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[1.3] Kerbal Flight Data (Release 23, 2017-08-14)


DaMichel

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Kerbal Flight Data

Displays essential information for piloting space planes, so you don't have to keep "immersion breaking" GUI panels open. It shows mach number, dynamic pressure, temperature warning, orbital data, and maybe some other goodies. It is not supposed to compete against other mods which show comprehensive information such as KerbalEngineer. Instead it should just show enough so that you don't feel like flying blind.

zxPixmT.jpg

Download

Release Page on GitHub

(Source code on Github)

Installation: Extract the zip file content into the GameData directory.

Notes:

  • You can turn it on/off with the toolbar button (not shown on pic).
  • With FAR you get a stall warning, too.
  • If you find this interesting check out SteamGauges which is related but didn't cut it for me.
  • How to change font sizes: Open GameData\KerbalFlightData\Plugins\PluginData\KerbalFlightData\settings.cfg in your favorite text editor and change the numbers.

Changelog on github

Acknowledgement

Thanks for

  • the SteamGauge source by Trueborn for a nice reference for how to get to various data (especially the reflection stuff was new to me).
  • the API documentation project at https://github.com/Anatid/XML-Documentation-for-the-KSP-API by Anatid and contributors.
  • Blizzy's Toolbar. Is supported, and was pretty much required for pre R20 releases.
  • making planes fly Ferram4.

License

GNU General Public License Version 3, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>

Previous Versions

Versions for 0.9 can be obtained from GitHub.

KerbalFlightDataR4.zip for KSP 0.23.5

Edited by DaMichel
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interesting. At first I thought this was trying to replace the already-functional HUD used by Vessel Orbital Information Display but then I realized this was more tailored for aircraft/spaceplanes than spacecraft (via rockets).

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Exactly. I haven't used VOID in a while. It didn't have any of the flight data at that time IIRC. And also its HUD was hard to read. I prefer Kerbal Engineer anyway because of the detailed information at construction time.

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I tried Flight indicators and Flight data today, both of them are very very excellent and invaluable when on final approach. I havent tried going to or it so I havent seen Apoasis marker show up yet, but I was trying to clean away mechjeb windows last time.

Nice. However one thing I would change is that instead of simply letting Q be a warning light for high dynamic pressure, you could also display the current Q.

To build on this, Q could be displayed to two digits as thousands (15k, 35k, ect) for readabilit without sacrificing meaningfulness.

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Thanks. I fixed a few things and added the dynamic pressure display. I'm not sure if i will keep it though. It is interesting at first but i don't think the actual value is essential. I normally set the speed display to EAS which is used IRL to judge how the plane will behave and how strong the forces are acting on it.

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Bump for update. Most notably:

  • Text is now scaled according to the GUI size setting. It doesn't look good. However i don't want to delve into the intricacies of Unity GUI programming. So it has to be good enough for now.
  • Also the text moves out of the way of the maneuver DV gauge, if you happen to set up a node while within an atmosphere.
  • Now time is shown in Kerbin Days/Years if the option is set.

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  • 1 month later...
I am curious if the display will move with the Nav ball across the bottom of the screen using Enhanced Navball. Moving the navball is the only reason I want Enhanced Navball, but I don't want to give up my Flight Data!

Sorry to say it does not. DaMichel and kitoban would have to get their plugins to communicate. That can be quite difficult since plugins are not usually allowed to change each other.

Edited by Master Tao
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@Read have Read & Master Tao: Right it does not. I'm sure that it is somehow possible to obtain the nav ball's screen location so i can align my display with it. In principle this is an easy task but finding out where to look for the data is not quite as easy. Enhanced Nav Ball seems like a good start to have a look at though.

@ABZB: I don't know. I actually didn't think about it till now. Will see ...

I updated Kerbal Flight Data now to Release 5 for KSP 0.24. Release 4 and below are probably broken in 0.24. Beside that i also added the display of "radar" altitude if you are below 5 km. It will be indicated as AG (above ground) and otherwise the "barometric" altitude will be indicated as ASL for above sea level.

Link https://www.dropbox.com/s/vy0yb1k8y839eho/KerbalFlightDataR5.zip

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With the new radar altimeter function, I can now hide KER while landing. Usually, there's nothing I need to see that far off to the side, but my screen's much cleaner now. Thanks!

Looks like this fix from V4 was lost in the update to V5:

The right text panel now moves out of the way when maneuver data is shown.
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Oh, just another hud/info mod... wait a sec... HOLY CRAP! You're really good at summarizing relevant info, did you knew? *grabs mod* MUAUAHUHauhauhauhauha no more gadgets and windows cluttering my laptop screen!

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Happy to hear you like it :)

@Master Tao: Yeah, i noticed. I just uploaded a new version where it should work again and be less wasteful with cpu time.

P.S. the new version should support moving and scaling the nav ball.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Bumped for the new update. ... still trying to figure out the gui stuff.

Regarding NEAR support: the only thing that would make sense to have is the stall warning. Q aka. dynamic pressure is irrelevant since things don't break in NEAR. The mach number is also irrelevant since NEAR doesn't have the physics differences between sub-and supersonic flight.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update! I rewrote the way the display works. This gives you some nicer looking text with shadow effect (by drawing copies behind the main text) and somewhat better performance ... i think. I replaced the GUI draw calls with GUIText objects and eliminated the string formatting operations to a minimum. The alignment with the navball should work pretty well now, too.

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Extra-sneaky ninjas: I installed that about half an hour ago. :-)

Any idea if it's possible to get it to display vertical velocity?

I'm sure it is. But for me to implement it you have to give me a good reason to do so.

The only two situations that i can imaging needing this is a) level flight in map mode, B) non-atmospheric landing in map mode. a) Is very niche. And B) is not really what this plugin is about.

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I'm sure it is. But for me to implement it you have to give me a good reason to do so.

The only two situations that i can imaging needing this is a) level flight in map mode, B) non-atmospheric landing in map mode. a) Is very niche. And B) is not really what this plugin is about.

Whatever you want to do is cool by me; thanks for the mod.

However, as for reasons: I rely on vertical velocity [1] a lot during atmospheric flight.

* During initial ascent, I use a reducing climb rate to let me know that I'm trying to climb too steeply.

* During level flight, I monitor climb rate to check that I'm actually flying level.

* My standard ascent pattern is to get up into the low-friction stuff over 20,000m, zero the climb rate and pile on the Mach numbers while gradually pulling the nose down to keep the climb zeroed. Doing it this way, I can usually get the periapsis well above ground level before it's time to kill the thrust and cruise to apoapsis, leaving me a circularisation burn of just a few seconds. I do this with both spaceplanes and vertical-lift rockets.

* If I'm doing a steeper ascent, I use the reduction of the climb rate to zero as a cue to when to switch from jets to rockets.

* During reentry, I try to hold my drop rate stable until 20,000m, then zero it out and hold altitude until I've slowed enough to drop further.

* During landing, vertical velocity matters a lot more to me than horizontal velocity. I can set down just fine at 200m/s or more, but it only takes a few m/s of excessive vertical velocity to seriously scuff the paint on your aircraft.

--

Most of these things you can approximate by watching the altitude meter and the prograde marker on the navball, but I find it a lot easier to do it by numbers. Particularly in the hypersonic range, a very small navball deviation can mean a large change from level flight. Doing it by monitoring the pace of change on the altitude readout leads you astray when lag slows down the in-game time rate, which happens quite a lot with my dodgy old laptop, particularly when flying fast and low over water.

[1] Currently provided by Mechjeb, which did all my flight data before this mod; add vertical velocity and I could ditch the Mechjeb readouts altogether, saving a nice amount of screen clutter.

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@Wanderfound:

For those purposes, I use Kerbal Flight Indicators (also by DaMichel). It shows forward and prograde markers relative to a virtual horizon with much finer detail than the navball. The stock vertical velocity indicator is usually enough for landing planes and level flight even though it's not on a linear scale. Also, KER 1.0+ offers custom windows and has a hotkey so you can clear the window away quickly.

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Most of these things you can approximate by watching the altitude meter and the prograde marker on the navball, but I find it a lot easier to do it by numbers. Particularly in the hypersonic range, a very small navball deviation can mean a large change from level flight. Doing it by monitoring the pace of change on the altitude readout leads you astray when lag slows down the in-game time rate, which happens quite a lot with my dodgy old laptop, particularly when flying fast and low over water.

Err ... this left me scratching my head. There is a VSI right next to the (stock) altitude display. What is wrong about that?

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