Magmaros Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Hey everyone, I just had a quick question about the Gimbal, I\'ve figured out that the symbol on it that shows me my actual heading relative to the way my rocket is facing, but what do the two purple symbols and the other green one mean exactly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sal_vager Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Hi Magmaros.The two purple markers point towards and away from the launchpad, while the other green marker shows the direction directly opposite your direction of travel.Hope this helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephram Kerman Posted May 12, 2012 Share Posted May 12, 2012 Oh, and gimbal is something else. You\'re thinking of the nav ball (a.k.a. 'blob').Some engines have gimballed nozzles, that gimbal (change angle) to help control the craft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temstar Posted May 12, 2012 Share Posted May 12, 2012 Gimbal is actually (kind of) the correct name for the thing we call 'nav ball', at least in the Apollo program. If you go watch Apollo 13 closely you notice the crew will yell 'gimbal lock!' from time to time. This happens when two of the three pivot axes line up causing the gimbal to lose the ability to track one degree of freedom.Although to be totally correct, a gimbal is a device that drives the nav ball, that ball\'s correct name is 'Flight Director/Atitude Indicator'. The Apollo crews call it the 8-Ball. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sal_vager Posted May 12, 2012 Share Posted May 12, 2012 The Gimbals were and are the parts that allowed a gyroscope remain stationary as the craft around it rotates, more info here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentMcConnell Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 I\'m not sure why everyone thinks the pro and retro indicators are green... They\'re clearly yellow. In addition, the orange parts of the navball is often mistaken for brown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candre Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Off-Topic: I wish that the retrograde indicator color was not identical to the prograde one. Sometimes, despite the inscribed cross, I accidentally tilt my ships in the wrong direction, especially when it hovers over one of the white lines. Differentiating is somewhat hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentMcConnell Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 I completely agree. I personally want a different color between the two also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Endeavour Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 I\'m certain that the prograde circle is yellow and the retrograde circle is green. I find them to be quite different colors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vexx32 Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 That\'s because they are different colours. If they look the same to you, there\'s something wrong with your monitor. Try adjusting the colour temperature, or get a program that will do it automatically so your eyes don\'t get burned out from a 9500K monitor at midnight. I am, of course, speaking of f.lux (Google it).The prograde should be yellow, and the retrograde green. The colour difference is easily seen on my monitor, so if it doesn\'t show for you, there\'s something strange going on. Check you don\'t have any strange video card settings (unnecessarily high brightness/gamma settings, etc) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candre Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Sure, I\'ll try that. I think the problem may come up again with other users, though. Maybe the pro/retro pair would be easier to differentiate if they were the same shape as the KSC/anti-KSC indicators?Sorry for being off topic again. Maybe I\'ll put in a suggestion in the dev forum later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vexx32 Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Yep, then we would get even more confused, as they\'d look too similar to the KSC indicator pair.No, I think just altering the colors so they look slightly more differentiable would be acceptable. Say, prograde green, retrograde red/orange? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amram Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 If they look the same to you, there\'s something wrong with your monitor.or color blind. monitor settings mean nothing when it is the eye itself that is at fault. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vexx32 Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Oh, there\'s that too. We can only do what we can for color blindness, as it does tend to rather limit the palette of colors we can choose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candre Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Yep, then we would get even more confused, as they\'d look too similar to the KSC indicator pair.No, I think just altering the colors so they look slightly more differentiable would be acceptable. Say, prograde green, retrograde red/orange?Oh. They\'d have the same color yellowish color as they do now, just with more noticeable differences in shape. But yeah, altered colors would probably be better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vexx32 Posted May 15, 2012 Share Posted May 15, 2012 I\'m thinking actually we should change the prograde/retrograde colors AND shape, but not to something like the KSP indicators, it\'d just be too damned confusing. Not sure what\'s suitable just yet, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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