Gravity assist direction

[maceemiller]

Hi all. So, im trying to understand where doing a gravity assist will actually send me. Is there anything I can do to "show" me where im heading? All I have on screen is the marker showing where I will leave that bodys SOI. Can that be altered so i can see past the SOI?

One other problem thats just popped up is sometimes I cant place a manoeuvre node on my blue line, only the purple line? Ive changed my view, etc, but it still wont let me?

Edited February 29, 2016 by maceemiller

[Plusck]

If you drop a node in one SOI, it should show your (dotted) path in the next SOI. So you place a node on that dotted path in the next SOI, then delete the first one and you'll have your "true" path in solid colour in the next SOI. Rinse and repeat.

For the being unable to place nodes, it depends whether you have your Pe/Ap before the next SOI encounter or not. If you have a Pe or Ap before the encounter, you can drop a node between it and the encounter fine, and drag it back to your ship. If you don't, it can be virtually impossible to drop a node. Zooming right in on your ship can help... maybe.

[RocketPropelledGiraffe]

There is a limit to how many SOI changes are plotted in advance, you can change it in the settings.cfg file. Close the game, open settings.cfg with a text editor and find the entry "patchedconicslimit".  That's the number of SOI changes that are plotted for your trajectory - set the number to 5 or 7 and try again in game, you should be able to see where you are going after a gravity assist. Be sure to save a backup of your settings-file before you mess with it, of course.

[Lukaszenko]

3 hours ago, Plusck said:

For the being unable to place nodes, it depends whether you have your Pe/Ap before the next SOI encounter or not. If you have a Pe or Ap before the encounter, you can drop a node between it and the encounter fine, and drag it back to your ship. If you don't, it can be virtually impossible to drop a node. Zooming right in on your ship can help... maybe.

Supposedly this will get fixed in 1.1.

If it ever comes 

Edited February 29, 2016 by Lukaszenko

[FullMetalMachinist]

3 hours ago, RocketPropelledGiraffe said:

There is a limit to how many SOI changes are plotted in advance, you can change it in the settings.cfg file. Close the game, open settings.cfg with a text editor and find the entry "patchedconicslimit".  That's the number of SOI changes that are plotted for your trajectory - set the number to 5 or 7 and try again in game, you should be able to see where you are going after a gravity assist. Be sure to save a backup of your settings-file before you mess with it, of course.

In addition to this, the precise node mod lets you modify both the conic limit and the conic type while in game and controlling your ship, in map mode, without having to manually mess with the settings.cfg 

[tomf]

I created a post that might be helpful a week or so ago

I also cannot' recommend precise node highly enough.

[surge]

As does mechjeb, of course.

[maceemiller]

Thanks for all your replies. Ive been doing some testing with this in the Jool system and have a much better understanding now I have been using precise node and I would never fly without it