How are flags oriented when planting them?

[ArmchairGravy]

Is there a set orientation on the flags or is it random which direction they face when they are planted?

[HazelPine]

I think they point east/west in my experience, but I could be very wrong here. All I know is that they never face the way I want...

[Starwhip]

They face opposite the direction your Kerbal is facing, the "normal" side (text not in mirror) to the Kerbal's right.

[Javster]

The wrong way. Always.

EDIT: ninja'd. If only I'd looked up before posting.

[ArmchairGravy]

I decided to do some experiments and got inconsistent results.

Here are 4 flags planted while facing NSEW on the landing pad. The kerbal is facing north:

The flags planted while facing West and South all faced the same way, but the ones planted North and East had one flag flipped.

I then went out into the grass and tried again with 3 flags. The results are much more varied:

This time flags don't seem to be following any particular pattern.

If there is an algorithm on flag orientation it seems to have a random variable in it.

[Kasuha]

Strange, they used to always point north or south even in 0.23.

Time to investigate...

Edit: my result - still north/south

Each Kerbal made a few steps straight away from the ship, then planted his flag. Camera is looking west.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Kasuha

[Jouni]

As far as I know, the orientation of the flag has nothing to do with the orientation of the kerbal or the camera. My guess is that the kerbal planting the flag is trying to minimize the exposure to the Sun. As a result, I always need at least 10 attempts before I can get an acceptable flag for a screenshot.

[Superfluous J]

I think it has to do with how long you take to position your Kerbal before planting. If you just slap it down it goes normal. If you really carefully set yourself up, it goes all wonky.

In more seriousness, you'd get more consistent results if you plopped down a quicksave and then dropped a dozen flags under more reproducible conditions.

[ArmchairGravy]

I think it has to do with how long you take to position your Kerbal before planting. If you just slap it down it goes normal. If you really carefully set yourself up, it goes all wonky.

In more seriousness, you'd get more consistent results if you plopped down a quicksave and then dropped a dozen flags under more reproducible conditions.

Good idea. I'll give that a whirl. I wish EVA suits had a compass so I could be sure I'm not slightly off in my direction.

[Tex]

I've always wondered this too... Though it can produce hilarious results. I filmed one of my first Minmus landings on a career mode, started planting the flag epic-ally and... the flag was backwards. Lol'd so much!

[Kasuha]

Another attempt. I landed the ship, planted six flags, then moved the ship a bit, rotated it a bit, and planted the rest. Still all in one direction, this time not directly south/north though - about 10 degrees off. And if you look closely whre Kerbals are standing (at the flag's pole), you can see a pattern there.

[ArmchairGravy]

Strange, they used to always point north or south even in 0.23.

Time to investigate...

Edit: my result - still north/south

Each Kerbal made a few steps straight away from the ship, then planted his flag. Camera is looking west.

http://i.imgur.com/sfog7YE.jpg

Hmm. Wonder why the ones I planted in the grass go every which way then.

[Geschosskopf]

Last year there was a thread on this called "Damn You Harvester" or something similar. Back then, flags always pointed E-W so the sun never shown on them. I guess as a result of that thread, they changed them to point N-S (more or less).

How hard would it be to make flags have the sun-tracking ability of solar panels?

[Kasuha]

How hard would it be to make flags have the sun-tracking ability of solar panels?

How hard it would be to let the Kerbal just plant the flag right in front of him, without turning anywhere?

[Claw]

how hard it would be to let the kerbal just plant the flag right in front of him, without turning anywhere?

hahahaha

Anyway, I have noticed what Kasuha pointed out, where the kerbal plants the flag away from himself. Although they sometimes unpredictably move, I find that the flags don't always go north/south. After a try or two, I can usually get the pointed the right direction.

Although upon looking at your picture a second time, I do find it odd that the north/south is consistent between the two locations...

Edited April 10, 2014 by Claw

[Superfluous J]

How hard it would be to let the Kerbal just plant the flag right in front of him, without turning anywhere?

Hard. Very very hard*.

*Apparently

[Claw]

So I went ahead and gave this a try myself. Although I don't have any fancy pictures like Kasuha...

I planted all my flags around the starting launch point on the runway. Every single one of mine was pointed North-East (30 to 45 degrees) or South-West (210 to 225 degrees).

It did not seem to matter where my guy was around the ship or which way he was facing. Sometimes he would turn left, sometimes right, but always to within that 15 degree window.

[Kasuha]

I ran another experiment. Deployed 12 separate pods (by decoupling them from single ship), then exited the game, started it again, planted 6 flags, exited the game, started it again, planted remaining 6 flags. Green circles are one run, red circles are the other run. Camera is oriented exactly so north is up - none of flags is aligned with n-s or e-w direction, they're kind of diagonally.

I'm still clueless about what does affect it but I guess there's clearly some bug, or rather imperfect implementation involved.

[Superfluous J]

I did some F5/F9 testing. Interestingly, on F9 restore I had no flag but if I moved at all, I then had a flag.

1) When I did not move after letting go of the ladder, the Kerbal ALWAYS turned around exactly 180 degrees, facing away from the door.

2) When I turned him left 90 degrees (facing mostly North, the capsule on his right mostly East) he turned another 90 degrees left so the flag was facing the same way it had been in #1.

3) When I turned him right 90 degrees (South) he turned back left and planted the flag INSIDE the capsule. The flag then few up in the air and exploded nearby. Quite distressing.

4) When I turned around 180 degrees to the right, he planted the flag straight ahead, in the same direction as #1.

5) When I turned around 180 degrees to the left, he planted the flag 180 degrees behind him, into the capsule with the same amusing results as #3

6) When I turned him left (north) and walked 5 paces, he planted the flag to his right, same direction as #3 but no capsule in the way so no explosions.

7) When I turned him right (south) and walked 5 paces, he planted the flag to his left, same direction as #1.

All results were 100% reproducible. Except the flag exploding, sometimes it just fell over.

I have no idea what to make of any of this, but the reproducability is intriguing. I suggest, before you plant a flag (if you care the direction) quicksave so you can wander around a bit to find where he'll plant it the way you want. Or at least know where to set up the camera.

[xEvilReeperx]

As far as I know, the orientation of the flag has nothing to do with the orientation of the kerbal or the camera. My guess is that the kerbal planting the flag is trying to minimize the exposure to the Sun. As a result, I always need at least 10 attempts before I can get an acceptable flag for a screenshot.

Hmmm, I'm sensing a mini-mod that adds "spin clockwise" and "spin counterclockwise" to flags coming on.

Edit: Well it wasn't quite as straightforward as I'd hoped but I came up with a solution. This kind of thing is something that doesn't bother me until somebody mentions it, and then that's all I can think about I'll release it in the showcase forum after I've tested it for a week with my save. In the meantime, if you don't mind mods and would like to try it out:

Download Link

Source

License: Public Domain

Note: As with any plugin that hasn't been through a lot of testing, backup your save just in case. This shouldn't be capable of causing problems (for example: deleting your flags) but do it anyway if you want to use it on an existing save

Edited April 11, 2014 by xEvilReeperx

[Starstrider42]

Well it wasn't quite as straightforward as I'd hoped but I came up with a solution. This kind of thing is something that doesn't bother me until somebody mentions it, and then that's all I can think about I'll release it in the showcase forum after I've tested it for a week with my save. In the meantime, if you don't mind mods and would like to try it out:

http://i549.photobucket.com/albums/ii371/Trigsby/84Dxq.jpg

Download Link

Source

License: Public Domain

Note: As with any plugin that hasn't been through a lot of testing, backup your save just in case. This shouldn't be capable of causing problems (for example: deleting your flags) but do it anyway if you want to use it on an existing save

Hi,

Did you ever get a chance to test this more thoroughly? It seems like a great idea, but I don't know if this is the most recent version.

[Landge]

How many times have you set the "Action Keys" for some radially attached part and then you have to move it to make an adjustment? The copies loose the "Action Key" settings! Why? WHY?!? I can't tell how many times my rocket or SSTO spins wildly out of control because of this! Edited September 4, 2014 by Landge
Mod: Please move my comment to "Pet Peeves" please. I didn't mean to post here. But flag placement orientation is another pet peeve of mine.

[KingPhantom]

i flew to jool with a "spinning" rocket. had no idea why... then i realized that the orange fuel line wasn't correctly linked after i moved the radial tanks a little bit down. so they where still full and caused the asymetric spin...

allways quadruple check it!

[Wanderfound]

How many times have you set the "Action Keys" for some radially attached part and then you have to move it to make an adjustment? The copies loose the "Action Key" settings! Why? WHY?!? I can't tell how many times my rocket or SSTO spins wildly out of control because of this!

Even better: strut your wings (from beneath, to hide the ugly) with symmetry on. Then, move them a bit. You now have one set of struts underneath one wing and one set of struts above the other wing. And, because the starting strut node gets buried in the wing (normally a good thing, because less ugly), it's impossible to take the struts off again. Trash wings and start again.

Aargh.