Staging for Auxiliary fuel tanks

[Olleus]

Is there a way to make the delta-v calculations in the editor work properly when you have side fuel tanks?

I mean I have something like the space shuttle (minus the SRBs): A fuel tank with an engine at the bottom, and same radial decouplers on the side with another fuel tank each. Stage 1 is turning the engine on, stage 2 is ejecting the side fuel tanks. By setting the tank priorities, I have no problem getting the auxiliary tanks drained before the main one in flight. The problem is that, in the editor, it gives me a lot of dV for the first stage, and 0 for the second stage. That is, the dV calculator thinks I'm carrying the dead weight of the empty auxiliary tanks the whole time, so it underestimates how much dV I'm actually packing.

Not only does this mean I have the wrong dV values in the editor, but the game also doesn't correctly see how much fuel I have left for stage 1. This prevents auto-staging from working, and means I have to manually inspect the auxiliary tanks to eject them by hand.

All of which is rather annoying. Is there a way to get the game to understand such auxiliary side fuel tanks properly? I have tried playing around with the fuel line setting, but to no avail.

[Olleus]

But I don't want them to be recognised as one giant tank. That's essentially what the game does by default anyway.

What I want is the exact opposite: for the game to realise that I'll be ejecting the empty tanks once they're empty, so I'll have less dry mass slowing me down when I'm burning what's in the remaining tank. What you're suggesting seems to be the exact opposite? Not to mention that it would only work in the editor, and not in flight were I want the fuel meter to only show what's in the auxiliary tanks so I can stage once they're empty.

[mreed2]

There is not -- and this lack of functionality is "working as designed". Cite:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2932444041

[Olleus]

Originally posted by mreed2:

There is not -- and this lack of functionality is "working as designed". Cite:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2932444041

Lol, truly terrible attitude from that dev. Saying "It's not a bug, because we didn't intend for the game to provide accurate information" is nothing short of shameful. It's not like having engines that burn for multiple stages or side fuel tanks is some super weird futuristic design idea - the space shuttle did it 40 years ago.

Honestly, it wouldn't even be hard to fix, once I've manually set the tank priorities and the order of staging, it's a trivial calculation. Then again, the burn time calculator for nodes is less accurate than the one I wrote myself in Vizzy, so it's clear that getting the rocket science right is not important to the people developing this rocket game.

Just when I thought I might be able to get back into this game with the UI improvements to map mode, I think I might just bow out again...

[Stevo021]

Originally posted by Olleus:

Originally posted by mreed2:

There is not -- and this lack of functionality is "working as designed". Cite:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2932444041

Lol, truly terrible attitude from that dev. Saying "It's not a bug, because we didn't intend for the game to provide accurate information" is nothing short of shameful. It's not like having engines that burn for multiple stages or side fuel tanks is some super weird futuristic design idea - the space shuttle did it 40 years ago.

Honestly, it wouldn't even be hard to fix, once I've manually set the tank priorities and the order of staging, it's a trivial calculation. Then again, the burn time calculator for nodes is less accurate than the one I wrote myself in Vizzy, so it's clear that getting the rocket science right is not important to the people developing this rocket game.

Just when I thought I might be able to get back into this game with the UI improvements to map mode, I think I might just bow out again...

Lol and using quotes to "quote" something that wasn't actually said is also terrible. The only way to calculate that type of staging automatically is to make assumptions in the calculations... That's not how math works.. The game calculates the result based on facts, not assumptions. That's actual science.

[mreed2]

Um, KSP1 does, in fact, generate accurate delta-v calculations for both parallel and asparagus staging. And source code for these implementation is available
as MechJeb includes a delta-v calculator as one of its components.

Frankly, detecting parallel / asparagus staging is present and displaying "N/A" in the delta-v window is preferable to the existing situation. At least then it is clear that you cannot trust the delta-v calculation.