Should KSP have a Delta-V readout?

[ShotgunNinja]

Delta-v should be available to all the players, it is an essential information. In the editors, it's fundamental. Launching without knowing dv is trying to brute-force a solution. Did that as a new player before discovering KER, failing and not understanding why was fun for some time but eventually got boring. In flight we can argue to put that or not, maybe if you get an enginner on board, ala KER?

[ag3nt108]

A resounding yes from me. Anything else is guess work.  Can you imagine NASA or the ESA planning there rockets by simply throwing on tanks and engines?  Looks about right ?  no add one moar booster. A Dv readout is essential and as I have said before as KSP moves onto other platforms with a wider audience they will be selling copies to more and more people who are ignorant of the actual math.

[Knaapie]

13 hours ago, ag3nt108 said:

A resounding yes from me. Anything else is guess work.  Can you imagine NASA or the ESA planning there rockets by simply throwing on tanks and engines?  Looks about right ?  no add one moar booster. A Dv readout is essential and as I have said before as KSP moves onto other platforms with a wider audience they will be selling copies to more and more people who are ignorant of the actual math.

Ahhh for ppl like me!! : I am definitely ignorant to do the math and couldn't care less about how Nasa would do it.

Yet, in some awkward turn of events; I was able to do a the Jool 5 challenge on my 5th actual mission. I didnt not know what I was doing, some of the landings were probes, and one probe got slingshoted out of Jool orbit (because I thought it would be wise to launch all probes and landers at once, while in elliptical orbit of jool). Everthing I did was guestimating thanks to some youtube/wiki research. And succeeding was the most awesome thing I did in the game. I had a redundancy in the form of two extra refueler vessels who didnt need to land on a body. (needed both for Tylo.. duh  )

Ofc, things were easier back then. and while becoming more proficient at the game, I am currently building a Jool 5 station, single launch no refueling, 5 kerbals landing on every planet with 1 "shuttle". It feels like I cannot do this without the dV readout..!!!    ???

The thing is: Imo when you start.. the dV readout will tell you as much as: "You need 3 big tanks of fuel on the trip towards Jool and 1 to get back". The numbers don't mean much without experience, or a lot more research than I did in the past. Which actually makes me conclude that it is not absolutely necessary for a game bought to have 50 hours of fun (which is more than the norm).

I started my Jool 5 station with a broken kerbal engineer mod. It has been updated by now and I love it. but only now, when I know enough about the game, it becomes useful and almost a "must". I never want to play without. for the ppl who love the game after 50 hours, this should be implemented.. yet, I am not bothered to download the mod, since ppl with more than 50h of game time will look at mods as well....  So,,  Idc that much if it remains a mod or a part of the game.

 

pce.

 

btw.. as a final note:

KSP is not NASA or EASA.. Kerbals slap of more rockets when they feel like it.. The game is meant to have fun, not to be reminded of physic classes.. Ofc. you can push it to the max if you want to, calculate everything, simulate NASA. Or even do better than they do. That is possible. but fun..  Fun should have priority and it does mean making things explode and simply slap on more rockets if it doesn't work at the first try..

Edited May 6, 2016 by Knaapie

[Red Iron Crown]

43 minutes ago, Knaapie said:

KSP is not NASA or EASA.. Kerbals slap of more rockets when they feel like it.. The game is meant to have fun, not to be reminded of physic classes.. Ofc. you can push it to the max if you want to, calculate everything, simulate NASA. Or even do better than they do. That is possible. but fun..  Fun should have priority and it does mean making things explode and simply slap on more rockets if it doesn't work at the first try..

Thankfully a stock delta-V counter does not prevent that style of play in the slightest. Lack of one certainly interferes with other styles of play, though.

[Knaapie]

51 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Thankfully a stock delta-V counter does not prevent that style of play in the slightest. Lack of one certainly interferes with other styles of play, though.

Yep, and I totally understand ppl who would want to do it...  I sound a bit rough in my comments I know(not really sorry for that  ).. but, we sometimes have to be reminded that we need to encourage the love for spaceflight without demanding too much from ppl new to it.

I mean: The dv meter can be a bit overwhelming... but but....  

Ah heck..  Idc.. if more ppl want it.  do it ..  If it's not in the game, I'd download Kerbal engineer anyways ^^  (that should actually tell enough.. most players over 100h of game time would NEED this option to perfect their vessels).

Edited May 6, 2016 by Knaapie

[Renegrade]

Random aside: The VAB now has a three decimal place mass indicator, so you can now do calculations by hand for even small craft.   Kudos to Squad to listening to community feedback
 

[JustFromCapsule]

Completely yes for delta-v, and completely yes for airbreaking trajectory readout.

Edited May 8, 2016 by JustFromCapsule

[John FX]

On 06/05/2016 at 11:52 PM, Red Iron Crown said:

Thankfully a stock delta-V counter does not prevent that style of play in the slightest. Lack of one certainly interferes with other styles of play, though.

I'm always perplexed that some people who do not want a feature do not treat an option as an option and if they do not want to have for example a DV readout then they don't have to use it but if it were to be implemented and they found themselves unable to *not* use it then surely that in itself would show just how useful a feature it is...

[Blaarkies]

6 hours ago, John FX said:

I'm always perplexed that some people who do not want a feature do not treat an option as an option and if they do not want to have for example a DV readout then they don't have to use it but if it were to be implemented and they found themselves unable to *not* use it then surely that in itself would show just how useful a feature it is...

"Yeah! Who wanted to set their monitor resolution in-game anyway? Now I can't stop changing my resolution every time I open up KSP and it makes me feel like a cheater!"


Agreed, the idea of making it an "extra", like the engineer's reports, or the "map-view-menu-that-shows-ship-mass" is best of both worlds

[ctbram]

Why is Kerbal Engineering Redux the very first mod I load, or do not play ksp until it has been ported?

The answer is simple. I don't like to guess!  It's the same reason I don't get in my airplane before planning my trip - including determining that I will have enough fuel to get to my location and my plane is not to heavy to get off the ground.  

To some people just sticking something on the launch pad and strapping on as many boosters as they can and then "just seeing what happens next" is undeniably fun.  But once you have exploded enough Kerbals you just might want to start understanding what you did on the few occasions you did not watch poor Jeb turn into a puff of green smoke.

For that you need some basic information like - What is the mass of my ship? What is the isp and max thrust of my engines? What is my total dv and dv per stage in both atmosphere and vacuum? How much dv do I need to get where I want to go? The stock game only gives us couple of those.  Sure I can get out a calculator and figure it all out.  After all most of us can add and multiply but why should we really need to? It is a crucial piece of information!  Everything in orbital mechanics is measured in DV - How much DV do I need to get to orbit, to get to the mun, to escape my current sphere of influence, to get to jool, to make that Hohmann transfer? (Sorry about that last one). Okay  When going places in space rarely do we think about units of distance, it's always DV.  

So yes I vote that DV be part of the stock game, along with instantaneous TWR,  

[Jovus]

I was a little confused by this thread until I remembered that no, KER isn't stock, that's a mod I download.

Then I was tempted to vote 'no' because I doubt KSP will ever include anything quite as slick as KER (though I've been pleasantly surprised before. Thanks for the Enhanced Navball, Squad! Anyone remember what the navball used to look like? I don't.)

I ended up voting yes, because I'm a snarky git, but ultimately don't want to sabotage KSP.

[Sereneti]

I voted for yes.
if someone need it, it helps a lot
if someone dont need it, it dosnt hurt to have one.
 

its a baad feeling to kill, or lose a kerbal because not enough fuel to reach the destination /go back....

[Comradesmith]

I'd say yes, but with conditions. My initial thought was that deltav could be rounded to 2 significant figures, say 860, 5500, or 11000. That would negate some of the negatives of showing deltav, and as a mission proceeds and the amount of remaining deltav diminishes, then the accuracy would shift once we hit sub-1000, or sub-100, which feels realistic.

The degree of rounding could be tied to an upgrade in the KSC.

[blorgon]

39 minutes ago, Comradesmith said:

That would negate some of the negatives of showing deltav

What negatives are you referring to? It's a pretty basic equation—it's not programmatically difficult or computationally expensive to perform.

[Comradesmith]

24 minutes ago, blorgon said:

What negatives are you referring to? It's a pretty basic equation—it's not programmatically difficult or computationally expensive to perform.

I think if you can get 100% accurate deltav out of the gate it means that early missions aren't as experimental, and it makes the game a bit too easy.

[Red Iron Crown]

19 minutes ago, Comradesmith said:

I think if you can get 100% accurate deltav out of the gate it means that early missions aren't as experimental, and it makes the game a bit too easy.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but that just pushes players back to manual calculation/external tools/mods. The information required to calculate delta-V is given to the player in game from day 1, gating it through facilities upgrades or specialized kerbals is borderline insulting.

[blorgon]

2 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I hate to sound like a broken record, but that just pushes players back to manual calculation/external tools/mods. The information required to calculate delta-V is given to the player in game from day 1, gating it through facilities upgrades or specialized kerbals is borderline insulting.

For what it's worth, I think players should know how to do the calculation manually.

I'm fully in the 'yes' column, but maybe the happy medium here is a tutorial-style way to introduce new players to the concept of Delta-V—show them how to manually calculate it, how important it is. Once the tutorial has been completed, poof, you've got your Delta-V readout.

[Red Iron Crown]

3 minutes ago, blorgon said:

For what it's worth, I think players should know how to do the calculation manually.

I'm fully in the 'yes' column, but maybe the happy medium here is a tutorial-style way to introduce new players to the concept of Delta-V—show them how to manually calculate it, how important it is. Once the tutorial has been completed, poof, you've got your Delta-V readout.

Also for what it's worth, I learned more about how to increase delta-V in a rocket through mixing and matching parts in the VAB and watching the KER display than from running the calc manually on an already built rocket. Certainly there is merit in learning to do it by hand (and a tutorial about it, or an expanded KSPedia entry is a good idea), but getting a grasp on how it works in practice is really aided by immediate feedback in the editor.

[blorgon]

4 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Also for what it's worth, I learned more about how to increase delta-V in a rocket through mixing and matching parts in the VAB and watching the KER display than from running the calc manually on an already built rocket. Certainly there is merit in learning to do it by hand (and a tutorial about it, or an expanded KSPedia entry is a good idea), but getting a grasp on how it works in practice is really aided by immediate feedback in the editor.

This is pretty much how I learned, too. The equation is important to understand, but the practical knowledge is absolutely invaluable.

The "tutorial" could be something that would introduce the player to the equation and its parts, and then follow it up with a basic challenge. Say it gives you some number of parts to build a single stage rocket, and you have X amount of time to maximize the delta-V.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

I don't see how anyone is arguing about this. It's a simple number pasted to the engineers report. It would encourage new players to learn about Delta-V (which should be in the KS-Pedia), and by doing so they are learning how to play the game. If they don't want to learn about it, it's just a number pasted at the bottom for no reason to them. It would flatten the learning curve, and would allow more people to understand how rockets work

[jedensuscg]

On 5/6/2016 at 3:06 PM, Knaapie said:

 

btw.. as a final note:

KSP is not NASA or EASA.. Kerbals slap of more rockets when they feel like it.. The game is meant to have fun, not to be reminded of physic classes.. Ofc. you can push it to the max if you want to, calculate everything, simulate NASA. Or even do better than they do. That is possible. but fun..  Fun should have priority and it does mean making things explode and simply slap on more rockets if it doesn't work at the first try..

Sorry, but this part is complete and utter balogne.

Have you left the Kerbin SOI?  Have you done hours long missions?

Ya blowing stuff up is lots of fun SOMETIMES, but lack a Dv readout will not stop you from blowing up.  Lack of a Dv readout means you have to spend hours doing a long distance mission only to realize you have to go back to the VAB and add more fuel and attempt the same hours long mission again...only to realize you are still short fuel.  Knowing you Dv is FUNDEMAMENTAL to leaving the kerbin SOI without hours of frustration, which is no fun.

 

If KSP was EVER about how you describe, they would not have added a whole meta game that can cause you to lose hours because you made a mistake in the VAB because the devs felt you didn't need the REQUIRED information. Slapping more rockets on ad nauseum is only fun for the first few days when learning the game. When actually trying to have a successful career mode that penalizes inefficient rockets and gives you a limited budget, that "slap more on it and hope it works" is counter intuitive. 

Does a new player need Dv readout? No, I spent my first few days just trying to get into orbit through trial and error, and blow up or running out of fuel.  But once I mastered launching craft of all sizes, the game became far to tedious when I had to keep revert saves because I was running out of fuel or was too heavy because I just tried to over compensate for fuel.  I do not find making spreadsheets or doing advanced math all that fun all the time.

 

I am just sick and tired of either the players that have never actually left the Kerbin SOI or who are just pretending to be a KSP "I don't need no DV readout" elitists justifying one of Squads most obvious dumb oversights.

 

Addons are great, but forcing you to use an addon for a function that NEEDS to be available as stock is dumb.  KSP has completely grown past Squads original intent of this just being a fun "strap some rockets and see how far they get" game. They need to realize their old way of thinking about Dv readouts does not align to the game they are making now.

Edited May 21, 2016 by jedensuscg

[AlamoVampire]

@jedensuscg sing it man sing it! no truer words spoken.

[Cairol]

A d/v and TWR readout. Yes please!

[AlamoVampire]

I was thinking about this while playing a different game. Asking if KSP should have basic information like delta v or twr is like asking do liquid fueled or solid fueled rocket motors require fuel? do you need parachutes to land a capsule with no other means to slow it down? do you need electricity to power a probe core? its a BASIC thing that MUST be in game if you want to be logical about it.

[Knaapie]

9 hours ago, jedensuscg said:

I am just sick and tired of either the players that have never actually left the Kerbin SOI or who are just pretending to be a KSP "I don't need no DV readout" elitists justifying one of Squads most obvious dumb oversights.

I can understand the frustration of not understanding different playing styles.

9 hours ago, jedensuscg said:

When actually trying to have a successful career mode that penalizes inefficient rockets and gives you a limited budget, that "slap more on it and hope it works" is counter intuitive. 

The career mode is one big laugh. Anyone could complete it without a dV readout at 20% science bonus. I also stand by my point that the dV readout is a must after 50h of playing..

9 hours ago, jedensuscg said:

Have you left the Kerbin SOI?  Have you done hours long missions? 

Did you even read my post ? Or just freaked out after I had mentioned NASA ?

I returned from Eve without ever using a mod (no dV reading) by using Kerbin as reference (half it's grav. pull). If your craft can take off from Kerbin, straight up, prograde towards the Sun's orbit at 50% thrust and leave the solar system, you can lift off from Eve. (obviously useing high ISP engines at high atmo pressure).

The same type of tests can be done for other bodies while building your craft and testing near Kerbin. This has been fun for me and insanely rewarding when it works out. I can understand why ppl would need a tool or calculations in order to achieve the same results (I have enjoyed slapping on rockets and achieving the impossible, because I am your  "I don't need no dV readout elitist"). If that angers you, it is your problem. Tools do help to reduce the number of tedious refuel missions and failed guesstimations, which I applaud after playing a lot. It is also more fun than using spreadsheets. Imo TWR is even more important for new players, so add both, to supplement all playing styles. I believe I've already agreed to adding this to the game....  Which makes me say:

 

I'm tired of NASA and realism fanboys who have one egocentric perspective.

I'm "pretending" to play the game ?  

I'm out  :/

 

Edited May 21, 2016 by Knaapie
needed to slam rather than being polite