With new parts, should we say that less is more?

[Master Tao]

Fuel tanks are the perfect example of where more procedural parts would help the game. In stock, there are essentially only 4 LFO tanks:

1. Toroidal (Wet/Dry = 5.44)
   
2. Oscar-B (5.245)
   
3. 3.75 meter tanks (8.2)
   
4. 1.25 m & 2.5 m (9)
   

You're not getting anything new when you unlock longer tank sizes except the ability to use fewer parts. Why not give them tweakable lengths in say 0.25m increments?

Imagine how needlessly difficult assembly would be if the struts and fuel lines weren't already procedural. You'd need struts in all sorts of different lengths and the endpoints would only attach in a few fixed places.

A similar option is scaleable parts, like in ZodiusInfuser's rework of the Infernal Robotics parts. There are a ton of functionally different parts, but when size is the only difference, all you need to do is tweak them.

[Comwarrior]

in my new current story line for KSP video's i spent two weeks labotomising the parts.

I took the orange tank model and re-purposed it for sizes from 1.25M 2.5M and 3.75M tanks... AND... there is LF, LFO and ZENON variations.

All the rockomax X200 tanks have been re-purposed for variations and variants. I also removed parts that i don't like and wouldn't use.

My point... I had a huge drop in ram usage and a nice increase in performance... which was then KO'd by dropping in some mods.

I have played many games that have a A rated concept... but they have been let down by poor coding practices and 'components' that are 'bloated'.

Being blunt, minecraft has simple graphics and everyone loves it. Using a 20 sided poly mesh to represent a circular tank is acceptable over 100 sides...

But, KSPs limitation IS NOT the graphics... the limitation is the physics calculations.

So, to summarise my point.

Yes, there is a performance increase by cleaning up parts that people don't want / don't use.

But also, I'm sure that the game engine can accurately simulate ships without simulating EVERY parameter of EVERY part separately...

Instead, i think that some parts in some configurations can have their parameters lumped together and calculated as one... fuel tanks in a vertical stack for one...

Edited July 12, 2014 by Comwarrior

[Red Iron Crown]

I mostly play with stock parts, but while waiting for 0.24 to drop I decided to install a bunch of mod parts to try them out and see what I was missing. Included in those mods were Procedural Parts, Procedural Wings, and Procedural Fairings. After playing with them a bit, I think I have a better informed view of those types of parts. My thoughts:

1. The creativity argument can go either way. Stock parts challenge you to make something work within their constraints, procedural parts free you from those constraints giving a greater range of options to express your design ideas.

2. The reduced part count is a good, good thing. If you make a four-tank stack in a seven way asparagus booster, procedural tanks can reduce the tankage part count from 28 to 7. The monolithic tanks also make for more structurally sound craft and simplify fuel transfers and management.

3. The interface is a bit intimidating at first. It's not obvious to someone first trying them to right click them to access the tweakable menu to change the part parameters. Nor is it particularly easy to make a tank with a given capacity, you must play with dimensions to get the capacity you want. Procedural wings are even more difficult to get the hang of at first. This isn't a criticism of the mods themselves, just the nature of designing an interface to manage so many parameters.

4. The variety of shapes and textures, along with realistic fairings, make for some beautiful rockets. They look far more realistic and aesthetically pleasing than the "slapped together" look of the stock parts. I know for some that's a part of the stock aesthetic appeal, but for me the procedurals are more appealing in this area.

So I think that procedural parts are a good thing, but they are a bit more challenging to use, especially for new players. Some other things that could also use the procedural treatment (may already exist, even in the mods I installed, I'm suffering from a bit of part overload):

- Ladders

- Solar panels

- Engines

- Trusses/Girders/Structural Panels

[karolus10]

I think that the most important thing about procedural and tweekable parts is not making them mandatory, at first you can still just slap together couple default parts and still be fine, also ability of choosing from some way of pre-set list would be useful for having couple default (or even few variants of non-twekable part that essentially would be few nearly identical parts grouped together) variants of one part grouped together as well as having quick access to our own saved custom parts.

Edited July 14, 2014 by karolus10