Why does the orbit path of my craft sometimes stop after a single encounter?

[THX1138]

Why does the orbit path of my craft sometimes stop after a single encounter?

(click to enlarge)

Incidentally, how do we increase the path beyond the normal encounter limit (which I think is two encounters).

Edited April 15, 2015 by THX1138

[1greywind]

It doesn't. Zoom into Jool system and you'll see that after Jool encounter your trajectory makes encounter with one of Jool moons. Map view shows only few first trajectory segments (separated by SOI change), by default it is 3.

You can change conic patches count in settings.cfg - CONIC_PATCH_LIMIT or some mods (PreciseNode for example) can do it on fly.

[smjjames]

The limit is there because, well, where DO you stop? The two encounter limit is there because of the whole floating point error thing and the third encounter is likely to be so far off that the accuracy would be questionable. In the case of the Kerbol system, a third encounter would likely be many years off.

As for the orbit stopping after a single encounter, that's because you're on a collision course, usually.

[TheXRuler]

KSP uses patched conics to project future trajetories and encounters. I don't know the math or whatever behind it but one problem with this system is that the further you go into the future, the less precise it becomes.

In the settings.cfg file in your ksp root directory there are two lines reading Conic_Patch_Draw_Mode and Conic_Patch_Limit. If you wish to "see further into the future you iwll have to play around with these settings. To edit your settings.cfg simply open the file in notepad or notepad ++.

The conic patch limit determines how many SOI changes will be displayed, the draw mode changes how they are drawn, just experiment with it a little.

[THX1138]

I didn't notice the Jool encounter. Why on Earth am I having a Jool encounter when I'm already orbiting Jool?

[smjjames]

I didn't notice the Jool encounter. Why on Earth am I having a Jool encounter when I'm already orbiting Jool?

I don't see a Jool encounter in the image. You're probably looking at the SoI exit from one of the moons, which would technically be a Jool encounter I guess.

Edit: Oh wait, I think greywind meant as you're entering the Jool system.

Edited April 15, 2015 by smjjames

[THX1138]

Yeah, it's Val that I'm encountering. Thanks to you both.