Is there a working way to hover or control ascent/descent rate?

[Jason_25]

I cannot get hover or controlled ascent/descent functionality working in any way.  First I will explain the vehicle, then the mods I have tried and then explain a simple way for a mod to do this.

 

Description

The vehicle uses the "Pelican" swiveling thermal turbojets as secondary engines.  The engine nozzles rotate down 90 degrees for VTOL operations.  I used to use the robotics mod to pivot engines but this looked like a better idea because no further mods were involved.

 

VTOL Mods Used

Mechjeb Translatron - This simply does not do anything.  I have used it many times before in the past.

Kerbal Actuators - Nothing happens when pressing insert besides the staging indicator disappears.  Nothing happens when pressing page up.

Throttle Controlled Avionics - When increasing vertical ascent rate nothing appears to be set into motion.  Changing engine groups does not work.  The appropriate modules like altitude control were enabled.

 

How a proper VTOL mod would function

When you click the button the main throttle is set to 100% until the desired altitude is reached.  The main throttle is set to 0% when the altitude is reached.  This kind of crude VTOL control actually works fine in other physics based games like From the Depths and Besiege.  I have programmed similar simple controls in games like ARMA as well.  I am suprised and disappointed that someone with a development environment has not taken 15 minutes and made a mod like this.  Compare that to a mod like Throttle Controlled Avionics which probably took someone years to program and still does not work.

[Vanamonde]

This discussion of add-ons has been moved to Add-on Discussions. 

[zer0Kerbal]

@linuxgurugamer has two that might work - and there are several kOS scripts. 

Vertical/Horizontal landing aid? 

Edited March 11, 2022 by zer0Kerbal

[Jason_25]

I have tried ConstantTWR, Vertical Velocity Controller Redux, and now Horizontal Landing Aid and none of the three show up in game for me.

I noticed KOS after I made this post and it would technically probably work if I had no other option.  I am running into performance problems so I don't know about adding another complex mod like that.

[zer0Kerbal]

@Jason_25 have you satisfied the dependencies of the mods or are you installing with CKAN?

[Gotmachine]

Have you tried with a stock engine instead of that one from KSPIE ?
Those KSPIE engines have a lot of weird custom logic that likely don't play well with other mods trying to control them.

[Jason_25]

I am happy to report that vertical velocity control works perfectly with the Pelican engines.  I forgot to mention that these engines were from KSPIE.  The key I think was to install the click through blocker dependency.  The game is taking way too long to start and make scene changes for me and I did not want to make it worse with more unnecessary mods.  But this was totally a necessary dependency.  I already had module manager installed with KSPIE and I had already tried to use these mods with toolbar controller installed.  But again, click through blocker is a requirement.  I have had this exact thing happen years before.  I did not have try to use ConstantTWR, only Vertical Velocity Control and it's dependencies were needed.  So finally either use VVC or KOS to hover with these engines.  The strangeness probably comes with the engine being nominally pointed one way and then vectored another without the necessary data structures shared between mods to enable effective control.

[linuxgurugamer]

If a mod is listed as a dependency, then it’s not unnecessary