I wish the game came with clocks and ability to tell time.

[Techclerk]

I understand that what I will say may cause some personality types to react as if I am intending to incite them. But I am simply only playing the game the way I like to play the game.

I prefer ballistic approaches to other bodies in space. I never learned how to do maneuvers. I don't use them. Every rocket so far has always been manually controlled for the entire flight by my keyboard. This is how I began teaching myself to play the game because the launch base is on the equator. This is how I like to play.

I found that flying tourists to 70,000 m and landing safely with parachutes is a quick way to build a mountain of money. So that is all I did until all my facilities were fully upgraded and I had all the money I wanted. If I ever went into orbit around Kerbin, then the tourists would want to orbit. Instead I used the same 30 passenger vehicle repeatedly. Each flight only costs me the fuel. And the money is jackpot money.

It gets boring. So I wanted to take tourists to the Mun and back without orbiting Mun and without orbiting Kerbin because then tourists would want the orbits. I landed on the Mun and returned safely never entering any orbit. But then the tourists wanted orbits anyway.  Now my jackpotting the game is over.

Why go into orbit to land on the Mun when the Mun is already orbiting me? On the equator with my launch pad, no less! Well, because the game has no clock to set the time of day for your launch time.

No problem. I straight up launched my six identical 80 million meter relays one hour intervals after the first launch. As long as they get past everything without entering other spheres of gravity, then they arrive in order they were launched. I sent them into orbit one at a time in order as each ran out of acceleration and began descent. At that distance it happens so slowly that it easy to catch then all. Hard to screw up.

I know what I will hear if I explain why. I've seen reactions on other forums asking if it is possible to target the sun. Many responses are aggressively attacking the premise of why you would want to target the sun. Many responses I have read are angry people who write as if they are furious at the poster for even thinking to target the sun. LOL

So, I won't explain why I want to target the sun. And I won't explain the easy cheat I built with relays that works just as good as a clock. But no clock means no launches at midnight and no launches at noon and no launches at sunrise or sunset. I think you can't target the sun because that would give you a clock that you can use to time launches. And it seems to me the intent could be deliberately cornering the players into not using clocks. Why do I have to build my own clock for a game that calls "Mystery Goo" science?

I think clocks would be very interesting in this game.  At the very least, Kerbal time would be useful.

 

Edited November 29, 2020 by Techclerk
typo

[Superfluous J]

There's a clock in the upper left. I've never paid attention to it relating to the sun but don't they match?

 

[Pds314]

You can switch the clock from Mission Elapsed Time to Universal Time by clicking the MET/UT buttons next to it. The clock is in the upper left.

Also you can timewarp until the correct time of day. using < and > keys.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Pds314

[Corona688]

Manuever nodes don't have the option to use universal time, which can be quite annoying when you want to schedule a manuever for some event in the future.

[jimmymcgoochie]

I don’t understand what you’re asking for. If you want the in-flight clock to show Kerbin time just click the button that says MET and it will change to UT with the year, day and time.

Regarding those tourist contracts for the Mun- if you reduce your orbital eccentricity to less than one, which you have to do in order to land on the Mun and means you have both a periapsis and apoapsis, then you’re “orbiting” the Mun- even if that’s on a sub-orbital trajectory; any tourists wanting to orbit the Mun will have that contract completed by landing on it.

If you’re staunchly against using the maneuver system and want to continue throwing your rockets on purely ballistic trajectories (which won’t work beyond Kerbin’s SOI) then you would need to calculate the timing for when the Mun is directly above the KSC by using the sidereal rotation period of Kerbin and the sidereal orbital period of the Mun (these are not the same as a solar day or month so aren’t the 6 and 24 hours you’d expect), and you’ll end up with a value approximating 8 hours.

[pandaman]

17 hours ago, Corona688 said:

Manuever nodes don't have the option to use universal time, which can be quite annoying when you want to schedule a manuever for some event in the future.

Interesting point.  It's never been an issue for me, but yes I can see how being able to display UT would be handy.

Or better still, integrate KAC functionality into stock.