Navball and the plane of the ecliptic

[p1t1o]

Is there a way, either some option I have missed, or some environment you need to be in, or some kind of .CFG edit or any available mod, that would align the navball with the plane of the ecliptic - so that the "horizon" is in the plane of the orbits of the major planets?

It would make orienting yourself a lot more intuitive, especially when in deep space.

Thanks

Pete

[The_Rocketeer]

None that I know of. The navball aligns to the direction of the current SOI's gravity (brown is down).

[mhoram]

Maybe there are simpler methods, but you could try http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107471

and create your own Navball-Texture.

Edit: This thread has some textures that can be uses as a basis:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/69540-Making-high-contrast-nav-ball!

Edited August 26, 2015 by mhoram

[p1t1o]

Maybe there are simpler methods, but you could try http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107471

and create your own Navball-Texture.

Edit: This thread has some textures that can be uses as a basis:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/69540-Making-high-contrast-nav-ball!

That'd work, but would be pretty useless close to/om a planets surface or in-atmosphere.

:SADFACE:

[Snark]

The navball is always relative to the SOI you're in. If you're in orbit around the sun, it's easy: the plane of the ecliptic is the line that passes through the zenith/nadir spots ("straight up" / "straight down"), and also through the 0 / 180 degree lines. It's a line that's perpendicular to the horizon line. If it's hard for you to train your eyeballs to see that, you could use a custom navball texture to add an actual line.

This doesn't help you directly when you're in an SOI of some planet or moon. However, most bodies have orbital planes that are pretty darn close to the ecliptic, so it tends to work pretty well most of the time even then. (The notable exceptions are the bodies that have significantly "tilted" orbits, like Minmus, Moho, Gilly, etc.)

[Pecan]

Try rotating your vehicle :-)