Time Warping via the Tracking Center.

[Levelord]

Every time I would want to launch to Duna for example, I had to load up a small ship onto the launchpad and time warp the game until Duna comes up in the appropriate phase angle, before loading up the actual ship and launching. This serves up several problems:

* Currently in 0.21 there is a weird glitch that causes the entire system to oscillate rapidly making me dizzy (even when zoomed all the way out in the map view).

* It wastes time loading and unloading an irrelevant craft just to time warp.

* Might induce epilepsy if you're not in map zoom.

* Puts a limit on the speed of the time warp (max is only 100 000×) which means you can easily spend 20 minutes waiting for Jool to come around to the right phase angle.

However, giving the Tracking Center an additional time warp feature will easily cut down on the tedium of waiting for a phase angle.

* There's no need to load up a random ship.

* Ships that you have left in orbit waiting for a phase angle are not bound by the altitude limitations of the time warp.

* The time warp limit could theoretically be pushed over 100 000×, or at least have an alarm clock (like Kerbal alarm clock) which can be set according to which position you want a certain planet to be.

* No headache oscillations (hopefully)

Does anyone have anything to add as well? Overall I think it would be a useful addition

[allmhuran]

Yes, this is something I have wanted as well.

Since you've asked for any additions, I will add: being able to multi-select ships to terminate would be nice so that it is easier to clear debris (without having to go to main menu settings > set persistent debris to 0 > load save > go back to settings > set debris back up again)

[Frederf]

Agree. Even in the "menu" KSC scene.

[Andersenman]

Yes, I often found myself unsuccessfully tapping ; and . in this view!

[Diche Bach]

Yes agree totally!

[Supernovy]

This has been suggested before. I agreed with it then and I agree with it now.

Time warp in the space centre would be neat too.

[Scoundrel]

I've always liked this idea... I think I'd also take it a step further since everything runs on rails when in the TC, there's no reason why we couldn't have the option for a time "jump" using an interface similar to the node system that predicts where planets/objects will be while you set the time to jump to, and an execute button that then jumps to that time practically instantaneously. Thus my vote would be to have both warp and jump features, at least in sandbox mode.

[Dunbaratu]

I've suggested this before and I second the suggestion here. It would seem to me that the tracking center is the ideal place for time warp because there you're guaranteed there's NO ships currently loaded into the full-blown physics model, so all the various reasons for limiting time warp (in the atmosphere, too low altitude, etc) don't apply.

I've launched a stupid little satellite into solar orbit alongside Kebin on an orbit with a radius of roughly 1 AU (or whatever Kerbin's orbit radius is called), named "Time Warp Focuser". The only purpose of the satellite is to give me a place to switch control to so I can be allowed to perform time warps up to 10000x.

[Awaras]

* Currently in 0.21 there is a weird glitch that causes the entire system to oscillate rapidly making me dizzy (even when zoomed all the way out in the map view).

The oscilation happens when the map is centered on your craft, I think. Try centering the map on one of the planets or even the Sun by pressing 'Tab'.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Awaras

[Dunbaratu]

I've always liked this idea... I think I'd also take it a step further since everything runs on rails when in the TC, there's no reason why we couldn't have the option for a time "jump" using an interface similar to the node system that predicts where planets/objects will be while you set the time to jump to, and an execute button that then jumps to that time practically instantaneously. Thus my vote would be to have both warp and jump features, at least in sandbox mode.

How about a single button in the map view that just says "time jump to next maneuver node"?

[Diche Bach]

Not sure if I really should create a new thread for this, but it does seem to be a "related" suggestion so hear goes:

Ability to transfer directly from flying a space craft to the Tracking Center without going through Space Center first.

[Dunbaratu]

Not sure if I really should create a new thread for this, but it does seem to be a "related" suggestion so hear goes:

Ability to transfer directly from flying a space craft to the Tracking Center without going through Space Center first.

Is the real impetus behind this suggestion, however, merely the fact that the time to load the next screen is so long? Would it be that much of a burden to go to space center first then to tracking station if doing so wasn't so slow?

[Levelord]

Is the real impetus behind this suggestion, however, merely the fact that the time to load the next screen is so long? Would it be that much of a burden to go to space center first then to tracking station if doing so wasn't so slow?

That would really depend on how well Squad can optimize the game considering the Unity Engine can only use a single core. The lag and long loading times may never be fixed because of this limitation, so in the interest of time, it would make sense to have a button that links directly to the tracking center to bypass the unavoidable loading times.

[Diche Bach]

Is the real impetus behind this suggestion, however, merely the fact that the time to load the next screen is so long? Would it be that much of a burden to go to space center first then to tracking station if doing so wasn't so slow?

Yes, it is the loading times that I don't like. However, it seems to having to navigate through two screens instead of one roughly doubles the sum of loading times; so if it was possible to cut it in half by skipping one step it would be preferable to me.

Shame that the Unity engine uses only one core. Is that something they are pretty much stuck with permanently!?

[Joe_Bender]

Or 'time jump X days'?

I think it would be better if the feature was in the ESC dialog box where you can end the flight or jump to the space center.

The reason for this is because the game is paused at the moment and any time jump would only be a number crunch for the CPU with no graphics involved.

And you wont have to leave the ship you want to time warp.

[Joe_Bender]

Just to flesh out my previous comment.

I would consider that a day be used as a unit of time measurement for time warping. This would allow the devs to come up with a solution of calculating everything in game and its new position.

Now how does one set this up? Easy.

Hitting the ESC button, gets you the Game Paused dialog box with:

Resume Flight

Space Center

Revert Flight

Settings

Now we just put another push button called 'Time Warp'. Clicking on this button, brings up another dialog box with a input section. The button would say something to the effect, 'Days for Time Warp'. You type in how many days you want to jump to the future and then you will see the 'loading screen' as the program does the math and when its done, you come back to the game and see the ESC dialog button which you would hit ESC to get out of and you are now closer to your maneuver node.

Of course, the new button would have the old 'OK' and 'Cancel' button for obvious reasons.

So for example, I have a spacecraft that is going to Eve but the launch window is for another 30 days, seventeen hours, twenty-four minutes, I would input the 30 days and come out of time warp with just seventeen hours and some change left till my node. That should give me time to back check my maneuver and then just ingame time warp.

Why only 'days' for time warping? Cuz it makes it easier to calculate if you have a set value to put against all the other numbers the game has to crunch to make our internetspaceships fly.