How can I limit the acceleration of a vessel?

[JoePatrick1]

I want to add a feature to my KerBalloons mod where the balloon will not accelerate faster than a predetermined value, e.g. 10ms^-2  

How would I go about doing this? I am using rigidbody.AddForceAtPosition to accelerate the balloon currently. If you use a suitable payload it works fine but if you use a small payload on one of the bigger balloons, it will accelerate so quickly that it will just explode.  Will something like this work?

lift = (payload mass/recommended payload mass)  * lift for recommended payload

I am not sure it will because of the force required vs the ship mass not being a linear relationship?

The full source code for the mod can be found here if it helps. 

Thanks

Edited January 8, 2016 by JoePatrick1

[wasml]

I'm not sure I'm understanding your question but wouldn't the force you applying be linear (F = ma)? so in your example the max force (Lift) you would want to apply would be 10ms^-2 * mass. This neglects drag but that would lower acceleration.

[JoePatrick1]

7 hours ago, wasml said:

I'm not sure I'm understanding your question but wouldn't the force you applying be linear (F = ma)? so in your example the max force (Lift) you would want to apply would be 10ms^-2 * mass. This neglects drag but that would lower acceleration.

I guess it is linear isn't it, that should work fine then,

thanks