transfer calculator [1.12] Astrogator v1.0.1

[HebaruSan]

Astrogator v0.7.7 is released.

Based on investigation of @KerbMav's save file, this release improves the accuracy of transfers in general, especially when eccentric orbits are involved. I now get either an encounter or a close approach (within a few m/s of an encounter) from Kerbin for all stock planets in my testing, even Moho and Eeloo:

Spoiler

Mun:

Minmus:

Moho:

Eve:

Duna:

Dres:

Jool:

Eeloo:

(Note that these screenshots are examples, not guarantees; encounters may become close approaches and vice versa depending on the exact timing.)

https://github.com/HebaruSan/Astrogator/releases/tag/v0.7.7

[drtedastro]

thanks for all of your great work.

cheers.

[HebaruSan]

On 7/22/2017 at 5:18 AM, Chaumas said:

@HebaruSan I just discovered your beautiful mod thanks to your post on the RPM thread. I love the integration with RPM -- thank you!  

On 7/22/2017 at 11:46 AM, Chaumas said:

@HebaruSan Awesome and thank you.

On 7/23/2017 at 1:37 PM, Chaumas said:

@HebaruSan Thank you for such a quick update to Astrogator! I am glad to see that you are now on RPM's OP. I am looking forward to test the update. The RPM monitor error message looks good and I like the red colored font.  Thanks again!

Thanks, you're welcome, and thanks for the bug report! I had one previous report of a problem in the RPM display that may have been the same issue, but I was not able to track it down, and your report helped me finally to do that.

On 7/24/2017 at 0:23 AM, The Destroyer said:

I haven't played KSP in quite a long time, but this mod sounds fantastic. Easy to use and works (mostly) well it seems!

Welcome back and thanks! With the v0.7.7 release it certainly works better than it did when you posted that.  Definitely a recommended upgrade.

13 hours ago, drtedastro said:

thanks for all of your great work.

cheers.

You're welcome, and thanks for stopping by!

 

In case anyone is curious about the algorithm in the latest update...

I did not manage to find a direct way to calculate transfers that precise (i.e., plug inputs into a math formula and out pops the answer). Instead I took an iterative approach; I started by creating a function to compute how close our transfer orbit would get us to the destination if we started at a given time, with a positive value representing the craft being ahead at arrival, negative representing the craft being behind at arrival, and zero representing a perfect alignment. (The "distance" is the angle in radians between the bodies with respect to the Sun, because converting to km would be extra work and involve vastly different scales e.g. at Mun vs Eeloo.) This already required improving the transfer orbit calculation, which up to this point was still using the semi-major axes of the start and end orbits for a few things! With some refactoring I was able to make it use the appropriate instantaneous radius values instead.

Then I used the bisection method to find a zero value of that distance-at-arrival function over a certain time interval (because I don't know the derivative, but also because it's so dead-simple to implement). If no solution is found in the first interval (as it commonly isn't for Eeloo), we try the next time interval after that, and so on. I think this is similar to what TWP does with its porkchop plots, but with fewer candidate orbits evaluated. I think the end result should be as accurate as any other mod or tool available, but I'm not sure how to establish that for sure.

In principle this should be more complex and slower than previous releases, but I didn't notice any performance degradation myself in testing. Please alert me if you do.

[chimpbone]

Thanks for the great mod. I am having a small issue with the Astrogator RPM. I am using Galileo's Planet Pack, and the normal Astrogator window shows all bodies correctly, but the Astrogator on RPM seems to have missed something. Not really sure what's going on. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Here is what I am talking about:

 

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, chimpbone said:

Thanks for the great mod. I am having a small issue with the Astrogator RPM. I am using Galileo's Planet Pack, and the normal Astrogator window shows all bodies correctly, but the Astrogator on RPM seems to have missed something. Not really sure what's going on. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Yup, 0.7.0 through 0.7.4 had a bug with the localization strings used for RPM, which I did not catch until RPM was updated for 1.3.0. It's fixed in 0.7.5, but I'd recommend upgrading all the way to 0.7.7 because there are some significant improvements to the orbit calculations.

 

[chimpbone]

 

7 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Yup, 0.7.0 through 0.7.4 had a bug with the localization strings used for RPM, which I did not catch until RPM was updated for 1.3.0. It's fixed in 0.7.5, but I'd recommend upgrading all the way to 0.7.7 because there are some significant improvements to the orbit calculations.

Awesome. Just grabbed the newest version for the improved calculations. Didn't realize I had an outdated version. Thanks for your help!

Edited August 20, 2017 by chimpbone

[HaydenTheKing]

=( didnt work for me through CKAN.  The icon just kept duplicating on ingame toolbar could never get it open.  I have kerbal alarm clock could that be interfering?

[HebaruSan]

12 minutes ago, HaydenTheKing said:

=( didnt work for me through CKAN.  The icon just kept duplicating on ingame toolbar could never get it open.

No version numbers, no screenshots, no mod list, no exceptions, no log files... I can't help you, but good luck!

12 minutes ago, HaydenTheKing said:

I have kerbal alarm clock could that be interfering?

Nope. This mod has no conflicts with other mods.

[HaydenTheKing]

3 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

No version numbers, no screenshots, no mod list, no exceptions, no log files... I can't help you, but good luck!

Nope. This mod has no conflicts with other mods.

No worries, its happened with vessel viewer too. I just uninstalled it thanks though

[Rmack]

I'm a big time noob in KSP, but this mod has helped refine my interplanetary aspirations.

I used it to get to Duna, and to start getting the crew back.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Basically, it got me in the neighborhood, and let me set a mid-course correction to refine my Kerbin pass.  I couldn't have done it by myself!

[donatedpants]

Ckan download is giving me trouble also, same issue as Haydentheking, The icon just kept duplicating on in game toolbar and clicking the icon didn't open anything.

version 1.3.0.1804  / v0.7.7

if this mod has no conflicts with other mods I guess I wont bother listing 40+ mods here 

NullreferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

log file-  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz9LmmuLWtTDV1RJcjlPZTdhMW8

Hopefully it's something dumb I am doing wrong, thanks for any help.

also love the mod, thanks for all the help getting to other planets.

 

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, donatedpants said:

log file-  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz9LmmuLWtTDV1RJcjlPZTdhMW8

Thanks! It's having trouble loading your settings:

Exception handling event onGUIApplicationLauncherReady in class SpaceCenterAstrogator:System.TypeInitializationException: An exception was thrown by the type initializer for Astrogator.Settings ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at ConfigNode.ReadObject (System.Object obj, .ConfigNode node) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at ConfigNode.LoadObjectFromConfig (System.Object obj, .ConfigNode node, Int32 pass, Boolean removeAfterUse) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at ConfigNode.LoadObjectFromConfig (System.Object obj, .ConfigNode node) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at Astrogator.Settings..ctor () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at Astrogator.Settings..cctor () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
  at Astrogator.Astrogator.AddLauncher () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at EventVoid.Fire () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

Could you please check whether there's a file at GameData/Astrogator/Astrogator.settings ? I already tested this with and without the file, but obviously I missed some quirk. Also, I assume you're on Windows?

[donatedpants]

I cant seem to get any programs to open it but the file size is 0 KB so...no? yes 7 

[HebaruSan]

38 minutes ago, donatedpants said:

I cant seem to get any programs to open it but the file size is 0 KB so...no? yes 7 

Weird. If you delete the settings file, can you use the mod then? I guess I need to check for zero-length files.

[donatedpants]

So if I delete the file the icon and mod are gone, but if I then reinstall with ckan everything works fine. uninstalling and reinstalling with ckan did not work the 3 times I tried it, but manually deleting the Astrogator.settings folder then reinstalling fixed it.

also the file GameData/Astrogator/Astrogator.settings 

has been replaced with GameData/Astrogator/Astrogator   and the file type says SETTINGS File

did a test run to Duna then Eve and back and everything worked just as good as I remembered, thank you for the help and for the great mod.  

Edited August 28, 2017 by donatedpants
resize photos

[HebaruSan]

Astrogator v0.7.8 is a very small release addressing the problem reported by @donatedpants and @HaydenTheKing. If you're using an earlier version without problems, there's no need to upgrade; this is just so new users aren't installing a version that reacts that way to a zero-length settings file.

https://github.com/HebaruSan/Astrogator/releases/tag/v0.7.8

[RHodeidra]

Hi, I'm doing a Research Bodies playthrough and I am using your mod because it and Launch Window planner,
with their powers combined,
makes for god-like powers of efficiency.
However, planetary bodies not yet discovered are still shown in your list.
Any way to hide undiscovered locations from my list of destinations?
Cheers

[HaydenTheKing]

17 hours ago, donatedpants said:

Ckan download is giving me trouble also, same issue as Haydentheking, The icon just kept duplicating on in game toolbar and clicking the icon didn't open anything.

version 1.3.0.1804  / v0.7.7

if this mod has no conflicts with other mods I guess I wont bother listing 40+ mods here 

NullreferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

log file-  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz9LmmuLWtTDV1RJcjlPZTdhMW8

Hopefully it's something dumb I am doing wrong, thanks for any help.

also love the mod, thanks for all the help getting to other planets.

 

Ya deleting the astrogator game data folder fixed it.  I'll try 7.8 if I have a glitch again.

 

thanks every one

Edited August 28, 2017 by HaydenTheKing

[HaydenTheKing]

Just noticed something the N is cut off in the RPM mode.

 

https://imgur.com/a/GGXrO

[HebaruSan]

22 minutes ago, HaydenTheKing said:

Just noticed something the N is cut off in the RPM mode.

 

https://imgur.com/a/GGXrO

There's only room for 6 characters in that column.

[HaydenTheKing]

Just now, HebaruSan said:

There's only room for 6 characters in that column.

makes sense

[genbrien]

I dont know if its related to the beta version of KSP, but I cant open Astrogator anymore.

the icon is there, on the side, but if I click on it nothing happens.

Tried 0.7.7 and 0.7.8

[HebaruSan]

2 minutes ago, genbrien said:

I dont know if its related to the beta version of KSP

Might be. I haven't tried it yet.

2 minutes ago, genbrien said:

, but I cant open Astrogator anymore.

the icon is there, on the side, but if I click on it nothing happens.

Tried 0.7.7 and 0.7.8

Any exceptions in KSP.log?

[genbrien]

Quote

[EXC 19:54:58.564] MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'DialogGUILabel..ctor'.
    Astrogator.Astrogator.ShowMainWindow ()
    Astrogator.Astrogator.Update ()

 

[HebaruSan]

2 hours ago, genbrien said:

[EXC 19:54:58.564] MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'DialogGUILabel..ctor'.
    Astrogator.Astrogator.ShowMainWindow ()
    Astrogator.Astrogator.Update ()

Yeah, that's probably a pre-release problem. Thanks for letting me know; I'll take a look when I have a moment. In the meantime, the previous pre-release announcement is worth reading for context on why I probably won't attempt to fix this till the pre-release is over: