Should KSP 2 maneuver nodes take into account atmospheric friction?

[Dr.Seno]

Below are several area of planning a Spacecraft Trajectory that will benefit if maneuver nodes do take into account atmospheric friction!

1. Landing Prediction on an atmospheric planet
2. More complex aerobraking  maneuver
3. Etc (Reply down bellow if you have more ideas!)

I will be mostly talking about aerobraking because this feature would help a lot on planning aerobraking maneuver, such as better fuel economy because if you can see where your spacecraft might be going after an aerobrake, it would be very helpful if lets say you want to intercept Laythe after slowing down massively in Jool's atmosphere, i find this to be very tricky in KSP 1, I had several mods to help me but even still its a bit finicky.

I understand that this feature might be difficult to incorporate into the game considering the prediction wont be 100% accurate and can be affected by many factor during the aerobraking, here are examples of several factor I could think off that might throw off the prediction

1. Angle of attack during the aerobraking maneuver
2. Parts getting blown off causing a slight change in the vessel's aerodynamic characteristic
3. Etc (Reply down bellow if you can think off more affecting factors!)

I have no idea how difficult a game development is, so I don't know if these feature are even possible to incorporate nicely into the game
but if this feature is going to be added into the game even if its much later, it will still be a very nice addition into the game

 

P.S.  It would be awesome to recreate some shots of the Leonov aerobraking maneuver from 2010: The Year We Make Contact in KSP2 with some beautiful atmospheric friction effects  

[intelliCom]

I can imagine this being very CPU-heavy to calculate, on top of all the physics already. What might be more reliable is calculating an ellipsoid area of landing instead. Further behind assumes maximum drag, further ahead assumes minimum drag. That way it doesn't have to be constantly recalculated.

I know they used one of those calculations for the Apollo moon landings, but I can't remember what it was called.

[Anth]

Theres the trajectories mod for KSP1. Its not perfect but really helped me land on Eve last year.

I am sure Intercept Games could do a better version for KSP2 if they wanted to or perhaps they already have . We wont know until next month

[Vortygont]

Mechjeb 2 has module Landing guidance, which  can land craft automatically taking into account  atmospheric friction, your delta V and parachutes. It means that it is possible, in addition ksp 2 will have better and faster integrator

 

[Dr.Seno]

1 hour ago, Vortygont said:

Mechjeb 2 has module Landing guidance, which  can land craft automatically taking into account  atmospheric friction, your delta V and parachutes. It means that it is possible, in addition ksp 2 will have better and faster integrator

 

Mechjeb is one of the mods i did use to assist me in such maneuvers, what i meant is by adding a similar feature into Vanilla KSP 2, however if its just  a mod it would still be fine, and i would love to have the mod.

[Vortygont]

4 hours ago, Dr.Seno said:

what i meant is by adding a similar feature into Vanilla KSP 2

I heard that developers promised to improve maneuver planner (add transfer windows and other) but I lost source. Who knows what they adde

[magnemoe]

On 1/16/2023 at 1:58 PM, Vortygont said:

Mechjeb 2 has module Landing guidance, which  can land craft automatically taking into account  atmospheric friction, your delta V and parachutes. It means that it is possible, in addition ksp 2 will have better and faster integrator

 

This, it can also be used for aerobraking, downside is that its not very accurate  for larger crafts or something with lifting surfaces. 
But its better than nothing and you can change drag to adjust landing position.  

Note that mechjeb also do an pretty hard deorbit burn who increase accuracy a lot over the lower the Pe to 30 km. 
Predictions for airless bodies tended to be spot on except if your twr was to low . 

[Skorj]

The fix for high CPU in calculating landing in an atmosphere is to make it a separate button.  Just dragging the node around doesn't model drag, but have a button that does, until you move the node again.  Would be a bit awkward, but better than nothing if you'd start dropping frames like crazy trying to do it in real time.

[Dr.Seno]

1 hour ago, Skorj said:

The fix for high CPU in calculating landing in an atmosphere is to make it a separate button.  Just dragging the node around doesn't model drag, but have a button that does, until you move the node again.  Would be a bit awkward, but better than nothing if you'd start dropping frames like crazy trying to do it in real time.

very interesting solution to the issue, if I may add this button should also have vessel Orientation section, so to make sure the calculation are done in the correct orientation instead of being based on where the vessel is pointing at the moment!

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, Skorj said:

The fix for high CPU in calculating landing in an atmosphere is to make it a separate button.  Just dragging the node around doesn't model drag, but have a button that does, until you move the node again.  Would be a bit awkward, but better than nothing if you'd start dropping frames like crazy trying to do it in real time.

Just put in an short delay before calculating so game don't try to calculate while you move  the marker, this avoid lag and slow response who make you overcompensate.  Mechjeb did that for aerobraking