Where/when to return from Dres?

[The Aziz]

I never thought I'd have to ask such thing but... I'm out of ideas.

Of course the maneuver node never shows where it's going to end up, but that's the least of my problems. I know I have to burn retrograde-ish but the trouble is... none of the online tools gives me a clear answer. The phase angle I get from one is different from the transfer window time I get from the other. It says it should be a 1200m/s burn to get me on collision course, and I'm glad because I only have like 1250, but I can't figure out the timing. I'm on Year 10.

[Streetwind]

I have never found Alexmoon's planner to give me a wrong transfer. It has worked precisely and reliably throughout all of KSP1, and also in the two cases I have been using in for KSP2.

However, there's one caveat worth knowing: the date format has changed between the games. KSP1 started the game in year 1, day 1, and hence Alexmoon's planner - made for KSP1 - does too. KSP2, meanwhile, starts the game at year 0, day 1. But the position of the planets at epoch is identical.

So when you are in for example year 10, day 200 in KSP2, and you want to plan a transfer from Dres to Kerbin, you have to set the earliest departure date in Alexmoon's planner to be year 11, day 200. Because KSP2 is always going to display one year fewer on the savegame clock than KSP1 would have.

And that can very easily mean the difference between you getting an output that works, and one that doesn't.

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by Streetwind