Come back old ASAS - all is forgiven!

[EmissionGeneration]

The people who had the SAS problem are just being "trolled" by the people who don't, claiming that we are wanting a "Autopilot" to fly our ships as it used to? Since when was it anywhere near a autopilot feature? It is meant to hold Attitude, which the DEVs have said IN THIS SAME VERY THREAD that it should do EXACTLY that.

In my opinion, I'd be happy for this Thread to be locked. The DEV's [you know, the people who actually know ****] have heard our call, agree'd with us, and gave us a fix for the people who were having odd behaviors, cause obviously this is just a pointless argument thread that has no more purpose and will just keep going into the world of nothingness...

[Tiron]

The people who had the SAS problem are just being "trolled" by the people who don't, claiming that we are wanting a "Autopilot" to fly our ships as it used to? Since when was it anywhere near a autopilot feature? It is meant to hold Attitude, which the DEVs have said IN THIS SAME VERY THREAD that it should do EXACTLY that.

In my opinion, I'd be happy for this Thread to be locked. The DEV's [you know, the people who actually know ****] have heard our call, agree'd with us, and gave us a fix for the people who were having odd behaviors, cause obviously this is just a pointless argument thread that has no more purpose and will just keep going into the world of nothingness...

It's less of a 'fix' and more of a 'mitigation'. The actual problem got mis-attributed to a joystick deadzone issue, and went untouched so far as I can tell.

[Levelord]

I have said this once and I'll say this again, SAS is not meant to as an autopilot but a stability helper, the old ASAS was not this it was a killrot, that is not an SAS. Tighten up this SAS a bit more and it will be rather like how I imagine SAS should be.

What is your definition of an autopilot? If a device holds a heading, is it considered an autopilot?

What do you mean by stability helper? If by stable do you mean the ability to hold a stable heading?

[Bothersome]

Here is a very good test to help narrow down the problem... Those that are having problems should go into the VAB and load the stock craft "Kerbal X" and see if they can get it to orbit. That's a very good rocket and very easy to obtain orbit. I just did it to make very sure it was easy. If you have problems with that craft, then come back and explain what's happening. Maybe then we could help narrow down the problem.

[Scotius]

I don't understand what all the fuss is about. I'm one of the MechJeb crowd, and yet yesterday i flew two ships to the Mun, landed there and took off again without problems AND MechJeb help (Take that, purists ). Sure, new SAS takes some using to lack of "total lock on course" feature, but sensibly built rocked worked just fine. More than that - i found manual landing easier to do now, because SAS allows for more precise maneuvers on the way down. The same is with planes - i'm not a good pilot, and yet with upgaded SAS i found it much easier to fly and do (unintentional) aerobatics. New behaviour felt more...realistic to me than before.

[Tiron]

Here is a very good test to help narrow down the problem... Those that are having problems should go into the VAB and load the stock craft "Kerbal X" and see if they can get it to orbit. That's a very good rocket and very easy to obtain orbit. I just did it to make very sure it was easy. If you have problems with that craft, then come back and explain what's happening. Maybe then we could help narrow down the problem.

I used that craft in a video I posted earlier to demonstrate the core issue.

Compare this pre-release footage:

to this 0.21.0 footage:

I'm doing the same thing he did, giving it some rotation (just on yaw rather than roll because it's easier to quantify), and then letting the SAS have it.

It's still doing the same thing in 0.21.1, just now it stops sooner (65 degrees rather than 90 when holding full yaw through 45 degrees of rotation), and rotates back towards the release point more (10 degrees as opposed to a negligible amount), but it's still basically doing the same thing.

Edit: I'm going to a do a 0.21.1 version, comparing mechjeb's killrot to the default SAS, and clearly demonstrating that it is NOT a Deadzone issue...in just a moment when I finish primary mapping of Kerbin.

[AustralianFries]

Edit: You know what I'm just going to edit that out before the storm comes.

Edited July 26, 2013 by AustralianFries

[regex]

I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

There is no fuss beyond what has been manufactured by those who think this is not an issue. The issue from 0.21.0 still persists in a lesser form in 0.21.1 and those of us who are having a problem are stating just that.

[regex]

That's just my opinion though.

Hey, thanks for throwing your hat in the ring. Meanwhile, I and others are going to continue giving the devs feedback on their alpha product to make it better.

[EmissionGeneration]

It's less of a 'fix' and more of a 'mitigation'. The actual problem got mis-attributed to a joystick deadzone issue, and went untouched so far as I can tell.

Yeah I understand that some people are still having problems, but this particular thread has just died in the arse, and I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather the DEVs spend more time with coding, then reading through pages and pages of a bunch of Morons complaining that the SAS isn't a Autopilot and we should harden up and learn how to "cope" with a buggy release instead of trying to get solutions.

The only people in this Thread who are helping, are the people who are experiencing the odd behaviours, and posting about it, but unfortunately, the people who aren't getting this, just want to spam the crap out of it with their worthless bs.

[Levelord]

Less than 24 hours and people are already complaining. Pretty disrespectful if you ask me. The devs go to all the trouble of creating this brand new amazing system, spending countless hours coding and testing, and people already want the old one back. I think we should all just say thank you. It comes down to "Do I have to steer a little to keep my ship on track?" versus "do I want my ship to shake itself apart?"

That's just my opinion though.

Let me know how fun that 2 hour interplanetary burn turns out when you have to sit there making tiny manual corrections instead of focusing on more important things during flight.

[carazvan]

It's also pretty disrespectful to not read what people said for 700 posts and come in here and say that of others ... We were complaining of a bug ... which wasn't working as intended. Proof: Hotfix is out... which btw is the whole point of having alpha/beta testers ... It's NOT to always say oh it's pretty give me some more ... but to say what's broken with a new build, narrow down the problem and then if possible suggest how to fix it.

Less than 24 hours and people are already complaining. Pretty disrespectful if you ask me. The devs go to all the trouble of creating this brand new amazing system, spending countless hours coding and testing, and people already want the old one back. I think we should all just say thank you. It comes down to "Do I have to steer a little to keep my ship on track?" versus "do I want my ship to shake itself apart?"

That's just my opinion though.

[Danger Will Kerbinson!]

The new patch has done a lot to cover up the issue. As is the case with most people it is NOT caused by a joystick for me.

Now if I fly an intentionally unbalanced rocket it will hold a course-ish. What is still happening on my testing is that right at launch my thrust imbalance will give it a 5 degree tilt at lift off and it will hold that heading, previousty it just flipped it right into the ground. There is PLENTY of control authority to move the ball back to straight up, its not a big imbalance...what it wont do is hold that, it flops back to the prograde marker. To get it back to straight I have to over correct and then let it flop back. It should hold the heading I give if there is the control authority to do so. Im not asking for it to provide a magic boost to thrust, control surfaces or torque wheels...just to use the control authority it has to maintain the heading its given.

All you have to do is watch the video of intended behavior to see its not what is happening.

[AustralianFries]

Yeah I regret saying what I said. My apologies about posting that, it was pretty hypocritical of me to say.

Sorry everyone.

[Jarin]

So, back on topic, then... are there still remaining problems with SAS and spaceplane control after the hotfix? I was just starting to dip my toes into spaceplane design and flight in .20, so if it'd be better to hold off for a bit before continuing, it'd be nice to know.

[regex]

Take it easy guys.

So, back on topic, then... are there still remaining problems with SAS and spaceplane control after the hotfix? I was just starting to dip my toes into spaceplane design and flight in .20, so if it'd be better to hold off for a bit before continuing, it'd be nice to know.

OP seems to think his issue is resolved and his issue was with spaceplanes. Right now the main problem seems to be those of us who primarily fly rockets.

[Levelord]

So, back on topic, then... are there still remaining problems with SAS and spaceplane control after the hotfix? I was just starting to dip my toes into spaceplane design and flight in .20, so if it'd be better to hold off for a bit before continuing, it'd be nice to know.

Personally I think the SAS in the 0.21.1 patch is better than the one in the 0.21 update. However player input still resets all 3 trim angles instead of just the intended 1. If I remembered clearly, Squad said that manual inputs of one trim will only affect that trim setting while the craft maintains the other two.

For example, adjusting the yaw of a plane resets the pitch and roll settings, which is unintended and still needs fixing.

[Sean Mirrsen]

To people who say it doesn't lock down fast enough: Please Use The Old Method. Pulse SAS off and back on with the F key. Because due to the nature of the control system, there is bound to be a split-second delay between the virtual joystick (shown in the lower right as pitch/yaw/roll indicators) being released, and actually hitting zero on a given axis, which triggers the lock-in. A similar problem exists with planes and fine controls - if you set SAS to hold a high pitch and try to correct it, the SAS will let go of your control axis long before the virtual stick reaches the point it was holding, causing the plane to dip down before coming up again. It's actually causing me to use coarse controls for my planes now. >_>

[AustralianFries]

To people who say it doesn't lock down fast enough: Please Use The Old Method. Pulse SAS off and back on with the F key. Because due to the nature of the control system, there is bound to be a split-second delay between the virtual joystick (shown in the lower right as pitch/yaw/roll indicators) being released, and actually hitting zero on a given axis, which triggers the lock-in. A similar problem exists with planes and fine controls - if you set SAS to hold a high pitch and try to correct it, the SAS will let go of your control axis long before the virtual stick reaches the point it was holding, causing the plane to dip down before coming up again. It's actually causing me to use coarse controls for my planes now. >_>

This is the exact method I use for launching rockets and flying spaceplanes.

[regex]

I'm off to file a bug report. Here is a gallery detailing my issue, if anyone's interested. The craft is slightly unbalanced and tips up during a burn; the SAS makes no attempt to correct back to the origin until the burn is complete. If you view these in actual-res and flip through them you can see what is happening.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Tiron]

This is the exact method I use for launching rockets and flying spaceplanes.

I just use mechjeb, as I have done since I bought the game back in 0.16. I've done more manual launches in the last two days than at any time since I stopped playing the 0.13.3 demo. Which I keep botching now because my attention wanders and I do the maneuvers late.

And I just went and thought I was recording a whole video with voice (my first one with voice) and...it was pretty terrible and awkward anyway, but it didn't actually record because I did a dumb thing. *headdesk*

Edit:

I'm off to file a bug report. Here is a gallery detailing my issue, if anyone's interested. The craft is slightly unbalanced and tips up during a burn; the SAS makes no attempt to correct back to the origin until the burn is complete. If you view these in actual-res and flip through them you can see what is happening.

Unlike Mechjeb, the SAS is not, and will never be, an actual autopilot. If you're not quite perfectly lined up on the node or don't execute it quite right, it WILL Move, as the game recalculates the thrust vector and amount needed to achieve the maneuver dynamically.

[Sapphire]

Whoa, looks like some posts disappeared, including mine when I was replying to Jarin...

To repeat what I said, I built a quick interplanetary ship to test it, set in a course to Duna, and I'm still getting drift on my burns. It's reduced from before, but it's still there.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Sapphire
Spelling mistakes!

[Aphox]

This thread is creating more of a headache than it's with how fast it's veering off topic every half-page. Any one of you is welcome to post a new thread discussing the new behavior assuming one doesn't already exist. However, this thread's original purpose was to discuss a problem that was had by a hefty chunk of people that has since been eliminated (and if not, please file a proper bug report on the tracker).

And on that bombshell, it's time to end.