Kerbal Stopwatch?

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

Okay, here's the story. I'm thinking about timing how fast I can send a plane all the way around Laythe, but I don't want to rely on the MET timer because it also adds the amount of time it takes to:

• Get off Kerbin
• Fly to Laythe
  • Including making refueling stops
• Land
• Get in position

 

I also don't want to rely on my computer's built-in stopwatch flying because it doesn't account for when I use the warp. Is there a "Kerbal Stopwatch" I can use? More specifically, I need to:

• Start at 00:00:00 when I want it to, which would be the moment of takeoff
• Speed up or slow down along with the warp
  • And stop whenever I hit the "Pause" button --> and resume when I leave the pause menu.
• End at (TIME TO BE DETERMINED) when I want it too, which would be when I land.
• Be in plain sight the whole time while I'm flying.

 

In case you're wondering, I have MJ and Kerbal Alarm Clock. If no such stopwatches exist (either in-game or mod), then how can I still time my run while accounting for the warp?

• For the Alarm Clock, I would have to start my engines immediately after the alarm went off. Is there any way I can display a straight-up stopwatch that can go along with the pause menu AND warp?

 

Thank you.

[Geonovast]

This looks like it would be more suited to Add-On Discussions.  So I have moved it there.

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

3 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

This looks like it would be more suited to Add-On Discussions.  So I have moved it there.

Thanks, @Geonovast. At first, I thought it would be more suitable for the "Suggestions and Development Discussion," since a thread from three years ago asking the same question was in that category.

• I asked again now, since a lot could have changed between December 2016 and now

 

Got anything?

Edited January 7, 2020 by Mars-Bound Hokie
My reply got duplicated and merged

[Geonovast]

I do not.  I don't think I've ever seen a mod that'll do this.

If you'd like to see a feature added to the stock game, then the Suggestions And Development Discussion is the place for it.  But since it seems like you're looking for a mod to install, you'll probably get better answers with it being in Add-On Discussions.

[linuxgurugamer]

45 minutes ago, Mars-Bound Hokie said:

For the Alarm Clock, I would have to start my engines immediately after the alarm went off. Is there any way I can display a straight-up stopwatch that can go along with the pause menu AND warp?

Would you want a traditional dial, or would a simple numerical display be sufficient?

Also, the button would merely toggle it on/off

 

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

9 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

would a simple numerical display be sufficient?

Yes, exactly. I want a simple numerical display, like the one on my ironman watch.

 

10 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Also, the button would merely toggle it on/off

That's the point, but I also want it to stop whenever I pause (so it doesn't keep going when nothing's going on in-game), and I want it to speed up or slow down depending on the warp speed.

[linuxgurugamer]

1 minute ago, Mars-Bound Hokie said:

Yes, exactly. I want a simple numerical display, like the one on my ironman watch.

 

That's the point, but I also want it to stop whenever I pause (so it doesn't keep going when nothing's going on in-game), and I want it to speed up or slow down depending on the warp speed.

Understood.  I'll see what I can do, it's pretty simple.  

 

[Superfluous J]

Why can't you screenshot right before you take off, and again when you land, and subtract the MET on each from each other?

[DoctorDavinci]

@Mars-Bound Hokie So something along the lines of this:

This is the challenge timer system that is in OrX Kontinuum ... It doesn't currently have the option to start or stop the timer when a player wants to but it is trivial to add that functionality

It will even tell you how fast you are traveling in kph or mph (it wouldn't take much to add in your speed measured via knots either)

Let me know if you're interested and I'll add the feature ... actually I probably will do it anyways as this is a really good idea

Here's a video showing part of OrX Kontinuum in action (Dakar Racing challenge type) ... It's first stage of the Kerbal Dakar 2020

 

EDIT: come to think of it you could easily just create a Dakar challenge and place the finish gate 30 meters or s behind where you are taking off and then just land near the gate which will record your time

There is a scoreboard built into OrX K ... looks like this although the scoreboard shown is for a Short Track racing challenge

Spoiler

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by DoctorDavinci

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

39 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Let me know if you're interested and I'll add the feature ... actually I probably will do it anyways as this is a really good idea

That's exactly what I need, thank you. My original intention is to fly to a starting point, begin the stopwatch when I take off, and stop it after I land. 

• A kerbal stopwatch is necessary for my upcoming (CLASSIFIED) challenge.

 

[DoctorDavinci]

15 minutes ago, Mars-Bound Hokie said:

That's exactly what I need, thank you. My original intention is to fly to a starting point, begin the stopwatch when I take off, and stop it after I land. 

• A kerbal stopwatch is necessary for my upcoming (CLASSIFIED) challenge.

 

So OrX Kontinuum has a challenge builder and I am open to adding new challenge types

Currently there is 4 types of challenges:

Geo-Caching - Basically you have a base somewhere or even just a location, you go there and create a Geo-Cache and share the .orx file ... when a player starts scanning for Geo-Caches then a distance menu shows up telling the player how far away they are from the closest Geo-Cache ... when the player gets within 5 km then the HoloKron (Geo-Cache) will spawn as well as it will spawn any vessels that were saved into the holokron

Short Track Racing - As the name describes, it's short track racing ... place stage gates a player needs to drive through which records the time between each stage gate and saves it and other data to the scoreboard ... scores can be exported and shared with other people (they can import your score data directly into the scoreboard for that challenge)

Dakar Racing - Same as above, although there is only 1 stage gate (DAkar Racing is from point A to point B)

And my best so far is the BD Armory challenges which lets you build a BDAc challenge with weaponized craft ... OrX K takes care of the spawning and setting guard mode, the AI pilot etc... for battle when the craft contained in the HoloKron are spawned

I'd be interested in discussing the possibility of adding your challenge idea (whatever it is) to OrX K

As an aside, the timer is almost done ... I'm just setting up the menu to show the timer like in my post above and adding a start and stop button ... I'll make sure to check that the timer will stay in step with the warp time (the timer already pauses when the game is paused ... menu stays visible while paused also)

Should have something for you to test in the coming hour

[DoctorDavinci]

I added a stopwatch to OrX Kontinuum, released it a few minutes ago (with some fixes) ... works great and also takes into account time warping and the pause menu

I think it is self explanatory how to use it ... click on reset to reset the timer back to 0

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by DoctorDavinci

[linuxgurugamer]

Here is a new Stopwatch mod called BigBen.  It provides multiple timers (as many as you want), handles timewarp and pauses, etc:

Sample image, see mod post for more images:

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by linuxgurugamer

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

Thanks, @linuxgurugamer. I'll definitely check it out.

 

As for @DoctorDavinci, I downloaded OrX Kontinuum last night and I tried the stopwatch; that was all I needed, anyway. Unfortunately, I found a huge flaw.

Spoiler

• I started the engines ~7-8 seconds after the "Begin in 5 Seconds" alarm went off on Kerbal Alarm Clock.
• I also started the OrX stopwatch at (about) the same moment as the MET clock.

 

• Everything seems normal here, but that was when there was no warp.
  • MET and OrX about the same, while the alarm clock stayed consistently stayed 7-8 seconds ahead (due to imperfect ignition sequence).
• This next screenshot will start to show the OrX flaw.

 

• As you can see, at Warp x3, time moves faster for OrX than it does in-game.
  • MET: 2:56
    • Alarm Clock: 3:04 (consistent lead)
  • OrX: 4:48
    • DIFFERENCE: 1 minute, 52 seconds.

 

• Still at Warp x3, and the difference between the OrX and MET gets higher.
  • 3 minutes, 19 seconds now.
• MET and KAC (alarm clock) still have a 7-8 second difference.

 

• Some time after I stopped the warp, I paid attention between the MET and the other two clocks.
  • MET and KAC - still 7-8 seconds
  • MET and OrX - 4 min, 46 seconds now
    • I didn't stop the warp immediately after the last shot.

 

• No warps between the last shot and this one.
• Still a 4 min, 46 second difference between MET and OrX
  • 7-8 second difference between the MET and KAC, as expected.

 

 

 

From what I've noted in the screenshots in the above spoiler, the OrX stopwatch works normally when the warp is not involved. When you do use the warp, the timer goes too fast to stay with the MET clock. Thanks anyway, @DoctorDavinci.

 

[DoctorDavinci]

4 hours ago, Mars-Bound Hokie said:

Thanks, @linuxgurugamer. I'll definitely check it out.

 

As for @DoctorDavinci, I downloaded OrX Kontinuum last night and I tried the stopwatch; that was all I needed, anyway. Unfortunately, I found a huge flaw.

  Reveal hidden contents

• I started the engines ~7-8 seconds after the "Begin in 5 Seconds" alarm went off on Kerbal Alarm Clock.
• I also started the OrX stopwatch at (about) the same moment as the MET clock.

 

• Everything seems normal here, but that was when there was no warp.
  • MET and OrX about the same, while the alarm clock stayed consistently stayed 7-8 seconds ahead (due to imperfect ignition sequence).
• This next screenshot will start to show the OrX flaw.

 

• As you can see, at Warp x3, time moves faster for OrX than it does in-game.
  • MET: 2:56
    • Alarm Clock: 3:04 (consistent lead)
  • OrX: 4:48
    • DIFFERENCE: 1 minute, 52 seconds.

 

• Still at Warp x3, and the difference between the OrX and MET gets higher.
  • 3 minutes, 19 seconds now.
• MET and KAC (alarm clock) still have a 7-8 second difference.

 

• Some time after I stopped the warp, I paid attention between the MET and the other two clocks.
  • MET and KAC - still 7-8 seconds
  • MET and OrX - 4 min, 46 seconds now
    • I didn't stop the warp immediately after the last shot.

 

• No warps between the last shot and this one.
• Still a 4 min, 46 second difference between MET and OrX
  • 7-8 second difference between the MET and KAC, as expected.

 

 

 

From what I've noted in the screenshots in the above spoiler, the OrX stopwatch works normally when the warp is not involved. When you do use the warp, the timer goes too fast to stay with the MET clock. Thanks anyway, @DoctorDavinci.

 

I guess I should refrain from releasing an update to a mod when I am half asleep ... fixed now

I'll be releasing an OrX K update this evening or tomorrow that will have the fix in it ... Just polishing up some more new features such as the ability to launch a vessel and have it picked up and moved to another location automagically and also the ability to create your own launch locations that are saved into a config file

You're probably better off just using @linuxgurugamer's new mod if you're not going to be using any of the other goodies in OrX K since all his mod does is run a timer ... There is a lot of stuff in OrX K with a whole lot more coming which could lead to some confusion over versions since OrX K is still in development

Anyways, thanx for getting back to me about my mistake ... I'll be sure to NOT release any updates unless I'm fully awake from now on

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

Thanks for Big Ben (and for reminding me to get the dependencies), @linuxgurugamer. The stopwatch time managed to stay with the warp. I do have a few things to say about it, though.

• A bigger window to see all the timers would be nice. Though it's not a problem for a single timer, I will have to see only one at a time if I have multiple clocks running.
  • e.g. if I'm timing myself and trying to beat a time limit
    • SCENARIO: timing myself flying around Kerbin while knowing that I have 80 minutes to do it.
• For some reason, I had to have Big Ben on the screen at the space center or assembly building before launch. It's not a problem if I access a ship from the tracking station, though.

 

• How do I adjust the BigBen size?

 

Other than that, great job.

 

[linuxgurugamer]

2 hours ago, Mars-Bound Hokie said:

A bigger window to see all the timers would be nice. Though it's not a problem for a single timer, I will have to see only one at a time if I have multiple clocks running.

• e.g. if I'm timing myself and trying to beat a time limit
  • SCENARIO: timing myself flying around Kerbin while knowing that I have 80 minutes to do it.

 

The window will automatically expand to display up to 4 timers.

2 hours ago, Mars-Bound Hokie said:

For some reason, I had to have Big Ben on the screen at the space center or assembly building before launch. It's not a problem if I access a ship from the tracking station, though.

I don't understand, can you explain, please?

Never mind, I see the problem.  Will be fixed in the next release

Edited January 10, 2020 by linuxgurugamer

[linuxgurugamer]

2 hours ago, Mars-Bound Hokie said:

How do I adjust the BigBen size?

You can go into the settings and disable the alternate skin.  Beyond that, BigBen will automatically expand to display up to 4 timers, and will then create a scrollable list of all the timers.  Click the "+" button (after enabling the Multiple toggle) to create a new timer

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

Got the latest update here (https://github.com/linuxgurugamer/BigBen/releases/tag/0.0.2), and it works great.

• And before anyone asks, yes the .zip file is safe. I thought I might put it out there in case they're concerned that their browser says that it's "not commonly downloaded."

[linuxgurugamer]

On 1/7/2020 at 3:55 PM, Mars-Bound Hokie said:

Okay, here's the story. I'm thinking about timing how fast I can send a plane all the way around Laythe, but I don't want to rely on the MET timer because it also adds the amount of time it takes to:

• Get off Kerbin
• Fly to Laythe
  • Including making refueling stops
• Land
• Get in position

Hi, wondering how it's going?