Advanced VTOL Control System v0.1 Nov.18

[camlost]

Advanced VTOL Control System (AVTOL) enables control of your VTOL aircrafts by automatically and dynamically managing the thrust limiter of each engines. This mod is different from the previous VTOL mods in terms of

1. It does nothing magically or automatically. Users are supposed to 'program' each engine manually.

2. Control response from pitch, vertical speed, and rotation angle.

3. Very lightweight (100 lines of code), easy to expand and taken on by another modder.

Download from github

Installation

Optional: Magic Smoke Industries. (See the branches in github) Place the AVTOL.dll in GameData\MagicSmokeIndustries\Plugins. If you're concerned about memory usage, delete the MSI parts but keep the dlls.

Requires ModuleManager

Explanation:

PitchNeutral: Thrust limiter value when pitch axis is neutral

PitchRange: Thrust limiter control range corresponding to the pitch axis. Positive value means the thrust increases when 'S' is pressed, while negative value means the opposite.

IR Sync: For a VTOL aircraft that vectors the thrust using the Inferno Robotics rotatron. The lift fan/lift engine must decrease thrust corresponding to the angle of rotation, otherwise the aircrafts' a guaranteed flip when you rotate the engine.

Phase Angle: If IR Sync is On, Set this to the value of 'rotation' of the IR module when the engine is vertical.

Vertical Cutoff: Like helicopters, this allows the thrust to increase when you dive and decrease when you climb. This will significantly facilitate hovering. Vertical Cutoff is the vertical speed where thrust will be decreased to 0.

VTOL Settings: Toggle the menu

VTOL System: Toggle the whole system, also exists as action group.

Edited December 1, 2014 by camlost

[Nemitis]

This looks very promising! One thing I noticed however, is that the thrust limiter sliders you've added only change by a value of 1 while the vanilla slider changes by 0.5. I was able to get my VTOL almost perfectly balanced without SAS using just the vanilla limiter, but that 0.5 difference seems to make a big difference when I switch VTOL systems on because it immediately becomes unbalanced and ends up over-correcting.

Otherwise, the automatic PitchRange seems to work very well and probably doesn't need the same accuracy as PitchNeutral. I like all the options you've added for customization. Looking forward to future updates

[pingopete]

Awesome stuff, the fixed hangar Thrust direction indicator should make a big difference too!

[colmo]

Very nice - similar to the TT and Bobcat VTOL engines, but the thrust limiter settings are the ticket.

Could you post up more pictures of the actual parts? They're obscured by markers or bits of plane in every pic in the OP!

[camlost]

Very nice - similar to the TT and Bobcat VTOL engines, but the thrust limiter settings are the ticket.

Could you post up more pictures of the actual parts? They're obscured by markers or bits of plane in every pic in the OP!

There's no actual parts, merely a partmodule.

Also that there're two branches now, the master branch dont't need any dependency and rotation is set manually, which is intended to be used in sync with FS vtols. The "IR" branch needs IR and automatically syncs with IR rotatron

[Beetlecat]

Looking forward to trying this. Managing / controlling multi-engine VTOLs has been quite a challenge

[MMMEEE60]

What mods do you use for the lift fan/VTOL engine?

[kcs123]

What mods do you use for the lift fan/VTOL engine?

I think that is from KAX mod, not absoulute sure, haven't tried latest version on 0.90

[camlost]

No, that's' RetroFuture mod.

[Sudragon]

Has it been tested with roverdudes honey badger parts?

[Svm420]

I love this mod and would like to humbly request the addition of roll control in the same manner as pitch. This would allow for more stability in most cases. Is this possible? Thanks!

[Svm420]

Any chance of an update for RealFuels compatibility? It doesn't work with the new engine module moduleEngineRF. Really liked the simplicity of this mod. Still would like to see it expanded to roll control as well.

[volcanicshrimp]

I can't get it to do anything. I have the IR branch of this mod, Module Manager 2.6.6.dll/2.6.7.dll (not at the same time), FAR, AJE, Quiztech Aero, IR (with the model reworks) and IR sequencer. When I right click on any of the engines none of the AVTOL stuff comes up.

Edited August 19, 2015 by volcanicshrimp