TransX buttons SW and EXE

[Jairo]

Manual from Orbiter says the TransX MFD should have a SW button for holding views when changing stages, but in that place I see an EXE button, with an unknown function. How do I use the SW function? And what is the purpose of the EXE?

Thanks.

 

[agentgonzo]

The SW button changed to EXE before I got my hands on the source-code. I never really figured out what the EXE button was for, and I've certainly never used it when flying. The was mention that it should do something for preserving plans (and that it no longer does) but I haven't had time to look into that one yet. Maybe someone else will chime in with some ideas

 

[the.punk]

In the past I thaught it is like an auto burn function(exe for execute)...:lol:
But now I know that it isn't.

 

[flytandem]

A couple months ago I stumbled across the EXE function. I'll bore you with how I found it. It was when I was playing with the Chapman challenges. It had a staged launch system... so I set up as nice TransX plan while sitting in this booster and I find I have not quite enough fuel to complete the ejection burn. So here I am needing to quickly eject the booster which places me in the probe and now I must burn the remaining deltav....

I would assume I am at least pointing the correct direction, I noted how much deltav would be left in the maneuver (ejection) burn before switching into the probe. Then once there I would open up burntime and watch how much devtav is in the ship, quickly subtract my required burn and start burning to hit the targer remaining deltav. Then I would open up TransX to set up the entire plan including all the slings and arrows of the outrageous loss of my plan.

There had to be a way to keep from having to re-create the entire plan. And there is. Clicking BACK before stage 1, you see "inherit from" and usually it says "new plan" click the "+" and you should see if there are any ships nearby... they will be displayed one after the other. Once you see a ship containing the plan you want... click "EXE". Voila. Any ships sitting in other places like other planets or moons will not be allowed to bequeath their plans. Only ships on or orbiting the same place will be allowed to offer up their plans.

But... here's the rub, it only brings in the basic plan as to what order of planets you will be visiting in your stages. It doesn't bring in the details of the actual sling angles and ejection deltavs unfortunately. I assumed this was due to the changes in the way TransX stored the data back a few versions ago. Maybe we should add this to the list of things to fix some day.

 

[agentgonzo]

Lots of interesting stuff

Interesting. In that case it shouldn't be too hard to fix it so that it inherits all the data from the plan. I'll take a look at it next week if I have any time free (though what with having to move house, considering moving continent, trying to fix a car and attend to the new gf I may not have a lot of spare time)

 

[Andy44]

It would be hard to inherit all the parts of a plan, because if you are in a different vessel than you are in a different orbit, and this causes changes to ripple through the entire plan, wouldn't it?

 

[flytandem]

I think if the plan were an eject plan or sling it could bring the data along, but if it were "maneuvers" then it would cause the maneuver to base on the new craft's motion meaning it would have to redo the maneuver data. But if we were going from one part of a ship to a probe after dropping the booster then even the maneuver data would be useful "as is". I guess only when Steve gives it a shot to arrange the data in the new system and resurrect the inheritance function, we'll know for sure whether we have a useful upgrade. If it doesn't work then maybe we should just eliminate the EXE button?