SteamGauges Beta release 1.6.1b [27 Dec]

[Trueborn]

Feel free to PM me the equations. I did some work along a direct solution as well, but didn't ever get a good solution. I agree it isn't super efficient, and there's still a bug or two. The good news is, I did get the changes to the Orbital gauge that people were looking for worked out, and they should be ready for the 0.23 release (tomorrow or Wed).

[Trueborn]

Version 1.4 Beta 2 release is now available!

No compatible with 0.23.

The suicide burn calculations are now much cleaner thanks to some good maths from Hetsin. Functionality is unchanged except that auto cutoff will now cut any burn, not just automated ones.

The Node Gauge now has very similar automation functions to the radar altimeter. There is an auto burn start and stop function, accessed through obvious buttons on the gauge. It starts the burn (when armed) at 0 on the countdown as long as your are within 2 degrees of the burn vector. It continues burning until delta V is within 0.5 m/s of the target or the nose moves off more than 7.2 degrees. Like the RA, it will automatically cutoff a manually initiated burn. Enjoy!

Download.

[Trueborn]

Version 1.4 Beta 3 release is now available!

Introducing the newest gauge, the Air Guage. Mostly an airspeed indicator, but with a few bonuses.

Toolbar 1.2.2 included.

The outer ring displays calibrated airspeed in hundreds of meters per second. Note that CAS is pressure dependent, and will decrease with altitude. The HUD can be toggled between CAS and TAS (KSP's reported surface velocity).

The current Mach number is displayed at the top of the inner gauge.

Bellow that is the current Angle of Attack. Based on the critical AoA (default 25, editable in the settings window), the STALL warning will illuminate.

At the bottom of the gauge is the air intake efficiency. The green portion of the gauge is 200% to 600% of the current required amount of intake air. The yellow portion is 100% to 200%, and the red portion is below 100%. If the needle falls into the red, expect an engine flameout is immanent.

This gauge is only active in atmosphere, and is probably only meaningful in Kerbin's atmosphere.

Download link.

[Trueborn]

Version 1.4 Beta 4 release is now available!

Quick update for terminal velocity indications.

Blizzy's Toolbar 1.3.0 included

Terminal velocity is now displayed on the Air Gauge and the HUD's airspeed tape. The hashed maker or Vt> maker indicate terminal velocity at the current altitude. (The HUD will only display Vt up to 4000 m/s. If that limitation impacts you let me know, I can bump it up to the rest of the airspeed tape if you really want it.)

The Air Gauge can now be toggled between displaying CAS and TAS. Just click the button!

Updated gauge architecture (internal). If you notice any strange behaviors, this is probably the cause. Please let me know!

Download link.

[a.g.]

Is there any point in all that CAS complexity over EAS? KSP crafts already can display altitude and velocity in complete vacuum, so they obviously use some kind of computer in there, and thus can compute EAS. FAR has an option to make the navball display EAS too.

P.S. I've just prepared a patch yesterday to make the gauge talk to FAR if it's installed to get the right density and mach numbers from it, but now I'll have to update and test it again first before sending - plus add terminal velocity too.

Edited December 27, 2013 by a.g.

[lincourtl]

Thanks for the great addon. If it were the radar altimeter alone, the download would still be worth it.

One minor note: In your recent releases you've been leaving the Thumbs.db file in every folder. I'm not sure it affects anything, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

[Abrexus]

I love you! Thanks so much for the air intake gauge!

[Trueborn]

Thanks for the great addon. If it were the radar altimeter alone, the download would still be worth it.

One minor note: In your recent releases you've been leaving the Thumbs.db file in every folder. I'm not sure it affects anything, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

You're welcome.

It looks like that's the system's thumbnail file for all the textures. It doesn't show up in the folder once extracted (even with hidden files shown). If you do see it, it should be safe to delete though. Obviously the game doesn't need the thumbnails at all.

[kiwiak]

Is it possible to keep track if our trajectory intersects with some terrain ABOVE sea level?

For example, low orbit over some moon, and mountain ahead us.

If yes, some counter, time to collision or something, woudl be nice.

[Trueborn]

Yeah, I'm sure its possible. That being said, with the current beta versions that shouldn't be a huge issue unless you're doing some really low orbits. Or not using the orbital gauge/radar altimeter. If your Ap/Pe show a red or yellow light, you're probably in trouble. Also, the RA shows a time to impact and suicide altitude if you're on a descent path towards an airless world (though this is strictly vertical, so at high surface velocities it could be way off).

That's my intent anyway. If you're in a shallow orbit with a low Pe without a red or yellow light, please let me know (I might have to update my altitudes). If I do extend the RA's calculations to do atmosphere stuff, I may do some more work with actual trajectory, but that isn't on my short list. If I'm way off of what you're thinking, please let me know that as well.

Break.

I'm also releasing 1.4 beta 5 today.

The biggest change is some FAR integration. The air gauge and HUD now use FAR data for EAS, terminal velocity, and Mach number. If you don't have FAR, it uses the stock atmosphere model instead.

Next, the Air Gauge and HUD now use Equivalent Air Speed instead of Calibrated Air Speed. This is a bit more relevant at high airspeeds and altitudes, but as with CAS it will always be lower than TAS.

The Air Gauge now displays a Mach needle (small blue arrow), because its cooler than the digital readout.

There were a few performance tweaks to the HUD.

Finally, the plugin should gracefully handle missing textures.

If this seems pretty stable, it might make for a full release, so please let me know if you encounter any problems. Special thanks goes out to a.g (as usual) for the FAR integration.

Download

Edited January 8, 2014 by Trueborn
Forgot the mach needle!

[czokletmuss]

Just an idea - is it possible to use SteamGauges as a sort of HUD for kerbals during EVA? It would require some sort of first person view to work though but I think this would be very attractive option I'm talking about something like this:

Edited January 8, 2014 by czokletmuss

[Trueborn]

I think someone already has a first person EVA mod somewhere. The HUD should work fine in it, although I don't believe it tracks jetpack fuel (which could be arranged). What else would you be looking for in an EVA HUD besides life support, which I don't believe is standardized enough yet for me to link to.

[czokletmuss]

I think someone already has a first person EVA mod somewhere. The HUD should work fine in it, although I don't believe it tracks jetpack fuel (which could be arranged). What else would you be looking for in an EVA HUD besides life support, which I don't believe is standardized enough yet for me to link to.

Kinda - if you have Lazor on your spacecraft you could switch to FPP during EVA. Life support indeed isn't standardized enough, although asmis's ECLSS 2.0 probably will became quite popular when released.

Well, besides the obvious (being jetpack fuel) I think also things like:

- velocity

- orbit (apoapsis and periapis)

- current altitude

- remaining delta-v

- distance from spacecraft (?)

- and some kind of a navball showing pro/retrograde, rad+/- and so on would be nice too: constant switching to map and back to make sure you are facing the right direction when trying to make single jetpack to orbit on Minmus/Gilly/Bop/Pol is very annoying

would be cool to have. Thanks for showing interest in this idea

Edited January 8, 2014 by czokletmuss

[Trueborn]

The only thing the current HUD won't do for you is delta V and jetpack fuel. Orbital mode shows you pro/retrograde and rad +/-, Ap/Pe and time to both, velocity, and distance to target (with target cue, anti-target cue, and target velocity vectors). I'll look into the EVA fuel (already considering a delta V readout of some sort), but otherwise it seems to have you covered.

[Trueborn]

Annnnd, that's done. Well, the HUD jetpack fuel readout anyway. In EVA, it replaces the throttle readout. I'll have to look at jetpack ISP and Kerbal weight before I can crunch delta V though. I'll probably change the fuel gauge to read out jetpack fuel as well (when appropriate). Unless I need to make any significant changes in this beta though, expect it in the 1.4 stable release.

[czokletmuss]

Fantastic! This was probably the quickest modder reaction to someone's idea on this forum ever Thank you very much!

[kiwiak]

Yeah, I'm sure its possible. That being said, with the current beta versions that shouldn't be a huge issue unless you're doing some really low orbits. Or not using the orbital gauge/radar altimeter. If your Ap/Pe show a red or yellow light, you're probably in trouble. Also, the RA shows a time to impact and suicide altitude if you're on a descent path towards an airless world (though this is strictly vertical, so at high surface velocities it could be way off).

That's my intent anyway. If you're in a shallow orbit with a low Pe without a red or yellow light, please let me know (I might have to update my altitudes). If I do extend the RA's calculations to do atmosphere stuff, I may do some more work with actual trajectory, but that isn't on my short list. If I'm way off of what you're thinking, please let me know that as well.

I think it was somewhere on Ike..

You mentioned updating altitudes, so yellow and red light are toggled if aou orbit is just below specific altitude right?

But with specific inclintation, ship can fly next to mountain or even through canyon. And i was wandering if there is any way to detect such terrain obstacles that are high above surface, without just declaring all space above planet of their altitude danger zone.

[Trueborn]

Correct. I took the highest terrain feature, rounded up to the next 100m or so, and declared that as a "safe" orbit. I'm still not entirely sure that the orbital gauge is where I would want to put impending terrain impacts anyway.

I almost want to say that if you plan on orbiting inside a canyon...good luck to you. If you are manually flying, you can use the HUD to see if you are going to clear the terrain in front of you (line up the W with the centerline of your ship, and then just keep the FPV above the mountains). Even better might be terrain following radar or TAWS.

It looks like a radar map, but it uses a digital terrain database and shows terrain height relative to vessel altitude. Green stuff is safe, yellow is pretty close to you, and red is above (depending on mode).

Anyway, I'm not really planning on doing either of those. What you're asking for is just some warning to come on if, somewhere in the next orbit the vessel will be below terrain level. I'll think about it, but no guarantee at this point.

[Abrexus]

Trueborn, I just have to say again what an amazing mod this is. Other than setting up maneuver nodes, I now never have to use the map view to find out the vital information the HUD provides. I have become a much better pilot because of it. Thanks again!

[Moach]

wanted to say a couple of things -

first, this mod is quite possibly become one of my top-very-select-few favourites of all time -- even above MechJeb, IMO (which my main use before was for providing on-the-fly info otherwise available only on the map view as by default)

having recommended this mod to HarvesteR a few weeks ago, he said it himself: there's few other mods out there that keep up so well with the "feel" intended for the game. i.e: Kerbal space science is intended to be a more seat-of-pants experience, rather than something that "should" be done perhaps "too precisely" as he finds most mods end up emphasising (even without really meaning to) -- these gauges instead, feel "Kerbal" in every way!

and even though this is just an opinion of his own, and by no means any way of telling people how or not to conduct their own spacefare, I found it was something worth sharing here...

congrats!

as for me, I find myself more and more moving the Navball to the side (Sliding NavBall still works on .23 - neat!) and relying mostly on the more precise HUD I got set as something of an alternative/extended flight display right next to it -- it's a handy device to have around, even on 3rd person view!

anyhow - that's a major thumbs up I was long overdue to give you for this mod - excellent stuff!

few points I wanted to make (suggestions really, if you feel like they're any good for ideas to boot)

random thing 1 -- I find myself puzzled a bit by the speedometer tape on the HUD moving "up" (higher values rise from below) as the value increases - this is odd for me, as most of such things I've seen (standard on Boeing displays) have it the other way around, and the tape moves down as higher values are physically shown "above" the indicated position in the middle of the thing

random thing 2 -- the font used on the numbers on the radar altimeter and whiskey compass doesn't feel very well in tune with the rest of the UI... maybe it's just me, but I find it'd look better if they were a little less times-new-roman-esque somehow...

edit: a brief research revealed that the vast majority of aviation gauge fonts are sans-serif (no "bracketey thingies" at the tips):

...and a minor pet peeve - there's a weird thin white line that appears underneath some of the gauges when the bezels are off - specially visible at some scales around the 30~50% size range

again - very large amounts of appreciation for this absolutely solid piece of modding awesomeness! congrats on a great idea greatly executed!

cheers!

Edited January 19, 2014 by Moach

[Trueborn]

Thanks for that glowing review, Moach.

1) This HUD is based off of a McDonald Douglass HUD, which uses the "backwards" speed tape. I'm unlikely to change it, because that's the HUD I actually fly with, so I'm quite biased.

2) I've gotten that before, and some day I'll get around to replacing them.

3) Yeah, I either have to move my textures a tiny bit further apart or shrink the box I'm drawing a bit. That'll get cleaned up someday as well.

[Trueborn]

Beta 6 is out

Sorry for the delay. I was working on the architecture stuff that took a bit longer than anticipated. Also, I got sidetracked writing Custom Biomes.

Changes (besides the architecture stuff) are pretty minimal:

The most visible are the jetpack fuel gauges. The HUD displays jetpack fuel in place of the throttle readout when on EVA. The fuel gauge itself displays jetpack fuel on EVA.

The HUD's orbital mode works a little more like advertised, but I'm still not totally happy with it.

[Trueborn]

This isn't a beta release, but today I was working on the much requested round dial for the radar altimeter. It is based off of the radar altimeter found in some F-4 models, so the scale is "realistic" for aircraft. The black area in the upper left will mask out the pointer at elevations above 5000m. It doesn't have the R/Y/G lights like the old one did. Would anyone really miss that? Tomorrow I'll work on getting it integrated into the mod, which should be fairly easy, and then I'll release a beta build for you guys to play with.

[kiwiak]

Thanks for your work, looking forward to it.

[Trueborn]

1.5 Beta 1 Download

Source

Beta release now available! It looks the same as above. The suicide altitude (not pictured) is marked by an orange carrot along the outside of the gauge. As you can see, the time to impact counter and Red/Yellow/Green indicator light have been removed. There are also a few other minor fixes courtesy of a.g.

Please let me know if you run into any issues.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Trueborn
Formatting.