Unintended consequence of 50% throttle on loadup

[soranno]

Not a bug, but an unintended (I think) side effect of the return of 50% throttle on loading a ship on the launchpad.

The problem is, that if you set the throttle to 0% and then timewarp on the launchpad, the throttle resets to 50% after returning to normal speed.

If you have any engine active at that time it starts burning.

It seems to me unintended that this should be so, nevertheless I suggest that changes to the throttle persist through timewarping on the launchpad to avoid this issue.

[MrChumley]

Who in the history of ever suggested that the throttle be defaulted to 50%? I do not like it.

Edited August 6, 2014 by UbioZur
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[Vaporo]

Throttle should start out at either zero or one hundred percent, I think. (Really, how often do you launch with anything less than 100% thrust?) Or maybe it could be configurable in settings. Yes, It should be configurable in settings, I think.

EDIT: While we're on the subject: key binding for 100% thrust. We also need that.

[Renegrade]

EDIT: While we're on the subject: key binding for 100% thrust. We also need that.

There is a mod for that, but I'd like to see that as a stock feature too.

[Vaporo]

There is a mod for that, but I'd like to see that as a stock feature too.

I use it. I'm suggesting it for stock.

[Kasuha]

Who in the history of ever suggested that the throttle be defaulted to 50%? I do not like it.

It's a relatively good workaround for the ages old problem of newbies putting a rocket on launchpad and pressing space, then wondering why it doesn't fly. And since it can be reset to old starting position by just one keypress I consider it a good idea.

[BudgetHedgehog]

I seriously have to wonder why newbies would button-mash in an attempt to get the craft to launch but then just stop at space. If I was that clueless (and I was), I'd just keep on button mashing to try and release the clamps before my fuel runs out because, thanks to KSPs... imaginative staging logic, launch clamps are not necessarily on the first stage.

And besides, this doesn't really help newbies at all in the long run - they just end up learning that Space = go up and will design around that (also, if they haven't figured out the throttle key, it's unlikely they've figured out staging which means extra fuel while your engines burn while being held down by the clamps or things decoupling at the same time as them etc.. Stock staging logic really needs some attention). This will results in ineffiecient rockets and them making things harder on themselves when they attempt anything other than 1 land/return mission at a time.

If they don't learn the throttle key while safely landed at Kerbin, how are they going to cope when they get to space and can't figure out how to turn the engine off or at least lower the thrust? Through the right click GUI? I don't know about you, but realising that I have to control the engine entirely by right clicking on it instead of having a hotkey would be pretty annoying to me. And even, it might encourage me to look up key bindings and oh wait look, there's a hotkey for the throttle. That 'ages old problem' has been solved. If they want to help newbies launch off the pad without actually teaching them anything, why 50%? Why not 100%? At least then they'd design half-decent rockets and for people who do things normally, it's one less keypress.

This 50% throttle thing has no effect on me as I use FloorIt and X so I press Z on the launchpad anyway, but for newbies, are we really wanting to teach them that they don't need to press anything apart from Space to get off the launchpad? That seems an odd decision to me.

EDIT: I've seen people ask 'I press space on the pad, but my rocket doesn't go up?' maybe twice since I started playing the game in January. I don't think this is a big a problem as you or the apparently the devs think it is.

Edited August 6, 2014 by ObsessedWithKSP

[Vaporo]

I seriously have to wonder why newbies... apparently the devs think it is.

Wow. 400 words on such a simple subject.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Wow. 400 words on such a simple subject.

What can I say, I feel strongly about this issue, as trivial and tiny as it is. Whenever I start to write something about it, I end up writing a what amounts to short story. I can't help it :/

[razark]

If you have any engine active at that time it starts burning.

I just wonder why you'd start the engine before you intend to launch.

I agree, though. I've had a few times that I've set my throttle, timewarped to my launch window, and then watched as my vehicle slowly settled to the ground, or fell over, or just barely started moving. If the throttle is going to be set at load, it should not reset wen I change it.

[allmhuran]

This whole idea seems to be based on the premise: Some people are so completely clueless that they can't figure out that they have a throttle and need to use it.

But then starting at 50% still makes no sense. Remember, the entire premise is that we are assuming that these people are basically unaware of the throttle. So all of their rockets will forever be running at 50%.

The entire concept of "starting at 50% to help the dumb-as-rocks players" is logically bankrupt.

Hell, if they don't understand that there is a throttle and that you have to use it, I question how they managed to start the game, start a new game type, select or build a rocket, launch it, or simply not die of starvation in the first place.

[cwhiz]

This whole idea seems to be based on the premise: Some people are so completely clueless that they can't figure out that they have a throttle and need to use it.

But then starting at 50% still makes no sense. Remember, the entire premise is that we are assuming that these people are basically unaware of the throttle. So all of their rockets will forever be running at 50%.

The entire concept of "starting at 50% to help the dumb-as-rocks players" is logically bankrupt.

Hell, if they don't understand that there is a throttle and that you have to use it, I question how they managed to start the game, start a new game type, select or build a rocket, launch it, or simply not die of starvation in the first place.

Good points.

[M3tal_Warrior]

Hell, if they don't understand that there is a throttle and that you have to use it, I question how they managed to start the game, start a new game type, select or build a rocket, launch it, or simply not die of starvation in the first place.

THIS! My strong opinion is that programmers kill systematically the need for logical thought in their users in an attempt to help newbies/b00ns/complete brainless keyboard smashing apes, thus producing the latter. IMHO we should dismount all signs that indicate obvious dangers and let evolution take care of the rest. People who don't actually start questioning how to control all those nice buttons and sliders they see at their screen should be forbidden to use a computer in the first place, for being the kind of people who also start installing stuff by just hitting 'Next' until it stops coming up because a site found with Google told them they're having registry problems.

I work part time in IT support for two universities (supercomputing center) - you don't possibly want to know how stupid PhDs, professors, students and other folk are when presented with a computer. It's a nightmare, and helping them by doing fool-proof software (and I'm NOT talking input sanitizing here) makes it even worse. They strut in like being Linus Torvalds because they were able to follow a howto to disable the Windows UAC, and two minutes later it's all your fault because you found a whole ecosystem of malware and recommend the final solution. Everyone shoves the child away when it's trying to reach the hotplate - software programmers nowadays install a ladder and paint candy on it.

Edited August 7, 2014 by M3tal_Warrior
Rule 2.2g

[RocketPilot573]

I just loaded up a copy of .16 and I can confirm 50% throttle is not even a new thing. Though I forget what update removed it. I'm fine with it... It helps noobs and doesn't really effect me at all (I hardly notice it).

[Kasuha]

This whole idea seems to be based on the premise: Some people are so completely clueless that they can't figure out that they have a throttle and need to use it.

But then starting at 50% still makes no sense. Remember, the entire premise is that we are assuming that these people are basically unaware of the throttle. So all of their rockets will forever be running at 50%.

The entire concept of "starting at 50% to help the dumb-as-rocks players" is logically bankrupt.

Hell, if they don't understand that there is a throttle and that you have to use it, I question how they managed to start the game, start a new game type, select or build a rocket, launch it, or simply not die of starvation in the first place.

With 0% throttle the newbie impression is: this rocket does not work. It makes sounds like it's flying but it's not flying anywhere. Stupid game.

I've been there and I remember it.

50% throttle will get the newbie a somewhat working rocket and he can figure out that throttle thing later.

Of course an ultimate help would be to provide keyboard reference from the Esc menu.

[allmhuran]

With 0% throttle the newbie impression is: this rocket does not work. It makes sounds like it's flying but it's not flying anywhere. Stupid game.

I've been there and I remember it.

50% throttle will get the newbie a somewhat working rocket and he can figure out that throttle thing later.

Of course an ultimate help would be to provide keyboard reference from the Esc menu.

The problem with this argument is that it also works in reverse: A player who presses the staging button and sees that nothing happens will certainly see that something is wrong. A player who presses the staging button with the throttle set at 50% will see the rocket "work", and therefore is provided no indication that they've missed something.

In the end we probably shouldn't rely on this kind of argument-from-apparent-consequences since they can easily swing in any direction. The only thing we can really rely on for sound arguments is pure logic. In which case, you either have to assume that players can or cannot figure out that they need to use the throttle. If the former, then the reason for setting it to 50% disappears. If the latter, then setting it at 50% is still not going to help.

[Kasuha]

A player who presses the staging button and sees that nothing happens will certainly see that something is wrong. A player who presses the staging button with the throttle set at 50% will see the rocket "work", and therefore is provided no indication that they've missed something.

The matter is, general player expects the game to 'work'. There is plenty of things you are missing on your first launch, including most of controls. Very likely, you're not going to use SAS for your first launch, for instance. And you'll likely not know about roll buttons, Q and E. And about the whole RCS part.

Throttle control has no obvious effect on rocket standing on launchpad, it only results in one tiny handle moving up and down. Figuring out that you need to press and hold the Shift key which has no obvious effect for a while to throttle up, then press Space to launch, is kind of like cracking a password. Not everyone enjoys that and there are people who will give up when facing such 'problem'.

Also, it is much easier to figure out what Shift and Control do when the rocket is already in flight and they have obvious effect.

[Justin Kerbice]

The 50% was put back in the game after being removed in 0.2x (2 or 3 don't remember), it is in the 0.24 changelog note.

The bad thing is to hard-code such value, why not letting the user choose ?

Is it so bad/complicated to have just a single parameter: "starting throttle" which can be set from 0 to 100% ?

Why those newbies doesn't know about throttle and they have to be taken by hand in the expense of annoying more experienced players ?

No/incomplete/bad documentation may explain this and doing almost everything for people instead of teaching them doesn't help them at all (why there is no auto-pilot too ? they don't know they have to throttle up but they should be aware of seriously more complicated stuff like staging, circularizing, ... weird inconsistency).

[allmhuran]

Throttle control has no obvious effect on rocket standing on launchpad, it only results in one tiny handle moving up and down. Figuring out that you need to press and hold the Shift key which has no obvious effect for a while to throttle up, then press Space to launch, is kind of like cracking a password.

Again, though, this is all just opinion. My opinion is that it's not difficult at all. But neither your opinion nor mine on the qualitative difficulty of the concept of using a throttle really matters here, because we already have a much stronger logical argument to rely upon.

[Kasuha]

The bad thing is to hard-code such value, why not letting the user choose ?

Is it so bad/complicated to have just a single parameter: "starting throttle" which can be set from 0 to 100% ?

That'd be nice as I would definitely prefer having my rocket at 100%.

Why those newbies doesn't know about throttle and they have to be taken by hand in the expense of annoying more experienced players ?

It's funny that I also find it annoying yet I recognize it's irrational feeling. You need to throttle up before launch anyway. Now you even need to spend half the time you used to spend on that as the handle is preset to halfway. The only annoying part is that it is not set to either extreme.

[Thiagobs]

I don't particularly care about the 50% throttle, with or without, I don't mind..

However, I believe it's a basic gaming premise that when you fire up a new game, first thing you do is figuring out the controls...

In any case, KSP have a steep learning curve, setting up 50% throttle just in case someone with a short patience would put a rocket on the launchpad, stage, wonder why his/her rocket doesn't fly and give up mumbling "stupid game" is pointless, after all, such gamer would, even after figuring throttle, try to build one or two rockets, not being able to do much (since it's a hard game for newcomers) and give up anyway...

It's like handholding a toddler when giving his/her very first steps and then hurling the toddler on a pool to see if he/she can swim...

[Kasuha]

It's like handholding a toddler when giving his/her very first steps and then hurling the toddler on a pool to see if he/she can swim...

It's more like putting swimming ring on him. He probably won't have much of water contact and can't go diving yet but he'll not drown on his first attempt.

[M3tal_Warrior]

It's more like putting swimming ring on him.

No, the point is you first put a swimming ring on him in your bath tube, and afterwards you throw him in the atlantic to see if he's learned anything in his bathtube experiments. Because newbies too stupid to find a not magically working throttle indicator at zero a worthwhile cause to glance at the keyboard settings (while being safe and cozy on their launch pad) will screw it all up when accidentally touching/activating controls in hot mid-flight action. Because mid-flight is where you put your pansy-helping hand away.

By the way: Isn't there a tutorial for flying? I mean, if someone deems himself ready for a go without having done the tuts he isn't allowed to whine afterwards because he didn't knew his way around.

I advocate for a keyboard settings page in the options menu in game. It is your first (and only useful) helper for those problems in virtually every other game out there.

Edited August 7, 2014 by M3tal_Warrior

[Kasuha]

When I go to play a new game, I first want to figure out if it's worth spending time on it. Spending a lot of time going through tutorials and help pages is waste of time if you later realize the game is stupid. So the first thing I do is I launch the game and watch what it does. Call me ignorant but I know I am not the only one.

The fact that you would press Space and your rocket would go Pssssssssh falling on launchpad from its clamps is a huge obstacle when you want to find out if the game is worth your time. It may make you not willing to spend any time learning anything about it at all, since the game is early access and thus likely broken, unfinished and buggy anyway.

Of course I can understand that you may prefer if stupid ignorants like me don't play the game at all. It's much better if only smart people do so, right?

Edited August 7, 2014 by Kasuha

[r4pt0r]

I dont see the problem. It halves the time it takes me to throttle up fully. Its easy to grasp that the throttle marker on the gauge is in the middle. The default throttle in IL-2 1946(a combat sim, not an arcade game) is also 50%, this is not an uncommon thing.