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Mod request: in-flight CoM and CoT indicators


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Howdy folks.

I'm terrible at programming... so I'm going to throw the idea out into the open and hope someone is intrigued enough to do it for me (please). :P

Playing with a bunch of mods installed, particularly KSP Interstellar and various life support mods, requires that crewed interplanetary trips have a lot of parts, and on-orbit assembly becomes necessary. Here and also here are screenshots of a crewed Duna transfer vehicle and lander that I made in KSP v1.0 early this year. As you can see, it was painstakingly put together so that the two main engines for the transfer to Duna were aligned (more or less) with the centre of mass. This was all done by eye and guesswork (and a lot of docking ports). It took me about four weeks to plan, build, launch, and assemble.

 

So: I need some way of seeing where the active vessel's centre of mass is, on-the-fly, during flight. This should make it easier to ensure my centre of mass and centre of thrust are aligned.

Better yet, if the proposed mod could also show the centre of thrust based on currently-active engines (i.e. engines that are switched off should be ignored), that'd be grand too.

Pretty much exactly what you see in the VAB, but in-flight.

 

Please and thanks in advance for anyone who can make this a thing. :)

 

 

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56 minutes ago, sarbian said:

Install Mechjeb. I added those displays in the recent dev versions.

I've been using MJ since before I can remember. I was delighted to find the indicators could be enabled in the Attitude Adjustment window.

Brilliant. Thanks, @sarbian! :)

 

That said, if I might make a suggestion, I notice the indicator spheres are subjected to shading. This makes them invisible when you're on the night-side of a planet/moon. (I don't know if this is the default way the spheres are displayed, or if it's because I've got EVE or Scatterer installed...). In day time, the sphere is visible.

Examples: image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4 (the sphere is completely invisible as the Sun is directly behind it in this view), image 5 (as seen when on the night side of a body).

Is this MechJeb's normal behaviour? Or is it likely to be caused by a visual effects mod I've got installed?

Thanks again, you've solved my problem! :)

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uh, they should have a base ambient lighting even when in the dark. I wrote a shader just for them. I ll have to check tonight...

Edited by sarbian
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14 hours ago, sarbian said:

uh, they should have a base ambient lighting even when in the dark. I wrote a shader just for them. I ll have to check tonight...

Thanks. I'll keep an eye out on the dev builds for an update in due course. :)

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