when ksp can get really annoying...

[killernerd]

Me: Hey, let's get to duna. I got it set as a target and am now placing my maneuver node!

Ksp's response: yeah, I don't really want to give you an estimate on your trajectory through the kerbin system. But hey, i got this really nice approximation for the mun! You don't even need to know where your orbit is going after that, the mun it is!

Bad timing i suppose, my launch window just so happened to intersect with the mun's orbit. But really? Why does the rest of my orbit disappear from the mapview when i pass by another body?

So I delay my transfer burn a couple of days untill the moon passes, making my transfer burn a whole lot less efficient in the process...

I finally get my orbit somewhere close to duna and I'm on my way. When I leave kerbin's gravity well I go back to the map view so i can finetune for a duna approach.

ksp: Oh hey, it's you again! Trying to get to Duna huh? I can give you a nice intersect with Ike. Much better!

God damn those moons... ksp couldn't really help me here though, i was going to slam head first into ike at my current heading. But I still don't understand why it won't give me an approximate altitude for duna after i pass ike...

So the only option I had really was to eyeball my altitude and hope i got it somewhat right.

Not that hard, got my orbit to skim the surface so all is gud. Or at least, that's what i thought.

me: approaching duna's gravity well.

ksp: Oh hey, remember when I told you that you were going to get within 10km from duna's surface? About that... I miscalculated and you're going to miss it by about 2000km. Good luck though!

OK, just need adjust my orbit a bit. Lucky me for bringing along enough fuel. But it does raise a question: why are the predicted orbits so far from the actual orbits? I've noticed this more, the game says i'll graze the planet at, say, 15km but when the game actually transfers me from one area of influence to another it'll suddenly give me a massively different orbit. Why?

ok, ok. I got this. Orbit adjusted, I'll now enter the atmosphere and do some aerobreaking to get into a captured orbit. Alright, carefully apply some time acceleration. Careful. *finger slips*

*plane flies through duna*

ksp: ...... oh hey, i see you're on a escape trajectory from duna. Where we going now guvnah? Can't allow that time acceleration though, we're not high enough. It wouldn't be safe.

me: ... time to quit.

Edited December 31, 2014 by killernerd

[SkyRender]

The first problem you can actually fix! Go to your KSP folder and open settings.cfg. Find the CONIC_PATCH_LIMIT variable and change it to a bigger number (6 will be sufficient for pretty much anything save a 3-moon encounter in the Jool system starting from a gravity assist off of the Mun in Kerbin orbit; and how often is THAT likely to happen?).

Problem #2 is one we have to deal with in real life too. Problem #3 actually is too, believe it or not; predictions are always off by a bit. Always bring extra fuel.

You can deal with problems #4 and 5 by always entering the sphere of influence of a planet at 100x time warp or less, and always lowering time warp before you get too close to periapsis. I cannot recommend Kerbal Alarm Clock enough for this sort of thing, as you can set up the game to automatically drop your time warp as you approach SoI change or as you approach periapsis.

[Borsek]

Why not use Ike in order to change your duna periapsis lower? Moons are quite nice for slowing down, if you can get caught in their gravity wells, or speeding up, for that matter... also, you could have used the mun to get out further, just try to match the exit direction from kerbin's SOI. Yes, the default 3 node predictions suck, but they are quite accurate, as long as you change SOI at like 100x or less time warp - kerbal alarm clock or mechjeb both have those nifty functions.

[Mesons]

The first problem you can actually fix! Go to your KSP folder and open settings.cfg. Find the CONIC_PATCH_LIMIT variable and change it to a bigger number (6 will be sufficient for pretty much anything save a 3-moon encounter in the Jool system starting from a gravity assist off of the Mun in Kerbin orbit; and how often is THAT likely to happen?).

Problem #2 is one we have to deal with in real life too. Problem #3 actually is too, believe it or not; predictions are always off by a bit. Always bring extra fuel.

You can deal with problems #4 and 5 by always entering the sphere of influence of a planet at 100x time warp or less, and always lowering time warp before you get too close to periapsis. I cannot recommend Kerbal Alarm Clock enough for this sort of thing, as you can set up the game to automatically drop your time warp as you approach SoI change or as you approach periapsis.

Echo everything SkyRender said, and one more thing: I have found the suggestion to change CONIC_PATCH_DRAW_MODE to 0 to be the most helpful settings.cfg change for me, though increasing the draw limit (i.e. to 6 as SkyRender suggested) seems to be the problem plaguing you the most in your anecdote. Making the change I suggest draws your orbit paths in the SOI of the target body, rather than as a continuous path from your current SOI (the default).

[Bill Phil]

When you fail to land Minmus 4 times with a save in LKO...

[Pecan]

When you fail to land Minmus 4 times with a save in LKO...

Alt-F5/F9 = multiple saves ;-)

@ OP: Why? = because when you time-warp everything is approximated and small deviations, rounding errors, etc. multiply over the distances involved.

[Greep]

and small deviations, rounding errors, etc. multiply over the distances involved.

No kidding. I feel like my ship is so awesome and powerful when just turning it around alters my periapsis to jool by half a million meters

[RainDreamer]

Alt-F5/F9 = multiple saves ;-)

Love this feature, but damn it, they need to move either the F key or use a different modifier than alt. Accidently alt-F4 middle of a mission is a pain.

[Bill Phil]

Love this feature, but damn it, they need to move either the F key or use a different modifier than alt. Accidently alt-F4 middle of a mission is a pain.

Hmm. Does alt-F5 do something different than just F5?

[RainDreamer]

Hmm. Does alt-F5 do something different than just F5?

Allow you to specify your save to another name than "quicksave" as it does in default, meaning you don't have to return to space center and open the menu and click quicksave from there. Alt-F9 allow you to specify which save you want to load than the default "quicksave" too.

[killernerd]

oh, i remembered something else:

I did manage before to get another space plane to duna. I was flying through the atmosphere when I noticed the mountain ahead of me was kinda way above my current altitude.

Poor Bob, as the panic set in he pushed the throttles to full power. But to no prevail.

Bob lost his life that day... I had a safepoint though, so i press F9 (which should've set me back about 5 minutes). The game freaks out. And I'm put back at kerbin, with some random air plane spawned at some random location at the ksc (somewhere in between the launch pad and the runway).

There's no crew in it and it destroys itself immediately because it got spawned a couple meters above the surface.

That would've been a funny bug if it didn't also cause about 5 of my flights to just disappear.

All in a day's work

As for the original post:

There are some really nice suggestions here.

I love ksp but I don't think i've ever had a harder time getting a spaceplane from point A to point B. It was a troubled flight from start to end.

@Borsek: using the mun for a gravity assist is all good and well. But how do I do that if ksp doesn't give me a predicted path through the kerbol system after passing said mun? My orbital path simply disappears as the game was trying to predict my orbit around the mun and no amount of acceleration was going to change that. (that issue should be solved with Skyrender's solution though).

[Musil]

Making the change I suggest draws your orbit paths in the SOI of the target body, rather than as a continuous path from your current SOI (the default).

You can also see that by focusing view on the target planet/moon.