Directional arrows on the lines in the orbital map

[Damocles]

This is a really simple suggestion, and I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't the first to come up with this.

When I first started playing I barely knew anything about orbital mechanics, and I've seen a couple of people trying to play the game with even less understanding. I think that it would help people learn how movement works in space if they had a clear indication on the map on the direction of their movement. I know that once you understand stuff, this would be a pretty much a useless feature. If you really don't remember which way you were going, and don't want to time accelerate, you can still check the time it takes to reach a node. Maybe to some of you it's hard to even imagine how could anyone be so lost to think they are moving the opposite direction, so here are a couple of examples.

Guy 1 is trying to get his first rocket onto orbit. He doesn't know what he's doing, burns in all sorts of directions, then checks the map, and when he sees that his apo is over 200km, he thinks he's on the right path. In reality, he did everything wrong, he's heading in the opposite direction, never even leaving the atmosphere, he just managed to push up his apo behind himself.

Guy 2 can already go to obit, and is trying to get to the Mun. He manages to get a trajectory that gets into Muns SOI, when a bunch of different colored lines pop up, some of them going in all sorts of different orbits. He doesn't understand what's all that, and is getting scared. In reality everything is fine, and the weirdest line is probably just the trajectory that would happen if he won't make a burn to enter Munar orbit. I think that if the new players had the ability to see the direction of movement, they could trace the orbital lines much easier, and maybe learn the game faster.

Guy 3 actually makes it to Muns SOI, then when the SOI change happens he thinks that the game bugged out on him, and reloads. This is an actual youtube video I saw. Maybe constantly seeing the direction of movement, would help, especially if the movement of the Mun were also apparent. Maybe there could be some clear(er) indication of what will happen when the SOI change happens, and why the lines are not connecting.

Guy 4 (this was me) sends out his first couple of rockets doing the gravity turn in random directions. This is how he manages to get his first kerbal stranded in an almost polar orbit. Then he mounts a rescue mission, only missing it by a 180 degree. I was laughing so hard, when I realized that the best I could do was a 4000 m/s high five...

[Lazro]

Seems simple enough.

-Famous Last Words

But seriously, this would help. Especially with planetary orbits, I think. It's often hard to tell which way the planets are going without timewarp.

[ravener]

it would also help with introducing new players that might no be familiar with the orbital direction of objects like the mun and sutch.

[Kasuha]

I definitely support the idea of adding orbital direction arrows to at least the current ship's and the target object's orbits. Perhaps halfway between periapsis and apoapsis would be a nice place to put them, but they should be visible on hyperbolic/open orbits, too. Perhaps halfway between periapsis and SOI intersection in such case?

[pizzaoverhead]

As another possible solution to some of the cases you mentioned: How about not showing the line behind the craft if its "orbit" takes it through ground? I've always thought that suborbital hops shouldn't show were your current velocity is saying you came from.

[Themohawkninja]

This would be especially nice with the Joolean system. I always have trouble figuring out which way the moons are orbiting in.