Flags are still not "Flights in Progress"

[Anquietas314]

Currently, flags count as "flights in progress" in the "Resume Saved" list. Since flags are obviously not actually flights in any meaningful way, they shouldn't be counted as such, similar to debris and asteroids.

A quick search found this thread that was started almost a full year ago for exactly the same suggestion, and the posts seem to be overwhelmingly in favour:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62903

There are several good reasons for suggesting this mentioned in the thread, such as not having 20+ "flights in progress" that are all flags, and then forgetting that the 22nd flight is actually a real flight that, let's say you're sending out to Jool and want to do something in the meantime instead of time-warping all the way there.

So... why is this still a thing? It seems like it should be a completely trivial thing to change.

Note: I am not suggesting flags be made invisible in the tracking station, treated as debris for the purposes of "max persistent debris", etc as several people suggested in that thread.

[Sirrobert]

What, you don't check the tracking station to see what flights you have going on when you reload a save you forgot about?

Cause reloading an ancient save you forgot about is the only scenario I can imagine this being a problem

[Anquietas314]

What, you don't check the tracking station to see what flights you have going on when you reload a save you forgot about?

Cause reloading an ancient save you forgot about is the only scenario I can imagine this being a problem

It's more of a minor irritation than an actual problem. Plus, some of us forget what we did last week, and in particular with interplanetary missions (especially to Jool) if you do lots of other things while waiting for the mission to arrive, it's very possible you'll forget that mission even existed. Especially if you have a LOT of flights in the tracking station (which are not flags)

[Guest]

I agree. It doen´t change the gameplay, but it should be fixed. It´s like debris or asteroids. They aren´t real flights and they´re not in progress anymore for sure, so they shouldn´t be flights in progress.

[r4pt0r]

I log the biomes I've already been to with flags. So now with biomes on every body, I can easily have well upwards of 40 flags, thats 40 "flights in progress". that is uber inconvenient.

[Anquietas314]

I log the biomes I've already been to with flags. So now with biomes on every body, I can easily have well upwards of 40 flags, thats 40 "flights in progress". that is uber inconvenient.

I tend to mark every single landing with a flag.... so, yeah... It never occurred to me to name the flags in a way that identifies the biomes though... I should do that. Mental note to replace the flag I deployed in the Mun's Southwest Crater yesterday

[r4pt0r]

oh yeah i do it like so:

Munar Highlands

Munar East Crater

Minmus Greater flats

I think "Munar" sounds cooler than "Mun Highlands", but "Minmusian" or "Minmusar" sounds bad so I just go with "Minmus".

and now i can finally do

Dunar Craters

Dunar Poles

[Anquietas314]

I think "Munar" sounds cooler than "Mun Highlands", but "Minmusian" or "Minmusar" sounds bad so I just go with "Minmus".

and now i can finally do

I completely agree! In fact I usually name my Mun missions "Munar I, Munar II" etc, though this time I've just went with calling them "Mun I" etc for the sake of consistency

Dunar Craters

Dunar Poles

Eh, it doesn't really work as well for Duna though :/

We should probably stay on topic though before a mod comes along

[Baythan]

I too have wanted some way to move the flags off the 'flights in progress' count without removing them from the tracking station. I don't know what kind of change would need to be done to do that. Theres a possibility that some piece of code required to stop the game from deleting the flags as debris requires that they be counted as a flight in progress, and the change might not be as simple as we think.

But it'd be a nice piece of polish in any case.

[technicalfool]

While flags are somewhat absurdly listed as "flights" at present, you can pretty easily remove them from the tracking station and map views by toggling the flags button. The same applies to asteroids, debris, probes, stations, landers, rovers, bases, ships, EVAd kerbals, and whatever else you have floating or sitting about.

In map view, you can move your mouse to the top of the screen to get the list of toggles that show up in the tracking station.

[klgraham1013]

If you can easily turn them off in the tracking station, why aren't they off by default? This seems an easy fix. Have the devs not found this annoying while playing? If it wasn't for RemoteTech, I'd most certainly have more flags than actual active vessels.

[Captain Sierra]

If you can easily turn them off in the tracking station, why aren't they off by default? This seems an easy fix. Have the devs not found this annoying while playing? If it wasn't for RemoteTech, I'd most certainly have more flags than actual active vessels.

As of 0.90 they actually seem to be. I never purposely disabled them, yet they're very much disabled on my tracking station screen.

[Anquietas314]

Theres a possibility that some piece of code required to stop the game from deleting the flags as debris requires that they be counted as a flight in progress, and the change might not be as simple as we think.

This shouldn't be an issue; the code for displaying the flights in progress (note: this is the only thing I am proposing be changed) should be something like this:

// Pseudocode - I'm not especially familiar with C#
// 1: Get vessels from save file
// 2: Count vessels "in flight"
int count = 0;
foreach (Vessel v in vessels) {
  if (!v.isDebris() && !v.isAnAsteroid()) // Should just need "&& !v.isFlag()" or equivalent
    ++count;
}
// 3: Print "<count> flight(s) in progress" on the screen

I imagine the actual code has a more general approach to filtering (using string identifiers for instance), but that's pretty much what I expect it does.

While flags are somewhat absurdly listed as "flights" at present, you can pretty easily remove them from the tracking station and map views by toggling the flags button. The same applies to asteroids, debris, probes, stations, landers, rovers, bases, ships, EVAd kerbals, and whatever else you have floating or sitting about.

http://i.imgur.com/uL03ug1.png

In map view, you can move your mouse to the top of the screen to get the list of toggles that show up in the tracking station.

Note: I am not suggesting flags be made invisible in the tracking station

Hiding the flags in the tracking station or map view (by default) is a separate issue, but should also be a trivial fix.

Edited December 19, 2014 by armagheddonsgw

[Sirrobert]

It's more of a minor irritation than an actual problem. Plus, some of us forget what we did last week, and in particular with interplanetary missions (especially to Jool) if you do lots of other things while waiting for the mission to arrive, it's very possible you'll forget that mission even existed. Especially if you have a LOT of flights in the tracking station (which are not flags)

I recomend the Kerbal Alarm Clock then

[Anquietas314]

I recomend the Kerbal Alarm Clock then

I do use KAC, however it does not solve the problem of flags being counted as ships in flight. In any case, we should not need mods to overcome user interface problems, especially ones as simple as this.

[pandaman]

I agree with the OP here, important as they are flags are not IMO 'flights' so should certainly not be counted as flights in progress. Nor should they be treated debris. It make some sense that the game treats them as 'flights' but it would be better for them not to be counted as if they are an ongoing mission.

[pandaman]

Another thought on this. Maybe should be a new suggestion thread, but it fits with this one.

Flags are essentially 'wanted debris' as in stuff left behind on purpose. Similar to the bottom half of the LEMs left on the moon.

How about being able to designate landed probes etc as 'markers' for want of a better name atm. Doing this would make the probe dormant until it is re designated. Flags would automatically be classed as 'markers' and retain the flag icon etc. But re designated vessels would have a new icon to distinguish them from planted flags.

This would mean probes could be used as navigation beacons etc and not increase the 'flights in progress' count. I often use small probes to help search for anomalies by providing coordinate reference points so this would be a handy feature for me.

[Anquietas314]

This would mean probes could be used as navigation beacons etc and not increase the 'flights in progress' count. I often use small probes to help search for anomalies by providing coordinate reference points so this would be a handy feature for me.

Hmm.... that's certainly an inventive use for probes. Incidentally there's another case I've found where something similar would be useful: I like to keep the satellites I launch for the various contracts there, but of course the tracking station gets cluttered pretty quickly. For the moment they're marked as debris but it would be nice to have a separate designation for them.

The downside of course is that this sort of thing would be a fair bit more work to do than just fixing the thing with the flags; the new designations would need new icons to be made, buttons would need to be added to the tracking station/map view/rename vessel window (which has a different size of icon!), then of course the game would need some code to handle those things appropriately. At least for this thread, I think it'd be best if we stick to just the flags. The old thread seemed to be pretty much ignored by the devs; I'd hate to see that happen again. It would certainly be worth starting a new thread though

[Baythan]

While flags are somewhat absurdly listed as "flights" at present, you can pretty easily remove them from the tracking station and map views by toggling the flags button. The same applies to asteroids, debris, probes, stations, landers, rovers, bases, ships, EVAd kerbals, and whatever else you have floating or sitting about.

In map view, you can move your mouse to the top of the screen to get the list of toggles that show up in the tracking station.

I believe you missed the OP's point. We aren't talking about the tracking station or the map view. We are talking about the load game menu where each savegame has a number of flights in progress listed. Flags increase this count.

If you look at a save where you've visited the Mun a handful of times, Minmus a few, Duna several times, and planted a flag for each mission as I do to commemorate the survival of the Kerbals (and to a lesser extent the success of the mission) along with a nice amusing note of about who did the mission/what happened during the mission, then you end up with a savegame saying you have 20+ flights in progress. Toss in every satellite in orbit (especially if you use Remote Tech) and space station and the flights in progress gets astronomical as well as useless. I'd rather have a count of MISSIONS in progress where I get to designate what is an active mission and what is not, but that goes beyond the scope of this thread.

Simply put: flags, which are landed objects and markers of past missions are currently counted as flights in progress on every save game and we believe this is erroneous/misleading/a bug/just an issue that should be addressed.