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[1.0.5] GravityTurn version 1.3.1 - Automated Efficient Launches (1.1 pre-release available)


Overengineer1

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1 hour ago, c_space said:

Love this mod! Thanks a lot!

I am using it with 1.1.2 quite successfully.

Has anyone noticed in 1.1.2 that the AP hold time sweet spot seems to be around 50-55 seconds and for sensitivity it seems to be around 0.3 or 0.35?

After I figure out a turn angle and start speed, this shaves off more dV. Tried with the KerbalX and my own craft.

YES. this exactly. I always do 50 then 60 for finish. Haven't touched sensitivity. But that allows me to be basically in orbit after my first or second stage is completely burned and use <100 DV to circularize

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This mod desperately needs a limit on deviation from prograde ie AoA, I'm running 64K with FAR and the mod effectively does not work as it will try to correct the heading too far and stall the rocket out causing it to flip and tear itself apart under aerodynamic stress. Maybe stick that in as a parameter and have it check Max Q value and adjust to prevent Max Q from getting too high? May or may not be that easy in FAR though as the control surfaces could stall and go past the point of no return while the aerodynamic stress is still relatively low. But regardless, a limit on AoA would solve it.

 

And that's before we get into what happens when the boosters drop off and only the sustainers are left. Fortunately that tends to happen at high enough altitudes to not be catastrophic XD

 

EDIT: It appears the mod also doesn't read FAR's dynamic pressure value for purposes of fairing release, not terribly hard to do that one by hand though.

Edited by kerrigan778
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ok one question.  I have a ssto space plane.  It takes off vertically using a nuclear turbo jet burning atmosphere.  Once that stops working well it switches the turbojet over to burning liquid fuel using an action group to toggle the fuel and close the air intake.  Is there anyway make this mod work with that type of launch?

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8 hours ago, captinjoehenry said:

ok one question.  I have a ssto space plane.  It takes off vertically using a nuclear turbo jet burning atmosphere.  Once that stops working well it switches the turbojet over to burning liquid fuel using an action group to toggle the fuel and close the air intake.  Is there anyway make this mod work with that type of launch?

You can just flip the switch manually. It adjusts thrust in real time automatically.

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I found a bug! Yay me! :D

I'm not sure how fixable it is or even what the correct action should be when this happens, but I suspect it shouldn't be what DOES happen.

If you switch vessels while GravityTurn is running (Say, to check out a dropped stage just for fun or whatnot) GravityTurn keeps controlling the correct ship (the one that you want to lift to orbit) but controls it is if the active ship (the dropped stage you just switched to) is that ship. So, when that stage starts tumbling GravityTurn turns the real ship the other direction and punches the gas.

It reminds me somewhat of an old car I had that allowed you to turn Cruise Control on while in Neutral. It would happily burn out the engine trying to accelerate to the target speed.

Edited by 5thHorseman
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Are there known incompatibilities or something like that?

Because I just installed it, and there's no button anywhere showing up. Neither on default toolbar, nor in the available buttons for Blizzy's.

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I'm getting a crash caused by gravity turn.  I think it's interacting with the microwave power transmission and ion mechanic of KSPI, and causes the game to quickly jump from 4gb of ram to 12gb and keep trying to take more ram.  Here is the end of the log file:

[LOG 13:27:52.519] GravityTurn : Exception in StageStats.RunSimulation(): System.Exception: FuelFlowSimulation.SimulateStage reached max step count of 100
  at GravityTurn.FuelFlowSimulation.SimulateStage (Single throttle, Double staticPressure, Double atmDensity, Double machNumber) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at GravityTurn.FuelFlowSimulation.SimulateAllStages (Single throttle, Double staticPressureKpa, Double atmDensity, Double machNumber) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at GravityTurn.StageStats.RunSimulation (System.Object o) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

EDIT: Disregard, I have removed the mod and I'm still getting the same problem, but no log spam.

 

Edited by Liquid5n0w
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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm having a bit of a problem here. Every time i try to launch my rockets with GT, it seems to shallow out the flight path too early, causing my rockets to burn up or crash. I'm early in a career game, so my ships are still pretty small. Any suggestions?

 

Also feature request: a preset window where you can set values for GT to base it's guess work off of, ie: orbit altitude and inlination.

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10 hours ago, stryth said:

I'm having a bit of a problem here. Every time i try to launch my rockets with GT, it seems to shallow out the flight path too early, causing my rockets to burn up or crash. I'm early in a career game, so my ships are still pretty small. Any suggestions?

It can be a very fine balance. Some factors to consider before getting to GT settings:

Are you using solid boosters? GT can't throttle those, so once you lose the TWR the boosters give you, and if the remaining engines have low TWR, your ship will pitch up hard to keep the apoapse time in line with what was set. This severely impacts efficiency, which may lead to not reaching orbit with the fuel you have left, or just immediately flipping. The boosters may also push you to too high a speed at too low an orbit, if you set a higher launch angle.

Some components have a lower max temp than others. Use the service bay or fairings to protect these

Here's the practical impact of each setting on your launch profile, assuming you only change one setting, leaving the others:

  • Start m/s: Larger values will increase vector and gravity drag. Your ship will be at a slightly higher altitude when it first aligns with the orbital vector, reducing heating a little. In general, smaller values are more aggressive and efficient, but increase the time spent lower in the atmosphere.
  • Turn Angle: Smaller values will increase vector and gravity drag but reduce odds aerodynamic flip for unstable ships. Your ship will be at a slightly higher altitude when it aligns with the orbital vector, reducing heating a little.
  • Hold AP Time Start/Finish: How far ahead in seconds your apoapsis is pushed before engines throttle back. Larger values at start time will increase vector and gravity drag, and decrease time spent at lower altitudes. Finish time mainly has an impact on how your AP Time changes up until it gets overridden in effect by Sensitivity.
  • Sensitivity: The minimum thrust in percent. Overrides Hold AP Time because thrust won't be reduced below this level when the ship is trying to keep time-to-apoapse at a certain value. Higher values will force your ship to reach Destination Height sooner, reducing time spent in atmosphere.
  • Destination Height: A higher value here can cause your ship to accelerate more in atmosphere once you are aligned with the orbital vector, increasing heating. Very low sensitivity values offset this but increase time spent in atmosphere.
  • Pressure Cutoff: A lower value will increase how long your ship waits to switch from the Surface prograde vector to the Orbital prograde vector, increasing vector drag but reducing flip chance for unstable vessels. 2500 is roughly 20km; if this is where your ship suddenly turns down to the horizon and flips, it's because of this setting.

Setup options:

Fairing Pressure is set by default to much lower in the atmosphere (apparently?) than the Pressure Cutoff. There are a couple things you can do to keep your fairings on higher in the atmosphere, and setting this to a lower value is one of them. Note that GT might not pop your fairings off when they're staged due to this, so it is possible for your ship to be stuck inside a dropped stage's fairing. Be ready to manually release the fairings when you feel it's safe, heat-wise, just remember you can't do that if the fairings were in a stage you just dropped. The resource scanner dish, for example, has to be protected by fairings much longer than the default settings will, so reduce Fairing Pressure (maybe to 0) and manually decide when to let them go (usually over 55k).

The default settings shouldn't generally cause problems, particularly for early career.

Depending on your ship, Pressure Cutoff might cause a flip, but otherwise we'll need to see what your ship looks like and when it burns up to figure out what GT settings might need to change.

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I hope this doesn't become abandoned. The last update on github was over 3 months ago. Would love to see it picked up by another if it's not updated soon. While the current (unofficial) version works OK with 1.1.2, from reports there are a fair number of unresolved issues with the mod and 1.1.3 is just around the corner.

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  • 2 weeks later...
11 hours ago, mtpatane said:

Anyone test this in 1.1.3? This mod worked perfectly for me in 1.1.2 but I haven't loaded in 1.1.3 because I want to make sure some mods work 

It doesn’t work for me.

When I press the Launch button it launches the vehicle and does not control it at all.

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Confirmed

Does not take any control, manned or unmanned.

debug log shows

[Exception]: MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'TimeWarp.SetRate'.

this error, assuming it is related to GravityTurn ( does not show when I launch the same ship manually) has been resolved by many other mods by a straight recompile.

the method 'TimeWarp.SetRate' has added a new parameter in 1.1.3.

 

The source is in GitHub, can anyone compile it to test (i'm not familiar with unity) if it works, we can ask permission from @Overengineer1 to publish it on the thread.

come to think of it, did the 1.1 recompile @Overengineer1 posted get updated in GitHub ?

 

Edited by FrontLineFodder
additional thought
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46 minutes ago, FrontLineFodder said:

The source is in GitHub, can anyone compile it to test (i'm not familiar with unity) if it works, we can ask permission from @Overengineer1 to publish it on the thread.

come to think of it, did the 1.1 recompile @Overengineer1 posted get updated in GitHub ?

 

So source code is GPLv3 , we should be able to recompile fine.

From what I see on the guidelines, it is allowed to post patched/recompiled versions (assuming you meet the requirements of the license and don't violate other rules)

The code in the master branch (1.4) looks like it was what @Overengineer1 compiled for us.

 

Please can someone provide a recompile. I don't want to go back to my 5000+ delta-v launches :(

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On 26 June 2016 at 10:35 PM, Gerbwerz said:

Ive noticed that I get no air drag from launch to orbit. I do have FAR and Deadly Reentry installed. Is that what others see when running this with those mods in 1.1.3?

'Spolsions when I set the turn angle too high. 

Definatly get air drag, though I do not use FAR

Edited by FrontLineFodder
Highs and lows
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  • 3 weeks later...
On ‎2016‎-‎06‎-‎26 at 8:35 AM, Gerbwerz said:

Ive noticed that I get no air drag from launch to orbit. I do have FAR and Deadly Reentry installed. Is that what others see when running this with those mods in 1.1.3?

Sounds like either FAR or DR was installed incorrectly. Common symptom of a botched installation, there. If you haven't done so, try installing it manually.

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