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activate sas without activating asas?


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SAS mode toggling applies to both. You can't have one running without the other. (And SAS only works when it's turned on.)

That be the case maybe the mods could move this to development/feature requests? It would be nice to be able to use sas to kill rotation without going into autopilot mode, preferrably with separate keys for activating sas and asas.

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If you don't want to use the autopilot your only other option is to kill the rotation manually using the Q and E keys. You could also try tapping the F key, this will activate the autopilot only when held down and should help slow rotation. It all depends on whether you have enough SAS and the severity of the rotation.

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SAS is torque, and as far as I know it's turned on at all times. You don't need to press T to get your command pod or probe core torque to work. Same with the SAS modules, no? (else this is actually news to me lol)

Try hitting T when flying with your command pod with no other parts attached, like during re-entry, it definitely does something. Or try hitting t when your non-asas but sas equipped craft is rolling.

Edited by kurja
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If you don't want to use the autopilot your only other option is to kill the rotation manually using the Q and E keys. You could also try tapping the F key, this will activate the autopilot only when held down and should help slow rotation. It all depends on whether you have enough SAS and the severity of the rotation.

Yes but with q/e it's difficult to get it to completely stop the rotation, especially with a very small craft, it usually just starts to rotate in the opposite direction. Tapping F does help but it's just not as good as activating sas without autopilot would be :)

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Have you tried activating fine controls with CAPSLOCK? I was under the impression that activating SAS without an ASAS module installed would only kill rotation, but I might have read that wrong.

Yes I've tried capslock, tiny craft can be very flicky even with that. Afaik activating SAS does just what you said, but if there's an ASAS module on the ship you can't activate SAS without also activating the autopilot function, which is the point here.

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Try hitting T when flying with your command pod with no other parts attached, like during re-entry, it definitely does something. Or try hitting t when your non-asas but sas equipped craft is rolling.

Okay, let's say you have a command pod in orbit. Just the pod. Lets say you press the q key. Without pressing t first. What happens? Your command pod will start spinning on itself wildly. That's what SAS does. It helps you move in vacuum. Without this torque, your command pod wouldn't move at all in vacuum. Because there's no way to make it move, no air you can push against. This is SAS. Look at all the pods in the VAB they all have a "max SAS torque" value. That's what allows them to move in vacuum. And as far as I know, I never ever ever had to press T to spin my probes and satellites in space, and actually pressing it didn't stop their rotation. What you're observing during reentry is simply the air friction. Basically: SAS gets you to spin in vacuum without the use of RCS, ASAS holds a give heading for you as hard as it can. That's all.

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Okay, let's say you have a command pod in orbit. Just the pod. Lets say you press the q key. Without pressing t first. What happens? Your command pod will start spinning on itself wildly. That's what SAS does. It helps you move in vacuum. Without this torque, your command pod wouldn't move at all in vacuum. Because there's no way to make it move, no air you can push against. This is SAS. Look at all the pods in the VAB they all have a "max SAS torque" value. That's what allows them to move in vacuum. And as far as I know, I never ever ever had to press T to spin my probes and satellites in space, and actually pressing it didn't stop their rotation. What you're observing during reentry is simply the air friction. Basically: SAS gets you to spin in vacuum without the use of RCS, ASAS holds a give heading for you as hard as it can. That's all.

SAS doesn't provide torque, only command pods do. All SAS does is slow down your rotation while activated with T or F.

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There is this mod, but I am not sure if it works with 0.20...

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/toggle-capable-asas/

I really think that SAS is kinda useless as it is now. I never use it in any of my designs.

SAS has a useful part to play in larger spacecraft where you have two parts docked together, and need both to have stability-assists. Having multiple ASAS units activated on one spacecraft can result in interesting structural issues (read: 'Explosions') over time. It's also handy if you want to dampen your roll/pitch/yaw but also want to be able to quickly change course without having to turn off ASAS. Apart from that, it's not all that useful.

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I thought they acted as torque wheels honestly. I just lost all interest at using them honestly. Maybe they should actually change them so they would act like torque wheels, that would be useful. That would allow to have a slow but consistent control over medium to large structures without the need of RCS. Like turning a large spent upper stage of a rocket for deorbiting.

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Okay, let's say you have a command pod in orbit. Just the pod. Lets say you press the q key. Without pressing t first. What happens? Your command pod will start spinning on itself wildly. That's what SAS does. It helps you move in vacuum. Without this torque, your command pod wouldn't move at all in vacuum. Because there's no way to make it move, no air you can push against. This is SAS.

So what's the difference in pod behavior when you have sas turned on or off... maybe actually try it.

Look at all the pods in the VAB they all have a "max SAS torque" value. That's what allows them to move in vacuum. And as far as I know, I never ever ever had to press T to spin my probes and satellites in space, and actually pressing it didn't stop their rotation. What you're observing during reentry is simply the air friction. Basically: SAS gets you to spin in vacuum without the use of RCS, ASAS holds a give heading for you as hard as it can. That's all.

Air friction has nothing to do with this. SAS modules provide counter rotation force, to stop the craft from rotating. ASAS is the same but with autopilot function included. Pods and probe modules provide torque for turning.

Point of this thread was, if anyone still remembers, if it's possible to have active SAS to prevent spinning without autopilot kicking in if there's an ASAS module on the craft...

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Try hitting T when flying with your command pod with no other parts attached, like during re-entry, it definitely does something. Or try hitting t when your non-asas but sas equipped craft is rolling.

SAS dampens rolling. It will eventually arrest rotation in space. If you don't turn SAS on in space, you rotate forever. ASAS actively arrests rotation and attempts to hold course.

However, I don't know if SAS modules add to torque when SAS is not turned on. They used to, but I heard this was changed. Personally I haven't used them for a long time. In my opinion they are dead weight.

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SAS dampens rolling. It will eventually arrest rotation in space. If you don't turn SAS on in space, you rotate forever. ASAS actively arrests rotation and attempts to hold course.

However, I don't know if SAS modules add to torque when SAS is not turned on. They used to, but I heard this was changed. Personally I haven't used them for a long time. In my opinion they are dead weight.

I'm gonna try testing it. I always used them to get more torque. I'll send two pods up, one with an SAS and the other without, and which spins faster.

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I pile a bunch of sas modules on radial docking ports on the top stage and put an asas module below a decoupler. I get the advantage of asas controlling the winglets on ascent without having to deal with it later. If I need to lose the weight I undock the extra sas.

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Hey, SAS/ASAS foodfight! It's been a while since I commented on any of this. First, I haven't played 0.20 yet. Second, I've tested this to death from 0.17 to 0.19.

My results? To sum it up, download the toggle-capable ASAS mod and forget about SAS modules. But perhaps you want a bit more explanation. See, the only parts that provide phantom torque (act like reaction wheels) are command prods, manned or unmanned. ASAS modules provide the "keep heading" autopilot. And SAS modules are supposed to kill rotation but are pretty much useless (they won't add control authority). BUT. If you have no ASAS module, and you activate SAS (no need to have actual SAS module in), some crude killrot autopilot starts to happen. It won't keep you pointed to a specific point, but it will try to keep you still at least, and it won't wobble you to do so. It uses the pod torque only to do its magic (no RCS assist), and it's easier to test with small probes, if you don't believe me.

So the only way I see of doing what the OP seems to want to do (access that kill rotation autopilot, probably to keep a station still without wobble, without losing ASAS autopilot), is to not use SAS and ASAS modules at all, and only put ASAS modules from the toggle-capable ASAS mod. Reaction wheel equivalents can be built stacking probe cores, and then they'll use electricity like the real thing.

Edit: Hey! 300th post! Not counting the ones wiped by the great crash of '13!! :)

Rune. It works wonders, BTW. Totally recommend it.

Edited by Rune
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No, you see, I want the best of both worlds ;)

That is, the ability to enable sas/asas/pod torque/magic to kill rotation along my longitudinal axis while maintaining ability to steer, AND during the same flight and without jettisoning anything I want the ability to enable that asas-autopilot to keep my heading, be it for docking, during a burn or hey whatever.

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No, you see, I want the best of both worlds ;)

That is, the ability to enable sas/asas/pod torque/magic to kill rotation along my longitudinal axis while maintaining ability to steer, AND during the same flight and without jettisoning anything I want the ability to enable that asas-autopilot to keep my heading, be it for docking, during a burn or hey whatever.

And that's what the toggle capable ASAS mod allows you: having an ASAS module (or avionics nosecone) that you can toggle on/off by right-clicking on it or setting an action group. In vanilla, the only way to control this is by taking out the parts from the ship, either in the VAB or through docking.

Rune. I think that's what I said.

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