Maneuver nodes: Mouse acceleration?

[RocketBlam]

There's something that has bugged me about maneuver nodes for a while. In fact since I got into maneuver nodes more, I've enjoyed the game more, and they're really cool. And since I'm in the middle of an 18-minute nuke burn to Moho, I thought I'd post this.

If you make a maneuver node, and edit it, you can of course grab the prograde, retrograde handles,or whatever handle, and adjust the burn. OK, I get that. And if you pull the handle out further, the amount of the burn will accelerate faster. That is, close to the middle, it increases the burn very little, but if you drag it all the way out, then within seconds you've created a burn that will intersect the nearest black hole. Close to the middle of the handle, very little change, further out (or in), much more change. That's all fine.

Here's the problem: You can also do fine adjustments to the node by using the mouse wheel. Move your cursor over the desired direction (prograde, retrograde, whatever) and roll the mouse wheel. Fine idea, but there is something weird about it. If you scroll slowly, you can make fine adjustments, but if you scroll faster, it seems to have some kind of acceleration applied. Slow scroll will increment, say, 2 or 3 m/s per "click" (not mouse click, wheel click, the click your wheel makes, you know), but if you scroll faster, it increases to something like 10-50 m/s per click, or even hundreds of m/s per click. And frankly, it drives me nuts.

In fact it's worse than that. Sometimes you scroll one way and it really increases the burn, then you try to correct back the other way with the wheel, and it doesn't... it only increases it a small amount, even when you scroll fast.

Since the mouse wheel is supposed to be for fine tuning the burn, it should not have this acceleration applied. One "click" should always be a small, consistent amount of change.

Have I explained this adequately? I hope so. Let me know if you have any questions.

[Superfluous J]

I totally agree, and this is why I never fine tune a maneuver with the stock maneuver node gizmo/widget/whateveritscalled. If I need to tweak a node, I go to PreciceNode every time.

[cantab]

I agree with this.

[monstah]

4 hours ago, RocketBlam said:

Have I explained this adequately? I hope so. Let me know if you have any questions.

Yes you have, and I agree. I never use the mousewheel because of precisely that.

[BLB263]

I really have no problem with the maneuver nodes. Of course, nobody has ever used the word "precision" to describe how I play KSP.  I would, however, like a way to turn off the scroll wheel for nodes (Is there something obvious that I've missed?). I can't count the number of times I've accidentally messed up a node while zooming in and out of the map screen. And I'm pretty good at counting, I don't even need to use my fingers anymore.

[Archgeek]

9 minutes ago, BLB263 said:

I'm pretty good at counting, I don't even need to use my fingers anymore.

That's impressive, considering I can count to 1023 on mine.

[kBob]

While I don't really have a problem with how the mouse wheel works now a setting to control the acceleration rate would be nice.  What would really help me is if the nodes were bigger (or even better on a user changeable scale like many of the UI elements are now), as it gets very crowded and can be hard to click on what you want and slide it.

I can only count in binary on my fingers so I get up 1023 too, but I often go barefoot so I can get to those big numbers like 1048575 so useful for interplanetary flight  .

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Archgeek said:

That's impressive, considering I can count to 1023 on mine.

Pfft I can count to 1111111111 on mine.

[BLB263]

 

12 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Pfft I can count to 1111111111 on mine.

But you can't count to 2.

[Vicomt]

Yeah, I do actually like using the mouse wheel to tweak nodes, but I just wish it was more consistent, not going from one notch of the wheel changing it by 0.01m/s, and the next notch changing it by 100m/s (I'm exagerating, but the numbers are not totally ridiculous, it really does do that)

On the other topic, Trolls only have three numbers, one, two, and many, it doesn't stop them counting to massive numbers*

*read more Pratchett if you don't know this.

[Kryten 2X4B 523P]

If i remember correctly, its one, two, many, lots (particularly for musicians that like music with rocks in) - but its been a while :-)

And yep, this the inconsistency of fine tuning with a mouse wheel bugs the hell out of me too - lost count of the times Ive almost got a node where I want it, then blammo, its an orbit around Eeloo.

 

 

[purpleivan]

I'd have to say that I like the way the mouse wheel control works currently as it provides a broad range of input granularity, from the equivalent of giving the axis handles a gentle yank, down to a few cm/s of delta-v per click.

But that's just me.

[SpacedCowboy]

4 hours ago, purpleivan said:

I'd have to say that I like the way the mouse wheel control works currently as it provides a broad range of input granularity, from the equivalent of giving the axis handles a gentle yank, down to a few cm/s of delta-v per click.

But that's just me.

Yeah, this, And to me, this is part of the fun of the game !  Tryin to figure out the nav stuff.

[strider3]

I agree that the mouse wheel acceleration is a pain when adjusting maneuvering nodes, especially when you have a burn window fast approaching and the darn wheel sends you to Proxima Centauri. Adjustability of the pointer speed and wheel acceleration "in game" would be the ideal answer IMHO. Now I go into Control Panel and reduce pointer speed to fairly slow and wheel to 1 line per roll...but that does nothing for the built-in wheel acceleration and I'm stuck with crawling pointer speeds at all times, instead of only when I need it. Having these adjustable for various "procedures" would be sweet (normal windows setting speed unless "grabbing" the maneuver node items or panning in orbital map view). I move the map view to line up my "proposed", after burn orbit with my current and use that as a visual reference to help me gauge how fast I'm approaching my goal for the burn and when to shut it down.

I have seen mention of mouse software which can slow the acceleration rate on the wheel...but, again, that would affect it all the times instead of when I would like.

I mean, it ain't rocket sci......wait a minute!

Vic the Newbal.

[Temeter]

Never using the mousewheel on node because of this.

[Corona688]

On 6/27/2016 at 3:02 AM, RocketBlam said:

In fact it's worse than that. Sometimes you scroll one way and it really increases the burn, then you try to correct back the other way with the wheel, and it doesn't... it only increases it a small amount, even when you scroll fast.

It happens when dragging, too.  Pulling a node causes a fast change, pushing one causes a fine change.  It may have been intended to be helpful but is quite aggravating.

The burn's almost never as accurate as the node anyway, though.

Edited September 9, 2016 by Corona688