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Come back old ASAS - all is forgiven!


ComradeGoat

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I expirienced the ASAS Bug too in my steam version. It is full vanilla and got updated by steam.

I tested a big rocket with about 1.05 TwR on launch. It was tillting over with enabled SAS.

Because I have two accounts (Steam and KSP Store)

I downloaded the version from KSP Store and installed it.

Tested the same rocket and it flew straigt up.

So I think everybody who updated his version needs a fresh install.

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Ok, I took two flights with it. I can't claim to be super experienced so hopefully you'll forgive my flying (video shortly). :D

What I noticed is that once in orbit it does tend to lose control at the slightest input. On the second flight, I ran out of gas and glided for a good amount of time. It wasn't on purpose but I think it shed the most light on the issue. I wanted to pull the nose level and hold it there to extend glide time for testing. I was able to pull it up with some difficulty and SAS was able to hold it. However, as soon as I input something like Roll, the SAS release the Pitch hold and the nose starts falling. When I let go of the roll, it continues to drift downward in pitch as if that's the proper level.

In orbit I had some issues when doing rolls where I would spin out even with SAS enabled.

Take a look at the video and see if that matches what you experienced.

[Will edit video in here shortly]

All in all I think there is an issue with the way it's doing hold. It seems like it's releasing control of all axes when an input on one occurs and doesn't resume them to their previous level when input is removed. Based on their description I feel like it's supposed to hold the other axes stable while releasing control on the channel you provide in put to.

Curious. I see the other 2 axes drift like you, but all I see in orbit is a pitch. It seems like you're getting worse behaviour than I am.

It flies beautifully in 0.20, by the way.

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The new ASAS is not an autopilot anymore. It doesn't hold a heading like an autopilot would. Rather, it dampens rotations so you can better control. If you want something to keep you pointed at 15 degrees, you need an autopilot.

The new ASAS is not even dampening rotation that well. Most of my SIMPLE, SYMMETRICAL rockets not only veer of course slowly and gradually, but they also rotate slowly.

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I expirienced the ASAS Bug too in my steam version. It is full vanilla and got updated by steam.

I tested a big rocket with about 1.05 TwR on launch. It was tillting over with enabled SAS.

Because I have two accounts (Steam and KSP Store)

I downloaded the version from KSP Store and installed it.

Tested the same rocket and it flew straigt up.

So I think everybody who updated his version needs a fresh install.

Nope. The videos I did showing the uncorrected pitch problem were from a clean install. All it was used for was to launch that plane.

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That's not a new problem, and definitely not an ASAS problem. It's a design problem, stemming from the limited amount of control surfaces on the craft. When you pitch the Aeris up at high altitudes, you can notice how it does not have enough lift to easily maintain that angle, and both its canards and elevons are occupied holding it up like that. So when you roll, you occupy them doing the roll - and since there's nothing else left to control it, the craft pitches down. FAR offers good solutions to this, by splitting up ailerons and elevons so that you can have pitch-control surfaces that won't fail you when you're doing roll.

It's doing it on my plane when there is plenty left to give in the control surfaces.

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The problem is that it doesn't even bother to try correcting back to the original heading, it drifts to a heading it wants to keep and stays there until the burn is complete, at which point it returns to the original heading. I could easily live with it if it even tried to correct back to the original heading, and I'm talking about a craft that can be thrown all over the place by torque alone through user input during a burn; there is no lack of control authority.

If the SAS isn't for heading lock on rockets, then what is it for?

That's sort of what I mean when I say it seems vague and inconsistent, there are times where I've had it work pretty well and hold a relatively stable heading (as I mentioned, I found landing on Mun much easier with new SAS) but other times when it's vague and wanders off to it's own preferred heading despite repeated course corrections. It should keep the craft on a stable heading (unless there's a serious design flaw) though since it's designed to allow us freedom of control while it's engaged I just meant it wouldn't hold that heading in quite the same ferocious way the old ASAS did :).

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I have made some observations of the people responding to this thread that say they have no trouble with the new SAS:

Most seem to not understand how the new SAS is supposed to work. They need to go read C7's dev blog.

Some don't understand the concept of a rocket having enough control authority and the SAS not using it.

I have seen more than a few trying to justify the new SAS by saying it doesn't break the rocket apart. Couldn't be bothered to add struts in previous versions?

Please stop encouraging SQUAD to not fix the issues with the new SAS.

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The new ASAS is not an autopilot anymore. It doesn't hold a heading like an autopilot would. Rather, it dampens rotations so you can better control. If you want something to keep you pointed at 15 degrees, you need an autopilot.

Which we now do not have. Isn't progress wonderful?

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SAS isn't an autopilot, it's supposed to help kill rotation.

Put yourself into a free spin. Turn on SAS - does it slow (and stop, eventually) your spin? Then it works.

Every time someone repeats this nonsense that it's not supposed to hold attitude I think I'll just repost what harvester actually said.

The new SAS might be a lot of things, but it most definitely isn't a thing that requires constant input to maintain attitude. It's been pretty consistently doing that on all the test cases we did here, and there were a lot of them.

If the SAS isn't holding attitude properly for you, then it very well may be in a buggy state, because that is certainly not the intended behaviour.

SAS isn't doing what is should guys, try to deal with accepting this fact so we can move on and give useful feedback rather than repeating ourselves a thousand times.

Thanks.

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I also agree. From what I have experienced, the new ASAS system seems "weaker" and less responsive. Before, the ASAS will immediately lock into place when I turn it on, but now, when I let go of the controls, it doesn't lock immediately into place like before.

I can share this feeling

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When I first put an ASAS unit on a rocket and flew it, I noticed it was veering off course as if I didn't have ASAS enabled. I was troubled at first, however I quickly came to realize something: Advanced SAS no longer influences control surfaces on rockets. Combined with the fact that the engine I was using didn't have gimballing, the only thing attempting to right the large rocket was the gyro-wheels, which couldn't achieve this due to the fact that the rocket was just too large. However, I added two things that not only made my rocket stable, but more stable than any rocket I've ever previously constructed: the first was a reaction wheel (which uses the old standard sas model, look for it in control). This gave the gyro-wheels the extra push needed. The second thing was I added a gimballing engine. Unlike control surfaces, ASAS still works with gimballing engines.

In short, please don't discredit the new ASAS system as broken, or "bad". The fact of the matter is, that it's certainly an improvement over the old system, but it's indeed different. Like when electric charge was introduced, we had to accommodate in order for old craft to function properly, and the new ASAS system works the same. Sure, it means another part or two, but with these improvements much more reliable craft can be built. I have accommodated and tested all of my aircraft, and even the craft which were too unstable to fly can now be used for endurance flights with ease. That fact alone makes this system a vast improvement.

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The new ASAS is not an autopilot anymore. It doesn't hold a heading like an autopilot would. Rather, it dampens rotations so you can better control. If you want something to keep you pointed at 15 degrees, you need an autopilot.

Wrong... here it is again... sighhhhhh...

The new SAS might be a lot of things, but it most definitely isn't a thing that requires constant input to maintain attitude. It's been pretty consistently doing that on all the test cases we did here, and there were a lot of them.

If the SAS isn't holding attitude properly for you, then it very well may be in a buggy state, because that is certainly not the intended behaviour.

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If you spotted something wrong by doing this test, please list all your mods if any, and check the KSP/Parts folder to see if there's anything in there (on a stock install it should be empty). Also, try deleting your settings.cfg file and running the game again. It's unlikely, but not impossible that a bad config would mess things up.

The Aeris 3A does not nose down for me. It pulls to the right a bit (due to the ladder I reckon) and possibly ever-so-slightly up.

I have no mods. I used a clean install of KSP 0.21 and found two folders in the Parts folder which I deleted. Also deleted the settings file. Didn't help.

Incidentally, the SAS does seem to work as intended on the Aeris 3A. However I've rebuilt my Apollo-style Mun rocket from scratch in 0.21 and am running into "ghost roll" during take-off as well as nasty flipper-outerness on the Munar Module ascent stage (trying toalter one axis under SAS causes the other two to flip out).

RCS works like a charm though - huge imrpovement there :)

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The Aeris 3A does not nose down for me. It pulls to the right a bit (due to the ladder I reckon) and possibly ever-so-slightly up.

How fast were you flying? My report of the test is a few pages back, I noticed that the plane will pitch down only at 140 m/s ish or less. If you're flying any faster, it won't do that and that will lead to incorrect results.

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The Aeris 3A does not nose down for me. It pulls to the right a bit (due to the ladder I reckon) and possibly ever-so-slightly up.

I have no mods. I used a clean install of KSP 0.21 and found two folders in the Parts folder which I deleted. Also deleted the settings file. Didn't help.

Incidentally, the SAS does seem to work as intended on the Aeris 3A. However I've rebuilt my Apollo-style Mun rocket from scratch in 0.21 and am running into "ghost roll" during take-off as well as nasty flipper-outerness on the Munar Module ascent stage (trying toalter one axis under SAS causes the other two to flip out).

RCS works like a charm though - huge imrpovement there :)

Please don't mention broken Apollo craft.. I might cry ;.;

Sorry to here your craft are suffering too! I've lost all of my ships, not a single design even the simple ones that will hold attitude, even when I throw moar SAS at them.

I have to agree the RCS is now a thing of beauty though, if you actually ge munbug on its way to the mun the space wobble is completely gone. Of course you have to burn nodes manually as again the SAS will drift away from the node as it gets distracted by a passing star / contemplates its belly button etc :)

Fingers crossed for a more responive system so the spacecraft exchance doesn't die!

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For the record:

I am NOT on steam, fresh install, Windows XP on decent hardware, and I am not having any issue, in fact SAS is working very well.

I flew a stock jet, #1 on the list. I never fly airplanes and with very little experience I was able to easily take off fly and land the #1 stock jet. I toggled SAS on and off and found it to be effective.

Then I built and flew a Kerpollo Mun mission with success. YES, the SAS is weaker, but functional and my Saturn V redux rocket has about half as many support struts than previous version since the oscillations (wobble) has been reduced greatly.

On another note, I saw a HUGE performance increase in flight, loading, and across the board!

THANKS SQUAD!!

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It's drifting for me when I start from dead stable. Ship is slightly out of balance, and it doesn't attempt to correct for that, or rather it does, but on a different heading. :-(

So are you saying if you for example launch a ship with sas on that it will drift even before you start pitching over?? That definitely does not happen here at all.

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How fast were you flying? My report of the test is a few pages back, I noticed that the plane will pitch down only at 140 m/s ish or less. If you're flying any faster, it won't do that and that will lead to incorrect results.

OK, tested it again and got the slight downward drift around 140m/s. SAS keeps her rock solid. This jives pretty well with what I've seen so far, in that SAS works like a charm on fairly light aircraft but refuses to use the control authority of larger rockets to actually keep them stable. High TWRs and/or accelerations seem to make these problems escalate very quickly.

Edited by Wayfare
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I wasnt having problems with ASAS.......or so I thought.

My contraptions hold their course (or maybe so far) but once I leave the atmosphere, I cant turn SAS off and I can not separate or do anything at all. Must be a bug.

The game is still going, just doesn't respond.

Maybe I am missing something? hmm

This nearly sounds like you ran out of electricity.

At least in .20 and earlier the ship would not respond to any input if it runs out of electricity.

Though I had an odd issue last night that suggest this might not be the case though.

Went all the way to duna and then realized i had forgotten both RTG/solar panels and for some reason even at 0 electricity I still had full control over my ship.

Edited by boxman
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My Ion powered Cupola can't hold its direction as well. At first it works nice to "lock" the initial direction, but the craft did rotate away very slow after a few minutes of burning. We are talking about ion engines!!

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*****possible problem******

Look at your lift, i was messing around and noticed that my lift is tilted forward ????? Now this would cause the sas to react to try and get the lift stabilized would it not? meaning it would try and make the lift always pointing up not slightly forward? just a question. It was not like that before at least not that i remember. I know some of you are talking about space but it could still be having a reaction in space as the believed center is off a bit.

Edited by Diewoe
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High TWRs and/or accelerations seem to make these problems escalate very quickly.

Oh, yeah, despite my positive report of my SAS condition, one side note that I forgot. I too, did notice that on larger rockets under heavy acceleration in atmosphere, SAS struggled to keep its heading. Reducing power had a noticeable affect to correct this.

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Okay, so I reinstalled and made another test with the Aeris 3A. I've no idea how to Youtube, so here's the video on Dropbox.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/crr6am98zh5a91p/KSP%202013-07-25%2021-04-58-647.avi

It appears I've been wrong, it is possible to make the Aeris flip out with some intensive abuse, but it's a lot easier with SAS on. I should probably remind Squad that ASAS doesn't stand for Aerial Stunt Augmentation System.

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1) I can't wait to see that rocket.

2) My update was a hard install so the settings.cfg has been overwritten (I'm sure). My joystick (I do have one) has not been plugged in or configured on my stock backup KSP since updating. There is no way that's the problem.

For those who want it, here is the craft file. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_BVD9gAcd6BTS1laDhPN0llLW8/

And this is what it is for. Look closely before asking if I am missing something.

I didn't action group the solar panels (for if you reach orbit; and sorry).

Abort triggers parachute, fires sepatrons, and decouples the command pod (with running kill tallies, I'm into abort sequences to save kerbals now XD)

Just gave it a try on my system and oddly enough it does the same here even though there was no issues with the rockets and spaceplanes i tested earlier. Seems like it affects only some rockets for some odd reason.

It seems more or less fine after getting rid of the first stage though.

Edit: I must have been very lucky with my first test designs.. Loaded up my old ships from .20 and gave one of them a try and after getting to about 20k it starts spinning which causes the heading to to move all over the place. After a long time it seems to stop spinning, but then spins just as fast in opposite direction causing it to again go all over the place. Turning on/off asas does nothing either.

So I take back what i said about it working fine for me...

Another odd thing is how sudden the spin starts.. With the old ASAS this would be something that would start gradually and slow instead of sudden.

Edited by boxman
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