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Adjustments to flight plan terminology #2890

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merged 3 commits into from
Feb 9, 2021

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@eggrobin eggrobin commented Feb 9, 2021

  • Rebase was translated as « reset »; use 变基 « change base », which is what git, whence our English term comes, uses in Chinese.
  • Use the terms from the relevant Baike and Wikipedia articles for the directions of the Frenet frame.
  • Get rid of the KSP term « maneuver node ». This is the result of a long discussion both on QQ and with @Zaikarion; see the summary below.

Some day we may want to change 轨道机动 #n to 第n次轨道机动 (I suspect this is currently messing with the word order when it comes to referring to the final time of a manœuvre), but this will have to come in a subsequent release.

On nodes and manœuvres.

KSP terminology and real terminology.

The term « maneuver node » probably originates as a calque of « ascending/descending node », possibly via the concept of UI  MapNodes on KSP’s trajectories in map view.

The Chinese term for the ascending and descending nodes uses the word 交点 (intersection). The translation of « maneuver node » in the Chinese version of KSP is however literal instead of attempting to keep the calque, thus 机动节点, where 节点 otherwise means a node in a network or graph.

In the zh-CN orbital mechanics literature, the term for « orbital manœuvre » is unambiguously « 轨道机动 ».

Language.

Things are however made complicated by the fact that, in Chinese, 机动 is, to quote Zethar, « super not a noun intuitively », so there are phrases that become awkward if we use it.

Note: It looks like the use of that word in the sense of manœuvre is a borrowing from the Japanese word for military manœuvres—though Japanese borrows the English word マヌーバ when it comes to orbital manœuvres.

On the other hand, Principia manœuvres being extended, contrary to the instantaneous stock maneuver nodes, using anything with the word « point » 点 in it to refer to the whole manœuvre is sure to lead to confusion.

Recommendations.

Zethar’s advice is

I think the safest way to grammar right is to use the whole phrase 轨道机动 since 机动 by itself nouns so poorly in Chinese

I have consistently done so (it fits).

Someone on QQ suggested using 机动起点 (for « manœuvre starting point ») when we are actually referring to the starting point of the manœuvre. I have done so where we implicitly refer to it in English, which is the case in « Warp to manœuvre ».

Similarly, when referring to the end of the preceding manœuvre (as a time base), I have used 轨道机动终点.

Further, the following strings were translated following Zethar’s suggestions:

Upcoming manœuvre: 即將执行轨道机动 « manœuvre about to be executed »
Ongoing manœuvre: 进行中的轨道机动 « currently progressing manœuvre »
All manœuvres are in the past: 所有轨道机动已完成 « all orbital manœuvres are completed »
Add manœuvre: 新建轨道机动 « Create new manœuvre »

The status message word salad is broken by design, so those strings have not been carefully examined.

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