Is there a part or plugin that allows for autopilot ascension WITH FAR?

[TeeGee]

Again, title says it all.

I'm not going to lie... I am tired of piloting my FAR launches manually. I would like to know IF there is a plugin or mod that uses a autopilot to safely and OPTIMALLY fly my rockets into orbit without me touching the controls.

In stock KSP with Mechjeb, I can just watch the magic take place and enjoy my rockets; I'd like to be able to do the same with my FAR install (since I love using FAR so much).

[NathanKell]

Optimally!?

Good luck, people write doctoral dissertations on it. It's not a solved (let alone easy!) thing to do.

For MJ ascents under FAR, however, see here.

[smart013]

Far (sic!) from beeing an expert, but i switched to FAR quite recently and i like do lay a lot of routine into mj hands. That meant i had to "master" ascents again from scratch before i could begin to use mj again. The changes that followed were:

- simpler, but more powerful rockets. Topheavy (com in front) with small fins, vernier engines for correction, procedural fairings. After some testing the paylot got way up, and it got easier to orbit (inkl. Reentry and pinpoint recovering with DR). As a matter of fact its now easier and cheaper for me than without FAR.

- in mj my new friend is the field for angle of attack, the more my rocket is not well balanced the less percentage. Since some trial and errors my rockets got good enough that i dont need this most of the time.

- no force roll. At least for me for the moment.

- ascent path by hand... Mostly starting the gravity turn around 1000m (or as soon as possible), and in a smooth curve up to 69km (for an 75km orbit)

Granted, i mostly build rather big rockets for payloads from 20 up to 300 tons payload with KW Rocketry. And since i can assure in 9 from 10 launches the return of the complete mainstage (minus boosters if needed) to ksp for a nice 97% cash return i tend to build not cheap. Lots of chutes of course, an some intense planning and construction to survive reentry and hit the waters near ksp. But now its possible again to let mj do the job without fearing too much

Edit: concerning "optimally"... my goal in career is - with or without the help of mj with ascent and/or landing - to get the payload into low kerbin orbit, deorbit the mainstage, survive the reentry and hit the waters near ksp for high cash return. As long as there is some sparefuel at the end for a short burn before impact into the water the fuel consumption is irrelevant for me. Of course you can achieve all sorts of optimum by chosing burn times, angle of attack, ascent profiles and so on. The rocket may cost 300000 funds, but since the return is 97% ... who cares?

Edited October 6, 2014 by smart013

[TeeGee]

Argh... I just hate flying rockets over and over again for ascent! It's routine and gets a little repetitve. I've gotten so good at it, I've been able to reach a stable ORBIT (85x73) with ONE BURN in FAR. (and throttle of course).

[sarbian]

Adding the optional MJ support for MJ and using the current MJ dev version helps (see my signature). An AoA limiter was added to make things easier.

[S1gmoid]

While I'm not using autopilots at this point, a well-built rocket pretty much steers itself into orbit with FAR... I usually lift off with SAS on, to avoid the high center of mass tipping over before aerodynamic forces kick in, and turn it off around 100m/s (it will usually go unstable above that). Then just turn on fine controls, and do a careful gravity turn toward East.

(Oh of course I set the thrust limiters in the VAB, and fly with pedal to the metal. I have this Excel sheet for calculating TWR and Delta-v...)

If I didn't botch the rocket design, usually my job is just looking at the thing go.

Edited October 8, 2014 by S1gmoid

[weeble]

I used to use regular MJ + FAR without too many problems. Of course every design needs to have its profile tweaked with test launches. I think I used turn start at 1km and and a turn end of like 50 km and a orbit of 100km.

But honestly like S1 said, your rocket should fly itself with a natural gravity turn. YouTube has some good videos as does Scott Manley in his interstellar quest on doing gravity turns

[Franklin]

Argh... I just hate flying rockets over and over again for ascent! It's routine and gets a little repetitve. I've gotten so good at it, I've been able to reach a stable ORBIT (85x73) with ONE BURN in FAR. (and throttle of course).

Gonna sound like I'm making a joke, but have you considered just HyperEditing past the ascent part that bores you now? I mean, if it really does bore you to the point of not wanting to do it anymore.