Micro-assembly in space.

[spectrhz]

I'm sure this has been thought of, and would definitely be a much later feature however I think that being able to carry out small assembly procedures in space would be awesome. Example, you really need a docking port or you forgot an antenna, you would be able to launch a craft that has parts in it for later attachment to your main vehicle. Obviously this would only be for small things, it doesn't really make sense to have an EVA kerbal attaching the big orange tanks, but just small things that you may have forgotten or overlooked in the VAB. This also falls under enhance eva activities but I thought I would expand on it. Let me know what you think

[ravener]

Or we could get a fullblown orbital build mode where you build like in the vab but only with available parts.

[Beeman]

I'd be totally okay with that, using parts and things to attach small parts to a vessel. Though I'd be happy with them adding just about any EVA activity XD

[sumghai]

The ability to have VAB/SPH-style construction whilst in the flight scene would be quite welcome - one example that comes to mind is the shipping of truss segments into orbit for assembly onto a large space station.

My understanding is that the Romfarer's Lazor System and Kerbal Attachment System mods both have rudimentary forms of welding/attaching parts in EVA, and could benefit from using attachment nodes / orientation keypresses.

I'd be curious to see who gets to this goal first, SQUAD or the modding community.

[betaking]

no it shouldn't be like build mode on the ground.

that would be too simple and too easy.

It should be like Kerbal Attachment System or something like that.

with welding and ect.

the point being that it would show the difficulty and lack of luxury of building something in orbit.

[spectrhz]

yes, it wouldn't be a full blown orbital VAB mode, but just for small parts or truss segments. I was thinking along the lines of the lazor welding in eva, but with symmetry and some semi-VAB esque things.

Edited August 24, 2013 by spectrhz

[Morrigi]

Build mode as it is on the ground could work if it was done properly. First, getting the parts or representations of the parts (a resource called "Rocket Parts" or somesuch) into orbit would be required. Second, perhaps some kind of shipyard-like module would be needed.

If possible, perhaps it would take time to complete as well.

[John FX]

The thing I want to do which drew me to this thread is to have a rover in two parts, balanced for flight, that can be assembled once landed so you could have two parts of a rover on either side of an engine that then drop and are assembled by kerbals once the mission has landed. (for more accurate apollo missions where the rover was curled up AFAIK then reassembled on the moon)

This links nicely to the suggestion for EVA to allow you to reattach parts by welding that had been knocked off during the mission