KSP Macro System

[PLB]

Currently, KSP, with certain mods, is able to do this nearly already. Mechjeb has, for a while now, allowed you to program the your craft and step away from the computer while letting mechjeb put you into orbit, or rove 1km north, or go onto an intercept course with Jool, or even all of those together one after another in some order. Two mods made recently allow controls to be changed in craft you aren't looking at, Burn Together and Dark Multiplayer. I think that right now a mod could be made to allow you to tell a craft to control itself so that you can do other things in the game unrelated and without other humans doing those things. This would be very useful if you wanted to send and land a plane to and at the north pole while you send a rocket to Minmus. Or perhaps even the other way around.

My idea is that you program into the computer a set of commands and waypoints that tell it where to go. Taking the example of a normal, stable plane, the computer will already know how to turn left or right by rolling, then pitching up an amount, then rolling the other way towards level flight. You would be able to tell the computer how much beyond level flight it can roll while turning, then run the computer on a test flight to check that it doesn't lose more altitude than you want while turning. You would also be able to set what altitude you want it to go at. You can tell it to go at 500+ m radar altitude, and also 5- km barometric altitude. Then it will go to 5 km, but will increase altitude if a mountain 4.51 km tall is in your path. You would then be able to give the computer commands at certain waypoints to activate control groups so that you can send out your research plane, do research automatically in-flight over different biomes, bring it back to base, and land it on the runway without even being there.

The really interesting parts are where you can set permanent waypoints so that you can get the computer to put you over an exact place at an exact altitude, and where you can allow craft to wait for or until a certain time to do the next function. The first will allow you to land at KSC by going through these certain waypoints that you set beforehand. The other allows you to perform interplanetary, or even interlunar, transfers accurately.

And the really cool part is where you can make your own functions for craft to do. To do this, you would fly the craft press some kind of recording button, perform the maneuver, then stop recording. Then you can test the computer for it's ability to do this with any craft, and then you can run those functions at waypoints that you set on any flight you want. You could program a function where it rolls to one side, pulls up lightly, and then tells it to wait while doing that so that it will continue turning until either an amount of time has passed, or until it is a certain time in the world.

Then, finally a system could be made for identifying the ETA for getting from place to place, allowing schedules to be made for busy airports so that you can make sure planes don't crash on the runway.

It would get slightly complicated, but it would be rather enabling. It would allow one to setup a whole Munar colony in fairly little time. Or to even get a network of Kethane transport going.

[Lucid Hills]

This is a pretty neat idea but you're asking for a lot.

Currently there is a mod you could use to make this functionality but you'd have to code the instructions for the craft to follow. This mod is kOS. It's a fun mod but I imagine you're looking for something easier to use. Something that you point it in a direction and it'll sort it's self out and I don't think there is something like that out there yet. There may be published scripts for kOS that'll do parts of what you want but I doubt all.

Still, I like your idea. It'd make for interesting game play.