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

[Rohaq]

Playing with the Rover Autopilot today, I can't help but notice that it retracts any panels after warping to charge the batteries, which is fine, since losing panels to a roll would be terrible, but would it be possible to make them redeploy when it hits the brakes and starts warping to charge again? If you've lost any external panels and you have no means of charging, then you're screwed.

[John FX]

Just a thought, when I was using MJ I noticed that the bar in the maneuver planner , for example when changing inclination where you can select 'at ascending', 'at descending' or 'at a time', could be replaced with three buttons and a numerical input which would fit quite well in the space taken buy the long bar. I reckon this would make selecting which you would like much easier as you would not need to use a drop down menu but instead all the options would be right there as toggleable buttons.

This change could also be made for circularise, change Ap, change Pe and possibly others I do not use regularly.

It would keep the window design standard (instead of the black drop down menu) and also increase usability.

[vmatt1203]

hey guys, was wondering if you have run into the problem I am having before. When using rendezvous autopilot, after it is done setting up closest approach it will start to plan a node for the intercept. While nearing the intercept it makes a node for a burn to correct for 1.0m/s and will try the burn and as soon as it is complete it will keep making a new node to correct over and over instantaneously; It will keep making a new node so quickly that it is like a buggy strobe effect on the navball all while my craft is spinning about out of control trying to keep up until finally I have to cancel autopilot and intercept and match velocity manually. Any ideas on how to fix it? (happens on all my crafts and while rv'ing with different targets, not just his one)

[PumaX]

I assume this is where you report bugs.

There is a bug in the mechjeb code that corrupts "Current acceleration" and "Current thrust" output when engines have been throttled using the thrust limiter.

Lets say you have a craft with 90kN of thrust and a max acceleration of 90m/s^2. If you limit the engine on your craft to one third using the "thrust limiter", then the mechjeceb "Max thrust" and "Max acceleration" field will display correctly that your new max preformance will now be 30kN and 30m/s^2 respectively. But when when you actually throttle up to 100% the engine thrust limiter is being taken into calculations incorrectly for the second time, and the output fields will read 10kN and 10m/s^2 respectively, even when the actual values are 30kN and 30m/s^2.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Make mechjeb window with following fields

-Max thrust

-Max acceleration

-Current thrust

-Current acceleration

2. Make ship with engine, fuel tank and mechjeb

3. Mess around with engine "thrust limiter" slider

4. Activate engine and throttle up

[smjjames]

Is MJ being wierd with maneuver nodes around Eeloo for anybody else? It was working earlier, but all of a sudden, when I do execute next node or execute all, it just goes and removes the nodes. Looking in the output log shows nothing that seems to be coming from MJ related to the nodes. Going to see if a restart helps.

Edit: a restart doesn't help. I swear that the kraken lives around Eeloo because I've had some issues there before.

Edit2: The advanced transfer is working fine, it was the change apoapsis and circularize that were wierding out.

Edit3: I suspect that it may have something to do with the fact that I crammed lots of the gravity sensors together in a few rings plus lots of the solar panels and the design of the ship and the fact that even at timestep 1, the physics warning is at yellow.

Edit4: I just now realized that I had somehow put tolerance level at 80.1 *facepalm* that had to have been doing it.

Edited March 1, 2015 by smjjames

[sarbian]

There is a bug in the mechjeb code that corrupts "Current acceleration" and "Current thrust" output when engines have been throttled using the thrust limiter.

Fixed in last dev, thanks !

[smjjames]

How do I add MJ functionality to a part? I want to put them in the small command pods from USI exploration pack.

Edit: Found the answer with a quick search. The text file doesn't want to turn into a config file, but I named it MJallcommand.cfg, so lets see.

Edited March 1, 2015 by smjjames

[Starwaster]

How do I add MJ functionality to a part? I want to put them in the small command pods from USI exploration pack.

Edit: Found the answer with a quick search. The text file doesn't want to turn into a config file, but I named it MJallcommand.cfg, so lets see.

What the heck.... people that help themselves... by searching the thread for answers? I suppose you expect us to believe that you thought maybe someone had already asked the question and had it answered?

I dunno man, sounds like magic to me...

[smjjames]

lolwut sarcasm. But yeah kind of silly that I asked about it and then searched as an afterthought.

Anyhow, the first try with wordpad (because those configs open in wordpad) didn't work, but notepad did the trick.

[SilverlightPony]

Notepad++, bro.

[Starwaster]

lolwut sarcasm. But yeah kind of silly that I asked about it and then searched as an afterthought.

Anyhow, the first try with wordpad (because those configs open in wordpad) didn't work, but notepad did the trick.

Notepad++ FTW.

[TimeWing]

Hey so I don't know if this is the right place to ask but has anone ever had the same issue i am having? I installed the newest Mechjeb file and installed it correctly. The parts show up, I can put them on my ships but they don't do anything, I never get the toolbar/window on the side of the screen. My KSP is the newest version .90.75... I checked this all by having my brother walk me through the install on his computer. We have the same versions and performed the same steps side by side. The one thing I found was when i downloaded the file, for some unknown reason I didn't get the PluginData folder inside of the Plugins folder inside of Mechjebs folder. We did the download at the same time from the same link and he got the file but i didn't. I copied the file from his computer and brought it into mine, still no fix, parts show up, can be attached, but no functionality. At this point we thought maybe it was my copy of KSP itself so we tried a complete game copy. Copied his entire KSP game file onto thumb drive then brought it to my computer and still same problem. I have had similar issues with the mods: Chatterer, ATM, and every planetary editor I could find. I did not look into these others as closely because Mechjeb is more important to me. I do have the SpaceY Mod and it works perfectly. I am baffled at this point and could use any help at all. I have spent almost as many hours trying to find a fix for these problems as I have actually playing the game.

[Master Tao]

@TimeWing:

Could you post your log file please? It includes a lot of information about what's happening while KSP is running. The location depends on your platform:

• Windows: KSP_win\KSP_Data\output_log.txt (32bit) or KSP_win64\KSP_x64_Data\output_log.txt (64bit)
  
• Mac OS X: Open Console, on the left side of the window there is a menu that says 'files'. Scroll down the list and find the Unity drop down, under Unity there will be Player.log ( Files>~/Library/Logs>Unity>Player.log )
  
• Linux: ~/.config/unity3d/Squad/Kerbal\ Space\ Program/Player.log
  

NOTE: These logs are not the same as KSP.log, which lacks valuable data. Do not upload KSP.log; do upload output_log.txt / Player.log

[Foxster]

Anyone else having landing guidance issues with the last couple of dev versions?

When its reducing the orbit the blue cross overshoots the target, craft reverses, overshoots again, the blue cross disappears and MJ seems to get confused. Only way is stop the guidance and restart it a couple of times. That gets it closer but it never matches the red cross and requires manual intervention to finish hitting the landing site.

Was doing this last night with #402 trying to land on Kerbin with a 70° CCW orbit onto mountains, but its been doing it elsewhere for a while.

[sarbian]

TimeWing : post log, as Master Tao said. But it looks like an anti virus issue.

Foxster : is that with FAR or NEAR ?

[Ricardo79]

Anyone else having landing guidance issues with the last couple of dev versions?

When its reducing the orbit the blue cross overshoots the target, craft reverses, overshoots again, the blue cross disappears and MJ seems to get confused. Only way is stop the guidance and restart it a couple of times. That gets it closer but it never matches the red cross and requires manual intervention to finish hitting the landing site.

Was doing this last night with #402 trying to land on Kerbin with a 70° CCW orbit onto mountains, but its been doing it elsewhere for a while.

I had (mostly when near a crash).

As for an error report. (or something like that)

I allways installed mechjeb2 first.

2nd move: removed parts and added that neat MM config to include it to all probes and capsules.

I had always issues of any kind of errors and mostly crashes. I do not have memory issue (at the game loaded state it was 2.2 Gb (32 bit)))

But after an hour / half hour game crassed every time. Checking memory showed me KSP exe uses: 3.4 -3.6.So crashed because of this.

I got a hard time uninstalling and reinstalling mods one by one in the method of uninstalling one, playing, still crashing = reintalling a mod, playing, still crassing = uninstalling another mod from the list.

This is went until I uninstalled MJ (nothing else but this).

My KSP is stabil now. I played yesterday a whole day (from 10 - 23 withouth a single crash)

But I prefer to have all those neat infos on screen and sometimes let this little thing do it's magic precisely executing nodes, and computing/setting up the nodes for hofman transfers, some times landing when I am lazy to do the 6000th landing by hand.

So please make this thing uber stabil. This is the most useful tool along all the mods out there.

Try to check the memory handling method of it or it's garbage collection. As it can eat up 1 gig about an hour.

Tested with KAS, Robotics, TScale, FAR, Avionics also installed. (Basicly all the popular mods)

I just removed this one and after that everything worked like charm. No more memory eating.

Right now I am using Kerbal Engineer for the correct numbers (like real altitude and TWR) but I liked Jeb much more so please please make something with it.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Ricardo79

[Foxster]

TimeWing : post log, as Master Tao said. But it looks like an anti virus issue.

Foxster : is that with FAR or NEAR ?

Nope. Stock.

I'm thinking this might be high ground related. Seems its been when trying to land on mountainous areas that I've particularly had the problem.

[keeper]

I have been using mechjeb for some time now and it has made my KSP an absolute pleasure. I've learned so much from it.

Still, i second check every maneuver it makes, and i find it works fantasic. Its saved me many times, sometimes its confused the hell out of me and went nose first downwards - but one way or another we get there in the end.

Great mod, my hat goes off to creators/contributors etc etc Thank you!

[sarbian]

Ricardo79 : you are in luck because I have been working on leaks and performance of MJ for some times. After your post I had an idea and tested it. I found a simple leak that occurred each time your change scene.

MJ was recreating a 300x100 texture each time and in Unity when you do a "new Texture2D()" they are created in the C++ part of unity and are no freed unless you Destroy(xx) them. Most of MJ code deals with that but one creation had escaped. It's fixed in the last dev release and should save about 300kB each time you go back to a flight/editor scene.

There may be other leaks in MJ but that's the main one I found so far. Other mods were leaking far more Texture2D, but I have enough work with mine so far

Foxster: that may be the case. But don't hold your breath as I won't change the landing AP for a while.

keeper : thanks.

Edited March 3, 2015 by sarbian

[Pecan]

Looks like the manual for MJ (http://wiki.mechjeb.com/index.php?title=Manual) could use a new maintainer. Last modified on 21 April 2013, at 14:15. It's getting a bit dated and has been kind of cobbled with v1 for a long time.

Well, I volunteered and now 'Induction To Construction' is finished I'm getting started on it. Just starting three weeks of double-shifts at work, so don't expect a lot of early progress, but at least there will be progress :-)

[TimeWing]

@TimeWing:

Could you post your log file please? It includes a lot of information about what's happening while KSP is running. The location depends on your platform:

Problem solved! By searching for the log file I found several other files including crash logs and other things in a different area on my computer than the rest of the game. I brought all the pieces together and now it works perfectly. I have no idea why some of the files were in a different place to begin with but hey I'm just happy to have it solved. Now I have to go rescue Bill, Bob, and Jeb from Eve's ocean so thanks for the help, I'm sure ill be back again!

[Ricardo79]

Ricardo79 : you are in luck because I have been working on leaks and performance of MJ for some times. After your post I had an idea and tested it. I found a simple leak that occurred each time your change scene.

MJ was recreating a 300x100 texture each time and in Unity when you do a "new Texture2D()" they are created in the C++ part of unity and are no freed unless you Destroy(xx) them. Most of MJ code deals with that but one creation had escaped. It's fixed in the last dev release and should save about 300kB each time you go back to a flight/editor scene.

Thank you. I assume Tomorrow's (today's here) first step will be downloading and testing it to hell.

As you wrote the screen changing was the place of the error... hmmm. I do created lots of new craft recently (building launching reverting, building launching reverting... )

So maybe that's why it seemed to me accelerated. (a 2 weeks ago I could play hours 1-2-maybe 3 withouth a single crash) but that last few days... the longest was about 30 min.

Anyway I am glad to give you an idea.

And thank you for the express correction.

[Valley]

Okay, having a weird Mech Jeb problem, which seems to happen on and off and I forgot how to fix it. Last night was having issues getting a Fuel Trailer into space. This morning realized that it wasn't Mech Jeb but the design. Once it was corrected Mech Jeb was able to place two into orbit, one after the other, no problem.

Now, I also decided to see if I could place my new Zero-G Shuttle/Tug into space again. Did it once, by the skin of my teeth, with Mech Jeb, and wanted to see if I could do it again. It is a wonderful, and simple, design that seems very common among players but mine is as heavy as heck and even needs to use its own nuclear engines near the end to help get into orbit.

Tried. Failed. Tried. Failed. Most of the failures were engineering and design issues and I finally got one out of the atmosphere....but Mech Jeb not only continued to try to gravity turn but pointed at the planet. So I figured, okay, my design is the problem..let me look it over, add some more SAS, some duct tape, so on. Make it stable, give Mech Jeb more torque and so on. Maybe it is too sluggish or something? Maybe too much fuel in the craft?

Nothing seems to work and after a few hours of watching it get out of the atmosphere only to watch it dive right back in....I'm looking to see if this is just a try, try again problem, a reboot problem (turn off the game and turn it back on), or something else.

[billkerbinsky]

Now, I also decided to see if I could place my new Zero-G Shuttle/Tug into space again. Did it once, by the skin of my teeth, with Mech Jeb, and wanted to see if I could do it again. It is a wonderful, and simple, design that seems very common among players but mine is as heavy as heck and even needs to use its own nuclear engines near the end to help get into orbit.

Tried. Failed. Tried. Failed. Most of the failures were engineering and design issues and I finally got one out of the atmosphere....but Mech Jeb not only continued to try to gravity turn but pointed at the planet. So I figured, okay, my design is the problem..let me look it over, add some more SAS, some duct tape, so on. Make it stable, give Mech Jeb more torque and so on. Maybe it is too sluggish or something? Maybe too much fuel in the craft?

Been there, done that, sounds very familiar. Most likely too sluggish/too much fuel. Nuclear engines have great ISP but poor thrust-to-weight ratio. You can circularize your orbit with them but if you run out of lower stages while you're still in the atmosphere go back to the VAB and increase your TWR and deltaV.

Look at the total deltaV and the TWR of each stage in the VAB. If the lower stages have a TWR of 2 and up, and total booster deltaV around 4K, you should be in a very good place to circularize with the nuke engine.

Look at mechjeb's orbit info window when in flight. If you see a small and decreasing "time to apogee" when your perigee is still in the atmosphere, you're probably not going to space today.

[Valley]

Been there, done that, sounds very familiar. Most likely too sluggish/too much fuel. Nuclear engines have great ISP but poor thrust-to-weight ratio. You can circularize your orbit with them but if you run out of lower stages while you're still in the atmosphere go back to the VAB and increase your TWR and deltaV.

Look at the total deltaV and the TWR of each stage in the VAB. If the lower stages have a TWR of 2 and up, and total booster deltaV around 4K, you should be in a very good place to circularize with the nuke engine.

Look at mechjeb's orbit info window when in flight. If you see a small and decreasing "time to apogee" when your perigee is still in the atmosphere, you're probably not going to space today.

Thanks!

That worked. I took 2/3 of the fuel out of the Tug and set it so the nuclear engines fired with the last stage. The TWR changed to 2 or greater on all the stages. Mech Jeb was able to handle it, easy. In fact it kept the last stage, which I drained of its fuel before decoupling, leaving me with a space Tug which had tanks that were almost full again. Funny how less fuel and/or engines seems to be the answer to my overbuilding. Hmmm...

Thanks again!