Idea's for the low end player.

[CodatheSpaceFox]

So I'm one of those unlucky few who have to run their program off of a laptop, and thus, low settings. I have seen countless times how higher settings really does give you the edge in this game, from actually seeing your base thanks to having lights that don't lag your flight, and being able to see your shadow while dropping down onto a foreign surface.

I'm not looking for miracles, just things to hopefully make gameplay a bit more on level for the rest of us.

First example, perhaps a landing laser:

To anyone who's seen Wall-E, and has witnessed the hilarity a laser pointer can do even to an AI, I'm sure everyone noticed that the laser was serving a purpose in helping find a suitable place to land, or at least outlining the landing zone for the on flight navigation. In the case of KSP, I'd suggest something similar to project 3-4 easily visible dots onto the surface at very slight outward angles, and maybe one in the middle, that way as you get closer to the surface, the points slowly grow closer, giving you a visual representation on your landing sight, speed relative to the surface, and how far you are.

I am not a modder, but I have dipped my toes in code before, so I have no idea if this has been done already, or if it'd really make a difference to have on a lower end computer. I know someone is going to suggest just using lights, but for me lights love to eat up my frames, so I try to avoid them myself.

Obviously, since this is suppose to help low end players, bells and whistles are not necessary. Perhaps just give it a penalty of slight extra electric charge use. Sounds simple to me, and I'd love to hear any other thoughts.

Second: a "Glowing" ring for docking ports.

Now this is a fun idea I've bounced around, as I personally love using Scott Manley's idea of using the small radial battery's bright green light ends to sort of mark out docking nodes. This could simply be a slightly bigger part to attach behind a docking port, so as to make docking areas visible, or maybe a modification to the ports visual to make the connecting ring always visible... Hell... Maybe make the light toggleable but without the glow so it doesn't kill frames.

That's about it, a lightless glowing part. simple.

That's what I have for now, I don't think these parts truly give unfair advantages to those like me who love the vanilla game so far, but any suggestions to add to this or input about this would be wonderful. Mind everyone these ideas are based on their singularity and simplicity, and just because you can make your own landing laser in something like the laser mod does not count, as the entire mod is pretty large as far as I've seen.

[Seret]

For landing there is a better altimeter if you switch to IVA. It's still not great but does give you a more accurate picture of how high you are. Perhaps getting that fixed so it was reliable would do the job for you.

[CodatheSpaceFox]

For landing there is a better altimeter if you switch to IVA. It's still not great but does give you a more accurate picture of how high you are. Perhaps getting that fixed so it was reliable would do the job for you.

Kerbal Engineer also has a height from surface meter, but there's one thing I forgot to mention that the laser idea also helps with... slopes.

If one laser is farther from the middle than the rest, and it's opposite is closer, you can immediately tell that the area is sloped. When you're playing at low detail (Which also makes the altimeter impossible to read, a really unfortunate issue as you've pointed out) you can't see shadows, or you'd have no need for this laser idea in the first place. It's not only implemented to show distance, but it gives you a very binary idea on what you're closing into. if you're landing on the mun, and there's a small crater you hadn't accounted for, the closest laser will change from it's predicted visual path, making it skip to the side in your current perspective, this should be more than enough to alert you to the slope, and give you time to make a small lateral adjustment, and save from an unfortunate dipping leg.

Also, that just gave me an idea, make it so landing gear can project this "dot" based on it's orientation. That should make it even more accurate.