Getting into a specific orbit without a target

[Klapaucius]

I'm in career and I get these contracts to place satellites in various orbits. All well and good, but they take forever because I am pretty much eyeballing it.  If I am doing a rendezvous with a ship I can target, I immediately get the ascending and descending nodes which help me to easily get my orbit in the same plane. Once that is done, the rest is pretty straightforward.  However, when I just have to match an orbit, I have to go with guesswork as far as the AN and DN go. I can do it, but it takes me a lot longer and a lot of fiddling.

 

Suggestions on how to make this quicker and easier?

Edited September 27, 2019 by Klapaucius

[bewing]

On a contract with a target orbit, the UI always puts an An and Dn on the target orbit. You probably see the markers but ignore those numbers, assuming they don't apply to your current craft. However, they DO apply to your current craft. All the An and Dn numbers on every target orbit are always calculated relative to the currently selected craft. Change which craft you have selected, and notice that all the target An and Dn values change. You don't need to select any specific orbit as the target, because all the target orbits are continuously updated.

[VoidSquid]

That's very odd, I accepted a satellite contract for testing purposes, and the markers for AN, DN, Pe, Ap for the target orbit (green) are clearly there:

Don't you see those markers from your contract?

[mk1980]

my usual "algorithm" to solve that problem is to break the required maneuvers down into 2 steps.

step 1: put a maneuver node on your current orbit that lies on the intersection between target orbit and current orbit. easiest way to do that is to rotate the camera to the point where you see the target orbit "from the side" and to line up the AN and DN markers. if you click on the spot between the 2, the program will place a maneuver node that is on the desired intersection line (or close enough).

then set a simple prograde maneuver that raises the AP of your current orbit to the target orbit. ie. at the end of the burn the AP will be at the same spot as the AN or DN marker of the target orbit (or within reasonable tolerance). execute the maneuver.

step 2: put a maneuver node at the new AP we established with the previous burn. at this point you can tweak the prograde, (anti-)normal and (anti-) radial vectors to line up the projected new orbit with the target orbit in a single burn.

i'm sure there are more fuel / energy efficient ways of doing it. but it works for me. makes satellite contracts pretty trivial.

 

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

I'm in career and I get these contracts to place satellites in various orbits. All well and good, but they take forever because I am pretty much eyeballing it.  If I am doing a rendezvous with a ship I can target, I immediately get the ascending and descending nodes which help me to easily get my orbit in the same plane. Once that is done, the rest is pretty straightforward.  However, when I just have to match an orbit, I have to go with guesswork as far as the AN and DN go. I can do it, but it takes me a lot longer and a lot of fiddling.

 

Suggestions on how to make this quicker and easier?

My way is to eyeball it, you want to launch then pad is below the line and then eyeball. However I launch into low orbit first. Then I raise Ap up to require orbit at the plain change point, say error is 10 degree, I set up this burn to both do plane change and put Pe and Ap correctly. 
First kind of make an circular orbit, then adjust inclination, then fiddle with forward and normal arrows until you get it right, do an inclination adjustment again and you have an nice node. 

[Klapaucius]

19 hours ago, VoidSquid said:

That's very odd, I accepted a satellite contract for testing purposes, and the markers for AN, DN, Pe, Ap for the target orbit (green) are clearly there:

Don't you see those markers from your contract?

Yes I can see these but what good do they do me?  When I have a targeted vessel my maneuver node shows me the change in value of those nodes and allows me to accurately set my burn.  I have no point of comparison here. I'm still eyeballing it.

 

For example, in this screenshot I targeted Lenory's scrap, and I have that ascending node you see in the front of the picture at 1.7 degrees. As I adjust normal/antinormal that number will change until I can get it to 0.  Burn for the right time, and I am done.

 

 

In this photo you can see the purple orbit I need to match.  It is 5 degrees off of me, but there is no linking node (for lack of a better term) that appears when I create my maneuver node, allowing me to easily set the normal/antinormal and burn accordingly.  I'm still guessing, even if I know the number.

 

Like I said, I can do it, but at the moment it is rather tedious and involves a lot of back and forth adjustments. So I assume I am missing something fundamental here.

 

Edited September 28, 2019 by Klapaucius

[bewing]

52 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

In this photo you can see the purple orbit I need to match.  It is 5 degrees off of me, but there is no linking node (for lack of a better term) that appears when I create my maneuver node, allowing me to easily set the normal/antinormal and burn accordingly.  I'm still guessing, even if I know the number.

Ah. You are mistakenly addicted to maneuver nodes. The point of the exercise is to realize just how wonderful and efficient your MK1 eyeballs are.

Wait until your craft is almost at the An/Dn line, then burn (locked Normal/Antinormal if you have it on SAS) by  hand. Yes, you lose the tiny pythagorean bonus from burning on a predefined maneuver axis.

[Klapaucius]

Just now, bewing said:

Ah. You are mistakenly addicted to maneuver nodes. The point of the exercise is to realize just how wonderful and efficient your MK1 eyeballs are.

Wait until your craft is almost at the An/Dn line, then burn (locked Normal/Antinormal if you have it on SAS) by  hand. Yes, you lose the tiny pythagorean bonus from burning on a predefined maneuver axis.

Okay then. But on the third one it is now a bit tedious....

 

Thanks for the info 

[VoidSquid]

I think I understand it now. What I do: set a node at AN or DN. Then adjusting my view to the target plane, i.e. make it just a single horizontal line, with AN, DN, burn node overlapping into a single point. Adjust Normal/Antinormal until eyeballing my post burn orbit matches the target plane, i.e. matches the afore mentioned horizontal line. After the burn, adjusting Ap/Pe is child's play. 

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, bewing said:

Ah. You are mistakenly addicted to maneuver nodes. The point of the exercise is to realize just how wonderful and efficient your MK1 eyeballs are.

Laughably I do these with maneuver nodes all the time and would never think to waste the fuel trying to do it just with engines.

Sadly I'm not likely to be playing KSP any time soon so can't take screens or a video of how I do it. Maybe Sunday night but probably not even then.