How can I calculate / estimate my trajectory?

[hallothere]

Good day fellow electronic astronauts!

Hope all is good in the kerbal universe

I've built a few ships (well, actually, 30 of them) but I cannot seem to get it quite right...

I've managed to put 2 ships into the sun's orbit, but none into the moon. The nice thing about the tracking station is the trajectory it draws for you, but is there anyway to implement it directly into where you control your ship?

Another question if I may: Is there any setting available which shows your ship's mass / thrust / total fuel and any other needed stats?

Thanks in advance

PS. If any of the above questions has been asked before, my greatest apologies. In such case I shall request an admin to delete this thread.

[sal_vager]

Hi hallothere, welcome to the community

It sounds like you are flying straight out of the system, try to get some orbits under your belt, it'll make things a lot easier for you, and you can try the Engineer add-on for ship stats, it's getting a little old now but still mostly works.

There's no way to get the orbit lines in the flight scene normally, but there is a bug where they can remain visible after switching back from the map, it's not very useful though as it's not easy to reproduce and the lines just point off into the distance

[EndlessWaves]

Hit M to view the map view while in flight.

[Vanamonde]

On the map view, if you hit the decimal key on the keypad, the navball will pop up. While it's there, you can steer and throttle up and down while watching your trajectory line change in real time. Not all controls are accessible this way, though. For example, you can't activate/eject stages from map view.

[hallothere]

Thanks for all your replies, will give it a shot tonight

Another thing I forgot to ask though, can one set waypoints / target anywhere in the game? Ive noticed the purple and yellow "targets" on the navball, but got no clue on what it is :?

Thanks guys

[EndlessWaves]

The green/yellow markers are your direction of travel and the purple ones are the direction towards KSC2. You can't set additional waypoints.

[Perihelion]

On the map view, if you hit the decimal key on the keypad, the navball will pop up. While it's there, you can steer and throttle up and down while watching your trajectory line change in real time. Not all controls are accessible this way, though. For example, you can't activate/eject stages from map view.

HAHA! WOW.

You know, this may seem absolutely pre-school Kerbal info, but I did not know this little shortcut. I've been tabbing back to the ship camera, adjusting my thrust/heading a tiny bit, and tabbing back again and again and again, and usually missing my target because of it. I missed the bit about being able to control via navball on the map screen entirely. This nugget of fundamental knowledge has just saved dozens of lives.

Blaming this on the male "I don't need to read the instruction manual, I'll just plug it in and flick the switch, it'll be fine" mindset.

Sorry for barging in on your thread EndlessWaves, and thanks Vanamonde.

[Vanamonde]

this may seem absolutely pre-school Kerbal info

Not to me, it wasn't. I was playing the game for about three months, laboriously switching back and forth just like you, before I saw Pebble_Garden steering on the map view in one of his tutorial videos, and asked him how to do it. KSP is almost a different game, once you know this little trick.

[EndlessWaves]

It's not my thread, it's hallothere's.

Is your game missing the button with an arrow on it at the bottom of the map screen to show the navball then?

[Perihelion]

It's not my thread, it's hallothere's.

Is your game missing the button with an arrow on it at the bottom of the map screen to show the navball then?

Oops. And no, it wasn't missing the little arrow/tab thing to pull the navball up. I'm just incredibly dense

[hallothere]

The green/yellow markers are your direction of travel and the purple ones are the direction towards KSC2. You can't set additional waypoints.

Thanks, always wondered what they were for

On the map view, if you hit the decimal key on the keypad, the navball will pop up. While it's there, you can steer and throttle up and down while watching your trajectory line change in real time. Not all controls are accessible this way, though. For example, you can't activate/eject stages from map view.

Great stuff, thanks! Quite a helper

Hi hallothere, welcome to the community

It sounds like you are flying straight out of the system, try to get some orbits under your belt, it'll make things a lot easier for you, and you can try the Engineer add-on for ship stats, it's getting a little old now but still mostly works.

There's no way to get the orbit lines in the flight scene normally, but there is a bug where they can remain visible after switching back from the map, it's not very useful though as it's not easy to reproduce and the lines just point off into the distance

Thank you, I've managed to get a few shuttles into earths orbit, and stuff is starting to make sense now. Just have to figure out what to do when my trajectory turns yellow and other stuff pop up (mun periapsis and mun escape <- bad one).

Thanks again

[hallothere]

Hey there again!

Would just like to give you all a BIG THANK YOU again, I've made it to the moon, and Minmus