Line of ascending/descending nodes for landed craft

[HvP]

I understand that the "eyeball" method for launching into the plane of Minmus is to zoom out until you can overlap the orbit line of the Mun with the orbit line of Minmus until you are looking parallel to both and then time warp until your launch is directly underneath the intersection of both. However, this method is not only inexact but also becomes very difficult when you have multiple craft in orbits that muddle the lines. It's also hard to see when your launch site is actually under the intersecting lines from any distance that keeps Minmus' orbit in the picture. Additionally, if you have to warp more than an hour or two of game time then the rotation of the frame will cause you to have to keep readjusting your map view slightly to keep the orbit lines straight.

This would all be unnecessary if map view treated landed craft as if their "orbit" was simply the circle of their latitude on the planet. Then targets in orbit could show a line of ascending/descending nodes which shows you exactly when to launch for a proper inclination. I understand that some latitudes will never have such nodes as the craft might not pass under the orbit of the target, and that launching into any arbitrary inclination could drastically change the node position immediately upon launch - but the latter is already the case in the game, and the former just wouldn't show a node if you don't pass under the target orbit.

I'm guessing that adding such a tool must be harder than it seems, because both KER and MechJeb seem have trouble finding the relevant nodes for a proper launch inclination. Even just a projection of the target orbit onto the planet's surface would be fine if calculating the nodes is unrealistic. Am I crazy and the only one that is tired of fumbling with the eyeballing it method? I'm tired of reverting a flight only to find out that I have to time warp another 1/4 Kerbin day while toggling all my orbiting stations and satellites off in the map view so that I can actually see what I'm doing and when I think I have it right finding out that I'm now too far ahead of the best time to launch and do it all over again or live with the wasted fuel.

(P.S. I'd welcome the ability to target contract orbits while we're at it.)

Edited January 23, 2019 by HvP

[Gargamel]

I have manually launched into Minmus's plane before, but it's hard.   I usually just let MJ do the work for me.

But that said, there should be a tool to do exactly what you are asking.   But I think it should be a mod, a simple one.   I think If there was a stock tool to let you launch directly into the plane, the a lot of newer players would miss out on a lot of the lessons learned from planning and executing mid course corrections. 

[Superfluous J]

You can double-click Kerbin in map mode and center on it, and filer out most or even all craft to remove the clutter. This is how I launch to meet asteroids.

For Minmus I just launch equatorially and meet it at the An or Dn.

[The Aziz]

Actually, KER can tell you when to launch at the an/dn if you set a target. I've used that plenty of times, works flawlessly. I forgot the exact name for that though, gotta check it later.

[James Kerman]

4 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Actually, KER can tell you when to launch at the an/dn if you set a target.

Under the RDZV tab in KER you see relative inclination and times to An/Dn in a landed vessel.

[The Aziz]

Eeeexactly this! Just wait until the timer goes to zero and launch (and maybe try to match the inclination from the start, because why not)