How would YOU balance a "flight engineer"?

[Jodo42]

For quite some time mods like Kerbal Engineer Redux and Mechjeb have existed, with their main goals being to provide various pieces of data to the player about their rocket- thrust to weight ratios, delta-V readouts, burn times, etc. Such a tool is very powerful, and many players find it necessary for planning their missions.

The devs have stated at least once that they don't want to give this kind of power to players for free, hence why it's not yet stock. But many people feel it should be included in stock. To those people I would ask: how would YOU add and balance "flight engineer" to the game? Consider such a tool from the perspective of .90 career mode.

The intent of this thread is not to discuss whether or not such a tool should be added, but rather how it should be balanced if it was added. The former topic has been discussed many times and the viewpoints of both sides are rather clear.

I'll throw out a few ideas to get things started:

-Thrust to Weight ratios should only be displayed for planets that you've visited. Eg if you want to know the TWR of your lander on Duna, if you hadn't been there yet, you might send a probe to the surface to unlock TWR readouts for Duna. Perhaps make TWRs only available once gravioli readings have been taken from a planet's surface, as a more difficult/realistic option.

-Delta-v readouts should be available as soon as you unlock the device.

-Rather than being a part, having access to the engineer could be available via an upgrade to the R&D department. Or, going the part route, it could be available on the third tech level (including the starting tech as level 1).

MODS: Not entirely sure if this should go in general discussion or suggestions and development discussion. Sorry if it's in the wrong place.

[Superfluous J]

I'd do what I suggested in the KER thread:

Pilots are required for things that relate to orbits. Ap. Pe. Time to those.

Engineers are required for things that relate to the ship. Dv, mostly.

Scientists are required for things that relate to observations. Biome. Time to impact. Etc.

Higher levels get more readouts. Level 0 gets nothing, 5 gets the best stuff.

There would also be 5 very expensive chips that give level 1-5 readouts. Ridiculously expensive so bringing a Kerbal is always a better option.

[Sof]

Delta V readouts should be included somewhere in the VAB/SPH during construction. It is technically free after all, since you can just do the maths as they provide the mass and ISP of all the parts. Simply having a computer do it for you is just quicker, and not really cheating.

The advent of pilot controls in 0.90 confirms that MechJeb is cheating, pure and simple. Kerbal Engineer simply displays what the game is already telling you, just without needing a calculator.

[Liowen]

Well inside the VAB it could be based on what level you have the building at; level one none, level two basic info of Kerbin only, level three full access to all info inside the VAB. For launch pad and vehicle information during flight it could be a combination of the R&D building, astronaut complex, and the Kerbals level. R&D building is obvious to unlock the ability to have access to information, however probe cores limited to what ever stage they are placed on for the most basic and more as you get higher in the tech tree. The astronaut complex and Kerbal level are need for the Kerbal to read and understand the information and their career would give them access to different things faster than others; basically pilots would get ap and pe reading earlier than TWR or delta v readings, where as scientist would get TWR early and engineers would know how much delta v a craft could have early on.

If you wanted to make it even more difficult, say when using hard mode, you lock the careers so they can only ever see a portion of the information, and if you want to have it all you would have to bring one of each. Just some ideas to make it a bit balanced IMHO.

[McQ]

I would like to see Navigator added as a class of Kerbal.

At level 1 they could give you ejection angle.

Level two is phase angle.

Level three is insertion angle.

[rkman]

There could be a few additional levels for Kerbals where a pilot could learn mechjeb-like tricks such as maintaining vertical velocity, killing horizontal velocity. An engineer could give us dV and TWR in the VAB.

Maybe a new Kerbal profession of navigator or somesuch who at high level can calculate a transfer window.

[Pecan]

The biggest grind, PITA, is not calculating TWR and deltaV, it's simply doing all the book-keeping to total thrust, wet and dry mass.

To a pretty big extent Squad have given us one of those, now the launch-pad/runway have mass limits and we get the wet mass displayed in the VAB/SPH.

Tweaking the fuel out of tanks is a fairly easy way to find the dry mass, although a little grindy if you have lots of tanks in a stage.

The next simplest thing we could be told is the total thrust of a stage. To be honest, unless you have a lot of engines of different types that's not too hard anyway.

--- Now you have enough for TWR calculations 'by hand' (which is, of course, a really simple equation).

After that give us the Isp of a stage. Again, unless you have heterogeneous engines, that's pretty simple to see from the parts' descriptions anyway.

--- And that gives you everything for deltaV calculations. Apart from being aware of what a 'logarithm' is that's pretty easy too, especially if you're just putting the above figures into a spreadsheet.

So then Squad can just cut the **** and tell us what we need to know!

--- Let the games begin.

I can't help thinking the real reason we've never got this in stock is because Squad can't work it all out, taking the fuel-flow rules into account. Apart from that I suspect they would get a lot of complaints unless it were 'perfect' in all situations, even though KER and MJ both have trouble with 'odd' staging, engines with different orientations, etc.

[klgraham1013]

I'd do what I suggested in the KER thread:

Pilots are required for things that relate to orbits. Ap. Pe. Time to those.

Engineers are required for things that relate to the ship. Dv, mostly.

Scientists are required for things that relate to observations. Biome. Time to impact. Etc.

Higher levels get more readouts. Level 0 gets nothing, 5 gets the best stuff.

There would also be 5 very expensive chips that give level 1-5 readouts. Ridiculously expensive so bringing a Kerbal is always a better option.

This sounds good to me. KER, VOID, MechJeb. Some form of information display should be stock.

[ghpstage]

I would think a dV calculator in construction is needed for two reasons.

First is that while the calculations or vacuum dV are simple and effective estimation, working it out repeatedly on new configurations quickly becomes a boring chore.

Second and more importantly, it would provide good feedback to newer players on the capabilities of their design and the important of weight and role of ISP as they play about. Basically having it displayed in the design process would be a good teaching aid.

dV in flight would provide feedback on your piloting skills, but isn't as critical, I wouldn't miss it too much if it wasn't always available.

Autopilots are a no-go in my opinion, any related stuff should be restricted to pilots and probe cores.

[SkyRender]

Really I only care about the construction readout data that KER provides, though I can see why you might want the flight data too. Thanks to the upgrade and experience system, that can actually be implemented now, of course. Most of the suggestions thus far have been for flight tools, so I'll make some suggestions for the VAB/SPH.

Level 1 - What we have now.

Level 2 - Provide delta-V information (requires R&D level 2) and Kerbin-specific TWR.

Level 3 - Provide option to check TWR for other bodies (requires R&D level 2) and burn times.

I've already mentioned before that they can pretty easily sum up stage dV in tooltip form by mousing over a given stage's indicator if they want to keep screen clutter down.

[Wallygator]

Assuming engineer would be available in full in sandbox, then it really doesn't matter how it's carved up in chunks for career since and parsing of data calculation availability would be a false reality to the player. Everything is already being calculated in the background. An external spreadsheet could be built for inputting reference data... External grinding... breaking emersion...

No... Change of mind. Just make it all available from the beginning.

[Wjolcz]

KER should be stock. With Delta-V and TWR.

How it should be done: you get to know dV and TWR for different bodies by exploring them - through science experiments. Gravioli, preassure, the accelerometer etc., or by telescope observation (drawing orbits by yourself? Measuring the radius?). Not sure how gravity and all that stuff is calculated irl. Im no astrophysicist.

[maltesh]

In real life, you get precise diameter from observing the world transit a star, and you get mass from observing its satellites, if it has any. You also get atmospheric composition from stellar transits and spectroscopy. And if you know size and mass, you know surface gravity. You can also get temperature from telescopic observation, and temperature, gravity, and atmospheric composition will give you surface pressure.

Basically, you can't use "realism" to justify not knowing basic information about the worlds you're going to visit, or basic orbital mechanics. You have to go to "This is how we wanted the game to be."

Edited January 4, 2015 by maltesh