Group Action for Ratcheting Up/Down Liquid Fuel Engine Thrust Limiters

[coreyfro]

Hey all,

I would like to request a Group Action for adjusting thrust limits on the fly. With space planes, I have found that, if I use liquid boosters, the symmetry of thrust is hard to maintain after leaving the atmosphere. I can adjust thrust limits by hand, to fix this, but clicking and dragging sliders on paired liquid fuel boosters, on the fly, is painful as best.

Yes, I am sure that this could be fix by making my boosters symmetrical...above and below the wing...like we would NEVER do on earth. But this feature seems like such a no brainer and what aircraft doesn't have easy to use throttle controls for adjusting each engine?

[sumghai]

Given that the Space Shuttle-style configuration of a spaceplane piggybacking on an external tank with offset boosters is inherently unstable, I think you'd be better off using an automatic throttle control / thrust balancing plugin, rather than having a a dedicated throttle limiter action groups that don't see much use outside your particular case.

[CaptainTurbomuffin]

A such thrust balancer, maybe as a computer, could also help a lot with stock space shuttles. I think it should be an automatic sysem, not action groups, as you could get inappropriately high attitude control. I'd also like to see an automatic hinge version, that I've suggested before.

[KrazyKrl]

I think this small issue shows a problem with the in-flight part selection system.

There is no way to give multiple parts the same shared command concurrently.

I.e. OP's problem. Or even something like setting the brake torque on landing gears.

What should be available when selecting multiple parts with shift or alt (or Shift+Alt Click); is it creates a dialog on the last part clicked; that contains any option shared between all parts selected. (Or maybe an extension of the current part multiselect, that when alt is depressed with multiple part selections)

Multi-edit mode should be a "collapsed tooltip with header only" tooltip on the "slave" parts; and on the last selected part, it should have a window with only the part configuration entries that are shared between at least 2 of the selected parts. This could cause weird tooltips that would never exist otherwise also.

Example: You could make a selection of all gear and engines, and be able to set your brake torque and gimbal range with only a single tooltip open.

[coreyfro]

I could do it with an action group. It's as simple as ratcheting down the thrust limiter as the balance of weight due to fuel burn off is shifted.

Here's an example of the craft I am imagining.

I use cross feed hoses to siphon fuel from the boosters to the main engines, and this causes an imbalance. Because the boosters become empty, the center of thrust stays put but the center of mass rises along the Z Axis of the plane.

Just ratcheting the thrust limiter back and forth easily balances the craft.

Edited July 12, 2015 by coreyfro

[Diazo]

I'm developing ModActions (link here) for pretty much this purpose and it should do exactly what you are looking for in changing multiple engines thrust limiters at once via action group.

I'm currently in the final polish phase before the official release, but everything is working as advertised. (For why it is still in the development sub-forum, not the releases sub-forum.)

D.