Reminisce with me! Holding down F.

[Superfluous J]

Okay you gotta be a pretty old timer to appreciate this, but holding down "F" still works to temporarily disable SAS.

For those of you who started after... what was is 0.20? 0.21? It used to be that if SAS was on, your ship was basically nailed in place. You had to turn it off to use the controls to turn the ship yourself, but you had to have it on pretty much all other times or the ship woudn't fly. However, it was a pain to hit T, turn, Hit T again, realize you wanted to turn a little more, hit T again, not know why you weren't turning, realize that you somehow miscounted and hit T 4 times instead of 3 and now it's back on, hit it again to turn. Forget to hit it again and fire the engines and go careening off to the left, etc. So, they added F so you could always know if SAS was on or not, because it was off if you were holding the key and on when you weren't.

Then SAS went from this magical force that kept your ship straight to reaction wheels (which are still magic but hey) and rudimentary computer control and all this, and just today I hit F by accident while trying to hit E and noticed SAS turned off. As far as I know, there's no real reason to turn it off in this way now, but there it is.

And it made me smile.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Haha! As a player since 0.13, I still do that all the time, but not because I still have the habit. Often when doing low flying in a plane, I can sometime find it useful to turn off SAS temporarily if the plane is in near-neutral trim, as it can allow me to make a slow, slight turn just a few meters above the ground, controlling my altitude with bank angle. If SAS were on it would start to side-slip and really wouldn't turn well.

Anyways, sorry for the ramble lol. Cheers!

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

Anyways, sorry for the ramble lol. Cheers!

This topic is FOR rambling.

I actually may start using this again myself. Since finding it I used it couple times instead of what I'd been doing, the t-double-tap, to quickly cycle SAS on and off which is the fastest way I've found to switch from one of the "hold *" buttons back to standard SAS. Hitting F cuts my keystrokes in half and that right there is some serious savings.

Edited July 4, 2018 by 5thHorseman

[Gordon Fecyk]

Tapping F to temporarily disable SAS proves useful on space planes during ascent, even when using Ferram Aerospace's drag model. Something to do with tapping F making the plane go faster since it would point more prograde. I then joked about how some of SkiFree's code made it into KSP.

"Tap F to pay respects."

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

SkiFree

Oh man that takes me back.

[Gargamel]

13 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

but holding down "F" still works to temporarily disable SAS

Your thread title made me panic, until I saw this.   I still hold down F, mainly out of habit.  I thought maybe I had been uselessly doing it for years now. 

[Cavscout74]

I've not been around long enough that it was needed, but I remember seeing the F key in the list of keybindings I printed out when I started & wondered why anybody needed to use it.   So now I've learned what it was originally for.  I guess that's my new thing to learn today. 

 

[Vanamonde]

There are people who don't use F? Why? 

With SAS on, make a small change to your attitude then hit F. Resets the aim point to the current heading. Isn't this what everybody does? 

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

There are people who don't use F? Why? 

With SAS on, make a small change to your attitude then hit F. Resets the aim point to the current heading. Isn't this what everybody does? 

It makes a difference?

I make a small change to my attitude and ... then it stays there. I'll do some testing to see if I can see a difference but I've never felt like the ship was pulling back to where it was.

7 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Your thread title made me panic, until I saw this.   I still hold down F, mainly out of habit.  I thought maybe I had been uselessly doing it for years now.  

If you're doing it so you can move your ship around then you ARE doing it uselessly.

[Zeiss Ikon]

So, am I the only one who's noticed that F is a toggle?  If SAS isn't on, it comes on while you hold F, just as, when SAS is on, it shuts off so long as you hold F.  I can see uses for temporary heading hold, with an instant, reflexive release...

[Superfluous J]

4 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

So, am I the only one who's noticed that F is a toggle?  If SAS isn't on, it comes on while you hold F, just as, when SAS is on, it shuts off so long as you hold F.  I can see uses for temporary heading hold, with an instant, reflexive release...

No I know it's a toggle. I just didn't realize that it was still there because the main (and I thought up until this moment the only) reason for it existing went away about 4 years ago.

[Gargamel]

2 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

If you're doing it so you can move your ship around then you ARE doing it uselessly.

Ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Wjolcz]

Press F to pay respects and crash o7

[StarStreak2109]

Wow, I didn't know about this...!!! Guess that comes with flying mostly rockets...

[MDZhB]

I remember doing this in the demo. I must have had it for a year before I bought the full game.

[MR L A]

On 7/4/2018 at 4:34 AM, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

I can sometime find it useful to turn off SAS

same, but for me its because high speed aircraft sometimes develop an SAS induced oscillation  

[katateochi]

ah yes, the "nailed in place" era and the F revolution....those were dark times. 
When SAS got upgraded to respond to input without needing to toggle it off (or hold F) it seemed like greatest thing ever, something that's now pretty much taken for-granted. 

On 7/4/2018 at 12:26 PM, Gordon Fecyk said:

Tapping F to temporarily disable SAS proves useful on space planes during ascent

I also use it on descent, just to let the plane setting into it's natural pitch.

On 7/4/2018 at 8:29 PM, Vanamonde said:

With SAS on, make a small change to your attitude then hit F. Resets the aim point to the current heading. Isn't this what everybody does? 

yeah, exactly. This is the reason F is still a thing.  I also use it quite a lot on rovers; if your SAS is holding the rover in a slightly rolled position after jumping over something, holding F lets it's settle back onto all wheels.

On 7/5/2018 at 1:15 AM, 5thHorseman said:

It makes a difference?

I make a small change to my attitude and ... then it stays there. I'll do some testing to see if I can see a difference but I've never felt like the ship was pulling back to where it was.

it's most apparent on aircraft (or things with control surfaces) as you can see all the control surfaces return to their neutral position.

 

[suicidejunkie]

On 7/4/2018 at 8:15 PM, 5thHorseman said:

It makes a difference?

I make a small change to my attitude and ... then it stays there. I'll do some testing to see if I can see a difference but I've never felt like the ship was pulling back to where it was.

If you're doing it so you can move your ship around then you ARE doing it uselessly.

The other attitude control keys also reset the hold point, but tapping F resets it without additional control inputs.

It is quite noticeable when aero forces are causing your craft to have a different orientation than the hold point.  Such as when it is balancing at 40% pitch input and 3 degrees below the hold point for example.  Tapping F resets the hold point to your current attitude, which results in your craft dipping another 3 degrees before the SAS inputs come to a new balance.

 

Added:

F is also quite useful for truncating the wobble-down when SAS is overshooting the mark.  Tapping it when the craft has become stationary and SAS is inputting maximum torque will make it mellow out since you're already at the new hold point and not rotating.

Edited July 6, 2018 by suicidejunkie
Appending more

[DMagic]

On 7/4/2018 at 8:15 PM, 5thHorseman said:

It makes a difference?

I make a small change to my attitude and ... then it stays there. I'll do some testing to see if I can see a difference but I've never felt like the ship was pulling back to where it was.

I think the target heading has some way of gradually changing over time with SAS on, but tapping F immediately resets it. That's basically what I use it for. I think it might be more useful when making larger changes in heading, you can point at the new heading, hit F, then it won't wobble around or try to reset its heading.

[Athen]

Press F to pay respects.

[Fearless Son]

Man, I remember the old SAS.  I barely remember having to hold F, it was so long ago.  

That said, I should use that more.  I can see it especially useful for rovers.  I tend to equip my rovers (especially on low gravity worlds) with lots of reaction wheels set to SAS only, and turn that on so the vehicle stays level when making a sharp turn.  However, it does have issues when driving over a hill at speed or shifting planes of terrain, when I need to turn the SAS off very briefly to let gravity "level" the rover again.

[suicidejunkie]

On 7/6/2018 at 12:56 PM, DMagic said:

I think the target heading has some way of gradually changing over time with SAS on, but tapping F immediately resets it. That's basically what I use it for. I think it might be more useful when making larger changes in heading, you can point at the new heading, hit F, then it won't wobble around or try to reset its heading.

If you're flying, then that would be the curvature of the planet you're seeing.  If you're landed then it is probably the rotation of the planet instead.  If you're driving, then bumps that overload the reaction wheels enough can cause the SAS hold point to reset.  (the yellow looping arrow icon near the SAS indicator will light up when that happens).

In fact, I find that last one the most annoying in flight.  If aero forces require pitch inputs of around 75%, then if you touch the controls it can go into a permanent spin mode...  the inputs cap to 50% of max, and it drags the SAS hold point around.  Triggering that means manual piloting for the next quite-a-while, while trying to alternate between jacking up the trim controls towards 75% and keeping the craft level with intermittent 100% inputs.

 

 

[FleshJeb]

6 hours ago, suicidejunkie said:

intermittent 100% inputs.

Caps Lock. ;-)

On 7/4/2018 at 12:29 PM, Vanamonde said:

Isn't this what everybody does? 

Some of us fly with Smart A.S.S. almost exclusively.

Of course, now that I have my spaceplane ascent script working, I punch one button on the runway, walk away, and come back to a nice circularized orbit. My inner control freak is strong.

[bonyetty]

I find spamming F when touching down of a reusable 1st stages like SpaceX and tall landers reduces wibble wobble faster. Actually thinking about it I tap F landing most craft habitually. A few taps of F also is a quick way to level a long range aircraft as they like to climb over horizons with SAS on flying around ity bity Kerbin. 

[suicidejunkie]

On 7/10/2018 at 7:14 PM, FleshJeb said:

Caps Lock. ;-)

That would simply waste time and velocity.  The 100% inputs are for correcting attitude in between the 0% inputs generated while doing trim adjustments.

I should probably look for a mod to make large trim adjustments easier.