[1.0.2] Navball docking alignment indicator v7

[mic_e]

Thanks, I'll include it in the main post. What's the facial hair mod?

[wasmic]

Thanks, I'll include it in the main post. What's the facial hair mod?

I think it might be Universe Replacer, as it can replace pretty much every texture by now.

Great mod, by the way.

[Superfluous J]

Thanks, I'll include it in the main post. What's the facial hair mod?

Yeah it's Universe Replacer and someone just came out with those beards. It also has female faces too but none of them made it into the video.

[lincourtl]

Awesome! Thank you.

[NavyFish]

Excellent work, mic_e!

Truth be told, this was what I had envisioned for the Docking Port Alignment Indicator mod when it was first conceived. I couldn't figure out how to draw on the Navball (Kitoban hadn't released his Enhanced Navball mod yet), so I went with a pop-up window instead.

Alignment and orientation - that's all you need to dock with the navball! Great work

[mic_e]

Excellent work, mic_e!

Thanks!

Kitoban hadn't released his Enhanced Navball mod yet

Yeah, I really owe him. I guess he spent a weekend of blood, sweat and tears brute-forcing the transformations and layer till he had the first correct marker on his navball...

[Yaivenov]

Love the minimalist approach, but a small observation and suggestion.

There are times when the target velocity indicator isn't visible, reversed, or otherwise affected and thus less reliable for translational alignment. Perhaps a horizontal/vertical-only velocity vector could be added? Just a simple red line that stretches from the center of the target alignment indicator, in the direction you are moving along the two axis that are perpendicular to the docking port, and with a length proportional to your relative speed on that plane.

(Quick edit because sometimes my brain tries to shift without a clutch...)

Edited October 28, 2013 by Yaivenov

[Superfluous J]

Actually what I want for this mod is the "target" speed readout to switch to horizontal/vertical instead of just a number. Something like this bad mockup (the right side, obviously, and better sized and placed):

[kitoban]

Nice work there mic_e!

Will have to take that off my list of requested features looks like works in the way I had considered doing in when I got to it. Had a bit of a lull in my coding as things go busy IRL glad to see someone has picked this up.

Yeah, I really owe him. I guess he spent a weekend of blood, sweat and tears brute-forcing the transformations and layer till he had the first correct marker on his navball...

Pretty much sums things up, I still have the experimentation code from earlier guess work where I had indicators flying all over the screen. Took a number of frustrating evenings till I found the right variables to hook into to get the results I wanted.

[CoriW]

I really like this, I always thought that the Docking Port Alignment Indicator was a little too obtrusive. This fixes that and gives that "Stock" feel, good job.

[RoboRay]

Suggestion: If you make the horizontal red strokes of the orientation marker longer than the orange horizontal strokes of the NavBall longitudinal axis marking (the -v-), it would be a little easier to get a perfect rotation alignment by superimposing the two lines together on the NavBall. As it is, the red lines are hidden behind the -v-. If they stuck out to the sides, it would be easier to see a mismatch.

Edited November 19, 2013 by RoboRay

[KwirkyJ]

Hi guys, I just wrote a mod that provides a docking alignment indicator as a marker on the Navball.

When a docking port is selected as target, an additional red marker will appear on your navball, indicating the direction your docking port has to face for a perfect docking (that is, the negative normal direction of the target docking port).

In addition to the direction, the marker will also indicate the roll of the target, which is helpful where exact orientation is required, such as for assembling stations or multi-porting dockings.

The mod is heavily inspired by NavyFish's awesome Docking Alignment Indicator mod, but uses a much more minimalistic approach: Its only feature is the red alignment marker on the navball.

It is perfectly compatible with kitonban's Enhanced Navball mod, which provides other additional markers.

I wish to thank NavyFish, for the idea, and kitoban, from whom I took a whole lot of NavBall-drawing code.

The mod is part-free, i.e. it will work on all your existing vessels.

SpacePort download

!!EDITED!!

This is pretty much exactly what I'd been looking for. Elegant execution, easy to use, and mostly unobtrusive. Kudos! It shames me to not have returned to this thread sooner.

Now to get something like this absorbed into the vanilla build....

[peter1981]

Great work

[anarkhon]

insta default mod for KSP!

[Jim DiGriz]

Yes... when learning docking this was that thing that I kept going "why don't they just... *this*"

[kiwiak]

I have bug of some sort when i use it with enhanced navball.. when i go into target node normal and radial indicators vanish, prograde and retrograde start shaking.

Anyone else? Maybe some other mod is messing with it.

Edited December 11, 2013 by kiwiak

[taniwha]

(and suffering the problem that the DPAI's movements were opposite those of the navball)

Actually, DPAI's indicators work exactly the same as on the navball, but that may not be obvious at first. The white reticule is the -w- of the navball, thus once you get used to thinking of moving the reticule relative to the markers (rather than moving the markers relative to the reticule), it makes perfect sense.

That said, this is indeed a much cleaner design.

Also, I rather like your suggestion of updating the digital display, but having roll too would be nice.

Anyway, already downloaded

[mic_e]

I have bug of some sort when i use it with enhanced navball.. when i go into target node normal and radial indicators vanish, prograde and retrograde start shaking.

Anyone else? Maybe some other mod is messing with it.

Enhanced Navball by default does not display Normal/Radial indicators when in target mode. Note that in target mode, it does not display your orbital velocity, but the difference of your and your target's velocities. If you stand almost still relative to your target, the (pro-/retro)grade indicators will start to shake, or even disappear.

I don't believe the Navball docking alignment indicator has anything to do with this.

[mic_e]

I've just released a new version of the mod, compiled for 0.23.

There were no actual source code changes neccesary, the old DLL might even continue working.

Anyways, the ZIP folder structure has been slightly changed, to be more like all the other mods.

Also, the readme file now has a .txt extension

Make sure that you overwrite or manually remove the old version of the mod when installing the new one, or else, there might be Unforeseen Consequences.

[Volt Cruelerz]

Would you possibly consider making the indicator black or something? I'm colorblind, so the red is quite difficult to see sometimes and is the reason I regrettably don't use this mod and instead get stuck using docking cameras from Romfarer (not a fan of the other docking indicator mod).

Edited December 18, 2013 by Volt Cruelerz

[mic_e]

Actually what I want for this mod is the "target" speed readout to switch to horizontal/vertical instead of just a number. Something like this bad mockup (the right side, obviously, and better sized and placed):

Sorry, I, too, like numbers a lot, but most posters here seem to be quite happy with the stock feeling, so I don't want to change that. Also, I have no idea how to draw numbers there

It might be a better solution to draw an additional target velocity indicator, one that ignores forward-/backward motion, or just assumes a forward motion of 1.

However, to keep in line with harv, I think additional markers/information might just confuse a lot of people and in the end make the mod a lot less useful.

Anyways, if someone would send a working pull-request for a feature like that, I'd gladly accept it and add it as a (non-default) config option.

[mic_e]

Would you possibly consider making the indicator black or something? I'm colorblind, so the red is quite difficult to see sometimes and is the reason I regrettably don't use this mod and instead get stuck using docking cameras from Romfarer (not a fan of the other docking indicator mod).

Just a matter of changing one number in the source code. I'll see if I maybe can put that into a config file. In the meanwhile, use this dll file: http://pub.sft.mx/NavBallDockingAlignmentIndicator1black.dll (delete the old one)

[Volt Cruelerz]

Just a matter of changing one number in the source code. I'll see if I maybe can put that into a config file. In the meanwhile, use this dll file: http://pub.sft.mx/NavBallDockingAlignmentIndicator1black.dll (delete the old one)

thank you!

[Desrtfox]

Sorry, I, too, like numbers a lot, but most posters here seem to be quite happy with the stock feeling, so I don't want to change that. Also, I have no idea how to draw numbers there

It might be a better solution to draw an additional target velocity indicator, one that ignores forward-/backward motion, or just assumes a forward motion of 1.

However, to keep in line with harv, I think additional markers/information might just confuse a lot of people and in the end make the mod a lot less useful.

Anyways, if someone would send a working pull-request for a feature like that, I'd gladly accept it and add it as a (non-default) config option.

I'm still using the Romfarer docking camera in addition to your mod, primarily because of the velocity indicator in the Romfarer mod.

Would it be possible to alter the icon on the navball based on the relative velocity? As I understand it, the actual navball indicator is a bitmap of some sort. Perhaps, instead of the one you have now, you could make several of these such that it could indicate your relative velocity (diseways and up and down) by extending the existing axis lines that already exist on the prograde indicator. Let me try to explain a little clearer:

Current:

|

-()-

|

Idea to indicate a relative velocity to the right:

|

-()---

|

or to indicate a relative velocity down:

|

-()-

|

|

I realize this might be a lot of work to craft many icons and swap them in and out, but I feel it could solve the issue of displaying the relative velocity information without cluttering up the otherwise clean interface, and thus keep from adding confusion.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Desrtfox

[RoboRay]

That would be redundant.

The prograde marker already shows you your relative lateral velocity by its position... If it's to the right of your target, you're moving towards the right relative to your target. If it's below your target, you're moving downward relative to your target. You can infer the rate of the lateral component of your velocity by the distance between the markers in respect to your total relative velocity displayed at the top.

Edited December 18, 2013 by RoboRay