Slope indicator on the Navball

[Kasuha]

When you land on a slope, your navball center shows both what the slope of the terrain is and which direction it is inclined. For instance in the image below, the slope of the terrain is about 10 degrees and it is inclined to the east (or west? I'm never sure but whatever).

My idea is: when your height is below 3000 m (where radar altimeter starts to act) put a slope indicator on the navball to exactly the same place where the center of the navball will be if you land at the spot right below you.

That will tell you both how much the terrain below you is sloped (and if you can land on it) and which direction on the navball it is up slope and down slope.

[Zamaszysty]

That is a very good idea indeed!

Alternatively there could be some sort of "height map" for the area You will be landing on maybe with a color code, so that not only You would be able to see what the slope is, but ALSO check if there is some flat area somewhere near in range of a single course correction.

[kiwiak]

Overally idea of indicating slope and terrain shape is very good, but i think it shoudl be done outside navball.

[Kasuha]

Overally idea of indicating slope and terrain shape is very good, but i think it shoudl be done outside navball.

Getting it on the navball in an easy to use way was the point.

[Zamaszysty]

Well, I guess that adding a single marker on the navball only for indication of "90 degrees from contact point" would not be to much for navball, only the general "height map" would require a separate UI part.

I am wondering if that would be ok if we just "had it there" or rather have a height map requiring some sort of additional part that would be sth like a dopler radar or things like that.

[automcdonough]

eh, not sure if i would ever use it anyway. i always come straight down, and if there's an incline let it slooowly tilt down to match. trying to do a harder plant matched to the incline, i'd still be worried it'll bounce and start to tumble.

[Kasuha]

It's not meant for you to match the incline. It's meant to allow you to guess if you can land there before you try and tumble your ship over, and eventually tell you which direction to go to find less inclined terrain - because uphill and downhill are the two most reasonable directions you may want to go from an unsuitable slope.

[Pulstar]

I think it would be difficult to have the game properly determine terrain inclination. For one terrain is 3D, then there is the issue that you have multiple small slopes forming bigger slopes and which one exactly would such a feature pick to show it's direction? The biggest one? The most steep one?

It would be better for the player if he could see a 3D radar image of the terrain chunk right below him in a separate window, preferably with the option to display terrain shape using just wireframes or a heightmap. But I am not sure if it is possible to "cut out" a chunk out of the whole terrain like that. Although you could have a camera that display a shot of terrain "below" the craft (relative to your point of control) with wireframes shown, or indeed with a relative height-map. Wireframes would give you shape, the heighmapt would tell you where the terrain is most flat (less tone change=more flat). Not sure how much work would that be or if it is indeed possible for technical reasons.

[Kasuha]

Erm... right below you is just one slope. You can run a ray straight down, collide it with surface, select the polygon with which the collision occurred and its normal is what you want to display. You need to do something like that to determine radar altitude anyway.

The terrain is reasonably smooth so the slope value does not change drastically if you hover slowly above the terrain. In most places at least.

[automcdonough]

there's an enhanced navball mod which is pretty good. if you can convince him showing a point perpendicular to the surface slope is a good idea he may add it without much trouble. or even just a readout off to the side indicating 3.5º or whatever the slope directly beneath you is.

could even me a separate mod sonar type part? not sure if a part is justified over one little reading. i wonder if MJ already has it on the surface readout window? don't remember and I'm at work..

[SolarLiner]

Overally idea of indicating slope and terrain shape is very good, but i think it should be done outside navball.

Could be implemented as a radar part mod, with a slope heatmap on the Map to let you see where the slopes are (the more blue, the more flat, the more red, the more inclined)

[Zamaszysty]

^^

That's actualy even better idea than just a height map.

I totalu agree with that way of presenting that data along with a surface speed (only in X and Z axis, ignoring the vertical speed) with direction indicator. So in other words You could have something exactly like navball (or maybe a navball alternative display mode?) with slope inclination heatmap a "dot" indicating a ship in the middle and a vector of movement indicating the direction You are moving in with surface speed instead of total speed (or alternatively the surface speed additionaly except the default total speed).

If somebody would create a mode like that I would kill to get it

[Dwight_js]

With the help of some basic GIS tools I've incorporated slope analysis into my mission planning with the help of Kerbal Maps (http://www.kerbalmaps.com/). I saved their elevation tiles to my local machine, then displayed them in 3D with the results of the analysis showing areas with less than 5 degrees tilt. It let me get familiar with the layout of the landing site before going and let me choose the best area to shoot for.

Here's a photo of the analysis results: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=17575088&size=lg

I would love to see something like this incorporated into the final version. You would deploy mapping satellites or aircraft mounted detectors to obtain your heigh-map data, then use it in a mission planning lab to conduct analysis to determine the best landing site. Maybe it could allow you to create "knee-board" style approach charts that you reference as you attempt your landing.

Edited October 25, 2013 by Dwight_js

[Zamaszysty]

Sonar is a really BAD word for this ... SONIC-Radar (that is the origin of the word sonar) is not a thing that would work in a vacuum

[Kasuha]

Since I made these screenshots already, I could put them here after all.

The original idea is that the indicator on the navball might look like this (the black star) ...

... before I land like this: