[1.8.x] Precise Maneuver editor

[strider3]

Here's an image following a burn to correct RI (based on KSP's numbers, not PM's). I created another node but made no changes to it. Notice the difference between KSP's relative inclination to target and PM's?

 

[Morse]

First of all, what you are calling "KSP's relative inclination" is not form KSP, it's from KER. Second of all, KSP doesn't calculate "relative inclination" at all, it only calculates absolute inclination of an orbit. And finally, third of all, PM doesn't show you relative inclination, it shows your the absolute one, directly from KSP.

You can also notice that KER also shows you the absolute orbit inclination in the "orbital" section. KER shows you the current inclination, while PM shows you the planed one. In the second screenshot, where the maneuver doesn't change the orbit, you can notice that they are equal.

[alphaprior]

Hello there.
Being new to KSP I'm trying to figure out how things work and have lots of good mods but I don't know how to use most of them. 
And most hard so far the Precision Maneuver I thought it will make things easier but no... I have no idea what I'm doing what all these buttons mean.
So far I have managed to get in orbit manually and now I want to plan it using PM but I can't understand how it works.
First of all once I Add a Maneuver the window opens and I can't close it unless I press DEL.
Then the most important how the hell I plan an orbit? 
For example I have my ship with AP around 140km at this point I want to move higher and get in orbit  around 540km. I can increase the AP but PE remains stuck or low and I can't get into orbit.
Obviously I'm doing something wrong but I could not find any video or some tutorial for PM or Precise Node either.
 

Edited February 22, 2018 by alphaprior

[Morse]

Hi @alphaprior. First of all, if you're new to KSP, you shouldn't start right off installing tons of mods. Most of them are not designed for the newbies, PM included. If you do not understand what PM does, chances are, you do not need it yet.

I'd suggest you to start with the KSP tutorials. You should understand the basics of orbital mechanics first, there is no point in fine-tuning your maneuvers (which is what PM does) until you learn how the maneuvers even work.

[alphaprior]

The KSP tutorials suck, I tried the first ones until Orbit 101 which has a bug and doesn't work. YouTube videos are better but I'm overwhelmed.
At this point I have learned some basic stuff and need to learn how orbit planning works. I guess I will look up further in youtube and try to figure out how everything in KSP works.

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

This document shows the hotkeys; 'P' will show or hide the maneuver editor. Clicking on the toolbar button will let you show and hide different parts of the interface.

Otherwise, here's how to use it...

Look at the picture in Victor3's post, just above, because it's showing just about everything the maneuver editor has.

At the top (left arrow, Node 1, etc.): If you have multiple nodes set, the buttons on this row will let you select which node you're editing.

Time: Pretty self-explanatory. The 'Alarm' button is (I think - I've never used it) a way to pull up the Kerbal Alarm Clock window, if you use that mod.

New Preset, Save, etc.: This row will let you save maneuver data you've entered (see below) as presets. Say that you're in a nice 100km orbit, and you've just plotted a perfect Mun intercept: you can save it, so in your next launch, you can pull up the preset instead of fiddling with re-entering the maneuver.

Increment: 0.01, 0.01, 1, etc.: The button pushed on this row affects the increment (or decrement) of the + and - buttons in the next few lines, as well as the orbit inclination tools. If 0.01 is selected, clicking the + next to Prograde will add 0.01 to Prograde, and clicking the - will subtract 0.01 from it; so on and so forth. This is useful for making very fine maneuvers - like when you're trying to plot an intercept of a Joolian moon from low Kerbin orbit.

UT: This line lets you very precisely control the time of a maneuver. You can type a number into the UT box: it's the number of game-time seconds since your saved game's very first moment. You probably won't want to worry about the actual number, though, most of the time. The + and - will increment and decrement the number by whatever increment you have selected (see above). If 100 is the selected increment, + will move the node 100 seconds ahead in time. The x10 button multiplies the increment by 10 - for those cases when 100 second jumps just aren't enough. (Perhaps you're plotting a node that you'll execute in a few years of game time.)

A circle with a -, a circle with a +, AP, PE, etc.: This row lets you snap a node to certain important points in an orbit. The circles with - and + let you move the node backwards or forwards in time one orbit at a time - that is, clicking the circle with the + will set the node at this particular point in the orbit, but ahead in time one orbital period. AP snaps the node to the apoapsis - the highest point in the orbit. PE snaps the node to the periapsis - the lowest point in the orbit. If you have a target selected, the AN and DN buttons will snap the node to the orbit's ascending or descending node - which is mostly useful when trying to match a target's orbit inclination.

The fields and buttons of the next three rows (Prograde, Normal, and Radial) all work the same way: after the label, there's a field, in which you can type a number, followed by a +, a -, and a 0. The numbers are changes in velocity, and the + and - buttons adjust those numbers according to the increment selected above. The 0 buttons simply reset their respective fields to 0. If you're wondering: 'prograde' means 'in the direction of orbit'; 'normal', for simplicity's sake, means 'towards north'; 'radial', again, simplifying a little, means 'away from the ground'.

The Orbit Tools: The buttons with the arrows curling up and down will change the orbit inclination without changing the orbital altitude. This is, again, very helpful when used on a node that's snapped to the AN or DN. The button with a circle and a little R will circularize an orbit at the node's altitude. The two buttons to the right of that will copy or paste maneuver data, respectively.

The Maneuver Gizmo is below that. I turn it off. Otherwise, it works like the maneuver gizmo in the stock game.

Below that, there's some more orbital information. At this point in your KSP career, the ones you should worry about are mostly Apoapsis, Periapsis, and Incl. (Inclination).

Below that is the Conics Draw Mode section. This controls how the orbit paths are drawn in the Map view. I suggest playing around with them. 'More patches' and 'Fewer patches' basically control how far out the flight path is calculated, in the event that your flight path passes by several different planets.

Hope this helps a little.

To answer your other question, about raising your AP and PE: first raise your AP out of the atmosphere, and then burn *at* the AP to raise your PE. (Or drop a node at the AP, then click the Circularize button, and execute the burn it gives you.)

[DeliriumTrigger]

Sorry if this has been brought up before, I searched through the first and last 5 pages of the thread and didn't see it.  Any time I mouseover the PM icon on the pager, the menu opens and doesn't close.  It covers up other buttons. It also opens sometimes when I'm in KSC or Tracking Station on its own.   There's no way to close it once it opens.

 

Is there any way to fix this?  It's super annoying, especially since the only time I ever need PM is in map view while in flight.

Edited February 26, 2018 by nanobug

[Morse]

11 hours ago, nanobug said:

Sorry if this has been brought up before, I searched through the first and last 5 pages of the thread and didn't see it.  Any time I mouseover the PM icon on the pager, the menu opens and doesn't close.  It covers up other buttons. It also opens sometimes when I'm in KSC or Tracking Station on its own.   There's no way to close it once it opens.

 

Is there any way to fix this?  It's super annoying, especially since the only time I ever need PM is in map view while in flight.

What do you mean by "pager"? Is it a mod panel?

Also, some logs wouldn't hurt.

[jviperj]

The added button by PM on the stock side panel is what nanobug is talking about and can confirm that I too am having this problem. I don't have it with any other buttons but PM. If I mouse over the PM button it pops up and slowly fades essentially making me wait to access any buttons it covers up.

[brusura]

Can I edit the UT field?

[Morse]

17 hours ago, jviperj said:

The added button by PM on the stock side panel is what nanobug is talking about and can confirm that I too am having this problem. I don't have it with any other buttons but PM. If I mouse over the PM button it pops up and slowly fades essentially making me wait to access any buttons it covers up.

The fading away is an intended behavior, and so is "menu on hover". nanobug said that the menu was on-screen in KSC, which definitely shouldn't happen.

12 hours ago, brusura said:

Can I edit the UT field?

Why would you want to manually edit the UT field?

[brusura]

1 hour ago, Morse said:

Why would you want to manually edit the UT field?

To plot a node in the future ( very far in the future ) when the planet are aligned

Edited March 3, 2018 by brusura

[Morse]

1 hour ago, brusura said:

To plot a node in the future ( very far in the future ) when the planet are aligned

And where would you get the UT of such an event? Because if it's from TWP, then you can just copy/paste the entire maneuver, and not bother with manual entry.

[brusura]

14 minutes ago, Morse said:

And where would you get the UT of such an event? Because if it's from TWP, then you can just copy/paste the entire maneuver, and not bother with manual entry.

Mmmm dunno you but I place a node and set my target, then I add "orbit" until I am happy with my closest approach, but having to hold down "orbit" for so long sometimes seem stupid to me when I could add an x amount to the UT field

It look like you do not like my proposal ok, but questioning me why I need that seems irrelevant I can live without it, I have TWP I know I can do that but my question was another one

[maja]

3 minutes ago, brusura said:

It look like you do not like my proposal ok, but questioning me why I need that seems irrelevant I can live without it, I have TWP I know I can do that but my question was another one

Modder must ask why you want it, because if it's some special use case for one player only, than it's not worth implementing it.

[Morse]

1 minute ago, brusura said:

Mmmm dunno you but I place a node and set my target, then I add "orbit" until I am happy with my closest approach, but having to hold down "orbit" for so long sometimes seem stupid to me when I could add an x amount to the UT field

It look like you do not like my proposal ok, but questioning me why I need that seems irrelevant I can live without it, I have TWP I know I can do that but my question was another one

I do not question you,  I just collect usecases. I always thought that entering UT manually is useless, since there is no way you can "guess" it with any precision, like you can the dv. So when someone says that he wants to enter some numbers anyway, I wonder what for.

[brusura]

29 minutes ago, maja said:

Modder must ask why you want it, because if it's some special use case for one player only, than it's not worth implementing it.

I had already answered if you read...but I have received "use this other mod to do what you need"

17 minutes ago, Morse said:

I do not question you,  I just collect usecases. I always thought that entering UT manually is useless, since there is no way you can "guess" it with any precision, like you can the dv. So when someone says that he wants to enter some numbers anyway, I wonder what for.

ok, but there is no guess just fast forward, I was just asking if it was doable because maybe I had missed something in the gui, my question has been answered now anyway, still I think it's useful to have the ability to input the field manually.

Edited March 3, 2018 by brusura

[PartyHawk]

Are there any plans to update this mod for 1.4.1?

[Guest]

deleted

Edited March 29, 2020 by Guest

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

Oddly enough, it *has* been updated on github: https://github.com/radistmorse/KSPPreciseManeuver/releases

Please, Morse, don't let this one die. This is the One Maneuver Node Editor To Rule Them All.

[linuxgurugamer]

10 minutes ago, Gen. Jack D. Ripper said:

Oddly enough, it *has* been updated on github: https://github.com/radistmorse/KSPPreciseManeuver/releases

Please, Morse, don't let this one die. This is the One Maneuver Node Editor To Rule Them All.

Maybe he is getting ready for a release

[Morse]

On 20.03.2018 at 12:56 AM, Gen. Jack D. Ripper said:

Oddly enough, it *has* been updated on github: https://github.com/radistmorse/KSPPreciseManeuver/releases

Please, Morse, don't let this one die. This is the One Maneuver Node Editor To Rule Them All.

Because I did release it for 1.4, I just forgot to mention it here, on the forum. I was a bit busy the last two week being sick. The mod is fully working with 1.4.1, I just tested it on fedora linux.

[Andrey.gr]

Oh Mein Gott! It really has undo and I can change mn gizmo in that window? Today was a good day, after 500+ hours of Ksp gameplay I found MOLE mod, and now this one!!

[Kurbalizer]

On 27.5.2017 at 7:25 PM, Morse said:

Update for 1.3 is almost ready, I just want some testing to be sure.

Meanwhile

Translators are welcome!

The  file with all the translatable text can be found on github: https://github.com/radistmorse/KSPPreciseManeuver/blob/master/Localization/localization.cfg

Put your favorite language in! Especially if it's the one officially supported by KSP. There is a catch though. The PM GUI is very slim and it's fixed in size, so you'll probably will have to come up with short words . There are not many lines, about 100, and most of them are trivial. It won't take long.

https://github.com/Kurbalizer/KSPPreciseManeuver/pull/1

This is my German Translation. I hope this is compact enough for your taste. I play the original KSP, so I'm unaware of the German vocabulary used by Squad since version 1.4.

You could check with @sebseb7

[StarStreak2109]

Another German translation... Didn't see those when I edited on my tablet... Anyways...

Edited April 4, 2018 by StarStreak2109