Am I the only one who dislikes the auto-switching to Target mode on the navball?

[Dunbaratu]

I've been screwed up by the auto-switch to target mode on the navball enough times that I'm really starting to hate that feature. (i.e. I try to de-orbit, I waste fuel and can't figure out what's wrong, and then notice the game has changed the navball to target mode without me noticing, so the retrograde marker isn't my *REAL* retrograde marker.)

First off, it confused me back when I was a newbie first learning to dock because people would tell you to "burn retrograde until your velocity stops" without mentioning that this isn't the same retrograde as before, and the navball markers have changed their meaning automatically without me doing anything. It confused me because it made no sense how burning retrograde would do that, when I thought it was orbital retrograde and not target retrograde.

I strongly feel that the change of modes should happen only with the manual click by the player on the navball, and NOT happen automatically without player input. When the meaning of a thing changes without any player input telling it to change it causes confusion. I've also had the game swap modes on me when I wasn't actually trying to dock yet but I just happened to have gotten near enough to my selected target ship that it changed modes "for me" without warning.

[astropapi1]

Kinda on-topic: The auto-camera switch when entering orbit. God I HATE IT!

[AlamoVampire]

I agree it can be jarring. Worse is when you are trying to fine tune an approach to say the Mun and you get the SOI camera swap - which can be worse if everything decides it wants to take a frames per second holiday for a moment :S - I think, and this just me, if you had 2 distinct Prograde and Retrograde markers that differed in color, one color showing your Prograde and Retro with regards to the actual orbit you are on and one that is a diff color that showed Pro/Retro with regards to your target, that may help - or may make it even more confusing - just an idea lol.

[Dunbaratu]

Kinda on-topic: The auto-camera switch when entering orbit. God I HATE IT!

Meh. It's slightly annoying but it doesn't cause an entire scrapped mission like burning the wrong direction because the game secretly changed the navball mode without you noticing.

[Person012345]

Or you could just learn the system. No offence intended, it's just that if it's changed 90% of the community who are already familiar with the current system will suddenly find themselves burning the wrong retrograde because they're used to it auto changing. It didn't auto change for me once and I ended up posting a help topic about it and thought that the fact that I was burning retrograde and my orbit was increasing was a bug until the navball mode was pointed out to me.

[Mr. Scruffy]

It would be nice, if auto-cam-mode told you which mode it is switching to, when it does switch. You know, standard message saying, for example: ´Switching to orbital camera-mode´. Likewise for the navball: ´Switching to nav-ball target-mode´, or something like that.

EDIT: Thinking about it, i guess, there wont be these messages, but, in the final game, rather audio-snippets telling you this (or at least that something has switched, if your kerbalish is not that good yet).

Edited August 17, 2013 by Mr. Scruffy

[Teodzero]

Or you could just learn the system. No offence intended, it's just that if it's changed 90% of the community who are already familiar with the current system will suddenly find themselves burning the wrong retrograde because they're used to it auto changing. It didn't auto change for me once and I ended up posting a help topic about it and thought that the fact that I was burning retrograde and my orbit was increasing was a bug until the navball mode was pointed out to me.

You are okay with it, but that doesn't mean everyone should be.

It may switch by default, but there definitely should be an option to disable it. Everything the game does without your permission should have those options.

[Person012345]

You are okay with it, but that doesn't mean everyone should be.

It may switch by default, but there definitely should be an option to disable it. Everything the game does without your permission should have those options.

I would not care if there was an option. Just don't make it default.

[Skyrunner27]

Kinda on-topic: The auto-camera switch when entering orbit. God I HATE IT!

Even worse is when the camera switches when your landing. Actually the camera switching by itself anywhere is annoying.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It's far worse when you undock a control node, and the resulting craft ends up oriented hell knows where, without much indication. My eyes are usually glued enough to the navball during docking approach that I always spot the switch - especially considering that the current velocity changes drastically.

I've had more missions failed due to odd choices for the current control point than due to navball mode switching to "target" or back. I don't even remember how many of the former I had, but any number is greater than zero.

[tobjv]

Well at least you can press the navballs target/orbit/surface marker to switch it to one of those 3. I'd rather have a notification of it about to happen then to remove it.

[leax256]

I've been screwed up by the auto-switch to target mode on the navball enough times that I'm really starting to hate that feature. (i.e. I try to de-orbit, I waste fuel and can't figure out what's wrong, and then notice the game has changed the navball to target mode without me noticing, so the retrograde marker isn't my *REAL* retrograde marker.)

First off, it confused me back when I was a newbie first learning to dock because people would tell you to "burn retrograde until your velocity stops" without mentioning that this isn't the same retrograde as before, and the navball markers have changed their meaning automatically without me doing anything. It confused me because it made no sense how burning retrograde would do that, when I thought it was orbital retrograde and not target retrograde.

I strongly feel that the change of modes should happen only with the manual click by the player on the navball, and NOT happen automatically without player input. When the meaning of a thing changes without any player input telling it to change it causes confusion. I've also had the game swap modes on me when I wasn't actually trying to dock yet but I just happened to have gotten near enough to my selected target ship that it changed modes "for me" without warning.

so you are trying to deorbit but you have a target locked...of course it must be the game's fault

"game swap modes" what do you mean.

[Dunbaratu]

Or you could just learn the system. No offence intended, it's just that if it's changed 90% of the community who are already familiar with the current system will suddenly find themselves burning the wrong retrograde because they're used to it auto changing. It didn't auto change for me once and I ended up posting a help topic about it and thought that the fact that I was burning retrograde and my orbit was increasing was a bug until the navball mode was pointed out to me.

The point is that it's a manually controlled thing - you change it by clicking on the title of the navball. And when the computer jumps in and wrests that control from you and takes over and overrides what you've done, it's the computer's fault that your flight screwed up, not yours.

Where's the button for me to click on to say "stop changing what I set this too dammit! I said orbital mode and I meant it!"?

[Dunbaratu]

so you are trying to deorbit but you have a target locked...of course it must be the game's fault

"game swap modes" what do you mean.

Even if I have set the mode to "orbital" the game will OVERRIDE that without warning and change it back to target mode. Would you think it's acceptable for the game to suddenly throttle up when you didn't tell it to? To suddenly engage SAS when you didn't tell it to? Why is it acceptable for it to change navball modes when you didn't tell it to?

[Technical Ben]

Or you could just learn the system. No offence intended, it's just that if it's changed 90% of the community who are already familiar with the current system will suddenly find themselves burning the wrong retrograde because they're used to it auto changing. It didn't auto change for me once and I ended up posting a help topic about it and thought that the fact that I was burning retrograde and my orbit was increasing was a bug until the navball mode was pointed out to me.

"Better signposting" would be a more polite answer than "learn to read". Ball, throw, so others can catch. Else no one will wish to play a game with you. Or in this instance, converse on a board where we can post our experiences, strengths and troubles we find in the game.

[sal_vager]

Just want to mention the auto changing camera here, makes me ill when it switches to and from orbital mode.

[Beeman]

I actually like now the navball switches between like orbital, target and surface modes. I seem to always be in the map view when it happens so I haven't noticed it doing weird things with the camera.

Either way, I can definitely agree that this system could be better handled and perhaps they'll rework it someday. I kinda doubt it'd be anything they bother with soon, though. On the plus side, they're always looking at ways to improve the user experience, so if enough people want to see a change with this stuff, they'll undoubtedly work on it at some point

[AlamoVampire]

i do agree that it should be an option to disable the auto swap or to have options to fine tune the auto swapping. barring that, some sort of audio cue that the change has happened.

[MR4Y]

The "funniest" thing of this is that your controls are swapped when the camera changes, which screws whatever maneuver you're trying to do. It's not even possible to pilot only using the navball.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Controls are always relative to the navball, so it's perfectly feasible. I never saw controls change due to camera mode switching. Worst case, you're switching camera and navball modes at the same time, but you can still tell which mode you're in when looking at the navball.

It's a lot worse when your control point changes after docking maneuvers. A lot worse. It's something you can never spot on the navball itself until you correlate with what you're seeing your rocket do.

Also no, I wouldn't turn off automatic navball mode switching if such an option were presented. As-is, I am more annoyed by when it fails to automatically switch. Target mode only appears when you have a target selected, and clearing it is as easy as double-clicking on empty space in the viewport. Surface mode automatically switches to orbit mode when you're high enough for orbit to be possible, and switches back when you're more likely to be interested in surface-relative velocity.

If you would rather have to manually switch modes every time you begin and end a target approach, why do you not manually check that you're in the right mode when you do the same now?

[MR4Y]

In my case, the controls change in relation to which angle you're looking at the ship.

[Sean Mirrsen]

If you mean relative to the camera, then of course they do. Look at the ship from the side, and what was pitch will look like roll. All that changes between Free and Orbital camera modes is that Free is oriented to the surface plane, while Orbital is oriented to the orbital plane.

And by the way, you can always prevent that by manually changing to Free mode. By default, the camera is on Auto.

[MR4Y]

If you mean relative to the camera, then of course they do. Look at the ship from the side, and what was pitch will look like roll. All that changes between Free and Orbital camera modes is that Free is oriented to the surface plane, while Orbital is oriented to the orbital plane.

And by the way, you can always prevent that by manually changing to Free mode. By default, the camera is on Auto.

And that makes it harder to pilot using the navball. The navball shows the target on the same place, regardless of where you're looking the target from. The navball doesn't change, so why the controllers have to?

[Sean Mirrsen]

And that makes it harder to pilot using the navball. The navball shows the target on the same place, regardless of where you're looking the target from. The navball doesn't change, so why the controllers have to?

They don't. Like I said, I never noticed the behavior you're describing. All controls are relative to the navball. Even if you change SOI, the navball will change to reflect the new frame of reference, but the center mark will still point forward, and all controls will function the same. Even if you change the control point to a docking port perpendicular to your actual heading, the controls will work relative to the navball.

Can you provide an example? Because I'm honestly not seeing it. I've flown many different ships into orbit, using nothing but the map screen and the navball after the last booster stage is detached. Closest thing to a "change" is how your prograde marker jumps sideways to reflect your actual orbital velocity, when the navball switches to orbital mode.

Edited August 18, 2013 by Sean Mirrsen

[MR4Y]

They don't. Like I said, I never noticed the behavior you're describing. All controls are relative to the navball. Even if you change SOI, the navball will change to reflect the new frame of reference, but the center mark will still point forward, and all controls will function the same. Even if you change the control point to a docking port perpendicular to your actual heading, the controls will work relative to the navball.

Can you provide an example? Because I'm honestly not seeing it. I've flown many different ships into orbit, using nothing but the map screen and the navball after the last booster stage is detached. Closest thing to a "change" is how your prograde marker jumps sideways to reflect your actual orbital velocity, when the navball switches to orbital mode.

A video will be uploaded shortly.