Orbit-relative time warp

[Kasuha]

When the ship is on very eccentric or even hyperbolic orbit with low periapsis, time warp moves the ship along this orbit very unevenly. Warping visually using the map always feels more convenient than navigating by numbers, e.g. to a maneuver - but on such orbits it may lead to overshooting the target place in orbit by large margin (or even missing e.g. atmospheric entry altogether).

So the idea is to add an option for time warp which would warp the ship along the orbit by constant distances instead of constant time periods. Lowest time warp could be e.g. 1/1000 of the orbit (or its visible part for hyperbolic/SOI intersecting orbits) and every higher warp step could be about three times more, i.e. about 1/300, 1/100, 1/30, 1/10. I don't think more than five steps would be necessary.

[vexx32]

You'll still end up moving faster around the Ap/Pe as they are the 'endpoints' of the orbit, but yes, this would make it much more utilitarian. My only concern is... how in the heck would this kind of a system even work, code-wise? Warping over a period of time is fairly straightforward, but attempting to adjust time for distance? I would expect the warp speed to jump up and down in increments as it samples the distances and speeds of each new section of the orbit... if you want it to be smooth, it's going to be hellishly complex to code, I think.

Nonetheless, it could be quite useful.

[Traches]

OP, you should look into a mod called kerbal alarm clock. You can set alarms for specific times (Apoapse, periapse, maneuver nodes, SOI changes, etc.) and it'll automatically drop you out of warp at exactly the right time. That, or mechjeb has a warp helper that works pretty well too (but it's not as good as KAC).

[Kasuha]

My only concern is... how in the heck would this kind of a system even work, code-wise?

Length of conic defined by an orbit is deterministic and can be calculated. So is possible to calculate length of a conic arc. All you need then is to calculate length of the orbit (either whole conic or a conic arc if it intersects SOI boundary), and determine the time step needed for the ship to advance along its orbit by appropriate portion of that distance (another, smaller conic arc). Then perform time step of corresponding length. Of course the time step would differ for different places in the orbit, but that's exactly the reason for this suggestion - so the player doesn't need to watch that and the game does it for him.