KAL-1000 and conditional branch/conditional execution

[Pds314]

So, the KAL-1000 has the ability to control other KAL-1000s, but, insofar as I can tell, the only way to use them as a sensor is to ping them (i.e. toggle them on) to figure out "do they still exist?" Then they can tell your main KAL to jump to some particular location if they do, or it can do what it was doing anyway if they don't.

This is sort of acceptable as a sensor for hard landing, tailstrike, or reentry, but it is not useful as a sensor for something like altitude, speed, orientation, etc, etc. There might also be a good option for detecting when you're out of power, but overall, using KALs as sensors seems to be limited to "has it been physically destroyed or removed from the craft or is it out of power?" And there seems to be no way to control which KAL consumes power from which batteries.

Have any of you found a good way for conditional control with a KAL?

[Gavin786]

B2 Spirit Stealth.  F117 Night hawk.  Other aerodynamically unstable designs cant be made in KSP?

Why?

There is no proper way to create avionics control software.

Would be absolutely amazing if there was a bit more control and real avionics could be programmed.

In order for these craft to maintain stable flight, there needs to be feedback and control surfaces actuated automatically to compensate for lack of yaw stability.  We know its possible as real planes do it.

Even just variables/conditionals in the animation system would enable everything to be able to be created, and would be a massive step.  Of course we need proper gyroscopic and AOA sensors also.

There are just so many super-cool designs like true flying wings that could be made with proper feedback/loops/control.  And it does not stop there, we are talking a whole new class of designs I am sure the clever people who play this game could then make.  Ideally a scripting language to control avionics would be amazing.  Does not even need to be that advanced, just the basic building blocks and the community can create all the libraries needed.

I really hope this does get done, I know SQUAD are afraid of making features that are unusable by a section of the community, in this case, just a little bit extra to make vehicles turing-complete would be massive for a lot of advanced designs.  I think this is an area where the boundaries can be pushed, even though it is likely to exclude features from certain players, which SQUAD have assiduously avoided thus far, it has to be worth it to allow the bar to be pushed.  And mods are no substitute.

Anyway, I can wish.

Gavin786

Edited June 15, 2020 by Gavin786

[AHHans]

On 6/15/2020 at 10:00 PM, Gavin786 said:

just a little bit extra to make vehicles turing-complete

You do know what would happen if they did that, do you?

(Although a real Turing machine has an infinitely long tape that would be hard to build, and even harder on the CPU...)

P.S. Hmmm... Has anyone tried to do Conway's Game of Life in KAL-1000?

[AHHans]

P.P.S. Hmmm²... Am I just crazy, or is it indeed possible to simulate logic gates with KAL-1000?

[Gavin786]

On 6/19/2020 at 11:53 AM, AHHans said:

P.P.S. Hmmm²... Am I just crazy, or is it indeed possible to simulate logic gates with KAL-1000?

Do share.

[AHHans]

8 hours ago, Gavin786 said:

Do share.

I haven't actually done anything to follow that up yet, too many other things to do. But when I will get around to it I will let you know.

[betaking]

if it is possible to do logic gates with a presently existing KAL-1000 it's not in a manner that is really beneficial or relevant, at least given the information the ingame encyclopedia provides.

I mean there's a lot possible in KSP but having things set up so they don't require painful/agonizing guesswork at every step in the build process would be helpful.

 

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by betaking

[Pds314]

On 6/25/2020 at 8:51 AM, betaking said:

if it is possible to do logic gates with a presently existing KAL-1000 it's not in a manner that is really beneficial or relevant, at least given the information the ingame encyclopedia provides.

I mean there's a lot possible in KSP but having things set up so they don't require painful/agonizing guesswork at every step in the build process would be helpful.

 

 

Well, it should be possible to turn a KAL into a truth table simply enough. The problem I see is that setting a KAL's position is not an analogue action. So I'm not sure something like an AND gate works as intended. But it is very easy to turn a KAL into a series of single floating point parameter functions controlling other KALs.

[The Kraken lives on]

I have created a few logic gates, actually...

They only used kal-1000's. They utilized controller priority and what happens when two kal's with the same priority conflict.