Pitch and yaw

[invalid8]

I know that this doesn\'t bode at all well for my astronautical aspirations, but I cannot seem to get a grip on the basic rocket controls. More specifically, what are pitch and yaw relative to? What should I be looking at on the screen to determine which way the rocket will start tilting when I pres butan?

[BillWiskins]

You should look at the nav-ball, the instrument in the bottom centre of your screen. The controls are always relative to that. Also, it shows you your prograde and retrograde headings (yellow circle thing and yellow circle thing with cross, respectively).

[invalid8]

The problem is kind of self-perpetuating in that my understanding of how the navball moves in relation to the rocket and the ground is shockingly bad. I just can\'t seem to tie it all together in my mind at all. Are there any tips for this, or is it something that will come more easily with practice?

I also kind of wish the navball didn\'t default to having north pointing down, but I have no idea if north pointing up would actually be any better.

[Anachronda]

The problem is kind of self-perpetuating in that my understanding of how the navball moves in relation to the rocket and the ground is shockingly bad. I just can\'t seem to tie it all together in my mind at all. Are there any tips for this, or is it something that will come more easily with practice?

I had quite a bit of trouble until I adjusted the keys for the various movements. When I push W, it causes me to move up on the navball. S causes me to move down, etc. The default key settings have one of the axes different from the other two.

[Vanamonde]

I still have trouble staying oriented as well. There\'s up on the screen, up on my instruments, and up relative to the local world as well. Very confusing, especially when you\'re flying backwards for a deceleration burn or landing. I like to put some clearly visible part, like a fin, over the windows on my capsule so that I can tell at a glance which way is 'capsule up' or 'instrument up.' Then pitch-up will turn my ship in the direction of my fin, pitch-down away from it, and of course yaw-right and -left are to the right and left of my fin. In this otherwise radially symmetrical ship, for example, the curved fin is pitch-up:

[Anachronda]

I like to put some clearly visible part, like a fin, over the windows on my capsule so that I can tell at a glance which way is 'capsule up' or 'instrument up.' Then pitch-up will turn my ship in the direction of my fin, pitch-down away from it, and of course yaw-right and -left are to the right and left of my fin. In this otherwise radially symmetrical ship, for example, the curved fin is pitch-up:

Huh. Interesting idea. Consider it stolen. I usually have to fire my RCS a few times to figure out which way things are pointing and get them lined up reasonably.

[Misterspork]

You shouldn\'t even be thinking about what the direction is in relation to the ground or whatever. That screws everything up. All you need to think about for piloting rockets is 'prograde'(The direction you\'re moving in) and 'retrograde'(The opposite). There are also 4 other directions but those are slightly more advanced.

Just remember, burning towards prograde speeds you up and shifts your orbit higher, and burning retrograde does the opposite.

[UmbralRaptor]

The problem is kind of self-perpetuating in that my understanding of how the navball moves in relation to the rocket and the ground is shockingly bad. I just can\'t seem to tie it all together in my mind at all. Are there any tips for this, or is it something that will come more easily with practice?

The 'view' from the navball is effectively looking out the nose of your rocket.

I also kind of wish the navball didn\'t default to having north pointing down, but I have no idea if north pointing up would actually be any better.

Does this picture make it any clearer?

Note that by default, you are looking North.

[invalid8]

The 'view' from the navball is effectively looking out the nose of your rocket.

Yes, I did wonder last night if that was the case. Next time I will keep my focus on the navball and try to imagine I\'m sitting in the cockpit.

[Nibb31]

My tips: Don\'t watch the rocket. Watch the nav ball.

The ball itself represents the world around you. Blue is above the horizon. Brown is below the horizon.

The central '-v-' marker represents the direction that your rocket is pointing.

The yellow prograde (and retrograde) markets represent the direction (or vector) that your rocket is moving.

The angles written on the horizon are headings: 0° = North, 90° = East, 180° = South, 270° = West.

The angles written from the center towards the horizon are your pitch: 90° = Vertical, 0° = Horizontal. Positive pitch is on the blue side of the ball. Negative pitch is on the brown side.

For example:

- when your prograde marker is on the brown side, you are going down!.

- when your '-v-' marker is in the middle of the blue side (at launch), your rocket is pointing straight up.

If you want to change your vector of travel, point the rocket in the right direction and burn your engines.

This is how to fly a launch manually (again, don\'t watch the screen, just watch the nav ball and altitude):

- To go up, as the rocket moves around, just press the WASD keys in order to keep it well centered. You should see the prograde marker in the center as you are going straight up (90° vertical).

- When you get to around 15000m, start pitching the rocket by tilting to a 70° pitch in direction of the East (marked as 90°). Watch the prograde marker slowly catch up with your direction.

- As you go up, progressively tilt the rocket to 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10° pitch, in order to be pointing towards the horizon (0°) when you leave the atmosphere at 70000m.

[invalid8]

I have another question which isn\'t actually anything to do with this one but I didn\'t really fancy making a new thread, especially since I\'m not sure where the right place for it would be!

What does 'simulate in background' do? Disabling it gives me a silky-smooth framerate but since I don\'t know what it\'s actually for I\'m a little wary still.

[UmbralRaptor]

If 'simulate in background' is enabled, KSP will continue to run when you have another window (say, firefox) active. If it\'s disabled, focusing on another program will pause KSP.

[invalid8]

OK, that\'s actually good to know, because as I said for whatever reason disabling it makes it so smooth and lovely. Or at least compared to count-the-frames land.