Removing the flow state button

[SuperWeegee4000]

Just recently (this is also in the bug reports section), I landed a rover on the Mun. Soon after, I completely ruined the mission by accidentally clicking the "flowstate" button - shown here:

This button appears to serve no purpose other than to kill rovers. Why is it there? That is all.

[BeefTenderloin]

In case you have fuel in a refueling station that you require not to be used in an engine, or fuel used as a ballast.

[brians200]

This is a horrible suggestion. It has many functions, like preventing fuel and rcs from being taken from tanks that need it at other points in the mission.

For example, if you attach you have fuel tank -> docking port -> docking port -> fuel tank -> engine, when you fire the engine, both of those tanks will have their fuel drained. However, you probably wanted to use the fuel on the other side of the docking port for something else.

[astropapi1]

if you want to use fuel tanks as counterweights or drain all the oxidizer from one.

[pokeman]

I've had more than 1 ship with probe control as backup and due to insufficient power generation decided to save the probes electricity until i needed it, so it does have a use in some situations.

[Anton P. Nym]

Fuel flow adjustment makes a couple of my spaceplanes flyable after re-entry; if not for the ability to reserve fuel in the forward tanks, they'd be completely unstable then because of the CoM shift that comes from having burnt all the rocket propellant. I would definitely miss this feature should it be removed.

-- Steve

[SuperWeegee4000]

This is a horrible suggestion. It has many functions, like preventing fuel and rcs from being taken from tanks that need it at other points in the mission.

For example, if you attach you have fuel tank -> docking port -> docking port -> fuel tank -> engine, when you fire the engine, both of those tanks will have their fuel drained. However, you probably wanted to use the fuel on the other side of the docking port for something else.

No need to tell me it's "horrible." If they can't remove it, they could ad some confirmation menu, something.

[Rockhem]

Just don't click it. There will still be people who say WAAAAAA!!!!! because on the end flight debate there was even a confirmation window yet people still cried.

i don't want to have to go through a confirmation window when i have to do that to 25 different fuel tanks.

[Mr. Scruffy]

The real problem is that you disabled the flow on your only control-module, right? How about disabling the button for the last active control-module, then?

[Scoundrel]

No need to tell me it's "horrible." If they can't remove it, they could ad some confirmation menu, something.

I completely sympathize with your errant mouseclick, especially since I too have accidentally clicked it while trying to shut down a probe's reaction wheel to keep my duna rovers from flipping. Now, while I do not think a confirmation box for all flow state buttons is a good idea, I do believe that for probe cores there should be some sort of "are you sure?" button, simply because if you click it, that's it. It's dead Jim.

[Mr. Scruffy]

On the risk of repeating myself: And why not simply disallow disabling the last active probe core?

Like in: The button is clicked - > it´s a probe core -> there is no other probe core online on this craft right now -> ignore click.

[boxman]

This is your fault and your suggestion would ruin the game for people who actually use this feature.

I think it is bad enough that they removed the end flight button just because a minority accidentally click on it.

[m4v]

Batteries of probe cores shouldn't have a flow button IMO. This is a toggleable option that in some situations can lead to a deadlock, you can't go back to the previous state without editing the persistent file, so is an usability issue.

[SuperWeegee4000]

This is your fault and your suggestion would ruin the game for people who actually use this feature.

I think it is bad enough that they removed the end flight button just because a minority accidentally click on it.

I don't think you're being particularly nice right now. It was just a suggestion; I wasn't aware that this feature was used.

[allmappedout]

This is your fault and your suggestion would ruin the game for people who actually use this feature.

I think it is bad enough that they removed the end flight button just because a minority accidentally click on it.

Also, whilst your post is both combative and unhelpful, the End Flight wasn't removed because people accidentally clicked on it, it was because Squad wanted a more realistic approach to handling flights. Ships don't just disappear, and they wanted to build in a bit of consistency. As a result, you now have to think about saving your Kerbals and making things safer and more able to be deorbited.

[Superfluous J]

I think the best solution is to enable that button regardless of if you have a "thinking" craft or not. It's easy to image a failsafe where the power button is on its own little power supply and waiting for a command from the ground to turn back on, or even on a timer that runs at the speed of necessity.

[OdinYggd]

It's really a design flaw on the part of the rover. Because you only had a single battery- that of the probe core, turning it off resulted in complete loss of electrical power.

Best practice is to use at least two batteries at all times, even if they are tiny ones it ensures that you won't have this happen.

The only real KSP feature I could suggest related to this issue is making it so that if the vessel is uncontrollable, all attached batteries are automatically enabled in an attempt to get power to a control device.

Edited August 10, 2013 by OdinYggd

[Wice]

I use this button quite a lot and I'd hate to see it go...