[1.12.x] BetterBurnTime v1.10: Provides extra burn-time indicators on the navball for suicide burns & target rendezvous.

[Snark]

6 hours ago, Atroner said:

Do you think this mod will work in 1.5? Regards.

It'll need some work.  BetterBurnTime 1.6.1 will likely have indigestion with the revised KSP 1.5, based on what they've shown about the update.

Most likely what I'll end up needing to do is to just remove the burn-time feature for maneuver nodes (since it looks as though they'll have this covered in stock, with the new-and-improved navball), and then do some tinkering to get the other "trackers" (impact, rendezvous, atmosphere transition) working together with it.

So yeah, there will likely be a window of unavailability after KSP 1.5 before I get BBT up and running again.  But I definitely plan on getting it working (since BBT is a pretty important part of my own gameplay!), so I'll have that out as soon as I can.  No promises on exact dates, though. 

[Atroner]

 

thank you very much!!!

[Beetlecat]

On 10/4/2018 at 7:06 PM, Snark said:

It'll need some work.  BetterBurnTime 1.6.1 will likely have indigestion with the revised KSP 1.5, based on what they've shown about the update.

Most likely what I'll end up needing to do is to just remove the burn-time feature for maneuver nodes (since it looks as though they'll have this covered in stock, with the new-and-improved navball), and then do some tinkering to get the other "trackers" (impact, rendezvous, atmosphere transition) working together with it.

So yeah, there will likely be a window of unavailability after KSP 1.5 before I get BBT up and running again.  But I definitely plan on getting it working (since BBT is a pretty important part of my own gameplay!), so I'll have that out as soon as I can.  No promises on exact dates, though. 

Hopefully there are at least some news "stock" toys /trackers to play with and enhance. KSP has had some good stepwise improvement in *some* areas, it's just a shame it winds up *almost* replacing needed mod-provided features

[Snark]

Hi all,

Just a note that I've got the next release of BetterBurnTime (for KSP 1.5 compatibility) ready, but not released yet.  I'll release it (and post here) just as soon as SpaceDock updates their site so that it's possible for me to mark it as 1.5-compatible.

Just a heads-up to let you know what's coming.  This is a pretty simple change:  basically, all I've done is to remove the "maneuver node" tracker that calculates the burn time for maneuver nodes and shows a countdown.  It's removed because the snazzy new burn-time indicator in KSP 1.5 renders this pretty much obsolete, so there's not really any point in keeping it around anymore.

The other "trackers" -- for surface impact, target rendezvous, and atmosphere transition-- remain in place and continue behaving exactly as before.  (By "exactly", I mean, for example, that they still use the same calculation methods as before, they still show "you don't have enough delta-V" like (~this), and they don't take staging into account, same as always.)

Anyway, I'll have it up just as soon as I can, just waiting on SpaceDock at this point.

[Beetlecat]

Aw. Will miss the dots, but cheers all the same!

[Tyko]

Thanks for keeping the rest around. They're really useful

[Snark]

Hi all,

I'm pleased to announce the release of BetterBurnTime v1.7, for KSP 1.5 compatibility.

The main change is that the "maneuver node" burn-time functionality (which has been part of BetterBurnTime since its inception, and was the original reason for the mod's existence) has been removed, since it's no longer needed with the much-snazzier navball functionality added to the stock game in KSP 1.5.

The trackers for surface landing, orbital target rendezvous, and atmosphere transition are still in place, and their functionality is unchanged from before.

Enjoy!

[CanOmer]

Awesome

[CanOmer]

On 10/17/2018 at 1:51 AM, Snark said:

The main change is that the "maneuver node" burn-time functionality (which has been part of BetterBurnTime since its inception, and was the original reason for the mod's existence) has been removed, since it's no longer needed with the much-snazzier navball functionality added to the stock game in KSP 1.5.

Stock burn time isn't correct. 

[Gordon Dry]

@CanOmer I already recognized this on day one of KSP 1.5 - but who would believe me because I use a modded game (other people even say I would use too many mods - but as long as KSP.exe needs less RAM than I have, how could it be too many?)

[JH4C]

1 hour ago, CanOmer said:

Stock burn time isn't correct. 

If I'm reading everything correctly, it's only out by a second... Factor in MJ's habit of doing the last couple of seconds at reduced thrust, which the stock game cannot anticipate, and I'd consider that pretty close.

[Snark]

2 hours ago, CanOmer said:

Stock burn time isn't correct. 

Took me a couple of minutes of staring and searching to figure out what the screenshot had to do with this comment.  "Isn't correct, based on... what?"  I was guessing that something on the screen would have an indication of burn time, but there are so many tiny text-dense dialogs cluttering up the screen that it took a fair amount of searching to find what you were talking about.

No problem, just... an arrow or a useful crop or something would have been handy.    Anyway, finally found what I think is what you're talking about, here:

So, just to clarify:

First, you haven't demonstrated that stock is incorrect.  You've merely demonstrated that it says a different number than some mod called "FLIGHT ENGINEER 1.1.5.4" says.

But in any case, that's a moot point, because there's no significant difference between the two estimates.  We're not talking about something that's going to affect anyone's gameplay.  At all.  We're talking about a one-second estimate difference for a burn that's well over 300 seconds.  It's literally a difference of only 0.3%.  That's so microscopic that it makes not the slightest, tiniest shred of difference in gameplay.  It's not as though some player somewhere is going to run into a situation like "oh no, I started my five-minute burn one second too late and now my ship is going to crash or run out of fuel," surely?

The fact is, the reason I created BetterBurnTime's tracker in the first place was that the stock indicator, pre-1.5, was so bad that it affected gameplay and was thereby an actual annoyance.  The new stock indicator is perfectly fine, as far as I'm concerned.  I couldn't tell you whether it's "perfect," because I haven't gone to the large amount of trouble it would take to verify that with a sufficient degree of assurance.  But in any case, I couldn't care less.  Because all I care about is, is it accurate enough for gameplay purposes, and the answer to that is a resounding "yes".  Anything that involves a hypothetical error that, at most, might be less than a third of one percent, is simply not a concern to me.

Not to mention that since it's a stock feature, any future maintenance, bug fixes, etc. will be handled by Squad as necessary.  So, that's less logic that I need to own, maintain, debug, etc. in my mod, so therefore significantly less work for me over time.

TL;DR:  The new stock indicator's fine as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not inclined to try to fight it.

[CanOmer]

The red "Burn Time" is not correct. It looks like it is calculated as all delta-v requirement for the maneuver burn by the tiny engine on the 0th stage, not the big engine on the 2nd stage.

Complete burn is combination of 2 engines:

Stage2:  1197m/s (19.7s)

Stage0:  335.5m/s (~45s ?)

So, how could sum of these two burns became 5m, 27s?

If we can have only one engine burn time estimation, I'd choose the first one as we had before.

Edited October 18, 2018 by CanOmer

[Snark]

3 minutes ago, CanOmer said:

The "Burn Time" is not correct. It looks like it is calculated as all delta-v requirement for the maneuver burn by the tiny engine on the 0th stage, not the big engine on the 2nd stage.

Complete burn is combination of 2 engines:

1. 1197m/s (19.7s)

2. 335.5m/s (less than 45s)

So, how could sum of these two burns became 5m, 27s?

Okay, if there's a significant concern here-- as in "it's saying a burn will take over five minutes when actually it will take only about one minute", then that is a big honkin' error, yes.

However, I'll note that the screenshot you provide has two burn calculations which are, I assume, completely independent:

• The stock burn indicator, which says 5m27s
• The "FLIGHT ENGINEER 1.1.5.4" mod, which says 5m28s, i.e. nearly the exact same estimate.

Since your original post above provided no information other than a screenshot and the statement "isn't correct!", I naturally assumed you were saying "oh no, the calculation says 5m27s when actually it should be 5m28s according to Flight Engineer".  Thus my dismissive post. 

But now it looks as though you're saying a completely different thing?  You're saying that both of these independent sets of calculations are arriving at the same very-wrong number?  And that the actual burn time is supposed to be something based on the numbers you give in your post you've quoted, here?

Okay, in that case I'm going to need some more clearly stated numbers and circumstances so that I have an idea of what's going on.

First, what are you defining as "correct"?  Where are you getting the numbers "1197 m/s", "19.7s", "335.5 m/s", and "less than 45s" from?

Second, what's the deal with your rocket?  It's very hard to tell anything because there's only one screenshot from one angle with a dialog box obscuring a big chunk of the rocket and very little information about how things work in general.  If your rocket is designed in a way that is screwing up both the stock calculation and Flight Engineer's calculation in the exact same way, then I'm wondering whether there's something unusual about your rocket design that could be confusing the algorithms that are being used to calculate a burn time.  Do you have a shareable rocket (i.e. constructed only from stock parts) that you could post a .craft file somewhere, so that it's possible to reproduce what you're seeing?

 

10 minutes ago, CanOmer said:

If we can have only one burn time estimation, I'd choose the first one as we have before.

What do you mean by "the first one as we have before"?  Do you mean BetterBurnTime's calculation (from BBT 1.6.1), or something else?

If you've got a two-stage rocket where the burn is split across multiple stages, I assure you that BetterBurnTime's old calculation will be flat-out wrong, because BBT makes no attempt whatsoever to be "stage aware", and shows you a calculation that just assumes that all fuel on the rocket will go to powering whatever engines are currently active.

[HebaruSan]

7 minutes ago, Snark said:

Okay, if there's a significant concern here-- as in "it's saying a burn will take over five minutes when actually it will take only about one minute", then that is a big honkin' error, yes.

However, I'll note that the screenshot you provide has two burn calculations which are, I assume, completely independent:

• The stock burn indicator, which says 5m27s
• The "FLIGHT ENGINEER 1.1.5.4" mod, which says 5m28s, i.e. nearly the exact same estimate.

The value in the FLIGHT ENGINEER window (which is just what Kerbal Engineer Redux calls itself in the flight scene) is not supposed to be the time of the maneuver, it's the total delta V of the craft (and how long it will take to run out). @CanOmer would have to click the "BURN" button to bring up the info about the maneuver. Presumably the error is that the stock indicator thinks the craft needs to expend all of the fuel of a 3505 m/s craft for a 1532 m/s burn.

[CanOmer]

Yes Kerbal Engineer Redux shows total Delta-V burn time. I'm talking about maneuver burn time.

Total maneuver burn delta-v is 1532.5m/s which needs both engines to burn. These are those two burns' delta-v and burn times in my numbers.

Quote

What do you mean by "the first one as we have before"?

The first engine.

It's a stock rocket named ComSat Lx. I launched it for testing the new burn time feature.

Edited October 18, 2018 by CanOmer

[Beetlecat]

So, to clarify the issue described, the stock burn time is essentially showing the total available burn time in the craft (the same figure Kerbal Engineer is displaying above in that screenshot), rather than what's going to be needed for the upcoming burn?

The burn indicator bar (with the staging segment) does seem correct, since it's showing 1532m/s (total) which requires a stage after burning the 1197m/s available in the current stage.

[Snark]

Guys.

Can we please take the bugs-in-stock conversation elsewhere?

This is the BetterBurnTime thread.  This is not the "Discuss issues with the stock KSP burn-time indicator" thread.  I'm happy to hear from the users of my mod, of course ... but about this mod.  Talking about bugs in the stock burn indicator is interesting and worthwhile, but this thread is not about that.

The part of this conversation that's relevant to BBT is the fact that I've removed BBT's maneuver-node burn indicator, in favor of the stock burn indicator.  That's a thing that I did, and that's not going to change until and unless I have a good reason to change it.  A "good reason", here, would be if the stock burn indicator is, 1. so broken it's unusable, and 2. any breakage seems unlikely to be fixed by Squad within a reasonable time frame.

I don't see evidence of either of those two things, here.  The stock burn indicator may not be perfect-- it's solving a seriously difficult programming problem, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's got some bugs that need fixing.  But for the most part it works pretty well-- I've gotten quite a few hours of KSP-playing with the new indicator, and it has worked perfectly well for me in the scenarios that I've used it.  And, if there are any serious showstopper bugs in the burn indicator, I suspect Squad will be fixing them in the not too distant future, so I don't want to waste my own time worrying about that.

If time passes and time passes and it's been many weeks since a stock bug became widely known and the bug is so bad that it's seriously affecting gameplay for large numbers of users, then I may reconsider and look at the possibility of adding the BBT indicator back in.    But until that happens, I'd prefer to let it lie.  KSP 1.5 released just a few days ago, folks-- it's early days yet.

So, my request is:

• If there's a discussion about bugs in the stock game, please take the discussion somewhere relevant, not in this mod thread.
• If you'd like to request "Please add the BBT tracker back because the stock indicator is too buggy", that's a legitimate request-- but please hold such requests until a reasonable amount of time has passed (i.e. time to give Squad a chance to fix bugs).

Thanks!

[CanOmer]

After the craft pass 70km (atmosphere), indicator shows correct value.

[Snark]

1 hour ago, CanOmer said:

After the craft pass 70km (atmosphere), indicator shows correct value.

Great!  Perhaps go provide that information somewhere in a discussion about bugs in the stock game, so hopefully someone from Squad will see it?

No need to mention it here, because 1. that's a stock-game thing so it doesn't affect BetterBurnTime and I can't do anything about it, and 2. the only folks reading this thread are people interested in BBT, so mentioning stock bugs here won't help the people who are interested in stock bugs.

(See my immediately preceding post.)

Thanks!

[CanOmer]

I did already, also wrote here to inform you.

[Snark]

1 minute ago, CanOmer said:

I did already, also wrote here to inform you.

Well, thank you for your thoughtfulness, I understand it was well-meant. 

But there's no need to report bugs in the stock game to me, because those aren't anything I can do anything about, and they don't involve me-- it's off-topic here.  And posting discussions about stock bugs here means that people who come to this thread looking for info about BetterBurnTime will have to sift past unrelated info.

[Beetlecat]

Sorry Snark! Mea culpa.

My only follow-on thought from getting clarity on the "bug" was whether or not you'd consider it something you'd prefer to override with BBT again. Otherwise, you're totally right -- not *your* issue.  If it turns out this is WAD on Squad's part, then yeah, I'll add my voice to the chorus of "bring it back!"

I *do* wonder about the possibility of bringing back the dots, though.  I find I much preferred them to a literal timer ticking down. Something about them being more of a visual abstraction among all the other values and formulas, etc. Even though I know there are numbers driving them.

4 minutes ago, CanOmer said:

After the craft pass 70km (atmosphere), indicator shows correct value.

And this interesting wrinkle is interesting.

[Snark]

15 minutes ago, Beetlecat said:

My only follow-on thought from getting clarity on the "bug" was whether or not you'd consider it something you'd prefer to override with BBT again.

No.  Not even slightly.  Not going to happen.  Zero chance.  The only way that could happen would be if the stock indicator were so broken that it was a gameplay-killer, which it isn't, as far as I can tell.

The stock burn indicator in KSP 1.5+ is better than BetterBurnTime, overall:  it actually takes staging into account, which BBT does not do and never will do (because I don't feel like spending many weeks of unpaid work to build an enormously complicated thing that KER already does and the stock game already does.)

So, re-adding the BBT tracker would kill all the nice staging goodness, which I'm not going to do.  As far as I'm concerned, the stock burn indicator is the burn indicator now, and if it has a bug or two here and there for certain edge cases, let's report 'em to Squad so they can be fixed.  But I'm not going to re-invent that wheel.

15 minutes ago, Beetlecat said:

I *do* wonder about the possibility of bringing back the dots, though.  I find I much preferred them to a literal timer ticking down. Something about them being more of a visual abstraction among all the other values and formulas, etc. Even though I know there are numbers driving them.

I wholeheartedly agree with you.  But given that stock has a countdown that works, I'd have to write a bunch of code and do a bunch of work to try to figure out how to make it do it "my way" again, even assuming that it's actually possible (which seems likely but which I don't actually know).  I'm pretty busy, and coding/debugging this stuff is super time-consuming, so I'm not very motivated to do stuff to the code unless it's to address a problem that I, myself, am having in my own KSP gameplay.

I definitely prefer the countdown dots to the numeric countdown.  I would like to have that.  But it's not a "must have" for me.  When I originally added them, it was a no-brainer, because it was providing something I consider vital ("when do I start my burn"?), and implementing it was easy (because I was just adding a thing the game doesn't know about, rather than doing that and trying to suppress a built-in part of the game).

Adding the dots back now would be a lot less useful (it's mere convenience, "I like dots instead of countdown", rather than absolute necessity, "I need it because there's no countdown!"), and the work involved would be considerably bigger (because of the need to figure out how to prevent the game from showing its own indicator).

Spending a small number of hours to solve a major game-breaking problem was worth it to me.  Spending a large number of hours to make a perfectly serviceable thing a little nicer, is just not worth the tradeoff.

In short:  thank you for the suggestion, it's a nice suggestion, but it's just not worth the time/effort tradeoff it would take me to make it work the way I'd want it to work, now.

[Fan777]

left the old version of the mod (1.6.1)
it is much more convenient than the new