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

[skips]

@bitbucket: The parts that will not unlock have two versions in your GameData tree that have the same "name = " line. This situation confuses the research code because the researched parts in your saved state file only track the "name = " value. When you attempt to research a part by clicking on it in the R&D tree, the code marks the wrong one as researched. The VAB and SPH do not have this problem with duplicate names as they append a hash code to the name before writing it into the craft file. I am guessing that the hash code is related to the path to the part's cfg file.

To fix this issue you need to track down the two cfg files that have the same "name = " lines and change one of them.

skips

[sarbian]

@Balorn none that I think of. It could be add to the rover AP, "Keep // to the surface"

[Rabblerouser]

So is there a way to get this in career mode? :S

[sojourner]

So is there a way to get this in career mode? :S

It's already in career mode.

[Jean Deaux]

Give us a pic of your ship. It might be that your ship is breaking Unity physics. Have you tried the Rigid Rockets mod from ferram?

Not my first rodeo, but sure, I'll throw up a pic of one of many vessels that give me such an issue. In fact, there's a new issue that popped up so I'll make this a 2'fer. I had just finished this ship design (refueler) and have the same spinning issues as I had originally posted, but this time after it started spinning, I reverted back to launch and attempted a manual launch. This time with MJ "NOT ACTIVATED", I launched and MJ took over anyway. You'll notice in the pic that the "Limit to terminal velocity" is green and active and was throttling my engines down, notice also just above the button "Engage autopilot". I toggled the button autopilot on, then off again hoping to clear, it throttled down to zero as I expected, but when I applied thrust again it throttled back down again and took over for terminal velocity. Things that make you go "Hmmmmmmm..."

Obviously, Novapunch is another mod I currently have loaded.

And on retest... rebooted... relaunched... launched manually with MJ not active, it still took over. So it doesn't know when to turn off.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Jean Deaux

[BrickedKeyboard]

Ok, What's the deal. How do I get mechjeb to help me fly my rocket? I unlocked the "Ar 202" and installed it on my rocket. I've tried the version on SpacePort, the very latest version on Github, and the last 2.09 version per a suggestion previously in this thread.

Every single version, I see the same menu. Maybe I'm blind, but I do not see "Ascent Assist" or anything to help me do rendezvous or burns to go to other planets or anything else. I know there's a way to get to the Mun the hard way using manual tricks of navigation (but it wastes fuel), but there's no way I'm going to get to anywhere else in the solar system without some assistance (or a lot of trial/error and wasted propellant). I mean, even in the days of Mercury, they used computers for all phases of flight. Heck, the very first V-2 ballistic missiles were computer guided using crude mechanical computers...

Frankly, how does anyone play this game without MechJeb, and how the heck do I get it working in this version?

[sumghai]

-snip-

Ascent Guidance is unlocked in the Unmanned Tech node in the R&D Tech Tree - other modules are unlocked in other nodes.

[sojourner]

Not my first rodeo, but sure, I'll throw up a pic of one of many vessels that give me such an issue.

How about a picture of your ship in daylight? Would be a little more helpful.

notice also just above the button "Engage autopilot".

Notice what? Edited November 5, 2013 by sojourner

[Galane]

You'll notice in the pic that the "Limit to terminal velocity" is green and active and was throttling my engines down

Those options are like check boxes*. If you don't want MechJeb to do anything at all, you have to click all those to clear the dots from the circles. Of course then it's up to you to control the throttle to avoid smashing your ship from too much throttle in the lower 3rd of the atmosphere.

*User interface convention fail. Using the common "radio button" circle with dot for check boxes. Check boxes are typically square and indicate to the user that any or all in a group may be selected. Radio buttons are round and indicate to the user that only one in a group may be selected - like the old radios with round station preset selection buttons. Push one and whichever one was previously pushed in pops out. Yup, the people who came up with these grew up with such radios and these two types of selection widgets have become standardized in graphical user interfaces. Mixing up their usage tends to confuse people - especially people who have been using computers for many years.

Which brings up an issue about KSP in general. It's filled with toggle buttons that don't indicate their status. They act like a momentary button, they have a clicked state but do not have an *active* state. The buttons all return to their un-clicked state. Some have a *very tiny* icon somewhere else that changes, some like Set As Target change the text on a popup window but others such as Control From Here have no state indication at all. The quickest fix would be to just have all the buttons stay in their clicked graphic state when the user has clicked them to change things from their default state. I'm a big fan of software being as informative as possible via the use of text, but a quickly discernible graphical status indication is also a good thing so the user doesn't *have* to read the text or look for a difference in a tiny icon that's not on the button. Like an old radio selector button, the button itself tells its own status. Better than a black button with black text that lights up black saying "Don't press this button again.".

[drtedastro]

Hello to all. Is there a way with the current release to be able do a "set time launch", but without a target??? I am doing some 'tests' on different orbital insertion methods and need to be able to time my launches close. If this is not a current option, could it please be considered for the next update / release?

Thanks for all of the great work...

[Jean Deaux]

Gads, why do I even try. Nevermind... forget I said anything. Everything is perfect. I'll go away.

[Starwaster]

Gads, why do I even try. Nevermind... forget I said anything. Everything is perfect. I'll go away.

What, is that sarcasm?

That is how MJ is designed. Throttle limiters are NOT the same as the auto pilot.

Limit to terminal velocity is a throttle limiter. You have it engaged, that's obvious from your picture. It is SUPPOSED to possible for it to be engaged separately from the autopilot.

(The box to the left of it is lit white showing it to be engaged. Click it to disengage and it will turn dark)

Edited November 6, 2013 by Starwaster

[LameLefty]

Frankly, how does anyone play this game without MechJeb ....

Watch/read tutorials, make some effort to understand the physics being simulated by the program, and just learn it. The same way the early rocket scientists did it (WITHOUT anything more complicated than a mechanical adding machine to calculate stuff, by the way). Even the "computers" used in the first orbital spaceflights were nothing more complicated than prewired circuits and electromechanical sequencers. Gemini was the first crewed spacecraft with any sort of digital computer and it was less powerful than whatever runs your programmable thermostat today.

If you don't want to make that effort, you don't have to. But that's the answer to your question.

[Carl]

Okay real oddity here. For some reason the accent autopilot and landing autopilot are not displaying in the side pane for mechjeb for me and the only way to get them to display is to go into the setting's and enable the show for them there, which puts the actual panes up at launch, but still doesn't allow me to toggle them from the side panel. Any clue as to why? And yes as far as i can tell i have the relevant researches btw, forgot to mention that initially.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Carl

[celem]

Doublecheck the 2 part .cfg files. Not only does each physical component have a required tech, each of the actions it can perform has its own unlock point too. Worth double-checking as I missed these extra references and just dropped the module requirements itself

[AtilaElari]

Dumb question, but: I can't find Rendevouz Autopilot in new MJ2.1. Is it hidden somewhere, deleted away or am I utterly dumb?

[Starwaster]

Dumb question, but: I can't find Rendevouz Autopilot in new MJ2.1. Is it hidden somewhere, deleted away or am I utterly dumb?

It sounds like you are in Career Mode and have not unlocked it yet.

Either that or your settings file is messed up. Does it work in Sandbox?

[AtilaElari]

It sounds like you are in Career Mode and have not unlocked it yet.

Either that or your settings file is messed up. Does it work in Sandbox?

*robs his head* I think it indeed works in Sandbox. Then how do you unlock Randevouz function in Career?

[skips]

*robs his head* I think it indeed works in Sandbox. Then how do you unlock Randevouz function in Career?

Unlock the Advanced Unmanned node of the research tree.

skips

[skips]

The same way the early rocket scientists did it (WITHOUT anything more complicated than a mechanical adding machine to calculate stuff, by the way). Even the "computers" used in the first orbital spaceflights were nothing more complicated than prewired circuits and electromechanical sequencers. Gemini was the first crewed spacecraft with any sort of digital computer and it was less powerful than whatever runs your programmable thermostat today.

Actually this statement is an over estimate of the lack of computing power involved in the space program. Most of the flights that you mention were simulated on ground based computers and the results transmitted to the spacecrafts for execution. In the very early days the computers were either analog or took up most of the floor of a reasonable sized building. This approach to operating spacecraft was common until the 80's or 90's, when spacecraft computers finally got good enough to compute orientation changes. At that point the destination orientation was uplinked to the spacecraft and the onboard computer generated the rotations around the control axes of the spacecraft. Orbital changes (that involved burning engines) were still computed on the ground and the results uplinked to the spacecraft.

The advent of onboard computation and execution of complex maneuvers is state of the art during the 2010's. Examples include the automated landing sequences for Mars rovers. These spacecraft included computational elements that corrected for realtime anomalies rather than executing preplanned command sequences.

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[CAPFlyer]

What, is that sarcasm?

That is how MJ is designed. Throttle limiters are NOT the same as the auto pilot.

Limit to terminal velocity is a throttle limiter. You have it engaged, that's obvious from your picture. It is SUPPOSED to possible for it to be engaged separately from the autopilot.

(The box to the left of it is lit white showing it to be engaged. Click it to disengage and it will turn dark)

He's being sarcastic because Galane answered a question not asked. Jean was having (presumably) a problem with MJ's terminal velocity limiter still running even though it wasn't selected to be active. MJ's radio buttons are designed correctly, Galane's post is a bunch of rambling jibberish about a problem that doesn't exist. The problem is that occasionally MJ will still activate certain modules even when you have them deselected. There is no "momentary" switch in MJ. The module is on if there's a white dot inside the radio button and the module turns green if it's actively doing something. It's that simple. There is no "convention fail" there is no UI issue. The issue is that for some reason MJ doesn't always deactivate a module when you select it to be inactive.

[LameLefty]

Actually this statement is an over estimate of the lack of computing power involved in the space program. Most of the flights that you mention were simulated on ground based computers and the results transmitted to the spacecrafts for execution. In the very early days the computers were either analog or took up most of the floor of a reasonable sized building. This approach to operating spacecraft was common until the 80's or 90's, when spacecraft computers finally got good enough to compute orientation changes. At that point the destination orientation was uplinked to the spacecraft and the onboard computer generated the rotations around the control axes of the spacecraft. Orbital changes (that involved burning engines) were still computed on the ground and the results uplinked to the spacecraft.

skips

You really don't know what you're talking about here. Gemini had the capability of computing its own orbital parameters and trajectory changes, as did Apollo. That being said, the capabilities were rarely if ever used operationally; rather, the burns were calculated using on-board assets and compared to those provided by ground tracking and computing; most of the time (tho' not always) the ground solution was used. Details are available in multiple printed sources and the Apollo Flight Journals (most of which have by now been transcribed and made available online).

[sarbian]

The issue is that for some reason MJ doesn't always deactivate a module when you select it to be inactive.

There is a minor problem with the UI. The terminal velocity limiter position make most thing it should not be active when the autopilot is not. But in reality it's a global option, not really related to the AP.

This would be really bad if there was no way to know the limiter do something, but since the text turn green when it's active I don't think it's a big priority.

[Starwaster]

He's being sarcastic because Galane answered a question not asked. Jean was having (presumably) a problem with MJ's terminal velocity limiter still running even though it wasn't selected to be active. MJ's radio buttons are designed correctly, Galane's post is a bunch of rambling jibberish about a problem that doesn't exist. The problem is that occasionally MJ will still activate certain modules even when you have them deselected. There is no "momentary" switch in MJ. The module is on if there's a white dot inside the radio button and the module turns green if it's actively doing something. It's that simple. There is no "convention fail" there is no UI issue. The issue is that for some reason MJ doesn't always deactivate a module when you select it to be inactive.

Galane's answer may have contained unnecessary information but aside from that, he told the other person correctly what to do (uncheck the option to limit to terminal velocity). The issue isn't that MJ is not deactivating something that the end user chose to deactivate. The issue is that at some point 'Limit to terminal velocity' was enabled and never disabled. When enabled, it is active regardless of the autopilot state. You can click the autopilot button all you want it; it's not meant to affect the other options which operate even if you are on manual control. Again, unless explicitly disabled again.

Additionally, when you make changes to MJ settings they are saved globally. Again, by design. So the original poster might have originally enabled the terminal velocity limit on another rocket. It carries over.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Starwaster

[sarbian]

You have researched the full tech tree and you don't see all the module in the window ?