Navball perimeter pips

[StrandedonEarth]

Those moments when the indicators you want don't show on the navball get pretty annoying when you'e trying to turn a cumbersome ship, the maneuver node target in particular. What I'd like to see is a marker on the perimeter of the navball showing the direction to turn to find the indicator, as sometimes I have to hunt all over the navball to find the maneuver target, and it's always in the last area I look (or why would I keep looking?). Occasionally even the prograde and retrograde (velocity or target) markers manage to be off the edge of the navball (hiding at top or bottom) at the same time.

Just some simple little pips, in blue, yellow, and pink, to show the direction to turn when that colour isn't visible on the navball, would be a great help. Much like I've seen on the radars or minimaps of other games. It wouldn't be hard to make a plugin to do that, would it?

Something like this:

Velocity and target pips really only need to point towards the prograde markers

[Superfluous J]

I agree that indicators are needed and should be in the stock game. I like how Enhanced NavBall does it, though, with ghosts of prograde and the maneuver node markers (especially the maneuver node markers. I don't know how I ever got by without that one!)

[Bobe]

I agree that indicators are needed and should be in the stock game. I like how Enhanced NavBall does it, though, with ghosts of prograde and the maneuver node markers (especially the maneuver node markers. I don't know how I ever got by without that one!)

http://i.imgur.com/oAg4iIj.gif

I agree. Ghosting works better than differently shaped pips.

For now Enhanced NavBall is great, but it'd be nice if it were added into the stock game. I'm sure they have much higher priorities right now.

[StrandedonEarth]

Ah, I didn't know about that. ENB it is then!

Edit: Thanks, that works great. It even still had the red docking port alignment marker, which isn't necessary to ghost.

Edited January 12, 2014 by StrandedonEarth

[kitoban]

I never seem to have to recommend the mod, other people are always doing this for me

Thanks 5thHorseman

[Kasuha]

Maybe it's just me but I think arrows on perimeter are better than ghosts. They make it clear that the indicator is not visible. Ghosts around perimeter are easy to mistake for real placement of the icon.

[kitoban]

How often would you want to burn tangential to the vector when the ghosting is present, the ghosting is only present when it is difficult to identify when the prograde and retrograde are visible, or when using a maneuver node, in which case you actually are wanting a specific direction so you would be turning towards it.

The aim when developing the navball mod was simply to inform without over cluttering, which I would feel is the danger posed by having too much on the navball at a time. You need the information it provides to be quickly digestible in order to make quick decision about your piloting.

[Kasuha]

The aim when developing the navball mod was simply to inform without over cluttering, which I would feel is the danger posed by having too much on the navball at a time. You need the information it provides to be quickly digestible in order to make quick decision about your piloting.

That's exactly the reason why I think arrows are better than ghosts. Because ignoring arrows is much easier than ignoring ghost navball icons.

[Dunbaratu]

The only real time you need the position of the "opposite" marker to the marker you can see on your side of the ball (i.e. the prograde marker when you can see the retrograde marker) is when you actually CANT see either of the pair of markers on the ball because they're in the margin covered up by the user interface widgets on the side of the ball. As long as you can see one of the markers, the position of its opposite is known. It's always opposite of the one you can see, equidistant from the center of the ball but in the opposite direction from it. i.e if you have a marker you can see on the ball like this:

C = center of navball.

m = some sort of marker of any kind that you can see.

r = the 180 degree 'ghost' retro version of that marker.

'r' is always in the opposite direction from the center, the same distance from the center, as the marker you can see:

   m
    \
     \
      C
       \
        \
         r

The only reason that either ghosting or edge chevrons are really needed is due to the fact that you can't see the full hemisphere of the navball. There are cases where BOTH the retro and the pro versions of a marker are obscured by the UI widgets around the edge of the navball. If you could always be guaranteed to see ONE of them, then it takes very little brains to work out where the other one is.

So maybe the fix is simply to widen the arc of the navball so that doesn't happen. Make it so you DO actually see a full 180 degrees of arc- a true hemisphere - of the ball. Then you are guaranteed to see at least one of the two paired markers of a given type.

The only addition that would be needed then is to provide a retro version of the manuever node mark, which is the only marker that does not currently have a "retro" version.

[kitoban]

The only reason that either ghosting or edge chevrons are really needed is due to the fact that you can't see the full hemisphere of the navball. There are cases where BOTH the retro and the pro versions of a marker are obscured by the UI widgets around the edge of the navball. If you could always be guaranteed to see ONE of them, then it takes very little brains to work out where the other one is.

You've hit exactly what I was thinking when I developed the mod:

The markers are only visible when it becomes confusing about where off the side they are, the exception to this is the maneuver node which I set to have a ghost any time the node is not visible on the navball, which was partly down to non-familiarity with the anti-maneuver node icon (which were implemented in the same way that they are within the cockpit) and partly due to the fact that you are rarely interested in the anti-maneuver node, whereas the Prograde and Retrograde are used more evenly.

As far as how this is represented is up for debate, I decided on using the same icons as these were available and required no extra resource load and people are already familiar with these, but these could arguably be represented in whatever form you wanted.

[Kasuha]

I'd put it the other way - you don't need to see that much of the navball if you have ghosts or arrows. Navball is rather distorted towards its edges and you can't read exact angles from it anyway. The icon is no better than any other marker.

There's one more potential use for ghosts (hint): precision aiming. When you have a navball icon in the center (+/- 5 degrees), enlarged (e.g. 5x) ghost of that icon may appear underneath and show you where exactly within that icon you're aiming.

[kitoban]

Distortion is down to the 3D nature of the navball UI if you were to see it side on:

o x |  <--- View

o = Navball itself
x = markers that are visible projected on a 2d plane
| = outer widgets

So distortion around the edge is actually you viewing the navball texture wrapped round the sphere of the navball at an oblique angle.

As far as magnification goes is a suggestion I have heard mentioned before, but given the nature of craft controls the only time I would imagine the need/opportunity to be this exact would be on a docking procedure, any other time most people seem to stay as near as possible but that is normally at best a certain amount of tolerance.

Other than docking can you think of a use case where you need to be precise on the node itself?

Docking navball options were something I left off as I had yet to work out the exact guidance that would be considered useful without overbearing (as well as the calculations behind it), I was in discussion with Navyfish about implementing the dock align indicator on to the navball itself, something that Mic_e ended up completing with navball docking alignment indicator while I was busy IRL.

While docking I could see a magnification of the alignment node once you start to have all the relevant indicators lined up would be very useful, but could imagine it being annoyingly distracting during a launch or plane landing.

[Kasuha]

Other than docking can you think of a use case where you need to be precise on the node itself?

One thing I don't exactly like is when I'm following a maneuver and the marker escapes faster than I can turn the ship. I'm talking about ships which take a minute to turn around, for instance. The area around the center of navball is partially occluded by the marker and I am never sure if I'm centered well enough. It's not big deal most of the time and it can be corrected various ways but sometimes it would be much better if I was able to just keep it centered while burning.

The rest is for those OCD types who just want to burn as exactly pro/retrograde as possible.

[Kruleworld]

What I'd like to see is a marker on the perimeter of the navball showing the direction to turn to find the indicator,

yes, definitely, good idea.

not to take away anything from Paul's mod, but the vanilla game does need improvement.