[QoL] Save game during atmospheric flights

[DailyFrankPeter]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum, so please indulge me if I miss something.

Is there a good reason why the game in future updates shouldn't include saving games while flying in atmosphere (e.g. on jet engines)? I enjoy designing these craft a lot and they seem to be a nice way of collecting science - unless you smash your whole thing to bits while landing after an 1h-long mission...

[vexx32]

Because the game will have extreme difficulty simulating physics on any craft that is not focused. From memory, this stems from floating-point inaccuracies piling up, as well as the performance issues of potentially having a great deal of craft being uncontrolled yet still flying through an atmosphere. While you may not see it as a problem when you only fly one mission at a time, the game still increments time whilst you're in the space center and in the tracking station. Normally, the game would put such objects into the "on-rails" simulation mode, but it cannot do this for objects moving through the atmosphere, as this simplified simulation cannot handle aerodynamic drag. It is for this same reason that any objects further than 2.5km from the presently focused craft are automatically erased when in Kerbin's atmosphere below ~20km altitude (the altitude changes for other planets with atmospheres IIRC). Until the devs work out some way to make it work without creating crippling performance issues, it is something we all have to live with, I'm afraid.

Also, I'll probably move this to Gameplay Questions, as that seems to be where it belongs best.

[numerobis]

Because the game will have extreme difficulty simulating physics on any craft that is not focused

Your argument is against switching to the space center from flight, not against saving/loading in the atmosphere. You don't go on-rails and switch to a different ship with a quicksave. In addition, it would be a Simple Matter of Programming to allow quitting to the main screen, and when you reload that save you're directly set up on the in-flight ship rather than to the space center.

There doesn't seem to be a save file format for ships flying through the atmosphere (like there are for landed and orbiting ships), but that's just another SMOP. The devs don't need to sleep do they?

[DailyFrankPeter]

Thanks for the insight vexx32 and thanks numerobis, for perhaps better explaining what I actually meant:

I appreciate the impossibility of modelling multiple atmospheric flights when sitting in Space Centre, but I only would like the option to save my WHOLE game without changing the craft in focus. I only need this for retrying a failed landing (or perhaps you know, going to sleep), not going Away From Kontrols on it. If going AFK crashes the craft, that's fine - I accept the tradeoff.

[BlackBicycle]

To put it simply, the program does not calculate atmospheric effects unless you are focused on that very vessel. If you have one craft that is about to do atmospheric braking, and will take several entries/exits before it is "swallowed" by the atmosphere, and if you are sure those several brakings are going to take several hours, then, by all means, leave that craft focused and go to sleep. You will have proper atmospheric braking results when you wake up. Just make sure you calculated it right - or wake up in the middle of the night and check on it. Did that once myself, too : )

As to your original question: no. you cannot save while something is in the atmosphere. You might be able to save if you switch to a different vessel, but don't hope the one in question would behave as you expected it to. Most probably it will keep orbiting as if no atmosphere was there (and maybe even as if no surface is there... sucks, I know)

[fenderzilla]

don't hope the one in question would behave as you expected it to. Most probably it will keep orbiting as if no atmosphere was there (and maybe even as if no surface is there... sucks, I know)

Would that realy be such a bad thing? All he's asking for is the ability to save and come back to it. allowing that sort of thing would let you do stuff like balloon colonies of jool, which you'd never be able to do before.

[numerobis]

All the OP asked for is the ability to quicksave so they can retry a landing five times until they finally succeed.