Reversible gimbal

[Alistone]

For engines above the CoM the gimbal is ineffective; it actually works against the reaction wheels of a vessel. Currently pilots are usually forced to disable the gimbal and use alternate means of steering and controlling their vessel.

Would it be feasible to add an option to reverse the gimbal for an engine (similar to current options of disabling/enabling gimbal).

[sal_vager]

Instead of adding options, this bug should be fixed at some point

[Alistone]

Instead of adding options, this bug should be fixed at some point

Fixing the bug would be good too. But let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

[Red Iron Crown]

The game engine already computes the location of the center of mass and the center of thrust, so it shouldn't be *too* hard to have it automatically detect when it's appropriate to reverse gimbal response.

(Disclaimer: I am not a programmer, nor do I play one on TV. What seems simple to me may actually be very difficult for reasons that are obvious to any experienced programmer.)

[tetryds]

It would be interesting as a feature.

Would be much faster to program (just reverse it doesn't seem that complicated), and could be usefull for some weird designs.

What about also adding the option to allow gimbal only for pitch, yaw or roll like control surfaces?

Sometimes a dual engine aircraft already has too much rolling power, and the engine gimbal can make it unstable.

Idk, there are so many possibilities of weird designs out there.

Btw, "fixing it" can not be a very good deal.

If you make a VTOL where the COT is slightly above the COM it would act in order to sum to the craft control.

But in some cases that opposite force helps to mantain stability.

So summing the gimbal to the craft control would actually make it unstable.

And disabling gimbal wouldn't be as effective.

This gave me the idea to also add a "reverse" button to each of the control surfaces action options.

So you can have your pitch on/off, and if on, reverse on/off.

Can help on the stability of some aircraft too (I actually made a rocket where the control surfaces were reversed, reversing them then would fix that).

Edited January 30, 2014 by tetryds