Plugin as an exercise in scientific computing

[Mango]

Hi everyone,

I'm a physics undergrad who is interested in scientific computing, but only has fairly limited experience coding things in C.

I was wondering how hard it would be to use a KSP plugin to practice the application of numerical methods and scientific computing by making autopilot programs similar to MechJeb.

For example, the ultimate aim might be to make a script that would work out an optimized launch trajectory and then execute it, perhaps while also outputting telemetry to be viewed in an external application.

I have messed about with KOS for a while, but I can't help but feel that if I am going to spend a fair amount of time working on a project like this it might as well be in a language with real-world applicability like C#.

I would have no problems with using MechJeb or other mods' source code to get me started, I wouldn't be planning to distribute my creations anyway as it's just supposed to be a personal project.

Any thoughts on the feasibility of this?

[WaveFunctionP]

You could start work by improving the rather simplistic function used to calculate launch trajectories in mechjeb, the code is public.

Most of your needed variables should be located in the unity reference un flightglobals.activevessel. And most of the needed math operations are located in Math. I've found it decently easy to program in C#, learning the libraries used by ksp are a bit harder to learn. As there is very little documentation.

Edited April 16, 2014 by WaveFunctionP