How do I use the stock Transfer window alarm

[immolated]

If I'm on kerbin and I make an alarm to go to Eve, it's way off.

 

If I make the alarm backwards while on kerbin, [Eve to Kerbin], it works.

 

If I make the alarm Kerbin to Dres, it works.

 

Something wrong

[OHara]

There is something wrong with the KSP 1.12  Alarm Clock => Transfer Window setter --- or at least none of us can figure out how to use it reliably (thread link)

I get
KSP 1.12 Alarm Clock
Kerbin->Eve Year 1 Day 113  Eve->Kerbin Year 2 Day 139  if I try it on Year-1 Day-1
Kerbin->Eve Year 1 Day 336  Eve->Kerbin Year 2 Day 140  if I try several days later
KSP 1.12 Maneuver Tool
Kerbin->Eve Year 2 Day 158  Eve->Kerbin Year 2 Day 90
alexmoon.gitup.io/ksp/ using 'ballistic' without a plane-change burn, as Maneuver Tool does
Kerbin->Eve Year 2 Day 160  Eve->Kerbin Year 2 Day 90
  or with a longer window,  Eve->Kerbin Year 2 Day 195  is a bit more efficient.
The ballistic transfers, using no mid-course plane-change, tend to have locally minimum delta-V  solutions on either side of the window (because getting directly into a transfer-orbit plane that intersects planet-orbit planes with different inclination, is very expensive if the intersections are close to 180° apart.)

Someone posted on the bug tracker that it is "just backwards" because the Alarm Clock date given for Eve->Kerbin is a reasonable time for Kerbin->Eve,
but that is just how transfer windows work:
You leave the starting planet half a transfer-time before a conjunction between the two planets;
the conjunction time relates to the pair of planets, and the transfer-time is the same either way.

The online planner still works fine, and the mod Planning Node gives a more visual method that is very much in the style of KSP

[Scarecrow71]

@immolated

I have no experience with the stock clock in 1.12, but I can suggest and highly recommend using Kerbal Alarm Clock.  It works like a charm.