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[0.90] Lazor System v35 (Dec 17)


Romfarer

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I have just thought how you can have the unlimited distance and not have it be overpowered !

Think how NASA currently control the Voyager probes, they are at an extreme distance, and the signals are weak but the only limitations are occluding bodies and the speed of light.

The Lazor could easily control distant craft, but with a time delay depending on distance, just like real deep space probes :)

I don\'t know how you\'d delay the camera feed though, ideally you\'d have to wait till the info got back you you before you see any change in your remote controlled craft, I know there is another mod that has the speed of light delay but It\'s not really remote control, as you are there piloting the ship, but your actions are delayed, it\'s the Satellite Relay Network plugin here.

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Implementing time delays and such is no problem at all and neither is making it appear as the camera is far away in the sense that the image gets garbled the further away you get etc. The mod you mentioned uses a different method for 'remote controlling' in the sense that you are actually controlling the craft directly but with a delay. My mod is doing it while at a distance and herein lies the problem, floating point inaccuracy.

To explain this here is a simplified example. Say the game world is made up of a 3d grid that everything snaps to. At 0 distance the snapping points of this grid is 1 micro meter. What floating point inaccuracy does is this: At 10 meter these points are 1 centimeter apart, at 100 meter they are 0.1 meter away and at thousand meters the distance is 1 meter. Of course this is a simplified example but the problem is essentially the same. The further away you get the more the parts in your vessel will shake, to the point where there is nothing that can keep them together. I solve this by progressively strengthening the vessel but it will only work within certain limits. UNLESS they make changes to the game engine.

Alternatively i could cheat the user by swapping vessels, so your actual active vessel is the one in the little window but the main camera is swapped =P But that means you cant move while you are remote-controlling. There is other things you can do to make it work but i think in the end it comes down to, is it fun to control your vessels in a little window?

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So, I\'m flying along @ 2x warp, internal cam with r4m0n\'s camera mod, testing a plane with the Lazor build that will be out soon. 8)

All of a sudden its porpoising like mad! Omg, edge case for Romfarer!

I kill warp and porpoising stops, sure enough ... and I see a square off in the distance, 20k in front.

Its debris from the plane I\'m flying.

Check log, one of my tailplanes caught engine exhaust and finally overheated after going 2/3 of the way to the north pole.

So I move to external camera and see this:

e7Myv.jpg

So long as I don\'t warp 2x, Lazor guidance doesn\'t bat an eyelid that I\'m missing a swept wing\'s worth of lift, weight, and 3 control surfaces on one side :o

P.S. Billy-Bobmy is one cool customer. 8)

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The same way it behaves at low altitude when the fuel is halfway and all the weight is in the back - it porpoises pretty hard.

I can give you the craft file if you think you want/can cover that edge case with tuning, but it needs the black struts from NovaPunch - there\'s no way the wings will stay on with a reasonable amount of struts otherwise.

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Hello, really like your mod, the most progressive and promising. Thank you very much for your work!

I have a suggestion:

Two laser placed in different locations of the vessel read and display information (as has been done under the camera for a laser) in a convenient form. Learning (to compare) angles, the divergence of rays, pressure, distance, surface temperature? and the like is possible to make a lot of good things.

I\'m in the KSP is not enough accurate, I can not properly judge distances and angles of a wheel mouse. Your laser beam reflection, and especially makes it great!

It seems to me that such things are already implemented in your plug, because this is an obvious application of the laser.

Sorry for the clumsy text possible, unfortunately I am not a programmer and do not really speak English. Thank you.

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Hello, really like your mod, the most progressive and promising. Thank you very much for your work!

I really appreciate that zoher, thanks :)

The lazor can already measure distance to anything it hits, but you have to switch on the green lazor to see that.

So i understand you would like a subsystem where you place for example, green lazors on the side of your vessel, and when you aim them at something you will see distance, reflection angles and also pressure and surface distance? This i can make, no problem. When you say 'divergence of rays' what exactly do you mean? It seems to be very closely related to measuring distance.

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What I want to see, is the green lazers all give out an imput to how far what they are pointed at is, like the surface of water (is that possible?) and the surface of the ground, asuming my plane is atually pointed the right way.

As for the night vistion system, cant you just add a small amount of green, and up the exposure? or cut down on the saturation(black and white it) and boost the exposure or somthing of the likes? the green just burns my mind....

EDIT: and in LDR mode (the thing where are the lazers spaz to find objects near you) why not have each lazer scan a quadrant around where you are, in neet lines really quickly?

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What I want to see, is the green lazers all give out an imput to how far what they are pointed at is, like the surface of water (is that possible?) and the surface of the ground, asuming my plane is atually pointed the right way.

I could make an overlay, something similar as the red target square, that shows where the green lazors are hitting and the distance.

I have also planned to make improvements to the nightvision. Improvements to the LIDAR is also planned. Until then, the green lazor has a targeted scan mode though. If you use the green lead lazor in mouse look mode and just hold down the left mouse button, it will scan and add targets to the target list.

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I\'m loving the flight stabilisation system; it\'s made my long flights much more bearable. This would probably be a lot of work, but is it possible to add a feature to fly towards a target? I\'ve been trying to mount rescue missions for my lost probes and whatnot, and it\'d make that quite a lot easier.

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I\'m loving the flight stabilisation system; it\'s made my long flights much more bearable. This would probably be a lot of work, but is it possible to add a feature to fly towards a target? I\'ve been trying to mount rescue missions for my lost probes and whatnot, and it\'d make that quite a lot easier.

Consider it added. ;)

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I\'d love to be able to fly a great circle towards a land target rather than an inefficient straight line :)

I\'m familiar with the concept but have no clue about the theory behind it. So if you could point me in the right direction that would be great.

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Wikipedia to the rescue!

With formulas!

Essentially the shortest way around a sphere(oid) is not a straight line on a cartesian-ordinate representation thereof, but a straight line on its gnomonic represntation, ie a circle with its center at the sphere\'s center, its diameter, and passing by the start and end point of your path ... which is why once they\'re over the ocean, they look like this:

800px-Great-circle_route.jpg

Ocean-going ships do the same thing, as a straight line pointlessly wastes fuel.

As you can see the ideal great circle route has a constantly changing heading ...

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something like this will be in the upcoming changelog.


  • [li]Lazor Guided Flight has a new \'Fly to location\' function which uses great circle theory to plot the most efficient course to your destination.[/li]

neeeeeeext ;D

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How about a seeking ability? Themohawkninja asks for heatseeking for missiles in this thread but the Lazor could do optically guided instead :)

Could be a lot of fun :)

You are back! :)

The latest build includes some functions to make your rocket a lazor guided missile. See the Subsystems -> Lazor Guided Flight -> LockTarget. It is also possible to do with airplanes but you have to use the Subsystems -> Lazor Guided Flight -> Follow Leader approach with a target selected and using the red lazor. Simple =P

But i suppose they want to do it with some kind of remote control, if the target is yourself, you can do it with the Remote Control -> Follow, function. Using this with a target requires some re-structuring, ill get to that.

Unless it perhaps is something completely different?

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I\'m back :D

I think the idea is that it should be possible to mount a Lazor on a missile (maybe a few tanks and an engine, maybe an SRB) and be able to lock on it\'s Lazor, fire it, and watch it fly into the target on it\'s own.

The thread I linked is turning into an argument over how much weapons have a place in KSP, but if it\'s done with mods like it currently is, there\'s no problems.

I have to test the latest Lazor, been struggling with framerate and sound issues for a while and may have to change to a different desktop, pulseaudio is a pain in the bum.

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Once i re-design the way remote control works it will be possible to turn anything into a target seeking missile. But i have to figure out how remote control should be engaged. And if it goes in a window, it probably will, but i have to figure out if all the \'lead lazor systems\' should have its own tab like for example subsystems has. And finally since remote control requires an active linkup with the lead lazor, and to lock a target requires active lead lazor tracking as well, i somehow have to figure out a way to transfer the lead lazors job to a subsystem, hopefully in a way that is not too complicated =p

BTW: Lazor System already comes with the ultimate weapon against other vessels. See the Target -> (click target) -> S-D button ;D

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I know, I love the S-D system, nothing is safe :D

Perhaps, rather than having a Lazor on each missile, you could have the main Lazor on the craft, designate a target like you currently can, designate the missile you want to fire (maybe the missile part will have to have a crystal and emitter at least, to designate it as a missile) then the Lazor will feed direction control to the missile while the targetcam shows us the missiles eye view?

This way you can have the one main Lazor system like we currently do and turn anything into a missile or self flying drone, if you used this with a rocket carrier aircraft you could set the aircraft to have a target, launch your rocket, then have the aircraft automatically fly to the target thanks to the Lazor.

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Hmmmmm. How about this. The main lazor system on the craft requires a lazor on top with NO crystal in between. But if you put an additional lazor system on the craft with a red crystal and a lazor on top it becomes a missile the main module can detect and fire. If you put a red + blue crystal on top it becomes a video guided missile :o

But would this setup have any non weaponized use?

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Sounds good.

Non weapon uses would be for the rocket carrier I mentioned, it could be set to fly back to base instead of just spiralling out of control as any other spent stage does.

Flyback boosters might be possible as well, the system might be expandable for orbital craft too, such as remote probes.

Basically it would be an extension of the current remote control system, but for parts not connected to the current pod, maybe even for other complete craft if we want.

Something to avoid though is turning it into Mechjeb, Mechjeb can\'t remote control craft in any way though, all it currently allows is for you to retake control of parts with a Mechjeb attached.

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I also added a prototype altitude control to the lazor guided flight system. All it lacks now is a landing system to become a full autopilot for planes, but i\'m not gonna add that as it will take all the fun out of it. In stead i\'m going to add some instruments to help with lining up with the runway and any other target you might want to line up with, such as other vessels in orbit.

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