Right timing in a maneuver node

[Fierce Wolf]

Ok guys, time to get technical. When you place a maneuver node and warp to it, the warp ends like a minute or so before the node, for an example T-60 to the node. Let's say that the node is 30 seconds of burning. When is the exact moment I should start the burn?

At T-0, right in the node?

At T-15, halfway?

At T-60, after warp end?

 

[amarillo114]

I think t-15 (halfway to the node) 

[Superfluous J]

For all intents and purposes t-15 is good enough. Technically your TWR will change and if it does so significantly you "should" adjust your start time, but I've never bothered to learn the particulars and never had any problems.

[bewing]

This info about the burn is contained in the maneuver itself. Whether you want half the burn to happen before the initial node you had set depends on what kind of maneuver you are doing. An interplanetary burn is different from a suicide burn. So there's a button when you are creating the maneuver. It defaults to 50% -- which means the game expects that you want to do half the burn before your node. You can set it from 0 to 100. The timestamp on the maneuver that gets stored includes that 50% burn margin already. So, to get the proper outcome you always want to burn at t=0 now -- assuming that you had the burn percentage set correctly when you set up the maneuver.

[DeadJohn]

T-15, so half your burn is before and half after.

The post immediately above this one says the game can calculate exacly when to start. If you don't see that on your burn indicator, make sure the "Extended Burn Indicator" menu setting is enabled.

[Fraktal]

Or use the Kerbal Engineer Redux mod, which gives more detailed information in addition to timing.