Kerbal Space Program

Today I finally learned the heuristic behind how Kerbals plant their flags - they check slope of the terrain, and try to place the flag approximately perpendicular to that.

The idea behind it is probably to make the planting animation match terrain, i.e. to prevent leaving the flag hanging in the air, or burying it too deep into the ground (or to prevent the flag skipping up/falling down when the animation ends, not sure). That makes sense.

However it's source of endless frustration when trying to make a nice screenshot with lander, crew, and flag after a successful landing. Most landings happen on almost level terrain (or the lander would fall) and yet Kerbals insist on just two seemingly very arbitrary directions (with clear bias towards one of them) in which they are willing to place flags. In many cases (accidentally, but more ofthen than I'd like) it places the flag in a way where it is not well lit by the Sun, ruining the whole composition.

Please, improve that. Allow placing the flag even on certain slope, e.g. by making the pole a little longer and giving the flag ability to stay at certain height above terrain to match the animation. If the slope is not too great, the Kerbal should just plant the flag ahead of him without any turning. And only if it exceeds the limit, the Kerbal should turn the least necessary angle, or display an error such as "too steep slope to plant a flag".