[1.12.x] Kerbal Alarm Clock v3.13.0.0 (April 10)

[Captain_Party]

Is there any way you could make this work with Real Solar System?

[Starwaster]

Is there any way you could make this work with Real Solar System?

I assume you're talking about planetary transfers?

Sure there is. RSS planetary transfer windows have to be calculated and the data used in place of what KAC uses now. It's just a text file, take a look at it. (windows calculated out to 100 years worth IIRC)

[DerekL1963]

A minor gripe... When I silence an alarm because I'm busy, and I have future alarms and the KAC display in 'one-line' - it jumps to showing the next future alarm in the 'one-line' rather than the bypassed alarm. It seems to me the 'one-line' should show the top alarm in the list until deleted, even if it's passed.

[Captain_Party]

I assume you're talking about planetary transfers?

Sure there is. RSS planetary transfer windows have to be calculated and the data used in place of what KAC uses now. It's just a text file, take a look at it. (windows calculated out to 100 years worth IIRC)

Wait, I think it already can, if you change the calculate mode in game to "Model" it does it correctly. What does IIRC mean?

[BigD145]

If I Recall Correctly

[TriggerAu]

Been a bit busy to reply to this thread in the last few days, so sorry for the lag. Will post some responses now...

[TriggerAu]

Had another of those wonky escape trajectories where Kerbin kept catching up and KAC kept adding new SOI change alarms. Here's the quick save file, go to the "Laythe Lander" ship. It's popping in and out of Kerbin SOI, or it should be, at the save point. Had a bit of a mishap with staging and messed up the escape plan.

http://www./download/pua5vhdajf7j37u/quicksave.zip

...

Thanks D_B, I'll look into that save file over the weekend and get back to you and ElCarl.

[TriggerAu]

A minor gripe... When I silence an alarm because I'm busy, and I have future alarms and the KAC display in 'one-line' - it jumps to showing the next future alarm in the 'one-line' rather than the bypassed alarm. It seems to me the 'one-line' should show the top alarm in the list until deleted, even if it's passed.

Good distinction DerekL1963, I made that as a one-liner for the next triggering alarm, but I can see how people could use it as a pseudo task list of what to do next. I should be able to give people a choice of what they want to see in the one-liner. Here comes another option:)

It will be a few weeks before I have the time to nail out an update to KAC, just to set expectations...

[TriggerAu]

Wait, I think it already can, if you change the calculate mode in game to "Model" it does it correctly. What does IIRC mean?

I'm unfamiliar with how the RSS Stuff works, so I'd have to look into that.

* The Formula option uses the same math as a bunch of other tools, so I'm unsure as to why that wouldnt work as its sort of standardised Hohmann maths (he says when he has a bare grasp of it himself )

* The Modelled option uses a file of precalculated times (done by Voneiden) for the Kerbal Universe, these are stored in a file called data_TransferModelData.csv where UT is the time of the transfer window, Origin and Target are the Indexes of the planets involved and PhaseAngel is simply a display value of what the angle should look like. Someone could create a file in that format and you could replace it in your game that has RSS running

The short answer is I'd really have to understand what RSS does and why it doesnt work. sorry I cant give you more right now

[Dweller_Benthos]

Thanks D_B, I'll look into that save file over the weekend and get back to you and ElCarl.

Take your time, it's not like it's a paying job :-)

[Starwaster]

Wait, I think it already can, if you change the calculate mode in game to "Model" it does it correctly. What does IIRC mean?

I didn't know KAC had different options for transfer windows.... derrrrr

IIRC, IIRC means 'If I Remember Correctly'

(see what I did there?)

I'm unfamiliar with how the RSS Stuff works, so I'd have to look into that.

* The Formula option uses the same math as a bunch of other tools, so I'm unsure as to why that wouldnt work as its sort of standardised Hohmann maths (he says when he has a bare grasp of it himself )

* The Modelled option uses a file of precalculated times (done by Voneiden) for the Kerbal Universe, these are stored in a file called data_TransferModelData.csv where UT is the time of the transfer window, Origin and Target are the Indexes of the planets involved and PhaseAngel is simply a display value of what the angle should look like. Someone could create a file in that format and you could replace it in your game that has RSS running

The short answer is I'd really have to understand what RSS does and why it doesnt work. sorry I cant give you more right now

RSS changes the orbits of the planets. Some of them actually become moons of the larger planets. It's intended that each planet become a counterpart of a real life planet. Kerbin is Earth so it moves to Earth's altitude above the sun. Jool moves to Jupiter's altitude.

Protractor does work though I think there might be precision issues with the larger orbits..... in your Formulaic option are you using floats or doubles? (I didn't even realize until now that there was such an option so I'll test it out more thoroughly with RSS and get back to you with my findings)

[Horks]

[Log]: 12/5/2013 10:42:52 AM,KerbalAlarmClock,Reading version from Web

[Error]: You are trying to load data from a www stream which had the following error when downloading.

couldn't connect to host

[Error]: You are trying to load data from a www stream which had the following error when downloading.

couldn't connect to host

[Log]: 12/5/2013 10:43:13 AM,KerbalAlarmClock,Response Length:0

[Log]: 12/5/2013 10:43:13 AM,KerbalAlarmClock,Got Version ''

[Log]: 12/5/2013 10:43:13 AM,KerbalAlarmClock,Version Check result:Unable to parse web service

This is happening everytime I switch to a ship, go on eva, or return from eva. During those ~20 seconds, the game is frozen. I noticed codeplex is not reachable from my IP at the moment either. Can you please put in an option to disable version checking?

[TriggerAu]

This is happening everytime I switch to a ship, go on eva, or return from eva. During those ~20 seconds, the game is frozen. I noticed codeplex is not reachable from my IP at the moment either. Can you please put in an option to disable version checking?

Hi Horks, there is already an option for that in the settings under the About tab. It is on by default, and when turned off the code for that check shouldnt get called in any circumstance. Give it a looksi and let me know

[TriggerAu]

Take your time, it's not like it's a paying job :-)

I'm not getting payed for this? Thats why the cheque hasn't turned up yet

[Horks]

Okay, sorry about that. I looked in the cfg file, and every other tab. I never thought to look on the about tab >.> Sorry for my oversight, and thanks for the prompt reply

[TriggerAu]

I didn't know KAC had different options for transfer windows.... derrrrr

IIRC, IIRC means 'If I Remember Correctly'

(see what I did there?)

RSS changes the orbits of the planets. Some of them actually become moons of the larger planets. It's intended that each planet become a counterpart of a real life planet. Kerbin is Earth so it moves to Earth's altitude above the sun. Jool moves to Jupiter's altitude.

Protractor does work though I think there might be precision issues with the larger orbits..... in your Formulaic option are you using floats or doubles? (I didn't even realize until now that there was such an option so I'll test it out more thoroughly with RSS and get back to you with my findings)

I saw what you did there

The formula stuff uses doubles as thats what the objects in the KSP API use (SemiMajorAxis values, etc) - I think I'll have to install RSS to fiddle with that. I'll put it on my list

[KerbMav]

Where does the difference between KAC and Protractor come from anyway?

KAC shows me 14h10m for a Moho window, Protractor 1d11h8m.

Even weirder: Before are deleted and recreated the Moho alarm, KAC showed me 9h?

[Starwaster]

Where does the difference between KAC and Protractor come from anyway?

KAC shows me 14h10m for a Moho window, Protractor 1d11h8m.

Even weirder: Before are deleted and recreated the Moho alarm, KAC showed me 9h?

think we'd have to compare the two formula to find out.

KAC times for the inner planets lag behind protractor. but it's ahead of protractor for the outer ones.

To be honest, I have not tried to use KAC for transfers because I just assumed it could only use that data file so I never even paid attention to its times for RSS. I'm going to try using its transfer times later tonight to see how it fares against Protractor.

Now, as for Protractor I have successfully used it for transfers but it always seemed off to me. I needed to make more aggressive mid-course corrections than I expected. So maybe it's Protractor that's off a bit. We'll see.

[KerbMav]

Note: I am not playing with RSS, but have these differences in stock KSP though.

As soon as KAC alarm runs out, I can set up a new one - alignment alarm then says "just another hour!"?

Edited December 5, 2013 by KerbMav

[Starwaster]

the further away from the transfer window I am, the less accurate KAC seems to be. As I get closer, it seems that it pushes the target window further back. The desired angle has not been met yet.

However, I've noticed the same behavior in Protractor during this because I was watching to see what it said too. (except that the difference i. time grew from 2 days to 3)

Still investigating.

[TriggerAu]

The Transfer window math did give me some issues when I implemented it, IIRC (see I can do it too) I checked all the math against MechJeb, as yes there are variations that people have used (I think KER had different answers as well). From memory, all the in game mod formulaic methods are all based on circular orbits, so any body with an elliptical orbit will not be 100% correct, and then different people do different things to correct.

What the elliptical orbit thing means for the formula alarms is that the time you get to reach the target phase angle when you create the alarm is almost never the actual time to the target phase angle, close but not exact. I put in an option to adjust for that automatically, but what it means practically when on is you set the alarm, and it says 9h, but as the planets move the time adjusts and the alarm fires when the phase angle is right - what this means is that the time figure is somewhat an estimate

Personally I've used the model version before, and begun using http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ and then setting alarms via it's UT values, it's mid course correction stuff is very cool. One of these days I'd like to figure out how to get that into KAC, but its a long way down the list - how cool would a porkchop in game be .

[Starwaster]

Is the phase angle option in the current release or upcoming?

Yeah I was thinking that must be the case re: elliptical orbits too. There must be a formula though for transfer windows to elliptical orbits or we'd NEVER get to Mars.

edit: ok i see the option and it is enabled but the active transfer alarm isnt updating. If I toggle it off then on it updates. But it won't keep updating if left enabled...

Edited December 5, 2013 by Starwaster

[Dweller_Benthos]

I'm not getting payed for this? Thats why the cheque hasn't turned up yet

It's in the mail, trust me :-)

[bernds]

There's a small problem in Utilities.cs. It uses backslashes for the savefile paths, which fails on Linux. This causes "Backup failed" errors when clicking on "Jump to ship" with automatic backups turned on. I think just changing these to forward slashes should work everywhere.

[TriggerAu]

There's a small problem in Utilities.cs. It uses backslashes for the savefile paths, which fails on Linux. This causes "Backup failed" errors when clicking on "Jump to ship" with automatic backups turned on. I think just changing these to forward slashes should work everywhere.

nice spot bernds. Have fixed this in the DevBranch, it will roll out in the next release.