Redacted

Anyone having problem reinstalling? I keep getting the following from CKAN... Thing is that neither mod is within the /GameData so I am wondering if there are left over files (.DDL's) tht could be causing this?

Yeah thats what i mean... The working range isn't 90 degrees but rather 1-5. This allows the throttle range to be in 20% (positive) increments. Even with the KAL-Controller, i doubt this would allow for much in the way of fine resolution to control the throttle. Keep in mind that as the copters angle and forward momentum is increased, that the blades will quickly reach their stall angle. This is despite a real quad still being able to generate thrust at almost all angles. (Unless moving really fast) Even then, rather than controlling each propeller it "should" be far simpler to control each specific motor. ( "If" groups could be managed as such to control orientation) Only way I see to do this would be to either having a dedicated motor mixer or by using one set of props to control "general" lift, while another set on the same rotor was used for Pitch / Roll.

Problem with using blade deploy is that the working range is rather limited. Using them the throttle up / down would provide for a very narrow throttle range.

Now thats more like it... if done well, it will be an extremely light and efficient science transport. Should be able to recharge it via 1-2 small solar cells between flights. BTW, i like the use of the fins for the rotor blades. Maybe you can suggest improvements to the blades in other discussions? Now as for the motors poor throttle response have have found to tie the rpm and torque to the same throttle channel helps considerably.

@IkranMakto While this is really nice, it's still cheating by angling the rotors. Instead whats needed for a real quad experience, is being able to manipulate the motor torque via channel mixing. This would allow for the simplest design insofar as what hardware is required to make it fly. One big issue here though is that the electric rotors spin up / down pretty slowly and thus have to be "braked" to slow them down enough to land. (poor throttle response) What I've been trying to build is the most minimalist copter possible then adapt it to be fold-able for transport. It would end up being a 1-Kerbal transport to fly around conducting science on Eve.

Thank you for the constructive inputs but I thought the point was to make this work without the reaction wheels?

Yeah, i have discovered that... Was able to get Pitch (prop angle) and Yaw (Torque manipulation) working but Roll does some really strange stuff. It appears as if the rotor attempts to have opposing Roll Lift on each of its sides. When this needs to be each side of the Copter. Quad ends up fighting itself instead of Rolling. Now as for the other Axis, the motors response time is way to slow and the props can stall rather easily at higher forward speeds. For strong counter torque, the props either need to be at a high angle of attack or the rotors spun past 200 rpms. Sucks that motors, props and most other things are limited to one type of input / axis as KSP would be awesome for a little Quadcopter race. Would love to have direct input mixing available for the motors / props.

@linuxgurugamer I've the AFBW mod installed and can select, configure and calibrate my Taranis XD9. However, the controls don't respond in-game, even after exiting and restarting the program. Not sure whats wrong here are the controls are being detected as seen within the controller configuration screen. Do you have any advice on how to correct this? Note: The mods main files are withing the main KSP working directory while the mod itself resides in /gamedata Edit: Just after creating a new preset, the controls to allow for me to manipulate the Yaw, Pitch and Roll in game. However the Throttle moves the % bar without the crafts engines throttling up. Being that this is an electric rover, it doesnt used staged events. (Everything is just on by default) All that being said, once i return to the Space Port and then return to the launch screen, none of the controls are active despite the preset being available and the calibration screen showing that the stick deflections are working. Thank you in advance, Redacted

Tried most of the day to get the copter controllable via torque manipulation. Fact is that the motors change too slow for this to be viable. I did however make a version that uses SAS and ACS thrusters to control it's orientation. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1894442770

I get that about the intent of the parts but the problem will always be that players will try to use parts beyond their original intended scope. Even if parts were used within their scope of intent, somethings are just not doable. Either the game mechanics don't support it or their are controllability issues. Case-in-point, try making a “realistic” quadcopter when manipulating each motors torque / lift to manage the crafts orientation. Far as i can tell, no one has pulled this off yet simply because the control groups are not capable of managing the motors in this way. Sure, the motors can be assigned to a throttle group but manipulating each axis without SAS has proven elusive. Closest i have come has been to change each propellers attack angle while the motor speed remains constant. Even then, this was only managed for Pitch, not Roll but Prop angle does nothing for Yaw. Speeding motors up just takes too long to respond to a pilots Yaw input. Best i can figure is the “brake” a set of the diagonal motors to create Yaw torque but this would come at the loss of lift. Keep in mind that a true quadcopter can Yaw without the loss of altitude or effecting the other axis.

Will post a few pictures and a like to the design Monday.

What we need is a “momentary“ mode, where the variable increases at a user predefined rate, then snaps back to defaults when the keyboard control input ceases. For joysticks, the “rate of change” / “prop attack angle” / “hinge deflection” could be defined by the amount of stick defection etc. Anyone know of a modder who would be up to taking this challenge?

I have a quadcopter that i have been working on that uses stock ksp parts. While this flies smoothly, its orientation must be (for now) controlled via SAS. Unfortunately, the function groups dont work very well in situations where someone must assign multiple motors to Yaw / Pitch / Roll to manage orientation. Worse yet, the motors throttle up too slowly to promptly respond to the pilots control inputs. Hence I’ve resorted to keeping the throttle constant and changing the propellers attack angle instead. (Still working on this) Thus far, i have managed to control only the Pitch by altering the blade angle but not Roll or Yaw. Overall through, Pitch and Roll should be achievable via blade manipulation but Yaw may require that the motors torque be manipulated to forcefully change the copters heading. (Aka, differential torque) Note: There are two types of Pitch / Roll / Yaw response that are available. Absolute, which gives 100% action on a single key-press / control input. Then, Incremental which ramps-up the output the longer the keys are held. Neither appears to be adequate for the task as the blade angle must return to its “normal” position once the control input has ceased. However, this does not appear to be the case. Question would your VTOL thrust script work in this situation?

Yes, it can be done. That being said, If it were possible to have strong variable wings, you’d see them on basically every SSTO... Problem is with movable parts is that they don't stand up to aero forces very well. Specifically, all of the loading force is applied directly to the joint. Which during hard turns or high velocities tends to separate (rip) themselves from the craft. Worse yet, these parts may oscillate or wiggle about as the stress on them increase. Making controlling the craft more and more difficult as the velocity or degree of Orientation change increases. Even if aero forces were not an issue, the thermal heating would be. I could be wrong but dont recall the moveable parts having that great of a thermal range.

I been working on an SSTO just for Eve... https://kerbalx.com/Redacted/Redshift-Long-endurance-SSTO Its a bit unorthodox but works wonders thus far. Please keep in mind that the hardest thing (IMO) is taking off as most of the lift generated is from the MK2 lifting body. Thus as such, increase your ground speed slowly (stability / air-intake are very important) and use the terrain as a ramp. Once airborne throttle up and ride just at the crafts thermal tolerance as you climb using only the ACS thrusters. (Craft will hit 1600 ms very quickly) Being that they only use electricity, you can reach 1800-2200 ms (on Kerbin) easily. Once above the thicker atmosphere, kick on both the ram-jets and stay level with the horizon for as long as your climb-rate and thermal limits allow. On a good assent profile, I’ve bested 4000 ms exiting Kerbin’s atmosphere. Which can easily launch the craft clean of Kerbin’s SoI. Big limitation of this craft is the low TWR once in orbit so its critical that you launch directly from Kerbin close to your desired ejection angle as possible. Thus direction changes can be very time consuming if you launch in the wrong direction. Once near Eve, start your deceleration early to come in as slow as physically possible. Before dropping in briefly to Aero-Brake and start circularization. Each time around aero braking again and again to bleed off speed till finally you can circularize using just the ion engine. Ideally, you’ll want to have your orbit just under 100km before attempting reentry. On reentry set your crafts angle to 40 degrees so that the lifting body is doing everything possible to keep you from gaining speed as you descend. The critical part comes when your are closer to the crafts thermal limits and you need to angle forward more and more. Until, your air intakes are able to supply the ACS thrusters so that you can apply reverse thrust and drop your speed below 2000 ms before blowing up. Once you’ve gotten this far, you’ll find that the lifting body provides tons of lift in Eves thicker atmosphere allowing you to maneuver and land with a lot of finesse. Dont forget that your ACS thrusters are your best friend in an atmosphere and can help you keep orientation and allow you to actively brake when touching down. Once on Eve, do the science thing / refuel etc... keep in mind that you may need more liquid fuel for the ram-jets, then what was needed departing Kerbin. Beyond this, manage your heat by managing your speed till you climb to a point where your ACS thrusters start to lose their effectiveness. Thus at that point turn off the ACS and engage both ram-jets till you reach exit velocity.

Hello I’ve recently built up a quadcopter using only stock parts. While as surprisingly easy as this was to build, managing the motors / props within the assignable function groups has been quite a challenge. Example: There’re four electrically driven rotors with three blades each. Two motors (diagonal of each other) spin CW while the other motors spin CCW. All four motors are throttled using my assigned throttle within the group manager. Now while this does fly it has to be maneuvered using the SAS. Most of my attempts at controlling each individual axis or torque of each motor either does nothing or results in uncontrollability. Only axis i have managed was Pitch, and its response was very much like a real quadcopter. (Surprisingly) This was done by controlling each blades angle of attack to provide the amount of Pitch angle desired. (Motor speed kept constant once in flight) Obvious, this would be better if the speed of each motor could be varied to manage the copters orientation. Unfortunately, the rotors spin-up is pretty slow and thus far hasn’t allowed me to alter the main throttle input for each individual motor via the keyboard (Roll, Pitch, Yaw) control inputs. Ultimately, my plan is to have a fully functioning quadcopter (or as close it it as possible) while using my Taranis X9 as the “Joystick” input. I currently do this with a few other flight sims and thought I’d give this a try here as well. Keep in mind that such a system once mastered; would be the ideal way to explore a planetary body remotely. (Assuming it has an atmosphere) Anyone have experience with the rotor / prop control such as I’ve described above? Thank you in advance! Redacted

LB would be allot better if the nose / cockpit lift was reduced, while increasing the end / tail pieces.

Non-functional isnt very realistic just adds another unnecessary layer of complexity.

There should be some point to adding "lift" to a part other than the aesthetics.

MK2 / 3 LB's dont provide any benefit to an SSTO so whats the point of having them ?

The trick to breaking 2000ms is the run with a heat-shield instead of a nose-cone. The rest of the craft, wether it be it a rocket or SSTO of some sort, needs to be only as wide as the heat-shield. This way the brunt on the aero forces are concentrated at one point, rather then across the body / wings. Side note: I have a rather unorthodox SSTO on KerbalX that can break 4000ms while transitioning to orbit. Its named “Redshift” and uses a combination of ACS thrusters and Scramjet (above 1250 ms). It can easily launch itself from Kerbin’s SoI using 200-300 liquid fuel.

For the life of me I don't see the point of a Lifting-Body (LB) as it's modeled within KSP. Case in point, in most all SSTO builds where I've tried using MK2 /3 modules, the lift generated (fwd of CG) is so great that enormous wings aft of the CG must be used. Which if the it weren't for the LB disparity, such wings would be more then twice whats needed for a non-LB SSTO. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the point of a LB, to reduce the need for "wings"? Granted some of this can be mitigated by shifting the CG forward and the wings farther back, yet there a limit to where this is no longer practical / functional. Whats the deal here ? -Redacted

Are the "Configurable ACS Blister" (four variants) part of this mod? They use intake air and electrical power to produce thrust. Which by the way is a brilliant idea! (Never run out of fuel) If so, would it be possible to increase the thruster power? (Currently set at "2") Made a few SSTO's that use 200+ ACS blisters to push a craft to the edge of space, where nukes can later circularize. A stronger variant of this would lower the part count considerably.

I've been using the Broadsword engines recently. Part of why is not just performance but it's use of liquid fuel. Makes it much easier to design an SSTO that uses nukes in orbit.

Any chance of both the engines getting a performance boost ? Side Note: Been messing around allot with ASC (atmospheric control system) RCS thrusters. I've an MK3 SSTO that can make it past 70km before needing nukes for circulation.