Contract specifics

[LethalDose]

Somehow I doubt new players are going to know this and frankly, I would prefer to have numeric readouts... for all the things. It's one of the main reasons I use MJ's custom window functions. That and Smart A.S.S.

[sARCASM]Lots of players think they want this, but numbers simply aren't fun[/sARCASM]

I completely agree with you that the stock game should provide you with this orbital information. It's idiotic that it's omitted, but the devs seriously have some bizarre aversion to providing this kind of useful information.

[Torquemadus]

Compared to some of the other manoeuvres I end up doing, putting satellites into specific orbits has been pretty easy. Figuring out how to rendezvous with a stranded kerbal was much harder.

I've often found that the game regards the contract as complete when I haven't finished neatening up my orbit to my own satisfaction. Apparently, the organisations that post these contracts aren't as fussy as I am.

[OhioBob]

As other have said, it's really not important to know the value of argument of periapsis and/or longitude of ascending node to complete a contract. Just eyeballing it and matching the orbit as closely as possible is usually good enough. The contracts are actually quite forgiving. I have sometimes been giving credit for achieving an orbit while I was still fully intending to make another burn to obtain a better match.

If you want to know more about argument of periapsis and the other orbital elements, the following provides a good explanation:

http://www.braeunig.us/space/orbmech.htm#elements

[starman001]

Every time i fail, I learn something new

I also have one of this satellite in orbit missions now... after many small course corrections I have now matched my real orbit with the line in the orbit map as close as possible, in fact, I have a difference of < 500 meters in periapsis and the other, yet still the mission is not done (the maintain correct orbit goal is not marked complete)... Now, I read here, that also the directon of my rotation is needed to match, and now I noticed that too in the map .... Well, of course I'm now going the wrong direction...duh.... is there even a way of going the other way around without changing my entire orbit again ? Or have I just failed again ?

(edit) never mind, just burn in oposite direction till the orbit switches.... Mission complete... Yay, money and research

Edited February 18, 2015 by starman001

[WeirdCulture]

hmm I made my first of thiy types of contracts, AE was withing 99,7% limits, which is not as hard at 3.100.000 meters, my PE was at 76300, contract was 73500, which was about 96%, after changed it to 73900 which was also about 99%, contract was set. (DN was about 0.1 Difference).. so pretty hard, but it is ok

[Kerpeikkari]

I would be willing to wager a dollar that if you check your AN or DN they say "180" (or close) instead of "0" (or close). i.e., your orbit is perfectly set up except it's backwards. You don't even need to check the AN/DN, just look at the little dots on the target orbit and see which way they're going.

New player here. I struggled some time with this contract. Well this explains a lot.

[n0xiety]

When it says marginal it really means marginal believe me... I had contracts getting done while i was trying to get my point closer to the designated orbit. But the contract gets done before i come 10km close or something so it is really easy. No need to micromanage you don't need to get that close. Oh and there is a noob mistake that everyone does atleast once when they are trying to match orbits. When it says 0 inclanation and 180 inclanation the orbit will look the same but they are actually going complete opposite sides. So always watch for those moving dots on the map orbit indicator.

Edited May 12, 2015 by n0xiety

[sloots]

Hi everyone.

Argument of periapsis is the angle between the AN and the periapsis. The links listed above give good explanations (the best being Wikipedia).

Still, I wonder on these specific contracts:

How can you define an Arg to your Pe if you have a 0° inclination (which means that you should have no AN...)

[rockets-don't-make-toast]

On 12/16/2014 at 5:16 AM, SpaceCars said:

The argument of periapsis is a numerical way of telling where in the orbit the periapsis is. So it is shown in-game in the map view. If you rotate your orbit (e.g. by burning radially, toward the blue markers) you see the periapsis and apoapsis shifting. Thus you can just visually line up your apoapsis with the required apoapsis in map view to complete the contract. Note that the margin is quite large enough that you can fulfill the contract by eyeballing it without having to resort to any read-outs.

good to know but i have a contract and I've got it almost exactly, like down to 1% of what its supposed to be. it still says i haven't got it within reasonable margin and the argument of periapsis is undefined so could someone help me out? like is there something i'm missing?

[bewing]

2 hours ago, rockets-don't-make-toast said:

good to know but i have a contract and I've got it almost exactly, like down to 1% of what its supposed to be. it still says i haven't got it within reasonable margin and the argument of periapsis is undefined so could someone help me out? like is there something i'm missing?

It's almost certainly the same problem. You are almost certainly orbiting backwards. Hover your cursor over the An or Dn indicators on the target orbit. If they say 180, you're going backwards.

 

[Superfluous J]

9 minutes ago, bewing said:

If they say 180, you're going backwards.

And if they say 0 (or close) then I'd like to see a screenshot of map view with both orbits in it.

[rockets-don't-make-toast]

On 11/22/2016 at 6:15 PM, bewing said:

It's almost certainly the same problem. You are almost certainly orbiting backwards. Hover your cursor over the An or Dn indicators on the target orbit. If they say 180, you're going backwards.

 

thank you, i wish i knew that sooner

[stelarfox]

I found out that the Reasonable deviation is quite big. cannot be expressed as you want because simply is the sum of the deviations what its compared.

so you have to do it as close as possible, a good way of doing that is, when you are actually aiming for the orbit, place a node at your destination and zoom into it. you will notice that, what from your actual place looks ok, when you zoom its really way off.

if you make it match visually good, it does not need to be perfect and it will work.

 

Consideration, if you need a geosincronic orbit that is not enough as sometimes it ask that over a specific zone (but if so its marked on the planet).

so yes that kind of missiones will be extra hard, but not that much.

now the inclination is a very important parameter, and that is its inclined at the correct axis, but thats truly easy to do.

 

[[email protected]]

On 12/18/2014 at 3:17 PM, zarakon said:

Make sure you're going the right direction. If that's not the problem, then I dunno

THANK GOODNESS I found this thread! I had everything lined up PERFECT... except I was going in the wrong direction....