[1.4][1.7.7] GravityTurn continued - Automated Efficient Launches

[AndyMt]

2 minutes ago, NeuroticGamer said:

Yes, I'm pretty sure they were the combo sepratrons and that would make sense that it could freak out GT.

I've observed the problem with the stock "AeroEquus" craft, so there were no Sepratrons involved. And it happened when the first radial decouplers were due to be staged. But of course Sepratrons could be a problem, too. Then I would expect it to happen every launch, and not just sometimes.

I've now run some first test with your craft and observed some strange behavior if the Timewarp option is used. Without that - it worked. So I'll look into that then and add some more debug logs etc.

[NeuroticGamer]

5 minutes ago, AndyMt said:

I've observed the problem with the stock "AeroEquus" craft, so there were no Sepratrons involved. And it happened when the first radial decouplers were due to be staged. But of course Sepratrons could be a problem, too. Then I would expect it to happen every launch, and not just sometimes.

I've now run some first test with your craft and observed some strange behavior if the Timewarp option is used. Without that - it worked. So I'll look into that then and add some more debug logs etc.

Hehe.  As you posted, I was doing a test of the craft I provided in previous post against a clean KSP install with just GT.  I noticed I had to re-enable auto-strutting even though Advanced Tweakables was still on; I'm guessing it might have been due to the TweakScale stuff still being in the craft file even though I didn't actually change anything via TweakScale.

I noticed this time that it waited until the upper stage re-entered the atmosphere and then immediately started the upper stage.  That might be a clue to the source of the time warp failure.

Edited October 27, 2016 by NeuroticGamer

[AndyMt]

Just now, NeuroticGamer said:

Hehe.  I was doing a test of the craft I provided in previous post against a clean KSP install with just GT.  I noticed I had to re-enable auto-strutting even though Advanced Tweakables was still on; I'm guessing it might have been due to the TweakScale stuff still being in the craft file even though I didn't actually change anything via TweakScale.

I noticed this time that it waited until the upper stage re-entered the atmosphere and then immediately started the upper stage.  That might be a clue to the source of the time warp failure.

I've identified this particular problem now: because the craft is above the atmosphere, timewarp skips into physics-less timewarp (the green arrows). Because of that, no thrust is applied or possible.

I have to make sure physics warp is used in any case, independent of the current vessels altitude.

[cy-one]

I have some weird things going on. The last time I used GT (which was around 1.0.something), it flew a very smooth path that only needed a miniscule amount of dV to circularize.

I am launching a something-around-30-tons-payload-rocket with 2 Mainsail-boosters and a smaller Cryogenic Engine (with supplied LFO-patch, so it's just a normal engine now) in the central 1.25m stack.
groundlevel TWR is 1.5, dV is something around 4km/s.

GT-settings were "improved guesses", although I changed the hight to 100km instead of only 80.

After launch, the rocket goes straight up for a while (dunno exactly when) and then turns to something like 15° from straight up... I'm writing this as I pause on 27km height, the rocket is still at 15°, but has now throttled down to 50% or so thrust. The launch before, it continued that way until AP is at desired height... Than it created a 1500m/s circularization-burn.

What's going on? "Straight up" (or nearly straight up) isn't really the efficient way to go, is it? o.O

Edit: http://i.imgur.com/TAut29R.jpg

MJ isn't running, I opened it just so one can see the ascend path better.
I turned to GT, because the dev-version of MJ has... serious left/right (aka inclination) wobbly-de-wobbly and other problems right now... But GT isn't really working well for me as well.... Halp

Edited October 27, 2016 by cy-one

[NeuroticGamer]

26 minutes ago, AndyMt said:

I've observed the problem with the stock "AeroEquus" craft, so there were no Sepratrons involved. And it happened when the first radial decouplers were due to be staged. But of course Sepratrons could be a problem, too. Then I would expect it to happen every launch, and not just sometimes.

I've now run some first test with your craft and observed some strange behavior if the Timewarp option is used. Without that - it worked. So I'll look into that then and add some more debug logs etc.

I verified the behavior you see with only GT installed.

I just re-tested with all my mods installed, 90 km target, no time warp, sandbox mode.  GT fails to stage (not even separate first stage);  I see the throttle get raised and attitude is changed to compensate for "insufficient thrust".  Now to track down the interaction amongst 90ish mods.  Nothing should have been active that influenced GT.  ThrottleControlAdvanced wasn't enabled for launch.  Maybe Kopernicus or the heavy amount of graphics mods limiting GT's ability to do its calculations quickly?

[AndyMt]

18 minutes ago, cy-one said:

I have some weird things going on. The last time I used GT (which was around 1.0.something), it flew a very smooth path that only needed a miniscule amount of dV to circularize.

I am launching a something-around-30-tons-payload-rocket with 2 Mainsail-boosters and a smaller Cryogenic Engine (with supplied LFO-patch, so it's just a normal engine now) in the central 1.25m stack.
groundlevel TWR is 1.5, dV is something around 4km/s.

GT-settings were "improved guesses", although I changed the hight to 100km instead of only 80.

After launch, the rocket goes straight up for a while (dunno exactly when) and then turns to something like 15° from straight up... I'm writing this as I pause on 27km height, the rocket is still at 15°, but has now throttled down to 50% or so thrust. The launch before, it continued that way until AP is at desired height... Than it created a 1500m/s circularization-burn.

What's going on? "Straight up" (or nearly straight up) isn't really the efficient way to go, is it? o.O

Edit: http://i.imgur.com/TAut29R.jpg

MJ isn't running, I opened it just so one can see the ascend path better.
I turned to GT, because the dev-version of MJ has... serious left/right (aka inclination) wobbly-de-wobbly and other problems right now... But GT isn't really working well for me as well.... Halp

Your Height and TurnAngle parameters are way too high (140/5). For this kind of craft and dV I would expect something like 80/15 to be much better.

[cy-one]

11 minutes ago, AndyMt said:

Your Height and TurnAngle parameters are way too high (140/5). For this kind of craft and dV I would expect something like 80/15 to be much better.

That was what GT came up with XD I'll try it out.

 

80/15 was way too low, the rocket was like 25° above horizontal at 15km height XD but at least now I understand how to fiddle with it.

100/10 worked quite well, but ended up with a 600+ m/s circularization... What would I need to tweak to lower that (ea, have craft fly "shallower" when nearing orbit)?

Edited October 27, 2016 by cy-one

[Paaaad]

1 hour ago, cy-one said:

That was what GT came up with XD I'll try it out.

 

80/15 was way too low, the rocket was like 25° above horizontal at 15km height XD but at least now I understand how to fiddle with it.

100/10 worked quite well, but ended up with a 600+ m/s circularization... What would I need to tweak to lower that (ea, have craft fly "shallower" when nearing orbit)?

That would be time to Ap. 40 seconds should result in a much shallower ascent then the current default of 50. Might also help to set the minimum throttle setting lower.

Edited October 27, 2016 by Paaaad

[AndyMt]

3 hours ago, cy-one said:

That was what GT came up with XD I'll try it out.

 

80/15 was way too low, the rocket was like 25° above horizontal at 15km height XD but at least now I understand how to fiddle with it.

100/10 worked quite well, but ended up with a 600+ m/s circularization... What would I need to tweak to lower that (ea, have craft fly "shallower" when nearing orbit)?

The plugin version 1.6.1 you are using right now does have an error when doing the first suggestion. But you can try the test version 1.7.0 a little further up. But of course using "improve guess" should usually well - improve the parameters.

Otherwise I would need a similar craft file only with stock parts to check myself.

[cy-one]

How does the "improve guess" improving over different launches actually work, btw? Would it have to be identical launches? What's the criteria...

[AndyMt]

 

2 minutes ago, cy-one said:

How does the "improve guess" improving over different launches actually work, btw? Would it have to be identical launches? What's the criteria...

It needs to be the identical craft, launching multiple times with using "improve guess" each time. Cited from the help button:

Improve Guess will try to extrapolate the best settings based on previous launches. This may end in fiery death, but it won't happen the same way twice.  Be warned, sometimes launches get worse before they get better. But they do get better.

[cy-one]

What counts as beginning of a launch (aka, does "revert to launch" work?) and what counts as "end" of a launch?

[AndyMt]

2 minutes ago, cy-one said:

What counts as beginning of a launch (aka, does "revert to launch" work?) and what counts as "end" of a launch?

Yes "revert" counts as beginning. End is when you've reached the destination height.

[razark]

1 minute ago, AndyMt said:

End is when you've reached the destination height.

Does the vehicle have to reach it's destination height, or does the apoapsis need to reach that height, and leave the atmosphere so that GT shuts off?

[AndyMt]

11 minutes ago, razark said:

Does the vehicle have to reach it's destination height, or does the apoapsis need to reach that height, and leave the atmosphere so that GT shuts off?

You are right - it is as soon as the vehicle leaves the atmosphere and the apoapsis reached the destination height.

Edited October 27, 2016 by AndyMt

[Phelan]

Hm, the "Improve Guess" seems to be stuck on the third "guess" (the steep 120/7.5 setting), even though that was the absolute worst profile out of the three (the default 100/10 was the best, the 80/12.5 slightly worse in terms of delta-V, the 120/7.5 more than 200m/s worse). I re-launched it twice (every time letting it finish the circularization), still getting the same bad "guess". Any idea on what I could be doing wrong? Or would the log file be of any help?

[JAFO]

On 10/29/2016 at 4:13 AM, Phelan said:

Hm, the "Improve Guess" seems to be stuck on the third "guess" (the steep 120/7.5 setting), even though that was the absolute worst profile out of the three (the default 100/10 was the best, the 80/12.5 slightly worse in terms of delta-V, the 120/7.5 more than 200m/s worse). I re-launched it twice (every time letting it finish the circularization), still getting the same bad "guess". Any idea on what I could be doing wrong?

I've seen this occasionally with Overengineer1's original GT as well.. As if it just gives up trying to improve.. did you make sure the craft either escaped the atmosphere, or crashed, before reverting? Because I suspect (without having tested it) that perhaps GT is using up its 6 available guesses even though it seems like it's only on the 3rd guess.

[ThirdOfSeven]

trying GravityTurn v1.6.1.39673 in 1.2 without MechJeb. It works nice in stock game, but in modded environment I get this:

[LOG 09:53:47.336] GravityTurn : Starting
[LOG 09:53:47.339] GravityTurn : System.NotSupportedException: The invoked member is not supported in a dynamic module.
  at System.Reflection.Emit.AssemblyBuilder.GetExportedTypes () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at GravityTurn.MechjebWrapper.FindMechJebModule (System.String module) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at GravityTurn.MechjebWrapper.init () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at GravityTurn.GravityTurner.Start () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

 

It looks very similar to exceptions other mods have when attempting to find ToolbarPlugin or something like it since 1.2 out. There some recommendations how to fix.

I hope it is not hard to fix this issue.

PS. Should I post issues on GitHub or both?

[Phelan]

6 hours ago, JAFO said:

I've seen this occasionally with Overengineer1's original GT as well.. As if it just gives up trying to improve.. did you make sure the craft either escaped the atmosphere, or crashed, before reverting? Because I suspect (without having tested it) that perhaps GT is using up its 6 available guesses even though it seems like it's only on the 3rd guess.

Yup, I let it circularize (via MechJeb if I understand it correctly) at the destination height.

I've tried a couple other rockets since, one very similar one (where basically just the shielded docking port of the 'problematic' one is exchanged for a CLAW), and for that one, the guesses are working just fine. It's weird

[crackerbal]

hi, i tested this mod for few days with several lounches, i end by delate it, not coz it's bad simply i prefer fly by my own

i was saving maximum 200 dV with this mod installed, but in fact manually lounches prevents lot of issues that can occur with a mod lounches like flipping rockets for exemple

anyways good job on keep it alife, it's a good mod, deserving to been updated

[AndyMt]

2 hours ago, ThirdOfSeven said:

trying GravityTurn v1.6.1.39673 in 1.2 without MechJeb. It works nice in stock game, but in modded environment I get this:

[LOG 09:53:47.336] GravityTurn : Starting
[LOG 09:53:47.339] GravityTurn : System.NotSupportedException: The invoked member is not supported in a dynamic module.
  at System.Reflection.Emit.AssemblyBuilder.GetExportedTypes () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at GravityTurn.MechjebWrapper.FindMechJebModule (System.String module) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at GravityTurn.MechjebWrapper.init () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at GravityTurn.GravityTurner.Start () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

 

It looks very similar to exceptions other mods have when attempting to find ToolbarPlugin or something like it since 1.2 out. There some recommendations how to fix.

I hope it is not hard to fix this issue.

PS. Should I post issues on GitHub or both?

This particular issues was already reported and discussed a few pages back and will be fixed with the next release. I prefer to add issues to GitHub myself. This one already is on the issue tracker under "closed" issues:

https://github.com/AndyMt/GravityTurn/issues/18

[ThirdOfSeven]

3 hours ago, AndyMt said:

This particular issues was already reported and discussed a few pages back and will be fixed with the next release. I prefer to add issues to GitHub myself. This one already is on the issue tracker under "closed" issues:

https://github.com/AndyMt/GravityTurn/issues/18

Actually, I found 1.7 release few pages back which appears to be fixed... Sorry. Mod version in topic title is little misleading.

But, I must say, it is great tool to learn proper gravity turn by example. Thanks for updating this mod for 1.2. And new 1.7 features are awesome.

[AndyMt]

4 minutes ago, ThirdOfSeven said:

Actually, I found 1.7 release few pages back which appears to be fixed... Sorry. Mod version in topic title is little misleading.

But, I must say, it is great tool to learn proper gravity turn by example. Thanks for updating this mod for 1.2. And new 1.7 features are awesome.

Thanks. 

That 1.7 was a test-release to hunt down a specific issue. That's why I didn't want to release 1.7 officially back then. I'll update the thread when 1.7(.1) is really done .

[AndyMt]

I've finally managed to get V 1.7.1 ready:

Download the mod here

Source on GitHub

License: GPL V3

V1.7.1:

• Storing default parameters for new crafts
• Locking parameters so they are not overwritten.
• Autostaging of top fairings and interstage fairings.
• Option to speedup of launches via timewarp
• Smother pitching maneuvers
• Bugfix: Detection of MechJeb assembly.
• Some more, see issue tracker

See opening thread for more details and what's next.

I'm still not sure if the staging problem is really fixed. I've fixed some situations, but the cases where 1st stage radial decouplers didn't stage a few seconds into the flight I was never able to reproduce.

[NeuroticGamer]

On 10/27/2016 at 0:17 PM, NeuroticGamer said:

I verified the behavior you see with only GT installed.

I just re-tested with all my mods installed, 90 km target, no time warp, sandbox mode.  GT fails to stage (not even separate first stage);  I see the throttle get raised and attitude is changed to compensate for "insufficient thrust".  Now to track down the interaction amongst 90ish mods.  Nothing should have been active that influenced GT.  ThrottleControlAdvanced wasn't enabled for launch.  Maybe Kopernicus or the heavy amount of graphics mods limiting GT's ability to do its calculations quickly?

Well that was hours of frustrating "randomly try stuff".  Root cause was likely files added to ConfigurableContainers (which I never directly installed and CKAN didn't know about).  After I cleaned up that problem, the test craft I posted works with GT 1.7 

I still have to see if I can replicate the sepratron problem.  Given that ConfigurableContainers can mess with fuels, the problem was likely making the next stage not look like it had fuel.

Edited October 30, 2016 by NeuroticGamer
finish my sentence