WASD Orientation Indicator

[RadGH]

Originally posted on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/1uof4c/

This idea is what I call a WASD indicator as it quite simply indicates what effect WASD will have on your vessel. I came up with it when helping a friend learn KSP. It's pretty common to hear friends that haven't played before explain how the "controls are awful" or "inconsistent". Imagine trying to teach someone how to use the navball? It's not something you can teach. It's something you have to learn.

This NOT intended for veteran or even intermediate KSP players. This is for any players who would struggle using the navball. I imagine this being a feature can be displayed while a hotkey is pressed, or toggled, or even always on. It might also have som: Opacity, Scale, (checkbox) Always show in docking mode, (checkbox) Rotate indicator icons (See image #2 below, compare to #4).

It may be useful even for those who know how to use the navball, however. Sometimes using the navball just shouldn't be necessary. If you just need to move over 1km to land on a hill, for example. Sometimes you just need to go in a general direction. You might just get some altitude and tilt yourself in an attempt to orient yourself, I'll bet you have all done this before - because you didn't know what way you were facing. This would solve that issue.

Here is what I imagine the feature could look like, I made a few examples that I hope demonstrate the purpose.

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[LORDPrometheus]

Hmmm could be useful in tutorials for sure and as long as you can turn it off in settings and is handled properly it would be a clever feature.

P.S. I also enjoy playing with remote tech

[Kasuha]

I think it's a good idea and it can come in handy even for veterans. Actually I think it would be more useful for them as it would otherwise draw newbies from navball which they need to learn to use.

For docking and landing, such indicator can be pricelelss.

Although I'd change letters to ULDR. Not everyone uses WASD. Especially people using different (national) keyboard layouts.

Actually just one indicator would suffice - e.g. the "up" (W) indicator, in different colors if it is towards or away from you.

And in fact you can have such indicator on your ship all (or most of) the time if you place a few cubic octagonal struts in a strategic position.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Kasuha

[kajmaj]

This is a great idea and a great visualisation. This would be so useful! I know we can do anything by using the navball but it would be much better to be able to easily orient by just looking at our ship. Sometimes, even though I know I should be looking at navball I do something stupid and crash instead of landing because of looking at the ship and "knowing" where it would move when I press "D"...

I think this is one of the best suggestions I've seen. Maybe this post should go or be linked to from Addons Request and Support subforum? Maybe some clever modder would do this for us and glory of whole Kerbalkind?

[Javster]

I'd like one with translation commands personally.

[TMS]

I know when I was a new player, I had a very similar thought regarding translucent overlays and had looked for a mod to fill the gap.

Of course, the navball moves in a completely logical way in respect of the WASD keys, but it takes a while to realise that and understand that it's simply a camera angle issue.

[DJRWolf]

Another way to get around this is to have the controls change relative to the camera. So lets say your camera is behind your ship and you turn left; then you roll the ship 180 degrees; then when you press the "turn left" key instead of turning right it turns left based not on what way the ship is pointing, but where the camera is and what is left from the players point of view.

[pizzaoverhead]

Question: When you press a key, does that key then move towards or away from you? What if the craft is upside down? In the last image, it's not immediately obvious which way the satellite would be turning. You could use arrows or curved keys to aid with this.

[Superfluous J]

Although I'd change letters to ULDR. Not everyone uses WASD. Especially people using different (national) keyboard layouts.

No prob. KSP knows what button you hit to rotate in each direction, else it wouldn't know what you wanted to do when you hit that button. Just put that letter/number/whatever on the graphic.

I agree that it needs some obvious way to indicate which direction W would actually turn the ship, it's not so obvious in those pictures. Maybe actual curved arrows heading over the top of the W in an arc (and the other 3 buttons)?

I'd also like IJKL and HN*. For some reason, my brain STILL can't keep H and N straight.

[Atoning Unifex]

This is a pretty good idea, although rather than huge chunky letters I'd probably go for coloured axes, and then have those axes transposed also onto the nav ball. This should help you learn what direction relates to what in 3d, and on the nav ball, and IMO it's easy to remember which keys to press when referring to the nav ball.

The IJKL might be handy, although I only use them when docking. Maybe a similar display using coloured axes? H & N also still get me confused too! I think it gets tricky when you are docking backwards and have to try and figure out which is the right direction!

[Kasuha]

No prob. KSP knows what button you hit to rotate in each direction, else it wouldn't know what you wanted to do when you hit that button. Just put that letter/number/whatever on the graphic.

No, it doesn't. KSP thinks all keyboards are english. For instance my action group 1 key is "+" but KSP still displays it as "1" in the settings screen.

[Superfluous J]

No, it doesn't. KSP thinks all keyboards are english. For instance my action group 1 key is "+" but KSP still displays it as "1" in the settings screen.

Really? So it doesn't map to what the key does, but instead maps to where it is on the keyboard and assumes it's what is on an American keyboard? Wow. I did not expect that. I didn't even know a program COULD do that. That's kind of crazy. I'd go so far as to call that a bug or at BEST a missing feature.

[RadGH]

Question: When you press a key, does that key then move towards or away from you? What if the craft is upside down? In the last image, it's not immediately obvious which way the satellite would be turning. You could use arrows or curved keys to aid with this.

You have a point there, although it is not as obvious in a still screenshot. I haven't even considered it, although if you compare the third and fourth screenshot you might realize that I did instinctively address the issue .

Let me re-visualize this issue so we're on the same page.

You have this satellite. At first glance it should hopefully seem obvious that pressing W would tilt the satellite down, so the dish is pointing at the text you are reading right now. Now imagine you haven't moved it just yet, and you put your camera behind the satellite.

Your orientation has changed, but controls remain the same. This means that now pressing W would still point the ship downwards like before, but "W" indicator should instead be on top of the ship. Or put more simply, the indicators move based on camera angle.

This orientation switch might be difficult to understand, but is exactly why these indicators would be helpful. The controls haven't changed, it's just that now you have an indicator which reliably tells you which key to press for which direction.

does that key then move towards or away from you?

To recap, the W key should always "push" against the key, which is why repositioning of the indicators will be necessary.