Execute maneuver node

[Clear Air Turbulence]

I would love to see an 'execute node' option on a maneuver node.

It's the only thing I use Mechjeb for at present.

[razark]

This sounds like something that pilots should be able to do.

[Superfluous J]

I was kinda hoping probe cores would get that option, for when they're not directly controllable due to not having a signal. And then they'd also just leave it in for piloted ships. Or someone would mod it. Or it would be a simple ModuleManager fix

[Kaos]

It would be even nicer (but also much more complicated to implement, hence less likely to happen) if pilots could execute the next maneuver node, even if the craft is not active by then.

[Pthigrivi]

Hmm... is it really so hard to execute a burn? I mean thats pretty much all we have to do. If we're automating things like that what's left for us to do? 

[Kaos]

It is not hard, but sometimes time-consuming. So it would be nicer to do that automatic with the game in the background instead of doing nothing but to wait for a certain second and then click x. If one could even do that while the craft is not active, it would safe even more time of the (in my opinion) boring parts of the game.

[razark]

7 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

If we're automating things like that what's left for us to do? 

Some people prefer building things, but not flying them as much.  Some like planning missions.  Frankly, after a while, the umpteenth TransMunarInjection burn or burning to capture into orbit becomes more of a chore than a game.

It still leaves plenty of more complex maneuvers for the player, like landing, fine tuning an orbit/encounter, or rendezvous and docking.

[Superfluous J]

13 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Hmm... is it really so hard to execute a burn? I mean thats pretty much all we have to do. If we're automating things like that what's left for us to do? 

No, it's not. Which is why automating it is attractive to someone who has done it thousands of times.

"All I do" is not execute burns, and especially not burns using maneuver nodes. It's the burns that don't (and can't) use maneuver nodes that is the actual meat of the game.

Getting to Mun isn't the hard part. Landing on that arch is.

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah sorry guys the tone on that was sour. I guess what I meant is you're setting up the maneuver and clicking x, vs setting up the maneuver and clicking x twice. I guess I don't see the huge time saver. Those little fine adjustments after an imprecise burn feel like part of the game to me. 

[Hannu2]

6 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Hmm... is it really so hard to execute a burn? I mean thats pretty much all we have to do. If we're automating things like that what's left for us to do? 

In my opinion it is very boring to plan and execute routine burns. First ones were interesting, because I learned new things, but after hundreds of hours they are just boring. Therefore I use MechJeb to do such boring routine stuff.

For me best thing is planning of missions, building crafts and checking if they work as I intended. It is more interesting to be an engineer who plans missions or ships than an actual astronaut who pilots crafts.

[jlcarneiro]

Another vote for some way to automate maneuver nodes execution, just the next one.

On 08/12/2015 at 3:57 PM, Clear Air Turbulence said:

I would love to see an 'execute node' option on a maneuver node.

It's the only thing I use Mechjeb for at present.

I currently use KER, Precise Maneuver, Autorove and Better Burn Time. If I had a simple maneuver execution mod, I also would ditch MJ2. MJ helps a LOT, but I think it's too resource consuming if you use it only for data and maneuver execution...

Edited July 28, 2016 by jlcarneiro

[Superfluous J]

With the stock way to aim at the maneuver node and the Better Burn Time mod, I'd be happy with an automated Kerbal Alarm Clock entry for "5 seconds before the end of your burn." It could even recalculate it over time if I happen to stage midway through or something.

[cfds]

I use RemoteTech and put the small surface attachable probe core from Cacteye on manned capsules just to have the "execute manoeuvre" function. Would be a useful and is as such left to modders.

[jlcarneiro]

2 hours ago, cfds said:

I use RemoteTech and put the small surface attachable probe core from Cacteye on manned capsules just to have the "execute manoeuvre" function. Would be a useful and is as such left to modders.

This!  I don't use RemoteTech anymore (due to CPU restrictions, I preferred EVE, PlanetShine and Distante Object Enhancement Bis) and what I miss the most is the Flight Computer.

Last night I took a look at RT's and MJ's source code. I intended to "delete all code unrelated to executing the next maneuver of the simpler one". Unfortunately, I'm ashamed to say I couldn't make heads or tails of either of both... 

So, I must trust @Snark's opinion that MJ is "stupefyingly complex" and assume that my idea is not feasible (at least by me)...

[Snark]

On 7/28/2016 at 3:57 AM, jlcarneiro said:

So, I must trust @Snark's opinion that MJ is "stupefyingly complex" and assume that my idea is not feasible (at least by me)...

It's a (potentially) really hard problem.  That's why MJ is so huge.

Depending on just what you want to do, the problem can be easier or harder to solve with code.

Example of something that I think is hard-to-impossible:  have something that would execute burns in the background even when a ship isn't focused or anywhere in the physics bubble.  That's because such ships are "on rails" and not doing a full physical simulation (or, indeed, any simulation at all).  Even if you could code something that will "do" such a burn in the background, there would be very little guarantee that it would actually work (to take just a few examples: that the fuel flow is modeled correctly, that it's actually capable of thrusting without having off-center mass distribution causing it to spin, that any necessary staging happens automatically and with the appropriate velocity vectors specified for the debris, etc.)  It would be easy to end up with a situation where a rocket that couldn't do something "really", could do it when executed in the background by the mod, or vice versa.  From reading this thread (which goes back several months), I kind of get the impression that at least some of the people who were posting here were asking for that.  I believe that trying to implement such a feature would be sufficiently hard that it would go into the "Not Gonna Happen, Ever" bucket.

On the other hand:  we already have a fairly powerful tool in stock, with the SAS "hold maneuver prograde" functionality.  If you're willing to depend on that, and if you're okay with potential trouble in some edge cases, and if you're okay with no automated help with staging, it wouldn't be too hard to add functionality to a mod like BetterBurnTime, so that it would start the burn at the designated start time, and cut throttle when the maneuver's done.

That's a lot of "ifs" that would constrain the usefulness of the functionality.  But if you're willing to live with them all, it wouldn't be too hard to add.

I've actually thought about doing it, from time to time; it wouldn't be that hard to implement, given that BetterBurnTime has already done the hard part.  There were two main reasons I haven't done it yet.  One is that I, myself, like to do things manually, and I have a personal aversion to automation that actually does stuff.  That means that adding such functionality would be "writing a mod for other people to do stuff that I myself would never do," which is something I've never done before.  The other reason is that I don't see any way to add such a function without adding UI, and I abhor UI.  (The reason it needs a UI:  it will be imperfect and won't cover every conceivable circumstance, so there will always be times you want it not to do that.  So there would have to be some sort of UI to control "auto execute on or off".)

[jlcarneiro]

First of all, thanks for your input. With time we learn that some people's opinion should be considered on some topics.

Second, I didn't think such a mod should do anything in the background: we must focus on a ship to execute its maneuvers, so...

About doing them manually, its very easy, I know. But I thinking of delicate maneuvers, like cutting throttle on the exact time to match another satellite orbital período to establish a stable  comm network... Even reducing the engines throttle, I'm less precise than MJ or than RT Flight Computer.

On the same subject, I don't know if something else would force the existence of an UI, but I thought of "just" an "execute next maneuver" button, no automatic execution of future ones...

 

 

Edited August 1, 2016 by jlcarneiro

[Snark]

7 minutes ago, jlcarneiro said:

But I thinking of delicate maneuvers, like cutting throttle on the exact time to match another satellite orbital período to establish a stable  comm network... Even reducing the engines throttle, I'm less precise than MJ or than RT Flight Computer.

Oh.  If that's what you want, then no, this is not an easy thing, you need the complexity of a MechJeb to do it.  There is not now, and never will be, any simple add-on functionality to BBT that would let you do this.

That's because if you want really super delicate matching... it's not enough just to control the throttle.  You also need to control the direction you're pointing, since (as we all know... sigh) the stock SAS is not very well tuned.

MechJeb has a bunch of insanely complex code in its innards for completely replacing stock SAS; it's manually computing rotational momentum tensors, the whole nine yards.

So, the short answer for "how can I get automated maneuver execution like MechJeb" boils down to, basically, "use MechJeb."    (Or, at least, something of equivalent complexity.)

[jlcarneiro]

Oh, what a shame!

I thought it would be something like "keep pointing to the maneuver prograde", "burn at x℅ throttle for y seconds"...

Ah! Although BBT hás already done a lot, I didn't think of implementing this on BBT... Anyway, since it's not feasible, there is no point in discussing if it should or should not be in BBT...

[magnemoe]

12 hours ago, Snark said:

It's a (potentially) really hard problem.  That's why MJ is so huge.

Depending on just what you want to do, the problem can be easier or harder to solve with code.

Example of something that I think is hard-to-impossible:  have something that would execute burns in the background even when a ship isn't focused or anywhere in the physics bubble.  That's because such ships are "on rails" and not doing a full physical simulation (or, indeed, any simulation at all).  Even if you could code something that will "do" such a burn in the background, there would be very little guarantee that it would actually work (to take just a few examples: that the fuel flow is modeled correctly, that it's actually capable of thrusting without having off-center mass distribution causing it to spin, that any necessary staging happens automatically and with the appropriate velocity vectors specified for the debris, etc.)  It would be easy to end up with a situation where a rocket that couldn't do something "really", could do it when executed in the background by the mod, or vice versa.  From reading this thread (which goes back several months), I kind of get the impression that at least some of the people who were posting here were asking for that.  I believe that trying to implement such a feature would be sufficiently hard that it would go into the "Not Gonna Happen, Ever" bucket.

On the other hand:  we already have a fairly powerful tool in stock, with the SAS "hold maneuver prograde" functionality.  If you're willing to depend on that, and if you're okay with potential trouble in some edge cases, and if you're okay with no automated help with staging, it wouldn't be too hard to add functionality to a mod like BetterBurnTime, so that it would start the burn at the designated start time, and cut throttle when the maneuver's done.

That's a lot of "ifs" that would constrain the usefulness of the functionality.  But if you're willing to live with them all, it wouldn't be too hard to add.

I've actually thought about doing it, from time to time; it wouldn't be that hard to implement, given that BetterBurnTime has already done the hard part.  There were two main reasons I haven't done it yet.  One is that I, myself, like to do things manually, and I have a personal aversion to automation that actually does stuff.  That means that adding such functionality would be "writing a mod for other people to do stuff that I myself would never do," which is something I've never done before.  The other reason is that I don't see any way to add such a function without adding UI, and I abhor UI.  (The reason it needs a UI:  it will be imperfect and won't cover every conceivable circumstance, so there will always be times you want it not to do that.  So there would have to be some sort of UI to control "auto execute on or off".)

mechjeb does only hold on node and burn on execute node as I know. 
This can cause problems in edge cases like entering the atmosphere then doing an long burn from low orbit and it starts burning 10 minutes before node. 
Lost an ion probe at Moho as Pe moved inward and became negative during the long braking burn. 
it does also not correct from the error you get because of long burn time, this is very visible going to Moho, 

[mindstalker]

I had an idea and it sounds like it would be a great idea for a mod if possible.

TimeJump mod!  This is similar to the Recovery Mods that let you plan your ship recovery.

 

Set up a manuever node, click on "execute node", you timejump to double the burn time before the node. You preform the burn, then click a "return me" button that returns you back to your previous time.

[NWM]

I support the idea.

1/ as an ability of the probes, they can be "programed" a bit, and can execute orders when out of contact, and maybe the signal delay can be implemented in the game and the ion engines thrust can be moderated.

2/ and a fine new skill for the level 4 pilots.

[Skylon]

19 hours ago, NWM said:

I support the idea.

1/ as an ability of the probes, they can be "programed" a bit, and can execute orders when out of contact, and maybe the signal delay can be implemented in the game and the ion engines thrust can be moderated.

2/ and a fine new skill for the level 4 pilots.

I second that

[passinglurker]

On 12/8/2015 at 5:01 PM, Pthigrivi said:

Hmm... is it really so hard to execute a burn? I mean thats pretty much all we have to do. If we're automating things like that what's left for us to do? 

build? plot? plan? manage? if you don't like it you can always challenge yourself by not using it.

[regex]

On 12/8/2015 at 4:01 PM, Pthigrivi said:

Hmm... is it really so hard to execute a burn? I mean thats pretty much all we have to do. If we're automating things like that what's left for us to do? 

Launch into space and land on things, docking. Anything past that is generally just pointing at a dot and timing burns.

[Nicias]

Also, design rockets.