[PLUGIN] dodADA - Advanced Descent Assistant alphav6 for KSP .14

[togfox]

The Y key definately works with stock legs and that\'s not a bad thing. It\'s probably not intended to mess with stock stuff but if you don\'t press Y then the stock legs remain stock legs.

I suggest you leave it like this. The part still needs to be installed in the part folder (I tried removing it) but you can make it invisible in the VAB. No one needs to see it or know it\'s there. Another option is to make your part look like a fancy black box (some sort of computer part) so people can use your box if they don\'t want to use the stock legs (I tried this too).

If you do stick with the stock legs, can the legs autodeploy (G key) at an altitude of 200m or something? That would be really neat.

A \'bug\' (not really): the descent controls really well with normal boosters but the new stock half thruster is something the maths don\'t account for. The half thruster only has half thrust (I think it\'s a quarter actually) so it takes a lot longer to slow the ship. There probably isn\'t much you can do about this except put this caveat in your release notes.

Send me a message if you\'d like further playtesting.

[CAPFlyer]

Nice, but is this making it all too easy? S:|

Also, it\'s important to note that even the Apollo landers used an automatic descent system. If you listen to the Apollo 11 landing audio from NASA (available in many places), you\'ll find that Armstrong overrides the automatic descent and landing program after he and Aldrin realize that the original landing site is covered with very large boulders.

Because of how complex something like landing on a specific spot from orbit is very difficult, use of automatic systems to ensure reliability and accuracy is kinda the 'norm'. We can only do it fairly easily here due to the 'relaxed reality' of the current physics system.

[togfox]

I\'ve used the assistant landing on the Mun a few times now and find it is most effective when it is ~500m above ground level (remembering the Altimeter shows SEA level).

This means I have to do most of the descent manually (not a bad thing) and then get into a stable hover over the LZ and then press Y and keep my nose on the yellow cross. Most enjoyable.

My moon base then self-destructed due to the 'too close' bug but that\'s well reported already.

Nice plugin - definitely my favourite.

[madmat]

I seriously can\'t wait for your next version to be released, will make my munbase building so much quicker,,awesome work,

[dodrian]

Thank you!

I finished my last assignment for term today, so I can get back into the coding. Currently the lander keeps flipping itself upside down right before landing, which isn\'t good :-/. When I\'ve sorted that out, I release another version.

[madmat]

SWEET, Although the lander flipping upside down wouldn\'t be particularly unusual for my modus operandi,

[MC3craze]

I don\'t mean to offend, but mechjeb\'s translatron seems to work better.

[Blinkin]

Nah, mechjebs lander is very very precisely.

I prefer this one because it looks like it uses less fuel and it doesn\'t take ages to make a good landing.

[dodrian]

OK, I\'ve made some changes and added a new version! Now it can help you with steering too :-)

Press \'y\' to turn on throttle control. When descending, you can also turn on helm control with \'u\' (changeable in part.cfg).

Remember, this is just meant to help you with the final few hundred meters of descent! You need to be going at a fairly low lateral speed for the helm control to work (otherwise testing has shown that dodADA will flip you over instead ;P)

I want to make a few more changes in the next version, especially code restructuring to make it more readable and adaptable. But I forsee a few more things being added to make the module a bit more intelligent (at the moment it just guesses at things like speed and heading).

I also realize that MechJeb now has landing options. I\'m not trying to make dodADA distinct or better than r4m0n\'s efforts, I\'m doing this because I enjoy tinkering with code ;D. I\'m going to keep releasing dodADA because people seem to like it and also in the hopes that others will see the dodADA source and be inspired to tinker themselves .

Anyway, let me know what you think of the new changes, and if you see any problems!

[togfox]

First to download - first to crash.

The Y is working fine but the u did absolutely nothing and I spiralled to a firey death from 1000m. Shall test some more.

Edit: U is not working at all - on Kerbin or on Mun. Won\'t stop me using it though.

[dodrian]

Is \'u\' not working as in it\'s not controlling the ship, or is \'u\' not working as in it takes over the ship but then causes it to crash?

It only really works at the moment if you\'re heading down and don\'t have too much horizontal velocity. It will (hopefully) kill the last bit of horizontal

Try manually coming in (with \'y\' assistance) and pressing \'u\' when the altimeter (the real one next to the part icon) says about 50, and let me know what happens.

[togfox]

It doesn\'t control the ship at all. Press the U button is as effective as pressing my belly-button. ;P

I was hovering at a low alt on Mun and Kerbin. I\'ll delete my plugin and d/l fresh.

[madmat]

Eagerly awaiting outcome!!

[dantheman]

Ya, the U key doesn\'t work real well for me either. I took off, got to about 50m up and turned on the decent module. It had next to no horizontal drift. I hit the u key at about 15m and watched my rocket start spinning and then lay over and jet across the ground before crashing.

[trbinsc]

I\'ve noticed it doesn\'t really work that well at low velocities and altitudes.

[togfox]

Crashed on the mun using U.

There was a lot of sideways movement and I think the autopilot rotated in the wrong direction to counteract this so it put me into a nose dive and I hit the ground before the nav ball can rotate all the way around to do a full retro. Not entirely sure - this is what it seemed to be doing. I\'ll be using just the Y key for now.

[dodrian]

Yeah, it doesn\'t like a lot of sideways movement, nor does it like it when the capsule is travelling up (though I thought I killed the bug which was causing it to flip over when you were travelling at very low speeds).

Part of the problem is I\'m adapting some of the rotating code from MechJeb, and even though r4m0n has helped explain what it does, I\'m still not quite sure of the exact mechanics behind the vector rotations! Vectors was never my strong subject in maths

[Majiir]

Part of the problem is I\'m adapting some of the rotating code from MechJeb, and even though r4m0n has helped explain what it does, I\'m still not quite sure of the exact mechanics behind the vector rotations! Vectors was never my strong subject in maths

Something to keep in mind is that the coordinate system has very little relation to the behavior of your ship. The position Z coordinate is not always 'up', and the angular X coordinate is not always pitch. Especially when dealing with rotations, you need to be careful to transform your vectors to something that\'s meaningful to your control system and then transform them back into something the game will recognize.

(I carelessly made the Z-is-up error even though I knew better, and it took me about 30 minutes to figure out. Then, later, my SAS code worked fine until the ship rolled away from the default orientation, and suddenly it would correct for pitch by adjusting yaw. Very frustrating.)

[togfox]

dodrian - if you\'re still working on this plugin, which I still use heavily mind you despite other plugins out there, it would be handy to have a 'hover' option. So many times (in fact everytime!) I land on the Mun I end up on the side of a slope because I can\'t maintain a hover longer enough to change landing spots.

[dodrian]

dodrian - if you\'re still working on this plugin, which I still use heavily mind you despite other plugins out there, it would be handy to have a 'hover' option. So many times (in fact everytime!) I land on the Mun I end up on the side of a slope because I can\'t maintain a hover longer enough to change landing spots.

Thanks togfox, I am still working on it, though I got a bit distracted doing research for my BA dissertation :-).

I\'ll consider that for the next version, which I hope to have out later this week, it\'s certainly a cool idea.

[trbinsc]

dodrian - if you\'re still working on this plugin, which I still use heavily mind you despite other plugins out there, it would be handy to have a 'hover' option. So many times (in fact everytime!) I land on the Mun I end up on the side of a slope because I can\'t maintain a hover longer enough to change landing spots.

If you have MechJeb, you can set the vertical velocity to 0 on the translatron and it will hover for you. Make sure to deactivate the dodADA first.

[togfox]

Hmm - I do have MechJeb and translatron but I never explored those options (no documentation). I will investigate that. That said, I still prefer the dodADA landing method over MechJeb (are the bugs gone yet?) but I shall look further - thx.

[VincentMcConnell]

This kind of takes away the fun of landing on the Mun, though. About 40 percent of the required precision piloting has pretty much just been eliminated....

[trbinsc]

This kind of takes away the fun of landing on the Mun, though. About 40 percent of the required precision piloting has pretty much just been eliminated....

Using this plugin, I actually forgot how to land on the Mun without it. I\'ve since gone back to stock to get some practice.

[togfox]

Until the throttle control becomes more precise I\'ll continue to use this tool.