IMFD Interplanetary Course plane mode issue

[Arkalius]

I'm using IMFD 5.3 and have been running missions to Mars. I've been using a November 2009 launch window. Based on what I get from IMFD, the Target Plane mode seems to be the most efficient. Based on what I can see, this mode sets a plane change maneuver at 90 degrees from your starting position, to a plane that intersects the target planet.

The problem I have is that the course program seems to keep this plane change location 90 degrees away from my current position, even after I've left Earth, and I never actually can get to it. I've found I can fix this by setting it to Manual at which point it stays put.

Is there something I am supposed to do to tell the course mode that I'm underway and the plane change location should stay put? I know I can run the prep plane change command to do it but then it makes it impossible to make any course corrections before the plane change. I suppose any corrections will be integrated into the plane change itself but it could be less efficient this way.

 

[Tommy]

Change the source from the planet to self (set source to "x") and ensure you are in realtime mode, not prograde.

 

[Arkalius]

I think I've tried that and still have the same problem but I'll try again to make sure.

Update: I just tested it. I always change source to self after leaving Earth's SOI so I knew I had done that in the past. With Realtime mode on, the plane change maneuver location always stays 90 degrees ahead of my current position when set to target plane. If I switch to Off-Axis mode, it freezes everything, including any kind of correction burn calculation which means I can't determine correction burns so that doesn't really help.

It seems switcing to Manual Tgt mode is really the way to go when using a target plane type trajectory. You can even improve your overal dV by making tweaks to the plane change location.