Sense of directions issues, and some suggestions

[haltux]

Hello,

First, thank you to the makesr of this amazing game, I have started playing with it recently and I now addicted.

I feel like I have now a fair understanding of the mechanics of the game, but there is still something which I think is very confusing: getting a sense of directions in space.

As long as you burst in the direction your ship is moving or in the opposite direction, everything is fine. But when you want to burst in any other direction, you realize how hard it is to get a sense of directions.

Unless I missed something obvious, I think that the orientation system could be easily improved. Here are some suggestions, in case one of the game designer read this thread:

- A way to switch between orgital map and ship view without changing camera direction

- A way to display ship direction vector in orbital map.

- A 'space' navigation ball. In my opinion, the current navigation ball is great when the ship is taking off, landing or (arguably) is in low orbit. But when your are far away from any planet, it does make very little sense. The meaning or the horizon, or the 'north' when you are half way between kerbin and mun is confusing, to say the least.

This 'space navigation ball' would display directions of fixed axis in space, relatively to the sun: the direction of the axis perpandicular to the orbit of Kerbin around its star, and two other fixed directions perpandicaular to that one (in the plan of the orbit of Kerbin), that could be immediately identifiable both on the navigation ball and the orbital map (axis would be displayed). This space navigation ball could also display the position of the closest planet and possibly the sun.

Of course I am not suggesting to remove the planetary navigation ball. It should be possible to switch between them.

I hope this is clear enough.

I would be happy to have your comments.

[Ted]

Welcome to the forums!

When you\'re in space you can use the prograde(yellow circle) and retrograde(greenish circle with a cross) to help you with navigation, prograde will increase your apoapsis, while retrograde will lower it.

Once I get into space and out of Low Kerbin Orbit, I tend to ignore everything on the navball but those two symbols. Also, did you know that you can see the navball while in the Orbital map? That will allow you to have a sense of direction even when in that viewing mode.

To change your inclination you can burn in either the North or South direction, I can never remember which goes which way, so I normally just do a quick burn to check.

I do think that a direction vector is needed on the orbital map though, even for planetary bodies. It does get quite easy to forget which way Minumus goes sometimes.

[duckunlimited2]

Here\'s some universal info (basic and advanced) to help you get your bearings with the navball:

1: Yellow Circle is your direction of travel

2: Green circle is in the opposite of your direction of travel

3: Purple/pink circle is Kerbin\'s position relative to you

4: If your cursor is at the north pole of the navball, your ship would be pointing straight up from Kerbin/mun/minmus/kerbol/whatever central object your orbiting

5: conversely, if your cursor is at the southpole of the navball, your ship is pointing straight down

6: When your cursor is on the North line (longitude) on the navball, your ship is pointing North, 90deg is east, 180deg is south, and 270deg is west

7: A circular orbit has both your yellow and green circle indicators on the equator line

8: if your yellow circle is in the north hemisphere, your direction of travel is generally taking you up and you are gaining altitude

9:If your yellow circle is in the southern hemisphere, your direction of travel is generally taking you down and you are losing altitude

10: If you are traveling west to east, Your yellow circle is on 90deg and green on 270deg

11: if you are traveling east to west, your yellow circle is on 270 and green on 90deg

12: If you are in a polar orbit (North to South) Your indicators will be either on the North line or 180 deg

13: If your traveling straight up, your yellow marker is on the north pole

14: if your traveling straight down, your yellow marker is on the south pole

Here\'s some orbital maneuvers (both basic and advanced) that, if you truly master and understand, will allow you to go in any heading your little heart would desire:

1: burn on the yellow circular indicator to raise your orbit

2: burn on the green circular indicator to lower your orbit

3: burn on the north pole to raise your front half of your orbit, and lower your back half

4: burn on the south pole to lower your front half of your orbit, and raise your back half of your orbit

5: To change your inclination, its best to position your curser exactly between your green and yellow markers and burn (latitude wise) Note: your space craft position in your orbit will act as the orbits pivot point

6: when you are burning (no matter where you are on the navball) the yellow indicator will always move towards your curser, and the green indicator moves away from your curser. This is the best rule of thumb to exploit if you truly want to manipulate your orbits.

Hope this helps, it definitely helps me

Source: My own observations

Reliably confirmed by: my own success stories

[Randox]

It\'s also something you get used to with time. When I first started out, I got confused a lot. Once you get used to the navball though, it is really great (though vectors in the map would be pretty sweet), and you\'ll be performing all your flying using that as a reference. The only time I ever actually look at the flying view while actually flying is when I am landing, and I want to be able to see the ground. For everything else, a visual reference is far to imprecise.

[Zephram Kerman]

Lots of good stuff in this thread! There\'s only a couple of other things I can think of to suggest:

• it is possible (although tedious) to manually match the map and camera views by comparing points of reference, like Kerbol and the Murky Way / nebula thingy;

• install MechJeb and use the Smart A.S.S. mode to get used to the various directions like Prograde, Radial, Normal, etc.;

• when doing a plane change, burn towards Normal or Anti-normal, but be aware this direction changes throughout the burn, so watch that the prograde marker stays on the edge of the nav ball;

• during vertical descent, it helps to rotate the camera (or ship) so that the nav ball matches what you see.

[haltux]

Thanks for your answers and comments.

Just to make it clear: I understand how to use green and yellow marks on the navball, that\'s fine. I understand also that when I burst right between green and yellow marks, I burst in a direction perpandicular to my trajectory. Which one? That is the tricky question.

More generally, my main problem is not to make any of the basic, or even advanced manoeuvres.

My main problem is that there is no configuration in which you get the big picture: where are the planets, where you are, where you go, where you are heading. Navball + Orbital map provides that, but in a way which is too complex to be interpreted intuitively, unless, of course, you are heading toward yellow or green mark. And even in this configuration, you don\'t know how rotated you are. You are not able to say 'I will watch on my left and see the sun and Mun aligned'. What you will do is going to external view and searching them in random directions.

When I read your comment, Zephram Kerman, I can see that I am not the only one to have this problem. Your suggestions are just workaround for the general problem I am describing.

I\'ll try MechJeb, tough.

[Katalliaan]

If you are pointed towards/away from the body you are orbiting, you are pointing anti-radial/radial; I\'m not sure of the use for that in orbital burns, though.

If you are pointed parallel to the body you are orbiting, but at a right angle to your orbit, you are pointing either normal or anti-normal; it\'s used to change your orbital plane.

If you are pointing along your trajectory or opposite it, you are pointing prograde/retrograde; burning in those directions raises or lowers (depending on which way you are pointing) the point in your orbit opposite of you.

[khyron42]

Generally speaking, orbital mechanics AREN\'T intuitive.

I agree that even just adding a little arrow shape to the currently controlled craft on the map view, representing the direction the nose is currently pointing, would be nice. However, that information is already there in the nav ball, once you know what the navball is showing based on where you are in space.

The real problem is always that of representing three-dimensional information in a 2-d space, and I think overall they\'ve given us enough tools. Knowing orbital mechanics and having only our current tools (navball + mapview + indicators in the camera view) it\'s possible to rendevous with another craft in orbit, and make precision landings at least as well as the Apollo missions did.

---

Katalliaan - radial burns during the ascending part of the orbit increase eccentricity, and during the descending part decrease it. The opposite happens with anti-radial. It can be useful to help circularize at a specific altitude without having that altitude be your Ap or Pe, and are most useful during rendezvous maneuvers.

[haltux]

About the 3D-2D representation problem, I guess a nice option would be to include a view of the rocket itself instead of its icon, in 3D, with the proper heading, obviously magnified to a constant and small size, in the orbital view. I think it would look really nice and would be very useful.

By the way, I have just seen an interesting point on this topic in HaarvesteR interview:

[15:47] <@HarvesteR> but most significantly, we will add a system we\'re calling UI Master Modes soon

[15:48] <@HarvesteR> basically, the UI instruments would each have several modes in which they could operate

[15:48] <@HarvesteR> the navball, for instance, would be toggleable between surface (current), orbit, and maybe something else

[15:48] <@HarvesteR> the speed reading toggles between surface, orbit, and later target-relative

We\'ll see.

Anyway, I would like to thank you all for all your interesting comments and advices.

[haltux]

Actually, in the thread 'Is the navball global?', Temstar is describing the Apollo navball, and it seems similar to what I described as 'space navball':

If you go watch Apollo 13 again the FDAI and danger of gimbal lock came up a few times in the movie. If I understand correctly the ship is set so that gimbal lock range is set at the north and south poles of the ecliptic plane. That is the directly 'above' and 'below' the sun as viewed from the plane of earth\'s orbit around the sun. The idea is in a normal mission you should never need to point the Apollo spaceship directly 'up' and 'down' in respect to the ecliptic.

[duckunlimited2]

I think I have a better grasp on what your trying to say. I think your saying that navballs aren\'t good for finding your space orientations because its designed to orient yourself while on the surface of the earth (or kerbin in the kerbal universe). Some of the things on the navball aren\'t needed while in space than is needed on the surface of kerbin (like knowing where north is). And its better to design a new system specifically for space travel and orientation. That\'s what your trying to say right?

Well, albeit that its difficult to interpret in space, the navball is a tried and true instrument that works quite well. It could be tweaked, or changed completely, to better our attempts at referencing our orientation, but designing a better system takes effort and finding a fantastic design (like the navball) will take major effort and some luck. Hopefully Harvesters new systems would make it a whole lot easier to orient oneself.

I also would like to say that we need a 3-d version of a compass rose that moves when we tilt our camera so we know what direction were looking at. It takes me forever to even find Kerbol in the sky while out in orbit.

[haltux]

I think I have a better grasp on what your trying to say. I think your saying that navballs aren\'t good for finding your space orientations because its designed to orient yourself while on the surface of the earth (or kerbin in the kerbal universe). Some of the things on the navball aren\'t needed while in space than is needed on the surface of kerbin (like knowing where north is). And its better to design a new system specifically for space travel and orientation. That\'s what your trying to say right?

Yes, that\'s about it.

Well, albeit that its difficult to interpret in space, the navball is a tried and true instrument that works quite well. It could be tweaked, or changed completely, to better our attempts at referencing our orientation, but designing a better system takes effort and finding a fantastic design (like the navball) will take major effort and some luck. Hopefully Harvesters new systems would make it a whole lot easier to orient oneself.

I use to be carefull when I make this kind of assumptions, but most suggestions that has been made in this thread are pretty straightforward to implement. It is clear that the two first ones of my initial post (same point of view when switching view, displayed vector in orbital map), and the true 'apollo style' global Navball would not be a problem.

But I can understand that developpers are thinking twice before making any kind of change in the interface. People don\'t want the interface to change at each version. When things are changing, some people does not like it and complain, and so on...

[Nibb31]

Just because it is painted brown and green doesn\'t mean that it\'s only useful when you are near a planet.

A nav ball is always usefull in space, because unless you are on an escape trajectory far from the sun (like Voyager or Pioneer) you are always orbiting something, therefore you always need to be able to position yourself relative to that object.

On a translunar trajectory, for example, the navball clearly indicates whether you are pointing prograde or retrograde. It indicates the orbital plane, and allows you to position the spacecraft in a normal or antinormal (North or South) position for inclination changes. It also allows you to eyeball all the in-between positions that allow you to correct your trajectory.

It\'s much easier to visualize all this information with a navball than with some kind of 3D plantarium based on a starmap of dozens of reference points.

It\'s not the only instrument, but it gives a clear summary of the spacecraft attitude. The fact that it was used on Apollo and on Soyuz (and probably Orion too) means that it\'s still relevant.

[haltux]

I get your point. However, your reference to Apollo is incorrect. Apollo Nav Ball used several modes, the main one providing absolute directions. Other modes being made for specific manoeuvres.

http://nassp.sourceforge.net/wiki/CSM_FDAI