Alarm Clock Usage Discussion

[SciMan]

That's EXTREMELY weird. The alarm clock should have ZERO interaction with the orbits, especially when in high time warp.

I can't believe that I'm the only one in existence that got the right version of the SAC code put into their ksp 1.12.x, because I've been having zero problems with it aside from the inability to set it to when a science lab would be full of science.

I'd advise you to try this on a completely totally fresh KSP install (copy the Steam KSP directory if that's what you're playing out of, then uninstall the game via steam, then re-download it, and put all your mods back in if you really need to, but I'd really like it if you could try without the mods first).

Something's weird here, but without enough data to reproduce the issues, there's nothing to be done about it.

 

[Michel Bartolone]

On 9/22/2021 at 9:10 AM, SciMan said:

That's EXTREMELY weird. The alarm clock should have ZERO interaction with the orbits, especially when in high time warp.

I can't believe that I'm the only one in existence that got the right version of the SAC code put into their ksp 1.12.x, because I've been having zero problems with it aside from the inability to set it to when a science lab would be full of science.

I'd advise you to try this on a completely totally fresh KSP install (copy the Steam KSP directory if that's what you're playing out of, then uninstall the game via steam, then re-download it, and put all your mods back in if you really need to, but I'd really like it if you could try without the mods first).

Something's weird here, but without enough data to reproduce the issues, there's nothing to be done about it.

 

I agree it is weird, and there seems to be more that it changed..the orbital speed changed too. Maybe I've got a hardware issue, but I've seen this sort of thing, from time to time, when going to a moon or planet. I have done the transfer burn and then fine tuned the closest approach. I switch my focus to the target to see that I'm intercepting in the target such that circularization gets me almost into the orbit I want, I make sure that RCS is shut off, I click on the soi change marker and tell it to warp there, and as soon as I do, the orbit is no longer intercepting the target, and I have to go back and relaunch. Some of the time the orbit will work, some of the time it will not.  
Codewise, obviously I have not seen the KSP source code, but I've worked with other much more complicated software, and if for example someone tries to improve performance by doing things like accessing a memory location directly, it can have other unintended effects. Or perhaps some pointer is getting redirected?

[Michel Bartolone]

OK I've done some additional due dilligence, and I will admit that I am wrong.

A completely fresh install of 1.12.2 with the latest BG release, but NO other mods at all does _not_ have the issue I reported with warp next changing the orbit. I was able to reproduce it prior to this, in my normally modded game. I might take the time over the weekend, to try to figure out which mod(s) it is. I'm figuring I'll eliminate the parts mods, and the contract mods, and possibly filter out a few more that seem very unlikely to be the issue, but anything to do with orbital things (maneuvers etc), anything that modifies time warp, and a few others will be my first pass.

[SciMan]

Well there is the thing where you shouldn't really chain manuver nodes together because you'll always be off by just a little bit on each one, and those errors stack up quickly to the point that you're no longer intercepting the target planet at all anymore. That's not even really a stock KSP bug, it's just the nature of how these things work, and it's why IRL space probes need to do regular course corrections to stay on their intended trajectory.

However, I don't think you're talking about that. There is a bug in KSP where sometimes the game will tell you you're intercepting something when you're really not, and I never trust the KSP "warp to" thing anyways, even before SAC was in KSP. I always used MechJeb's Warp Helper for that purpose, because it SMOOTHLY changes the time warp levels up and down instead of just going STRAIGHT TO HIGH WARP and then gradually stepping it down as you get close to the target time. That part where KSP will go straight to high warp is likely what's messing up your intercepts.

[traisjames]

Is there a way to disable the stock alarm clock app?

[Michel Bartolone]

@traisjames, Sorry, IDK, but I asked the same question several months ago...

 

[Kazkar]

It seems to be one of the most often requested features.

[Curveball Anders]

Sorry for the obvious question: why not just ignore it and install KAC?

 

[modus]

I use both kac en sac (with the enhancement mod ofcourse). Kac for science and rendezvous, sac for the rest.

My Kac had some issues a while ago (timers didn't count down for some reason, it's fixed now) so I had to 'transfer' alarms to sac.

It doesn't bother me to use both. In fact, if the enhancement mod were to be extra-enhanced with a science and rendezvous alarm, I wouldn't use kac. 

I do use transfer window planner and not the stock thing, I just make a manual alarm in sac.