How to know if fine controls is on?

[Spyritdragon]

Apart from the obvious checking of your control systems and seeing if they're in fine controls mode, is there any indicator or way to see wether you're in normal or fine control mode?

Would be useful to know with RCS lever arm compensation being re-added. :-)

[blizzy78]

Nope.

/10chars

[sgt_flyer]

the markers on the pitch / yaw / roll / x/y/z gauges are blue instead of orange when you are in fine control mode

[SRV Ron]

Apart from the obvious checking of your control systems and seeing if they're in fine controls mode, is there any indicator or way to see wether you're in normal or fine control mode?

Would be useful to know with RCS lever arm compensation being re-added. :-)

My laptop has a tiny blue LED on the cap lock key that lights up when cap lock is on.

[HeadHunter67]

Caps Lock, in and of itself, is not a reliable indicator. If it's already on before the rocket was launched (for instance, after a previous mission), or certain glitches, can lead to Caps Lock being on but RCS in normal mode. As sgt_flyer said, there's just one real way to know.

[Tiron]

Caps Lock, in and of itself, is not a reliable indicator. If it's already on before the rocket was launched (for instance, after a previous mission), or certain glitches, can lead to Caps Lock being on but RCS in normal mode. As sgt_flyer said, there's just one real way to know.

Yep, the arrows on the pitch/roll/yaw indicators do indeed go blue when it's on. Though so far as I can tell, all it actually does is make it take longer to go to full deflection when you push the button. When I've tried it on spaceplanes, they didn't seem any less maneuverable, it just didn't kick in to full as quickly.

[Spyritdragon]

Yep, the arrows on the pitch/roll/yaw indicators do indeed go blue when it's on. Though so far as I can tell, all it actually does is make it take longer to go to full deflection when you push the button. When I've tried it on spaceplanes, they didn't seem any less maneuverable, it just didn't kick in to full as quickly.

.21 has had the principle of 'lever arm compensation' worked back in into fine controls - when enabled now, your RCS ports will compensate for being further away from the centre of mass by thrusting less, allowing you to move linearly without adding rotation to your craft. Previously, when your RCS ports were not symmetrically placed around the centre of mass, all would fire at full power when asking for linear motion, which would put your ship into a spin. SAS would subsequently use large amounts of monopropellant to try and counter this rotation and it annoyed me to no end.

Thanks for the tip (the indicators you're talking about are the ones in the bottom-left of the screen, right?)

[sgt_flyer]

yes, they are the ones in that corner

[Apollo13]

Spyritdragon: thanks for asking this. I was wondering the same thing and was going to post a thread.

[KerbMav]

I crashed my Munar habitat - no inhabitants, luckily - five times while trying to land near my other base modules ... the crane and the heavy crew container where maneuverable as a pregnant cow to begin with - but using fine controls during orbital alignment, tabbing out, disabling caps lock to chat ... returning to game and wondering why the thing wouldnt turn with fine controls/caps lock led "off" ... *wilhelm*