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[1.12.x] Maneuver Node Splitter


linuxgurugamer

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Originally written by @nathan1, original thread here:https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/132209-122-maneuver-node-splitter-v170/

 

My thanks to forum user @Jacke for suggesting this to me for adoption.

 

This is a tiny mod which does one thing very well.

Maneuver Node Splitter provides a GUI interface to split a single interplanetary transfer ejection burn maneuver node into multiple maneuver nodes.

QDKoa9u.png

Version 1.3.0 comparison of the Unity skin and KSP skin above. Also shows the new 1.3.0 "repeat" option.

Version 1.2.0 picture of the four modes for splitting nodes below.

ZelTohM.png

 

Why does it exist?

If your vessel has a low TWR then it may not be possible to perform your ejection burn in a single orbit. By splitting your ejection maneuver into multiple burns you can raise your apoapsis a bit with each orbit until your final burn gives you an escape trajectory.

 

How do I use it?

1. Get into orbit.
2. Create a maneuver node.
3. (Optional) Use Precise Node to move your maneuver node forward to the transfer window.
4. Set up the maneuver node to give you your ejection and encounter with your destination.
5. Open the Maneuver Node Splitter GUI by clicking the icon on the toolbar.
6. Use the left and right buttons to select how you want to split the maneuver node.
7. Enter the appropriate values into the text boxes. For example: delta-V values for the amount of delta-V you want to burn in each maneuver.
8. Click "Apply."

Your original maneuver node will be replaced by multiple maneuver nodes. Each of the first maneuver nodes will be created based on the values you entered, and the final maneuver node will have the remaining delta-V. Your final ejection burn maneuver node will be around the same time as the original maneuver node (depending on what values you entered).

Example:
After creating an ejection burn requiring 2500m/s I open the GUI and enter 250 and 300 then click "Apply." The mod will split my original maneuver node into three maneuvers: the first will be 250m/s, the second will be 300m/s, and the third will be 1950m/s (the remainder).

Note:

Once your maneuver nodes are created it's up to you to actually perform the burns. This is the hard part. If you do not perform the burns precisely enough then the subsequent burns will be impacted. Luckily, as long as you're close it's usually easy to do minor adjustments to the later maneuver nodes using Precise Node to restore your rendezvous. Usually what you will need to adjust will be the *timing* of the subsequent maneuver nodes (since burning a slightly different amount from what the maneuver node specified will give you a different orbital period) rather than the delta-V.

 

Additional Tips and Notes:

  • It works with both mid-course plane-changes and direct ejection burns.
  • The additional maneuver nodes will be created prior to the timing of your original maneuver (if your maneuver node is far enough in the future) so that your ejection time is left as unchanged as possible.
  • The GUI will modify your upcoming maneuver, so don't add extra maneuvers before your ejection burn.
  • The GUI will preserve any maneuver nodes that come after your ejection burn as long as they're far enough later than the original maneuver.
  • After clicking "Apply" there will be an "Undo" button that will restore your prior maneuvers, so it's easy to just throw some numbers in and see how they work out. If it's not to your liking you can easily undo it.
  • The "+" button will add more text boxes (for splitting the original maneuver into more burns) and the text boxes will have "x" buttons next to them for removing them (when you have more than one text box).
  • Stock KSP has a bug where projected orbits sometimes do not show when multiple maneuver nodes from separate orbits are placed directly on top of each other. This is not a bug with the Maneuver Node Splitter.
  • It's usually best not to raise your apoapsis above around 7000km prior to your ejection burn because of the possibility of an encounter with the Mun.
  • While the tool can convert your ejection burn into a dozen or more tiny burns, it's usually easier to perform the ejection in fewer burns rather than more (due to the impact on later burns of not performing the earlier burns perfectly).
  • Your current orbit very slowly drifts when your vessel is not on rails (timewarp) due to floating point math. This can impact your ejection maneuver while you are trying to set it up, so it's best to set it up at timewarp, if possible.

Reviewed by Kottabos:

Dependencies

 

Availability

Now available in CKAN

 

Edited by linuxgurugamer
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43 minutes ago, punman5 said:

this mod is not compatible with KSP 1.10.1. Is there any intention to update it to be compatible?  If not then please edit the title of this thread as the 1.10.x implies it is compatible. 

As LGG updated the thread a month after the release date of 1.10.1, in which he specifically released an update, there has only been one report of a crash and no others, I'd say this does work with 1.10.1.    Are you sure you installed it correctly?   By which method?   Do you have any other mods installed?   If you do, it might not be this mod's fault it's not working.    Unistall everything else and see if it works fine on it's own.  If you have done that, you'll have to provide log files for LGG to take a look and see if there's something to fix.    

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I've been trying to use this in the latest version with an up to date modset around KSPI-E. When I try to split, I get errors or crashes, depending on what I'm doing. 

The node is in ~100 days, my orbit is circular at 200km, 0 inclination. If I set the repeat option anywhere, the game locks up and has to be force quit when I click apply. If I manually choose the splits, I either get an ingame error about an encounter, or that there was fewer burns then specified and it makes no changes to the nodes. It seems to work by apoapsis, but that is quite hard to use well.

I suspect user error rather then a problem with the game/mods. What am I doing wrong?

Edited by Liquid5n0w
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6 hours ago, Liquid5n0w said:

I've been trying to use this in the latest version with an up to date modset around KSPI-E. When I try to split, I get errors or crashes, depending on what I'm doing. 

The node is in ~100 days, my orbit is circular at 200km, 0 inclination. If I set the repeat option anywhere, the game locks up and has to be force quit when I click apply. If I manually choose the splits, I either get an ingame error about an encounter, or that there was fewer burns then specified and it makes no changes to the nodes. It seems to work by apoapsis, but that is quite hard to use well.

I suspect user error rather then a problem with the game/mods. What am I doing wrong?

A log file would be useful, also a save file with the situation set up, preferably with as few mods installed as possible

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/16/2021 at 5:06 PM, Liquid5n0w said:

What am I doing wrong?

Could be an unhandled division-by-zero exception somewhere. It probably takes a little practice to learn how to use the mod. I've been trying to set up a simple 650m/s dV ejection to Minmus all morning now, using first dV, then burntime, then Ap - all of them ending in me having to force-quit a hanging game and reload. I haven't yet run in to any of the other problems you mentioned, though. Looking at the log, the game seems to have lost something:

[LOG 11:14:51.746] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.747] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.747] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.748] Look rotation viewing vector is zero
[LOG 11:14:51.748] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.748] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.748] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.748] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.749] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.749] Look rotation viewing vector is zero
[LOG 11:14:51.749] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.749] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.750] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.750] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.750] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.750] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.750] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all
[LOG 11:14:51.751] Look rotation viewing vector is zero
[LOG 11:14:51.751] CheckEncounter: failed to find any intercepts at all

I wonder whether it's looked under the couch.

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1 hour ago, Hoozemans said:

Could be an unhandled division-by-zero exception somewhere. It probably takes a little practice to learn how to use the mod. I've been trying to set up a simple 650m/s dV ejection to Minmus all morning now, using first dV, then burntime, then Ap - all of them ending in me having to force-quit a hanging game and reload. I haven't yet run in to any of the other problems you mentioned, though. Looking at the log, the game seems to have lost something:

The snippit of the log is nice, but useless without the complete log

1 hour ago, Hoozemans said:

I wonder whether it's looked under the couch.

LOL

Log files, please

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37 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Log files, please

Okidoki, hang on, let me set up a scenario see if I can replicate the issue.

Boosting a station out to Minmus, starting from an orbit with Pe 122 and Ap 525 km alt.

Attach node to Pe, set dV to 645m/s.

Open Splitter dialog, Select 'by dV', select 'Repeat', set dV to 75m/s. Now it asks me to enter an altitude to stop at, I enter 25000 km. That works; I get a nice set of nodes.

Undo, now enter dV=125 m/s, at=44000 km. Apply. And the game hangs.

Uh, I'm not sure how to attach log files. I think pastebin might work, but it won't accept the whole file: https://pastebin.com/MuLGCZHF

(I'm having trouble with other mods as well; perhaps the solution lies in going back to an earlier version of the game, or reinstalling everything. Also, I should really put some time in getting Ubiozur Welding to work with 1.12.2; docking is such a hassle with 500+ parts.)

Edited by Hoozemans
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1 hour ago, Hoozemans said:

Okidoki, hang on, let me set up a scenario see if I can replicate the issue.

Boosting a station out to Minmus, starting from an orbit with Pe 122 and Ap 525 km alt.

Attach node to Pe, set dV to 645m/s.

Open Splitter dialog, Select 'by dV', select 'Repeat', set dV to 75m/s. Now it asks me to enter an altitude to stop at, I enter 25000 km. That works; I get a nice set of nodes.

Undo, now enter dV=125 m/s, at=44000 km. Apply. And the game hangs.

Uh, I'm not sure how to attach log files. I think pastebin might work, but it won't accept the whole file: https://pastebin.com/MuLGCZHF

(I'm having trouble with other mods as well; perhaps the solution lies in going back to an earlier version of the game, or reinstalling everything. Also, I should really put some time in getting Ubiozur Welding to work with 1.12.2; docking is such a hassle with 500+ parts.)

Try a file upload site, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, file.io or another.

Pastebig, only allows 1/2 meg, unless you are a pro member, I need the full file

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On 11/28/2021 at 3:18 PM, linuxgurugamer said:

I need the full file

Sorry, I had a busy couple of days. I thought I might try the node splitter again, set up a Mun encounter, remembered to save :)

 

Mun encounter, dV = 885.9m/s

Split: by burn time = 120 sec, repeat, stop at 8000.

KSP.log: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Iba2BDfqOXSpxybv-GnLwtfEWnPONCtM/view?usp=sharing

Screenshot (nothing to see, really): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1am6tQe2aGhCQk9EdedPTLMz-MwnxUR4Z/view?usp=sharing

 

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  • 10 months later...

Is this mod still 100% good for 1.12.3? The version on CKAN is still on 1.12.2 (last updated 30/09/2021) but I'm gonna try installing manually anyway

Edit to add: disregard, I hadn't set CKAN to accept 1.12.x mods. Sorry for the necro

Edited by The Spacemonkey
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