Three additions I would desperately like to see in the construction UI.

[Captain_Xandy]

Most of these additions are concerned with flying/building space planes, but could also be nice when building a rocket.

Display total mass: I would be wonderfully pleased if there were a small display that indicated the total mass of the rocket or space plane that you are building, especially when combined with the next addition.

Toggle between full fuel tanks and empty: When building a space plane, it's nearly impossible to guess where the center of mass will be when the tanks are empty, which for me, frequently results in spinning wildly out of control and falling out of the sky. If the center of mass when empty were displayed, it would be easy to place the center of lift between the full and empty centers of mass and made controlled descent much easier.

Center of Drag Display: I would give my right arm to be able to find the center of drag when I am building a space plane. Currently, I need to resort to trial and error to get the center of drag behind the center of mass, and a simple dot would make things much easier to deal with.

I hope I'm not the only one who would like to see these additions to the game, as I think they would be very good to have and would make he game more enjoyable.

[Supernovy]

Hopefully Tweakables will allow full/empty CoM toggle in a roundabout way via setting tanks as empty.

I must agree with the centre of drag thing, although perhaps they're wanting to wait for better aerodynamics before adding it in? (or perhaps centre of pressure in its place)

You can find a total mass display in the map view, but that is only in flight. Using it to guide construction of a ship is possible, but possibly annoying due to the large amount of scene transitions that would have to take place.

[LethalDose]

I could be wrong, wouldn't a "center of drag" be conditional on the craft's angle of attack and velocity? For example, wouldn't a spaceplane's center of drag would be different if it was flying level at 300 m/s vs level and falling straight down? In a static environment like the VAB/Hangar, I feel like a static "dot" that wouldn't mean much.

They could just add a wind tunnel building to test these things, though. Settings could allow for different atmospheric densities, velocity and allow typical flight controls to alter direction. It would be a handy way to see just how fast you can be going when you deploy your chute without snapping it off, adjusting flight characteristics, etc.

Totally with you on the first point: PLEASE give us total mass on the construction.

Haven't had a need for the second one yet.

Edited November 12, 2013 by LethalDose

[LethalDose]

Actually, HarvesteR has already thought of the wind tunnel facility. Check the 5th or so post on this thread here.

Edited November 12, 2013 by LethalDose