New In-Game Alarm Clock

[pquade]

They copy almost every function of Kerbal Alarm Clock, but don't copy Intersects?!?

Please, give us intersects.  Please.  Life is dangerous enough.  It's nice to have an alarm before colliding with your target.

Edited June 24, 2021 by pquade
spellos.

[Souptime]

42 minutes ago, pquade said:

They copy almost every function of Kerbal Alarm Clock, but don't copy Intersects?!?

Please, give us intersects.  Please.  Life is dangerous enough.  It's nice to have an alarm before colliding with your target.

well the creator of kerbal alarm clock was the one who integrated it into KSP last i heard so @TriggerAu, ETA for intersects?

[pquade]

22 minutes ago, Souptime said:

well the creator of kerbal alarm clock was the one who integrated it into KSP last i heard so @TriggerAu, ETA for intersects?

Interesting.  Didn't know that.  I hope he follows up on it.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Intersects? Since when has KAC had an alarm to tell you you're about to crash into something?

[modus]

I think he means the closest approach alarm?

Edited June 27, 2021 by modus

[WelshSteW]

I really don't like the new alarm clock.

 

If you're going to copy a mod, copy it. Don't produce a cheap copy that's missing some of the features, and just isn't as good.

It may well be me, and that I just haven't found out how to set it up properly or use it properly. If that's the case, I apologise.

But -

1. why isn't it showing all the time? Or at least, have the option of having it showing all the time.

2. why isn't it saving the alarm settings? Every time I set an alarm, I have to change the options to make it pause the game.

3. why isn't it suggesting the type of alarm you want to set? It seems to think I only ever want to set manual time alarm. KAC used to guess which type of alarm I wanted to set, and it was right 95% of the time.

 

All 3 of those things were there in Kerbal Alarm Clock. So why aren't they there in this stock alarm clock?

 

[pquade]

13 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Intersects? Since when has KAC had an alarm to tell you you're about to crash into something?

It's a naming convention issue.

In KSP MAP MODE it's where your current orbit path crosses the path of the target craft and is labeled either "Intersect 1" or Intersect 2" depending whether or not you actually have two crossing.  One is orange, the other purple.

In KAC, the same symbology is used and labeled "Closest/Target Distance", but only in purple.

If you want to make your rendezvous quicker/cheaper/easier you fine tune your intersects so they happen at below 0.0km.  This is a little unrealistic IRL like at the ISS because it means there is a risk of collision if there is later an engine problem, but in KSP it's actually quite good as if you time the braking burn right you can end up less than 100 meters away from your target and start docking immediately.

https://triggerau.github.io/KerbalAlarmClock/

[The Flying Kerbal]

23 hours ago, WelshSteW said:

I really don't like the new alarm clock.

 

If you're going to copy a mod, copy it. Don't produce a cheap copy that's missing some of the features, and just isn't as good.

It may well be me, and that I just haven't found out how to set it up properly or use it properly. If that's the case, I apologise.

But -

1. why isn't it showing all the time? Or at least, have the option of having it showing all the time.

2. why isn't it saving the alarm settings? Every time I set an alarm, I have to change the options to make it pause the game.

3. why isn't it suggesting the type of alarm you want to set? It seems to think I only ever want to set manual time alarm. KAC used to guess which type of alarm I wanted to set, and it was right 95% of the time.

 

All 3 of those things were there in Kerbal Alarm Clock. So why aren't they there in this stock alarm clock?

 

Yeah... I haven't played very much with this feature, but so far I much prefer the old mod.  Much easier to use, much "cleaner", and much better implemented than what they added to 1.12.  I really can't think of a single reason why they didn't just copy a mod that was danged close to perfect, instead of messing it up this badly.

I may be wrong, maybe I haven't figured out all this new feature's capabilities, and if I am I apologise in advance, but right now I think it's pretty useless.

Edited June 28, 2021 by The Flying Kerbal

[pquade]

2 hours ago, The Flying Kerbal said:

I may be wrong, maybe I haven't figured out all this new feature's capabilities, and if I am I apologise in advance, but right now I think it's pretty useless.

It's definitely not useless.  It's better than nothing if you've never used KAC or are on console (which is why I really assume they're including it for the eventual console upgrade).  It's just some of the functions just aren't there at all or aren't quite as good as they are in the original.

 I've mostly switched over to using it because I'm hoping the issues I have with it get fixed in the next patch.

[micha]

I miss the coloured icons; seriously not a fan of the "modern" flat-shaded monochrome stuff.

The KAC mod is visually much easier to use due to colour-coding various things. The stock alarm clock is just grey..

[eekee]

It's definitely better than nothing, but absolutely has room for improvement. I launched a small fleet of rockets in 1.11 and found just how horrible the tracking station UI is when you need to find the next maneuver of any ship. I couldn't have executed all the burns without quicksaves; had to quickload twice. 1.12 came soon after that and alarms helped tremendously for the next mass flight, but adding and especially updating the alarms was still a bit unpleasant. Maybe I should have 'just' made a monster ship which separated once it got to Jool, but as I get more ships in flight, (and with my plans, I will,) I'm going to need to know the next burn for any craft without looking through a list which puts all the burns in small text and hides them half the time.

[cfds]

There seems to be a basic rule in KSP development that a feature that copies a mod function has to fall well flat of the original mod... Or the developers are afraid to violate the original "only one mission at any given time" paradigm.

[Jack Mcslay]

To be fair, KAC's intersect alarm is pretty glitchy. Sometimes even with a very close approach on the orbit it says there's no approach point. They probably left it out to fix it for now.

[pquade]

10 hours ago, Jack Mcslay said:

To be fair, KAC's intersect alarm is pretty glitchy. Sometimes even with a very close approach on the orbit it says there's no approach point. They probably left it out to fix it for now.

"Very close" is a relative term.  Since it's actually trivial to create intersects within less than 100 meters those are what I use every time and generally speaking I tweak them at least an order of magnitude below that.

As long as you actually have an intersect lined up and aren't searching for one blindly, it works perfectly.
 

[Bej Kerman]

On 6/27/2021 at 6:49 PM, WelshSteW said:

If you're going to copy a mod, copy it. Don't produce a cheap copy that's missing some of the features, and just isn't as good.

Never going to happen

[Jack Mcslay]

26 minutes ago, pquade said:

"Very close" is a relative term.  Since it's actually trivial to create intersects within less than 100 meters those are what I use every time and generally speaking I tweak them at least an order of magnitude below that.

As long as you actually have an intersect lined up and aren't searching for one blindly, it works perfectly.
 

If you're trying to argue it takes an intersect far smaller than what the game starts showing intersect markers I call that glitchy.

Also, the stock game won't measure intersects below 100 meters, anything lower than that counts as 0.0km

[pquade]

17 minutes ago, Jack Mcslay said:

If you're trying to argue it takes an intersect far smaller than what the game starts showing intersect markers I call that glitchy.

Also, the stock game won't measure intersects below 100 meters, anything lower than that counts as 0.0km

Game can show intersect markers with millions of meters between the two craft.  All that's required for the game to show the intersect mark is (I believe) paths crossing at any time in within the patched conics calculations.

As I said though, it's trivial to get 0.0km intercepts.  I mentioned I tweak those an order of magnitude lower, but nowhere did I say I was just using the stock interface to do it.  For the record, KER shows intersects measured in millimeters.

Edited July 1, 2021 by pquade
spello

[Jack Mcslay]

2 hours ago, pquade said:

Game can show intersect markers with millions of meters between the two craft.  All that's required for the game to show the intersect mark is (I believe) paths crossing at any time in within the patched conics calculations.

As I said though, it's trivial to get 0.0km intercepts.  I mentioned I tweak those an order of magnitude lower, but nowhere did I say I was just using the stock interface to do it.  For the record, KER shows intersects measured in millimeters.

I'm pretty sure that's not what my experiences catching asteroids tell. Sometimes it thinks there's an intersect only  after multiple orbits after the asteroid left Kerbin.

And I specifically avoid 0-distance intercepts because they're stupid, they offer little advantage in saving time or fuel compared to sub-1km intercepts and are a good way to frustratingly collide with the target if you miscalculate the orbit matching burn

[pquade]

30 minutes ago, Jack Mcslay said:

I'm pretty sure that's not what my experiences catching asteroids tell. Sometimes it thinks there's an intersect only  after multiple orbits after the asteroid left Kerbin.

And I specifically avoid 0-distance intercepts because they're stupid, they offer little advantage in saving time or fuel compared to sub-1km intercepts and are a good way to frustratingly collide with the target if you miscalculate the orbit matching burn

Your experience may vary from mine.  I can accept that.  I wish other people could accept the opposite viewpoint.

BTW, you're no "safer" with an intercept that is simply (stock) 0.0 km than you are with a (modded) 0.0m intercept since that 0.0km intercept doesn't indicate whether you are on the prograde, retrograde, normal, anti-normal, radial-in, or radial-out side of the target.

IRL (for ISS anyway) you'd want to be 100 meters radial-in (aka below) for the if engine failure, then intended miss case, but there's no actual way to see that in KSP with any mod as far as I can tell.

As for advantages in a 0.0m intercept, actually there are advantages as long as you have a procedure, working engines, and maybe a bit of programming via kOS.

Edited July 2, 2021 by pquade

[micha]

For me, the stock alarm clock is missing too many features/alarm types.. so for now, I still have KAC installed, which makes the stock one kinda pointless (for me).

Another thing is the modability of it (awesome, based on my brief look at the dev docs) but also leads to an issue.. if I, for example, create a new alarm for my long-running science experiments, and another modder does the same, etc etc, soon you have dozens of different science alarms all plugged into the stock alarm clock.  Unless the modding community comes together and standardises a bunch of additional alarm types, it'll be a right royal mess.  KAC sidestepped this by adding additional alarm types which all mods could then use.  Of course, as a mod, it could do that. As stock, it can't since it won't be updated all the time.

[pquade]

22 minutes ago, micha said:

for example, create a new alarm for my long-running science experiments, and another modder does the same, etc etc, soon you have dozens of different science alarms all plugged into the stock alarm clock.

Maybe.  I also think that's not much different than multiple part reskinning mods or life support mods though and gets self-selected for correction by users.  For instance, there are multiple life support mods from SNACKS! to MKS.  It's cool that players can pick the one suitable for their specific style of play, but using more than one would not be a great experience.

That said, I agree that the "proper" feature set on release should be on-par with the existing mod which thee player base has come to agree sets the standard.  In this case, KAC.

Edited July 2, 2021 by pquade

[micha]

4 minutes ago, pquade said:

Maybe.  I also think that's not much different than multiple part reskinning mods or life support mods though and gets self-selected for correction by users.  For instance, there are multiple life support mods from SNACKS! to MKS.  It's cool that players can pick the one suitable for their specific style of play, but using more than one would not be a great experience.

The difference being that most users only use a single life-support mod at a time.

But users interested in more science experiments often install multiple at the same time, like Station Science, DMAgic Orbital Science, Nehemiah Engineering Orbital Science, to name a few.  All of these offer long-running experiments, and, unless they coordinate, would all supply their own science alarm for the stock alarm clock.

Quote

That said, I agree that the "proper" feature set on release should be on-par with the existing mod which thee player base has come to agree sets the standard.  In this case, KAC.

It's even more baffling since the developer that wrote KAC also implemented the stock alarm clock..  I can see why they added a plugin mechanism for new alarm types, but they should have had all the alarm types that KAC has as a starting point.  I also prefer bits of the stock UI over KAC, but overall the KAC UI was better.

Anyway, let's see if there'll be any improvements in 1.12.2...  I really hope @TriggerAu is following this discussion

[teelaurila]

The new alarm clock looks like it was done by what Microsoft does when they turn good 3rd party tools into their own features. The interface is worse (eg why no automatic naming with vessel name like the mod, why no convenient manual "X minutes before event", why loose the helpful colors), but now you cannot get rid of it. Also, using Galaxies Unbound, I seem to get wrong transfer windows, whereas the mod works ok, but I'm not 100% sure if the new feature is actually the better. I just know they're different and I've done fine with the mod.

Edited July 6, 2021 by teelaurila

[mckamx]

I am seeing wonky behavior for SOI change alarms when I have multiple vessels in flight.  A single SOI alarm seems to work correctly.  If I add a 2nd or subsequent SOI alarm for a different vessel, the alarm seems to change its time to the SOI change for the CURRENT selected vessel, not the vessel the alarm was created for.   I can sort of work around this by using manual alarms, but it seriously detracts from the usefulness of the app.  I am getting close to installing KAC and seeing if I can get it to work in 1.12.