For me ship control is relatively easy and simple compared to Orbiter.
However since SE doesn't have any calculater or tool for orbital maneuver, It's not easy to make even simple rendezvous.

Meh, I can kind of see their point about the ships being hard to drive. It's been getting easier in recent patches, and the tutorial would probably have helped me a ton if I hadn't figured it out already, but to this day most of my "play" with the ships consists of spending two hours getting one into a decent circular orbit around something and then just admiring the scenery, reluctant to break orbit after all the time I spent on it ^^;
If suggestions related to ships are kosher in this thread, perhaps SE could benefit from an "auto orbit" feature. It'd be akin to the existing "fly to" feature, except in this case it would park the ship in a circular (ish) orbit around the destination object. This could be a separate button or piggyback on the "fly to" button.

"Ok Google, put me in synchronous orbit"

problemecium wrote:

Meh, I can kind of see their point about the ships being hard to drive. It's been getting easier in recent patches, and the tutorial would probably have helped me a ton if I hadn't figured it out already, but to this day most of my "play" with the ships consists of spending two hours getting one into a decent circular orbit around something and then just admiring the scenery, reluctant to break orbit after all the time I spent on it ^^;
If suggestions related to ships are kosher in this thread, perhaps SE could benefit from an "auto orbit" feature. It'd be akin to the existing "fly to" feature, except in this case it would park the ship in a circular (ish) orbit around the destination object. This could be a separate button or piggyback on the "fly to" button.

There practically is an auto orbit feature.  Just hit the button to align to horizon, hit the orbit/trajectory button, and burn until circular or almost circular.  Takes like 2 minutes.

^ Sometimes that works. Sometimes you find you're not in the Hill sphere of the target body. Sometimes you arrive moving at 23948273459249825034958290 km/s and are smacking into the surface before you have time to achieve orbit. Sometimes it works, except your orbit is retrograde or at 90° inclination.
I'm not saying what we have is bad, but I am saying that there's room for a proper auto orbit button.

problemecium wrote:

Source of the post Sometimes you arrive moving at 23948273459249825034958290 km/s

if you arrive at this velocity there's no auto orbit that can save you
a good way is:
arrived to the planet exit from warp a little before autopilot, near 20000 km from planet (cause sometimes relative velocity is too high).
use auto pilot for set to zero relative velocity.
use horizontal HUD for position itself parallel to the surface and use the upper 360° grid for choose a direction.
use orbital hud to accelerate to orbital speed
If you want a equatorial orbit you need to create a first orbit that intersect equator, stop yourself at the equator, then point ship at 0 degrees and re-accelerate to orbital velocity.
if you are completely nerd and want a geostationary orbit, well, remember you're nerd and do the math

No worries on whether I can do it manually - as i mentioned I already do that a lot. I still think in the interest of user-friendliness that the sandbox mode could use a handy button to save us all that work.

ettore_bilbo wrote:

problemecium wrote:

Source of the post 

If you want a equatorial orbit you need to create a first orbit that intersect equator, stop yourself at the equator, then point ship at 0 degrees and re-accelerate to orbital velocity.

That's really inefficient way to do it.  I learned in Kerbal Space Program that the best way to change inclination is to burn either "Normal Up" or "Normal Down" at the node in your orbit that intersects the plane you want to be on.  In SE, if you are in a circular orbit but not equatorial, just hit the "View Ship Trajectory" button.  The squares in the orbit, one filled and one empty, are your nodes you want to burn at to change your inclination to equatorial.  This works for every planet but try it at earth where you know the equator is.  Works just like in KSP and this is how NASA does it as well.

EDIT:  It helps to circularize your orbit as much as possible before doing this for best results.

EDIT2:  Watch the "i" in your orbit parameters, that's inclination relative to the equator.  Get as close to 180 as possible for equatorial orbit.  90 is a polar orbit.

Stab74 wrote:

Source of the post That's really inefficient way to do it.  I learned in Kerbal Space Program that the best way to change inclination is to burn either "Normal Up" or "Normal Down" at the node in your orbit that intersects the plane you want to be on.  In SE, if you are in a circular orbit but not equatorial, just hit the "View Ship Trajectory" button.  The squares in the orbit, one filled and one empty, are your nodes you want to burn at to change your inclination to equatorial.  This works for every planet but try it at earth where you know the equator is.  Works just like in KSP and this is how NASA does it as well.

off course this is more efficient, but in space engine there's no need to preserve the fuel. Not yet, at least
stop and go is easy to do and to understand...

Well true but coming to a complete stop means your are going to start losing altitude quickly.  If you are already in low orbit you will be lucky to recover before hitting the planet.  Why not use the controls at your disposal?

I am not sure how to even use it, I don't know many features of it and how to use.

kot438 wrote:

I am not sure how to even use it, I don't know many features of it and how to use.

We have a flight manual
http://spaceengine.org/manual/space-flight-school/

I often use spaceships because I have feeling of realism. I think that there should be more options for spaceships, like interior of it. Spaceships have big potential for Space Engine  

I very rarely use ships, cuz I just cant get them near to my target.
Merging space engine and orbiter space flight sim would be an epic combo.

CUSTOMIZED KEY BINDINGS FOR SHIPS

I really enjoy playing ships but to make it easier and more intuitive I customized the key bindings.  Attached is a graphic describing customized key bindings (just a photo of my keyboard edited with MS Paint).  The text is pretty small so it may be hard to read, and since it is colour-coded it may be hard to read for the colour blind.  If requested I can make a better and easier to read graphic.

Notes:
-These key bindings are specifically customized for ships so I removed key bindings for things like exposure, loader mode etc.
-The turn up and down controls are inverted (like flying a plane) so to rotate up, press down arrow; and to rotate down, press up arrow.
-This particular layout requires a numpad and NumLock has to be turned ON
-If you are using a laptop I recommend disabling the track-pad (only if you're using a mouse) to avoid accidentally selecting objects while flying

Hopefully some of you may be inspired to use this layout, a modified version or customize your own.  I will add that it took a lot of trial and error (many hours of nerding out!) to get the bindings to work well and practically, and I occasionally continue to make improvements.  If anyone has already customized their key bindings for ships or does in response to this post, feel free to share them and any feedback and suggestions