[WIN/MAC/LINUX] KSP Trajectory Optimization Tool v1.6.10 [Major LVD Improvements!]

[Drew Kerman]

4 hours ago, Arrowstar said:

Hey!  Like anything, it's probably possible, but I did take a look at it and I'm not sure it would be feasible based on the amount of re-writing of the plotting code that would be required and it's limited application.  Sorry.

Ew, code rewrites. *sigh* I hear that. Ah well, thanks for looking into it!

[diomedea]

On 3/2/2017 at 11:28 PM, Arrowstar said:

Huh, okay.  I will try to investigate this over the weekend.  If I come up with anything I'll post an update release with a fix.

Any progress about getting asteroids with KSPTOTConnect in v.1.5.6? While I can copypaste their orbital parameters from a savegame in bodies.ini (with the needed conversions) and make them appear as bodies for computing encounters, I'd prefer if they could still be imported alike vessels, as was possible in previous KSPTOT versions. Fine if you need more time about this issue (but please don't let it unanswered) .

[Arrowstar]

On 2/10/2017 at 4:58 AM, diomedea said:

Any progress about getting asteroids with KSPTOTConnect in v.1.5.6? While I can copypaste their orbital parameters from a savegame in bodies.ini (with the needed conversions) and make them appear as bodies for computing encounters, I'd prefer if they could still be imported alike vessels, as was possible in previous KSPTOT versions. Fine if you need more time about this issue (but please don't let it unanswered) .

Does this DLL resolve the issue?

[diomedea]

55 minutes ago, Arrowstar said:

Does this DLL resolve the issue?

Works perfectly, many thanks .

[Arrowstar]

3 hours ago, diomedea said:

Works perfectly, many thanks .

Can you test it out and see if there's any funny business with the new DLL so far as looking at lists of spacecraft go?  I want to make sure someone else has eyes on it before I release it.

[diomedea]

On 12/2/2017 at 2:28 AM, Arrowstar said:

Can you test it out and see if there's any funny business with the new DLL so far as looking at lists of spacecraft go?  I want to make sure someone else has eyes on it before I release it.

Importing orbital params with vessels and roid in KSP works fine. SMA, ECC, INC, LPE, LAN, REF are all as expected. EPH makes me wonder, KSP savegame holds value much higher than UT in game; Orbital Ops in KSPTOTConnect shows a value about 5500 seconds higher than current UT in KSP. It could be all right, but that makes my comparison of MNA pointless, values are in reference to different times. MNA values are clearly very different and that's all I can say just now. Maybe with some elliptical geometry I could compute MNA for different EPH, but I wouldn't trust to make that right, better to let you know that's a value I couldn't test.

EDIT: solved the issue about the EPH difference. Need to read Current UT in KSPTOT MCC Real Time System from the status line at the bottom; the value with a vessel parameters seems to be updated with some delay (so, taking snapshots after timewarping can bring to such differences). Checking values in KSP against the status line shows a match; and MNA also matches.

There are a couple issues worth a note with the Real Time System.

1) I can select one vessel (or asteroid) finely the first time I do the connection to KSP. But when I then try to switch to another vessel (or roid), either restarting from the MCC Real Time System on the main KSPTOT window, or selecting "Connect to New Vessel" from the MCC Real Time System Connection Menu, I am presented again with the  "Select Vessel" dialog, there is no list of vessels to select so have to redo "Test Connect to Remote Host" to see again the list of vessels. But then, for any other vessel I may choose, after connecting, I open again Orbital Ops and again find the values relative to the first vessel I chose, instead of the vessel I selected from the list.

2) If I choose to "Terminate TM Stream" from the MCC Real Time System Connection menu, then want to restart the connection, can see the stream going on within KSP (the Console Window shows all messages about the ongoing stream) but the MCC Real Time System remains stuck at "Disconnected" in its status line (of course no window with values can then be opened from the MCC Real Time System main dialog).

Edited February 13, 2017 by diomedea
checekd issue with EPH and MNA

[dlrk]

Arrowstar,

Could you walk me through planning a rendezvous from a low-Kerbin orbit to an object (i.e.) asteroid orbiting the sun?

[Arrowstar]

On 2/18/2017 at 9:12 PM, dlrk said:

Arrowstar,

Could you walk me through planning a rendezvous from a low-Kerbin orbit to an object (i.e.) asteroid orbiting the sun?

Sure.  It's fairly straightforward:

1. Use the porkchop plot to come up with the departure and arrival times.
2. Use the Compute Departure button, enter in your LKO orbit parameters.
3. Read off the delta-v prograde/normal/radial components in the window that comes up, as well as the burn time or true anomaly.
4. Execute that maneuver, tweak as necessary.

Does that make sense?

[dlrk]

42 minutes ago, Arrowstar said:

Sure.  It's fairly straightforward:

1. Use the porkchop plot to come up with the departure and arrival times.
2. Use the Compute Departure button, enter in your LKO orbit parameters.
3. Read off the delta-v prograde/normal/radial components in the window that comes up, as well as the burn time or true anomaly.
4. Execute that maneuver, tweak as necessary.

Does that make sense?

As far as I can see, the porkchop plot only works for planets. I'm trying to rendezvous with an asteroid

[Arrowstar]

1 minute ago, dlrk said:

As far as I can see, the porkchop plot only works for planets. I'm trying to rendezvous with an asteroid

You'll need to add the asteroid to the bodies.ini file that you're using then.

[Drew Kerman]

got another interesting trajectory for you to look at when you have a minute @Arrowstar. Still on v1.5.6 w/ KSP v1.1.3 - hitormiss.zip

Found another one, but I don't think this is a bug since it shows up in the game like this too in the Tracking Station until I click on it and it shows an SOI escape. Weird! How can it come up with a closed orbit? - waaaayout.zip

If you add a Coast to Next SOI event and then a Coast to PE event (no target body) you'll see the asteroid swing by Kerbin

If you delete those events and add just a Coast to PE event (no target body), you'll see the asteroid impact Kerbin

Edited February 26, 2017 by Drew Kerman

[Snoman314]

Is anyone else having trouble with importing craft states into the Mission Architect? I'm getting the incorrect orbital elements imported when I use the plugin. Importing from an sfs file is working fine.

[Arrowstar]

On 2/25/2017 at 9:50 PM, Drew Kerman said:

got another interesting trajectory for you to look at when you have a minute @Arrowstar. Still on v1.5.6 w/ KSP v1.1.3 - hitormiss.zip

Found another one, but I don't think this is a bug since it shows up in the game like this too in the Tracking Station until I click on it and it shows an SOI escape. Weird! How can it come up with a closed orbit? - waaaayout.zip

If you add a Coast to Next SOI event and then a Coast to PE event (no target body) you'll see the asteroid swing by Kerbin

If you delete those events and add just a Coast to PE event (no target body), you'll see the asteroid impact Kerbin

Thanks, I'll take a look!

 

On 2/27/2017 at 3:48 PM, Snoman314 said:

Is anyone else having trouble with importing craft states into the Mission Architect? I'm getting the incorrect orbital elements imported when I use the plugin. Importing from an sfs file is working fine.

What sort of error are you seeing?

[Snoman314]

11 hours ago, Arrowstar said:

What sort of error are you seeing?

As far as I can tell, all the orbital elements are correct except for the time. (Or maybe true anomaly?). I imported the the orbit for the current craft as my first probe entered the Mun's SOI, and then added a Coast to Periapsis event to the mission architect. The line plotted started about 5 minutes after Mun periapsis, and continued on to leaving the Mun's and Kerbin's SOI, to periapsis with the sun. This continued to happen with any orbit from any craft: The reported start position in MA was well past the actual start position. 

This happened both when importing the current craft, and choosing from the list of craft when importing via the plugin. After a while I realised that importing from an SFS file was working fine, and so I've been using that method ever since with no problems. It's just a bit inconvenient compared to the import current craft option.

Edited March 4, 2017 by Snoman314

[ThreePounds]

Hello! I toyed around with the Launch window planner today trying to launch into Minmus plane directly. It gave correct time but thw Azimuth was off. I saw Gaiiden mention this bug about two years ago. Is it still around? I ended up 12° off. Exactly twice the inclination of Minmus. So it told me to launch at 84° when it should have been 96°.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Three_Pounds

[Drew Kerman]

3 hours ago, Three_Pounds said:

Hello! I toyed around with the Launch window planner today trying to launch into Minmus plane directly. It gave correct time but thw Azimuth was off. I saw Gaiiden mention this bug about two years ago. Is it still around? I ended up 12° off. Exactly twice the inclination of Minmus. So it told me to launch at 84° when it should have been 96°.

If true this is slightly different than my issue, which was sending me off on the opposite azimuth (north instead of south and vice-versa). Still haven't played with the new v1.2.2 release so can't confirm. getting closer tho...

[ThreePounds]

3 hours ago, Drew Kerman said:

If true this is slightly different than my issue, which was sending me off on the opposite azimuth (north instead of south and vice-versa). Still haven't played with the new v1.2.2 release so can't confirm. getting closer tho...

Afaik, that's exactly what is happening. I can make a detailed bug report on it, but it seems this is a known issue then.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Three_Pounds

[Drew Kerman]

5 hours ago, Three_Pounds said:

Afaik, that's exactly what is happening. I can make a detailed bug report on it, but it seems this is a known issue then.

Oh, the way I read it didn't sound like my issue but looking at it again I see now what you're saying is going on. That was definitely fixed but maybe some other v1.2.x change snuck in there and screwed things up again. @Arrowstar will have to look into it when he gets a chance. Do him a favor tho and just list every step you took to get this result so he can reproduce it quickly himself

[ThreePounds]

I think it has something to do with my safe. I just tried to reproduce the bug in a clean KSP install with a brand new sandbox safe and I can't reproduce it.

 

[Drew Kerman]

20 hours ago, Three_Pounds said:

I think it has something to do with my safe. I just tried to reproduce the bug in a clean KSP install with a brand new sandbox safe and I can't reproduce it.

 

If you still have the save file and it still happens with it, upload it somewhere for arrowstar to get it

[ThreePounds]

1 hour ago, Drew Kerman said:

If you still have the save file and it still happens with it, upload it somewhere for arrowstar to get it

I actually found out that it was my install. I copied the entire Gamedata folder to a fresh 1.2.2 install and the problem was gone. So I have no clue what could even cause it. Somehow the position of all celestial bodies was different from what it was supposed to even though the bodies.ini generated by both installs are identical. I think I originally downloaded it when 1.2pre came out and then patched it to the later versions. I also compared the physics.cfg but they are identical as well.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Three_Pounds

[pap1723]

@Arrowstar This is an amazing tool that you have produced and I am sure it is really amazing for people smarter than me. I can only use about 5% of the features as that is what I understand!

Quick question, should the Semi-major axis of a Hyperbolic Orbit be negative? I don't understand the math behind it, so I thought I would ask the experts.

 

[Arrowstar]

2 minutes ago, pap1723 said:

@Arrowstar This is an amazing tool that you have produced and I am sure it is really amazing for people smarter than me. I can only use about 5% of the features as that is what I understand!

Quick question, should the Semi-major axis of a Hyperbolic Orbit be negative? I don't understand the math behind it, so I thought I would ask the experts.

 

Hi!  Thank you for the compliments. Yes, the SMA of hyperbolic orbits is negative.  It falls out of the math, and doesn't have quite the same physical meaning as SMA does for elliptical orbits.

Let me know if you have any questions!

[diomedea]

12 hours ago, pap1723 said:

Quick question, should the Semi-major axis of a Hyperbolic Orbit be negative? I don't understand the math behind it, so I thought I would ask the experts.

There is some explanation about negative SMA on Wikipedia including a bit of math that should be simple enough to grasp. Another description is on Orbital Mechanics (where SMA equation at 4.32 is valid for all conics, clearly when excess velocity is > 0 the result of the equation turns negative).

[pap1723]

6 hours ago, diomedea said:

There is some explanation about negative SMA on Wikipedia including a bit of math that should be simple enough to grasp. Another description is on Orbital Mechanics (where SMA equation at 4.32 is valid for all conics, clearly when excess velocity is > 0 the result of the equation turns negative).

Thanks @diomedea, I always like to learn more!