' Instead, we get to learn the conversion factors in school.

[VFRHawk]

Is there an option to work without a pod at all? I\'ve been trying to launch satellites into orbit, and it\'s a tad unrealistic needing to get the sat AND a pod up there and the pod back again!

I guess I should just learn to mod the sat part into a pod, that\'d fix it as of the next release!

[feanor]

Is there an option to work without a pod at all? I\'ve been trying to launch satellites into orbit, and it\'s a tad unrealistic needing to get the sat AND a pod up there and the pod back again!

I guess I should just learn to mod the sat part into a pod, that\'d fix it as of the next release!

Indeed, that is the thing I\'d do. And will do, for a nice ICBM.

[LukeTim]

Is there an option to work without a pod at all? I\'ve been trying to launch satellites into orbit, and it\'s a tad unrealistic needing to get the sat AND a pod up there and the pod back again!

I guess I should just learn to mod the sat part into a pod, that\'d fix it as of the next release!

I guess that\'s gonna be more useful when we get saving and persistence... for now you can launch the satellite and just ignore the pod.

[VFRHawk]

Yeah, it just adds a chunk more mass than you need to be bothered with. Time to start digging into part modding methinks.

[LukeTim]

Yeah, it just adds a chunk more mass than you need to be bothered with. Time to start digging into part modding methinks.

That\'s a fair point. But yeah, changing the pod\'s mass to 0 should suffice for now.

[VFRHawk]

I\'ve just done it by copying most of the satellite I wanted to use cfg file and it\'s .dae file etc into the mk1 pod directory. That way, KSP loads the satellite I want automatically when I start the game. Must say, much easier getting that into a circular 100km orbit than the sat and the pod, and some way to de-orbit the pod!

[Rickenbacker]

Why are you still using this nightmare? Sometimes when I see data in these I want to give the ansver in old Russian system ;D (something similar, but at least nobody really uses it nowadays)

Remembered an anecdode:

Airplane pilot contacts flight controller of the zone he enters. Transmits coordinaties, attitude... and ocassionally says 'altitude 30000 meters' (instead of 30000 feet)

The flight controller answers: '30000 meters? That\'s not for me. You should contact Baikonur'

What, you don\'t appreciate the russian 'backwards' attitude indicator? They say it\'s actually better for situational awareness once you get used to it, but the one time I flew a russian plane it looked really odd to me.

But meters are pretty much the accepted unit these days, although if it\'s easy to add in support for feet and knots as an option, why not?

[Causeless]

I love how you act as if meters (metric) are the odd one out, when in fact feet (imperial) are...

Almost EVERYWHERE uses meters, essentially, except America... Scientists, even in America, use metric because it makes so much more sense. Imperial is pretty much just random scribbles as if everyone made their own measurement for each object, so they have little relation to each other. Metric makes sense because everything scales right.

[Ntmoore19]

If it wouldnt be a problem could we get a small button in the options menu to switch to imperial or United States customary measurements instead of metric (curse the american public school system) if not thats fine

1600 meters is a mile, 400 meters is a lap around an average football field track. If that helps.

[DeltaBravo]

It\'s easiest to simply not care what the measurement units are and simply go by what they mean in game if you find metric confusing.

[Animal Mother]

I love how you act as if meters (metric) are the odd one out, when in fact feet (imperial) are...

Almost EVERYWHERE uses meters, essentially, except America... Scientists, even in America, use metric because it makes so much more sense. Imperial is pretty much just random scribbles as if everyone made their own measurement for each object, so they have little relation to each other. Metric makes sense because everything scales right.

I do a lot of mountaineering so I rely on metric, but oddly in the UK, miles and MPH is used whilst driving

[Alchemist]

What, you don\'t appreciate the russian 'backwards' attitude indicator? They say it\'s actually better for situational awareness once you get used to it, but the one time I flew a russian plane it looked really odd to me.

About 'old Russian system' I meant measures like versta, arshin, pud, lokot\'. I\'m not too familiar with these, but British measures for the most of Europe are not much more known than these

And about attitude indicator the worst thing is switching from one to another - there was boeing crash somewhere in Russia several years ago. During manual landing the plane started tilting sideways, the pilot looked at avionics... and pulled the controls in the wrong direction, because he read the boeing\'s attitude indicator as it works in Russian plane :\'(

It\'s easiest to simply not care what the measurement units are and simply go by what they mean in game if you find metric confusing.

Especially when several m³ large tank weights about 2 kg

Once I had similar problem with one game - the aircraft\'s range was given in nm. I was thinking about 5 minutes, how it could be several hundreds nanometers, before I reallised it was in navy miles. ???

[Pita_146]

navy miles. ???

Nautical Miles.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Well, here we go for a new update:

New on 0.12:

* The VAB will now allow you to select a Command Module before starting a new ship.

WOOT!!!!!

[hobbified]

Almost EVERYWHERE uses meters, essentially, except America... Scientists, even in America, use metric because it makes so much more sense.

No, actually metric units frequently make less sense (and the scaling is all screwed up for historical reasons; cgs and mks are both broken in exciting ways that add random powers of ten to the answers of questions like 'how many liters in a cube a meter on a side?' or 'how many grams in a liter of water?'). Scientists just use them because they\'re common and sicentists have an especially strong interest in shared communication.

Imperial is pretty much just random scribbles as if everyone made their own measurement for each object, so they have little relation to each other. Metric makes sense because everything scales right.

I can\'t decide whether this is wrong or just meaningless nonsense, but there\'s no trace of a fact to be found in it.

[NovaSilisko]

There are three nations in the world that don\'t use metric.

Burma, Liberia, and the United States.

Besides, why the hell does 5,000 something feet make a mile? It\'s not even at all. It was based off some guy\'s foot for christ\'s sake.

[Epsilon]

There are three nations in the world that don\'t use metric.

Burma, Liberia, and the United States.

Besides, why the hell does 5,000 something feet make a mile? It\'s not even at all. It was based off some guy\'s foot for christ\'s sake.

5280. Look it up first.

[Causeless]

I do a lot of mountaineering so I rely on metric, but oddly in the UK, miles and MPH is used whilst driving

Yeah, I live in the UK so I\'m a bit used to it, but it is quite odd - the reason I imagine it hasn\'t been changed is because such a sudden change would be a major surprise - if I had my way, I would have a slow change - for example, standardize all the speeds to km (so instead of 70 mph, convert to km/h and round up to nearest 10) and then add this next to all the mph values on signs, push to make speedometers show km as the main value, etc, and slowly convert.

The reason it is the way it is, is just to stop old people complaining! ;P

Also hobbified, get back to your hole and realise that metric makes sense... 100 cm in a metre, 1000 metres in a km... Imperial is a random assortment of measurements. It\'s like inches are based off whoever thought of Imperial up\'s guys penis size, yards are this guys wanted size, miles are from some guys definition of 'over there' and feet are some bulgarian kings shoe size or something. NONE of it makes sense.

Oh and Epsilion, Nova said '5000 something', as in, around 5000. SO he\'s not technically wrong!

[Epsilon]

Oh and Epsilion, Nova said '5000 something', as in, around 5000. SO he\'s not technically wrong!

I know that, I never said he was wrong... I just wanted him to know what it really was.

I agree, the Imperial system is annoying to work with, and metric use is much easier.

Likewise, what you said is correct. In this day and age, altering the US standards to Metric would be a massive leap for us that would probably generate a lot of confusion.

[Kryten]

What makes \'this day and age\' any different from any other \'day and age\'?

The rest of the world managed it, after all.

[Epsilon]

What makes \'this day and age\' any different from any other \'day and age\'?

The rest of the world managed it, after all.

Don\'t take everything so literally.

Go and change the standards of some other country to imperial. Watch how easy that is and how many people approve.

[Aliv3]

Is it wrong to want to use something im familiar with instead of something that i was given a 5 minute lesson on in the 4th grade seriously i mean come on i just made a simple suggestion that may help a few players if you dont want it dont use it

[Causeless]

What makes \'this day and age\' any different from any other \'day and age\'?

The rest of the world managed it, after all.

It\'s not as easy as that. Here in the UK, it\'s taken around 40 years to get where we are with metric, yet we are still a long way off.

EDIT: Also, Aliv, we aren\'t saying you had a bad idea - it\'s a good idea, we are just kinda arguing about which one is best, and also kinda which should be default in a way. It should eventually be added though, as an option.