[PART, 1.0.2] Anatid Robotics / MuMech - MechJeb - Autopilot - Historical thread

[Galane]

Have a IMAC 10.9.2 can not but the mechjeb in the game cannot find game files please help

If you post without the color and font tags it's much easier for people to read it.

[phoenix_ca]

The file structure for the OS X version of KSP should be exactly the same as the others.

[smunisto]

It will requre more thant a simple answer.

A) The dV calculation are done in a Unity thread. Not sure if it actually make them run on a separate core but AFAI it does the some as KER. I'll check how KER does it to be sure.

The dV calculation are not run only when the windows is open because they are used in other part of MJ like the node executor and a few other thing. But they don't run all the time either.

C) MJ does a LOT a computation each physic frame because it need to know a lot about your ship to fly it. At one point we may try to cache a few of those info but it's not trivial.

Thank you for the time you took to reply thoroughly.

I realised there are some dependencies after I posted, but still.

I think a lot of people would appreciate if you look into the offloading of calculations to a free CPU thread, as this would probably help the already overloaded main thread, which calculates physics frames for the game itself, parts and stuff. Unfortunately I don't know enough about coding to tell if a Unity thread is the same as CPU thread.

I can show you the difference in FPS and dT per frame for my system, which is more than able to run KSP, with MJ and without it. And it's at a point when I get my SSTO(around 120 parts) next to a reactor station with around 200 parts in orbit. Not such a hard impact from parts themselves, but I think MJ goes crazy with calculations there.

The performance boost in case some of the unused calculations get stopped when windows are closed(or even better - when the modules are blacklisted).

Still haven't gotten around to blacklisting like I wanted before, but now that I think about it - it will not bring any performance improvement, and I don't feel any urges to automate my gameplay, so it's cool.

Also, if someone knows or has made tries and errors for dependencies for blacklisting - maybe this could be added to the mod documentation. I would make it in a chart if it's already available somewhere as text information.

[Galane]

Got the latest KSP all set up on Win 7 last night. Tried docking a couple of landers in a 100KM Kerbin orbit. I left the booster upper stages attached as if I was going to do a Mun trip.

Had plenty of RCS thrusters and mono available. Docking autopilot just could not bring them together, not even when I manually aligned them nose to nose less than 20 meters apart, set one to kill rot and tried docking with the other. It'd close in then "correct" off to one side and miss. Once it pulled up along side (actually scraping the ships together) as if it was going to fly all the way around, so I stopped it, nudged them apart, aimed them at one another with TGT+ and tried again.

I finally had to dock manually by aiming them at each other and ramming it home with the main engine thrust when the ships were straight enough with each other. After docking they started to wobble, getting progressively worse.

The problem seems to be that at close range the targeting drifts a bit and the ships start chasing each othe's docking ports, even when one is set on kill rot. The closer they get, the more they wobble around - like a pilot induced oscillation.

Used to be easy to manually dock by setting both to TGT+ then careful use of H and N and the throttle would bring them together while the ships stayed aligned.

[Starwaster]

Got the latest KSP all set up on Win 7 last night. Tried docking a couple of landers in a 100KM Kerbin orbit. I left the booster upper stages attached as if I was going to do a Mun trip.

Had plenty of RCS thrusters and mono available. Docking autopilot just could not bring them together, not even when I manually aligned them nose to nose less than 20 meters apart, set one to kill rot and tried docking with the other. It'd close in then "correct" off to one side and miss. Once it pulled up along side (actually scraping the ships together) as if it was going to fly all the way around, so I stopped it, nudged them apart, aimed them at one another with TGT+ and tried again.

I finally had to dock manually by aiming them at each other and ramming it home with the main engine thrust when the ships were straight enough with each other. After docking they started to wobble, getting progressively worse.

The problem seems to be that at close range the targeting drifts a bit and the ships start chasing each othe's docking ports, even when one is set on kill rot. The closer they get, the more they wobble around - like a pilot induced oscillation.

Used to be easy to manually dock by setting both to TGT+ then careful use of H and N and the throttle would bring them together while the ships stayed aligned.

what was your Available RCS delta V?

also.... docking ships wobbling and oscillating when they get close... you sure that wasnt just the magnets kicking in?

[technogeeky]

This feels a little bit crass to ask, but MechJeb is the only example I know of:

Did you guys write (or follow an existing) tutorial on getting a KSP addon to build in Jenkins?

It looks like you are self-hosting a copy of Jenkins. Was this necessary to build, or can the (free?) hosted version of Jenkins handle the build?

Thanks!

[Galane]

what was your Available RCS delta V?

also.... docking ships wobbling and oscillating when they get close... you sure that wasnt just the magnets kicking in?

RCS delta V? Great heaping gobs of it. ;-) One of the ships' booster stage was a ReStock ThunderMax tank with two rings of 8 5-way blocks, plus two rings of four stock 4-way on the lander. The other one had a booster with four Rockomax 64 tanks (under a ReStock Bigger, Badder, Quad Coupler - a part also used to put four mainsails under the ThunderMax) that also had sixteen 5-way blocks. Both very agile ships with RCS, plus they had plenty of reaction wheel torque.

I've used both of those booster core stages with various asparagus arrangements around and different payloads for many flights. The four orange tank one is the main core of the ship still circling Duna and the same for the assembly waiting to go to Eve. The ThunderMax one with a single mainsail in the middle makes a very nice fuel tanker.

I had to shut off RCS and finish the docking with just torque for turning while goosing the ship forward with engine thrust. (Four mainsails on each ship so very little throttle was needed.)

The wobbling as they approached was all due to SASS and TGT+. The magnetic port attraction would dampen the oscillation. Using TGT+ on both ships has always been a problem because as one ship pitches or yaws, the other tries to track it. That correction causes the first ship to try to track the one docking to it.

They just keep giving feedback to each other's targeting and it increases until they're swinging way off target.

The solution has always been to get them aimed at each other about 100 meters apart, set kill rot on one (usually the larger one with a slower turn rate) then turn on docking autopilot, sit back and watch it do its thing.

What it appeared to be doing with the docking ship was yawing and pitching to keep the port tracking on the other ship instead of translating straight sideways. I much preferred it when the docking autopilot relied on the human to get the right ports aimed at each other then just flew it in to dock with little correction needed.

[Starwaster]

RCS delta V? Great heaping gobs of it. ;-)

That's not a number.

[OrbitalDebris]

I saw that Sarbian posted a new build (238), so I've updated my recompile of RPM to make RPM 0.16 compatible with MJ dev builds. Download link is at my original post at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/12384-PART-0-23-5-Anatid-Robotics-MuMech-MechJeb-Autopilot-v2-2?p=1118981&viewfull=1#post1118981

Edited May 2, 2014 by OrbitalDebris

[tmbomber]

Hello Everybody,

I'm still running into issues with the docking autopilot backing my off a huge distance before trying to actually... dock.

I can be 10m away, perfectly lined up, hit the docking AP to finish the job...

and it backs me out to the point that the docking port deselects itself because it's too far away.

I'm using version 236 and noticed that there's a "bounding box" display that can be turned on, so I gave it a shot:

http://imgur.com/LvkCxT0

Well, that kinda explains why I'm backing out so far.

The ship in the blue bounding box is snuggled into the upper far right corner of the box.

Why is the box so big??? Is it suppose to be??? If so, why???

[BudgetHedgehog]

Why is the box so big??? Is it suppose to be??? If so, why???

I'm totally guessing here, but 'because of your Interstellar radiators'. If you fold them in, you might get a smaller box.

[Pondafarr]

It was explained earlier in the thread that the bounding boxes are a debug tool. They looked cool, so they were left available for those parties interested.

I would like to see a safety override check box, to force a dock from the current position within the safe zone. Would save a lot of time and mono.

[hikerchick]

I'm having an issue with my pause menu. Ever since I installed this release of MJ, the menu stays totally hidden when I hit the Esc. key, which can make for some very difficult game navigation. This issue seems to only have come up with the installation of Mechjeb, which also shows up as a non-working mod on start-up (it still works, minus pause menu)

[tmbomber]

It's good to hear that the bounding boxes were put in as a debugging tool. As you can see, I seem to have found a bug. The box shows why it's backing me off so far.

As to the radiators? Take another look at the size of the blue box and where the ship inside it is positioned. That's not right.

[sojourner]

As to the radiators? Take another look at the size of the blue box and where the ship inside it is positioned. That's not right.

And yet, you should still try closing the radiators to see what effect it has. If closing the radiators corrects the bounding box, well, we know more about the problem.

[Mykill Metal]

Seems I found the solution to my wobbly "not pointing at the node" problem. I opened attitude adjustment and unchecked "use stock sas". Is there a way to change the mod so it starts with that off by default?

[Tokay Gris]

Have a IMAC 10.9.2 can not but the mechjeb in the game cannot find game files please help

The color and font stuff is really not helpful.

But anyway: Go to your Finder, then "Go" at the top, hold down the "Alt"-key, go to "Library" (not visible otherwise). Somewhere in there are the files. If you use Steam, then its under Application Support/Steam/SteamApps.

[Tex_NL]

I recently started experimenting with FAR and I came to the conclusion MechJeb and FAR are not best friends. Among other things MechJebs plane guidance can't keep control and the launch guidance does no longer limits to terminal velocity.

Forgive me for not wanting to dig through 650 pages of chatter but are there and custom settings to make MechJeb function under FAR like it did stock?

[Red Iron Crown]

I recently started experimenting with FAR and I came to the conclusion MechJeb and FAR are not best friends. Among other things MechJebs plane guidance can't keep control and the launch guidance does no longer limits to terminal velocity.

Forgive me for not wanting to dig through 650 pages of chatter but are there and custom settings to make MechJeb function under FAR like it did stock?

There's another module available, not sure if it's up to date.

[Tex_NL]

There's another module available, not sure if it's up to date.

Thanks for the quick reply. That might just be what the doctor ordered.

I'll check it out later tonight. I'll let you know the results.

Edit: Your suggestion was excellent, the solution itself was crap. Adding MechJebFARExt.dll to MechJeb pretty much killed MechJeb.

Launch guidance and Smart A.S.S. both failed miserably. Without the extra .dll MechJeb still had at least some control. With it MechJeb did nothing.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Tex_NL

[Starwaster]

It's good to hear that the bounding boxes were put in as a debugging tool. As you can see, I seem to have found a bug. The box shows why it's backing me off so far.

As to the radiators? Take another look at the size of the blue box and where the ship inside it is positioned. That's not right.

Agreed, there's not much point in reporting things like this here if requests for additional information are met with no cooperation.

Thanks for the quick reply. That might just be what the doctor ordered.

I'll check it out later tonight. I'll let you know the results.

Edit: Your suggestion was excellent, the solution itself was crap. Adding MechJebFARExt.dll to MechJeb pretty much killed MechJeb.

Launch guidance and Smart A.S.S. both failed miserably. Without the extra .dll MechJeb still had at least some control. With it MechJeb did nothing.

Recent updates to FAR broke at least two of the functions in the MJ FAR extension. Might just need recompiling, or maybe those functions need fixing now to enable them to work with FAR again.

[sarbian]

It needs more than recompiling, as I said in the thread. Soon.

[Espresso]

I have an interesting bug, I installed the latest version, but there is no button ANYWHERE to access MJ, no button on the toolbar, no tab on the side of the screen. Can anyone help?

[BudgetHedgehog]

What version of the Toolbar are you using? If it's anything less than the most recent, you'll have problems.

[phoenix_ca]

Best way to use MechJeb with FAR: Don't use MechJeb with FAR. Sadly. MJ needs pretty significant changes if it's to behave properly in atmosphere with FAR installed.

Though it might be able to manage landing sometimes. Ish. Don't ask it to land a plane though.