Encounters disappearing that obviously shouldn't

[Jodo42]

Every single time I attempt an interplanetary mission I invariably encounter almost unplayable issues with the encounter system. It goes something like this: I'm clicking a certain node on a maneuver, say,  radial-in. Every time I click it my encounter gets a bit closer, maybe a few kilometers. I do this 30 or 40 times and every single click the encounter gets a little bit closer. Then, for no reason whatsoever, at a random time the encounter just completely disappears. It acts as if the fraction of a meter per second I'm adding is moving the encounter by millions or billions of meters, when the previous fraction of a m/s moved it by a few thousand. In fact, the closest approach markers usually act as if I'm now off by a quarter orbit, like I missed the transfer window entirely. No, my transfer isn't on the edge of an encounter with another object like the Mun. If I keep clicking the node, sometimes the encounter returns, sometimes it doesn't. Direct trajectories from solar orbit to any of the moons of any planet, and the smaller planets like Moho, Dres and Eeloo, all constantly have this happen.

I swear to God this will stop me from buying KSP2 if it isn't fixed. I've been playing for who knows how many years now, long enough to get the DLCs for free, and it has been like this every single time I come back to play. I know everyone doesn't go outside the Kerbin system. But encounters and maneuver nodes are so wildly important this part of the game. They must be completely rock solid.

How do I reliably, consistently keep my encounters from disappearing? Randomly fiddling with the node sometimes works but not always and it makes the process of refining a transfer even more extremely tedious than it already is. I have wasted so much of my time trying to circumvent this issue rather than actually building, flying or planning. I already have "Always show closest approach" enabled; all this does is show me that it's skipping to the next orbit's closest approach (which, as I said, isn't an encounter at all) when it loses the one I already have, instead of it just disappearing.

Stock game plus both DLCs, all completely up to date. No mods at all.

Edited November 5, 2019 by Jodo42

[Signo]

You are right and I second your rant, however if you are an old times player you should know that the best instrument you have available is "eyeball Mk1".

This is one of the main reasons I love this game, you always need a few "art and instinct" coupled with knowledge. Isn't it?

[Fierce Wolf]

I'm so used to do it by eye that it's not even an issue for me, but OP is right. For new players it must be exasperating. Ain't there a mod for that?