Transfer Times and Ejection Angles Visualized

[turkwinif]

When playing KSP, in order to know efficient transfer times and ejection angles, you either have to use mods, websites, memory, or calculate them yourself to utilize them. After reading this thread and seeing that there's a large desire for a stock transfer window helper, an idea sprung to mind, one that would be simple enough to create and visualize in KSP without throwing a ton of info at the player and still making them "work" for a transfer. After mulling over the idea, I came up with an even simpler way to implement it.

It starts off with you in orbit around a body - let's say, Kerbin. Let's also say that you want to go to Duna, but you don't know the transfer window or the ejection angle to get there. No problem - all you do is target Duna and immediately a dotted line and an indicator that looks similar to the Ascending/Descending nodes appears on your map. Mousing over the red indicator tells you how long you have until the optimal transfer time. The dotted line also shows you where in your orbit you'll need to burn once that time arrives. (Please excuse my poor paint skills )

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I feel like something like this is a nice compromise between Mechjeb, online calculators, transfer window spreadsheets, and plain-ol' fiddling with the maneuver nodes yourself. This way does not take into account eccentricities and inclination of orbits, so fiddling of maneuver nodes may be necessary. Personally, I'd limit the "Optimal Transfer" time to just days accuracy for interplanetary travel, and moons down to hours (and maybe even increments of minutes, such as 15/30/45/60 minutes).

Perhaps this idea could be implemented into Upgrade-able Buildings as well, such as upgrading the Tracking Station high enough to where this dotted line will appear and assist you in interplanetary travel. It could even start off being inaccurate, giving you transfer windows that are off by a few days to a weeks time and ejection angles that are off by 5-15 degrees, making further upgrades to the Tracking Station necessary to pinpoint transfer times and ejection angles.

So, what do you guys think? Comments, criticism, questions, all are welcome.

Edited November 12, 2014 by turkwinif
3rd paragraph, nodes will be --> nodes may be

[Francois424]

Would take out the fun of trying it out... But would also help saving fuel.

This would make a GREAT addition for the difficulty options.

Good idea !

[arkie87]

Very similar (basically the same) to the first idea i suggested in this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99944-Best-Way-to-Integrate-Transfer-Windows-into-Existing-KSP-GUI-Environment

The main complaint people have is that it makes it too easy, wont let people figure it out on their own, or only points out one kind of transfer. My second suggestion makes finding transfer windows easier for the player to do on his/her own.

What do you think, OP?

[turkwinif]

Very similar (basically the same) to the first idea i suggested in this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99944-Best-Way-to-Integrate-Transfer-Windows-into-Existing-KSP-GUI-Environment

The main complaint people have is that it makes it too easy, wont let people figure it out on their own, or only points out one kind of transfer. My second suggestion makes finding transfer windows easier for the player to do on his/her own.

What do you think, OP?

Yeah, that's the trouble that I'm having with this idea, that players won't necessarily learn on their own with messing around to find their own ways to getting to other planets. This would take some of the mystery and difficultly out of reaching other planets. Then again, if this tool for traveling to other planets isn't provided in-game, some players may never learn about transfer windows and ejection angles, and some may resort to third-party sources to teach them or to do it for them (not that it's bad or anything to do so). This suggestion of ejection angles shown to you in the base game just eliminates the one extra step it takes players to download a mod to show/help them, having to switch back and forth between a web-browser and KSP, or having a physical cut-out triangle that you hold up to the screen. Anyways, implementing a way to show players how to get to other planets without it being cheat-see is difficult, and I'm positive that this "visual arrow in map view" idea is not the best way. Players may just always have to rely on third-party sources, memory, their math skills, or even trial and error in order to arrive elsewhere.

At the least, I'd be nice to have something like this in the Kerbal EDU version that teaches the players how to calculate transfer windows and ejection angles.