Should KSP have a Delta-V readout?

[Red Iron Crown]

"Don't use them" was not generally accepted as a counter-argument against the claim the ARM engines are overpowered. Why should it be accepted as a counter-argument against the claim that a delta-V readout doesn't belong in the stock game?

I think the difference is that the people calling for an ARM rebalance wanted to use them, just in a balanced form. Players choosing not to use them have fewer parts available than those that do. A dV meter that is hideable has no effect on players that don't want it.

[Padishar]

Well as I see it delta-V is a fundamental parameter of the manouevre node. The manouevre is defined by the amount of delta-V and the direction it's applied in. The game has to have the node delta-V to work, even if it hid it from the user. By contrast the delta-V of a rocket, though hugely important, is a derived parameter from the engine specific impulse and ship mass ratio, and the game doesn't have to calculate the ship delta-V. That's why it's not unreasonable to have the current situation where you have manouevre node delta-V's but not ship delta-V's. Not that it means the game should stay that way, but it accounts for the behaviour.

Actually the deltaV that nodes "contain" is a vector (as all velocity is strictly speaking) so this already includes the direction. The game has to do extra work to convert this vector into the value displayed on screen. The point he was making is that there is no point in this scalar value being displayed if there is no other part of the game that even mentions deltaV. It would be much more consistent if only the required burn time and direction were displayed as this is what you actually need to perform the burn (though making the burn time work properly would be a good idea too).

"Don't use them" was not generally accepted as a counter-argument against the claim the ARM engines are overpowered. Why should it be accepted as a counter-argument against the claim that a delta-V readout doesn't belong in the stock game?

Apples and oranges I'm afraid. There is a big difference between not using something that is thrust under your nose in the parts list and something that you explicitly have to turn on in the options. Would the "ARM is overpowered" crowd have shouted so loudly if all the ARM parts had to be turned on with an option that says "Include overpowered parts designed for very large lifters"?

[regex]

I wonder even about tech tree integration. What happens when an experienced player starts a new career save? They know about delta-V, and have all the information to calculate it manually, but cannot use the superior in-game tool for it? Seems like increasing difficulty through obfuscation to me.

I understand the desire to not overwhelm new players with stats and numbers, but delta-V is the big one. No other single stat is as significant in rocketry. In my opinion, we should be showing it to new players, even if we withhold other stats, to encourage them to learn about this incredibly important aspect of spacecraft design.

IMO if you're going to add a delta-V calculator to stock, it'd be stupid to have it unlockable in the science tree. A more "Kerbal" way of doing it would be to include an overlay window that you bring up, sort of like a mission overview. I don't think an in-flight display is a very good idea because of performance concerns.

[Red Iron Crown]

IMO if you're going to add a delta-V calculator to stock, it'd be stupid to have it unlockable in the science tree. A more "Kerbal" way of doing it would be to include an overlay window that you bring up, sort of like a mission overview. I don't think an in-flight display is a very good idea because of performance concerns.

Maybe have the in-flight counter update on pilot command rather than continuously?

Edit: Or automatically after any event that changes it, i.e. burns, decoupling, docking, etc.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Red Iron Crown

[metl]

Yes, KSP is a game but it is not your average "minimal brain power required" sort of game. To achieve the more advanced things (that are included in the stock game, such as landing on and returning from Moho, Eve, Tylo etc.) requires a considerable amount of thought, planning and trial and error and the tools are simply not available in the game to remove the grunt work required (e.g. most people don't find totalling up the wet and dry mass of their rocket stages very much fun and the game "lies" about the mass of various parts in the VAB making this difficult/error prone anyway).

The ARM update is another case in point, a novice player who has no idea what deltaV (and/or TWR) is will find it virtually impossible to trial and error their way to even an interception of an asteroid, let alone a redirection of one of the larger ones. There have been lots of posts on the forum that show that it is even difficult for lots of people that do know what these things are (bugs notwithstanding). Predefined scenarios and in-game tutorials can help with this and, in my opinion, are the thing that is currently most lacking to keep new players interested.

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First, I never knew KSP lied about any values, because I have never cared. I throw a rocket up and if it sticks, good. if not, I change the design. As far as the ARM update, you are totally clueless as to the capabilities of "minimal brain power." My first launch of the arm, I made a rocket, shot it at the nearest intercepting 'roid and landed the thing on Kerbal, first try. I didn't do one math problem to get it there. I did it because I have learned from trial and error what works and what does not.

[Red Iron Crown]

First, I never knew KSP lied about any values, because I have never cared. I throw a rocket up and if it sticks, good. if not, I change the design. As far as the ARM update, you are totally clueless as to the capabilities of "minimal brain power." My first launch of the arm, I made a rocket, shot it at the nearest intercepting 'roid and landed the thing on Kerbal, first try. I didn't do one math problem to get it there. I did it because I have learned from trial and error what works and what does not.

Can you share the craft you accomplished this with? Just a pic would do. Do you remember what size class the asteroid was?

[KASASpace]

First, I never knew KSP lied about any values, because I have never cared. I throw a rocket up and if it sticks, good. if not, I change the design. As far as the ARM update, you are totally clueless as to the capabilities of "minimal brain power." My first launch of the arm, I made a rocket, shot it at the nearest intercepting 'roid and landed the thing on Kerbal, first try. I didn't do one math problem to get it there. I did it because I have learned from trial and error what works and what does not.

So, basically, Soviet Style.

[metl]

The grabber rocket

And the 'roid on Kerbin

[Jouni]

So, basically, Soviet Style.

Pretty much the opposite of the Soviet style. They had impressive mathematics, good engineering, and poor materials.

[Padishar]

First, I never knew KSP lied about any values, because I have never cared. I throw a rocket up and if it sticks, good. if not, I change the design. As far as the ARM update, you are totally clueless as to the capabilities of "minimal brain power." My first launch of the arm, I made a rocket, shot it at the nearest intercepting 'roid and landed the thing on Kerbal, first try. I didn't do one math problem to get it there. I did it because I have learned from trial and error what works and what does not.

So, now you are being insulting and trying to argue without reading what I wrote? I specifically said "a novice player". What you were able to manage and the way you did it has no bearing on every other player. None of your posts so far have been particularly relevant to the actual topic of the discussion so this is the last response you will get from me...

[metl]

Woohoo! Novice with no knowledge of orbital mathematics accomplishes feat that intelligent elitist says should have been impossible! Score one for the Kerbals!

I find your Dv meter irrelevant to this game.

[regex]

Maybe have the in-flight counter update on pilot command rather than continuously?

Edit: Or automatically after any event that changes it, i.e. burns, decoupling, docking, etc.

Eh... Maybe just have it toggleable or something. Aside from the terribly over-padded GUI in Engineer, my biggest gripe is that I can't turn off the vessel simulation. I don't really care about in-flight delta-V (but I do want the altitude and orbit numbers!) since I tend to over-engineer and having a full-blown vessel simulation going while I'm flying does impact performance (although Padishar has done some wonderful work to help).

Honestly, most of my objection to having a delta-V window in KSP comes from nostalgia, the desire to see more important things fixed/added first, and performance concerns.

[Red Iron Crown]

Woohoo! Novice with no knowledge of orbital mathematics accomplishes feat that intelligent elitist says should have been impossible! Score one for the Kerbals!

I find your Dv meter irrelevant to this game.

In fairness, you've been playing for at least 6 months, if your registration date is any indicator. Definitely long enough to develop an intuitive grasp of delta-V even if you're not calculating it. If you didn't have an intuitive grasp of it, your craft would never have had nukes.

[metl]

In fairness, you've been playing for at least 6 months, if your registration date is any indicator. Definitely long enough to develop an intuitive grasp of delta-V even if you're not calculating it. If you didn't have an intuitive grasp of it, your craft would never have had nukes.

Sort of. Until a few days ago, I hadn't ever bothered to learn what Dv even meant. I relied on building the most fuel-efficient rockets possible. I had learned that a higher Isp meant longer burn times and i guess that roughly translates into how much Dv I can squeeze from a ship. My main point I am trying to make is that a player can be fully successful at this game without ever crunching a number on paper or even knowing what Dv is. I've never been to the outermost planets. Not because I can't get there, but because I simply don't want to. The time warp is too slow for me and I hate wasting time waiting to even make an intercept with Duna. It needs to be able to be cranked up another notch or two (but that is for another discussion.) There are many more things which need refinement before they need to be worrying about adding features only geared towards the hardcore, math-driven players.

[BudgetHedgehog]

My main point I am trying to make is that a player can be fully successful at this game without ever crunching a number on paper or even knowing what

Personal anecdotes aside, you still haven't satisfactorily answered why an option to either display it or not would be so bad. People who don't want/need it don't ever have to display it and vice versa. Yes, I agree that other stuff should be fixed/implemented before this, so once all of those things are done, would you still be against a dV readout?

And I'd hardly call wanting to know how far your rocket can travel "only for math-driven players". Quite the opposite in fact - it seems that there are people who would rather work it out by hand and are against a game display for that reason ("if you want it, you have to work for it" kind of thing). Now those people are what I'd call math-driven, not people who would prefer to have a readout to tell them their rockets dV.

[metl]

Except it doesn't tell you how far you can travel. It tells you how much you can alter your velocity by. two completely different values. I haven't seen a single satisfactory answer on why we should have one. I go back to my first point. Without having some from of reference for it, it only benefits those that can do the math. For someone like me, knowing I have 200 m/s Dv remaining is no more useful than knowing I have 200 units of fuel left. The only exception to this that I have seen brought up is with nodes. I would be able to set a node and know if I have enough fuel to complete it. So instead of an overall Dv readout, why not just add a second number to the node display. "200/396 m/s" where the second number is your remaining Dv in that stage? Would that be sufficient to give the wanted information?

[Red Iron Crown]

metl, I can honestly say I don't understand your objection to having more information available. If you don't find it useful or easy to interpret, it can be ignored and your game remains exactly the same.

[KASASpace]

Pretty much the opposite of the Soviet style. They had impressive mathematics, good engineering, and poor materials.

See the RD-170/180. It has a lot of adjustments that were quick fixes but were made in the final design. They actually failed on the first satellite launch more than once, and got lucky on the last. Learning from what went wrong.

[Kasuha]

I'm surprised this discussion is still going on after such time.

I would like to come with a point which is usually not much of a concern with KSP, but it is a huge concern in many other games.

The point is:

How is the game meant to be played?

That is an important question in many games because it helps distinguish between playing and cheating. The important part of it is that the question is not about how given individual player wants to play the game but how the game authors, designers and developers wanted people to play it. How, and why.

This is usually not a point with KSP. It is a single player game so cheating is only what you choose as cheating, be it quickload, revert, usage of certain mods, editing persistence file, modding parts or hacking the game code. But when it is about where the game should go further, I believe it becomes the central point again. It SHOULD become the central point. Because developing a game is not about blindly piling features one on top of another. Especially if you're developing such an open game like KSP. It can be seen on KSP that it underwent such phase in its history and there are still many open ends waiting to be tied. But at least to me it appears that now the development team is going after some central idea again and my guess is that they're not going to let things get out of hand again.

Have any of you who voted Yes tried to stop and think about such ethereal things like what might be the background idea or psychology of KSP? If such simple and easy to implement feature like dv readout is not in the game yet, what might be the reason why is that so? Would it really move the game in the direction where it is intended to go? Not intended by you, but intended by developers?

My guess is no. Each of you is playing their own game and you play it the way which requires deeper scientific approach than what the stock game offers. So you use MechJeb, KER, or other tools and mods which help you play it the way you prefer. There's nothing wrong on that. But the question remains: was the game really intended to be played that way?

[KASASpace]

Well, I would say that having one extra number on the screen isn't really changing how the game is played. I say this because numbers can be interpreted in more than one way unless specified. So, maybe when you click the craft info on the map screen, it can give you an estimate of remaining Dv?

It shows you mass, and it use the Isp.

The main problem with doing this though is probably the complication of multiple Isp values. It complicates everything much more than it already was.

[BudgetHedgehog]

I haven't seen a single satisfactory answer on why we should have one.

Because people find it useful. The popularity of KER and info from MJ shows that people want to be told their dV and other orbital and vessel stats at any time they wish. On the other hand, I haven't see a satisfactory answer to why we SHOULDN'T have one that can't be answered with 'don't use it then'.

And no, your '200/360 m/s' is not sufficient because it's still introducing dV into the display. For someone who doesn't understand it, they won't know what it means. Either KSP should have a burn time at full throttle (correctly calculated) instead of dV or keep the node dV display and show it at other times as well. It's like saying this:

'This leg of your road trip is 64 miles and will take you an hour to do'

'Well, how long will the rest of it take?'

'Not telling you. Figure it out for yourself, you should get right almost to the end of your road trip and then you can find out that you won't finish it in time. That's the better option.'

It's incomplete at best and unhelpful at worse.

For someone like me, knowing I have 200 m/s Dv remaining is no more useful than knowing I have 200 units of fuel left.

If you don't see a difference between 200 m/s and 200 units of fuel, that's fine and I honestly don't mind. But why are you arguing that everyone else should play like you because you don't see a difference? Other people understand it and want it, why are you saying they shouldn't have it just because you personally don't need it?

[Tarmenius]

Without having some from of reference for it, it only benefits those that can do the math

There already is something in the stock game that references it. The Maneuver Node. Suppose it instead listed the burn time required, as has been suggested. We'd be faced with exactly the same situation: a mod would almost certainly be made to calculate the burn time, displaying it in the VAB and we'd all be here debating about whether the Burn Time Calculator should be included in the stock game.

The issue is that the game says it needs something from us (the delta-v for a given maneuver), but doesn't give us a way to tell whether we've met that need until it's too late.

[Deathsoul097]

My guess is no. Each of you is playing their own game and you play it the way which requires deeper scientific approach than what the stock game offers. So you use MechJeb, KER, or other tools and mods which help you play it the way you prefer. There's nothing wrong on that. But the question remains: was the game really intended to be played that way?

It doesn't matter. How can adding in a DV meter negatively affect gameplay? How can having a tiny bit more information about what you can do be detrimental? Its not like were saying that the player should build their rocket, then an ingame calculator pops up and forces them to manually calculate their information. We just want a little box that says, you have a TWR of A, a DV in S1 of X, s DV in S2 of Y, and a DV in S3 of Z. We are literally just asking for a small feature that you could get through the game without looking at it if you didn't want it, and provides an integral part of their game to many others. How will this affect how KSP is played?

It wont. People who don't want it now, just wont download the mod. People who don't want it after, just wont open the in-game windows. People who do want it now just download the mods, and people who do want it after will use the stock one instead. (Well, this assumes that the stock one will be superior to the modded one, as Squad have full access to the source code of the game, which would help a lot wih coding in a feature like this.) Either way, the play style of KSP will not be changed, regardless of Squad's vision for the endgame.

Also, Metl, have you ever heard of a DV map, or mission planner like these?

http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/

http://ksp.olex.biz/

Have you noticed anything in particular? They all give you delta V. I did no math, only a 30 second search through google to get all of this. So, DV (And a meter in particular.) is really useful to anyone who can be bothered to look for 30 seconds to find out what they need to do what they want, and those who know what it is. It is not detrimental in any way, and as stated many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times before, this wouldn't be a thing that:

"EVERYONE MUST LOOK AT THIS AND USE THIS IN THIS WAY AND DO EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It's really:

"We know this is useful to many people, and it seems like a good thing to put in the game, in a way that wont affect the playstyle of anyone, because those who don't want it wont and wont be forced to use it, and those who do will use it."

Simple enough? Apparently not, because you clearly don't understand what we're saying, and we wouldn't be having this discussion otherwise.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Deathsoul097

[Padishar]

Have any of you who voted Yes tried to stop and think about such ethereal things like what might be the background idea or psychology of KSP? If such simple and easy to implement feature like dv readout is not in the game yet, what might be the reason why is that so? Would it really move the game in the direction where it is intended to go? Not intended by you, but intended by developers?

My guess is no. Each of you is playing their own game and you play it the way which requires deeper scientific approach than what the stock game offers. So you use MechJeb, KER, or other tools and mods which help you play it the way you prefer. There's nothing wrong on that. But the question remains: was the game really intended to be played that way?

Yes I have, but that wasn't the point of the poll. If it was the question would have been "Do you think that Squad want to add a deltaV readout?"

What you describe may be Harvester's vision, but it is quite possible for someone's vision to change and his vision is not the only thing that shapes the development of the game. I am pretty sure that if the owners of Squad had good reason to believe they would make more money if a deltaV readout were implemented then it would be. I'm not claiming that they would make more money if this were done, just pointing out other factors that could affect the direction the game takes.

[LethalDose]

For what it's worth, in

, he lists KER as one of the best mods for everyone to install (including newbies) to display dV, TWR, and other parameters.

At the end of the video (5:55), he states that the mods listed in this video "add core functionality that is essentially missing from the game and should ultimately be added."

So, just an opinion, but a fairly substantial one.