Navball "controls"...when?

[strider3]

After having done many of the in game lessons, I am curious as to when, in career mode, I would have the prograde/retrograde, normal/anti-normal, radial/anti-radial and maneuver buttons on the left side of the navball? I'm guessing these require more science and technologies for them to show up. Can you direct me to a list that shows what each of these controls requires in the technology tree to become active?

This newbal thanks you.

Vic

[Hodari]

It has nothing to do with the tech tree(at least not directly anyway).  For crewed vehicles, it depends on the experience level of your pilot.  For uncrewed probes, it depends on which probe core you use(right click on the probe in the VAB part list to see which functions it offers).  Of course, if your pilot is too low a level or your only crew members are engineers or scientists, you can also put a probe on in addition to the command pod in order to gain access to its functions. 

 

Either way, use the T key to turn on your SAS and whatever buttons you have access to will show up.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Hodari

[Newnard]

The availability of those buttons depends on the skill level of your pilot, OR the technology level of your probe core if it is an unmanned flight, OR whichever is best if you have multiple pilots or probe cores or some of each.

Note that only pilots get that ability, so if your vessel contains only scientists and engineers (and no probe core) you won't have access to that feature.

Beginning level pilots can only activate stability assist, holding the current course but no prograde/radial/normal/target buttons.

Then as the pilot levels up, they get access to one additional set of buttons at each experience level -- prograde/retrograde at first. Not sure which order radial/normal arrive in, and then the target buttons are the last ones to be awarded.

As for probe cores, you can see which abilities they provide by looking at their entry on the tech tree, on the right hand side where it lists the attributes of the probe core it will say "SAS" followed by a list of which buttons will be activated by that probe core, for example "stability assist", "prograde/retrograde", etc.

[strider3]

Excellent...thank you for the answers!

Got some work to do! LOL!

Vic

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, Victor3 said:

After having done many of the in game lessons, I am curious as to when, in career mode, I would have the prograde/retrograde, normal/anti-normal, radial/anti-radial and maneuver buttons on the left side of the navball? I'm guessing these require more science and technologies for them to show up. Can you direct me to a list that shows what each of these controls requires in the technology tree to become active?

My suggestion:  NEVER use those buttons.  The logic behind them is horribly flawed and they do more harm than good.  Orient your ship manually and you'll be a lot better off than using those buttons.

As to when the buttons appear, that is entirely dependent on either the experience level of your pilot or the tech level of the probe core.  The higher either is, the more buttons you get.  But all of them are equally worthless so don't worry about them.  Fly the ship yourself.

[FancyMouse]

Well, I do find a use case for hold when I have thrust unaligned to CoM (especially towing an asteroid). I deny to fly manually in those cases. I usually just hold, put thrust at appropriate level, set alarm to pause, then start to do something else.

[Snark]

12 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

My suggestion:  NEVER use those buttons.  The logic behind them is horribly flawed and they do more harm than good.  Orient your ship manually and you'll be a lot better off than using those buttons.

As to when the buttons appear, that is entirely dependent on either the experience level of your pilot or the tech level of the probe core.  The higher either is, the more buttons you get.  But all of them are equally worthless so don't worry about them.  Fly the ship yourself.

Well, I'll grant you that the implementation's not perfect.    But I sure wouldn't call them "worthless" or "more harm than good."

I use these buttons all the time; I find them enormously helpful.

• "Hold prograde" is good for the gravity turn during launch
• "Hold retrograde" is incredibly useful when landing on a vacuum world.  Makes landing much less hassle.  It's also very useful during reentry, if a ship is somewhat aerodynamically unstable.  Also useful for rendezvous.
• "Hold maneuver" is useful shorthand.  I can fly fine without it, but it takes some of the tedium out of aligning for maneuvers.
• I use the others (radial in, radial out, normal, antinormal) much less often, but it's just because I don't need them as much, not because they don't work. Radial in/out is useful when I'm approaching a planet, and I just crossed the SoI boundary, and I need to fine-tune my periapsis a bit.

The moral of the story is that different players find different things useful.  My advice to a new player is:  try them, and decide whether you like them.    (I sure do!)