[1.8.0-1.12.5] AtmosphereAutopilot 1.6.1

[Yaivenov]

First and foremost, THANK YOU!! This mod made the other half of the game (planes) possible for me. I now consider it an essential-to-play mod and am thinking about figuring out how to gut mechjeb's own spaceplane subroutine and drop this in its place.

 

And now for the obligatory feature request: Could you alter the vertical speed input so it also applies for the altitude hold function? This way I can make sure my craft only climbs at X m/s on its way to Y altitude.

(Basically I want to engage both altitude control, and vertical speed control, with vertical speed controlling the rate of climb/descent to the specified altitude.)

[danielboro]

i join @Yaivenov

i seen plains try to go up too fast and lose speed to a point the jet lose efficiency
altitude importance over speed needs a reduction

[Boris-Barboris]

Spoiler

"Advanced options" description:

• pseudo-FLC - toggle for pseudo-FLC (Flight Level Change) control law for ascend. Will force CF to respect speed setpoint and craft thrust parameters when choosing ascent angle.
• flc margin - default value 15 m/s. Span of pseudo-FLC algorithm relaxation region. Decrease if don't want to tolerate errors in speed. Algorithm will not converge below some minimal value, so be careful.
• ...
• max climb angle - default value 30 degrees. Global limit on climb and drop maneuver velocity pitch. Will sometimes be exceeded, it's okay.

@danielboro

[SaintWacko]

I've been using this for a while and it just makes planes so much more enjoyable. I've recently managed to make a plane that completely breaks the Cruise Flight Controller, though, and I'm trying to figure out whether it's an issue with the mod, or if I need to tweak something. When the plane has just taken off and I tell it to climb to 20km, it pitches up way too far and flips over. I also tried first pointing it 30 degrees up and then telling it to go to 20km, at which point it rolled over, climbed to 20km upside down, looking like it tried to roll upright a few times, then when it reached 20km it rolled over and promptly spun out and stalled. The third try I climbed to approximately 20km with the fly-by-wire mode, leveled out, then engaged the Cruise Flight Controller, and it immediately pitched up and flipped over.

[Boris-Barboris]

@SaintWacko sound like it's too unstable. And, yeah, MD\CF are not perfect and don't work on some legit designs, I know.

[SaintWacko]

2 minutes ago, Boris-Barboris said:

@SaintWacko sound like it's too unstable. And, yeah, MD\CF are not perfect and don't work on some legit designs, I know.

Hm, I'll have to tweak the CoM a bit to see if I can fix that. Decreasing the pitch authority by changing one of the control surfaces from pitch/roll to roll only (mostly) fixed the problem, but I had them all as pitch in the first place in an attempt to increase maneuverability at high altitudes.

[Sarxis]

Thank you Boris for reinstating the distance to waypoint readout!  Very useful little bit of data when traversing by air

[Shogun]

This mod is absolutely amazing. It was everything I was looking for to handle those long flights. It is super intuitive and makes planes 100% more fun.

[Foxster]

Apologies if I'm being dense here...

How do I get the mod's windows to stay open?

Each time I launch a craft I have to click on the AA button, click on Autopilot module manger and click on Cruise Flight controller GUI. 

Would be real nice if the Cruise Flight controller window just was always open, even after a trip back to the Spaceplane Hanger. 

[Boris-Barboris]

@Foxster currently there is no way. For now, Shift + P and P may half your struggle.

[Foxster]

1 minute ago, Boris-Barboris said:

@Foxster currently there is no way. For now, Shift + P and P may half your struggle.

Ah, right, thanks. 

I know its not usually a big thing but when you are prototyping a new craft then it does become a tad tedious. 

Great mod though and thank you for it!

[SkyKaptn]

Some time back ago I got my will and the PID button was made a global switch in thrust director. Now I am asking if you could do the same thing for the "use breaks" toggle? I like to be in control myself of the combination of on/off/wheel breaks/air break.

[martinezfg11]

@Boris-Barboris 

Atmosphere Autopilot is best autopilot. Here I'm using it to control a helicopter. Maybe there can be some functionality added to assist said helicopter piloting (e.g. Altitude hold??) 

 

[Boris-Barboris]

maybe some day, but not very soon.

[Raphaello]

Hi,

Joining in to say it's an impressive piece of matlabing Thanks a lot for this so useful mod!

I've found a small conflict with 'giving aircraft a purpose' mod: for some reason AA makes this part of contract "Wright Aeronautical: Build and fly your first airplane!" impossible to acquire.

The reason is that with AA installed this piece of contract

		REQUIREMENT
		{
			name = PartModuleUnlocked
			type = PartModuleUnlocked
			
			partModule = ModuleControlSurface

		}

is never met for some reason:

The workaround is to uninstall AA, accept the contract and install it again.

 

However, this has the potential to break other stuff as well so it might be a good idea to change this behaviour.

[Raphaello]

OK, it seems AA renames module 'ModuleControlSurface' into 'SyncModuleControlSurface' so adding this requirement to the GAP contract fixes the issue and uninstalling the mod is no longer necessary.

		REQUIREMENT:NEEDS[AtmosphereAutopilot]
		{
			name = PartModuleUnlocked
			type = PartModuleUnlocked
			partModule = SyncModuleControlSurface
		}

 

[Boris-Barboris]

Ok, guys, long story short:

AA and CorrectCoL are looking for a modder to love them. I don't feel the passion for KSP any more, nor do my RL circumstances allow me to dispose time on those mods, and when they do, I'd rather do something else. I don't really like mods with burnt-out devs hanging around on the forum, so I'd like to state obvious things earlier. There is a little backlog of UI-related requests from users, that are a good place to start and get familiar with the code base.

Of course, I'll be in touch to answer technical questions.

[SkyKaptn]

Thank you @Boris-Barboris for your major contribution to the community. Without AtmosphereAutopilot I probably would have stopped playing a long time ago. 

[redmonddkgamer]

One question: Landing guidance?

[Boris-Barboris]

30 minutes ago, redmonddkgamer said:

One question: Landing guidance?

no

[redmonddkgamer]

10 minutes ago, Boris-Barboris said:

no

*sad face intensifies*

[Boris-Barboris]

30 minutes ago, redmonddkgamer said:

*sad face intensifies*

Just do it ™

[danielboro]

@redmonddkgamer you can try

Kramax Autopilot http://spacedock.info/mod/1019/Kramax%20Autopilot%20Continued

[kiwinanday]

Best way to use AA for landing is by figuring out your craft's minimum flight speed, then setting AA speed control to about 5kts over that, and using the standard FBW to fly it in. Since AA cuts out on touchdown, you can then cut throttle (might want to have a hotkey to cut the speed control, in case you bounce), hit the brakes, and voila, you're on the ground.

@redmonddkgamer

Edited April 10, 2017 by kiwinanday

[JollyGreenGI]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but with AA installed, flaps act a little weird. They deploy all correctly, but when retracted they snap back into place, completely skipping the animation. Only seems to happen if they aren't also used as control surfaces.