Mission Planning, and Flight Control

[LorenLuke]

Now, before anyone starts, I'm aware of the existence of numerous mods and/or external utilities out there to aid in mission planning for KSP. This is not to replace those per sè, but to have a more intuitive utility inside the game for those playing stock only. 

In addition, with all the talk of multiplayer being said about competing space agencies or collaborative projects, I submit an additional multiplayer idea in tandem with the first suggestion.

 

First off, flight planning. Not using any utilities or mods leaves just a few things for an all stock player to plan their trip around Eeloo by way of Jool: experience (which may not always apply), adequate planning (also known to the inexperienced as 'wild guessing'), and (mostly for me) luck. I say that something should be done to fix that, and it can be with a simple utility: the creation of a relatively simplistic mission planner. 

The mission planner itself will appear in the form of a 'tracking station'-like orbital map, displaying the KSC on Kerbin, a small icon representing the planned flight, and optionally one target non-celestial object. In addition to the orbital map, the mission planning center will m support a couple of functions. The first function is an adjustable 'launch' time setting, using universal time. What this does is shifts all celestial bodies (and any target object) around to their exact position at this given universal time. The second function is a 'Mission Elapsed Time' (MET) slider/editable field that also adjusts these celestial bodies (and target object) position, in addition to the small ship icon along a planned flight path (more later). The third function is a set of adjustable trans-atmospheric parameters including position, heading, speed and time including a projected suborbital path (this establishes, relative to launch, where and when you've left atmo and can rightly use nodes). If the MET slider is less than the time to orbit, the spaceship is not represented along its flight path, as it would still be in atmosphere. 

Also, as with the orbital view, the mission planning center can add and edit maneuver nodes to the flight path. The game already features maneuver nodes that can be edited in flight. Having this should allow the player to view any transfers that they set up, and by editing the MET parameter, view transfers and intercepts (with updated vessel, target, and celestial bodies positioning) for any time in the flight. Lastly, there are two buttons: 'Upload Flight Plan to Pad' and 'Upload Flight Plan, Warp to Launch'. Both have similar effects, where you then select a vessel for the mission, with proper crewing, very much like just clicking the launch pad or runway. Both will have the maneuver nodes loaded, including the atmospheric node, which will be locked to the pad until launch. The 'Warp to Launch' would time warp to find minutes before launch, and then go to the launch pad with the MET clock counting down from T-Minus 5:00 for launch (hitting 0:00 wouldn't stage, but provides a good launch indicator). 

 

The second half of this post involves having a single player as pilot with additional person(s) possibly building the rocket ahead of time, planning missions, etc. and during missions functioning as a ground crew, viewing flight telemetry data, viewing part statistics (fuel, power, etc.), equipment data (pressure, temperature, etc. if the equipment is on), being able to interact with the in-flight tweakables from the telemetry screen, adjusting flight plans and maneuver nodes, and so on from either a LAN connection or over Internet as a multiplayer experience.