Would someone please do something about ladders? Please?

[Laie]

I'm trying to build an eve lander. It takes a lot of ladders to reach the ground. Due to the way the vessel is built, there is no straight path, either. I now find that I spent pretty much an entire afternoon trying to get the ladders working. Even for a complicated case like mine, that seems a tad much.

1. You have to make ends meet, precisely. If the ends of telescopic ladders go past each other there's a good chance that the kerbal won't switch ladders.
   
2. Docking ports, batteries (and possibly more) have handles, but they don't work. So every docking connection needs to be bridged with ladders. A simple three-rung ladder attached radially would work nicely, but alas, no radial attachment of anything to a docking port.
   
3. making ends meet can be quite a hassle. Rotating a piece about several axes becomes non-intuitive real quick. Not to mention that 5-degree increments are much wider than the long ladder's width -- so you'll be off either way.
   
4. The only way to find out is testing thoroughly. Things that look fine may fail to work, and the other way round.
   
5. especially funny: a ladder may work in one direction, but not in the other.
   

Together with ladders not being extendable after reverting to VAB, Kerbals not staying in the pod they've been assigned, and movement on ladders being rather slow, testing was rather time-consuming as well.

My job would have been a lot easier if it was possible to attach ladders end-to-end. Also, variable length (or a wider choice of legths) would have helped. Or placing ladders like struts: start point, end point, here we go.

These proposals are just the first ideas that crossed my mind; I don't claim that they're especially well thought out. But I'd say that ladders could do with a little more attention than they're getting. As it is, laddering up a vessel can easily become more complicated than designing the vessel in the first place.

[Woopert]

Try Padishar's Part Angle Display mod, it helps with aligning parts with precise angles.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/81390-0-24-2-Part-Angle-Display-including-seamless-highly-accurate-rotation-v0-2-4-5

I do agree with all the rest that you said, though.

[TMS]

6. Reach top of ladder... can't get on top of fuel tank, fall off and spend eternity stranded on Eve.

[Red Iron Crown]

Ladders could definitely use some improvement. Placing a ladder of any significant length is extremely tedious, especially if you're placing it three rungs at a time. I would suggest that the three-rung ladder be made procedural, with a tweakable number of rungs.

The "can't get over the lip of the tank" issue is one I've experienced, too. I'm not sure if that would be better addressed by making kerbals able to scramble a bit or to have a wraparound part for changing ladder direction by 90 degrees.

[r4pt0r]

Ladders could definitely use some improvement. Placing a ladder of any significant length is extremely tedious, especially if you're placing it three rungs at a time. I would suggest that the three-rung ladder be made procedural, with a tweakable number of rungs.

The "can't get over the lip of the tank" issue is one I've experienced, too. I'm not sure if that would be better addressed by making kerbals able to scramble a bit or to have a wraparound part for changing ladder direction by 90 degrees.

Make it so please devs. I understand not wanting procedural tanks/wings whatever, but ladders are annoying to the max at times.

[Wanderfound]

One more (rather more obscure, somewhat mod-related, understandable if ignored) ladder issue.

The obvious place for a spaceplane ladder is leading straight to the cockpit. Unfortunately, that's also the obvious place for a canard.

No problem, then; I'll just set the canards as spoilers so they rotate out of the way when I put the parking brakes on. Neat and elegant.

Problem: even though the visual element of the canard rotates, the collision mesh doesn't. You can't climb through it, and you can still stand on it.

It's easy enough to solve by just shifting the ladder back and walking on top of the canard, but it is a bit disconcerting to watch your Kerbals standing on air and walking through the rotated canard.

[ThirdHorseman]

I created a super-long "L" ladder by manually welding ladders in a new CFG file. It has 5 ladders placed end-to-end and then another ladder at 90 degrees at the top. I can then just place the one part and it gives me a long ladder with a bend at the top for the Kerbal to get on top of roofs, etc.

I can post the CFG file code if you like...

[klgraham1013]

Kerbals should be able to grab the lip of a tank and climb over. I hate having to angle ladders just to get a Kerbal to "fall" onto the proper surface.