question about mun encounter/mun escape, and changing spheres of influence

[konokono]

Sorry if this has been asked but I didn't see it anywhere.

When you plot a trip to or back from the Mun (or any other body), when you escape the original body's sphere of influence, your vessel seems to "jump" to another point in space, in an orbit around the new body. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, can you explain what is going on there?

[Vanamonde]

It's just a trick of perspective as you change reference frames. The motion of your ship is continuous.

[Blackstar]

Yes, the flight path will appear to 'jump' when transitioning SOI. The reason is that by default, it shows you the path relative to the body that you'll be in the SOI of -- in this case the Mun, followed by Kerbin. However, the Mun is moving, too. It takes time to traverse the flight path, so when you change SOIs the game is showing you where you'll actually exit, based on the Mun's predicted position at that point in time.

The same thing happens when entering an SOI, especially if it's at the end of a long flight; the target body could have moved substantially. There's a configuration file parameter somewhere (conics mode I think) that changes how this information is presented. One of them shows all the positions in your current frame of reference, which might be more intuitive even if it's not entirely accurate.