[1.12.x] AttitudeAdjuster v1.2: Set control point via action group. Variable-pitch control point for spaceplane reentry.

[Geonovast]

HOW have I gone this long without knowing about this?

[Gordon Dry]

I know, you're a strict person.

Others say 1.7.1+ in thread title and version file and somewhere™ in OP  or even later it's mentioned "yeah, well, it also works on 1.6.1".

Knowing which dev is which type of guy has to be learnt.
And somehow I did.

[linuxgurugamer]

33 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

HOW have I gone this long without knowing about this?

Too long.

its a lifesaver

[Snark]

On 5/31/2019 at 4:55 PM, linuxgurugamer said:

Too long.

its a lifesaver

Did I mention that with the new axis-binding feature I've added in AttitudeAdjuster v1.1, it now works great as an autopilot for VTOLs and helicopters? 

Point your at the sky (e.g. with a probe core), set SAS to hold , and switch to the pitched control point.  Whatever pitch angle you select, it'll keep your craft tipped that many degrees forward from vertical.  Bind pitch angle to an axis group, and that's your control for forward motion.

Steady as a rock and works fantastic!

[Nightside]

Hi @Snark, thanks for this. I have a question: is there a reason that you only specify stock pods rather than a generic patch for all pods?

[Snark]

3 hours ago, Nightside said:

Hi @Snark, thanks for this. I have a question: is there a reason that you only specify stock pods rather than a generic patch for all pods?

Because not everyone wants everything everywhere, and adding this adds UI "clutter", which is bad if it's something that is not actually used. And I have a thing about UI clutter.

It's a balance; the judgment call is (for me) non-trivial. So I just kinda went with my gut, and designed it in a flexible way so that if anyone wants it somewhere I haven't added it, it's trivial to add with a simple ModuleManager patch.

[Enceos]

I used to have a pitched docking port bound to an action group inside my shuttle just for this purpose

Edited June 3, 2019 by Enceos

[linuxgurugamer]

7 hours ago, Snark said:

Did I mention that with the new axis-binding feature I've added in AttitudeAdjuster v1.1, it now works great as an autopilot for VTOLs and helicopters? 

Point your at the sky (e.g. with a probe core), set SAS to hold , and switch to the pitched control point.  Whatever pitch angle you select, it'll keep your craft tipped that many degrees forward from vertical.  Bind pitch angle to an axis group, and that's your control for forward motion.

Steady as a rock and works fantastic!

I was told about it last night

[Beetlecat]

Feature request!  Allow negative values/input -- to allow a down-canted cockpits to zero-out the difference for level flight without appearing to be aiming below the horizon? (VTOLs, aesthetic choices, etc.)

[Snark]

9 hours ago, Beetlecat said:

Feature request!  Allow negative values/input -- to allow a down-canted cockpits to zero-out the difference for level flight without appearing to be aiming below the horizon? (VTOLs, aesthetic choices, etc.)

It's already there, and has been since the beginning.   (Take a look at the "Extending / customizing" section of this thread's OP.)

Fully customizable via ModuleManager. Take a look at the config file for cockpits, for example. You can choose the default angle, minimum angle, and maximum angle. I've set the minimum to zero, but you can set it to a negative number if you like. (There's also a "pitchIncrement" setting you can add, if you'd like it to be adjustable in increments of something other than the default 1 degree.)

[Beetlecat]

D'oh! That's what I get for only looking at the spaceplane examples.

Cheers!

[slaintemaith]

I'm not familiar with Module Manager--I managed to add the command cockpit into the main config.  All well and good there.
But let's say I'd like to have a 180 degree roll added to when I want to change my pitch reference.
Is that doable with this mod as well?

[Snark]

18 hours ago, slaintemaith said:

I'm not familiar with Module Manager--I managed to add the command cockpit into the main config.

The mod adds the pitched control point to all the cockpits by default, as well as to all SAS-capable probe cores. The only reason you'd need to tinker with ModuleManager would be if you wanted to add the functionality to some part that I haven't already, or if you wanted to change the adjustable pitch range to something other than the default 0 to 90 degrees.

18 hours ago, slaintemaith said:

But let's say I'd like to have a 180 degree roll added to when I want to change my pitch reference.

Is that doable with this mod as well?

Nope. The mod does pitch only.

[Snark]

Hi gang,

Just a note that I've released AttitudeAdjuster v1.2.  No new features, just a compatibility update for KSP 1.8.

[King Arthur]

So I have a feeling this is something I've always wanted when I fly shuttles with offset thrust vectors and other such things, but the description in the OP is kind of convoluted so I would like to confirm:

If I have "Control Point: Pitched" active and I set Pitch Angle to, say, 10 degrees, does that mean I am flying with a control point that has a 10 degrees pitch up offset?

If the basic gist of this mod is "user-configurable control point pitch offset", then that sounds great.

[Snark]

6 hours ago, King Arthur said:

If I have "Control Point: Pitched" active and I set Pitch Angle to, say, 10 degrees, does that mean I am flying with a control point that has a 10 degrees pitch up offset?

If the basic gist of this mod is "user-configurable control point pitch offset", then that sounds great.

Yes, that's it exactly. If you pick the pitched control point, set it to (for example) 10 degrees, and set your SAS to hold , then your vessel will hold its nose 10 degrees above prograde for a pitched-up reentry.

Aside from adding this functionality, the mod also adds the ability to switch control points via action groups.

[King Arthur]

Sweet! Thanks for clarifying, gonna play around with this once 1.8's dust settles down.

[subyng]

Is the 1.8 version backwards compatible with 1.7.3? Do you have the previous version's download link available?

[RealKerbal3x]

13 minutes ago, subyng said:

Is the 1.8 version backwards compatible with 1.7.3? Do you have the previous version's download link available?

It’s possible to download all of the previous versions of a mod on Spacedock. IIRC you need to go onto the mod’s page and then click the Changelog (or previous versions or something like that) button. From there you can find every previous version of the mod.

[Snark]

2 hours ago, subyng said:

Is the 1.8 version backwards compatible with 1.7.3?

Nope.  If you want to run with an older version of KSP, use an older version of the mod, which you can download from the SpaceDock page as @RealKerbal3x mentions.

[Norcalplanner]

Great mod. Sounds like it's similar to SmartASS surface mode, but with less clutter and computational overhead. 

[linuxgurugamer]

Does this work on command seats?

Edit:  It does, but you have specific parts listed, and there are a lot of other cockpits, etc which aren't covered

Edited January 27, 2020 by linuxgurugamer

[Snark]

On 1/27/2020 at 3:02 PM, linuxgurugamer said:

Does this work on command seats?

Edit:  It does, but you have specific parts listed, and there are a lot of other cockpits, etc which aren't covered

Unfortunately... no, it doesn't.  And can't, at least not without writing a lot of code.

Technobabble, for the curious, in spoiler.

Spoiler

I would have loved to enable this for the command seat.  Unfortunately... the entire premise of this mod is to work with ModuleCommand (the common module that nearly all pods share)-- specifically, working with the controlPoints member thereof to add a new control point and then do its magic with that.

And... alas... the EAS-1 External Command Seat doesn't use ModuleCommand.  It uses KerbalSeat instead, which doesn't derive from ModuleCommand (this flabbergasted me, but appears to be so).

That means that AttitudeAdjuster simply can't have anything to do with the command seats, since they use a completely unrelated code mechanism for controlling craft.  The only way to make this work would be to basically re-implement the entire multiple-control-points KSP feature, from scratch, to support it for command seats... which would be too big a task to be worth the effort for me.

TL;DR:  Adding AttitudeAdjuster functionality to any other command pods except the chair, is easy with a simple ModuleManager snippet.  But the command chair simply won't work, and can't easily be made to do so.

[linuxgurugamer]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

Unfortunately... no, it doesn't.  And can't, at least not without writing a lot of code.

Technobabble, for the curious, in spoiler.

  Hide contents

I would have loved to enable this for the command seat.  Unfortunately... the entire premise of this mod is to work with ModuleCommand (the common module that nearly all pods share)-- specifically, working with the controlPoints member thereof to add a new control point and then do its magic with that.

And... alas... the EAS-1 External Command Seat doesn't use ModuleCommand.  It uses KerbalSeat instead, which doesn't derive from ModuleCommand (this flabbergasted me, but appears to be so).

That means that AttitudeAdjuster simply can't have anything to do with the command seats, since they use a completely unrelated code mechanism for controlling craft.  The only way to make this work would be to basically re-implement the entire multiple-control-points KSP feature, from scratch, to support it for command seats... which would be too big a task to be worth the effort for me.

TL;DR:  Adding AttitudeAdjuster functionality to any other command pods except the chair, is easy with a simple ModuleManager snippet.  But the command chair simply won't work, and can't easily be made to do so.

What would happen if you added a ModuleCommand to the EAS-1?  Would the two fight each other?

An alternative would be to to create a tiny OKTO2 with some code to make sure it doesn't get used on anything else

[Snark]

8 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

What would happen if you added a ModuleCommand to the EAS-1?  Would the two fight each other?

An alternative would be to to create a tiny OKTO2 with some code to make sure it doesn't get used on anything else

All interesting ideas, but went beyond my horizon of willingness to try trial-and-error and thoroughly test for any unfortunate side effects.

What would really get me interested would be if we could convince Squad to add selectable control points to the command chair, i.e. give KerbalSeat a controlPoints member that works the same way as the controlPoints does for ModuleCommand.  Then it would be a fairly trivial code adjustment to AttitudeAdjuster to allow it to work with KerbalSeat as well.