Flight planning at Mission Control?

[cwalrus]

I've seen a lot of disparate information on this - I just upgraded my mission control building to Level 3 and it says "Flight Planning Available." According to other posts (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/103170-What-is-Flight-Planning-Available) you have to upgrade both the Mission control building and the Tracking station to get Maneuver nodes. However, I've had Manuever nodes since early on, after upgrading the Tracking Station...so I"m wondering, did I unlock something else I can't find now? Is there some way to 'plan' and entire mission to a planet and back?

Anyone clarify?

Edited June 16, 2015 by cwalrus

[NASAHireMe]

Is there some way to 'plan' and entire mission to a planet and back?

No, not in the stock game. Nothing you unlock will give you a full-fledged 'mission planner' like the type you are probably envisioning. What you are unlocking are the various stock flight capabilities available automatically in sandbox, like maneuver nodes, seeing SOI changes, etc.

[georgTF]

What Blu_C said:

Level 2 Tracking Station alone allows you to see future orbits in other SOI's and detect when an orbit will bring you into another SOI. Without that you just need to guess.

Level 2 Mission Control alone simply allows you to take more contracts.

Level 2 for both unlocks maneuver nodes.

I forget which one is Flight planning, but ideally you want both at the same time unless you've grown very comfortable with eyeballing Mun/Minmus orbits. Since playing this career i have pretty much ignored maneuver nodes when transfering but they are extremly usefull for setting up early career 'free-return' flybys (you basically do not have to use fuel to return to Kerbin) and are almost essential for rendesvous and rescue work. Eventually you just have to have them, but for a long time you can indeed just eyeball flybys by burning prograde when Mun/Minmus are above horizon (or even eyeball it using the map). Minmus is a touch trickier since you have to match inclination once you eject from Kerbin, but it's a cheap maneuver.

Anway, lvl3 Mission controll gives unlimited contracts (up from 7 at lvl2), and lvl3 Tracking station allows asteroid tracking.

[edit]

There is something that can be done to simulate planetary transfers at least. It requires that you place a small probe just outside Kerbin's SOI, then once it's a bit away from the planet, match Kerbin's orbit as best as you can. The probe will lead or follow Kerbin at a short distance.

When you want to do some 'flight planning' switch to this probe and place a maneuver node along it's path to check what kind of Dv you might need, how long the trip will be, and where can you expect to find the target. When using this method allow for the fact that the probe is already outside Kerbin's SOI and whatever you intend to launch will have to bother with escaping it's gravity first and will thus be late. It can still give a rough idea of what to expect.

This is a feature that is missing from stock KSP. It's silly that only a vessel that is already in orbit of something can use maneuver nodes to plan course changes.

Edited June 16, 2015 by georgTF

[cwalrus]

Thanks for the tips - but the question remains: So far, I can't see that Level 3 Mission control has done anything, other than unlimited contracts... Maybe I just got excited because I saw "flight Planing available" instead of maneuver nodes... oh well.

BTW I just use DeltaV charts from around the web to plan - I can't decide if that's cheating or not... but I do know I don't want to spend 50% of the game getting to a planet and going "Well, I need more fuel!" over and over again... I still die all the time!

[NASAHireMe]

BTW I just use DeltaV charts from around the web to plan - I can't decide if that's cheating or not...

Let me answer this for you. It is not cheating. At least, 99.99% of players would not consider it cheating. It is a fundamental part of gameplay

[SAI Peregrinus]

Let me answer this for you. It is not cheating. At least, 99.99% of players would not consider it cheating. It is a fundamental part of gameplay

Bah! Anyone not manually calculating the 10-year average for the delta-V to reach all the different planets with nothing but paper, a pencil, and a slide rule is a dirty lazy cheater! If it was good enough to get to the moon it's good enough for me!

In all seriousness, no, of course it's not cheating. They're just charts with the averages pre-computed. They're not hard to generate, just tedious. Reducing difficulty is cheating. Reducing tedium isn't. Where the line is between the two is up to the individual.

[cwalrus]

To be honest, I feel like I should be looking at it like "We Kerbals have never flown to Jool before!" .... so therefore, to 'succeed' properly, I have to calculate all the .... myself, at least once.....! I mean, how the hell do they know how much DV it takes? If they knew, they wouldn't need me!

But that's an awful lot of math when I'm just trying to geek out.

[Red Iron Crown]

To be honest, I feel like I should be looking at it like "We Kerbals have never flown to Jool before!" .... so therefore, to 'succeed' properly, I have to calculate all the .... myself, at least once.....! I mean, how the hell do they know how much DV it takes? If they knew, they wouldn't need me!

But that's an awful lot of math when I'm just trying to geek out.

It's a game. If the math is fun for you, do it. If you don't enjoy the math (or at least enjoy learning how the math is done) then don't feel any remorse about using charts or other tools.