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

[AVaughan]

Hmmm This looks potentially promising.  I'm wondering how well this will work with Realism Overhaul + RP-0, where most engines are limited to 100% throttle, and can't be restarted.   Ckan has this listed as only compatible with 1.2.  Is there a build available for 1.1.3 ?  (Still waiting for mods to update before I try install RO in 1.2).

[DStaal]

31 minutes ago, AVaughan said:

Hmmm This looks potentially promising.  I'm wondering how well this will work with Realism Overhaul + RP-0, where most engines are limited to 100% throttle, and can't be restarted.   Ckan has this listed as only compatible with 1.2.  Is there a build available for 1.1.3 ?  (Still waiting for mods to update before I try install RO in 1.2).

Go to the original GravityTurn thread for a 1.1.3 version.  But I don't think it will work all that well if you can't throttle down - changing the throttle is it's main method of control.

[AVaughan]

Thanks for the pointer to the original thread.  (I had had a quick look over there earlier, but had missed the 1.1.3 version).

After a bit of trial and error to tune the initial turn, the original Gravity Turn is working better for me than Mechjeb's ascent module.  Eg my on my last launch gravity turn shutdown the second stage leaving me in an initial orbit of 325 x 243, from a target orbit of 320.  Only 36 m/s to circularise, which is something I could do with the probe's onboard rcs.  It does have trouble with getting the right inclination for a proper polar orbit, but again I expect that with trial and error I can learn what inclination to tell it to launch into to work around that.

@AndyMt Once I move to 1.2.x, would you consider a Realism Overhaul mode for Gravity Turn?  Possibly activated by setting sensitivity to 1.00, and then using pitch to control time to apoapsis during the final stages.  

(This is also my first play-through of realism overhaul, and I'm still on light payloads.  Once I start trying to launch heavier payloads, things might change).

Edited November 6, 2016 by AVaughan
syntax

[fourfa]

Just quick feedback - latest version is working really well.  I haven't had a straight-up/turn right launch yet

[MaverickSawyer]

Anyone else getting a lag spike every few seconds (real time, not game time) while running GT?

[Crabman]

33 minutes ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Anyone else getting a lag spike every few seconds (real time, not game time) while running GT?

I'm not

[MaverickSawyer]

Hmm... Must be an adverse reaction with another mod, then.

[Tarheel1999]

40 minutes ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Hmm... Must be an adverse reaction with another mod, then.

Or way to many mods and you are getting an insane amount of garbage collection

[DTwenty]

On 11/6/2016 at 7:26 PM, MaverickSawyer said:

Anyone else getting a lag spike every few seconds (real time, not game time) while running GT?

 

I use quite a few mods and once I added GravityTurn I started getting these stutters you mentioned, and I have a kind of workaround for it.

 

On the initial vertical ascent, no stutters occur. Once it starts the pitchover to begin the turn, the stutters slowly start to kick in (one every 2-3 seconds). As the craft gets faster and the turn continues, the time between stutters decreases (one every second or so). As it gets close to escaping the atmosphere, it becomes a near-slideshow (3 every second or so).

For my first few launches using this mod, I disabled staging as I wanted to do them manually. It seems that the longer GravityTurn is doing its thing with auto-stage disabled, it stutters more and more. When auto-stage is enabled, the stutters do not occur, but then I run into issues with GravityTurn chain-staging the entire craft down to its last stage, ruining the launch.

As a half-measure, I leave auto-stage disabled until the stutters start, then I quickly toggle auto-stage on then off again. This seems to reset the stutters and they slowly start to kick in again. As long as I enable then immediately disable auto-staging a few times during the launch, I don't have an issue with stutters and the mod works wonderfully.

 

Thank you very much for making this mod! It is the best launch-assist mod I've ever used. I get tired of hand-launching the same launch systems over and over and this mod allows me to avoid their repetition.

[Padishar]

5 hours ago, DTwenty said:

I use quite a few mods and once I added GravityTurn I started getting these stutters you mentioned, and I have a kind of workaround for it.

For a potentially better workaround (assuming you have a reasonable amount of memory free) check out the MemGraph mod linked in my sig below.  As well as displaying a graph of how much memory is being used, it also allows you to pad the Mono heap so that it takes significantly longer to fill up resulting in longer intervals between the stutters...

[cy4n]

Great mod! Extremely useful for testing those craft with very low margins (because I couldn't bring myself to add extra fuel)

[PortableGoogle]

On 11/7/2016 at 10:26 PM, DTwenty said:

As a half-measure, I leave auto-stage disabled until the stutters start, then I quickly toggle auto-stage on then off again. This seems to reset the stutters and they slowly start to kick in again. As long as I enable then immediately disable auto-staging a few times during the launch, I don't have an issue with stutters and the mod works wonderfully.

You could also just leave on auto stage and go into setup and limit the autostage so it never actually does anything. I have not experienced the issue though. 

[DStaal]

As another corner case to look at: My (old, as I'm stuck on 1.1.3 for hardware reasons) version had an unpleasant interaction with some air-augmented solid boosters recently: When they auto-switched from air-augmented to standard rocket mode, GravityTurn autostaged them away - despite them still running and having fuel.  The effects were slightly less catastrophic than expected, as the payload did survive, and was in a position to safely abort... 

Either way, it's worth looking at whether this is also an issue with the current version, and whether something can/should done about it.  I believe the boosters I was using are from the BDB pack.

[SingABrightSong]

Slight issue here: The GravityTurn window does not respect the F2 "Hide interface" hotkey. I've been wanting to take pretty screenshots of launches, but the ugly window kind of gets in the way of that.

[DTwenty]

On 11/8/2016 at 3:14 AM, Padishar said:

For a potentially better workaround (assuming you have a reasonable amount of memory free) check out the MemGraph mod linked in my sig below.  As well as displaying a graph of how much memory is being used, it also allows you to pad the Mono heap so that it takes significantly longer to fill up resulting in longer intervals between the stutters...

Thanks for the tip, Padishar, but it seems to be unrelated. I've use your memgraph mod and enjoy its benefits. The stutters when I use GravityTurn seem to be different than those fixed/delayed by your mod, and it doesn't help when I use it.

Edited November 10, 2016 by DTwenty

[Padishar]

7 hours ago, DTwenty said:

Thanks for the tip, Padishar, but it seems to be unrelated. I've use your memgraph mod and enjoy its benefits. The stutters when I use GravityTurn seem to be different than those fixed/delayed by your mod, and it doesn't help when I use it.

Yes, I wasn't certain it would help, I just remembered that an earlier version of Gravity Turn was causing a significant amount of garbage, so thought it was worth suggesting.  From your description, it does sound like there is some issue in the Gravity Turn code that is doing this, perhaps some debugging code has been left in, or something like that.  Your "chain-staging" issue also implies there is something strange going on.  The best thing would probably be for someone to build a debug version of the mod and run it under the Unity profiler to see if there is anything in Gravity Turn taking excessively long.  A copy of any craft files this happens with would probably be helpful, in case it is a quirk due to the design...

[Superfluous J]

On 11/7/2016 at 10:26 PM, DTwenty said:

I use quite a few mods and once I added GravityTurn I started getting these stutters you mentioned, and I have a kind of workaround for it.

This was happening right as 1.2 came out. I think with the first update of GT to work in 1.2.0. It got fixed, but maybe not all the way? Check back through the thread.

I too saw this one time. When it happened, I hit alt-F12 for the debug menu and there were errors scrolling in it when the game paused. I sadly didn't think at the time to note exactly what they were but it had something to do with a string. I restarted the game and have not seen the errors again. If I do, I'll file a proper bug report with logs et al.

But I suggest anybody getting these slowdowns to check that screen and if you're getting errors. And then come back here with logs

[Sir_Robert]

New update, great.
Quick question: does this change the inclined launches as talked about?

[MaverickSawyer]

Found a workaround for the lag spike associated with disabled autostaging... Use the "Setup" button to set the limit for the autostaging to the liftoff stage, then use Old Skool Staging (spacebar), MechJeb's autostaging function in the utilities tab, or Smart Parts to stage parts. Lag is gone, and the rocket behaves as expected.

[AndyMt]

Thanks for all the feedback, especially regarding stutter. I've noticed it myself, but only during the pitch maneuvers with craft having a lot of parts and when having EVE installed and active.

I'll perform some tests now and try to replicate some of the behavior some of you described and also the workarounds.

[AndyMt]

On 10.11.2016 at 9:43 PM, Sir_Robert said:

New update, great.
Quick question: does this change the inclined launches as talked about?

No - not yet. I hope to release the next version until end of this week where a fix for this is incorporated. Until then: launch, wait for the initial turn to complete and then change to the desired inclination.

[salajander]

Suggestion: delay the roll program until the rocket's above some minimal altitude (height of rocket's nose before launch?), to avoid wide rockets from banging into the launch clamps.

[AndyMt]

On 15.11.2016 at 7:31 PM, salajander said:

Suggestion: delay the roll program until the rocket's above some minimal altitude (height of rocket's nose before launch?), to avoid wide rockets from banging into the launch clamps.

I agree - it's in for the next release.

[AndyMt]

It's Pre-Release time . See the implemented bugs/features for V 1.7.5 in the issue tracker

I'd like some of you to test 3 specific topics with this one (among all the others):

• Stutter when not using staging. And stutter in general.
• Behavior when launching into inclined orbits. Test negative inclinations, too.
• Calculated values for other celestial bodies than Kerbin. I've tested Minmus, Mun and Duna.

Download (not on CKAN)

I hope this release fixes the 3 topics above. If the feedback is positive, I'll make this an official release.

Edited November 16, 2016 by AndyMt

[DTwenty]

Awesome!

I'm not getting any awkward rolls/wobbles during launch anymore when setting the inclination prior to launch. Requesting a 6-degree inclination gets me to 5.75, requesting 85 gets me to 84.3, -135 gets me 134.56 and requesting 27 got me to 27.00056 . It seems to be much more accurate now and I love it.

I noticed all of my rockets are now clearing the launch clamps prior to rolling, and, best of all, I no longer get stutters if I leave Auto Stage disabled for the entire flight. Regarding Auto Stage, and my first post on this forum/your thread, I also haven't had any of my crafts prematurely chain-staging themselves to the final stage with this release. I tested it a few times with the last craft that occurred with and it worked out just fine. I feel comfortable leaving Auto Stage on all of the time now. I've always left the Stage Delays at default.

Finally, a very minor UI suggestion: It would be handy if the "X" at the top right of the Stage Stats window would allow me to close it while the main GravityTurn window is still up. I know I can un-check the Stage Stats box to do the same, but I can't get my slow noggin to start doing that . I usually click the "X", nothing happens, then I think, "Oh, yeah.." then click the box.

 

Thanks again for your work on this addon! It's one I'll always make sure to have when working with a fresh installation.

Edited November 17, 2016 by DTwenty