Transfer window visualization

[monstah]

3 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

Yes I know you can turn off whole ship classes, but why not all of a class EXCEPT "this one?" 

Psst: right click it  

[Wjolcz]

I fully agree. I'd be 100% happy with a KAC-like alarm tool that tells you the lowest dV transfer window. I always do them anyway, but I understand the need for something better. Some players like to perform high-dV and more agressive transfers.

[Diche Bach]

On 9/9/2016 at 1:18 PM, monstah said:

Psst: right click it  

Hmm, can you clarify what you mean by that? Do I right-click the specific ship icon in the list on the left in the Tracking screen? Or right-click the specific ship icon in the map view?

[Superfluous J]

56 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

Hmm, can you clarify what you mean by that? Do I right-click the specific ship icon in the list on the left in the Tracking screen? Or right-click the specific ship icon in the map view?

The button at the top of the screen in map mode or the tracking station, that is not there until you've put your mouse cursor up at the top of the screen in the middle.

[Diche Bach]

5 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

The button at the top of the screen in map mode or the tracking station, that is not there until you've put your mouse cursor up at the top of the screen in the middle.

Right, that is to turn off/on ship types in the display, but what about turning off all of a ship type EXCEPT one (or two, or three) specific crafts?

Monstah said "Psst, right-click it." and I don't quite follow that.

Also, what about the way point markers?

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Diche Bach said:

Right, that is to turn off/on ship types in the display, but what about turning off all of a ship type EXCEPT one (or two, or three) specific crafts?

Monstah said "Psst, right-click it." and I don't quite follow that.

Also, what about the way point markers?

Ah. I misinterpreted your question. I do not believe there is any way to turn off a specific craft of a specific type, while leaving other craft of the same type visible. I don't even think I or most people would want that kind of thing. How do you get the ship back? Plus, the functionality is there now as you can change a craft's type when you rename it. Except debris, and I just make sure all my "important" debris has a probe core.

Manually placed waypoint markers in 1.2 will be deletable. I don't think you can delete contract-related ones and (like above) don't think you should be able to. I don't know of a way to filter them out like you can with ship types, but agree that it'd be nice. Maybe F2 to turn off the HUD? I can't test it now but it may work, at least in map mode.

[Diche Bach]

I think that virtually EVERYTHING in the flight planner should be readily configurable by the user. Turn anything off, make it bigger, change the color, change the line style, zoom in or out to anywhere you want (or which you have proper "intell" on anyway) at any time, remove text/objects that you don't want, readd those you do, create templates for various formats of flight planner layout depending on the mission/phase of the mission, create custom icons for things, etc., etc.: ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. Can you imagine Windows without Snap&Shake, window resizing, font adjusting, changing the color scheme, no alternate modes for displaying directories, and scores of other UI features which allow any user to configure their desktop exactly as they wish it to appear, AND the option to turn on/off most of these features? That was fine in 1993, but it would be a trainwreck in 2016. The flight planner should be a beloved place, a place where a new player feels a sense of "Oh cool! This is gonna be so much fun to play with and figure out!" and a place where a vet feels a deep sense of familiarity and masterful pride, a place in the game where we all love to be, because we know it allows us to do virtually anything and everything we might want to do in space flight, and in our own style.

This is certainly not my experience with the flight planner.

A design which set out to from the beginning to make this degree of UI-configurability would have been: a lot more work than one which simply sought to provide a basic interface, but in the long-term it would be far, FAR more useable and would cater to each individual users style. At present the flight planner is clunky, cluttered, awkward, clumsy, jittery, inaccurate, imprecise and . . . while overall amazing and useable, not as amazing as it should be, given the central role it plays in the game. You could name this game: "Launch Rockets Then Plan Their Orbital Manuevers" and it would be a fair description of what 55% of gameplay amounts to. The other 45% comprising "design craft" (40% of the total) and miscellaneous (another 5%).

None of this is meant to be a criticism of anyone who has ever been involved in the game. To my knowledge, there are NO OTHER games which even come close to what the flight planning in KSP pulls off (though I haven't played Orbiter . . .). But again, it IS a central part of the game, and while other aspects of the game have received love and grown and developed, as far as I can recall, we still have pretty much the same flight planner as we had back 3 years ago. Certainly any changes that have come do not even scratch the surface of the sort of UI and functional enhancements I'm suggesting.

I guess what I'm saying here is: IMHO, they need to put the heads of their three or half-dozen staff who understand both the maths and the code and the UI side of the flight planner, and basically rewrite that part of the source code FROM SCRATCH and with a vision to bring the Flight Planner UI into the 21st century.

I hope I don't sound poodley or something by saying this. I have great respect for everyone who has contributed to this game. I could NOT do it myself. But as a user, that is my experience: the Flight Planner is deficient, and indeed in many circumstances downright maddening. I see some of the tweaks we hear about coming in 1.2 as merely bandaids though, because unless they can just add modules to the existing code that makes it fully configurable, it will not be able to really make the flight planner part of the game what it ideally should be.

Sorry about that . . . /rant off . . .

Edited September 12, 2016 by Diche Bach

[lajoswinkler]

Yes, the game needs this. Simple angle display would suffice, if not a protractor.

[monstah]

14 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

Right, that is to turn off/on ship types in the display, but what about turning off all of a ship type EXCEPT one (or two, or three) specific crafts?

Monstah said "Psst, right-click it." and I don't quite follow that.

Also, what about the way point markers?

Yeah, I misread your question as all classes except this one, not all ships in this class except this one, so I was suggesting you right clicked the class filter icon. Sorry bout that, my bad.

You could (but that's obviously a workaround) classify, say, your comm probes (the ones you don't want displayed) as debris instead, but only if your max debris is set to infinity. Os use any class you don't normally use, but then again only if you don't normally use some class.

If you do that, at least in 1.2 you'll be able to sort them alphabetically.

[Jonfliesgoats]

This is a good idea.