How do you interpret the protractor time estimates?

[keoki]

I'm trying to use the warp helper tool to help prevent overshooting my maneuver points. I have to gameplay at night, so drifting off to sleep during the warp events is common, and waking up after I overshoot my stopping point is a big problem. But warp helper will solve that issue cleanly.

The problem is I'm not sure how to interpret the time estimates from protractor. For example, when it tells me 90.11:21, what does that mean? I thought it meant 90 days 11 hours and 21 minutes, but it was closer to about 85 days. I warped 90 days, and way overshot the 0 point (rather than undershooting by 11 hours). So I'm guessing I wasn't far off of 90 days, but it was something short of 90 days.... But perhaps it was how I used the helper.

What I did was use the maneuver node editor to push a note 90 days into the future. Then I used the warp helper to warp to that node. So either I don't understand how protractor estimates time (very likely) or I didn't use the maneuver editor correctly.

I've been having a problem where when trying to place a maneuver node on a final burn when inside the SOI, I can mouse over the SOI start, and it shows the approach time, but if I click it drops the note on my next orbit, one sol into the future. This is maddening when trying to quickly plan a tricky burn, but maneuver node editor is helping me dial back the node time to this orbit, so it appears that I know how that tool works just fine.

Edited November 19, 2013 by keoki

[keoki]

Asked and answered..... I'm not sure what I did wrong the first time I did this, but I just tried again, and it appears that my understanding of the time estimate was correct, and it did exactly what I told it to do. Must have fat-fingered something.

[Taki117]

congrats on figuring out your problem. I personally use Mechjeb and Kerbal Alarm Clock to do the same thing, sans maneuver fiddling. I tell MechJeb i want to go to said planet and it plops down a node, I then set kerbal alarm clock to pause whenever that point in time is approaching. Handy and less I have to worry about.

[keoki]

Yeah, the time estimates are a bit wonky... They sometimes have errors in either direction. For the first half of career mode, I didn't use quicksave, so I lost a lot of time when I overshoot something... And you can't just drop a maneuver point out there, it can end up on your next orbit, and you can warp past your encounter. Most of my gameplay is between midnight and 5am, so I snooze, and Jedediah looses...

The upshot is I've been at this for about a month, and career mode for about three weeks... I have a fully unlocked tech tree for my career mode, while a co-worker with two years experience hasn't even unlocked his solar panels yet. I'm not even a gamer, I stopped playing games 20 years ago... It took KSP to renew my interest. It took something resembling real physics, that appeals to the engineer.

Kind of looking forward to .23 coming out with what might be a more challenging career mode. I still have a lot of stuff I haven't done yet, I am in no way an expert... but I mapped all of jools moons in one mission, generating about 2000 to 3000 units of science per moon just in an orbital, no-return mission. Too bad I can't give some of that science to my friend at work... I don't need any of it... He just needs some solar panels. But I did tell him how to solve his power problems... turn the batteries off before you warp... and keep some spares, turned off, in reserve... At least till you can unlock enough parts to charge them.

I was disappointed to discover that I didn't need to build a data network to get my weak signals back, as the specs for the antennas implied I would have to do... But that is coming in .23 I think.

[WafflesToo]

I was disappointed to discover that I didn't need to build a data network to get my weak signals back, as the specs for the antennas implied I would have to do... But that is coming in .23 I think.

The RemoteTech mod does this. Having to deal with communication connectivity add a whole new slew of headaches to the game. It even has the opinion to introduce signal delay into the mix if you'd like

[keoki]

Yeah, signal delay would be more realistic... but what does that mean? So like I'm at Jool doing a mapping mission, I upload my map data, and have to wait two hours before I see the acknowledgement of my transmissions? Or worse, I have to wait two hours and search logs to see what failed so that I can retransmit? Of course a realistic scenario might be a computer display showing the packet queue of transmitted packets, with a update showing that some packets failed and have to be resent. And that status message might be coming from the nearest store-and-forward relay satellite.

So I guess you send out com relay satellites in advance of any missions to a planet, or just drop one off in orbit... and if a relay network is needed to get all the way back home, you could establish a constellation of off-axis or intermediate orbit com satellites... Reading up on the mod, it looks like you have to select the relay, and it has to be in range, but you don't have to establish actual line of sight... So the realism stops before it gets actually difficult from the sounds of it.

Yeah, I'll probably deploy that mod soon... I restarted my career mode in .23, just because a co-worker implied I was cheating the science. Funny thing, I'm getting through it faster this time around... I skipped over the easy stuff and went straight to fly-bys of the local moons, and the nearest planets to get enough science points to unlock the important parts of the science tree...

I do need to get some sleep at some point though....