is there a best way to save scenarios during missions?

[thermocalc]

Hi to ALL,
I am sorry to ask this silly question but I have some doubts about what I am doing ... due to the long time to complete a mission I had to save many times the mission I am doing at different stages ... normally when I want to save the scenario at the stage I am, I just make sure the AGC is in P00 state, SC Control SCS and Mode-FREE, todown Apollo MFD and checklist MFD and than call up F4 and hit EXIT, than I go to "save current scenario" and give a name (I am using of course Orbiter 2010P1 and NASSP v7.0 as I am currently doing Apollo 8 and 7).
Q1) is this the normal procedure? or is there a better one? more safe....meaning "more save" to save the status of the sim?

I ask you this because many times I get problems to reload the saved scenario .... sometime I got the GET timer showing all ZEROs .... sometime I didn't see the CSM in external view and if it does so after few minutes I got a crash ... sometime I got the PROG alarm on with the AGC still in P00 .... sometime I even got the NO ATT light ON and there were no way to get back to the AGC to run .... most of the time after trying to reload the same saved scenarios 2-3 times at the end it works and I can go on ... but sometime cannot, and I end up losing many hours of saved scenarios and I had to restart from many hours before .... normally i saved a situation every 3-4 h of simulation time .....

Q2) for the same reasons, sometime I also cannot load the scenarios stored in the Apollo Hystorical Mission folder for practicing different stages, for example I tried more than 5 times now to load the entry scenario but i never get it properly running, I even cannot get P61 running while loading Entry scenario before separation.....I just got a PROG alarm, and if I try to put V09N05 to see which kind of alarm I just got an OPR ERR and nothing more....

might be my old computer??? but for NASSP v7.0 it should not be an issue as it was released in 2017 (if I am not wrong).

anyway....I tried also with some saved scenarios in NASSP v8.0 (again for Apollo 7 and 8 rentry preparaion) but still I got all these wierd effects.....

don't know....very frustrated....some of you have any clues about these strange phenomena????

thank you and sorry for asking something so obvious as "how to save scenarios" .... ashame of me but I do hope to do something wrong....

thanks again for reading me.
Paolo.

 

[jedidia]

There's two ways: If you move your mousecursor to the top of the screen, a bar with commands will drop out. Somewhere towards the right end of that bar, there's a save option. This will create a quicksave without interrupting the simulation. The quicksave will be save to scenarios/quicksave folder. However, the naming is purely incremental (scenarioName_xxxx.scn), so if you load a quicksave and then quicksave again, or run different scenarios in succession (most of which will usually be named current_state) it can quickly become rather confusing which one you want to load.

The other alternative is to activate the scenario editor in the modules tab in the launcher. In sim, you can start the scenario editor again by going to the top command bar and clicking on "functions", which will open a window where you can select the installed plugin to run. Choose scenario editor to open it.
Appart from a lot of functionality that allows you to manipulate the scenario, it also has a save button. This will let you name your save, too.

As for NASSP related issues with scenario saving and loading, I'm afraid I can't help with that...

 

[DaveS]

There's two ways: If you move your mousecursor to the top of the screen, a bar with commands will drop out. Somewhere towards the right end of that bar, there's a save option. This will create a quicksave without interrupting the simulation. The quicksave will be save to scenarios/quicksave folder. However, the naming is purely incremental (scenarioName_xxxx.scn), so if you load a quicksave and then quicksave again, or run different scenarios in succession (most of which will usually be named current_state) it can quickly become rather confusing which one you want to load.

There's a much quicker way to do this, Ctrl-S.

 

[Ripley]

StateSaver Autosave - Orbit Hangar Mods

Don't know wether it works in NASSP though.

 

[n72.75]

You shouldn't have to be in P00 to save. Quick saving will take a snapshot of the AGC memory as as well as system states at the time of saving. Being able to quick save and reload is one of our design philosophies. One of the reasons that the mission sceneriaos in v8 Beta are outdated, is that as we add new systems we need to add their save and load lines to the sceneriao files, and the only real way to do it is to reply the mission and save along the way.

Now you're using v7, though which supports only the Apollo 7 and 8 missions. Are you using this in Orbiter 2010? Reloading a quick save shouldn't cause problems.

 

[thermocalc]

Thanks to all of you...I will try as you suggested .... i will try with quicksave as well as with save in the scenario editor ... anyway for the time being I am using only Apollo7 and 8 in NASSP v7.0 on Orbiter 2010P1 ... if (eventually and hopefully) I will mange to make a safe reentry I will move on with Apollo 9 in NASSP v8 with orbiter 2016 beta, to learn the LEM....but first need still to figure out how to do the rendezvous with Apollo 7 ... if cannot find the SIVB with the CSM (a "familiar" spacecraft after A7 and A8) I doubt I can dock back the LEM to the CSM ... maybe still few months ahead before doing that ... thanks again for your help.
Paolo

 

[n72.75]

Apollo 7 is a fairly difficult mission. There is a lot of stuff that happens in the first 30 hours. Its extremely critical that you dont get behind schedule, and there are a lot of manual marks to do in a very short amount of time. I've done the complete rendezvous twice now, and both times I was late, and ended up using waaay more rcs propellant than I should have. Apollo 8 is much easier.

Be super fastidious about nulling your residuals, and watch the clock.

The LEM is not a difficult vehicle to master when you get to it. The radar and AGC handle most of the marking part of the rendezvous, and even landings aren't that hard if you practice them a few times.

Quick saving often, allows you to go back and retry or practice things as many times as you want to.

 

[thermocalc]

Thank you for you encouraging words...you gave me HOPE....and thanks for the tips for A7 rendezvous I will keep them in mind when I will give it a try....

 

[MrFickles]

Yes, orbital rendezvous with the LM is easier IMO since marks are done with radar instead of optically, and there are programs for the AGC to handle burn calculations.

Of course, it just means more programs to learn, but that's where the fun is!