[1.3] Pilot Assistant: Atmospheric piloting aids - 1.13.2 (May 28)

[Guest]

Used this mod before (KSP 0.9) for a long time. With FAR.

Then updated KSP to 1.0.4 (0x86_x64, linux) With new FAR too.

I use Pilot's assistant' autopilot mode, ASAS was never reconfigured or something like that.

What I noticed in new version, is PI become very careless with pitch controls.

Like:

Pretty balanced plane, not over-controllable, just your regular transport/observation plane.

PI is set to hold altitude 5000m.

Now I set altitude 4000m without disengaging control, and click "target altitude".

What happens next is PI pulls hard on the stick (plane shudders and stall warnings lit) and then push plane into steep dive.

Another thing I wish fixed is that: When you switch VSpeed - Alt - RAlt, current value is changes to something reasonable in current situation: current value for example.

Because switching from "Hold 5000 barometric altitude" to "5000m/s VSI" causes ... undesirable effects.

[Crzyrndm]

What happens next is PI pulls hard on the stick (plane shudders and stall warnings lit) and then push plane into steep dive.

...

Because switching from "Hold 5000 barometric altitude" to "5000m/s VSI" causes ... undesirable effects.

The first is fixed and waiting on fixes for the bugs reported above. The second is NOT meant to be happening, and I don't have any replication for this so if you could provide a bit more information...

[Crzyrndm]

Pilot Assistant v1.11.4

• Fixed: Assistant vertical control compensating in the wrong direction when setpoint was changed
  
• Fixed: NRE spam on docking
  
• Fixed: Non-functional windows with multiple loaded vessels
  
• Fixed: Several settings failing to load (NOTE: Your settings will be reset, I made some breaking changes at the same time)
  
• Fixed: Loading a scene with multiple vessels will leave the active vessel selected by default
  
• Improvement: Wing leveller upgraded to a bank angle control
  
• Improvement: Vessel forward axis determined dynamically to reduce impact of wobbly joints on control accuracy
  

[toric5]

could you please publish the changes to kerbalstuff? would be very convineint for us.

[Crzyrndm]

could you please publish the changes to kerbalstuff? would be very convineint for us.

?

Version 1.11.4.1 (because...)

• Fixed: Bank angle key inputs reversed
  

[toric5]

when you update, most mod dev put the version changeling onto kerbalstuff under the changeling panel. this also gives us the changeling in the email notification. it would be nice if you could put the changeling on kerbalstuff.

[Crzyrndm]

Did not know that. Will try and remember for future versions

[Jimbimbibble]

You may have heard this suggestion before, but perhaps you can create a PID auto-tuner that sets gains based on actual flight performance. I know that the algorythm to do that is fairly common (you can buy an auto PID controller on Amazon for $20) so I bet it could be implemented in KSP. You could even have the gains float a bit in flight as it tunes itself for different speeds/altitudes.

[Crzyrndm]

You may have heard this suggestion before, but perhaps you can create a PID auto-tuner that sets gains based on actual flight performance.

If you're not already using it, Dynamic Deflection already covers making adjustments based on speed and altitude (and applies to all control systems, so it helps with SAS as well. Note to self: I should add a mach modifier as well). For the most part, that will leave you only needing to tune a vessel once.

I have no intention of writing an auto tuner for the control systems in Pilot Assistant. It's quite a bit more complex than you make it out to be:

• I can't take the same approach typically used by the auto-tuners you point out (they make a change to the setpoint and then watch how the process reacts to get the required variables)
  
• Even if I could use that approach, the result is outdated as soon as the vessel changes in any way so it would have to be used continuously. Commercial processes operate at a steady state
  
• Pilot Assistant is unique in KSP in that it uses cascaded PID controllers to maximise control smoothness and accuracy. This means the tuning code has to start almost completely from scratch, no borrowing MJ's approach
  

On top of that, capable manual tuning for most craft is a minute or so to set up (with a little experience. I realise a newer user may take a little longer/need some advice), and can be done in flight. There's not many craft that will completely fail to take off with the defaults (or atleast not many that I've flown).

[Guest]

1.11.4.1

In Roll and yaw control:

Could not edit Hdg field before did some manipulations with control - switching to bank mode and activating it

There is a typo in tooltip of Hdg button - dirction

"Zero bank" button is asking to be added to free space to the left of edit window

Unclear, what Hdg# does.

Pitch controls:

Switching mode now switches edit value, but control still could not be trusted fully - only to hold current state. Tried to kill me again.

Unclear: what RAlt does: does it scan terrain ahead or will crash heavy plane into steep mountain?

P.S.

Disengaged control, switched to pitch rate ... +4000

Throttle control:

Looks good. Well, almost. Dumps throttle to zero upon activation. Pretty handy during takeoff.

Edited July 13, 2015 by Guest

[Crzyrndm]

1.11.4.1

In Roll and yaw control:

Could not edit Hdg field before did some manipulations with control - switching to bank mode and activating it

There is a typo in tooltip of Hdg button - dirction

"Zero bank" button is asking to be added to free space to the left of edit window

Unclear, what Hdg# does.

1) fixed

2) fixed

3) zero bank button?

4) The standard Hdg control mode makes regular adjustments to the heading it is following to make sure you are pointing in the same direction as you travel around a planet. The value lock doesn't make these corrections and so you end up on a curved path unless travelling north/south or directly along the equator. To give an example, if you engaged the direction control lock at a 90 degree heading a few degrees from the south pole, your path would take you up close to the north pole at approximately the opposite point on the planet from where you started and then back to the starting point. By contrast, the value lock would have you constantly circling around the south pole

Pitch controls:

Switching mode now switches edit value, but control still could not be trusted fully - only to hold current state. Tried to kill me again.

Unclear: what RAlt does: does it scan terrain ahead or will crash heavy plane into steep mountain?

P.S.

Disengaged control, switched to pitch rate ... +4000

1) Can you elaborate please? I cannot cause anything crazy to happen just by switching modes

2) The radar altitude control does scan ahead, but it's not exactly perfect. Heavy/ponderous craft will require more clearance than an agile one

3) Pitch rate +4000? Need more information, I can't cause anything out of the ordinary to happen just by disengaging control. There is the fading pitch trim so I guess something could happen if it was in the middle of a hard pitch up/down maneuver?

Throttle control:

Looks good. Well, almost. Dumps throttle to zero upon activation. Pretty handy during takeoff.

That's it trying to smoothly adjust and having the acceleration exceed what it's commanding the craft to do (ie. it sets the speed where you engaged it and then you keep accelerating right past it). I'll give it a poke and see if I can make it a bit better

[Guest]

In Roll and yaw control:

yes, small button, that's set desired bank angle to zero.

Pitch controls:

Switching from "hold alt" with alt set to, let say 4000 to "hold VSI" usually set's vsi to current vsi, but not always, sometimes it's just stays 4000

Situation: Plane is in steady horizontal flight at 5000m at cruising speed.

I'm edit the input window to 5500 and click "target altitude". After that, AP usually do something horrible. Actually using keys to gradually change target altitude usually produces no problems.

I get around this by either using keys to gradually change target altitude, or using "Hold VSI" mode, or manually changing altitude, leveling off, and then engaging "hold altitude". In latest case, AP makes few small jerks, then holds set altitude alright.

[Guest]

That's my plane, if anyone guessing how ugly it is.

Clickable.

[Crzyrndm]

yes, small button, that's set desired bank angle to zero.

Oh, you want a button. Sounds reasonable, will add.

Switching from "hold alt" with alt set to, let say 4000 to "hold VSI" usually set's vsi to current vsi, but not always, sometimes it's just stays 4000

I want as much information on this one as you can possibly get. Logs, Module manager cache, craft files, a step by step case, pictures, video, the works. I want to know how and why this is happening because there is just no way it should exist and any such occurrence would have devastating results.

Situation: Plane is in steady horizontal flight at 5000m at cruising speed.

I'm edit the input window to 5500 and click "target altitude". After that, AP usually do something horrible. Actually using keys to gradually change target altitude usually produces no problems.

I get around this by either using keys to gradually change target altitude, or using "Hold VSI" mode, or manually changing altitude, leveling off, and then engaging "hold altitude". In latest case, AP makes few small jerks, then holds set altitude alright.

A craft file would be very useful for this one too. And a more explicit definition of "something horrible" if you could . Some instability occurring as the setpoint changes is expected but it should be just a small bump not something that would endanger the craft

[Guest]

Something horrible is pulling hard on the stick until pitch angle hits +45 degrees then diving at -60 degrees without any attempt to recover.

Damn, not shared files for a long time. What is current most popular method of sharing files without need to register?

[gilflo]

Here are some thoughts on vertical trajectory:

What could be a great would be to have the pilot assistant working as a autopilot on liner:

To leave it simple, before engaging, you select an altitude and a maximum speed. During climb, thrust is supposed to be climb thrust but it's possible to select a max thrust in percentage.

- for climb, alt selection, max speed selection and thrust selection, then the AP adjust path angle to follow these orders.

+ if you increase speed, it will lower climb angle to to follow speed at given thrust.

+ if decrease speed it's opposite - limit is stall speed

+ if you increase thrust, for same speed it will increase climb angle.

For descent you are suppose to descent a iddle thrust, so if you select a speed, the AP will adjust angle of descent.

Above 8000m it's better to climb at constant mach as indicated airspeed decrease, so it could be a good thing to have a mach button to select mach instead of IAS at high altitude. Then at constant mach for a given thrust the AP would adjust angle of climb

At selected climb altitude, AP would follow altitude and speed or mach selected and reduce thrust.

If you increase mach, it is what we want to get max mach and then climb to orbital speed, then the AP would deliver full thrust or any percentage of full thrust you have selected and mach will increase.

The VS (vertical speed) window is not often use on liners because you want always to climb at at the speed giving the best vertical speed and this speed is roughly the same for all subsonic jet engines.

Here in the game what we want is to climb as far as possible to 10-12km before building speed, so selecting a speed to reach this altitude would be easier to manage than having to adjust VS during all climb, because as you are climbing you are gaining speed and you have always to play with VS.

So the best would be, before take off, to select a max climb speed, an altitude, a thrust and let pilot assistant modulate angle of climb to follow this requirements, once it is engaged.

What would be great then, with our heating problem in high atmosphere, would be then to introduce a max heat window. Then at level altitude, to build speed, we would select a max mach in order to gain speed at given thrust, and select then orbital altitude. The system would accerate on level until one of the following parameter is reached: max mach or max heat, then it would keep corresponding mach and ajust angle of climb to keep it constant. If during climb, max heat is reached it would consider this parameter and adjust angle of climb so as not to overtake this max temp. If necessary it would also adjust thrust.

Best handling for players in vertical mode should be altitude/Raltitude window, max heat window, thrust window in percentage of max thrust, and speed window with a mach button or/and an automatic display of mach above 8 km. We can keep VS window but its interaction with all vertical modes make things more complicated.

[Guest]

Yes, I'm unable to edit bank/heading fields without activating control and switching modes several times.

Sorry, one little detail I forgot to mention: Linux Mageia 5 x64

Edited July 14, 2015 by Guest

[Crzyrndm]

...

Sounds in some ways like you want a complete ascent autopilot. That's not going to happen

Altitude control is in line to receive a dynamic VSpeed limiter, possibly alongside some new features for the other VSpeed aspects

Speed control has already had some backend work done aiming at supporting IAS/Mach as well as TAS.

I know the climb response is not necessarily the correct one, but it's unlikely the approach will change at this stage. The changes mentioned above to the VSpeed systems may or may not have an impact on this

For now atleast, thermal measures are out of scope.

@WildLynx

pastebin for text files (logs, MM cache, .craft file), I don't know about the rest. I've already fixed the cannot edit heading targets problem

[gilflo]

Would be rather a kind flight director rather than an autopilot. Climb would just be easier to handle with Thrust and climb speed rather than with, thrust, climb speed and VS.

Thermal measure was just an idea.

thank you for read and answer

[Guest]

Craft. Require KAX, RT2, ...

http://pastebin.com/CVWZviVW

MM cache is too big for pastebin. Logs overwritten since.

[rottielover]

You sir deserve some kind of award for writing this mod. Hands down the best I've used to get my planes flying while I go get a drink. Making flights to K2 or to the poles were way more tedious before this.

One minor suggestion. I think you need someone to do you up some pretty graphical documentation with screenshots or even a video with demo's on "this is how you do x" type stuff. I played around with it and got the hang of it fairly quickly due to prior flight sim experience, but some others playing this game probably not so much. And I don't know the 1/2 of what this mod can do, right now I'm using very BASIC heading controls etc.

[Guest]

This mod is great actually - flying aircraft manually from KSC all the way to the pole and back is kinda head breaking experience. Some Lindbergh experience. Especially with slow prop plane.

[Crzyrndm]

Something horrible is pulling hard on the stick until pitch angle hits +45 degrees then diving at -60 degrees without any attempt to recover.

Craft. Require KAX, RT2, ...

Had a chance to sit down a test this today. Part of the issue is probably the defaults for just about all of the controllers assuming a fairly high speed/power craft, which your prop plane is well below average for. The solution is to decrease both the maximum vertical speed (altitude controller limit), and the maximum angle of attack (VSpeed controller limit). Pulling them back to 15 m/s and 5 degrees (defaults are 50 and 15 respectively) helps enourmously.

I also see that the bump on changing target is much more violent than is really acceptable so I've made a few tweaks that should make it somewhat better. Added a new test craft to the fleet as well so I can see this happening myself in future

NOTE: I was using FAR, may not work as well in stock (although it should still be an improvement)

{
name = low speed prop
HdgBankController
{
PGain = 1
IGain = 0
DGain = 0
MinOut = -30
MaxOut = 30
ClampLower = -0.5
ClampUpper = 0.5
Scalar = 1
Ease = 0.2
}
HdgYawController
{
PGain = 0
IGain = 0
DGain = 0
MinOut = -2
MaxOut = 2
ClampLower = -0.5
ClampUpper = 0.5
Scalar = 1
Ease = 1
}
AileronController
{
PGain = 0.4
IGain = 0.08
DGain = 0.2
MinOut = -1
MaxOut = 1
ClampLower = -1
ClampUpper = 1
Scalar = 1
Ease = 1
}
RudderController
{
PGain = 0.1
IGain = 0.08
DGain = 0.05
MinOut = -1
MaxOut = 1
ClampLower = -1
ClampUpper = 1
Scalar = 1
Ease = 1
}
AltitudeController
{
PGain = 0.15
IGain = 0.01
DGain = 0
MinOut = -15
MaxOut = 15
ClampLower = 0
ClampUpper = 0
Scalar = 1
Ease = 20
}
AoAController
{
PGain = 1.5
IGain = 0.4
DGain = 2
MinOut = -5
MaxOut = 5
ClampLower = -5
ClampUpper = 5
Scalar = 1
Ease = 10
}
ElevatorController
{
PGain = 0.05
IGain = 0.01
DGain = 0.1
MinOut = -1
MaxOut = 1
ClampLower = -1
ClampUpper = 1
Scalar = 2
Ease = 1
}
SpeedController
{
PGain = 0.2
IGain = 0
DGain = 0
MinOut = -10
MaxOut = 10
ClampLower = -10
ClampUpper = 10
Scalar = 1
Ease = 10
}
AccelController
{
PGain = 0.2
IGain = 0.08
DGain = 0
MinOut = -1
MaxOut = 0
ClampLower = -1
ClampUpper = 1
Scalar = 1
Ease = 1
}
}
CraftPreset
{
name = Plane 6 SC
pilot = low speed prop
}

PIDPreset

One minor suggestion. I think you need someone to do you up some pretty graphical documentation with screenshots or even a video with demo's on "this is how you do x" type stuff. I played around with it and got the hang of it fairly quickly due to prior flight sim experience, but some others playing this game probably not so much. And I don't know the 1/2 of what this mod can do, right now I'm using very BASIC heading controls etc.

I kinda doubt you're stuck for what the mod can do, the functionality on the whole is not hugely complex. It's the configuration / making things behave where things get complicated. Some proper documentation would be nice though...

flying aircraft manually from KSC all the way to the pole and back is kinda head breaking experience.

The sort of experience that started it all...

Edited July 21, 2015 by Crzyrndm

[Guest]

Had a chance to sit down a test this today. ..

Thanks. I will use your advice.

Btw I'm FAR user too.

[Beesie]

I need some help whenever I hit the "Arm SSAS" button to level my plane it just puts in its own values at roll pitch and heading which makes my plane try to turn around on the spot it seems O.o. My Navball shows correct(sky is above, ground below) so i think its a conflict between pilot assist and FAR or something but idk