Be able to mark a position on a planet/moon

[zolotiyeruki]

I'm about to land my first mining vessel on Minmus.  I've figured out a good location using my satellite with the Survey Scanner and the overlay, but when I switch back to my mining vessel, the overlay is no longer available.  It would really be nice if I could mark a location on the surface while I'm looking at the survey scanner satellite, so that another vessel can then land there.

Another alternative, I guess, is to make the overlay available from any vessel once you've scanned the planet.  Or is this already in the game, and I'm missing ig?

[Rocket In My Pocket]

 

[hurric]

Be able to mark a position on a planet/moon

 

That's what Flags are for .... send out a hero and get him to plant a flag there

[pandaman]

IRL you would need to send a probe.

I would suggest dropping rovers with surface scanners into likely looking areas first.  That way you can pinpoint the optimum sites properly and also give yourself a target for landing the big stuff.

[Superfluous J]

I have a whole line of prospector probes I've used in pretty much every game I've ever done mining in. All they need is the ground truth device (Don't remember the name. The one you use on the ground), a probe core (I like the ones that can hold pro/retrograde, makes landing a breeze), and enough dV and TWR to land and return to orbit, say, twice on their target world. That way, you never have to worry about if you're running out of gas and if necessary they can even probably get to to the fuel base or even orbit to refuel. The probe should also be nimble and comfortable on slopes.

Then I just send them into good areas, find a nice flat spot (by hopping around with their plentiful fuel) with good ore (known because of the ground truthing) and then I have a marker that I *KNOW* is a great spot. Send the drilling rig down there and land right next to the probe on that wonderfully flat and prodigiously oreified ground.

[Pthigrivi]

This is good advice for prospecting, but I do think the OP's idea has merit in a number of situations. Being able to pick a landing zone would be helpful for mission planning in general. Pretty much any time you have an orbiter but haven't landed yet you could pick a landing zone and target it to better plan your insertion and landing maneuvers. 

Edited March 20, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[pandaman]

8 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

This is good advice for prospecting, but I do think the OP's idea has merit in a number of situations. Being able to pick a landing zone would be helpful for mission planning in general. Pretty much any time you have an orbiter but haven't landed yet you could pick a landing zone and target it to better plan your insertion and landing maneuvers. 

I suppose this could be a similar scenario to NASA scouting for possible Moon landing sites.  They just had to use photographs etc and choose one, then hope when they got there it was as good as it looked in the pictures.

An ability to 'paint' a prospective landing zone as an overlay on the map view would be quite handy as a planning and guidance tool without giving the benefits of having a targetable marker.

[zolotiyeruki]

While we're on the topic of landing sites, you know what else would be really handy?  A slope map, so you know where you can find a flat spot to land.  Heck, it could be a new type of science similar to the science you get from the M700 survey scanner--get into a polar orbit, deploy the terrain scanner, and you get an overlay on the planet showing where the terrain is conducive to a landing or mining site.

[solarbearman]

You can't see the overlay if you don't have an atenna on your probe...

[Claw]

Personally I absolutely love this idea. Something akin to nightingale's waypoint manager or other click-sensitive way to drop waypoints would be really great. I would even be willing to take it as part of some other sort of deal, like "needs a specific part in orbit" sort of setup. Or even as a probe core function for satellites.

[QPDO]

Well thats why waypoint manager and ScanSat are mods that should be stock.

[kiwi1960]

15 minutes ago, QPDO said:

Well thats why waypoint manager and ScanSat are mods that should be stock.

75% of the mods out in the wild should be stock... with the ability to turn them on or off....

[QPDO]

Okay not all of them should be in stock, but certain functions are actually part of a flexible User Interface. An Interface that allows flight planning and some HUD functions like Waypoints or even Trajectories.