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[1.9.x] AECS Motion Suppressor (air brake, engine, & control surfaces)

linuxgurugamer

By linuxgurugamer
in KSP1 Mod Releases

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linuxgurugamer

linuxgurugamer

Posted
Posted (edited)

This mod is derived from the old Control Surface Toggle mod.  original thread is here:  https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/164626-*

Immersion gets shattered when you are in space and your control surfaces flap uselessly while maneuvering.  Also, it's quite funny when you are on a planet with an SSTO which has airbrakes, and the airbrakes open when you hit the brakes.  

What really annoys me is the useless engine gimbaling when I'm just rotating the vessel, etc.  Also disables engine gimbaling when fuel flow is 0 (ie:  engine not running).

This mod fixes all that, seamlessly and automatically.  For those who want to, you can manually disable/enable all control surfaces by right-clicking on one of the parts.  There are now events, so you can also do that using action groups

Pics later

Availability

Available in CKAN

Dependency (new as of 1.3.3.1)

 

Edited by linuxgurugamer
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rebel-1

rebel-1

Posted
Posted (edited)
16 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Not sure I understand you.  Are you saying that it doesn't work with Mechjeb in space?

MechJeb autopilot in space no conrol thrust vectoring with this mod. Engine gimbaling is blocked. And autopilot unable hold maneur node.

Edited by rebel-1
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linuxgurugamer

linuxgurugamer

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10 minutes ago, rebel-1 said:

MechJeb autopilot in space no conrol thrust vectoring with this mod. Engine gimbaling is blocked. And autopilot unable hold maneur node.

Ok, I'm trying to understand exactly what you are saying, please tell me if I have it correct (I assume english isn't your first language):

When the mod is installed, all gimbaling (ie: thrust vectoring) is disabled when MechJeb is also installed, so that Mechjeb is unable to hold a maneuver node because of the lack of gimbaling.

So, I have some questions:

  • Was this during a launch?
  • Before the maneuver, please confirm the engines were turned off
  • And, do the following test, please:  Do a quicksave, then activate the engines manually and see if they gimbal  when you use manual control
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rebel-1

rebel-1

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1 minute ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Ok, I'm trying to understand exactly what you are saying, please tell me if I have it correct (I assume english isn't your first language):

When the mod is installed, all gimbaling (ie: thrust vectoring) is disabled when MechJeb is also installed, so that Mechjeb is unable to hold a maneuver node because of the lack of gimbaling.

So, I have some questions:

  • Was this during a launch?
  • Before the maneuver, please confirm the engines were turned off
  • And, do the following test, please:  Do a quicksave, then activate the engines manually and see if they gimbal  when you use manual control

With manual control gimbal is working. Problem only with MJ autopilot.

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Jacke

Jacke

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1 hour ago, rebel-1 said:

With manual control gimbal is working. Problem only with MJ autopilot.

Perhaps an example .craft and a sequence of steps to bring up the issue.

Taking a wild guess, is a craft on MJ autopilot unable to use the engine gimballing to align to or hold on a manuever node to execute it?

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linuxgurugamer

linuxgurugamer

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New release, 1.3.1

  • Added code to detect changes in vessel and update accordingly
  • Added code to detect vessel changes
  • Removed check for mainThrottle == 0 (needed to allow MechJeb to work properly)
  • Added events and actions to allow all gimbals to be enabled, disabled, and reset
  • Changed check from 5x a second to 4x a second
  • Changed the OnStart to Start in ModuleEngineGimbal

@rebel-1 @Jacke  @dlrk  This update should fix your problems

Edited by linuxgurugamer
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Tallinu

Tallinu

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Posted

It seems like this plugin makes it impossible to lock the gimbals of certain engines the normal easy way, whether during flight or in the VAB. If you try to lock a gimbal while your engines are active, it instantly resets back to "free," and of course if you try to toggle it while engines are shut down they just go right back to "locked."

Surprisingly, tweaking the gimbal range down to zero in the VAB (with Tweakable Everything) doesn't seem to have any effect either. (That seems to just be broken in general, but it most likely doesn't have anything to do with this plugin.)

The only thing that does work is to use "show actuation toggles" and turn them all off. This may also be a Tweakable Everything feature though, I'm not sure.

Sadly there is no "gimbal limit" slider available in flight that could be used to easily adjust them on the fly in the same way that engine thrust can be scaled for more precise burns...

While investigating this I also discovered that this plugin only affects one of the Bobcat's nozzles, and the other still moves. This seems to be because there are two separate gimbal lock options on its menu (and a different, "0-100" gimbal limit adjustment -- which only affects one nozzle?!) and in the action group editor there's an entire extra set of gimbal-related options, one for each nozzle. Using these I was able to get both its nozzles to stop moving by toggling all six actuation toggles in flight, but that can't be done for both nozzles in the VAB.

 

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linuxgurugamer

linuxgurugamer

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On 9/17/2019 at 1:01 PM, Tallinu said:

It seems like this plugin makes it impossible to lock the gimbals of certain engines the normal easy way, whether during flight or in the VAB. If you try to lock a gimbal while your engines are active, it instantly resets back to "free," and of course if you try to toggle it while engines are shut down they just go right back to "locked."

Surprisingly, tweaking the gimbal range down to zero in the VAB (with Tweakable Everything) doesn't seem to have any effect either. (That seems to just be broken in general, but it most likely doesn't have anything to do with this plugin.)

The only thing that does work is to use "show actuation toggles" and turn them all off. This may also be a Tweakable Everything feature though, I'm not sure.

Sadly there is no "gimbal limit" slider available in flight that could be used to easily adjust them on the fly in the same way that engine thrust can be scaled for more precise burns...

While investigating this I also discovered that this plugin only affects one of the Bobcat's nozzles, and the other still moves. This seems to be because there are two separate gimbal lock options on its menu (and a different, "0-100" gimbal limit adjustment -- which only affects one nozzle?!) and in the action group editor there's an entire extra set of gimbal-related options, one for each nozzle. Using these I was able to get both its nozzles to stop moving by toggling all six actuation toggles in flight, but that can't be done for both nozzles in the VAB.

 

You have a lot of complaints, but don't provide any real information.  You mentioned something about Tweakable Everything, it's quite possible that both mods together have an incompatibility.

Please provide a log file along with reports like these, so that myself and others have a chance at figuring out what happened.

Also, which mod is the "Bobcat" from, the only one I'm aware of is extremely old

 

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Tallinu

Tallinu

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I'm sorry if it sounded that way. There's only one "complaint" and it's the very first paragraph, and it's in regards to what I assume is a normal behavior for the plugin, where it disables gimbals and re-enables them depending on throttle state.

The issue has to do with that feature's implementation: Because the plugin controls the gimbal locks via the same toggle the player would use, you lose the ability to manually control gimbal locks (at least via the usual toggle).

Since this appears to be "working as designed" behavior and there don't appear to be any errors to report, I did not consider it a bug or expect the log to be of any use. And the rest of what I wrote was simply an attempt to provide as much information as I could about the nature of the behavior I was "complaining" about and to describe my attempts to work around it. I don't remember whether the "show actuation toggles" option I used to do that is available in a stock game, which is why I mentioned TE. Oh, and the comment about a gimbal limit slider is just irrelevant wishful thinking, as in "wouldn't it be nice if the game had..." (Sorry for getting sidetracked and confusing the issue.)

As for the Bobcat, that's a stock part from the Making History expansion, not a mod, so I just assumed you'd be familiar with the name (sorry again). It's apparently implemented with two separate gimbal modules -- I guess they couldn't give it roll control authority (as a single central engine) with just one module. I mentioned what I'd learned about it in my experiments because I thought the fact that the plugin only locks/unlocks one of those gimbals might be something you'd consider a bug. I don't know if any other engines actually have multiple gimbal modules, so maybe it's just an edge case that hasn't come up before. Either way, since one of them does get automatically locked/unlocked, the plugin clearly is "working," it just doesn't take into account the possibility that a part might have more than one gimbal module.

The issue should be reproducible by launching any craft using an engine with a gimbal and attempting to manually lock any of its gimbals while the engine is running. The gimbal setting in the menu immediately changes back to unlocked and the engine continues moving in response to yaw/pitch control input. In the case of the Bobcat, providing yaw/pitch/roll control input while the throttle is off and looking at the engine and the part right-click menu, you should see that one nozzle still moves and the second gimbal hasn't been auto-locked (and can be manually toggled, whereas the first gimbal option will instantly switch back if clicked on, as previously stated).

I ended up removing the plugin because I really needed to be able to lock some gimbals on a mission I had in flight (and couldn't use the workaround of disabling the actuation toggles due to being in flight already). But if you can't reproduce this, let me know and I'll reinstall it and create a log (would you want one where I'd launched a craft and moved the engine around? Just at the main menu? Or what? I haven't seen any error messages regardless of what I tried).

 

Edited by Tallinu
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VoidSquid

VoidSquid

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Another quality of life mod.

Thinking of it, most of my mods actually fall in  this category, and most of them are created or maintained by you, @linuxgurugamer.

And then I'm asking myself, why didn't I install that mod earlier? Sigh...

Again, thank you very much, it's always the sum of the little things that make life enjoyable. :) 

Edited by VoidSquid
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