Vehicle Assembly Building
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.
For a 0.22[outdated] it is planned to store sub assemblies which can be attached to other vehicles later.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 north side 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 symptoms expierenced with the EVA Kraken.
VAB Game 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 disc.
Mission Flag presets the flag used, if this is a manned vehicle, when a 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 disc. If not previously named, it is saved as Untitled Space Craft.
- Launch - If not recently saved, creates Auto Saved Ship on disc, 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. A detailed description of the Stage controls is here.
Gallery
The exterior view of the VAB until 0.21
The interior view of the VAB until 0.21
Changes
- Redesigned exterior and interior with supply trucks, animated lifts, and more Kerbal Engineers.
- Tweaked lighting for VAB interior and Launchpad
- Added ground crew to the VAB.
- Initial Release
