Setting the throttle to zero at launch by default

[Sky_walker]

It is actually making life harder for all players, experienced and novice alike.

Agreed.

IMHO the default setting should be 100%.

Or 0%.

50% is totally illogical and can only make new players confused what's going on or why they need to build some obscurely weird rockets to get into orbit. Equally well they could pick 42.3%. It'd make just as much sense as 50% does and be equally useful.

[Rabid Bat]

Remembering back to my first launch, I hit the space bar and then nothing, looked around for a little bit and saw the throttle at 0%. Then thought hmmm which keys are for the throttle. Now I have to wonder if I just stated playing, how long and how many screwed up flights would I have had before I realized there are throttle controls. Not so sure this is a good thing for new players, too many other things to think about for the first few launches. Changing it to 50% just seems weird and confusing. As for me personally I now use a flight stick with throttle control which drops it back to 0%.

[Kerbart]

It's a wonder that any one of us ever got off the launch pad without the throttle automatically set at 50% for us, isn't it?

Well the game doesn't require us to be rocket scientists, right?

Oh, wait...

On a more serious note, it's good practice to make software more accessible to everyone, in general most users profit from that. This may be one of those cases where that's not the case but at the same time the penalty to be paid for experienced users is minimal. If pressing the "X" key is that big of a deal one has more pressing things to worry about, I think.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Kerbart

[Xavven]

Remembering back to my first launch, I hit the space bar and then nothing, looked around for a little bit and saw the throttle at 0%. Then thought hmmm which keys are for the throttle. Now I have to wonder if I just stated playing, how long and how many screwed up flights would I have had before I realized there are throttle controls. Not so sure this is a good thing for new players, too many other things to think about for the first few launches. Changing it to 50% just seems weird and confusing. As for me personally I now use a flight stick with throttle control which drops it back to 0%.

I'm going to have to agree with Rabid Bat on this one. The argument that 50% forces newbies to look around for the throttle isn't a very good one IMHO. If playing career mode, you start out with the FL-T200 fuel tank and the LV-T30 engine. Typically, your first rocket has a VERY high TWR (like between 3 and 6), enough that 50% throttle actually does launch your rocket, and actually preventing newbies from having to figure out the throttle.

I liked it at 0%

[Pecan]

...On a more serious note, it's good practice to make software more accessible to everyone, in general most users profit from that. This may be one of those cases where that's not the case but at the same time the penalty to be paid for experienced users is minimal. If pressing the "X" key is that big of a deal one has more pressing things to worry about, I think.

Do you really mean you think spacebar is logical and sensible but throttle isn't? While it's unarguably true that people don't read nearly as much as they should the throttle is explained in the flight basics tutorial as well as the keybindings, wiki, etc. etc. This is not about "boohoo, you have to press 'X'", we have to increase throttle anyway, it's about "50% is a lousy default that can only cause problems".

50% throttle is not 'accessible', it's just wrong for everyone, the way to make software accessible is to provide instruction, pop-up hints and other tools. Be serious.

[Boomerang]

Nevermind that the 50% has introduced a bug that sets the throttle of active vessels that come near the launchpad to 50% as well. I was doing silly flybys of a rocket on the pad with an agile plane and it really sucked having my throttle halved for the time that I passed through the space around that area.

[Xiphos]

I would like to humbly request for the default throttle to be reset to 0%. Jet engines and other small VTOL craft need to roll the throttle on from 0% smoothly. My point is the optimum throttle position for all craft is not 50% at start. I also believe the basis that new players get stuck with figuring out the throttle is largely unfounded. Unless there is a large thread somewhere about it that I haven't seen then I apologize. When I started playing this game in v0.18 I had no problem with the throttle.

[bdito]

When I first started I had no problem with 0% on launch thanks to the tutorials.

I don't buy the "it helps newbs learn" idea because very little in this game is intuitive. A 50% throttle doesn't change that. I think it leads to confusion if anything.

I'm rather curious now. If 50% was the way it was in the past, why did they change it to 0%?

[Alshain]

Simply put they made it more irritating for experience players in order to pander to new players that don't RTFM. That is an incorrect approach in my book. New players don't remain new players for long, and then they get irritated by it too. Personally I think it should be different based on where you launching from. Launchpad should be 100%, Runway should be 0%.

[UncleBod]

Personally I think it should be different based on where you launching from. Launchpad should be 100%, Runway should be 0%.

Maybe that was the idea, but the code couldn't handle it and took the average for both places...

Edited July 24, 2014 by UncleBod

[KerbMav]

This is one of the things that should be optional.

Especially if the mentioned bug is not an error caused by a mod but by the game itself.