SAS: Hold Horizon

[JonathanPerregaux]

I support this.

I use MechJeb's Smart A.S.S. mode or Atmosphere Autopilot to hold a horizon lock. It'sa verra naaaice.

[DeltaDizzy]

On 7/11/2017 at 3:49 AM, mabdi36 said:

I support this

 

5 hours ago, NSEP said:

I support this.

 

20 hours ago, User name said:

I support this.

*snip

*

 

 

On 7/12/2017 at 10:19 AM, 53miner53 said:

I support this idea.

PART TWO!!!

This needs to exist.

[Stoney3K]

On 10-3-2017 at 10:07 AM, swjr-swis said:

Instead of just this one special case, I would support a generic 'Hold Current Navball Pitch and Roll Angles' setting.

This would provide what you request for the one special case of the horizon (zero pitch angle), plus any other pitch up or down angles one would wish for a controlled ascent/descent/reentry situation.

 

Do keep in mind that (especially for aircraft), pitch and roll does not have to equal flight path angle (the angle between your horizontal and vertical speed, or the surface prograde vector)

That is only the case where zero pitch will cause your aircraft to remain straight and level. If you want to make it more generic, a 'flight path angle hold' feature on SAS would be great. That means that pitch adjusts according to airspeed (pitching down when the craft speeds up, and pitching up when the craft slows down) to maintain the correct vertical speed.

I am very much in favor of a feature that can maintain FPA since it is very useful for any mode of surface flight.

[KerBlitz Kerman]

I support this as well as auto-grav turn and hold vert as well. Auto land would be a Kerbal saver as well as.

[cubinator]

I still support this.

[SinisterSonar]

I support this

[Blaarkies]

On 7/13/2017 at 0:10 PM, PaperAviator said:

@Blaarkies 

Yeah I really didn't think that through 

Maybe you are on to something...what if it locks to the navball, but does not get affected by the yaw action as you pass over the poles?
As in, it actually locks to a vector relative to the stars, but this vector gets continually updated by the "pitch curve" of the planet(so that airplanes do not end up pointing upwards)

The navball heading will definitely rotate as you change latitude, but we aren't concerned with that. Come to think about it, it sounds like using the surface velocity vector, rotating the vector reference to the "up" vector(away from gravity), and then replacing the pitch scalar with the locked value

[DunaManiac]

I support this

[KerBlitz Kerman]

Supported, everybody put it in your Sig.

[JadeOfMaar]

On 7/16/2017 at 2:53 PM, KerBlitz Kerman said:

I support this as well as auto-grav turn and hold vert as well. Auto land would be a Kerbal saver as well as.

Hold vertical =  ......  

Also...

I support this

[DeltaDizzy]

24 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

I support this

 

 

1 hour ago, KerBlitz Kerman said:

Supported, everybody put it in your Sig.

 

On 7/16/2017 at 11:14 PM, BogusDionysus48 said:

I support this

 

On 7/16/2017 at 3:24 PM, cubinator said:

I still support this.

I need to stop.

[JadeOfMaar]

13 minutes ago, DeltaDizzy said:

I need to stop.

I also support this. 

Edited July 18, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[DeltaDizzy]

2 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

I also support this. 

I am now the unofficial official "I support this" record keeper.

[Blaarkies]

2 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Hold vertical =  ......  

@KerBlitz Kerman Change navball to "Surface mode", set SAS to hold radial-out...it wont actually aim at radial, but will aim at "Up"/"vertical". This is really useful for powered landing as well:
-Having almost zero vertical speed, makes the retrograde marker jump around the horizon, and a ship following that marker becomes a disaster.
-Switching to surface mode, and to hold radial-out will keep the ship upright. You can then just slightly tilt away from the direction of your horizontal speed
 

Edited July 18, 2017 by Blaarkies

[KerBlitz Kerman]

Thx @Blaarkies, and @JadeOfMaar, that will help for my VTOL adventures!

[Ourworldalpha1]

I support this

[Stoney3K]

On 18-7-2017 at 8:26 AM, Blaarkies said:

@KerBlitz Kerman Change navball to "Surface mode", set SAS to hold radial-out...it wont actually aim at radial, but will aim at "Up"/"vertical". This is really useful for powered landing as well:
-Having almost zero vertical speed, makes the retrograde marker jump around the horizon, and a ship following that marker becomes a disaster.
-Switching to surface mode, and to hold radial-out will keep the ship upright. You can then just slightly tilt away from the direction of your horizontal speed
 

This also means that you can make a craft hold straight and level by putting a probe core (or docking port) on its roof and tracking "SAS Radial Out". The craft will then keep flying wings level, nose forward.

Something that has a little more precision or repeatability would actually be nice. I use MechJeb's Smart ASS because I can just enter attitude values numerically and change attitude one axis at a time, so I can keep control of my pitch vector while the heading stays locked, so the craft will get in orbit on the proper inclination. I hardly use any other feature from MechJeb, but the Smart ASS is great because you can follow the same launch profile for every mission, instead of having to guesstimate your attitude from the navball and correct with WASD.

[thereaverofdarkness2]

I'd like to see it be a toggle on the navball. When it's set to atmospheric flight, it'll have horizontal prograde/retrograde markers, up/down markers, and horizontal sideways markers. These would replace the orbital markers that you see on the orbital navball. When you use the atmospheric flight navball, your Kerbal or probe core pilots would follow the new markers.

[Kerbal101]

Pilot Assistant, while great is still a bit over the top, it binds to tab... I'd appreciate just Hold vertical Speed. So 

I support this

[TheKSPBeginner]

I support this

[KerbolExplorer]

i support this

[Enceos]

The Persistent Rotation mod can keep rotation constant relative to a planet's surface, both in warp mode and physics mode.

Edited August 20, 2017 by Enceos

[Red Iron Crown]

2 hours ago, Enceos said:

The Persistent Rotation mod can keep rotation constant relative to a planet's surface, both in warp mode and physics mode.

That does just about nothing for the primary use case for this idea: atmospheric craft. 

(Also, I believe Persistent Rotation keeps rotation constant in the inertial reference frame rather than the rotating reference frame.)

[Hotaru]

Just now, Red Iron Crown said:

That does just about nothing for the primary use case for this idea: atmospheric craft.

My impression is it actually does work for atmospheric craft: it lets you use regular SAS to hold attitude relative to the horizon instead of relative to the sun, which doesn't work in stock KSP. Which is to say, in stock KSP a plane flying level will be pointing straight up after flying a quarter of the way around the planet--with Persistent Rotation, it'd still be flying level.

Doesn't do much good if you're on console, and doesn't make this any less a good suggestion for the stock game, but if you're OK with mods Persistent Rotation does help.

[Red Iron Crown]

On 8/20/2017 at 6:22 PM, Hotaru said:

My impression is it actually does work for atmospheric craft: it lets you use regular SAS to hold attitude relative to the horizon instead of relative to the sun, which doesn't work in stock KSP. Which is to say, in stock KSP a plane flying level will be pointing straight up after flying a quarter of the way around the planet--with Persistent Rotation, it'd still be flying level.

Doesn't do much good if you're on console, and doesn't make this any less a good suggestion for the stock game, but if you're OK with mods Persistent Rotation does help.

That's not what Persistent Rotation does, to my understanding. It closes the loophole of rotation stopping during timewarp, but doesn't change reference frames or anything. It doesn't do anything with SAS as far as I know. 

That said, I haven't used it in a while, maybe the scope of the mod has changed.