Set as target when two possible targets close together

[Tantalus]

Hey ho,

there is an issue thats annoying me for quite a while. How can i select a specific target, when more than one possible targets are close together? Imagine i an in control of a vessel in orbit and want to set a flag next to my surface base as target, but every time the base itself is selected. Is there any way to select a diffent target tgan tho one the game selects by default?

 

Regards

Tantalus

[FullMetalMachinist]

When you're in map view, put your mouse cursor to the top of the screen. A small hidden menu will pull down. This is a filter for the ships/probes/bases/debris that are currently in your game. You can click on the base icon (or ship or probe) to hide that type of vessel. In your case, hide the bases, and then your flag will be all alone, waiting for you to make it a target. 

Also, some people don't know that you can change not just the vessel name, but also the vessel type.  To do this be either in the map view or in the tracking station and click on a vessel. On the right side it will list the details of that vessel. You can click on the name to change it, and also choose what type of vessel it is. So, for instance, if you have two ships close together and want to select one but keep getting the wrong one, change the vessel type of the wrong one to, say, a probe. Then you can hide all probes as described above, and select the ship you want. 

Edited January 12, 2016 by FullMetalMachinist

[swjr-swis]

9 minutes ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

When you're in map view, put your mouse cursor to the top of the screen. A small hidden menu will pull down. This is a filter for the ships/probes/bases/debris that are currently in your game. You can click on the base icon (or ship or probe) to hide that type of vessel. In your case, hide the bases, and then your flag will be all alone, waiting for you to make it a target. 

Works for different types of objects.

Now how about five base modules that are landed some distance from each other, but from orbit even at highest zoom, they still look on top of each other, and when you mouse over the area, KSP defaults to all except the one you actually want.

[FullMetalMachinist]

2 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

Works for different types of objects.

Now how about five base modules that are landed some distance from each other, but from orbit even at highest zoom, they still look on top of each other, and when you mouse over the area, KSP defaults to all except the one you actually want.

See my (edited in) second paragraph. 

[Tantalus]

1 minute ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

See my (edited in) second paragraph. 

Yes i know this function, but it feels very annoying to change vessel types every time you want to select a different target. IMHO a better way would be to have a drop-down-list appearing once more than one possible targets are close together.

Regards

Tantalus

[FullMetalMachinist]

6 minutes ago, Tantalus said:

Yes i know this function, but it feels very annoying to change vessel types every time you want to select a different target. IMHO a better way would be to have a drop-down-list appearing once more than one possible targets are close together.

Regards

Tantalus

I agree wholeheartedly, that method is simply an annoying workaround. I also think your idea would be a perfect solution. In fact, I think I remember seeing it mentioned in the Suggestions forum, so hopefully Squad is aware and with 1.1 and all the re-written map code we will see something like that soon. 

[Snark]

2 minutes ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

I agree wholeheartedly, that method is simply an annoying workaround. I also think your idea would be a perfect solution. In fact, I think I remember seeing it mentioned in the Suggestions forum, so hopefully Squad is aware and with 1.1 and all the re-written map code we will see something like that soon. 

Even worse:  There's a long-standing bug in the game (has been around since at least 0.23.5, and is still present in 1.0.5) in which sometimes, for reasons unknown, the which-category-of-object-to-display buttons in the map view get "jammed", and you can't actually toggle any of them on or off.

Sometimes they work, very often they don't.  I run into this all the time.  When that happens, and I want to toggle the display of something, my only recourse is to go back to the tracking station in KSC to do it (because that always works-- the bug only happens in map view while controlling a ship, never from the tracking station).

So this "workaround" would require:

1. Switch to one of the two close-together ships
2. Change it to some other category of vessel
3. Switch to KSC
4. Disable the display of that vessel category
5. Switch to your original ship
6. Have it target the ship you want
7. Switch back to KSC
8. Turn the vessel display back on
9. Switch back to the vessel whose category you changed
10. Change its category back to what it originally was
11. Switch back to the original vessel that you wanted to set a target for

That's just excruciating.  Yes, sometimes I'll get lucky and can skip some of the steps (e.g. if the display isn't jammed and the two ships happen already to be different categories), but this worst case crops up all the time and there's no workaround that isn't super painful.

Suggest posting this thread over to the Gameplay Suggestions forum.  Having a way to select things that are close together would be really handy.

[FancyMouse]

That's one of the reasons nowadays I always use KER to select targets.

[MagicFireCaster]

6 hours ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

When you're in map view, put your mouse cursor to the top of the screen. A small hidden menu will pull down. This is a filter for the ships/probes/bases/debris that are currently in your game. You can click on the base icon (or ship or probe) to hide that type of vessel. In your case, hide the bases, and then your flag will be all alone, waiting for you to make it a target. 

Also, some people don't know that you can change not just the vessel name, but also the vessel type.  To do this be either in the map view or in the tracking station and click on a vessel. On the right side it will list the details of that vessel. You can click on the name to change it, and also choose what type of vessel it is. So, for instance, if you have two ships close together and want to select one but keep getting the wrong one, change the vessel type of the wrong one to, say, a probe. Then you can hide all probes as described above, and select the ship you want. 

 

6 hours ago, Snark said:

Even worse:  There's a long-standing bug in the game (has been around since at least 0.23.5, and is still present in 1.0.5) in which sometimes, for reasons unknown, the which-category-of-object-to-display buttons in the map view get "jammed", and you can't actually toggle any of them on or off.

Sometimes they work, very often they don't.  I run into this all the time.  When that happens, and I want to toggle the display of something, my only recourse is to go back to the tracking station in KSC to do it (because that always works-- the bug only happens in map view while controlling a ship, never from the tracking station).

So this "workaround" would require:

1. Switch to one of the two close-together ships
2. Change it to some other category of vessel
3. Switch to KSC
4. Disable the display of that vessel category
5. Switch to your original ship
6. Have it target the ship you want
7. Switch back to KSC
8. Turn the vessel display back on
9. Switch back to the vessel whose category you changed
10. Change its category back to what it originally was
11. Switch back to the original vessel that you wanted to set a target for

That's just excruciating.  Yes, sometimes I'll get lucky and can skip some of the steps (e.g. if the display isn't jammed and the two ships happen already to be different categories), but this worst case crops up all the time and there's no workaround that isn't super painful.

Suggest posting this thread over to the Gameplay Suggestions forum.  Having a way to select things that are close together would be really handy.

Hey guys! can't ignore you forgot this, if you have another ship around where you can see it (around 80km from you) you can just double click the vessel in the overworld to make it your target,  you can use this method around planets or moons, but i won't recommend using it orbiting the sun when trying to rendezvous with a distant object, since distances around it are pretty large.

[FullMetalMachinist]

For those interested, I was searching the Suggestions & Development forum to validate my earlier claim that this issue had come up there before.  That thread is here for those that wish to see. The reason I'm saying anything is because one of the people there suggested the mod haystack. It looks to be pretty useful (especially for @Snark, who apparently plays this game just to torture himself ). If you're not adverse to installing mods, this may be an option until something better is available in the stock game.

Also,  

41 minutes ago, MagicFireCaster said:

 

Hey guys! can't ignore you forgot this, if you have another ship around where you can see it (around 80km from you) you can just double click the vessel in the overworld to make it your target,  you can use this method around planets or moons, but i won't recommend using it orbiting the sun when trying to rendezvous with a distant object, since distances around it are pretty large.

Very good point, thanks for that.

[Kerbart]

7 hours ago, Snark said:

Even worse:  There's a long-standing bug in the game (has been around since at least 0.23.5, and is still present in 1.0.5) in which sometimes, for reasons unknown, the which-category-of-object-to-display buttons in the map view get "jammed", and you can't actually toggle any of them on or off.

Ooooh, that's a bug? I thought it was a feature. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why they had implemented it like that, but as it worked like that version after version I thought it was supposed to work that way.

[Snark]

16 minutes ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

For those interested, I was searching the Suggestions & Development forum to validate my earlier claim that this issue had come up there before.  That thread is here for those that wish to see. The reason I'm saying anything is because one of the people there suggested the mod haystack. It looks to be pretty useful (especially for @Snark, who apparently plays this game just to torture himself ). If you're not adverse to installing mods, this may be an option until something better is available in the stock game.

Thanks for the pointer!  Took a look.

I have no problem with installing mods, and Haystack looks like a nice one that has had a lot of thought put into it.  However, it's also UI-intensive, with lots of dialogs, buttons, etc.  There's nothing wrong with that per se, but my personal idiosyncrasy is that I'm highly allergic to UI.  My ideal mod is a minimalist one that does the absolute bare minimum of UI (zero UI, if at all possible), and I suspect that this one would get on my nerves for that reason.

The targeting-aid mod that would be an appropriate (minimal) UI, to my taste, is one that does nothing at all unless you're clicking on a ship in map view and there's more than one right on top of each other, and in that case would do nothing other than replace the stock "Target / Switch To" box with a bigger box that has those buttons for each of the ships that are right there.

Yes, I know I'm picky. 

Anyway, thanks for pointing out the mod, it looks cool, and hopefully should be helpful to folks who aren't as allergic to UI as I am.

6 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Ooooh, that's a bug? I thought it was a feature. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why they had implemented it like that, but as it worked like that version after version I thought it was supposed to work that way.

Yeah.  When you're flying a ship, sometimes you can toggle things in map view, and sometimes you can't.  I've never been able to establish any rhyme or reason as to what makes the difference.  It just seems random to me.

[FancyMouse]

That bug is somehow related to navball. Most of the time if I collapse/expand navball, it's no longer locked. Doesn't always fix the problem, though.

[Wemb]

And. from me, a shoutout to RasterPropMonitor, which, IIRC, allows you to scroll through a sensible menu of astronomical bodies, vessels, etc. to set a target from the IVA view. Might be handy if you have it and are in a capsule.

Wemb

[Tantalus]

17 hours ago, FancyMouse said:

That's one of the reasons nowadays I always use KER to select targets.

How can I select a target with KER? Used it a lot but for information display only.

Regards

Tantalus

[ForScience6686]

 I am guessing you are using this for landing reference.  If the objects are so close together does it matter which is selected?  One you get close enough you should be able to eye ball the landing.

 

I use a marker for landing as well but disable makers about 25 km out and eye ball the rest.  

[dangerhamster]

6 hours ago, Tantalus said:

How can I select a target with KER? Used it a lot but for information display only.

In the rendezvous tab, select required target type. If you have a number of vessels up with the same name check the distance. It also has a handy search function useful for asteroids.

 

 

[FancyMouse]

8 hours ago, Tantalus said:

How can I select a target with KER? Used it a lot but for information display only.

Regards

Tantalus

There's some target selector (I don't remember the exact name) in the Rendezvous category. Essentially you just two button clicks and you'll be done selecting a target. Switch to target button is also available when a target is selected. Everything can be done without going to map view.