Orbit direction indicator

[aleis]

Very Simple would be nice to have a little arrow on an objects orbit line to indicate what direction it's going with out having to warp speed to see how it moves.

Some times I get lost on what orientation i have the camera set at or if i had mixed up my launch/capture vectors, and you was a lot of fuel finding out which way is up so to say.

And it shouldn't be to hard to implement.

[lajoswinkler]

It would be a truly useful thing, indeed.

[mythbusters844]

It would also be really nice to have a toggle-able (that toggles the arrows?) arrow that shows the direction of planetary/moon's rotation, and also an arrow for planetary/moon's orbits.

[Superfluous J]

planet/moon orbits aren't as important as they always go the same way, provided you know if you're under or over the orbital plane, of course

However, orbital arrows for all ships (and planets too, how much extra clutter could it really be and anything that removes confusion...) would be very welcome.

[Unfawkable]

Agreed. Was trying a docking procedure, only to realize my orbit's direction is opposite of my targets.

[vexx32]

For the current craft, at least, I think it'd be nice and tidy if they just added little arrows to one side of the Ap/Pe markers to indicate which direction the orbit goes.

[peadar1987]

Agreed. Was trying a docking procedure, only to realize my orbit's direction is opposite of my targets.

I got a little further, managed to fly past my target about 600m away in a retrograde orbit, at a closing speed of over 4000m/s. Almost wish I'd hit, because that would have been a COOL explosion!

[Kasuha]

For the current craft, just put a maneuver node on your orbit and check its icons. It's not quite an arrow but it tells you which way your orbit goes.

The problem is when you want to figure out orbit orientation of other ships.

[Nobody]

Simply adding an triangle marker to the orbital path every so often to create a direction arrow would take care of the problem and shouldn't be to hard to do. Maybe every 1/8th or 1/16 of the predicted path.

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[fedemotta3]

Not a thing that has bothered me yet, but could be useful sometime, just if the arrows aren't too big, or as it was said before, could be toggled on and off.

[jordanjay29]

Some times I get lost on what orientation i have the camera set at or if i had mixed up my launch/capture vectors, and you was a lot of fuel finding out which way is up so to say.

Just remember, the enemy's gate is down.

[Smidge204]

Between the navball and the relative position of Kerbol and the thing you're orbiting, you have everything you need to know.

It's also somewhat obvious just by looking, if you pay attention, because you can't flip the camera "upside down" (at least I've never been able to) - up is always up. Orient the camera so you're looking in the same direction your craft is moving, and if the planet/moon you're orbiting is on the left then you're orbiting prograde.

=Smidge=

[Superfluous J]

Between the navball and the relative position of Kerbol and the thing you're orbiting, you have everything you need to know.

It's also somewhat obvious just by looking, if you pay attention, because you can't flip the camera "upside down" (at least I've never been able to) - up is always up. Orient the camera so you're looking in the same direction your craft is moving, and if the planet/moon you're orbiting is on the left then you're orbiting prograde.

=Smidge=

This isn't so much for your current ship, but for other things you could be docking with or landing on.

And in map mode you can drag down below the plane and see everything orbiting clockwise. It's one of the first things I tried when I read the first post because - like you - I assumed it was impossible. It is not. It's just that the default is to have the camera in the hemisphere north of the orbital plane.

Also, I hope some day we'll have a planet rotating close to 180 degrees like Venus does, or 90 degrees like Uranus does. Orbits then will be far less obvious.

[Kasuha]

In order to prevent having lots of arrows all around the map view maybe they could be added to the active ship and target orbit only.

[Unfawkable]

And on that point, seeing other object's Apoapsis and Periapsis would also be helpful.

[scootersoup]

seeing other object's Apoapsis and Periapsis

Especially your target's...

[Smidge204]

And in map mode you can drag down below the plane and see everything orbiting clockwise. It's one of the first things I tried when I read the first post because - like you - I assumed it was impossible. It is not. It's just that the default is to have the camera in the hemisphere north of the orbital plane.

You can view everything from "underneath" but "up" is still "up." In other words you can't rotate the camera view. All you have to do is pan the camera to know if you're looking from the top or bottom.

As for planets with opposite/rotated axes... I suppose you could work something out using the difference between orbital and surface velocities

=Smidge=