Atmospheric Autopilot -> Airplanes, Gliders, et al.

[P.Funk]

Basically is there one? Everything I find seems to be geared towards orbital autopilots or rocket ascent autopilots. These naturally perform dreadfully in atmosphere and flop around until you stall out.

All I really want is something that'll fly straight and level at a set altitude (with FAR installed) while I walk away from the computer or time accel to get somewhere. Its tedious as all hell trying to trim a high mach aircraft to maintain its optimal altitude and SAS of course is of no use in that situation. I've examined KOS but there may be some limiting factors, not sure yet.

Anybody got anything?

[Tex_NL]

MechJeb can do this with ease. Just choose the appropriate feature.

In this case 'Spaceplane Guidance' It can hold any desired heading and altitude.

[P.Funk]

Not in my experience. It flops around like crazy and stalls out. It always quickly ends up with increasing oscillations that lead to full departure from control.

[Smorfty]

Mechjeb may be terrible at it but it's still sadly the best.

The more stable your aircraft is (not going to fast, has center of lift correctly placed etc.) the less Mechjeb will make it flop around.

If you're using FAR, it has an autopilot that sort of assists your flight. But it will make it drift around and it sometimes disables your trimming (alt + WASD).

Squad will look over aircraft in the future because now they just barely work in my opinion. It's an unfinished game after all.

[Aghanim]

If MJ have difficulty controlling your airplane, go to Attitude Adjustment and increase the Tf value

Its sad that MJ no longer allows us to set the PID values directly

[Tex_NL]

If MJ have difficulty controlling your airplane, go to Attitude Adjustment and increase the Tf value

...

If MJ has difficulty controlling your airplane, go back to the SPH and design a proper plane!

MechJeb not being able to control a plane properly is pure hogwash. Before typing this post I gave MechJebs Spaceplane Guidance a heading and altitude. Now, over 5 minutes later it still hasn't deviated a single degree and hasn't dropped or gained a single meter.

[NathanKell]

Tex_NL: you might want to consider the fact that not everyone uses the stock soupodynamics. Some of us use FAR, and in that case MJ doesn't work.

Under FAR, your best bet is to enable wing leveler and the dampers, and trim out as close to 0 vertical velocity as you can, then adjust pitch trim every few minutes.

[P.Funk]

Under FAR, your best bet is to enable wing leveler and the dampers, and trim out as close to 0 vertical velocity as you can, then adjust pitch trim every few minutes.

I was afraid this was going to be the answer. I already do this and thats a lot of micro for flying even 1/4 of the way around the planet.

I guess I'm going back to KOS to try to make a level autopilot for myself. Thanks for the answers.

[Aghanim]

Tex_NL: you might want to consider the fact that not everyone uses the stock soupodynamics. Some of us use FAR, and in that case MJ doesn't work.

Under FAR, your best bet is to enable wing leveler and the dampers, and trim out as close to 0 vertical velocity as you can, then adjust pitch trim every few minutes.

MJ works in FAR, at least at low altitude and low speed. I only have +-mm/s height change rate, tuned. At high Mach speed however, any overshoots results in several hundred meters of height change rate

[roblamb98]

Romfarer Lazor System worked fine for me,

[Bloodbunny]

Lazor System is much better than Mechjeb at flying planes, it can dampen inputs so that the planes doesn't wildly pitch and down

[roblamb98]

Lazor System is much better than Mechjeb at flying planes, it can dampen inputs so that the planes doesn't wildly pitch and down

makes sense, considering mechjeb is more geared towards rockets, (Romfarer is still good with them too, but mechjeb is the golden standard in rocket autopilots)

[meltedplasticarmyguy]

I know the last reply was a while ago and I'm sorry for bumping, but has there been any more autopilot mods since then?  Lazor is dead in the water and highly doubtful of ever coming back.  I use MechJeb but its plane guidance leaves much to be desired.  I would like something for 1.05 with either waypoint or target guidance.

[Boris-Barboris]

15 minutes ago, meltedplasticarmyguy said:

any more autopilot mods since then

AA version 1.5 and older ones are for 1.05
PA
KA
 

[meyerweb]

I use Kramax Autopilot (when I’m not trying to write my own kOS autopilot, anyway) and find it to be pretty good, somewhat fiddly UI aside.  Works fine in 1.0.5, don’t know about 1.1.

 

[1836440339]

I built a new fighter-boomer today, and before i dropped ten booms(BDAc), the auto pilot's standard fly-by-wire function worked great.  However, after i dropped the heavy booms and some missiles------which makes the mass center differs a lot from the take-off position-------the standard fly-by-wire function began to fail to control everything, even when i tried to maintain level flight under 400m/s without giving any AOA, the plane lost control and crash.

Also, when I have some control surfaces on the front edge of the wings, the standard fly-by-wire function could lost contrl, maybe it make some mistakes about the differences between leading edge flaps and normal flaps.

Is there any data i can adjust in the GUI setting to solve these two problem? Or is there any other method? Thx~

[0something0]

1 hour ago, 1836440339 said:

I built a new fighter-boomer today, and before i dropped ten booms(BDAc), the auto pilot's standard fly-by-wire function worked great.  However, after i dropped the heavy booms and some missiles------which makes the mass center differs a lot from the take-off position-------the standard fly-by-wire function began to fail to control everything, even when i tried to maintain level flight under 400m/s without giving any AOA, the plane lost control and crash.

Also, when I have some control surfaces on the front edge of the wings, the standard fly-by-wire function could lost contrl, maybe it make some mistakes about the differences between leading edge flaps and normal flaps.

Is there any data i can adjust in the GUI setting to solve these two problem? Or is there any other method? Thx~

Welcome to the fourms! Considering this thread is quite old and younseeks tonbe having a different issue, its probably a goodnl idea to post to the relevant mod release threads or start a new one.