Maneuver Node Behavior - What does it mean when you get "Entering SOI" but no PE?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

It's no secret that throughout my KSP years, I basically played around the Muns and rarely ventured to the other planets.  Consequently, I'm very unfamiliar with the behavior of the MNs when trying to get an interplanetary intercept.  (Edit: Basic question is - am I seeing something wrong with the game, or is there a gap in my knowledge?)

Prior to the patch - I was able to 'muscle' a ship into an intercept with Duna and capture.  I'm trying to recreate that.  Except elegantly.

Earlier today I ran a Mun run - the MN did everything I expected.  As soon as I got an encounter, it not only showed the PE in the Mun's orbit, I could also see the blue disks of where I was entering the SOI and the orange orbital path curving around the Mun.  (Much nicer than pre-patch, where I never saw the orbital path until I had a MN placed at PE with a plan to circularize - then and only then did the orange circle appear - never a curved orange line).

So - now that I'm trying for Duna - all I get is "Entering SOI".  No PE.  No lines around the planet.  No Blue Whammies (or whatever they are called) around Duna.

Here's what I'm talking about with Mun Capture: the lines were great.  Made it easy for me. 

But this Duna run looks totally different.

 

So what I don't know is... Is this an error with the way the game is working, or just something I don't yet understand about the game / orbital mechanics?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Hey - I'm thinking now it was a bug.

I closed the game for a while, took a break, and then came back and loaded a save.

So - now I'm seeing what I had hoped to see.

Beautiful orange line through the SOI of Duna.  Much better.

I think I also stumbled upon a different bug: If you're trying to get interplanetary, but your orbital path plan takes you through the Mun's SOI, the escape Kerbin SOI blue whammies show up - but there is (or at least, was) no continuing orbital path into the rest of the solar system.  Meaning, when you zoom out to where you can see the planets - your path stops at the 'Exiting Kerbin SOI' whammie.

[Stoup]

That's because the patch conics only work through so many levels- It can be adjusted higher in the settings menu. Default is 3 levels of rendering, but you can add more!

[The Aziz]

On 3/17/2023 at 3:03 AM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

now I'm seeing what I had hoped to see.

Beautiful orange line through the SOI of Duna.  Much better

How did you get the PE to show up there? My predictions and orbits PE show up but on the outside path, never in target SOI like here.

Basically what I have is all the data I need, but not where I need it.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

How did you get the PE to show up there? My predictions and orbits PE show up but on the outside path, never in target SOI like here.

Basically what I have is all the data I need, but not where I need it.

I turned off the game and when I came back later I - don't remember if I recreated the node or if PE was present when I loaded in - but it worked. 

But the why's and whererfor's of it? 

Shrug