To land distance when landing

[juvilado]

Hi, im a veteran and always having the same question. Is there any way in vanilla to know what vertical distance is left when a vessel is attempting to land? The altitude is not reliable, as it is not at sea level where you want to land. I know with Kengineer we have that feature, but in vanilla?

[KerikBalm]

IVA view of pods have a radar altimeter that works when you are within... I think 3km of the ground... but then ... yea, its IVA view... but you can look at when the iva view dial tells you its 2km from the ground, then quickly switch to the normal external view, and look at the altitude, then mentally subtract 2km from that to have your "true" height.

[Venusgate]

Ground shadow/retrorocket smoke vector change?

[SteveD80]

If you're landing at the runway, stick a rover at either end.

[juvilado]

Im talking about something like landing at Mun at night, or even at day. There should be a ground distance indicator in vanilla, i believe Apollo missions had one. IVA can help but it is absolutelly unpractical to switch to IVA when the vessel is about to land.

[bewing]

I agree. Especially if it's a robotic probe and has no IVA. And it takes too long to read the logarithmic analog readouts in IVA mode anyway.

[tg626]

There is a mod that when the nav ball is in surface mode makes the altitude read AGL.  But that's a mod, and I forget the name...

[CSE]

Diazo's Landing Height Display. Simple, unobtrusive, and very helpful.

Edited May 25, 2016 by CSE

[juvilado]

Well, for mods, i like the idea of the kerbal engineer in career mode. When you get tracking station level 3 i guess or some advanced command modules or probes you have the K engineer info available, or if you put the Kengineer part on the vessel... Squad should copy that.