[1.12.x] Smart Parts Continued

[MaximumThrust]

I've made a Mun rover with engines pointing down, because it often flies too high and hits the ground with very high speed. The engines bleed the excess vertical speed, and it can land safe. I use MechJeb rover autopilot (which controls wheel speed, and make the wheels point to the ground using the RW/RCS), and is a little tedious to control the engines manually, so I set two speed controls to:

1 - Start the engines if the vertical speed decreases more than -20 m/s.
2 - Shutdown the engines when the vertical speed gets to -10 m/s.

So it never hits the ground with more than -20 m/s, doing short bursts until -10 m/s.

It worked, everything is configured correctly. But sometimes the first speed control, to activate the engines, simple don't work, and let the rover smash into the ground. The second one, to turn off the engines, seems to work always.

There is something I could do to try to fix this? Or other mod that can do that? I tried TCA, but it didn't worked very well for this.

Smart parts is fantastic and I'll use it for many other applications, if I found another mod to do this.

Thanks!
 

[linuxgurugamer]

Wrong application for these parts.   As you found out, they may not respond fast enough, also, I'm not sure how it works once it's been triggered.

You may not like this, but my advice is to not drive quite so fast.

[eberkain]

It sounds like a good application for a kOS script. 

[MaximumThrust]

35 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Wrong application for these parts.   As you found out, they may not respond fast enough, also, I'm not sure how it works once it's been triggered.

You may not like this, but my advice is to not drive quite so fast.

Thanks, I suspected that. I've made more tests (using hyperedit to let it fall into the Mun), sometimes it works, specially the first two or three times, sometimes don't.

The rover handles well going at maximum speed, I just need to bleed the vertical speed when it jumps too high. It's just too boring to do it manually, and I'm searching a way to made that automatically.

Anyway, this mod is awesome and very useful for many other applications. Thanks!

11 minutes ago, eberkain said:

It sounds like a good application for a kOS script. 

I was thinking the same, but never used it. Will take a look, thanks!

Some pics of the Rover. The "auto-reset" is turned off because I was making some tests.

Edited February 12, 2018 by MaximumThrust

[Mihara]

4 hours ago, MaximumThrust said:

Thanks, I suspected that.

...Maybe, a better solution is not driving quite so far. BonVoyage helps immensely when using rovers, I hardly even drive them myself further than 500 meters anymore.

[MaximumThrust]

19 minutes ago, Mihara said:

...Maybe, a better solution is not driving quite so far. BonVoyage helps immensely when using rovers, I hardly even drive them myself further than 500 meters anymore.

I like driving them! Using the KSP overpowered reaction wheels and MechJeb2 rover stabilization makes it very enjoyable. It keeps the rover accelerating, and reads the terrain, the wheels are always parallel to it. The boring part is turning the engines on and off to reduce vertical speed during long falls, and do that in a efficient way. Now I got TCA do to this, it's working well. I just drove 60 km in the Mun.

I saw that mod a while ago, seems interesting when you need to go very far, I'll probably use to collect science in planets when hopping is not an easy option. Will see if I can get a patch to work with Feline Rovers.

[Mihara]

1 minute ago, MaximumThrust said:

Now I got TCA do to this, it's working well. I just drove 60 km in the Mun.

...I guess I'm just still burned out after having had to drive 3400 km on Tylo back in 0.25 at 4 physical warp.

Current BonVoyage in CKAN already supports Feline Rovers, and works wonders precisely for getting all biomes in a single landing. Works especially well if your rover is manned and not dependent on solar power, because then BonVoyage drives at night, and at speeds you would be hard pressed to maintain manually for quite as long.

[Natso]

Very very very nice , thanks you

[Gargamel]

Is there a way to have the EC detector stay active?  I have a station with a Near Future Capacitor on it, with about the same EC as all the batteries on the station.  The Soil recycling is sucking down a lot of EC, so the batteries run dry about 2/3 the way through the night.  I added the EC controller to fire off and start to recharge the capacitor at 10% EC level, but I have to manually reset it each orbit.  I looked at the resource controller, and it has the same functionality.   If not, consider it a feature request.    Thanks!

[viperwolf]

@linuxgurugamer Good grief man, every mod i look at, you are the Author. I guess ill have to send another donation soon.

[danielboro]

On 3/17/2018 at 12:04 PM, Gargamel said:

Is there a way to have the EC detector stay active?  I have a station with a Near Future Capacitor on it, with about the same EC as all the batteries on the station.  The Soil recycling is sucking down a lot of EC, so the batteries run dry about 2/3 the way through the night.  I added the EC controller to fire off and start to recharge the capacitor at 10% EC level, but I have to manually reset it each orbit.  I looked at the resource controller, and it has the same functionality.   If not, consider it a feature request.    Thanks!

i use 2 EC detector

the active turns on the inactive

[Gargamel]

10 hours ago, danielboro said:

i use 2 EC detector

the active turns on the inactive

We need a "lightbulb over a head emoji".  Thanks. 

Now to figure out how to install the second EC controller....   KIS, and AGX?

[Gargamel]

So I get the Controller installed on the station, Using KIS.   But to my dismay, I cannot set it up properly.  On the left is the previous controller, on the right is the new one:

 

I had tossed it straight into a box to send up there, I did not take the time to set it up properly, and then add it.  In hindsight, maybe attaching it to the ferry craft and removing it from there would have been the better idea.

But a couple things to note:

1) The resource is listed as "Empty".   This is obviously not intended (aside from error catching). 

2) I cannot setup the controller as needed.  This may be an intentional design, but in my case, is a real PITA.   And I am also noticing I cannot adjust certain attributes on the other controller either.  It'd be nice to be able to do so,. 

Thanks!

[linuxgurugamer]

5 hours ago, Gargamel said:

So I get the Controller installed on the station, Using KIS.   But to my dismay, I cannot set it up properly.  On the left is the previous controller, on the right is the new one:

 

I had tossed it straight into a box to send up there, I did not take the time to set it up properly, and then add it.  In hindsight, maybe attaching it to the ferry craft and removing it from there would have been the better idea.

But a couple things to note:

1) The resource is listed as "Empty".   This is obviously not intended (aside from error catching). 

2) I cannot setup the controller as needed.  This may be an intentional design, but in my case, is a real PITA.   And I am also noticing I cannot adjust certain attributes on the other controller either.  It'd be nice to be able to do so,. 

Thanks!

I have never tested it using KAS or KIS, it wasn't designed to work with them.  That being said, your problem is probably that you didn't set it up before sending it up.

For now, you will have to edit the save file to fix this, I'm not planning on adding any ability to change the resource on the fly.

[Gargamel]

19 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

For now, you will have to edit the save file to fix this, I'm not planning on adding any ability to change the resource on the fly.

Fair nuff!  You have too much to do already!  But thanks for the reply. 

[Gordon Dry]

@linuxgurugamer Suggestion:
Add the word "smart" to the tags in the parts.

[linuxgurugamer]

2 hours ago, Gordon Dry said:

@linuxgurugamer Suggestion:
Add the word "smart" to the tags in the parts.

Open an issue on Github, or do it yourself and submit a PR

[Darinth]

Would you be willing to entertain the idea of parts that when staged or activated by an action group executed a vessel control action, such as activating SAS or setting throttle to a specific value?

[linuxgurugamer]

48 minutes ago, Darinth said:

Would you be willing to entertain the idea of parts that when staged or activated by an action group executed a vessel control action, such as activating SAS or setting throttle to a specific value?

Are you offering to do the work, or are you suggesting an improvement you'd like to see?

[Burning Kan]

51 minutes ago, Darinth said:

activating SAS

mechjeb does

 

51 minutes ago, Darinth said:

setting throttle to a specific value

tweakable everything does

with SMARTPARTs

no wishes remain open

[Darinth]

1 hour ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Are you offering to do the work, or are you suggesting an improvement you'd like to see?

While I know enough about coding in general that I could probably make this work, I'd really prefer not to have to go through trying to learn another modding API, etc... I was hoping this would be a simple enough part that it would be something you'd be willing to entertain making yourself. I understand if the answer is no. I never get upset with a modder who doesn't want to take on more work at somebody's request. <3

2 hours ago, Burning Kan said:

mechjeb does

 

tweakable everything does

with SMARTPARTs

no wishes remain open

Ohh wow. I wasn't aware that mechjeb even had options to activate certain controls in response to staging or action groups. That's awesome.

How does tweakable everything have capabilities for setting throttle? I'm looking at the thread, it doesn't seem to have anything related to setting throttle. o.O

[Burning Kan]

My mistake,good news i found it

bad, its not updated now

 

[linuxgurugamer]

7 minutes ago, Burning Kan said:

My mistake,good news i found it

bad, its not updated now

 

Soon

[Darinth]

Also won't quite do what I'm looking for if I'm reading it right. It can't actually throttle a vessel up; it simply changes the throttle limits of engines. Meaning that a vessel that is already throttled down still won't fire it's engines.

[Burning Kan]

NO RUSH @linuxgurugamer as fast as you are -you have more than the half of your mods updated

I am RIGHT ? I am RIGHT ? 60? 62?

ups thats not more then half(but nearly)

@Darinth is simple ,u can set throttle to actiongroups in 5%steps AFAIK and u got 10 actiongroup-slots

example: AG1 =0%, AG2=30%, AG3=55% and so on...

u dont get a perfect throttlecurve but it very handy for autm landings

-for that u need kOS