[WIN] Flyby Finder V0.86 [KSP1.3]

[steve_v]

On 06/01/2016 at 8:43 AM, PLAD said:

I have no plans do make a Linux version of FF since I don't have a Linux machine, and even if I had the OS it looks like there isn't a version of Delphi Pascal with full graphics support for Linux. I fear Pascal is a somewhat obsolete language so I'd have to learn another one to port FF over.  Time, time, time.

I haven't touched pascal in nearly 20 years, and back then it was turbo on DOS...
But your app (with a bit of help from sed) compiles and runs fine in freepascal / lazarus. Everything except the graphs
I take it this is the "full graphics support" you refer to?
I haven't poked too deeply into TAChart (I don't remember this thing... or GUIs at all for that matter), but it might be able to at least approximate that porkchop.

Dunno if I'll find time to investigate further anytime soon, but I guess you could call this a heads up that it's not too far off cross-platform compatibility...

[PLAD]

On 4/22/2017 at 3:05 PM, steve_v said:

I haven't touched pascal in nearly 20 years, and back then it was turbo on DOS...
But your app (with a bit of help from sed) compiles and runs fine in freepascal / lazarus. Everything except the graphs
I take it this is the "full graphics support" you refer to?
I haven't poked too deeply into TAChart (I don't remember this thing... or GUIs at all for that matter), but it might be able to at least approximate that porkchop.

Dunno if I'll find time to investigate further anytime soon, but I guess you could call this a heads up that it's not too far off cross-platform compatibility...

Hello, sorry for the delay.

    I fiddled a bit with an implementation of freepascal a while back and couldn't find most of the graphics commands from the Delphi Graph unit in it. So yup, the porkchop display screen would have to be rewritten from scratch as best as I could see. I also found some of the commands from the Delphi Math unit missing, like the ones that convert ordinal dates to Gregorian and back (used in the FFRSS date converter) and arctan2. It is good to hear that freepascal is close though, after studying Windows 10 I see I'm going to get a Linux machine someday soon.

  Aah, Borland Turbo Pascal. I wrote my first n-body simulator in that. DOS 3.3 with a 640x480 graphics screen, yah!

[steve_v]

6 hours ago, PLAD said:

DOS 3.3 with a 640x480 graphics screen

Mine had a Hercules mono display. 720x348
I thought Pascal was obsolete too, and was somewhat surprised to find the Lazarus IDE still under active development.

[Voodoo8648]

@PLAD Is this compatible with Kerbol Star System? If not, would you please make it compatible? KSS is the best multiple star system mod on the market.

[PLAD]

15 minutes ago, Voodoo8648 said:

@PLAD Is this compatible with Kerbol Star System? If not, would you please make it compatible? KSS is the best multiple star system mod on the market.

I'll take a look at it but I can't promise anything. Could you give me a link? I didn't see it in the first few pages of Add-on Releases.

[Voodoo8648]

1 minute ago, PLAD said:

I'll take a look at it but I can't promise anything. Could you give me a link? I didn't see it in the first few pages of Add-on Releases.

Thank you so much!

 

[Alshain]

@PLAD If you get the chance, would it be possible for you to do a reset on the tabstops.  They are kinda all over the place.

[PLAD]

20 hours ago, Voodoo8648 said:

Thank you so much!

 

That is impressive. I shall take a while to look at it though, I see at least 4 systems that have enough planets for flybys, and I have to study the orbital hierarchy of the multi-star systems. I see I can't put the Halley's Comet analog in because it's eccentricity is too high... this will take a few weeks of playing.

20 hours ago, Alshain said:

@PLAD If you get the chance, would it be possible for you to do a reset on the tabstops.  They are kinda all over the place.

That was an eye opener. My personal style never used the tab key to go from field to field but I just did it now and I see what you mean. It jumps through the fields in the order I made them rather than a logical use order. I'll see what I can do for the next release.

[Alshain]

6 minutes ago, PLAD said:

That was an eye opener. My personal style never used the tab key to go from field to field but I just did it now and I see what you mean. It jumps through the fields in the order I made them rather than a logical use order. I'll see what I can do for the next release.

Thanks.  It's definitely a personal style thing.  My first high school job was as a cashier at a deli on an old electric 10-key register and I've used the 10-key+tab for data entry ever since.

[Voodoo8648]

5 minutes ago, PLAD said:

That is impressive. I shall take a while to look at it though, I see at least 4 systems that have enough planets for flybys, and I have to study the orbital hierarchy of the multi-star systems. I see I can't put the Halley's Comet analog in because it's eccentricity is too high... this will take a few weeks of playing.

Cool!  Please be advised that @StarCrusher96, the KSS author modified orbits of the Kerbol System, I'm just not exactly sure what all is different over stock system. The positions and/or alignments of some or all of the celestial bodies in the Kerbol System may be different. 

How does FF know the position/alignment of the planets at any given time? How might FF handle the positioning of planets and it's calculations 5,000 years after game Day 1 for example? 

[PLAD]

39 minutes ago, Voodoo8648 said:

Cool!  Please be advised that @StarCrusher96, the KSS author modified orbits of the Kerbol System, I'm just not exactly sure what all is different over stock system. The positions and/or alignments of some or all of the celestial bodies in the Kerbol System may be different. 

How does FF know the position/alignment of the planets at any given time? How might FF handle the positioning of planets and it's calculations 5,000 years after game Day 1 for example? 

I find the orbital parameters for the various bodies in the Kopernicus config files, they define the orbits and the starting positions of the bodies exactly. I check every body, even the ones that look stock, but thanks for the warning. (and I have to recheck them all with every new version, doh!) Since KSP uses 2-body physics (rather than n-body like the real universe)  math can determine the exact position of any body at any time in the future. For speed I use approximations rather than an iterative solution to the Kepler problem, this means orbits with an eccentricity greater than about 0.25 aren't calculated accurately by FF so I avoid those bodies.

[Voodoo8648]

2 hours ago, PLAD said:

I find the orbital parameters for the various bodies in the Kopernicus config files, they define the orbits and the starting positions of the bodies exactly. I check every body, even the ones that look stock, but thanks for the warning. (and I have to recheck them all with every new version, doh!) Since KSP uses 2-body physics (rather than n-body like the real universe)  math can determine the exact position of any body at any time in the future. For speed I use approximations rather than an iterative solution to the Kepler problem, this means orbits with an eccentricity greater than about 0.25 aren't calculated accurately by FF so I avoid those bodies.

Great explanation! Thanks 

[Insanitic]

Is there some way to adapt this for the 6.4x scale KSP system? 

[PLAD]

31 minutes ago, Insanitic said:

Is there some way to adapt this for the 6.4x scale KSP system? 

Sorry, no. There are a lot of scaled versions of the really good systems, (3.2x, 6.4x, and 10x usually, but I've seen other sizes) and a number of people do their own versions that have slight differences from other people's versions, so there are too many out there for me. I stick with a few original releases that are carefully documented and reasonably settled to make my life easier. FF is kind of simple in that it can't talk to KSP as it is running, or read Kopernicus config files, so I have to enter each system's data by hand and then test the result by doing flybys of each planet in the system and comparing the results to FF's predictions before I release it.

You might try  TOT, it's bigger and more complicated but it pulls the astrodynamic data straight from KSP as it's running and can therefore handle any system.

[PLAD]

I've just released version 0.85 of Flyby Finder. It has the following new features:

-Adds the ability to plan for Kerbol StarSystem's Kerbol system (v0.6.1) as suggested by @Voodoo8648. Only the main Kerbol system though. I did not include the 2 comets or Naith because their orbits were too eccentric for FF to handle. I did put Hypat in though it has a high eccentricity, I wanted to see what happens. It turns out that some Lambert calculations for Hypat do not converge quickly enough and so many solutions are not found. I have not seen it find any false solutions yet, but I consider Hypat  experimental, use at your own risk! Since it is hard to find Hypat solutions I have an Imgur album below that shows a few I found to help other searchers. Note that I don't have room to put more of the KSS systems in the program right now, I have to rethink the whole design if I will put any more systems in there.

-Improved the tabstop order as suggested by  @Alshain

-Added Grannus to the GPP planets. It has almost same eccentricity problem as Hypat, and in addition it is so heavy with such a huge SOI that the travel time to it winds up being about a year shorter than FF predicts, as such it should only be the last body in a flyby chain. I can still find good paths to it though, below is an Imgur album showing some nice paths to Grannus from Gael and a typical flight to it.

-Tweaked the OPM atmosphere heights to match the values in the latest version (2.1).

-Tweaked the SMA of Gael in the GPP pack, it changed by about 1 part in 3000 between v1.2.2 and 1.2.3.

-Added lots of comments to the source code.

 

I could expand the type of orbits that are allowed in FF but only at the expense of  a lot of speed, so I want to continue to not use bodies with an eccentricities greater than 0.25. Grannus and Hypat are just experimental but I figured people might find them useful even though paths that lead to them are difficult to find.

 

 

edit- This should work fine with KSP 1.3, as I see no changes to the stock bodies masses or orbital parameters, but I won't change the version note until I've run missions involving all the planets in 1.3. This takes a while!

Edited July 6, 2017 by PLAD

[drtedastro]

@plad

thanks for this great mod.  it makes for a lot of really great missions and flights.

is there anyway to be able to 'add' additional planet packs?  where we / users / could create a config file or such that had all of the needed info?

That would keep your work load lower and allow for external 'help' to bring the great mod to other parts of the kerbal-verse..

I am currently working within the "New Horizons" planet mod and would love to be able to setup some long duration Grand-Voyage type missions.

But most important, thanks again for this great mod...

Cheers,

[Voodoo8648]

SOO Glad to see the support for KSS!!!!!! THANKS!!!! 

[Voodoo8648]

2 hours ago, PLAD said:

I've just released version 0.85 of Flyby Finder. It has the following new features:

edit- This should work fine with KSP 1.3, as I see no changes to the stock bodies masses or orbital parameters, but I won't change the version note until I've run missions involving all the planets in 1.3. This takes a while!

May I make a suggestion for a minor but very useful improvement: Can you add the ability to custom sort the table according to the columns? Example: Sort by Total dV, or sort by Start dV, or Total time, ect.

Also, @StarCrusher96 will soon be releasing KSS .7 for KSP 1.3 (KSS is currently not compatible with 1.3 but will be soon).... might need to keep an eye if any changes would be needed with FF after KSS .7.

@StarCrusher96 you may want to add this mod as a suggested supporting mod on the front page of the KSS thread

So happy to see KSS Compatibility now!!!! Thanks  

Edited July 6, 2017 by Voodoo8648

[PLAD]

13 hours ago, Voodoo8648 said:

May I make a suggestion for a minor but very useful improvement: Can you add the ability to custom sort the table according to the columns? Example: Sort by Total dV, or sort by Start dV, or Total time, ect.

 

I've already got that in there, all columns in the table can be sorted into high-to-low, look for the buttons on the bottom of the table. If Imgur is in the mood to display today here is a page from my primer that has one of the buttons circled:

http://imgur.com/VvxWJFB

Yup, my biggest complication with having multiple star systems is that I have to keep track of them all and update and test whenever a new version comes out. I try to pick mature planet packs that have stabilized the planets orbital parameters. Everyone can feel free to remind me when they spot a change, I think they are all working on new versions for KSP 1.3 right now.

I'm not exactly suffering though, these planet packs are gorgeous. Right now in KSS I have a mission on Duna's innermost moon and every view is just spectacular.

 

[Voodoo8648]

5 minutes ago, PLAD said:

I've already got that in there, all columns in the table can be sorted into high-to-low, look for the buttons on the bottom of the table. If Imgur is in the mood to display today here is a page from my primer that has one of the buttons circled:

Oh, Okay I see now!  

[PLAD]

16 hours ago, drtedastro said:

@plad

thanks for this great mod.  it makes for a lot of really great missions and flights.

is there anyway to be able to 'add' additional planet packs?  where we / users / could create a config file or such that had all of the needed info?

That would keep your work load lower and allow for external 'help' to bring the great mod to other parts of the kerbal-verse..

I am currently working within the "New Horizons" planet mod and would love to be able to setup some long duration Grand-Voyage type missions.

But most important, thanks again for this great mod...

Cheers,

Thanks!

New Horizons.. I haven't studied that mod yet.. I'm running out of room to put new planet pack buttons, and more importantly it will take a lot of time to keep track of more packs so I don't want to add more right now. Unfortunately I didn't originally plan to do more than just stock KSP, so I didn't make it easy to expand. I have a spreadsheet similar to LambertOPM (in in the OP in this thread) that I have been developing to require minimal work between entering the planet parameters from the Kopernicus config files and getting the numbers I need to enter into Flyby Finder, but you still need a Delphi Pascal compiler to put them in. There is also the problem that some packs have planets that Flyby Finder's algorithms couldn't handle properly, so human inspection is still required. So no, there is no easy way to enter a new pack's data into the program. Unfortunately. I didn't foresee 3 years ago that so many excellent packs would be coming out!

 

-edit- I just looked at New Horizons and I have studied it before. The problem is that Kerbin is in orbit around a gas giant, FF would be able to find transfers from a circular orbit around the gas giant to other planets in the system, but not from Kerbin.  It is an excellent idea for a planet pack but not for FF.

Edited July 6, 2017 by PLAD

[Pawelk198604]

Where i can download latest version?

[PLAD]

2 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

Where i can download latest version?

The link to the latest version of Flyby Finder, 0.85, is available in the first post of this thread.

[aluc24]

Hey, @PLAD , it's great to see that your finder is still being developed and updated. If I may, I would like to suggest adding fly-by inclination in the auto-generated flight path description. It would be really helpful, because sometimes setting up an fly-by, even with the next encounter at the correct date, can lead to an inclination drift (usually "steepening" the craft's Kerbol trajectory with each fly-by), and that can cause problems further down the road. Obviously, the planner takes this into the account, but doesn't give any numbers to adjust the inclination, except for the initial Kerbin escape burn, so the user can only guess if his inclination is still on the right path. Would it be possible to add this bit of information?

Edited July 27, 2017 by aluc24

[PLAD]

On 7/27/2017 at 4:27 PM, aluc24 said:

Hey, @PLAD , it's great to see that your finder is still being developed and updated. If I may, I would like to suggest adding fly-by inclination in the auto-generated flight path description. It would be really helpful, because sometimes setting up an fly-by, even with the next encounter at the correct date, can lead to an inclination drift (usually "steepening" the craft's Kerbol trajectory with each fly-by), and that can cause problems further down the road. Obviously, the planner takes this into the account, but doesn't give any numbers to adjust the inclination, except for the initial Kerbin escape burn, so the user can only guess if his inclination is still on the right path. Would it be possible to add this bit of information?

It's a good suggestion, I have spent quite a bit of time sometimes trying to find the proper flyby to get me to the next planet at the right time. It's easy when the flight stays near the ecliptic plane, but sometimes a gas giant flyby will surprise me by needing to send the ship on a path way above the ecliptic, and that can be really hard to find. The problem though is that knowing the inclination of the flyby to the planet is of limited use when you don't know the LAN of the flyby path, and most of all because I can't see the inclination or LAN of my flyby until I am in the SOI of the flyby planet (at least using Mechjeb), and then it is far to late to efficiently adjust your path. I suppose something that said "flyby periapsis is at -50 degrees inclination" (note that wouldn't mean the flyby path is inclined -50, just that the periapsis is above -50 on the planet's surface, which you could eyeball) would help.

 I'll think about this.

 

-later edit- I've just asked okder about something that might make setting up flybys much easier, since unlike me he can write stuff that shows up in the game while it's running.

Edited July 28, 2017 by PLAD