How to orientate RCS in orbit?

[Okhin]

RCS control are always aligned with the level flight indicator, see @HvP answer.

And if you want to align your camera, then locked mode is the way to do it.

[HvP]

46 minutes ago, Boyster said:

when i press left(A) the top RCS will burst left.

I just want to mention this because it is easy to overlook.

In normal operating mode, pressing the "A" key will TURN your ship with yaw, NOT translate sideways. You should use the "J" and "L" keys if you want to move left and right without turning the nose of your ship. "I" is up, "K" is down, then "H" and "N" move you straight forward and back.

Otherwise you can switch to docking control using the console in the bottom left:

 

That gives you the option to switch between translation (left,right,up,down) and rotation but most people find this an inconvenience. It's easier to just get used to using the HJKL keys.

[Serenity]

I am in docking mode ofcourse.

Example, https://imgur.com/jlWv7F8

when i press A my top thrusters burst Right

I want to know how can i know the rotation that my craft when i press A my thrusters will burst left.

Can i know that from navball?

Edited August 11, 2020 by Boyster

[Okhin]

That's because it's not your top thruster. When you press A, your thrusters are bursting left, relative to the center of control of your ship and the level indicator.

NOT relative to your camera. This is the issue. Your camera is looking at your ship with a roughly 90° angle, which makes the top of your craft on the right of your camera. The only way to align your control center and your camera is by going in Locked camera view.

[HvP]

1 minute ago, Boyster said:

I am in docking mode ofcourse.

Example, https://imgur.com/jlWv7F8

when i press A my top thrusters burst Right

I want to know how can i know the rotation that my craft when i press A my thrusters will burst left.

I see that now. Your previous image didn't show the docking mode setting turned on. This is helpful because it shows me several things.

First, notice that the orange cross-hairs in the docking mode window has moved to the left side of the square? Also, the RCS thrusters are firing towards the right side of your craft. This will push you left.

It's doing exactly what its supposed to do. Surely you want your ship to move left when you tap the A key to move left?

[Serenity]

Just now, Okhin said:

That's because it's not your top thruster. When you press A, your thrusters are bursting left, relative to the center of control of your ship and the level indicator.

NOT relative to your camera. This is the issue. Your camera is looking at your ship with a roughly 90° angle, which makes the top of your craft on the right of your camera. The only way to align your control center and your camera is by going in Locked camera view.

I know that, thats why i selected the best answer of locked camera by @VoidSquid

Navhud though, visualizes the indicator in your view and you can tell when is left/top/down, i was wondering if its ''easy'' to do that from navball.

3 minutes ago, HvP said:

I see that now. Your previous image didn't show the docking mode setting turned on. This is helpful because it shows me several things.

First, notice that the orange cross-hairs in the docking mode window has moved to the left side of the square? Also, the RCS thrusters are firing towards the right side of your craft. This will push you left.

It's doing exactly what its supposed to do. Surely you want your ship to move left when you tap the A key to move left?

Thats not my point, 

here is an example when i press D and the thrusters push upwards https://imgur.com/DGb6hys

I want to know how can i rotate my spacecraft so when i press D goes left or right, depending what you like...yes if you press D it should go right, you are not wrong in that one, was more of a hasty post.

 

 

[HvP]

1 minute ago, Boyster said:

Navhud though, visualizes the indicator in your view and you can tell when is left/top/down, i was wondering if its ''easy'' to do that from navball.

Well I think the disconnect in expectations comes from the fact that NavHud projects the orientation of your craft out into space. Your navball represents what you a pilot would see on their instrument panel sitting inside the spacecraft.

You can't turn the navball to orient to the camera; so you must turn the camera to orient to the navball. Which is what the "Locked" view does.

I think that's all I can leave you with for now. Sorry we couldn't be of more help.

[Serenity]

3 minutes ago, HvP said:

Well I think the disconnect in expectations comes from the fact that NavHud projects the orientation of your craft out into space. Your navball represents what you a pilot would see on their instrument panel sitting inside the spacecraft.

You can't turn the navball to orient to the camera; so you must turn the camera to orient to the navball. Which is what the "Locked" view does.

I think that's all I can leave you with for now. Sorry we couldn't be of more help.

No no no, thats crazy helpful, i understand a lot better now, so basically Navhud orients navball to the current camera, well a projection of it?

Does that make sense, its ok, i understand a lot better many things through these posts.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Boyster

[VoidSquid]

So, personal abstract from our discussion here: there are no direct means regarding navball to set the camera in a way that W/J is making the craft turn/translate to left etc. etc. in respect to any but the locked camera mode. As workaround, one can focus the camera to hatch/core label.

Agreed?

[HvP]

52 minutes ago, Boyster said:

so basically Navhud orients navball to the current camera, well a projection of it?

Sort of. NavHud projects the sphere of the navball into space around your ship. It's like putting your ship into the center of the navball. The camera just lets you look around the inside of that sphere. What's important to understand is that you can move the camera independently of the ship's orientation. Don't think of the navball and camera as connected at all, except in "Locked" camera mode. The game just normally allows you to move the camera around in arbitrary directions because sometimes you need to see whats behind you or underneath you, etc.

But ignore the camera for a moment.

In the NavHud projection look for that level-flight-indicator .  See how it moves around in front of your vessel as you turn as if there's a rod attached to the nose of your ship connecting it to that point out in space? Now look at your navball. That symbol shows you the exact same thing - where your nose is pointing and in what orientation. The only difference is that NavHud allow you to rotate the ship within the lines of the "navball" that it projects into space around you; while the stock navball rotates the ball behind your direction indicator.

As @VoidSquid said, I really don't think there is a way of assuming what orientation your camera is to the ship's navball unless you orient it with already known components like a hatch or markings that you took note of in advance. Except of course if you turn on "Locked" camera mode.

[Serenity]

39 minutes ago, HvP said:

In the NavHud projection look for that level-flight-indicator .  See how it moves around in front of your vessel as you turn as if there's a rod attached to the nose of your ship connecting it to that point out in space? Now look at your navball. That symbol shows you the exact same thing - where your nose is pointing and in what orientation. The only difference is that NavHud allow you to rotate the ship within the lines of the "navball" that it projects into space around you; while the stock navball rotates the ball behind your direction indicator.

This is extremely interesting, can you maybe expand on this a bit more, i cant really understand it.

So in a way, there could be an option for locked Navball mode, not camera.

So instead of locking the camera, you could lock the navball?

Does that make any sense, i am trying to visualize it but i cant.

So then you could judge by navball these things..

I am playing all around here, i just cant understand at the level you do it, i am just grasping all these.

Tnx though, its really good brain exercise for me and i hope for others too :p

Edited August 11, 2020 by Boyster

[Okhin]

Well, if you use the i k j l keys, you're not moving your navball*. So it is kind of locked, it won't move. Using w a s d, you can align the navball in the position you want.

*Well, except for unbalanced and/or wobbling ships

[HvP]

@Boyster Let's go back to basics and try to understand what the navball is trying to show you.

Regular airplanes have a navball like that in order to show the pilot their attitude relative to the ground. Here is a picture of one in a simple plane's cockpit. You can see it in the top row, second from the left.

There is a gyroscope that keeps its orientation constant relative to the horizon. The center marker on that ball corresponds to the nose and wings of the aircraft and it's just fixed to the glass of the instrument panel covering the ball.

But the ball "floats" inside that instrument panel so that the brown colored ground always stays down and the white lines always stay parallel to the horizon. So when the plane banks left or right, or pitches up or down, it looks to the pilot like the ball is rotating and turning around behind the center marker. But in reality a gyroscope keeps the ball level, and it's the PLANE that turns around the navball.

Now, try and imagine you took this plane to space and were sitting in the cockpit. What would you see on your instruments if you couldn't look outside the spacecraft? You can't just poke your head outside and look around. The blue half of the navball is the part above the horizon of the planet. The orange/brown half of the navball is the part below the horizon. In other words, if your center marker (the level-flight-indicator) is below the horizon line (the part that divides the two colors) then your nose is pointing more towards the ground than the sky. If your center marker is in the blue part of the ball then your nose is pointing more towards the sky than the ground. This is no different than being in a plane's cockpit flying through the air.

These instruments were designed to give the pilot information about where they are pointing because they COULD NOT see much outside their craft. And it's incredibly useful at doing that. You can accomplish almost any maneuver by looking at just the navball alone, and ignoring the camera view. The only time you can't really do that very well is when docking, and that seems to be what's confusing you.

The navball is there to show you your orientation in relation to your direction of travel AS IF you were viewing it from inside the cockpit. Remember, the camera has NOTHING to do with the navball. The camera just lets you look around. It isn't intended to relate to the navball orientation. And there is a simple experiment you can do to prove this.

When you are docking normally, to the front of the ship, and you need to use your RCS to move left then you would want to look down the ship towards the front. If the camera is locked in place then when you tap the left key you will see your RCS thrusters fire on the right side to push you left. Ok, great.

But, what happens if you need to move the camera around to look backwards along your ship? When you are landing a ship upright on the Mun you will be doing this. In the final stages of your landing your navball will show mostly blue because your nose is pointing up away from the surface. But you will want your camera pointing down towards the ground so that you can see the terrain. Maybe there is even a base on the surface that you are trying to land close to. In this case you want to look backwards, but now when you tap left to go left your camera is turned around. Now the thrusters appear to push the other direction. But they aren't really, your view is looking front-to-back now.

You have to mentally separate these two perspectives when you are operating your controls. It's not always easy, but you need both frames of reference in this game.

Edited August 11, 2020 by HvP

[Serenity]

@HvP

Very interesting, really.Tnx for putting the time to explain.

Hmmm...i think...i think if the Camera is on Auto or just NOT Locked, RCS controls/directions should not be affected by the rotation of the vessel.

If the camera is locked then rotation should affect the correlation with the controls.

Does that make sense?Wouldnt that be better in orbit?

Shouldnt the RCS thrusters keep trying to push left if i hold D, no matter what?

That would help finding faster and easier and more correct rotations to follow the controls, you will not do any extra, wasteful burns, wrong directions

the craft will always push left, and you can rotate to eliminate any deadzones in your design, optimize the thrust, or just allign for docking.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Boyster

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, Boyster said:

So in a way, there could be an option for locked Navball mode, not camera.

So instead of locking the camera, you could lock the navball?

Point is: navball is already always in "locked mode".

You walways see  in the middle of the navball and always perfectly horizontal.

 

Actually that is the "obvious thing" you are missing. You expect the controls to match the camera when it almost never do and fail to notice the controls always match the  navball. So, the trick to undertand what the navball is telling you is: forget the camera exist.

Lets take an example with Navball Docking  Aligment mod: 

Relative to the craft direction of travel is foward-left, target is up-right. 

 

2 hours ago, Boyster said:

So instead of locking the camera, you could lock the navball?

So instead of having our controls matching both we end up with our controls matching none? 

 

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, VoidSquid said:

Question is, save for my workarounds or this (locked camera, camera facing hatch/labeling), how to know your camera is oriented in a way that RCS left is left, pitch is pitching forward, etc.

You can't. That's what Locked Mode is for. Outside of Locked Mode, the camera and navball have no correlation at all and trying to force one is only a route to disaster.

[Jacke]

I find the best way to use the navball is to imagine it's actually a bowl.  NavHud takes this even farther, projecting onto the sky around the craft.

I also as much as possible build my spacecraft balanced to remove coupling between RCS translation and attitude changes.  RCS Build Aid is great for help with this.

I try to move fuel tanks to the middle of the spacecraft and balance heavy things like batteries above and below the Centre of Gravity.

To keep what side is what straight on spacecraft, I use Indicator Lights.

Red for left side, green for right, white for top, blue for bottom.