KSP Timeline: KAC, Warp Control, Mission Updates, and MULTIPLAYER WARP?!

[Buster Charlie]

Okay I thought I posted about this before but I guess the kraken got it, so here it goes, apologies to KAC for stealing the screenshots from it's manual.

 

What I propose is a new UI element called the timeline, a multi function tracking center and map view utility that combines functions of KAC, warp control, mission updates, and yes even multiplayer warp control.

Now i'm not an expert UI guru, so i'm sure this whole idea could be made much cleaner with context sensitive displays and such, but essentially it should be handled like a video/audio editor track that you can 'scrub' and change the scale of on the fly to suit your needs.

Okay the First image shows a fairly low time scale, You have time markers, you have the zero line (but you can scrub left or right to view different sections if you want) A mouseover (see Kerbal X) an icon will show it's time or more details. The actual timeline should have pretty basic icons to keep it from getting too cluttered. You can compare the icons on the timeline to the ones in the KAC window. On the far right you see an arrow, this could signify user created maneuver nodes or alarms that are off screen in the future.  In this case the SOI and transfer window alarms. Maybe in the real UI you'd just mouse over the arrow and it would show the details in a text popup. 

One of my ideas for multiplayer timewarp would be to integrate it into the timeline, in addition to hotkeys (which could be treated like the game 'defcon' where the game runs at the fastest speed of the slowest player), you'd be able to que up warps (similar to KAC or mechjeb warp helper). In this example, the player (blue bar) qued up a warp 20 minutes from now to some point in the future, but the 2nd player (purple bar) wants to warp sooner (looks like around 12m30s) but the green bar represents the agreed upon overlap, so thats when it will warp. So maybe the purple player can go get a sandwich. ;P

 

 

This Shows a longer timescale, Since the alarm clock is so close to zero at this time scale, there should be some advanced info on it, maybe it blinks red with a timer indicator under it, since at a 3 hour gradation you'd never be able to tell when a 3 minute timer would pop just by looking. Again mouseover shows more time detail. In this example our Transfer window is still way out, so it's got the right hand arrow indicating it's off the scale. In this example you qued up a warp 8 days from now till around  18 days, and since player 2 wants to warp to the foreseeable future (Boy are they mad at you!) You're entire warp is approved since it overlaps, note we won't necessarily track warp in the T minus part of the scale since it's pretty pointless, but I guess you could. 

 

Final picture shows the last idea. And this is we could have context buttons (see transfer window icon lower left) That would show non user-created info on the timeline. 

In this example we're dealing with year scale timelines, so our SOI transfer and alarm clock are Red flashing since they're happening sooner than the lowest gradient, and since the alarm is happening sooner, it's time is displayed, and once it pops, the SOI transfer time will show instead, possibly the alarm would blink since it's happening within 15 minutes, and the SOI would be less dire because it's still 1 day out.

So this example shows something you could do with mission info (Launch, staging, part heating, destruction, failure, landing, eva) with the proper context button. But in this case we'll use Transfer window (but you could do SOI, whatever) 

So say you click the transfer window button, now it'll show a dot for each Transfer window upcoming from your current location, maybe a pop up key will show a different color for each body. But in this case we'll use muted green dot for every planet with an upcoming Transfer. In our example we clicked Duna, note that  Eeloo is below it (the muted green dot under the bright green dot) because they're nearly the same time window. Since we selected Duna, in addition to showing it's nearest transfer, it now projects out the next 4 transfer windows (represented by bright dots that fade from green, to yellow, to red) So you can visualize the time scale of the Kerbin Duna transfer in context of your other markers, alarms, etc.

 

In this example I further demonstrated the Warp overlap Mechanism, both players have layed out warp ques, but only the agreed upon areas are going to warp. I suppose the player could hit the warp hotkey when they are within player twos warp que and it'll just automatically add say 5 minutes of warp or whatever till they run out. If there is going to be 'surprise' warp, there should be some 10 second warning in which the other player can change their mind, so you can change your mind.

 

 

 

Anyway So this is the Summary:

Timeline, different time scales and positions selectable by player.

KAC functionality built into it, place alarms by clicking on timeline, select context buttons to show all SOI, Transfer windows, closest approach, AP, PE, etc. Place an alarm just by clicking icon.

Mission Timeline also shown on this with context button. Icons to represent evens, so Launch Icon, Stage Icon, Landing Icon, Recovery? Park failure icons. Mouse overs show details, Possibly multiplayer support with a muted or different color to optionally show the other players launches, disasters, etc. 

Also if there is life support, this would be a HUGE factor also, big indicators to show estimated life support range, warnings for specific flights.

Easier Time warp, just click and drag on the timeline, it'll warp during that time segment. Maybe time warp hot keys just add an automatic time segment to the timeline, the longer the segment, the faster the warp

Show upcoming Transfer windows, SOI changes, AP, PE, etc based on context menus.

 

Anyway i'm done, what do you think?

 

 

[Windspren]

Wow. Now I want this as a mod.

[Wjolcz]

This is pretty genius. The visualisation of the time line would be extremely helpful for newbies when multiplayer comes out.

[Buster Charlie]

Just now, Veeltch said:

This is pretty genius. The visualisation of the time line would be extremely helpful for newbies when multiplayer comes out.

I Also Tried To Think Of Plenty Of  Single Player Uses Since This Would Obviously  Be A Lot Of Work To Implement,  Don't Want It To Be Too Narrow Focus.

[Nightshift83]

I like the idea, but would'nt it be kind of cheating or lifting the (time-)fog-of-war since you'd knew in advance what the other player(s) been doing?

[Buster Charlie]

I'm not looking at it from a versus mode, but from a coop mode.

 

If you want versus you'd just need to stick with DEFCON mode which only let's the game warp at the fastest level all players are trying to warp too at any time. But honestly warp mode is kinda cheat sauce in multi-player versus,  because any surprise attack would be nearly impossible to intercept without enough lead time, see that sprint missile,  good luck doing that in ksp

[mattinoz]

Time Scale should be Logarithmic but other than that...Sweet.

[StarManta]

I've mentioned a concept like this on several other threads - this is a really good concept. As mattinoz said, logarithmic time scale would be better than linear (or both an a toggle switch). It should also show things like predicted time to hit surface, time to enter atmosphere, etc - all important events like that for all vessels (so we don't have a ship that gets pulled from orbit by Tylo while we're paying attention to Duna).

I've been curious about getting into KSP mod development, but I'm reluctant to start a solo effort - if anyone's keen on making this a mod and wants some help on coding, get ahold of me!

[KrazyKrl]

3 hours ago, StarManta said:

I've mentioned a concept like this on several other threads - this is a really good concept. As mattinoz said, logarithmic time scale would be better than linear (or both an a toggle switch). It should also show things like predicted time to hit surface, time to enter atmosphere, etc - all important events like that for all vessels (so we don't have a ship that gets pulled from orbit by Tylo while we're paying attention to Duna).

I've been curious about getting into KSP mod development, but I'm reluctant to start a solo effort - if anyone's keen on making this a mod and wants some help on coding, get ahold of me!

 

Also, Expand maneuver nodes on mouse-over to show "projected burn time" bars that are dV-centered on the maneuver node.

dV remaining while-burning would be nice also (i.e. additional bar that shows fuel time remaining, iteratively colored like patched conics for each stage with fuel in it.)

 

Another cool thing, is adding a sort of "importance level" to said pips on the bar. Say you right-click the SoI change pip mark on RandLanderMk1, you select an option to change the SoI event to "Importance: Always Shown"... now that pip should be global on the timeline; regardless of which particular craft you are flying.

Edited February 26, 2016 by KrazyKrl

[Buster Charlie]

On 2/25/2016 at 4:51 PM, StarManta said:

I've mentioned a concept like this on several other threads - this is a really good concept. As mattinoz said, logarithmic time scale would be better than linear (or both an a toggle switch). It should also show things like predicted time to hit surface, time to enter atmosphere, etc - all important events like that for all vessels (so we don't have a ship that gets pulled from orbit by Tylo while we're paying attention to Duna).

I've been curious about getting into KSP mod development, but I'm reluctant to start a solo effort - if anyone's keen on making this a mod and wants some help on coding, get ahold of me!

All great points, that was kinda my concept goal. Make it  context sensitive to the ship you're flying (mission events, impact timer, SOI change ,whatever) but also have toggles to show other info as needed.

I've only done some graphical work, am not a coder unfortunately. ;(

 

edit: Yes logarithmic is fine, in my examples it was just for simplicity of me drawing it all by hand. I was as mentioned above inspired by video/audio editing software in which which you can scroll and zoom the timeline on demand.

Edited February 27, 2016 by Buster Charlie