FAR/P-Wing Sub-plugin request

[horndgmium]

Yo, so I've been struggling with reentering with space planes lately. This is more due to the fact that reentering causes high dynamic pressure, causing smaller control deflections to make g-loading jumps that tear my plane apart. I do not have a joystick, obviously, which makes it rather difficult to deflect in small amounts. This would be largely based on the keyboard pilots then.

I was wondering if someone could make a plugin that is a slider bar and allows for modification of control surface deflection maximums. I think it would be nice to be able to control by groups (such as elevators, ailerons, and verts) or control surfaces as a whole. The slider would act in such a way that it starts in the middle allowing for normal deflection amounts. If you drag it to the left, deflections decrease linearly to zero. If you drag it to the right, deflections increase to whatever the surface maximum is.

One more thing... it might also be useful to have an option to differentiate between positive and negative deflection, such that you could set negative deflection to 0 or something, thus allowing yourself to only pitch up. IDK if this part sounds good, but just a thought.

Hopefully, someone who works on those mods will see this. If not, I'd love some feedback about it. I may end up attempting to make such a mod.

[Alshain]

Yo, so I've been struggling with reentering with space planes lately. This is more due to the fact that reentering causes high dynamic pressure, causing smaller control deflections to make g-loading jumps that tear my plane apart. I do not have a joystick, obviously, which makes it rather difficult to deflect in small amounts. This would be largely based on the keyboard pilots then.

I was wondering if someone could make a plugin that is a slider bar and allows for modification of control surface deflection maximums. I think it would be nice to be able to control by groups (such as elevators, ailerons, and verts) or control surfaces as a whole. The slider would act in such a way that it starts in the middle allowing for normal deflection amounts. If you drag it to the left, deflections decrease linearly to zero. If you drag it to the right, deflections increase to whatever the surface maximum is.

One more thing... it might also be useful to have an option to differentiate between positive and negative deflection, such that you could set negative deflection to 0 or something, thus allowing yourself to only pitch up. IDK if this part sounds good, but just a thought.

Hopefully, someone who works on those mods will see this. If not, I'd love some feedback about it. I may end up attempting to make such a mod.

You know that slider bar is in FAR, right? Right click a control surface in the VAB and yes, it can be negative.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Alshain

[horndgmium]

Apparently you misunderstood the reasoning behind this post. Reentry does not occur in the SPH. It is in the atmosphere. I do not want huge deflections of control surface for reentry, only achieving orbit. I would like to change the maximum deflection angle for different parts of the flight. Better?

Edited November 21, 2014 by horndgmium

[Alshain]

Apparently you misunderstood the reasoning behind this post. Reentry does not occur in the SPH. It is in the atmosphere. I do not want huge deflections of control surface for reentry, only achieving orbit. I would like to change the maximum deflection angle for different parts of the flight. Better?

Yes better, but I think what you are looking for is Flaps and Spoilers, also available in FAR. These will allow you to alter the control surface deflection in flight (via Action Groups). For the purposes of the game, the only difference between Flaps and Spoilers is whether you want staged deployment (Flaps) or single deployment (Spoilers) and also what the default deployment direction is. You can set their deflection value to negative to reverse it, so Spoilers can act like single deployment Flaps if that is what you want (this allows you to make air brakes).

All that said, I'm not sure I follow your logic. Most people want full deflection on re-entry to slow the plane down faster. If all you want is fine controls, hit the Caps Lock Key, that's not even FAR, that is Stock KSP. The little arrows in the bottom left corner turn blue to indicate fine controls are turned on. It's not the best indicator, but it's what we have.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Alshain

[horndgmium]

Well I use air brakes to slow down during actual reentry, but the problem arises when I'm still moving at supersonic speeds at low altitudes. Turning becomes cumbersome with a keyboard because small taps cause g-loading becomes excessive with such a high air density/speed ratio. And then aerodynamic failures happen. I guess this may be a design flaw of my craft, but I tend to not use flaps (at least for SSTOs) because they're almost all delta winged. Spoilers are my go to for reentry, I just mount them on the top and bottom of the wings and it works okay. But that's sort of irrelevant.

I actually didn't know about the caps-lock controls so it'll be useful to have fine controls though.

All I'm saying here is that I'd like a slider bar to adjust maximum deflection angles mid flight, in a way that let's you adjust all control surfaces (or specific groups) more quickly, on the fly.

It's just simpler in my opinion. You'd be able to respond quickly to things going wrong by just sliding the bar. Say you needed some more deflection at 25km on jets still because your wings aren't producing enough lift? Increase the maximum angle, and then change it back if you don't need it anymore.

[Alshain]

Well I use air brakes to slow down during actual reentry, but the problem arises when I'm still moving at supersonic speeds at low altitudes. Turning becomes cumbersome with a keyboard because small taps cause g-loading becomes excessive with such a high air density/speed ratio. And then aerodynamic failures happen. I guess this may be a design flaw of my craft, but I tend to not use flaps (at least for SSTOs) because they're almost all delta winged. Spoilers are my go to for reentry, I just mount them on the top and bottom of the wings and it works okay. But that's sort of irrelevant.

I actually didn't know about the caps-lock controls so it'll be useful to have fine controls though.

All I'm saying here is that I'd like a slider bar to adjust maximum deflection angles mid flight, in a way that let's you adjust all control surfaces (or specific groups) more quickly, on the fly.

It's just simpler in my opinion. You'd be able to respond quickly to things going wrong by just sliding the bar. Say you needed some more deflection at 25km on jets still because your wings aren't producing enough lift? Increase the maximum angle, and then change it back if you don't need it anymore.

Well sure, flaps are for landing really, I just used them as a contrast. It's a bit confusing though because you can call them "Flaps" but you can have them deploy negatively and behave like "Spoilers", but the game still calls them Flaps. What compounds this is there are real world spoilers that have controled deployment to behave just like what the game/mod calls "flaps". Anyway, that seems not be the original issue.

I think the Caps Lock controls may help you a lot. Flying with a keyboard unfortunately isn't ideal. Another thing that may help you are trim controls. This would be somewhat reversed but you can alter the trim for ascension and then revert for re-entry.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Alshain

[Xaiier]

It sounds like you want the dynamic control authority provided in FAR, the last button on the GUI labelled "DCA"

It changes the maximum deflection based on velocity and you can define how much it does so in the settings.

[Alshain]

It sounds like you want the dynamic control authority provided in FAR, the last button on the GUI labelled "DCA"

It changes the maximum deflection based on velocity and you can define how much it does so in the settings.

Well that's cool, I didn't know about that one.

[horndgmium]

Well yeah, that is good to know thanks!

[Wanderfound]

DCA will definitely help you.

There are three keyboard control modes, in increasing order of precision: normal, fine (caps-lock, blue indicators), trim (alt-WASD). Run through the sequence of them as the pressure increases.

The other tricks to keyboard flying are to tap rather than hold the keys, and to watch the G-meter as much as the navball. Avoid G-spikes, and back off the controls when the G's climb too much. Wait for them to settle down before you touch the controls again.

You'd also likely find Kerbal Flight Data a useful mod. As well as many other useful things, it gives easy and clear stall and pressure monitoring: