Orbit direction indicator

[r4pt0r]

maybe its just me, but when i visit other planets i always end up orbiting oneway, while the moons orbit another. jool in particular i can never get right. i suggest that the rails for any planet, moon, ship, whatever it is, have a small arrow pointing out the direction of orbit.

sure my mmistake might be noobish, but name one reason this shouldnt be in game?

[Javster]

Strongly agree. i've messed up several Mun landings because of it

[Frank_G]

Very nice idea! I second that!

[Halsfury]

Nice idea now that we have asteroids which are always in uncertain orbits

But for ease of use just one arrow leading from the object and indicating it's velocity vector (not following the curve of the orbit just telling where it's going and make the arrow longer if it's going faster)

[KvickFlygarn87]

While I do think this is useful, meanwhile you can warp slightly to see what way the moons are going.

[r4pt0r]

While I do think this is useful, meanwhile you can warp slightly to see what way the moons are going.

thats what i normaly end up doing, but sometimes it can be inconvenient.

[Ziff]

Why is this needed? Every single planet and moon orbits and rotates in the same direction.

[r4pt0r]

Why is this needed? Every single planet and moon orbits and rotates in the same direction.

because i am bad at space.

[Charzy]

Because crafts aren't planets, nor are they moons.

[Accelerando]

Why is this needed? Every single planet and moon orbits and rotates in the same direction.

To help uninformed people understand that most bodies in space are like this, and which direction that is. I've been playing for years and I still struggle to get my bearings in space at times since you end up rotating the camera so much and you usually don't have to worry about pro/retrograde on simple transmunar missions, I just burn east off Kerbin.

[brooklyn666]

If you set your conics patch mode to 0, you see see which side of the planet your orbit will cross before you enter it's SOI.

[r4pt0r]

To help uninformed people understand that most bodies in space are like this, and which direction that is. I've been playing for years and I still struggle to get my bearings in space at times since you end up rotating the camera so much and you usually don't have to worry about pro/retrograde on simple transmunar missions, I just burn east off Kerbin.

yup always turn towards 90 on kerbin. but in space the camera is all topsy turvy and you get a bit lost sometimes. plus with the updated patched conics mode it would be easy to see whats coming up when you are going to enter a new soi

If you set your conics patch mode to 0, you see see which side of the planet your orbit will cross before you enter it's SOI.

my problem is unless i timewarp i cannot tell if a moon is orbiting away from me or towards me.

Edited April 6, 2014 by r4pt0r

[xrayfishx]

SQUAD is already doing so much to make the game easy for beginners so I can imagine it happening, but I hope they don't do it. It's not that hard to see which way your orbit is going before you enter an SOI by checking where you enter the SOI and where you escape it.

Having put over 1500h into the game I would like to see more data that takes time and knowledge to calculate rather than more useless clutter that I will just be there to annoy me. If they would add an option to turn it off and added it after or at the same time as access to data about my inclination, dV, orbital period and lift to weight ratio for the essentials, I would be ok with it.

As for not knowing which way each body rotates... unless you really try hard to put the map view camera in a weird position, it rotates counter-clockwise.

[Ziff]

thats what i normaly end up doing, but sometimes it can be inconvenient.

Bring up your map, look at it from a top down perspective. Everything orbits/rotates counter clockwise. I can understand how this feature would be useful to new players but it also would add more clutter to the map screen. As long as there are options to unclutter the map that wouldn't bother me. I also think things like this will not be needed once we have decent tutorials to explain orbital mechanics.

I believe that the final game will follow a progression for new players from tutorials -> basic rocketry knowledge -> orbital knowledge acquired -> career mode -> advanced rocketry designs due to tech tree/cost constraints -> full tech tree -> sandbox mode where everything goes.

Being thrown directly into sandbox mode as a new player with hundreds of parts and dozens of orbital bodies is just really intimidating. Many of us started playing when there was only a few dozen parts and our knowledge grew as the game did.

[Kasuha]

I definitely agree with this suggestion, it is one of things which would make the game more comfortable to play. There's no reason to keep that information secret. If nowhere else to prevent cluttering the game could show such indicator on the current ship and selected target.

[regex]

The orbital direction marker could be quite unobtrusive while still conveying the information. OP's illustration has the arrows drawn very large when they really don't need to be. This would help reduce any concerns of information overload or clutter (this coming from a guy who plays at 1366x768; the information would be welcome).

[vexx32]

I think simply having little half-arrows hanging off the orbit lines, 4-8 arrows on each orbit should suffice to make it blindingly obvious which direction it's in.

[hawk_za]

+1 anything that assists learning and understanding should not be shunned i agree with the original post and would love to see this implemented especially given how easy it is to get confused in space when things are changing all the time and there is no fixed point of reference

[sal_vager]

Just one little arrowhead the same colour as the orbit line a little way ahead of your craft would be plenty, we'd very quickly lean where to look

[brooklyn666]

my problem is unless i timewarp i cannot tell if a moon is orbiting away from me or towards me.

It's very very very simple. If your orbit crosses in front of the planet, you will be in a retrograde orbit (opposite of moons), if your orbit passes behind the planet, you will be in a prograde orbit (same as moons). I can even show you pictures if you like.

[BudgetHedgehog]

I can't think of a more pointless bit of screen clutter.

The only time you'd see them is in map view and there, everything rotates and orbits anti-clockwise. In flight view, the Orbital camera mode is the same one as you get on the map view screen (I always switch to Orbital in deep space and when approaching an SoI) so it's incredibly easy to orientate yourself correctly because the flight view is now basically the same as map view (when you know the rotation and orbit of everything), just zoomed in a lot so you can see your ship.

Conic mode 0 shows where you enter and leave the SoI - this is only seen in map view and as long as you enter going anti clockwise (it can't be that hard to figure this out..), you'll be orbiting the same rotation as the planet is rotating.

Seriously. I hope they don't implement this. If they do waste their time with this, I'm going to turn it off.

[Dodgey]

Even if it was in the graphical options I think it would be good, just another little thing that makes the game that bit nicer.

[r4pt0r]

>screen clutter

what? it would be at most, two 5 pixel lines. actually it might look like this: >

it would be on all orbit rails so if you auto-capture an asteroid while you arent looking you can instanty tell which way it is going, especially for anything in a highly inclined or maybe verical orbit.

how is this a bad thing?

Edited April 7, 2014 by r4pt0r

[Red Iron Crown]

Really not seeing any downside to this simple, useful suggestion. Good idea, r4pt0r.

[Kialar]

Mmhh.

I can only give an advise for this issue, regardless if there will be a hint implementation or not.

Case 1: You are going (Hohmann style) to a target OUTWARD of your current orbit - your vessel will be slower than your target

That means: if your intercept is towards the system center, you will end up prograde; if your intercept outwards the system center, you will end up retrograde.

Case 2: You are going (Hohmann style) to a target INWARD of your current orbit - your vessel will be faster than your target

That means: if your intercept is towards the system center, you will end up retrograde; if your intercept outwards the system center, you will end up prograde.

Case 3: Regardless of going lower or higher (in orbital means) and your intercept is much above or below the ecliptic, you will end up in a more or less polar orbit, wich means lots of delta v to correct get the orbit fine.

I hope this helps.

-Kia