A time slider so you can look into the future when making a maneuver node

[John FX]

OK, I know how to do it now. How to accurately make nodes get you where you need that involve no maths but would allow you to see exactly where your craft will be in relation to other bodies and craft in the future.

A time slider for when you are making nodes.

You make your first node then move time forward in the map screen until you are near your target, obviously all bodies in the system would show their future positions so you can see whether you are near an encounter. Your distance to your target would be shown so you can see the effects of changing your node. Maybe time in the flight could pause for this to make the code easier.

Oh no, you will be at the right point but no encounter as your orbital plane is not the same as your target but you can see you are above it so you add another node and change planes at the An, and now you can see you have an encounter (you could also see where your craft would have been with no node and the first node too). A lot easier than trying to guess the right point on the orbit to hit. Maybe a line could be drawn from the craft to the target that shows the distance.

Previously there would be a lot of guessing and you would have no idea even if you were going to be near the body until you got an encounter. Not very good if you wish people to experiment, experiment needs results given even if you do not succeed rather than a digital 1/0 situation where you either do or do not get an encounter.

TL;DR I think it would be much better if you could see the future positions of both your craft and the target so you can see how close you are (on your current path and all node possible paths) without the need to be on the same plane or get an encounter to get any information.

[ferrer]

This seems like a great idea, and I'd be interested in hearing from modders whether there are any practical concerns that would make implementing it more difficult than it seems at first glance. I don't personally have much of a problem with using external tools to find launch windows and the like, but some people do, and I think it would be great to have a more naturalistic way of doing this in-game.

[DoctorDavinci]

Right click on a node until you see 3 buttons

+ increases the year by 1

- decreases  the year by 1

the red x deletes the node

Edited May 30, 2016 by DoctorDavinci

[John FX]

3 hours ago, ferrer said:

This seems like a great idea, and I'd be interested in hearing from modders whether there are any practical concerns that would make implementing it more difficult than it seems at first glance. I don't personally have much of a problem with using external tools to find launch windows and the like, but some people do, and I think it would be great to have a more naturalistic way of doing this in-game.

Exactly, I just thought it would be a more kerbal way to do something that seems to be a problem for a lot of players, getting interplanetary encounters.

2 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Right click on a node until you see 3 buttons

+ increases the year by 1

- decreases  the year by 1

the red x deletes the node

I had more in my mind a way where you triggered the future time feature then you could use something like the current warp buttons except there would be a set that reversed time as well so you could go forward and backward to just the right point. Also a larger warp than currently available to get to an Eeloo intercept in less than a long time. A year seems like a very big jump unless there were finer controls elsewhere.

 

[Blaarkies]

14 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Right click on a node until you see 3 buttons

+ increases the year by 1

- decreases  the year by 1

the red x deletes the node

That is just moving the maneuver forward, so that it starts after one or more orbits. What this person wants is to see Minmus encounters without needing to place the second node and continually adjust it to fit the inclination just to see where he is going. It gets frustrating, I want it too...and also I want to see my position after multiple orbits(for gravity assists), but since the closest encounter indicators snaps to the first encounter and ignores everything afterwards it is difficult to plan simple maneuvers.

Imagine Alt+clicking on the orbital line. This creates a vessel position marker and a target marker(corresponding to where the target will be, when the vessel is at that marker point). Create multiples of these in different matching colors, and you could have vital info only at the positions you really need it

[Superfluous J]

When you get an encounter with another world, the game shows a little dot on that planet's orbit showing it'll be "there" at the time the encounter occurs. So the code to do this is already present.

I personally would like that dot to be a permanent thing, and when you're hovering over your ship's projected orbit (any time you could click to create a maneuver node or warp) that dot would show where the planet would be when your ship was at your mouse location.

That way, you could move your mouse along your orbit and see how the target world is going to move at the same time.

Edited May 31, 2016 by 5thHorseman

[cicatrix]

You already see an encounter - that's usually all you need. Having MechJeb or similar tool you can also change the conics mode so you can see your trajectories in different reference systems.

[John FX]

3 hours ago, cicatrix said:

You already see an encounter - that's usually all you need. Having MechJeb or similar tool you can also change the conics mode so you can see your trajectories in different reference systems.

So what you are saying is that the stock game works fine if you use mods and encounters are easy to get once you have an encounter?

EDIT :

5 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

When you get an encounter with another world, the game shows a little dot on that planet's orbit showing it'll be "there" at the time the encounter occurs. So the code to do this is already present.

I personally would like that dot to be a permanent thing, and when you're hovering over your ship's projected orbit (any time you could click to create a maneuver node or warp) that dot would show where the planet would be when your ship was at your mouse location.

That way, you could move your mouse along your orbit and see how the target world is going to move at the same time.

 

pretty much although it would be nice to not have it based on the current mouse position so you could alter your node at the same time as seeing the relative positions of your craft and the target at a desired time in the future. It would be nice to have both the closest approach and also show you how close you were at your chosen time. It would have to be other than just a plain click as that is the `place maneuver node` action.

Edited May 31, 2016 by John FX

[Superfluous J]

44 minutes ago, John FX said:

...it would be nice to not have it based on the current mouse position so you could alter your node at the same time as seeing the relative positions of your craft and the target at a desired time in the future. It would be nice to have both the closest approach and also show you how close you were at your chosen time. It would have to be other than just a plain click as that is the `place maneuver node` action.

I see that. I was trying to make it not require more click options but it'd be nice to be able to work on a maneuver node and see the results without futzing around with your mouse. Like an "orbital waypoint" (that is just where you'd be at a certain time) that would remain (and move appropriately) while you fiddle with the maneuver node. It could essentially BE a maneuver node just without all the maneuver node stuff.

Actually 90% (or more) of what I want would be solved by making the encounter markers that are already in the game do 2 things:

1. Actually show up. All the time. Every time. If any bit of your trajectory is in the same SOI as your target, there should be markers. Period.
2. Actually show you the closest encounter. I'd accept it showing where the target is when you are closest to its orbit, even if that's not the actual closest encounter to the object itself. Just so long as it doesn't show you where the target would be when you are at some random point in your orbit for no good reason whatsoever.

[John FX]

51 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I see that. I was trying to make it not require more click options but it'd be nice to be able to work on a maneuver node and see the results without futzing around with your mouse. Like an "orbital waypoint" (that is just where you'd be at a certain time) that would remain (and move appropriately) while you fiddle with the maneuver node. It could essentially BE a maneuver node just without all the maneuver node stuff.

Actually 90% (or more) of what I want would be solved by making the encounter markers that are already in the game do 2 things:

1. Actually show up. All the time. Every time. If any bit of your trajectory is in the same SOI as your target, there should be markers. Period.
2. Actually show you the closest encounter. I'd accept it showing where the target is when you are closest to its orbit, even if that's not the actual closest encounter to the object itself. Just so long as it doesn't show you where the target would be when you are at some random point in your orbit for no good reason whatsoever.

Good points but let me say the situation I found myself in which prompted me to post. I`m playing RSS and I want to get a probe to fly by Pluto in less than 40 years. I`d like to set the time for intercept to about 9 years and see if I can reproduce the new horizons mission so I wanted to place the check point 9 years (or so, whatever time they actually took) in the future then adjust my node to intercept then. Having the ability to warp the whole system forward to see the positions of the craft and bodies at that time would be much more useful for more cases than the limited case of purely getting an intercept with a single target.

Maybe you have other craft and want to see their positions when the craft in focus is at a certain position for satellite networks or something. Having the whole system move forward gives you a great deal more info than seeing a single position of a single body/craft.

Maybe you already have a craft launched and you are trying to get an intercept for a body before the first craft gets there so you need to see the relative positions of both the body and the other craft relative to your craft at a particular point in time?

I think I would still like to be able to warp the whole system forward to see the positions of all the craft and bodies in the game, it would be very useful for that 10% of the time you need more than to know only the closest intercept to a single body.

Edited May 31, 2016 by John FX

[hurric]

When you make maneuver node from say Kerbin orbit > Duna encounter

Do it as per normal then while in map screen *FOCUS* on duna ... zoom in or out and your flight line will show up as a short orange line showing your angle of approach ... you can alter this by moving the nodes (or) when you have done the main burn use your *thrusters* to fine tune the encounter

 

 

Edited May 31, 2016 by hurric

[Blaarkies]

13 hours ago, hurric said:

When you make maneuver node from say Kerbin orbit > Duna encounter

Do it as per normal then while in map screen *FOCUS* on duna ... zoom in or out and your flight line will show up as a short orange line showing your angle of approach ... you can alter this by moving the nodes (or) when you have done the main burn use your *thrusters* to fine tune the encounter

 

 

But what if you want to do a Kerbin>Kerbin slingshot to get to Duna? The stock encounter system icons get really useless for these situations, since they:
- Don't point to parent bodies(you don't see encounters for Kerbin, while also orbiting Kerbin)
- Don't show Duna encounters after some crazy Kerbin slingshot

[hurric]

18 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

But what if you want to do a Kerbin>Kerbin slingshot to get to Duna? The stock encounter system icons get really useless for these situations, since they:
- Don't point to parent bodies(you don't see encounters for Kerbin, while also orbiting Kerbin)
- Don't show Duna encounters after some crazy Kerbin slingshot

Not really sure what you are on about so all I can add is

 

When I did the Kerbin to Duna I did it with two ships

1st ship was going to Duna .... second to Ike ... So initially both were set up to encounter Duna

 

Just by *Chance* the second ships encounter when *Viewing* Duna ....to see the encounter lines .... it encountered Duna and the carried on and looped around Ike .... Pure chance but it just shows how good things can get if you use the *Game* and everything that has been implemented

Learning what is actually in the game without a manual is half the fun IMHO

[Blaarkies]

4 hours ago, hurric said:

Not really sure what you are on about so all I can add is

 

When I did the Kerbin to Duna I did it with two ships

1st ship was going to Duna .... second to Ike ... So initially both were set up to encounter Duna

 

Just by *Chance* the second ships encounter when *Viewing* Duna ....to see the encounter lines .... it encountered Duna and the carried on and looped around Ike .... Pure chance but it just shows how good things can get if you use the *Game* and everything that has been implemented

Learning what is actually in the game without a manual is half the fun IMHO

That is a gravity assist, this exact situation at Jool saves you lots of fuel by using Tylo's gravity. To get it consistently, make sure you have an encounter with the parent body(Duna in your case) and then gently adjust the time it takes to reach Duna(change the prograde/retrograde and or radial/anti-radial so that it takes a few days longer to reach Duna)...when you arrive later, you would pass through Ike's SOI.

That's simple, but after re-entry heating became a serious consideration we have to save fuel wherever possible(aerocapture is not always viable). But let's say you want to do a super-low-dv mission to Duna:
-From LKO, make a burn until you encounter Duna
-Adjust you encounter so that you get a gravity assist that increases your Perihelion
-Have that assist be just enough so that you will again encounter Duna in 3 orbits later
-Realize that the game does not have a helpful tool for this...if you could just see into the future, see where Duna is when you are 3 orbits down the line, imagine the possibilities! 

Edited June 2, 2016 by Blaarkies

[hurric]

Your last paragraph ........I get it now....the original question I mean

 

Three orbits round the Sun is an awful long time ...... you would run out of Snacks by the time you reached Duna again

Edited June 2, 2016 by hurric

[Blaarkies]

23 hours ago, hurric said:

Your last paragraph ........I get it now....the original question I mean

 

Three orbits round the Sun is an awful long time ...... you would run out of Snacks by the time you reached Duna again

Snacks! are awesome! 
Yes this really only for probes, and TBH it is easy to get a probe anywhere in the universe since they are so light(if not, then just ADD MOAR BOOSTERS!). But the low-dv records still fascinate me, player sending probes from LKO to Jool with less than 1400 m/s 

[John FX]

Just found another case where this suggestion would be useful, I needed to get to Bop which has a high inclination so I had to burn to get to the orbital distance of Bop then halfway there do an inclination burn to get in the same plane to get an encounter. With this suggestion I could see the closest approach would be at my Apoapsis so my inclination burn would lead to me entering the SOI of Bop, without it I just see that I am sort of near the right Apoapsis and only once fully committed to the orbit, halfway there, AFTER the correcting burn would I see that I would get an encounter.

It would be nice, when making the first node, to see that my closest point would be at my Apoapsis even if I am not on the same plane yet. I know I could make a few nodes and be shown the closest point when my planned course was on the same plane but that often changes when altering the first node, losing you the white `closest approach` markers.

I think of it like there are a bunch of kerbals at KSC working out the orbital mechanics for the rest of your mission as you fly it. At any point you can ask them to figure out where you are going and where everything else will be at any point on your course and present you as the pilot with the data.

[Megadeath]

I'd certainly like to have something like this included in stock. That said, it's totally doable to use f5 and time warp as a poor mans version, right?