Delta V "Green light" mod.

[LadyAthena]

I'm not sure how to mod, but I'd like to look into making this mod, or a mod for someone else to pick up, and wondering if anyone would use it.

It would be aimed more for the beginner/intermediate players, who don't quite understand Delta V yet, or do, but keep forgetting how much delta V they need to get from point A to point B. It takes the approximation of Delta V required to get from point A to point B, and checks it against your ships current Delta V. It's really that simple. It would allow for a good approximation "we should be able to get there". So long as you're not doing horribly bad burns, or wasting Delta V you should be able to do it if you got a green light.

How it would work:

If you click the little "Green Light" Button on the toolbar, it'll bring up a screen which has all the planets and moons, with little lights on them.

Green = You can get there and back to kerbin.

Yellow = You can get there, but not enough to get back to kerbin.

Red = You cannot get there at all.

You can also click "Choose Destination" and it'll tell you how much delta V you have left over (and how much extra you need if you want to get back to kerbin).

So say you want to get to the Mun as a new player,  you built a ship and see that it has a yellow light. Clicking Mun as destination, will calculate the Delta V for you, and tell you how much short of Delta V you are, as well as give you a break down of how much Delta V is required for each stage. (Example: It takes x delta V to get from mun orbit to surface, etc.) So they can try to balance their craft correctly as well.

This is of course prone to error still, but that's all about learning process. The mod would essentially take the Delta V from the Delta V charts you can look up online already, and puts them into a nice and easy to use calculator in-game, where it simply checks the Delta V to the ship.

--------------

This could be used in mid flight as well. Perhaps you're playing with resource extractions, you were able to extract and collect some fuel, and see you have enough now to get to another Mun and back to Kerbin still.

Or perhaps you play with failures, such as with kerbalism. One of your engines failed mid flight. Your new Delta V would be calculated by this calculator, letting you know if you still have enough Delta V to get back to Kerbin, or to your destination and back.

There would be other options as well, all of which simply remove delta V requirements.

Using the failure above. Say I lost an engine and I'm on the way to the Mun.

I pull up the Green Light mod.

Click "Calculate new Delta V"

-> Destination Mun, and click "In Space" button. This removes the delta V from the calculations for lift off, and getting into and out of orbit of Kerbin. It knows you're already in space on the way to the Mun.

From there there would be extra choices for the Mun. Such as Pass By, Orbit, or Land. In this case I want to see what my options are, so I click "Orbit" and it still shows a Yellow Light. This means I don't have enough delta V to even make orbit and get back. I choose Pass By, and see a Green light. So I know I can at least pass by it

-------------------

Of course this is still prone to error, and being wrong, but that's part of KSP, and I feel like it would kind of play into the role of a Kerbal Computer. It's not perfect, but it at least lets you know basically what's possible.

 

 

[Incarnation of Chaos]

There's a big, big problem with this...

KSPs own dv calculations bork from time to time (the one displayed to the user). So for instance I've had 3 stage rockets with a 2nd stage with ~2600 DV that wasn't ever displayed or calculated until I staged, enabled the engine and throttled up.

That's only one issue

Second is if you ever looked at a DV chart, all of them always assume a optimal transfer. For some targets, the difference between a optimal and a suboptimal transfer is narrow.

And then there's the human elements, doing your gravity turn late? You can easily waste 2K DV right there, what if you need to rendezvous with a command module apollo style? Easily can burn another 1K with poor maneuvering there.

So while it's still something that is far from impossible, you would probably want a slider to allow the player to set a safety margin. 

This is just a percentage of the total DV it won't take into account, so at 30% it will act as if you had only 70% of your fuel for the calculations. Allowing you to adjust accordingly.

Personally, I'd just say that a basic table of the DV required for various destinations somewhere easily accessible in game is sufficient. Once you get into the habit of doing interplanetary trips, you commit the numbers to memory fairly quickly. And then you get a idea of what your individual safety margin is.

[Ravlain]

I think you're looking for this :-  Where can I go

[Incarnation of Chaos]

12 hours ago, Ravlain said:

I think you're looking for this :-  Where can I go

Ayy that's actually pretty nifty

And it addresses most of my critiques. Have a thumbs up.