How to plan encounters more than one orbit in advance

[metaphor]

Maneuver planning

I made this picture album earlier to explain some of my gravity assist missions, and I found out a lot of people were interested in how to do this, so here it is.

Basically the game computes your orbit after the last maneuver node that you put down. So let's say you first make a maneuver node where you want to change your orbit. The game will then show you what your orbit looks like after that maneuver node. If you then place another maneuver node right behind that one, it will actually show it as one orbit later. So now the screen will show what your orbit will look like after 1 more orbital period. Leave the second maneuver node at 0 m/s. Now if you change the first maneuver node, the screen will show the effect of that first maneuver node on your orbit after 1 more orbital period. You can add a 3rd, 4th, etc maneuver node, each one behind the previous, to see what your orbit will look like 2, 3, etc orbital periods in advance.

I found this useful for planning encounters with planets or the moons of Jool. It is also useful for planning ship-to-ship encounters in advance, since an earlier burn = less delta-v used.