Burn Timer for Ion Engines

[Weylin]

Ion engines are among the most frustrating things to use in this game, though this is a matter of opinion, I find it difficult to understand how someone could ever enjoy a feature which takes 20 minutes to finish a maneuver.

Maybe I'm just using them wrong. Maybe Ion engines are only supposed to be used for high-precision interplanetary course tweaking, and if you have to do a lengthy burn you're using them incorrectly?

In any case, I suggest that ion engines have a right click menu that allows you to set an ion engine to run at a given thrust (which you can already do) for a set period of time (which you can't do).

Being able to time warp for the duration of the run time would be lovely too.

In the meantime, what do you guys do while waiting for your ion drives to accomplish in 5 hours what a sneeze could do in half a second?

[vexx32]

You can use Alt+> to use physical warp, up to 4x

[Weylin]

You can use Alt+> to use physical warp, up to 4x

That's good to know, I was getting quite frustrated not knowing how to do that.

However, it still stands that some burns can take a very long time, even with acceleration, and being able to set a timer on it would at least allow you to go do something else for a while.

Ion thrusters really seem more like something you'd use by sending a set of commands to a probe remotely, and would ideally allow you to go on other missions while it does its thing, but that currently isn't supported.

[Kimberly]

I know that a lot of people just plain do something else while their burn is running. If you check "simulate in the background" in the settings menu, and you have SAS, your probe will merrily keep burning in the right direction while you're on the KSP forums, reading Wikipedia, etc. If you use e.g. the RemoteTech flight computer, there isn't even a risk of burning for too long.

[theend3r]

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/kerbal-alarm-clock-2/ could solve this if you hate MechJeb.

[Superfluous J]

Yeah for long burns (Never used ion but I've had double-digit LV-N burns before) I aim, start the burn, figure out when I'm supposed to stop, add a Kerbal Alarm Clock alarm for about 10-20 seconds before that time, turn on physics warp, and go do dishes or something

So long as you don't have to do it too many times in succession, it's actually a nice break.

[Sirrobert]

If you have such long burns, you are using your ion engines on some very heavy crafts. Ion engines are meant for the lightest of the light probes.

For long burns, I usually just tell Mechjeb to preform the manouver node, tab out and do something else.

[Mystique]

There is a mod adding hybrid ion engines, they pack significantly more thrust, but also fuel&oxidizer. Haven't tested them yet. As for purely ion engines - using MJ to know that vessels points exactly in correct direction + 4x physical warp + alttabbing out to read this forum really helps

[AngelLestat]

Ion engines must be with less thrust and more ISP, but the thing that Squad needs to add is a propper warp time mechanic to these kinds of propulsion.