A rope or cord that keeps your kerbal from drifting to far from your vessel

[Camacha]

Modelling ropes would mean modelling lots of small joined objects which isn't an elegant solution.

Lots of games do it that way and it seems to work well. I think Little Big Planet does this.

[Xaiier]

...a physically simulated rope made up of about 10-20 segments would be a very minor inconvenience...

Not really, because that would mean 10-20 less parts that they could use on their ships, and for some, that's a good portion of their cap.

Modeling a detailed rope like suggested is entirely possible, it's just not been done because its inherently going to be physics heavy, and it doesn't provide a lot of benefit in return.

[CaptainKipard]

Not really, because that would mean 10-20 less parts that they could use on their ships

No it wouldn't. You're working from the false assumption that a segmented rope is equivalent to a 20 part chain and that's just nonsense. Ships have to simulate joint strength at every node, and a rope doesn't need to do that. It would need to do that at both ends at most. You could even skim on flexibility calculations and just give each segment pivot a range and a maximum rotation speed.

[Xaiier]

No it wouldn't. You're working from the false assumption that a segmented rope is equivalent to a 20 part chain and that's just nonsense. Ships have to simulate joint strength at every node, and a rope doesn't need to do that. It would need to do that at both ends at most. You could even skim on flexibility calculations and just give each segment pivot a range and a maximum rotation speed.

It would still be more than a single part, and depending on the method, could have quite a lot of overhead. For what it is, (a purely visual effect) it isn't worth it.

[drtedastro]

We can send a Kerbal to wherever, but we can't make a rope...

Go figure.

[Camacha]

It would still be more than a single part, and depending on the method, could have quite a lot of overhead. For what it is, (a purely visual effect) it isn't worth it.

Why not? It's not as if KSP can't use a little fresh paint.

[CaptainKipard]

It would still be more than a single part, and depending on the method, could have quite a lot of overhead.

Unless you have any experience with this kind of thing then there's really no point speculating on the matter, is there?

Honestly all of this unsupported naysaying is getting a little tedious. Yes it'll be a performance hit. No it will not be significant. Games have been simulating ropes for a very long time.

For what it is, (a purely visual effect) it isn't worth it.

And this brings up an interesting point that maybe thruster packs should be a mid-game development. A rope could be the very first way to EVA safely. It would limit movement quite a lot and make the game a little more interesting.

[Xaiier]

Why not? It's not as if KSP can't use a little fresh paint.

And this brings up an interesting point that maybe thruster packs should be a mid-game development. A rope could be the very first way to EVA safely. It would limit movement quite a lot and make the game a little more interesting.

From a game design perspective, the current EVA system is much easier to implement, and more than satisfactory for what we need. Ropes make everything more complicated.

Unless you have any experience with this kind of thing then there's really no point speculating on the matter, is there?

Honestly all of this unsupported naysaying is getting a little tedious. Yes it'll be a performance hit. No it will not be significant. Games have been simulating ropes for a very long time.

Feel free to make the EVA Ropes mod then! Good luck!

[sal_vager]

Jetpacks aren't just simpler from a design perspective, they are extremely cool and fun to use, not just in space but also on low gravity worlds to traverse the landscape or to gain access to the craft that brought you there, neither of which are possible with a tether system.

Tethers are also not very easy to use, NASA astronauts do not go around firing grappling hooks into all available surfaces, they have a line already attached, not much use if moving from one craft to another on EVA.

There is one highly experimental game that I know of that does use tethers however and that is a very weird game on Humble store where you explore a procedurally generated landscape in zero-G, [Edit, it's called NOWHERE] control in that game looks interesting but not very useful for KSP, the only other games that I know of that use ropes tend to be 2D affairs.

Ropes in KSP may be nice but are too niche of a movement mechanism to expect the developers to spend any time on, it'll fall to the modding community for this one

Edited October 12, 2014 by sal_vager

[LABHOUSE]

Edit this taxi thing http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43086-Open-Source-Construction-Techniques-for-Craft-Aesthetics/page31?p=966999#post966999 it is very close to safer (even made a joke about it...)