[0.22.0] Rendezvous Tutorial 1.1.0

[blizzy78]

Looking for a plugin developer to take over this plugin! See this thread for details.

I've made a plugin that uses the interactive in-game tutorial system to teach rendezvous maneuvers.

Download Rendezvous Tutorial 1.1.0

Please let me know what you think or what can be improved about it. Thanks!

In case you're interested, I've also made an in-game docking tutorial and an in-game moon travel tutorial.

Changes:

1.1.0, 2013-08-28
- Players may skip back to previous tutorial pages now.
- Minor improvements.

1.0.1, 2013-08-19
- Vessel now has infinite fuel so that the player does not have to care about that.

1.0.0, 2013-08-15
- Initial public release.

The Rendezvous Tutorial is licensed under the GNU GPL v3.

Edited November 25, 2014 by blizzy78

[HeadHunter67]

Thanks for developing and releasing this, and for giving me the opportunity to test it!

[matwig98]

thanks man it worked alot for me a happy kerbal

[drtedastro]

Good job. This worked great and will be a 'must' for all new kerbalnauts... and a good refresher for the not so new kerbalnauts.....

I look forward to seeing what other tutorials you put out....

[drtedastro]

Just noticed the following.

When the tutorial is started, something starts to run amok and is being logged into the ksp.log file. the scenario still works and runs, but the log file just keeps growing and growing. a sample of where this starts and what is being repeated follows; NOTE: that the EXC....NullRef.... line repeats and repeats, etc until tutorial is shutdown and ksp. Any ideas?

[LOG 12:53:22.376] Game State Saved as persistent

[LOG 12:53:24.083] Unpacking Docking Trainer 4

[EXC 12:53:53.842] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

[EXC 12:53:53.845] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

[EXC 12:53:53.860] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

[blizzy78]

I believe this belongs to the Docking Tutorial rather than the Rendezvous Tutorial?

Anyway, please upload a copy of your output_log.txt, thanks. Also, please try without any other mods to minimize impact when trying to reproduce the error.

[drtedastro]

oops, you are correct... sorry, will move over there.....

And, then will come over to see what's happening over here.

thanks blizzy78

[Renhoak]

Excellent Tutorial.. Only problem I found was I kept running out of fuel just before the 2Km rendezvous. Had to use Hyper edit to fill up again but other than that, this has helped me alot. Thank you for your work and effort in both this and your docking tutorial.

[blizzy78]

I'll change it so that fuel is infinite. I didn't think anyone would run into this

[HeadHunter67]

I had considered suggesting that but I didn't think anyone would actually burn all of the fuel - and if it happened, I personally think it's better to go back and retry the mission. If you're not careful with fuel use during a rendezvous, you might find yourself stuck in orbit with no way to go home.

[blizzy78]

New version is out, now fuel infinite fuel.

[PrivateFlip]

Great someone is making a tutorial for this, this is one of the hardest things to get. I can already do it but decided to test the tutorial anyways.

I do have some suggestions:

-make the inclination difference larger so it's more obvious. It's obvious for us, but for the newbie player the planes might seem to be 'almost' equal.

-maybe explain what the ascending and descending node is (how they look like). I get it but but a newbie player might not. Something along the line of "The ascending node descending node are marked by the white dotted lines connecting ship's orbit with the target orbit.

-execute the maneuver. Maybe be a little more explicit that a player has to carry out the maneuver because again its a newbie player.

-in real gameplay it isn't always possible to get an intercept in one orbit. Maybe explain this to the player and make it clear they sometimes will have to wait a few orbits for the opportunity to present itself in other situations.

-getting the a rendezvous within 2 km might be too hard for the newbie player; I couldn't get one after being a little sloppy on the inclination matching maneuver. Give the player a little bigger leeway, like 5 km.

-In the "Closing in" before telling what to do explain the purple prograde points into the direction of the target and the purple retrograde points away just like you explained what the green/yellow markers signify. When you tell the player to burn to the purple prograde also tell them why they are doing this: "Burn to the bla bla to as peed of 10-20 to start moving towards the target" The same goes for reducing speed to zero whit the green/yellow retrograde marker "Then as the green prograde marker starts to deviate from the purple prograde marker .... to 0 m/s to eliminate your relative speed in relation to the target."

These are just some suggestions. I really think it's a good tutorial and it's great somebody took the time to explain it step by step.

Haven't tried your docking tutorial yet.

[blizzy78]

-make the inclination difference larger so it's more obvious. It's obvious for us, but for the newbie player the planes might seem to be 'almost' equal.

Right. I didn't want to incline it even more because of the longer burn time, and it might be easier to not get it down to zero. But I'll look into it again.

-maybe explain what the ascending and descending node is (how they look like). I get it but but a newbie player might not. Something along the line of "The ascending node descending node are marked by the white dotted lines connecting ship's orbit with the target orbit.

I'll try to come up with those icons like with the other markers.

-execute the maneuver. Maybe be a little more explicit that a player has to carry out the maneuver because again its a newbie player.

Not quite sure what can be done here. I actually don't want to explain maneuver nodes all that much because it isn't a tutorial about those.

-in real gameplay it isn't always possible to get an intercept in one orbit. Maybe explain this to the player and make it clear they sometimes will have to wait a few orbits for the opportunity to present itself in other situations.

Right. In the tutorial it is possible because I've specifically set it up like that, but an additional page explaining that you might have to wait is a good idea.

-getting the a rendezvous within 2 km might be too hard for the newbie player; I couldn't get one after being a little sloppy on the inclination matching maneuver. Give the player a little bigger leeway, like 5 km.

Actually I chose being rather strict at that point. First, there's plenty of time to fiddle with the maneuver node at that point in the tutorial (I think it's about half an hour or so out.) You can also zoom in when dragging the node around the orbit to make even smaller adjustments. Second, it's rather easy to be too soon or to late on the braking maneuver, or not precisely hitting the target retrograde marker when braking - all that will increase the closest approach distance again. So instead of 5 km, you'll end up with like 7 or 8 or even 10.

Also as before, not quite a tutorial about maneuver nodes.

-In the "Closing in" before telling what to do explain the purple prograde points into the direction of the target and the purple retrograde points away just like you explained what the green/yellow markers signify.

I specifically chose to ignore markers not relevant to the tutorial, in this case the anti-target marker.

When you tell the player to burn to the purple prograde also tell them why they are doing this: "Burn to the bla bla to as peed of 10-20 to start moving towards the target" The same goes for reducing speed to zero whit the green/yellow retrograde marker "Then as the green prograde marker starts to deviate from the purple prograde marker .... to 0 m/s to eliminate your relative speed in relation to the target."

Hmm, the specific texts from the tutorial must be these:

- "2. Throttle up to about 10-20 m/s relative velocity. This will bring us closer."

- "3. To brake, rotate our vessel and point it towards the 'retrograde' marker again, then throttle up to bring the relative velocity down to zero."

I agree about the first one, your suggestion makes for a nicer sentence

About the second, it depends on the understanding of "relative velocity." If the player is sure about what "relative velocity (between two vessels)" means, the original text should be quite clear as it is.

These are just some suggestions. I really think it's a good tutorial and it's great somebody took the time to explain it step by step.

Thanks, I really appreciate the suggestions. Please keep them coming

In making the two tutorials I really felt that it can be quite a challenge to come up with relatively short explanations and build up players' knowledge at the same time. There's only so much screen space, and you also have to cut down on information overload. That also plays into why I chose not to explain too much about maneuver nodes and irrelevant nav ball markers.

Haven't tried your docking tutorial yet.

Please do if you can spare the time. I'm always interested to hear other people's thoughts.

Too bad the feedback on the two tutorials is quite thin so far. There have been quite some downloads, but not a lot of people have spoken up yet.

Edited August 20, 2013 by blizzy78

[PrivateFlip]

Right. I didn't want to incline it even more because of the longer burn time, and it might be easier to not get it down to zero. But I'll look into it again.

Didn't thought about that.

Not quite sure what can be done here. I actually don't want to explain maneuver nodes all that much because it isn't a tutorial about those.

I understand that. Its just the sentence "execute the node," does the newbie player understand what that means? Maybe "Execute this node like you learned in earlier tutorials"

Actually I chose being rather strict at that point. First, there's plenty of time to fiddle with the maneuver node at that point in the tutorial (I think it's about half an hour or so out.) You can also zoom in when dragging the node around the orbit to make even smaller adjustments. Second, it's rather easy to be too soon or to late on the braking maneuver, or not precisely hitting the target retrograde marker when braking - all that will increase the closest approach distance again. So instead of 5 km, you'll end up with like 7 or 8 or even 10.

I executed my inclination burn a little sloppy so I couldn't get it below two with just using the prograde (and retrogade). These days I can get them within one or two most of the time but in my early days I often settled on anything below ten kilometre before burning towards the target because I just didn't really have the skill to get it any lower. I see your reasoning however.

Hmm, the specific texts from the tutorial must be these:

- "2. Throttle up to about 10-20 m/s relative velocity. This will bring us closer."

- "3. To brake, rotate our vessel and point it towards the 'retrograde' marker again, then throttle up to bring the relative velocity down to zero."

I agree about the first one, your suggestion makes for a nicer sentence

About the second, it depends on the understanding of "relative velocity." If the player is sure about what "relative velocity (between two vessels)" means, the original text should be quite clear as it is.

[blizzy78]

Someone suggested to add a "Back" button to every tutorial page. Well the actual going back is not a problem, but I've also tried to restore the vessel's orbit like it was on the previous page, but I failed. I'm actually able to restore the orbit, but the vessel's position in the orbit does not get restored properly. So much for that plan :-(

[kevo]

hi where do i install the files i tried just putting in gamedata but i cant find them when i go into scenarios and i tried putting them in the plugin folder and still nothing showing ? thx

[blizzy78]

Just put everything in GameData\ into your GameData\ folder, and the stuff in saves\ into your saves\. Please note that when a folder already exists - such as saves\training\ - DO NOT delete your folder, but put the new stuff besides it. In the end, you should end up with GameData\blizzy\... and saves\training\E_RendezvousTutorial.sfs, all in addition to stuff that was already there.

[kevo]

thx alot for the answer blizzy

[blizzy78]

Rendezvous Tutorial 1.1.0 is now available for download. Now including going back to previous tutorial pages, as well as improvements as suggested by PrivateFlip.

[Wice]

Thank you so much for these tutorials. I've seen a lot of docking videos but these tutorials really helped me to finally do my first docking!

Edited August 31, 2013 by Wice

[blizzy78]

Thanks, good to see it worked out for you.

[Jirnsum]

Thanks for this I've been playing around with KSP for about two weeks now, and got satellites, Mun probes and Mun landers down so rendezvous and docking was the next step. This tutorial is so much more helpful than watching vids and reading articles. Well done!

[Jirnsum]

EDIT: double-post, sorry

Edited August 30, 2013 by Jirnsum

[Wice]

Thanks, good to see it worked out for you.

Yeah, I can't believe that 48 hours ago, I didn't know how to dock and thanks to your tutorials I've already made 13 dockings from 7 launches in order to put this together:

It's not done yet, but progressing nicely, so thanks again

Edited August 31, 2013 by Wice

[Scarecrow88]

Just tried the rendezvous tutorial and overall I thought it was very good. Only improvement I would suggest is on the Closing In section. You say to burn towards the target marker to move towards the target, and to burn retrograde to brake, and to repeat steps 1-3 until you are close. What you don't say, and what will probably not be obvious to a newbie, is when you would start braking and/or why.

Most of us that are comfortable with this manoeuvre will know that at some point it's likely your prograde marker will start to drift away from the target marker, as the intercept course starts to drift. Also the experienced player will know that this is the point that you would reduce your closing speed by burning retrograde, and then do a new burn towards the target again, but a newbie will probably not recognise that this is the point when he should be doing that.

A couple of lines on this page of the tutorial will solve that, and perhaps also give a greater understanding of the rendezvous process as a whole.