[1.3](Jan28/17) Landing Aid: Kill your horizontal velocity to land (Now optionally using RCS)

[Eddlm]

Just tested it , works perfectly, although it makes that "bouncing back and forth" on the move-to-point, yes. But giving it time, it sits where's told to.

It's a great mod! I'm using it along the Landing Height mod, for sure they are great together.

It's there a way to edit the maximun pitch it's allowed to incline, or the maximun velocity it can reach?

[Diazo]

Good to hear it is working for you.

At the moment, the maximum pitch and maximum intended velocity is set by me in the code and can't be changed on the player's end.

That is mostly because I'm missing something in the Vector3 math that is causing the bounce on move-to-point and I don't want to introduce more variables until I get that sorted out.

It would not be a huge deal to add to the existing right-click on toolbar menu, but I'm worried about causing crashes, maximum tip is already 20 degrees, much more then that and the engines won't have enough vertical thrust to keep you in the air if their max thrust is only a little over a TWR of 1.0

D.

[uraa]

Great work Diazo, I became to lazy to land manually because of your mods

Any chance in some future updates to support stock toolbar or add key binding to this mod?

[Diazo]

Key binding is unlikely, no free keys left any more.

However, I've just added a stock toolbar to AGX in its last update and I intend to add stock toolbar to this mod (and all my other mods) as soon as I get some time.

D.

[uraa]

That's great news, thanx.

[linuxgurugamer]

Hi,

I just installed this via CKAN along with the vertical velocity control. In the toolbar, I can activate the Vertical Velocity Control button, but this one is not listed in the toolbar button visibility screen, so i can't seem to turn it on.

running 0.90 on windows 7 (KSP 32 bit)

This does work in another install I have. This is a new install, with minimal mods installed because I want to try this out without MechJeb being installed (there seems to be a conflict with mechjeb).

Are you aware of any incompatibilites with this?

Edit: I figured out what was wrong. CKAN put the folder RCSLandAid in the GameData folder, I moved it into the Diazo directory and it now works. I'm not sure if this is a CKAN bug or an RCSLandAid bug, can you take a look?

I can also verify that the RCSLandAid does not work with MechJeb well, when I loaded it without Mechjeb, it worked as expected. With mechjeb, the vertical velocity control works, but the RCS landing aid is wierd.

Edited December 22, 2014 by linuxgurugamer

[Diazo]

Edit: I figured out what was wrong. CKAN put the folder RCSLandAid in the GameData folder, I moved it into the Diazo directory and it now works. I'm not sure if this is a CKAN bug or an RCSLandAid bug, can you take a look?

Odd, something must have changed in how CKAN handles things. It put it in the correct folder in my tests when I added this mod to CKAN originally.

I'll look into it.

D.

edit: I got my mods messed up, this my was not added to CKAN by me (was thinking of my Vertical Velocity mod earlier) and it has a typo in the CKAN profile. Fix is done, not sure how long it will take for the fix to be seen on the users end.

Edited December 22, 2014 by Diazo

[Diazo]

Version 2.1a

Download link.

-Add Stock Toolbar support.

If Blizzy's Toolbar is not installed, the mod will display it's button on the Stock Toolbar.

Note that if Blizzy's Tooblar is installed, it will only display there, it will not display on both toolbars.

No changes to how the button works, it is the same regardless of which toolbar it is on.

D.

[uraa]

Update is working flawlessly. Thank you.

[Devric]

A really helpful mod when building planetary bases! Just click on where you want your next module and there you go. Well, almost. I don't like mods that do everything for you in a perfect way, so I really like this one where you have to do the basic work first and then you can use this for the cruical fine-tuning at the end for a precision landing. Good job!

[ultraviolet150]

Hey Diazo, great mod! I've been using it for helicopters for a while now and it works great! I have one question however. Is there a way to make it so that it continuously works while the craft is in flight near the ground and lets say i switch to a kerbal standing underneath it? It seems that as soon as I switch to another vessel the Landing Aid stops functioning for the vessel which it was activated on and which I have now switched away from.

[Diazo]

Yes, this mod will stop functioning when you switch away from the vessel as it only controls the vessel that currently has focus.

I did it this way as I thought KSP prevented you from switching away from a vessel while it is throttled up so I did not think what you are describing is possible.

Can you give me steps to replicate so I can look into it?

D.

[ultraviolet150]

Yes, this mod will stop functioning when you switch away from the vessel as it only controls the vessel that currently has focus.

I did it this way as I thought KSP prevented you from switching away from a vessel while it is throttled up so I did not think what you are describing is possible.

Can you give me steps to replicate so I can look into it?

D.

Firstly thanks for the speedy response!

I'm using the helicopter from the KSOS pack, but in theory any rocket/vertical takeoff vehicle should work.

Basically I use this mod in conjunction with your AVVaAC mod. I get the heli to hover on the spot with that mod and use Landing Aid to stop the heli from drifting around too much. What I would like to accomplish is having the heli hover about 5-10m from the ground with the KAS winch dangling from it so that I can use a kerbal on the ground to attach the winch to some cargo I'd like to transport. So now once AVVaAC and Landing Aid are both configured and I have my heli hovering brilliantly in one spot, I either switch to a kerbal on the ground or EVA one of the crew to attend to the connecting of the winch to the cargo. The moment I switch to the kerbal (which is about 5-10m from the heli) It seems as though Landing Aid stops functioning and the heli slowly wobbles out of control.

It's true that you could never switch vessels while throttled up, but it seems as though now you can (think its a change from 0.24 or 0.25)

I need to confirm if your Automate vertical velocity and altitude control mod remains functional when switching away from the craft. will do some testing and let you know.

It would be amazing if these mods were configured per vessel and not only for the active vessel, that way i could potentially have a hovering vehicle overhead while i attend to other tasks on the ground.

Cheers!

[Diazo]

First, my vertical velocity mod will also stop updating when you switch away from the vessel as it is programmed the same way in that it only controls the active vessel.

However, if you can now switch away as you are describing, that means an update is warranted.

I'll have to think on this.

D.

[ultraviolet150]

First, my vertical velocity mod will also stop updating when you switch away from the vessel as it is programmed the same way in that it only controls the active vessel.

However, if you can now switch away as you are describing, that means an update is warranted.

I'll have to think on this.

D.

Yeeeesssssss! *air punch*

[politas]

CKAN seems to have two entries for this mod, now - "Landing Aid" and "Horizontal Landing Aid". Only "Landing Aid" shows the GitHub repo, does that mean that is the CKAN entry you added, Diazo?

[Diazo]

Thank you for catching that.

"Horizontal Landing Aid" is in fact incorrect as it was automatically created by the bot and will install to the wrong location and so not work. (I've sent a request in to fix.)

"Landing Aid" is the correct version and that one will install correctly.

D.

[politas]

Thank you for catching that.

"Horizontal Landing Aid" is in fact incorrect as it was automatically created by the bot and will install to the wrong location and so not work. (I've sent a request in to fix.)

"Landing Aid" is the correct version and that one will install correctly.

D.

And now we're down to just the one entry, and it's been renamed to "Horizontal Landing Aid", as far as I can tell. I'm absolutely certain I had "Landing Aid" installed, but now I have "Horizontal Landing Aid", and there's no "Landing Aid". Just mentioning this so people don't go crazy searching for a CKAN entry that no longer exists.

[Diazo]

Ugh, thought I'd updated that.

Thank you for catching that.

But yes, Landing Aid was a poor choice of title originally as landing with only this mod would result in lithobraking. (boom!)

Changed the name to indicate that this mod controls your horizontal velocity only.

D.

[linuxgurugamer]

Diazo,

First, thank you for a great mod, I couldn't land without it.

Now, I have one (very minor) request. When I click the button, it turns blue/red. It doesn't matter if it is actually engaged or not (ie: if I am too high it is inactive). Would it be possible to have some sort of visual indication (maybe flashing the button) that while it is engaged, it is not active?

[Diazo]

That is actually a good idea, I have a new version coming soon that will enable this mod to function on a nearby vessel that doesn't have focus (skycranes!) and I'll do something along those lines then.

D.

[linuxgurugamer]

Question: I have a ship with mechjeb and a pilot on board. The pilot has no xp, so when I turn on SAS, it doesn't show any of the icons to the left of the navball (maybe this is my problem?)

I turn off mechjeb, but this doesn't seem to work. What do I need on the ship to make this work properly (I'm assuming I have a mistake somewhere).

Thanks in advance

[Diazo]

I'm going to say the lack of SAS is the problem.

This mod works by hijacking the SAS system and inputting it's own commands. If there is no SAS system this mod will do nothing.

I did not actually test this mod with early career when I did the 0.90 version so I am not aware of all the gotchas yet, but this mod is next on the update list so I'll see what I can do.

D.

[linuxgurugamer]

I'm going to say the lack of SAS is the problem.

This mod works by hijacking the SAS system and inputting it's own commands. If there is no SAS system this mod will do nothing.

I did not actually test this mod with early career when I did the 0.90 version so I am not aware of all the gotchas yet, but this mod is next on the update list so I'll see what I can do.

D.

:-(

Ok. Then it's my bad for not making sure the ship has SAS. I wonder if I can edit the save file to add SAS to this ship, for the duration of this mission only.

[linuxgurugamer]

:-(

Ok. Then it's my bad for not making sure the ship has SAS. I wonder if I can edit the save file to add SAS to this ship, for the duration of this mission only.

The ship DID have SAS, I just didn't have it turned on.

As I put in the other thread (for the vertical velocity control), it IS working, as long as MechJeb is off and SAS is on.