Flags are not "Flights in Progress"

[rpayne88]

This might be an urban myth, but apparently Buzz Aldrin reported seeing the American flag get blown over by the engine exhaust upon liftoff.

Maybe we can convince NASA to launch a mission back there to retire said flag (I've been told that if a flag touches the ground it should be ceremoniously destroyed) and replace it.

[Sirine]

I think lots of people missing the point here.

OP just want that "flight in progress" at the Beginning Load Game Screen to be remove. Nothing to do with any in game content.

[LethalDose]

Ugh. This. I hate that the flags show up as "flights" in the load screen.

[Luckless]

Personally I would like to be able to set flags to groups.

All flag groups are toggled off on load, and groups can be toggled on and off as the player wishes like other classes of objects.

Why would you want to change a flags group? When you are trying to accurately land somewhere again it is helpful to have a marker, but also helpful to not have the five dozen other landing site markers you have on Mun showing and cluttering things up.

Group them by mission type or whatever the player pleases. Creating new groups should be easy and flexible. Maybe even be able to have a flag be in multiple groups. The setting for it can be a popup window, and each flag group is a check box, just tick off each group you want it to appear in, if any groups a flag is part of are shown, then that flag is show even if it belongs to another group that is hidden.

[Ratfink]

Personally I would like to be able to set flags to groups.

All flag groups are toggled off on load, and groups can be toggled on and off as the player wishes like other classes of objects.

Why would you want to change a flags group? When you are trying to accurately land somewhere again it is helpful to have a marker, but also helpful to not have the five dozen other landing site markers you have on Mun showing and cluttering things up.

Group them by mission type or whatever the player pleases. Creating new groups should be easy and flexible. Maybe even be able to have a flag be in multiple groups. The setting for it can be a popup window, and each flag group is a check box, just tick off each group you want it to appear in, if any groups a flag is part of are shown, then that flag is show even if it belongs to another group that is hidden.

Completely agree! Also being able to group the flags by the flag icon type. I like to have a different flag for different missions types (ie. probe vs manned, science vs refueling/supply).

Or another idea is rather than assigned a flag during building, you assign the vessel to a mission group and you can toggle based on those mission groups. It would make it easier to deal with a convoy to Jool.

[xnorb]

Flags should never appear as Flights in progress.

Someone suggested to plant a flag at every biomes of the Mun so you know which ones you already visited.

Imagine this done for all moons and planets ... 80 flights in progress, and the real flights completely lost in the mess.

[katateochi]

I agree, flags should not be part of the loading screen count.

I also think they should be hidden by default in the tracking station, but shown by default in game (if that is possible).

more aside. The word "flights" has always struck me as being the wrong word as it can be referring to rovers and bases too. Wouldn't missions in progress be better?

[Captain Sierra]

This might be an urban myth, but apparently Buzz Aldrin reported seeing the American flag get blown over by the engine exhaust upon liftoff.

This is actually true and has since been confirmed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Additionally, all the flags on the moon have been UV bleached white. There's the fact of the day folks!

/offtopic

[LordZowy]

Gona bump this one up. Flags are not flights. Its getting messy.

[Sirine]

I think this thread should be more on 'bugs' or 'glitches' than suggestion.

Hope to see this get fix at 0.24.

[Tw1]

To be fair, you are flying your flag on all those planets, aren't you?

Hahaha. A good point. As one who has over a hundred active flights, and makes use of the type selector thingie, I've never seen why this is a problem. Apart from perhaps neatness.

[Alpheratz]

I also agree, flags should be treated as debris. +1

[allmappedout]

I don't think they should be treated as debris, but they should have the flight count not include them, nor the filter default to on, similar to debris.

[Dunbaratu]

more aside. The word "flights" has always struck me as being the wrong word as it can be referring to rovers and bases too. Wouldn't missions in progress be better?

Correct. There's two things wrong with calling flags "flights in progress":

1 - They're not flights.

2 - They're not "in progress".

I'd rather see this problem fixed by addressing #2 and #1 as two entirely separate problems.

Why?

Because flags aren't the only things with these problems and when solving them, the solutions should be applied in as properly generic a way as possible so the fix also fixes things that aren't flags too.

Take for example, a rover that is functional, and drivable. The game also calls it a "flight in progress", just like with flags, but when you look at the two parts of that description, #1 being that the game is claiming "it's a flight" and #2 being that it's claiming "it's in progress", it's only wrong about #1, but it's right about #2. It IS a mission in progress, but it's not a flight. Contrast that with when it calls a flag a "flight" that is "in progress". There it's wrong on both counts, not just one.

So for the problem that flags appear in the count of currently active thingies, that's problem #2. It should be solved separately from problem #1, which is things being called flights that aren't flights.

Basically the rover *should* be part of the count of things currently active in the campaign save - it's just that the game needs to stop calling the active thingies "flights".

So I propose two separate solutions to the two separate problems:

Fix #1: Change the wording so the campaign's count of "flights in progress" becomes a more generic term, perhaps something like "active vessels" or "active craft". Then it can accurately apply to both flying and landed things - the relevant property being that its in some way a controllable thing rather than debris with no command core of any kind. This fixes problem #1, which is calling things "flights" which aren't actually flying.

Fix #2: Remove flags from the list of thingies that are "in progress", regardless of what you call those thingies. This fixes the fact that flags are not "in progress".

Here's my suspicion as to what causes the game (currently) to claim flags are "in progress": It's probably because the game implements a flag "part" as a command core that refuses all input, but still counts as a "command core" for the sake of meaning the flag isn't debris. Normally the very definition of "debris" that the game uses is this:

Debris is any craft that has no command core, manned or unmanned, among its parts.

The game NEEDS to ensure that flags, which are basically vessels containing one part - the flag part, don't get classified as Debris. (Because if they did get classified as debris, the game would delete your flags at some point.) Even if you set your active debris to a number higher than zero, the deletion of debris is on a timestamp queue basis, so eventually your flags would go away if they were debris. (i.e. if you have debris set to 50, then a planted flag would only last up until the next 49 bits of debris are created. Once one more chunk of debris exists after that 49th one, the planted flag falls off the back of the list and is deleted.)

So the core of problem #2 is coming from the fact that the game divides all vessels into two categories:

A - Active "in progress" craft.

B - Debris.

If it's not A, it's B. If it's not B, it's A. To keep flags from being deleted as debris, they had to be called A. Which means the flag part is probably some type of "command core", at least as far as the "is it debris" check is concerned.

So fixing problem number 2 would require splitting that into three categories:

A - Active craft.

B - Inactive non-debris craft.

C - Debris.

So you could put flags into category B, a category that I suspect doesn't exist in the game at the moment.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Steven Mading

[Kasuha]

I think the information should look like:

34 Crafts (15 landed), 5 EVA, 12 Flags

Rovers, ships, bases, everything would count as a "Craft". Except EVA Kerbals. Active or inactive, it doesn't matter IMO (and may be complicated to recognize).

Optionally debris count could be displayed, too.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Kasuha

[KN_Namida]

Squad please grant these people's wishes!!! It's also my wish, btw...

[einsteiner]

I would love to have a way as marking a mission as "completed", so it doesn't show up in the tracking center list unless I want it to. After you fly a rover to Eve you drive around a bit and then leave it there and go to something else. I don't want to destroy that rover (it hasn't done anything wrong), but I'm most likely never going to "fly" it again. Perhaps ships/stations/probes/rovers need to have a in progress/complete flag so old missions don't clutter up the list. Flags can remain the same but be "complete", so they aren't in the list.

[Man in the Funny Hat]

This might be an urban myth, but apparently Buzz Aldrin reported seeing the American flag get blown over by the engine exhaust upon liftoff.

Well it's true that the flag got blown over in the liftoff from the moon because it was filmed by a camera from the ascent stage. I would actually doubt that Aldrin saw it though because I think it'd be HIGHLY likely he was far too busy looking at instruments and not sightseeing.

Maybe we can convince NASA to launch a mission back there to retire said flag (I've been told that if a flag touches the ground it should be ceremoniously destroyed) and replace it.

Just FYI...

Firstly, the flag code is mostly advisory and you can actually say that there's literally no law against letting a US flag touch the ground. The issue is respect for the flag. Many other nations allow their flags to be dipped and touch the ground as gestures of respect to other nations/leaders but the US flag is not supposed to be subordinated to any other nation or their leaders. An easy place to see this is in Olympic opening ceremonies. You'll see other countries dip their flags in the procession but the US flag will not. It's always supposed to be kept upright/flying/fixed. If a US flag does touch the ground it doesn't mean it needs to be destroyed - but it does mean the sitution should be avoided if at all possible and corrected as soon as possible if it does happen. Also, if the flag is then dirty it simply means it needs to be cleaned. Only flags that are no longer serviceable really need to be destroyed. Again, that's a matter of respect in that you don't just toss it in the trash with the rest of the garbage and is why destroying it by RESPECTFULLY burning it is recommended.

It's a little sad but also somewhat amusing that the Apollo 11 flag got knocked over (not sure if it's completely down or just off kilter). It's just one of those few things they simply didn't think of when they put, "Plant US Flag" on the to-do list: "Make sure it's far enough from the lander to withstand the ascent engine exhaust."

[NWM]

+1, and +1 for debris-like inactivity!

[Tic-Tac]

The real problem here isn't with flags.

It's with KSP calling *everything* a flight that isn't debris.

Note that flags aren't the only non-flying "flights" in KSP. A moon base landed on the Mun is not a "flight", but the game calls it one.

The real problem shouldn't be "continue using the word 'flights' for everything it's used for now except for flags".

It should be "stop using the term 'flight' as a generic term for everything.". Flags are just one particular symptom of the problem.

IMO to be called a flight, in game, an object needs to... not be on the ground.

Anything on the ground(Bases, buggies, rovers, flags, kerbals) isn't a flight.

[MC.STEEL]

they should switch flights to missions (that you make in the control center) in later versions save tab

but yea the game should also be changed so it doesent treat landed objects as flights

[Dunbaratu]

IMO to be called a flight, in game, an object needs to... not be on the ground.

Anything on the ground(Bases, buggies, rovers, flags, kerbals) isn't a flight.

My landed items (rovers, bases) get counted into the "flights in progress" number. I don't see the behavior you claim.

[Tic-Tac]

That's what I'm talking about, anything that is landed shouldn't be counted as a flight in progress.

But it is now...

[User Unrelated]

I agree that flags should not be counted as active ships. At the very least, shuffle them into the background in their own section like the debris parts are. That way, as I pile up tons and tons of flags, they aren't getting in the way of my active, real missions.

Also, I had a flag explode after taking off once because my engine thrust grazed it. I really don't feel like flags should explode. Seems like something, that for the gameplay's sake, should be intangible and indestructible. I use them to mark where I've been and now that one is gone.

I had a flag "crash into the mun" last night...

"Fish Taco Crater" is the flag name.

It was sort of a strange chain of events that led up to it, but it is possible!

IMO to be called a flight, in game, an object needs to... not be on the ground.

Anything on the ground(Bases, buggies, rovers, flags, kerbals) isn't a flight.

I'd count anything that has left the surface of Kerbin a "flight in progress"...

Except flags.

Edited January 28, 2014 by User Unrelated

[vexx32]

This is somewhat off-topic, but... did Enberry Kerman die twice in a row?!

Anyway, hopefully this comes along with the rest of the small tweaks in 0.24... Hopefully.