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

[Meumeu]

This improves the calculation of the transfer orbit injection maneuver node, but you will still likely need a course correction. I imagine MechJeb2 still isn't doing a power-track calculation, that is calculating the accelerated track under thrust on your spacecraft flying the node. It's still likely assuming the maneuver is a point impulse to change the orbit.

So, as usual, check to see if you need a course correction after every long burn and SoI change.

Previously, even the planned maneuver could have a periapsis far from the planet, and sometimes not even intersect the SoI. Now the planned maneuver intersects the planet most of the time. So yes, you should still check if a course correction is required, but it should be much smaller than before.

[drtedastro]

Hello to all...

Is there anyway to add additional runway locations for the "Spaceplane Guidance" mod? I am using Kerbin-Side and it would be great to be able to add the extra locations.

Hope i did not miss this in my last run / search through the forum...

Thanks.

[sarbian]

shooty : should be fixed in the new dev version

Jacke : indeed it uses an instant burn, which is less precise for very long burn

drtedastro : ah yes. I wanted to add this for Landing Guidance before .25. Let me see if I can do it for the SpacePlane AP too.

Edit : I ll add site added by RSS for landing guidance. Kerbin-Side site are not defined with lat/long so I need to see how to convert them ...

Edited October 4, 2014 by sarbian

[John FX]

just downloaded latest build (330) and tried to do a porkchop transfer. Pulled up maneuver planner and as soon as I select a target all the window contents disappear. If I double click to clear my target they all come back.

EDIT : Just tried 329 and same result. All other windows are fine, even in the maneuver planner. It`s just the porkchop that fails to show when I have a target. Will try 330 on a vanilla install now.

Edited October 4, 2014 by John FX

[sarbian]

Any Exception in the log ?

[John FX]

Worked fine in vanilla so I`m adding mods until it breaks.

OK So I managed to copy all my mods into a vanilla install and not get the same error. I`ll try my save in that install now and see if that is the problem.

EDIT : There is something wrong with my save it seems.

EDIT 2 : there is something wrong with just one craft in my save. The rest are fine...

Edited October 4, 2014 by John FX

[shooty]

sarbian, thank you so much.

[John FX]

OK That was weird. One of my craft had three maneuver nodes set (stopping the porkchop from working) but only set for one part of the craft that were not showing with the craft assembled. When I sent a `rescue` mission and undocked the problem part three nodes appeared. None were there before and I clicked `remove ALL nodes` for the craft as a whole.

That was what was causing MJ to not display the porkchop. Now I have deleted those nodes the craft is fine and so is MJ.

That`s what I get for `dirty docking`...

[drtedastro]

Thanks Sarbian.... Looking forward to any and all new updates....

My most used mod.......

[John FX]

So I`m having a look to see what my `disappearing maneuver planner` issue could be traced to and it seems very craft specific. I had a suspicion that it was related to KAC setting nodes but I`m not so sure on that now.

Is there anything I could look at to give me more clues?

I get lots of errors on the craft that fails to work with the debug log

Working craft

Not working craft

[Meumeu]

So I`m having a look to see what my `disappearing maneuver planner` issue could be traced to and it seems very craft specific. I had a suspicion that it was related to KAC setting nodes but I`m not so sure on that now.

Is there anything I could look at to give me more clues?

I get lots of errors on the craft that fails to work with the debug log

Working craft

http://i.imgur.com/O5MSHEP.png

Not working craft

http://i.imgur.com/EbL2yPS.png

There's a null reference if the spacecraft is in orbit around the Sun, it should be fixed in the latest dev build.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Meumeu
typo

[sarbian]

More dev builds

- fix from Xytovl to reduce micro stutters in landing prediction and put more landing stuff into a separate thread.

- Import landing site for the Landing AP and runways for the SpacePlane crasher, err AP, from KerbTown/Kerbal-Konstructs, RSS and a user editable file (example). You can have more than one file with landing site in them.

- Added a button to copy your current latitude / longitude / altitude to the clipboard to help creating the previously mentioned file (it's in the Misc category of the windows editor)

KerbTown/Kerbal-Konstructs and RSS config gives only the center of a place. That's why you'll see that MJ does not land on the pad, and does not add KerbTown/RSS runways since I can't know where they start/end. But with the custom files you should be able to add them (and share them).

[John FX]

There's a null reference if the spacecraft is in orbit around the Sun, it should be fixed in the lastest dev build.

That would explain why it started working when I got inside the SOI of Dres.

[drtedastro]

Thanks for working on the ability to bring in runway info from KK....

I am trying to find any files in the latest release that pertain to this. I am still only seeing KSC and Island.. I must be doing something wrong...

Is there something that the user needs to do to have it pull in the additional runways?????

again, thanks for this addition and the entire mod.....

[JuggernautOfWar]

How would I edit where you receive ascent/landing autopilot in career mode?

[sarbian]

drtedastro, as I said in my post : KerbTown/Kerbal-Konstructs and RSS config gives only the center of a place. That's why you'll see that MJ does not land on the pad, and does not add KerbTown/Kerbal-Konstructs/RSS runways since I can't know where they start/end.

You'll have to add them in a file like the example one I provided. I'll explain the detail later if needed.

JuggernautOfWar : the tech are defined in MechJeb2/Parts/MechJeb2_AR202/part.cfg in the lines with "unlockTechs = xxx". Install ModuleManager, create a file in your gamedata folder named MJpatch.cfg and put either of those inside :

- To just make the ascent AP available from start :

@PART[*]:Final
{
 @MODULE[MechJebCore]
 {
  @MechJebLocalSettings
  {
   @MechJebModuleAscentGuidance
   {
    @unlockTechs = start
   }
  }
 }
}

- to remove all tech requirement :

@PART[*]:Final
{
 @MODULE[MechJebCore]
 {
  -MechJebLocalSettings {}
 }
}

Edited October 6, 2014 by sarbian

[Huntarr]

Not sure if this is the place, but it seems that the author of FAR & NEAR points to Mechjeb for not being able to land with FAR/NEAR.

Trying to land in an atmosphere with chutes or direct descent puts my landing way off target. Is there something I need to do to get a close landing? ie. base building Anything is the range of 5km? Or should I just give up on NEAR? My landings are more important than my ascents.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Not sure if this is the place, but it seems that the author of FAR & NEAR points to Mechjeb for not being able to land with FAR/NEAR.

Trying to land in an atmosphere with chutes or direct descent puts my landing way off target. Is there something I need to do to get a close landing? ie. base building Anything is the range of 5km? Or should I just give up on NEAR? My landings are more important than my ascents.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/93685-0-24-2-Trajectories-v0-3-0-(2014-10-01)-atmospheric-predictions-with-FAR-NEAR

this is a new plugin for landing targeting that works with FAR/NEAR. Inherent in the way MJ calculates the landing target makes it not work with them. This plugin will get you pretty darn close to where u want to be, but you'll have to do some part of the flying manually. With some experimenting & practice you can get it close enough to switch over to MJ for the final decent.

[DerekL1963]

Added to dev :

- bk2w maneuver to "change surface longitude of apsis"

I'm not actually finding this all that useful.... There's no way to find the value (that I can find) so you can calculate the position for the next bird, and even when you do know the position of a bird the function doesn't seem to produce anything resembling the desired result. (Yes, I know about 180 and E and W.) Firing at apo gives one result, firing at peri a different one.

So... what am I missing?

[Huntarr]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/93685-0-24-2-Trajectories-v0-3-0-(2014-10-01)-atmospheric-predictions-with-FAR-NEAR

this is a new plugin for landing targeting that works with FAR/NEAR. Inherent in the way MJ calculates the landing target makes it not work with them. This plugin will get you pretty darn close to where u want to be, but you'll have to do some part of the flying manually. With some experimenting & practice you can get it close enough to switch over to MJ for the final decent.

Thanks Cat, I'll give it a peek.

+rep

[drtedastro]

Ok, thanks... Now I understand.....

Thanks again for all of the work.....

Edit: I have just run into an issue with AutoDocking. I am running MJ 335 and it seems that this has / does the 'stubborn - doesn't want to dock all of the time' issues. Sometime turning autopilot off then on then off then on it starts to work. ? ? Is there a trick or a best side or orientation to get around this???????

Thanks for all....

Edited October 7, 2014 by drtedastro

[fairytalefox]

Hi again, sarbian and other devs and contributors, I want to say great thank you for all your work. The whole addon is a miracle. And the new porkchop transfer in particular is a miracle, too.

Now I have a question about it.

With that new transfer, we have two different moments of time. One is shown below the porkchop picture, and the other is the actual maneuver time. And they are different. For example, I like to start my transfers from 620 km (above Kerbin) circular orbit, so the difference may be about 20 minutes or even more. It's not a big deal if you want to visit Jool or Eeloo. Bot when it's a mission to Moho, you know, that unholy Moho is a pretty darn fast beast. So these 20 minutes at the initial orbit lead to, like, 200 m/s correction burn, or you'll never ever touch Moho's SoI.

I'm aware of phase angles and such stuff, so my question isn't about roots of these minutes. The question is: is it just me? Or it's kind of probably minor real issue? Because, you know, not everyone of us always have these 200 m/s to spare in their pocket...

[Red Iron Crown]

Hi again, sarbian and other devs and contributors, I want to say great thank you for all your work. The whole addon is a miracle. And the new porkchop transfer in particular is a miracle, too.

Now I have a question about it.

With that new transfer, we have two different moments of time. One is shown below the porkchop picture, and the other is the actual maneuver time. And they are different. For example, I like to start my transfers from 620 km (above Kerbin) circular orbit, so the difference may be about 20 minutes or even more. It's not a big deal if you want to visit Jool or Eeloo. Bot when it's a mission to Moho, you know, that unholy Moho is a pretty darn fast beast. So these 20 minutes at the initial orbit lead to, like, 200 m/s correction burn, or you'll never ever touch Moho's SoI.

I'm aware of phase angles and such stuff, so my question isn't about roots of these minutes. The question is: is it just me? Or it's kind of probably minor real issue? Because, you know, not everyone of us always have these 200 m/s to spare in their pocket...

It's not phase angle that causes that difference, but ejection angle. The porkchop plotter solves for the ideal case in the initial orbit, you would be very lucky to arrive at the proper point in the orbit at exactly the correct time so it gives you the nearest point when you're at the correct ejection angle. About the only workaround is to eject from a lower orbit, the shorter orbital period means this correction is minimized.

[fairytalefox]

It's not phase angle that causes that difference, but ejection angle. The porkchop plotter solves for the ideal case in the initial orbit, you would be very lucky to arrive at the proper point in the orbit at exactly the correct time so it gives you the nearest point when you're at the correct ejection angle. About the only workaround is to eject from a lower orbit, the shorter orbital period means this correction is minimized.

Oh, if this angle wants to be called "ejection" it's all up to it, I don't mind

I just wonder if there is a way to make the porkchop calculator calculate only realistic trajectories. Or, at least, limit my choices to such trajectories. I think it would be better.

If it's difficult to implement, or may cause glitches, or there is another reason to leave the algorithm intact, then of course low orbits and/or big corrections are my only options. No problem. The issue isn't a game breaker after all.

[xytovl]

Hi again, sarbian and other devs and contributors, I want to say great thank you for all your work. The whole addon is a miracle. And the new porkchop transfer in particular is a miracle, too.

Now I have a question about it.

With that new transfer, we have two different moments of time. One is shown below the porkchop picture, and the other is the actual maneuver time. And they are different. For example, I like to start my transfers from 620 km (above Kerbin) circular orbit, so the difference may be about 20 minutes or even more. It's not a big deal if you want to visit Jool or Eeloo. Bot when it's a mission to Moho, you know, that unholy Moho is a pretty darn fast beast. So these 20 minutes at the initial orbit lead to, like, 200 m/s correction burn, or you'll never ever touch Moho's SoI.

I'm aware of phase angles and such stuff, so my question isn't about roots of these minutes. The question is: is it just me? Or it's kind of probably minor real issue? Because, you know, not everyone of us always have these 200 m/s to spare in their pocket...

Is it a problem you are actually having with the computed maneuvers ?

The porkchop calculator should pick the correct point of the orbit, and then anyway the optimizer will tweak the maneuver. It usually does a good job and computes something that enters the planet.