Intelligent Atmospheric Autopilot (PLUGIN)

[MaverickSawyer]

I was recently making a flight with a high-performance airplane (basically a spaceplane sans rockets and oxidizer) to the northern pole of Kerbin, when Mechjeb lost control as I tried to make a turn near the pole. Turns out, Mechjeb seems to be woefully ignorant of banked turns, which caused the plane to stray too far beyond its safe envelope of flight and depart from controlled flight. This is just the latest addition to the list of issues that I've encountered while using Mechjeb on spaceplanes. Once you're clear of the atmosphere, it's wonderful, but it's when flying in the thick air that Mechjeb just breaks down.

Does anyone have the coding chops to tackle a decent atmospheric autopilot like the ones in use in real life? I'd love to see a truly intelligent autopilot that can regulate your pitch to control your vertical speed, the throttle to control your airspeed (and be able to compensate for the lag time on air breathing engines), a bank controller to help hold wings level, and honest to god banking turns while performing turns. Maybe even set an altitude hold that ties into the climb rate autopilot, bleeding off the ascent as you near your target altitude.

Finally, I know that flying manually can be a handful, even with the best designed planes. So perhaps making each autopilot mode able to be toggled independent of the others, so you can hold your wings level (roll lock) and climb to the maximum altitude your turbojets run at while building up speed for the run to orbit.

I hope someone can take this challenge on, as it would be a wonderful counterpart to Mechjeb.

Cheers,

MaverickSawyer

[Javster]

Attitude controls airspeed and throttle controls altitude in real life. Just so you know. Don't know how it applies to KSP.

[MaverickSawyer]

Attitude controls airspeed and throttle controls altitude in real life. Just so you know. Don't know how it applies to KSP.

I do understand that the way I described it is oversimplified for real life. However, in stock KSP aerodynamics, my experience has been that it works closer to how I have described it than it does in real life. Not sure about in FAR/NEAR.