Difference between revisions of "Vehicle Assembly Building"

Revision as of 21:39, 18 March 2014

The VAB and launch pad as viewed from the exterior

The interior of the VAB with ground crew.

Vehicle Editor redirects here; see also Space Plane Hangar.

The Vehicle Assembly Building (abbr. VAB, sometimes wrongly called "Vertical Assembly Building") is a large construction facility at Kerbal Space Center. It is used for designing rockets and other spacecraft in a vertical orientation. Parts can be placed singly or with two-, three-, four-, six- and eightfold radial symmetry as opposed to the SPH's bilateral symmetry. Vessels constructed in the VAB will launch from the launch pad. Kerbal scientists, engineers, and utility vehicles roam through the VAB, in addition to cargo lifts, with various animations although they do not affect the design process. Occasionally, the utility vehicles will drive through one another.

With version 0.22 it can store sub assemblies which can be attached to other vehicles later. Those sub assemblies are shared between the VAB and SPH allowing to exchange craft between then.

Description

The VAB is a large cubical assembly bay located at the very center of KSC. Large yellow doors act as auxiliary entrances and are located at the north, west, and south faces of the building. On the east face however, there is a giant shutter that spans the whole height of the building. This shutter makes way for all vehicles that are created inside the VAB. There is also a small complex that juts out of the south side. There are stairs and ladders that lead to the roof of the VAB, but dismounting the tops of the ladders is difficult. On the roof, there are 2 helipads beside the skylights. There are no helicopters in the game as of yet, but the pads can be landed on by VTOL vehicles, like the stock Rocket-power VTOL. If a kerbal jumps off of the VAB roof, they will survive, but may temporarily glitch on landing, with the arms shooting outward and becoming thing for a few seconds. It is similar to the effects experienced when falling into Jool.

Interface

VAB mode: Along the top of the screen are some of the VAB controls. The left most controls are dependent on the current mode the VAB is in. The mode is controlled by the three blue icons just to the left of center along the top. These are: Parts the default mode, Action group and Crew.

Vehicle name is in the top center. Clicking on the name allows the user to edit the name before saving the current vehicle. It also opens a drop down box that lets the user write a description of the vehicle, along with any notes about changes, uses or features they might find noteworthy. Clicking anywhere else on the screen closes the note box, but does not save the vehicle to disk.

Mission Flag presets the flag used, if this is a manned vehicle, when a Extend-o-matic Series A1 Deployable Flag is placed once landed.

File controls are located along the top right of the screen.

• New - Clears currently active vehicle from the VAB, and does not save any changes.

• Load - Opens a pop up window to load any previously saved vehicle assemblies.

• Save - Saves the currently active vehicle to disk. If not previously named, it is saved as Untitled Space Craft.

• Launch - If not recently saved, creates Auto Saved Ship on disk, then switches from the VAB to the Launch pad.

• Exit - Does not save the current ship and exits the VAB back to the Space Center.

Mode Controls The left 25%-30% of the screen will be occupied by the various controls related to the mode. See the individual modes listed above.

Staging On the right edge of the screen is a dynamic and editable list of the current stages of the vehicle under construction. The game will attempt to build the stages as the user adds parts. However, the user may want to change the order that stages are activated, or edit what happens at each stage.

Gallery

• 

  The exterior view of the VAB until 0.21

• 

  The interior view of the VAB until 0.21

Changes

0.22

• Added possibility to add and use subassemblies
• Redesigned exterior area

0.21

• Redesigned exterior and interior with supply trucks, animated lifts, and more Kerbal Engineers.
• Tweaked lighting for VAB interior and Launchpad

0.16

• Added ground crew to the VAB.

0.7.3

• Initial release