How to target another craft without patched conics?

[Mister Spock]

I'm doing a rescue mission without patched conics.  I got my rescue ship within about 19 km of the stranded Kerbal, but I still couldn't target the stranded ship, even though I could see its pink "target" crosshair in the main map.  How close do I have to get to target it so that I can enter target mode and complete the orbital rendez-vous?  

To be clear, I'm not asking for a tutorial on how to do an orbital rendez-vous; I've done countless rescues and docking operations in the past.  But I've always had the benefit of patched conics, and this time I don't, so I can't click on the target or its orbit and enter target mode.  (That is, the mode with the target in pink on the navball.)

Thanks in advance.

[BlkBltChemie]

Do you already have the ship set as the target?  If not and you can see the marker or label in flight view - not map view - you should be able to double click the marker to set it as target.  (Just a note, the ship labels and markers are toggled by F4 in case you ever don't see them when you think you should.)

If you do already have it set as target, you can change the navball setting by left-clicking in the box with the velocity. I'm guessing it currently says "orbital" in the box above the navball with the velocity.  That will let you cycle between "orbital," "surface," and "target."

[GoSlash27]

Mister Spock,

 You can still target visually like you attempted to do, but you'll need to get closer than that. If memory serves, 2km is the cutoff.

Best,

-Slashy

[Pecan]

2 hours ago, Mister Spock said:

I'm doing a rescue mission without patched conics.

That's the most brilliant thing I've heard in ages - well done!

If you've disabled the entire orbital physics system that underlies KSP then I'd say you have four options:

1. Do whatever it is that's required by the physics system you've replaced it with
2. Do whatever you want
3. Point straight at it
4. Deliver all the presents before dawn

 

[GoSlash27]

Pecan,

 I took the OP to mean that he's working a rescue in career and hasn't upgraded the tracking station or mission control yet.

Best,

-Slashy

[Mister Spock]

Hehe, you're both right.  I'm playing career, and I haven't unlocked patched conics yet; I'm playing on Hard, and funds are hard to come by.  (So hard that I'll probably break down and cheat to give myself some cash rather than repeat "suborbital haul" contracts 20 times.)  But also, I've always been curious how it would be to run without patched conics.

And yeah, right now I think the only available option is indeed to point right at it and fire the engine.  Well, to point at where the target is going, if I can figure that out.  It's actually a pretty fun challenge.

[Guest]

BlkBltChemie's answer should work without any guessing or figuring. Double click the target while in flight view. Then get within 10km or so, change the navball to target mode, and wash the orbits until your close enough to complete contract.

[Mister Spock]

Oh, I overlooked BlkBltChemie's answer.  I've been single-left and single-right clicking, not double-clicking.  I'll try double-clicking.  If I can just get to target mode, I can do this.  

 

[GoSlash27]

Don't give up on hard mode! You can do it without cheating.

Best,

-Slashy

[Mister Spock]

I haven't given up yet, GoSlash!  Will try this mission again after doing a few more Christmas things today.

[RexKramer]

7 hours ago, Mister Spock said:

I haven't given up yet, GoSlash!  Will try this mission again after doing a few more Christmas things today.

After you pull off a rescue without a TS upgrade, try going to Mun or Minmus.  Hitting either one is actually easier than a rescue contract with a Level 1 TS, but equally rewarding.  

It was only after doing a couple of trips to Minmus with a Level 1 TS that I finally figured out how to launch directly into an inclination which matched Minmus, or at least pretty close (within a degree).  

You can do it, and you'll be glad you did.  

[Mister Spock]

Alas, I'm playing New Horizons, so as far as I know there's no Minmus in my game.  There is a Mun, but it orbits the same planet Kerbin does, and I haven't given much thought to how to get there yet.

[Snark]

36 minutes ago, Mister Spock said:

Alas, I'm playing New Horizons, so as far as I know there's no Minmus in my game.  There is a Mun, but it orbits the same planet Kerbin does, and I haven't given much thought to how to get there yet.

Actually, every stock planet and moon is still present in New Horizons, so Minmus still exists... but for the purposes of current discussion, it might as well not.  It's orbiting Eeloo, which is in turn orbiting in the outer fringes of the solar system.

<off_topic>

Chances are good that you'll never go there unless you're a completist, because 1. Eeloo is just as boring as ever, 2. there's nothing new or different about its placement to make it more interesting in NH than in stock, 3. Minmus is one place you have lots (perhaps too much) experience with already, 4. it's orbiting in a place that makes it inconvenient to get to, but 5. not interestingly inconvenient, since it's no longer the furthest planet from the sun.

By and large, I think NH does an absolutely brilliant job of reimagining the solar system to give a totally new experience-- not just adding lots of interesting new worlds, but finding some new and fresh role for just about every stock world.  However, I think Eeloo is a bit of a hole-- it's just not interesting or worth visiting.

In my own (second) NH playthrough, I've added a snippet of ModuleManager config to do a little bit of rearranging:

• Gilly and Pol both moved into very low orbits around Duna, like Phobos/Deimos.  Rationale:  Makes Duna more interesting having a moon-of-a-moon.  Makes low Duna orbit challenging due to moons getting in the way.  Interesting orbital transfer dynamics between Gilly and Pol.
• Minmus moved to where NH originally put Gilly.  Rationale:  Minmus useless in Eeloo orbit, since Eeloo is boring and I'll never go there.
• Eeloo moved to where NH originally put Pol.  Rationale:  Eeloo was boring as a solar planet, moving it to Vanor orbit puts it in close neighborhood of other moons and makes it more likely I'll visit.
• Vanor moved inwards to occupy the orbit that Eeloo used to. Rationale:  Takes not quite so long to get there.

Here's the MM config for it, if you're interested:

Spoiler

@Kopernicus:NEEDS[!GalacticNeighborhood]:AFTER[New_Horizons]
{
    // Vanor moved to Eeloo's place
    @Body[Vanor]
    {
        @Orbit
        {
            @inclination = 14.34
            @eccentricity = 0.033
            @semiMajorAxis = 205036785000
            @longitudeOfAscendingNode = 110
            @argumentOfPeriapsis = 11
            @meanAnomalyAtEpoch = 1
            @epoch = 2000
        }
    }

    // Eeloo moved to Pol's place
    @Body[Eeloo]
    {
        @Orbit
        {
            @referenceBody = Vanor
            @semiMajorAxis = 127429916
            @inclination = 5.5
            @eccentricity = 0.025
            @longitudeOfAscendingNode = 50
            @argumentOfPeriapsis = 0
            @meanAnomalyAtEpoch = 0
        }
    }

    // Minmus moved to Gilly's place
    @Body[Minmus]
    {
        @Orbit
        {
            @referenceBody = Vanor
            @semiMajorAxis = 251500000
            @inclination = 23.5
            @eccentricity = 0.354
            @longitudeOfAscendingNode = 40
            @argumentOfPeriapsis = 10
            @meanAnomalyAtEpoch = 1
        }
    }

    // Gilly moved to low Duna orbit
    @Body[Gilly]
    {
        @Orbit
        {
            @referenceBody = Duna
            @semiMajorAxis = 445000
            @inclination = 6
            @eccentricity = 0.1
            @longitudeOfAscendingNode = 40
            @argumentOfPeriapsis = 10
            @meanAnomalyAtEpoch = 1
        }
        @Properties
        {
            %sphereOfInfluence = 30000
            %tidallyLocked = true
        }
    }

    // Pol moved to low Duna orbit, just above Gilly
    @Body[Pol]
    {
        @Orbit
        {
            @referenceBody = Duna
            @semiMajorAxis = 635000
            @inclination = 8
            @eccentricity = 0.05
            @longitudeOfAscendingNode = 200
            @argumentOfPeriapsis = 10
            @meanAnomalyAtEpoch = 1
        }
        @Properties
        {
            %sphereOfInfluence = 80000
            %tidallyLocked = true
        }
    }
}

Full disclosure, I haven't actually traveled to Duna/Gilly/Pol yet in the new configuration.  I expect that it'll be fine (I did math and believe things should work out, no intersecting SoIs or other glitches), but "I'm pretty sure it's OK" is not the same thing as "I've tested and verified that it's OK". 

</off_topic>

Edited December 26, 2015 by Snark

[Mister Spock]

Snark, thanks for your thoughts and especially for that MM config.  That sounds promising!  I'm not sure I'll have time to fire up that config in the next few days, as I'm about to go out of the town, but perhaps after that.  Thanks again!

[Snark]

4 hours ago, Mister Spock said:

Snark, thanks for your thoughts and especially for that MM config.  That sounds promising!  I'm not sure I'll have time to fire up that config in the next few days, as I'm about to go out of the town, but perhaps after that.  Thanks again!

By the way-- be careful about adding MM config to move planets around in an existing save if you already have ships orbiting various planets.  It can cause the game to get confused about who's orbiting where, and you could find a ship that was originally orbiting planet A suddenly being in orbit of planet B after adding the new config.  It's not necessarily a game-killer-- it's possible to fix it by manually editing the save file to update the index of each ship in flight-- but it's tedious, and requires making a fix to every single ship in flight, and requires figuring out which planets are which indices.

So, long story short:  in general it's best not to tinker with planets in the middle of a game.  Best to do all tinkering before starting a new game, if possible.

Technical details below for any who are interested.

Spoiler

It has to do with the way KSP keeps track of what's-orbiting-where:  for each ship, it identifies the planet not by any sort of unique ID, but by a simple integer index, and unless the mod explicitly assigns an index to each planet, they get auto-numbered in order outwards from the sun.  So rearranging the order of planets can affect the ordering of the indices.

Until fairly recently New Horizons explicitly set the index of every planet, so you could have done all the rearranging you like and it wouldn't have affected anything.  In a recent update, though, the author removed all the explicit indices, so they're auto-numbered now.  Therefore, rearranging planets can affect the indices.

 

Edited December 27, 2015 by Snark

[Mister Spock]

Thanks for the heads-up.  I'll wait til I start a new game.