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"Planning Nodes" outside of flight mode for interplanetary transfers


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This is getting dangerously close to suggesting something on the "Do not suggest" list but my idea is different enough from the 2 things linked to there so I'm going to put it out there anyway. I will respect any mod's opinion that this is breaking a rule, but hear me out first :)

While reading the Should KSP have a Delta-V readout? thread I had an idea, where you could draw a Planning Node in the tracking station, which is just like a maneuver node but you make it as if you were flying the planet and not a ship. That Planning Node would show how any ship leaving that planet would go. You could drag out your retrograde line to touch Eve's orbit (Or prograde to touch Duna's) and it would show you the "close approach" markers you have now when making maneuver nodes for ships. You could then drag the Planning Node itself around Kerbin's orbit until you got a good encounter with Eve, tweaking prograde and retrograde (and normal/radial) to get a good encounter.

Then you could launch a ship, wait for Kerbin to be about where that Planning Node was, and then make your maneuver node (by hand) to do the transfer in much the same way we do today, though you could set it up so you can plan your maneuver relative to the planning node (like Target Mode, but if your target was moving exactly how the Planning Node was set up to go).

Bam. No need for transfer window calculators.

Edited by 5thHorseman
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Better planning tools are always good. It would need to be able to skip ahead orbits like a regular node, for transfers to planets further from the Sun where the best transfer window might be years away.

I'm thinking it should be generalized to work from more than just Kerbin. If you can place them on other planet's orbits you can use them for return transfers, too. (I'm pretty sure you meant this, but wanted to be clear.)

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I'm thinking it should be generalized to work from more than just Kerbin. If you can place them on other planet's orbits you can use them for return transfers, too. (I'm pretty sure you meant this, but wanted to be clear.)

Yes, I did mean that :) My example got more and more confusing the more things I added, so I took them all out and just concentrated on the basics of getting from Kerbin to somewhere. However, I should have added that at the end.

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