Change way how orbit estimations are displayed!

[kiwiak]

So you did your maneuver, you have encounter with planet.

Time to check in conics mode 0 what is estimated peryapsis...

This doesnt look pretty. Numbers are constantly changing. Orbit line is shaking.

I understand that phycics engine just cant calculate such things acuratly on huge distance.

But instead this constantly changing numbers, there coudl be something like this:

p: ~400000 km

The closer we get, calculations are more acurate so we woudl see:

p: ~420000

And about orbit line... it woudl have to be thicker. And of course transparent, so we woudl be able to see if something is inside.

Edited January 2, 2014 by kiwiak

[technicalfool]

So you did your maneuver, you have encounter with planet.

Time to check in conics mode 0 what is estimated peryapsis...

This doesnt look pretty. Numbers are constantly changing. Orbit line is shaking.

I understand that phycics engine just cant calculate such things acuratly on huge distance.

But instead this constantly changing numbers, there coudl be something like this:

p: ~400000 km

The closer we get, calculations are more acurate so we woudl see:

p: ~420000

And about orbit line... it woudl heve to be thicker. And of course transparent, so we woudl be able to see if something is inside.

Well. I dunno if it would be possible to eliminate the wobbly orbit line. At least not without a bit of fudging. As you've said, the game engine simply doesn't calculate numbers to that depth of accuracy.

However, it could be nice to get that wobble, take a series of measurements, calculate the minimum/maximum value and mean average value, and print something like "130,000km ±5%" or similar. Maybe have some kind of 10-sample (or so) buffer that gets the latest value pushed to it every tick, with the oldest value falling off the end.

Edited January 2, 2014 by technicalfool

[DoomHawk]

Well. I dunno if it would be possible to eliminate the wobbly orbit line. At least not without a bit of fudging. As you've said, the game engine simply doesn't calculate numbers to that depth of accuracy.

However, it could be nice to get that wobble, take a series of measurements, calculate the minimum/maximum value and mean average value, and print something like "130,000km ±5%" or similar. Maybe have some kind of 10-sample (or so) buffer that gets the latest value pushed to it every tick, with the oldest value falling off the end.

A classic boxcar average sounds perfect here. I think the "fudging" concept is what the OP had in mind, and I think this is a great idea. This could also be implemented for nearly circular orbits to get rid of the wobble because for people like me who run RemoteTech and need geo-stationary sattelites, that gets pretty annoying pretty quick.

Does anyone have any idea if this would be achievable through a mod? I'm looking to get my hands dirty with a mod (I'm a programmer by hobby and trade) and this would be a great one, but having not worked with any modding of KSP yet I'm not sure what's exposed to our use/manipulation and what isn't.