So lately I've been working with BurnTimeCalcMFD, and to determine my Dv for a basic altitude change, I looked up the equations and did the math myself. I'm very proud of this even tho it's basic stuff.
It seems basic to us space/tech geeks, but to the average Star Wars fan on the street who
thinks he's a geek because he can hack or code or whatever, doing your own orbital calculations seems like magic.
Real nerds can do a patched-conic approximation, compute burn times using the Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation, and navigate from Earth to Mars using only a calculator and a pad of paper, and get it close enough to aerobrake upon arrival!
I've done stuff like this a few times. One day I got tired of trying to guess my way through a manual Lunar landing, so I sat down and worked out how far away from the landing zone I needed to fire my engine at half a G acceleration, and what vertical rate to set using my pitch angle, and lo and behold I nailed the landing.
It's good to get in touch with your inner Buzz Aldrin from time to time.
That kind of stuff is where I get the most satisfaction out of a sim like Orbiter.