mrsolarsail

Are you getting thrust during timewarp by manually steering the vessel? If so, the PersistentThrust plugin is working. Sounds like the navigator isn't turning on. Did you try the "Lock Attitude" and "Set to Now" buttons? The "Lock Attitude" button turns on the automatic steering, and "Set to Now" sets the start time of the steering commands to the current time. Otherwise, the steering may not be turning on. If you did all this and it's still not working, I'll need to look deeper. Sorry I've been offline. I'm starting a new job and have been moving across a continent.

Cool, thanks. I'm not familiar with the RF engine. Have tested PT with them? The way I wrote the plugin, it will hopefully work with any reaction engine. It scans for all the resources, finds those that consume mass, and applies the mass consumption to the vessel. Sorry I've been offline. Starting a new job and moving across a continent.

[quote name='Kreole']Along with Solar Sail Navigator found at the top of this forum page, you'll need the SM-Solar-Sail-MK2 part which comes in the [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/133735-WIP-1-0-5-PersistentThrust-v1-0-4-alpha"]Persitant Thrust Mod[/URL][/QUOTE] Also make sure you have the latest versions. I don't know how different versions will interact with each other and KSP 1.0.5. It sounds like the sail thrust is working - it's just that the navigator isn't commanding the attitude. [COLOR="silver"][SIZE=1]- - - Updated - - -[/SIZE][/COLOR] [quote name='NotAgain']Where do you get solar sails anyway?[/QUOTE] The [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/133735-WIP-1-0-5-PersistentThrust-v1-0-4-alpha"]Persistent Thrust mod[/URL] includes one, which is available in the VAB under "Engines". I eventually plan on adding others, based on real and conceptual sail designs.

[quote name='jlcarneiro']Let me see if I understood correctly: installing this mod, I'll get a solarsail part, but to use it correctly, I need the other mod? If I don't want to use solarsails (I think they are COOL, but they seem hard to control...) but still want to have persistent thrust, I have to install THIS mod and delete the solarsail part?[/QUOTE] This module adds a solar sail part that thrusts during timewarp, and it patches the existing the ion engine to thrust during timewarp as well. You don't need to use the solar sail in your spacecraft. It will just be a part available in the VAB. The [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119579-WIP-1-0-5-SolarSailNavigator-v1-0-6-alpha"]Navigator mod[/URL] patches the command modules to let you plan a trajectory for either the solar sail or the ion engine. Other propulsion systems can be added by copying and editing the ion engine (or sail) patch. Does this answer your question? This mod is part of my attempt to demystify solar sails, which most people outside the discipline don't understand well. The navigator lets you see how changes in sail attitude (or attitude and throttle for the ion engine) affect the future orbit, like KSP's map mode lets you do with rocket thrust maneuvers.

[quote name='bartekltg']It looks like this mod do not contain "control panel". Everything works after installing [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119579-WIP-1-0-4-SolarSailNavigator-v1-0-4-alpha"]SolarSailNavigator[/URL][COLOR=#333333]. Edit: [/COLOR][COLOR=#333333] [/COLOR] Oh, so it is intentional. Do you plan to include it in this mod? I think it would be nice to add it here.[/QUOTE] I had them bundled together, but got requests to separate out the thrust generation from the navigator, because the navigator requires a lot more development and will be changing much more frequently than the thrust model. [COLOR="silver"][SIZE=1]- - - Updated - - -[/SIZE][/COLOR] [quote name='Nansuchao']Do you also plan to include a tool for torchships?[/QUOTE] I've included a patch to the ion engine, but this plugin can be added to any rocket. The [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119579-WIP-1-0-4-SolarSailNavigator-v1-0-4-alpha"]navigator[/URL] works with them as well, letting you set throttles, attitudes, and times and seeing what the future trajectory and final orbit are.

[quote name='Kreole']Greetz and Thanks ... First a question on the tutorial. Do I orient the sail so I am looking from the backside (anti-pro grade) of the sail directly at the Sun and have it centered (on all axis) and then set cone to 0 degrees, set then time and lock attitude? This is a point of maximum force on he sail and acceleration. I see that in the numbers. Secondly, when you say "command", is the sail supposed to orient in real time as I adjust the cone +- 90 or the clock +- 90? If this so, I am not seeing any kind of sail reorientation occur, even if I time forward. I do see that acceleration persists so that is kewl, it's that I can't seem to get the control GUI to orient the sail real time or planned. I also cannot preview on the map. I can't see a predicted orbit (just flashing on occasion from my icon in whatever the select orbit color is), but I do get final element results. They don't seem to matched or at least they are showing the persistent calculation. I'm running KSP 1.0.5 in two different test installs, one 32 bit the other 64. I've done every version combination of solarsailnavigator and persistent-thrust to no avail. Both of these installs are the bare minimum to try and figure this out.... My base playground in both 32/64 is the following: KSP 1.0.5 Module Manager 2.6.13 Mechjeb 2.5.4.0 Haystack 0.4.1.0 (Haystack isn't supposed to have any relationships, but I can't a button without toolbar 1.7.10 Hyperedit 1.4.1 Ultimately I want to use Interstellar Extended most importantly, followed closely by Near Future. Of course I dived right installing until I ran into this issue.. tried going backwards and stuff. Then finally started clean with the two above playgrounds... still the same issues. Anyway, I hope this helps some. I've never been able to play with solar sailing type sims other than GMAT and that is too antiseptic among other issues. ~K[/QUOTE] Thanks for the feedback. Do your controls have a "Lock Attitude" toggle button? If this is active, the sail should follow the controls. You also want to click "Set to Now" button when starting a new command sequence, to reset the start time to the current KSP time. A positive "Cone" angle will tilt the sail so the sunlight bounces off of the sail to the left, if you're looking through the sail at the sun. The reflected sunlight will act like rocket exhaust to boost the orbit. A negative cone angle will reflect the light to the right, pushing against the orbit and shrinking it. Hope this makes sense. Once you get the hang of the controls, you can switch to "Map" view and see how different sail angles for different durations affect the future trajectory (check the "Show preview" toggle button).

[quote name='bartekltg']It looks like this mod do not contain "control panel". Everything works after installing [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119579-WIP-1-0-4-SolarSailNavigator-v1-0-4-alpha"]SolarSailNavigator[/URL][COLOR=#333333]. Edit: [/COLOR][COLOR=#333333] [/COLOR] Oh, so it is intentional. Do you plan to include it in this mod? I think it would be nice to add it here.[/QUOTE] At the moment, you need to right click on the command module to bring up the navigation controls. I realize this can be inconvenient, depending on the ship design, and I plan on improving it.

I posted an update. Details are in the first post. This works with KSP 1.0.5.

I've pushed a small update to PersistentThrust so that it will work with KSP 1.0.5, along with a couple other bug fixes. See the first post.

That's on my TODO list, probably by updating the orbit and vessel propellant mass from the navigation preview data.

Hmm... Do you have ModuleManager installed? If so, sometimes I have problems with its cache files, so I delete all the ModuleManager.* files (except the .dll, which is the plugin), which forces it to regenerate them.

Yes, that's correct. You also need ModuleManager for the ion engine patch to work. SolarSailNavigator includes a patch to all the command modules to bring up a navigation control window. Edited: If you install SolarSailNavigator through KSP-CKAN, it should grab all the dependencies (PersistentThrust and ModuleManager). - - - Updated - - - Thanks. I have a flag to kill timewarp when the propellant runs dry. Not sure why it would be limited to ModuleEnginesFX. What parts are you testing with?

Ok, I modified PersistentThrust to add PersistentEngine to a part with ModuleEngines. I put it in a pre-release to try out. This breaks a couple things in SolarSailNavigator, but I'll make those updates in the next release of both. See: https://github.com/bld/PersistentThrust/releases/tag/v1.0.4dev0 The code for this branch is at: https://github.com/bld/PersistentThrust/tree/v1.0.4

I can take a stab at it. I'm learning C# with this project. PersistentEngine currently inherits ModuleEnginesFX, so it is a derivative. But, I can change it to an additional part module that uses whatever ModuleEngines* is on the part. Would that let the other custom engine modules do their thing? Yeah, that would be pretty cool. At least the ion engines glow blue during timewarp. I haven't tried it with a rocket yet. We could work on it. I'll test if making the change fixes things. I'm using "Part.RequestResource" on the propellants during timewarp. It works for the massive ones. I'm currently saving throttle, thrust, and Isp during realtime and using the saved values during timewarp. SolarSailNavigator updates those saved thrust/throttle/isp values itself from the maneuver commands, so I think it's pretty efficient. When it switches back to realtime mode, the throttle is updated from the saved one.

Ok. I unchecked "pre-release" in the Github releases.

From a comment on the SolarSailNavigator thread: Great! I hope I can make it work for you. Would it help if PersistentEngine was added to an engine part as a separate module instead of inheriting and replacing the engine module? Well, resource consumption isn't entirely working right now. Propellant mass is working. But, when I tried to fly a solar electric spacecraft, at high timewarp the batteries were depleted, even though the solar arrays should have generated more than enough power for the ion engines and recharging the batteries. So, at the moment, massless propellants (0 density like ElectricCharge) are not being consumed. Thanks, I could use some help there. PersistentThrust needs ModuleManager, and SolarSailNavigator will need PersistentThrust (once it's added to CKAN). I was also considering pulling the files from my Github releases. Let me know how it goes!

Thanks for all the feedback. I split PersistentThrust into its own mod and forum, so I'll post my comments over there: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/133735-WIP-1-0-4-PersistentThrust-v1-0-3-alpha

General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) is an open source project by NASA that works very similarly to STK. I was thinking about experimenting with a modified "Vessel" class that copies an existing spacecraft, and lets you apply events and commands at future times, updating the orbit, resources, and maybe even parts configuration as you go. At the very least, it would make calculating the fuel and ElectricCharge consumption for my navigator easier. The maneuvers in the Navigator would be just one type of future event that could be applied to the simulated vessel. There are other maneuver types I'd like to implement, like automatic orbit raising, in addition to fixed attitude/throttle/time commands. - - - Updated - - - I'm looking at something similar, but with low thrust propulsion, you need to be less direct and calculate spacecraft commands to converge on the target orbit elements. There's some research into analytical methods (instead of iterative) that seem to work well. Lots of math. I hope to come up with something that's a bit more interactive than "click a button and let the computer solve it", and I think these will let you do that, by looking at what orbit elements are the furthest off: Planet-centered: http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/6255/ Planet escape: http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/6252/ Sun-centered: http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/6621/

Not at the moment. Low thrust propulsion gives a lot of flexibility. Sometimes I build a trajectory where I coast at the beginning to help line things up. It's all manual right now. I do want eventually to implement an optimizer that will tune the angles/throttles/times to reach a destination. Starting with a circle-to-circle approximation is one way.An extension of that could include departure and arrival burns. It starts to look like the very expensive Systems Tool Kit (STK, formerly Satellite Tool Kit) that pros use. I am considering a general purpose simulator beyond the scope of continuous thrust propulsion to predict how an entire mission will look before launching, with the option to include some automatic tuning. I've actually had pretty good luck manually building a trajectory that gets pretty close to a destination. This could be used as starting point for an automatic tuning algorithm. It helps to play with the attitude angle and times at different points of an orbit to see how they affect it, then try and close in on the target.

It will draw the final orbit on the map, and if you select a target it will draw a line between your end point and the target, as well as give the option to list the difference in final orbit elements. Is this what you were thinking of? I'm open to ideas on how to make rendezvous easier.

I posted a new version, v1.0.3, with a very minor change: the "averageDensity" field is now public, for use by SolarSailNavigator's mass prediction calculations.

I have posted v1.0.5 of SolarSailNavigator. Several big changes. Make sure to install PersistentThrust separately - it isn't in CKAN yet: https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/1147/PersistentThrust Biggest changes are: - PersistentThrust is now its own plugin - In-track/Cross-track/Normal reference frame now available - Change the default Frame/Angles/Throttle/Sail-on/Days/Hours for your navigator - Type in angles/throttle/time or click +/- buttons

Thank you. I haven't tried RO, though my ModuleManager patch to the ion engine reduces the thrust to 0.25 N (while keeping the ElectricCharge usage the same), which is how much thrust a state-of-the-art NASA ion engine produces. That low thrust level is effectively useless with KSP's stock maneuver planning tool, which assumes short duration high thrust burns. So, that's why I wrote SolarSailNavigator.

I've included a ModuleManager patch to the ion engine with the plugin, but it should work with any engine.

I have a new version, v1.0.2-alpha, available on Github. I'm waiting for it to be added to CKAN.