SOI and maneuver time incongruencies

[r3_141592654]

    A confusing phenomenon has occurred to me over the past couple of weeks that I've just recently been able to parameterize. I know that Kerbin time is 6 hour days. I'm fine with that. What I cannot figure out is why it seems that my SOI change times and maneuver node times seem to switch from Kerbin time to actual real Earth times.

   A more detailed explanation is necessary. I don't use the time acceleration function built into the game. I prefer to play more like real life and launch my ships and wait for the interesting things to happen, like moon intercepts, Pe burns etc., doing other stuff in the mean time like flying around gathering science in my Flylab. So in doing this I've noticed that I'll make a launch to Minimus. It places the SOI change time as 5 days and some hours. If nothing else is going to happen, I will let my game run overnight while I sleep for 6 or 7 hours. When I look at the SOI time, it is reduced by a day or so as if it is using Kerbin time of 6 hours per day. At some point this timer switches to real time since as it gets to withing a few hours, I'll set my cellphone timer to make an orbit insertion burn or small trajectory change. When in orbit of a body, the Ap/Pe times are always in real time, as is the orbital period.

    Essentially, without speeding up time, I can make it to Minimus in about 30 hours real time, with the 5 days counting down as if the timers are really running on Kerbin time, but at some point less than a day on the timer, it switches to real time and 5 hours is 5 hours. Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon and what are the conditions under which the game switches from counting down the days in Kerbin time (6 hours per day off the clock) to counting time down in real time. A return trip from Minimus is right around 8 days on the timer, but I can make it back in 2 days real time if I let the game run all the while. At some point the maneuver node timer will switch to real time. This problem does not occur with trips to Mun since it is only 5 hours each way and the timers always stay in real time. Also, since I haven't played all that long yet, I've not left the Kerbin SOI so I'm not sure how the timers will work on interplanetary trips. My apologies for the length of the post, but I needed to be very clear on what is happening.

Edited September 10, 2019 by r3_141592654
Typos

[MechBFP]

6 hours real time is 1 Kerbin day.

So as soon as you get under a day, it’s all the same. 

EDIT: Read this:

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Time

Edited September 10, 2019 by MechBFP

[r3_141592654]

So 2d 5h would be 17 hours real time?

[MechBFP]

1 minute ago, r3_141592654 said:

So 2d 5h would be 17 hours real time?

Yes. 

[r3_141592654]

Wow, that was easy. So a 426 day year is 106.5 real days. That will be helpful for interplanetary travel. 

 

Thanks

[ExtremeSquared]

It's 426 Kerbin days. Where in the game are you finding a reference to an Earth day? I don't know of any, and the concept is irrelevant unless you plan to not use timewarp ever.

[r3_141592654]

First, as stated in the OP, I do play the game without timewarp. I read somewhere that there are 426 "days" in a year, Kerbin time. That's 426x6/24 to convert into Earth days? Essentially the ratio of 1 real day = 4 Kerbin days.

Thanks 

[The Aziz]

Yeah. Five hours is still five hours. The difference is, there is less hours in a day in ksp

[r3_141592654]

I saw how it works last night. Had an orbit insertion maneuver node at Minimus coming up in 2 days and when it counted down it went from 2d 0h 0m to 1d 5h 59m. So hours, minutes, seconds run real time, while days are in Kerbin time. It makes perfect sense now that I've seen it in action. This will allow me to better calculate my real time nodes. It would be nice if there were a setting in the game which allowed for node and SOI times to be in hhhh:mm:ss format and not bother with the day conversion. Thanks everyone for the insights.

Edited September 11, 2019 by r3_141592654
Typos

[MechBFP]

1 hour ago, r3_141592654 said:

I saw how it works last night. Had an orbit insertion maneuver node at Minimus coming up in 2 days and when it counted down it went from 2d 0h 0m to 1d 5h 59m. So hours, minutes, seconds run real time, while days are in Kerbin time. It makes perfect sense now that I've seen it in action. This will allow me to better calculate my real time nodes. It would be nice if there were a setting in the game which allowed for node and SOI times to be in hhhh:mm:ss format and not bother with the day conversion. Thanks everyone for the insights.

If you download the mod Kerbal Alarm Clock you can set alarms that are shown in Earth time.  So you can make a manevour and then set an alarm a few minutes or hours or whatever before your ship is about to reach that manevour. 

[r3_141592654]

I have been meaning to check out KAC, just haven't gotten to it just yet.

 

Thanks

[Snark]

Moving to Gameplay Questions.

By the way, @r3_141592654:  IIRC, I believe there's actually a game setting somewhere that allows you to choose 24-hour days instead of the default 6-hour Kerbin days, if you prefer it that way.  (To be clear, it just affects the clock display for the calendar-- it doesn't actually change Kerbin's rotation time.)  In other words, it changes the clock to behave the way you were assuming it worked before you were asking about it here, to use Earth time instead of Kerbin time. 

I've never actually used it myself, since Kerbin's rotation time is what's most relevant to me, so my memory is fuzzy on the topic; so it's possible I could be misremembering.  (Am not in front of my KSP computer at the moment, so I can't go and check right now.)

However, assuming that it is there, I imagine it might be of use to you if you're actually playing in "real time" and need to sync the game with your (Earth-based) sleep schedule and such.