How to see objects farther than 100km

[douglasg14b]

How does one see decals for objects more than 100km away? I would like to 'catch up' with one of my ships that broke earth orbit and retroburn it back in. Is there a plugin/feature that allows you to see these objects? Or make heading toward them?

Thanks a ton!

[Tiberion]

You have to stop thinking about being in front or behind of other objects while orbiting, as its a lot more complex; you have to be in the same orbit (altitude, periapsis and apoapsis as well as the inclination/tilt) and then use small burns to \'rendezvous\'

Use the search box and look in this forum (How to) for posts about 'rendezvous' and you\'ll find a few good topics on how to do it.

[Ydoow]

Orbital rendezvous are ridiculously difficult without mods/plugins.

I\'ve done it, but it really did take me 3 hours real life time. I\'m not a pro, but I wasn\'t in the dark on what to do.

I would highly suggest looking up tutorials and watching videos on the matter.

Like Tiberion said, if you think about it being ahead/behind you or being faster/slower than you, you can easily mess the whole operation up.

You have to essentially put the two craft in the same exact orbit, right next to each other.

You can just say 'Oh, it\'s 2km behind me!' and do a burn backwards to it. Doing so means you\'ll fall out of orbit and never reach the craft.

It\'s a bit trippy to read it, which is why I suggest watching a few videos.

[Kosmo-not]

Orbital rendezvous are ridiculously difficult without mods/plugins.

It\'s quite easy if you\'re talking about circular orbits. See my tutorial on how to do it.

Other than that, it\'s not too hard to do it by the seat of your pants. If you have an orbit that will cross paths with the target\'s, it\'s a matter of judging how much faster/slower you need to go to meet up with it.

[douglasg14b]

Ok.... so how do you see decals more than 100 km away? That\'s a big thing. 1 AU would be nice.

If orbital rendezvous includes sun orbits then ok, i also have a few solar escaped I want toned down... so orbital does not apply. I need to get fast enough to catch up to them and retro (for sun and solar) I do not see how it would be possible to match their orbits. I have a device that can go 6km/s faster than the other ships, with enough fuel to retro a good 5km/s

I will look it up, its gonna be hard with ships near the other side of the sun >.<

[sal_vager]

Ok.... so how do you see decals more than 100 km away? That\'s a big thing. 1 AU would be nice.

Unfortunately you cannot see craft labels beyond 100km, and craft are not drawn at all until you are within 2km, this is part of the code and we cannot alter this from the options or the settings.cfg

It used to be that all parts were rendered at any distance but this caused too much slowdown of the game, so now to see the distant craft we must use the map screen.

[Nibb31]

Ok.... so how do you see decals more than 100 km away? That\'s a big thing. 1 AU would be nice.

You can\'t. You need to use the orbital map.

If orbital rendezvous includes sun orbits then ok, i also have a few solar escaped I want toned down... so orbital does not apply.

Orbital always applies. You never go in a straight line in space. An escape trajectory is still an orbit and follows a curve, even though it seems straight.

Accelerating or decelerating will raise or lower your orbit, which in the case of an escape trajectory will seem like you deviate left or right on the orbital plane.

I need to get fast enough to catch up to them and retro (for sun and solar) I do not see how it would be possible to match their orbits. I have a device that can go 6km/s faster than the other ships, with enough fuel to retro a good 5km/s

You cannot 'catch up' with an object by thrusting towards it. The way to catch up with an object is to lower your orbit in order to cover a shorter distance by cutting the curve.

If you accelerate faster than the object, your orbit will go much higher and you will miss it. The trick to catching up with an object is usually to go slower, which will lower your orbit and you will catch up because you will have a smaller distance to cover.

This isn\'t really applicable to an escape orbit.

I will look it up, its gonna be hard with ships near the other side of the sun >.<

I\'d say that catching up with an object on an escape orbit is pretty much impossible. You would need some very advanced calculations with multiple burns to create a trajectory that will intercept the target orbit exactly where the target object is.

[Ydoow]

It\'s quite easy if you\'re talking about circular orbits. See my tutorial on how to do it.

Other than that, it\'s not too hard to do it by the seat of your pants. If you have an orbit that will cross paths with the target\'s, it\'s a matter of judging how much faster/slower you need to go to meet up with it.

I guess I shouldn\'t have said tough, but rather time-consuming.

[maltesh]

I\'d say that catching up with an object on an escape orbit is pretty much impossible. You would need some very advanced calculations with multiple burns to create a trajectory that will intercept the target orbit exactly where the target object is.

I\'d disagree.

I\'d say that catching up with an object in an escape trajectory is /easier/ than catching up with an object in an elliptical orbit (assuming you\'ve got the fuel for it) , primarily because an object in an escape trajectory is spending much of its time moving in a path that approximates a straight line. And when you\'re in the stages of trying to match courses with it... so are you.

As a result, you often can burn straight towards it, once you\'re nearby, and the values of 'Nearby' are a lot larger than they\'ve been for my elliptical rendezvouses.

My Disasteroid challenge was about intercepting an asteroid in a hyperbolic orbit, in the twenty-four hours before it hit Kerbin. I\'ve done it several times now, and it\'s mostly about Hohmann transferring out to about where the asteroid is going to be when you swing out there, killing your forward velocity, and then adjusting to overtake or to let it catch up.