[1.9-1.10] Throttle Controlled Avionics

Vrana · May 25, 2016

25 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

if i'm understanding you right, you're not seeing the button to turn on TCA. It generally uses the blizzy toolbar, you'll have to configure the toolbar to show the TCA button by right clicking on the little down-arrow on the toolbar.
Or it could be that if you're in career mode, you haven't unlocked any TCA functionality yet. It works like MJ2 now where features are unlocked as you progress through the tech tree.

Pretty sure there is an actual bug with this as i have seen it my games. The TCA icon shows manual only (TCA MAN) and no "control" icon. This can happen even on a ship which has previously had proper TCA control (previously as in same game, same KSP version). Never really reported it as i think somebody did so already and, if i understand correctly, its a small miracle TCA works at all in 1.1.2 since Alista hasn't yet had a chance to even try it (let alone do a proper update of the mod).

HofMaus · May 25, 2016

So I have used TCA quite a bit in sandbox mode but am now using it on Minmus with the EEP-13 - Spirit ION thruster that came as part of a Mk2 pack. I can hover manually with about 1/3 power. When I go to engage TCA while on the ground to move around and science mine, it wont lift off, the throttle goes to 100% like it usually does and the limiter bounces around 13%. I have plenty of power and plenty of fuel, just never used an ION engine (much less a 3rd party part).

KSP 1.1.2
TCA v3.1.0
Lots of other mods-

Spoiler

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Any recommendations?

Edited May 26, 2016 by HofMaus
Add additional detail.

ss8913 · May 26, 2016

7 hours ago, HofMaus said:

So I have used TCA quite a bit in sandbox mode but am now using it on Minmus with the EEP-13 - Spirit ION thruster that came as part of a Mk2 pack. I can hover manually with about 1/3 power. When I go to engage TCA while on the ground to move around and science mine, it wont lift off, the throttle goes to 100% like it usually does and the limiter bounces around 13%. I have plenty of power and plenty of fuel, just never used an ION engine (much less a 3rd party part).

KSP 1.1.2
TCA v3.1.0
Lots of other mods-

Hide contents

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Any recommendations?

You may be running into the same compatibility issues with the ion mod as I am with KSPIE. Possible anyway.

okder · May 27, 2016

On 09.05.2016 at 1:14 AM, allista said:

Noted. I'll think what I can do.

i think simple assist mode(not full autopilot) should NOT enable/disable engines and definitely SHOULD NOT touch landing gears at all.

because when doing manual landing of aircraft with vtol engines you need manually maintain proper orientation for lift, and definitely not expect to get landing gear got raised, just seconds before landing(actually i did use landing gear button for other stuff, and that stuff should not be activated again) ...

Slow speed landing assist would be very good if TCA could assist with maintaining attitude and "vertical speed" above current terrain i.e. projection of current surface speed vs terrain normal, i assume some tuning koef between attitude and vertical speed preference would be needed for player (i.e. how much precise attitude is significant over vertical speed, in most cases it's ok to lose several degree of attitude if vertical speed is too big and needs deceleration(p.s attitude can be also fixed other way through rcs/gyros/air_control_surf)), probably some type of allowed "vertical speed" curve vs real height above terrain would be also nice for such landing.

p.s. sorry for bad English, but @Speadge is right about it's worse assistant than 2.0 because now it touch stuff, which it should not touch at all, while in assist only mode.

p.s.2. difficult landing(just "land here" when above terrain 1km, but with complex vessel (parachute(already out), atmospheric engines, and rocket engines) ) also works worse than MJ, it did spend all oxidizer trying to get to good place(but place just directly below was good enough), and did crashed after that (because there was no way to slowdown enough without using rocket engine) , MJ do predicts incorrectly too, but setting 50% thrust to rocket engine did the trick(and restoring 100% later), in case of TCA this is not working(it just overrides or not counting engine).

Edited May 27, 2016 by okder

ss8913 · May 31, 2016

On 5/27/2016 at 5:52 PM, okder said:

i think simple assist mode(not full autopilot) should NOT enable/disable engines and definitely SHOULD NOT touch landing gears at all.

because when doing manual landing of aircraft with vtol engines you need manually maintain proper orientation for lift, and definitely not expect to get landing gear got raised, just seconds before landing(actually i did use landing gear button for other stuff, and that stuff should not be activated again) ...

Slow speed landing assist would be very good if TCA could assist with maintaining attitude and "vertical speed" above current terrain i.e. projection of current surface speed vs terrain normal, i assume some tuning koef between attitude and vertical speed preference would be needed for player (i.e. how much precise attitude is significant over vertical speed, in most cases it's ok to lose several degree of attitude if vertical speed is too big and needs deceleration(p.s attitude can be also fixed other way through rcs/gyros/air_control_surf)), probably some type of allowed "vertical speed" curve vs real height above terrain would be also nice for such landing.

p.s. sorry for bad English, but @Speadge is right about it's worse assistant than 2.0 because now it touch stuff, which it should not touch at all, while in assist only mode.

p.s.2. difficult landing(just "land here" when above terrain 1km, but with complex vessel (parachute(already out), atmospheric engines, and rocket engines) ) also works worse than MJ, it did spend all oxidizer trying to get to good place(but place just directly below was good enough), and did crashed after that (because there was no way to slowdown enough without using rocket engine) , MJ do predicts incorrectly too, but setting 50% thrust to rocket engine did the trick(and restoring 100% later), in case of TCA this is not working(it just overrides or not counting engine).

I agree. I want a version of this mod that goes back to the "old UI" version ... back when I first used it. Don't touch RCS, don't touch gear.. just balance thrust. It worked brilliantly back right before the last update pre-1.1, and then when it started trying to do everything, it ... completely broke for me.

Suggestion - I know you don't have access to Interstellar right now due to Linux/other issues... could you perhaps just publish an update to this mod that lets me toggle the RCS integration off? ie, have this mod completely ignore RCS and just balance thrust on the engines like I think it's trying to do with RCS off that might solve 70-80% of the problem.

FirroSeranel · May 31, 2016

1 hour ago, ss8913 said:

I agree. I want a version of this mod that goes back to the "old UI" version ... back when I first used it. Don't touch RCS, don't touch gear.. just balance thrust. It worked brilliantly back right before the last update pre-1.1, and then when it started trying to do everything, it ... completely broke for me.

Suggestion - I know you don't have access to Interstellar right now due to Linux/other issues... could you perhaps just publish an update to this mod that lets me toggle the RCS integration off? ie, have this mod completely ignore RCS and just balance thrust on the engines like I think it's trying to do with RCS off that might solve 70-80% of the problem.

I third this suggestion. I really liked this mod before it got so complex and feature-rich. The new features are really cool, and I'm -really- looking forward to the parabolic jump autopilot! I would love to be able to use it for the advanced features, but for me to be able to do that, the -basic- features need to work flawlessly, and unfortunately TCA no longer does what it set out to do in the first place: simply and reliably balance thrust to enable asymmetrical, non-axial craft designs.

If a "basic" mode is added, or some way to toggle off options like RCS and gear (it makes piloting rovers all but impossible, making gear go up and down on its own even when the mod is completely DISABLED), I'll gladly come back. Until then, I'm using a blend of Davon Throttle Controls and Diazo's Vertical Velocity Controller and Horizontal Landing Aid to get... kind of a gimped version of what TCA used to do so well. :/

Not that we don't all appreciate all the hard work! It just... seems to have forgotten how to walk, in its exuberance for learning to run and leap and fly.

Steel Dragon · May 31, 2016

I for one love the mod the way it currently is and cant wait for the next version to be released. I have a small armor of rovers / Hover pods that work great for this mod, stable flight good controls. I actually love the fact it raises and lowers the gear based on altitude to ground. Also I don't understand what your all talking about with the RCS. I disable RCS a lot (mainly to save mono) and my crafts never become unstable. I suspect some of the issues are with craft design.

FirroSeranel · May 31, 2016

13 minutes ago, Steel Dragon said:

I for one love the mod the way it currently is and cant wait for the next version to be released. I have a small armor of rovers / Hover pods that work great for this mod, stable flight good controls. I actually love the fact it raises and lowers the gear based on altitude to ground. Also I don't understand what your all talking about with the RCS. I disable RCS a lot (mainly to save mono) and my crafts never become unstable. I suspect some of the issues are with craft design.

The problem is (and I've had this happen many times), that if I'm driving a rover on the Mun say, and happen to leap off the top of a hill, and hit just above the altitude where TCA decides to raise the very slow-animated gear on its own, whether I want it to or not, often the gear can't redeploy in time before I hit the ground and destroy the rover. I'm... not sure what there is to "love" about that.

An always-on feature with no way to turn it off, that saves one single keypress, and causes potential headaches is... not really ever a good idea.

Again, very cool feature, but it needs a way to be turned OFF. As it is, it does it even when TCA as an entire -system- is turned off. Basically my rover wheels just raise and lower at random (sometimes one at a time) with this mod installed, as if they have a mind of their own. I've even had them deploy my Karibou's wheels at random during atmospheric reentry, causing it to spin out of control. Without TCA installed, rover wheels work as intended.

The other major problem I have with it at the moment is that while yes, it works fine with VTOL craft I build myself out of stock (or stock-ish) parts, when I use mod parts that are specifically designed to be VTOL craft, such as RoverDude's Karibou or Honeybadger, TCA has no idea how to handle them, and oscillates wildly out of control and crashes the ship.

Now, while you could blame RoverDude for using parts that are a single engine with two thrust nodes (which work just fine under manual control for rotation through vectoring the two nozzles separately, it's only TCA that can't handle them) to save precious, precious part count (one part that is a fuel tank, two engines, and landing gear, versus the five parts that would normally take)... to me a mod whose stated purpose is to fly VTOL craft through thrust balancing, that can't fly purpose-built VTOL craft through thrust balancing has... kind of failed at its one and only job.

In 1.0, TCA could fly a Honeybadger just fine, so something has changed from then to now that has -downgraded- the mod's key function, in favor of adding bells and whistles that aren't always needed (and to a large extent duplicate MechJeb's functions anyway).

Edited May 31, 2016 by FirroSeranel

drhay53 · May 31, 2016

Maybe I'm missing something, but why is TCA enabled when you're driving a rover?

And can't you turn off the VTOL assist in the advanced options? Just click advanced and click off VTOL assist. No more automatic landing gear.

The only way I was ever able to get MechJeb or TCA to control a karibou or honeybadger was by changing the PID settings in MechJeb. Even long ago versions of TCA were not able to handle a Karibou for me.

I find it silly to blame TCA for not being able to control RoverDude's VTOL engines when the two sides of the engine are not able to have their throttles separately controlled. The point of TCA is to Control Throttle of each point of thrust independently in order to control the torque and thrust vectors of the vessel. TCA cannot do it's job when the engine in question has multiple points of thrust on a single part which are not independently throttle controllable. Period. TCA has no way to rotate the craft about it's long axis because it controls rotation by the torque created by thrust differential. This is not something that is reasonable to blame TCA for. Ask roverdude to make the thrust on each engine independently controllable, as they should be in the first place. By definition TCA cannot control a karibou when it only has two throttle controls for 4 gimballed engines.

Now, with that said, I just slapped together a Karibou with 2 inline engines and 4 Sabre engines slapped to the sides, and now TCA flies it just fine. I set up a bunch of waypoints around KSC and it flew around just fine. Since the VTOL inline engines don't have much thrust, here's how I set it up:

2 inline VTOL's set to maneuver engines. The idea is just to use these to rotate the craft along it's long end so it can gain and kill horizontal velocity. All gimbal's turned off.

4 SABRE engines set to main engine, all gimbal's off, in closed cycle mode. These have a lot of duties as they have to handle all other axes of rotation, as well as vertical velocity. But it gets the job done.

I flew this thing on a tour of KSC and landed back on the runway, all with TCA only, and it works fine. Even landed.

Edit: tested this karibou-with-sabre's on the mun, flies around beautifully and lands perfectly.

Edited June 1, 2016 by drhay53
silly spelling of gimbal

drhay53 · June 1, 2016

I added some of the Karibou control modules with RCS to my little tester Karibou, and it is much, much more maneuverable, but still flies wonderfully. I'm not sure what's going on with the RCS issues people are seeing, as I haven't been able to reproduce.

ss8913 · June 1, 2016

The rcs issue is with certain non stock rcs systems such as those in ksp interstellar. It won't interact with them. It seems that some people like tca's current incarnation and use it the way it is, but certain combinations of mods cripple it. Having a way to toggle the various components on and off will make it usable for everyone however.

Edited June 1, 2016 by ss8913

drhay53 · June 1, 2016

My recommendation for people who are having trouble getting TCA to work as they want: commit yourself to sit down for a few hours in a sandbox game and just play with VTOL designs; play with engine modes, play with TCA settings, etc. You can see just a couple pages back that I myself was thinking something wasn't working right in TCA, and asking for help with craft designs. I just sat down and played with everything. Now it took me about 10 minutes and 2 reverts (only from running out of fuel) to get that Karibou working simply because I have a more intuitive understanding of what TCA is really doing.

You have to consider that while mechjeb is trying to control the velocity vector of the (center of mass or root part, not sure which but I think root part) using the main vessel throttle control, TCA is trying to control the overall thrust vector and torque on the craft by manually changing the thrust limiter of every engine. While some people may complain that TCA is moving towards functions that MJ already does, the reason I personally really, really want to see this move continue is that TCA is just doing it better and more efficiently IMO. I love MJ and use it extensively, but TCA is moving towards filling a lot of needs that I've had for a long time.

torque = r x F. The further the engine is from the rotation axis and the more thrust it has, the more maneuverable the craft will be with TCA.

The single more important thing I've learned with TCA, though, is this: have a lot of TWR. The more TWR you have overall, the less each engine has to do to maintain vertical velocity, and the more it can do for maneuverability and stability.

ss8913 · June 1, 2016

3 hours ago, drhay53 said:

My recommendation for people who are having trouble getting TCA to work as they want: commit yourself to sit down for a few hours in a sandbox game and just play with VTOL designs; play with engine modes, play with TCA settings, etc. You can see just a couple pages back that I myself was thinking something wasn't working right in TCA, and asking for help with craft designs. I just sat down and played with everything. Now it took me about 10 minutes and 2 reverts (only from running out of fuel) to get that Karibou working simply because I have a more intuitive understanding of what TCA is really doing.

You have to consider that while mechjeb is trying to control the velocity vector of the (center of mass or root part, not sure which but I think root part) using the main vessel throttle control, TCA is trying to control the overall thrust vector and torque on the craft by manually changing the thrust limiter of every engine. While some people may complain that TCA is moving towards functions that MJ already does, the reason I personally really, really want to see this move continue is that TCA is just doing it better and more efficiently IMO. I love MJ and use it extensively, but TCA is moving towards filling a lot of needs that I've had for a long time.

torque = r x F. The further the engine is from the rotation axis and the more thrust it has, the more maneuverable the craft will be with TCA.

The single more important thing I've learned with TCA, though, is this: have a lot of TWR. The more TWR you have overall, the less each engine has to do to maintain vertical velocity, and the more it can do for maneuverability and stability.

I have done this. TCA consistently throws exceptions every time I turn on the KSPIE RCS system, and refuses to do any thrust balancing at all when this occurs, which is what I've been posting about. The old version of TCA, and the Davon Throttle Systems mod, work with these engines and RCS as intended (by ignoring RCS and just focusing on holding attitude with the engines, which is what TCA used to do and what I want it to still do, and which I could do, if TCA would allow me to disable the RCS integration, which it does not, hence my ask). With the old TCA or currently with Davon, I can take a 700t cargo plane with a shifting CoM and therefore unbalanced-in-a-different-way-depending-on-payload VTOL engine system, take off with it and smoothly hover taxi around KSC with confidence and authority. With the new TCA, it just flips over and crashes or provides no fine control, since I have to turn off RCS to make the engines do any balancing at all.

New TCA works fine with stock engines and stock RCS. The problem is *specifically* with the propulsion systems in KSPIE, and possibly from some other mods, from what I'm seeing others posting here. Pre-new-GUI-version-of-TCA, it worked just fine with KSPIE propulsion systems.

drhay53 · June 1, 2016

5 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

I have done this. TCA consistently throws exceptions every time I turn on the KSPIE RCS system, and refuses to do any thrust balancing at all when this occurs, which is what I've been posting about. The old version of TCA, and the Davon Throttle Systems mod, work with these engines and RCS as intended (by ignoring RCS and just focusing on holding attitude with the engines, which is what TCA used to do and what I want it to still do, and which I could do, if TCA would allow me to disable the RCS integration, which it does not, hence my ask). With the old TCA or currently with Davon, I can take a 700t cargo plane with a shifting CoM and therefore unbalanced-in-a-different-way-depending-on-payload VTOL engine system, take off with it and smoothly hover taxi around KSC with confidence and authority. With the new TCA, it just flips over and crashes or provides no fine control, since I have to turn off RCS to make the engines do any balancing at all.

New TCA works fine with stock engines and stock RCS. The problem is *specifically* with the propulsion systems in KSPIE, and possibly from some other mods, from what I'm seeing others posting here. Pre-new-GUI-version-of-TCA, it worked just fine with KSPIE propulsion systems.

I apologize if you thought my post was intended for you; I feel like you're encountering an actual bug.

My post was intended for a general audience of people who, like myself a couple of weeks ago, don't quite feel like they can make a craft from scratch quickly that TCA can fly. There are a lot of people in various places complaining about TCA, thinking that their problems are related to changes in the code or something else, which are really IMO a lack of understanding of TCA that could be cleared up with some personal effort in simply experimenting in a sandbox game.

I'm glad you didn't get angry, because I really wasn't intending my post for you, as I do feel you've encountered some kind of bug somewhere.

ss8913 · June 1, 2016

1 minute ago, drhay53 said:

I apologize if you thought my post was intended for you; I feel like you're encountering an actual bug.

My post was intended for a general audience of people who, like myself a couple of weeks ago, don't quite feel like they can make a craft from scratch quickly that TCA can fly. There are a lot of people in various places complaining about TCA, thinking that their problems are related to changes in the code or something else, which are really IMO a lack of understanding of TCA that could be cleared up with some personal effort in simply experimenting in a sandbox game.

I'm glad you didn't get angry, because I really wasn't intending my post for you, as I do feel you've encountered some kind of bug somewhere.

It definitely has a learning curve For the new people out there, when I built the stock craft which doesn't hit the bug I mentioned, it works like this:

1. Add the TCA button to your blizzy toolbar
2. Build something with VTOL capability but not necessarily with the engines balanced around CoM. Make sure it has a > 1.00 TWR at Kerbin sea level of course
3. Launch it
4. Open TCA window
5. Push Advanced
6. Turn OFF the VTOL assist (really, this is one of the more confusing pieces)
7. Put T-SAS into Hold or Level mode
8. Activate VTOL engines
9. Activate TCA (push Y by default)
10. Turn on RCS
11. Throttle up. Craft should lift off smoothly and vertically without tipping, despite offset CoM from overall CoT.

drhay53 · June 1, 2016

18 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

It definitely has a learning curve For the new people out there, when I built the stock craft which doesn't hit the bug I mentioned, it works like this:

1. Add the TCA button to your blizzy toolbar
2. Build something with VTOL capability but not necessarily with the engines balanced around CoM. Make sure it has a > 1.00 TWR at Kerbin sea level of course
3. Launch it
4. Open TCA window
5. Push Advanced
6. Turn OFF the VTOL assist (really, this is one of the more confusing pieces)
7. Put T-SAS into Hold or Level mode
8. Activate VTOL engines
9. Activate TCA (push Y by default)
10. Turn on RCS
11. Throttle up. Craft should lift off smoothly and vertically without tipping, despite offset CoM from overall CoT.

I would go so far as to say that TWR should be over 1.5, or even 2, for reasons outlined in my post. As a summary, if TWR is close to 1 then all of the thrust has to be used for hovering, and there is no room to move thrust around for torque generation. And my process is a little different:

1) Have TWR > 1.5

2) enable TCA

3) Turn on the following: hover, follow terrain (+100m or so), and 'stop'

4) set full throttle

5) stage engines. TCA brings the craft to hover altitude with no horizontal velocity.

6) test the craft by adding waypoints, following route, and landing

7) play with engine modes if necessary and revert to SPH to change them for next test run

Edited June 1, 2016 by drhay53

Steel Dragon · June 1, 2016

if your having issues with the auto deploy / retract of the gear / wheels there is an easy fix. Just remove your gear from the keybinds. If you go into the binds under the gear tab just remove them and assign them to a different key. This way when the altitude is reached nothing happens as there are no parts attached to the gear hotkey that tca uses.

As for mod parts not working correctly. I dont use any stock parts realy. I use Orbital Tug, Karibou , OPT, and other mods. All of these work very well with TCA. I believe you just need to do more testing and work on craft design.

ss8913 · June 1, 2016

17 minutes ago, Steel Dragon said:

if your having issues with the auto deploy / retract of the gear / wheels there is an easy fix. Just remove your gear from the keybinds. If you go into the binds under the gear tab just remove them and assign them to a different key. This way when the altitude is reached nothing happens as there are no parts attached to the gear hotkey that tca uses.

As for mod parts not working correctly. I dont use any stock parts realy. I use Orbital Tug, Karibou , OPT, and other mods. All of these work very well with TCA. I believe you just need to do more testing and work on craft design.

I think the "VTOL helper" toggle in the advanced window will turn off the auto-gear and such as well(?)

Clanf · June 3, 2016

hey guys, a little help needed with understanding of TCA, already tried "commit yourself to sit down for a few hours in a sandbox game and just play with VTOL designs; play with engine modes, play with TCA settings, etc.", but only got major headache and zero result, and now wondering if it even possible to do what i want in current version...

what i'm trying to do - i have several VTOL side engines, several main engines on the back, i want TCA to only control VTOL engines for VTOL mode (primarily - keeping altitude/vert. velocity), but at same time i want to control main engines manually, completely separated from all this automation and to control with regular throttle buttons (ctrl/shift, while VTOL controlled with mouse in TCA menu), so i could set some minimum altitude for TCA to keep with VTOL engines, while i'm flying around on mains by myself

and no luck here, i tried every possible combination of engine modes - either all of my engines controlled by throttle, or none of my engines works at all, or VTOL engines don't work and so on... what i'm missing here?

btw, is there any complete tutorial video for latest TCA using all features? all i've seen is basic stuff when all engines used for VTOL, nothing about using engine modes for example

drhay53 · June 3, 2016

I don't think it's possible to decouple the throttle control and manually control only a certain group of engines with shift and control, no.

As for the engine modes, the manual has a pretty accurate description of what they do.

Main Engine (default): when balancing, TCA tries to maximize the thrust of these engines. In a perfectly balanced ship all Main Engines should have 100% thrust in the absence of control input. These engines are used to control vertical speed AND attitude.
Balanced Thrust: a group of engines in this mode is always balanced so that it does not generate any torque. It is mostly useful for jets-based VTOLs. These engines are used to control vertical speed.
Maneuver Engine: when balancing, TCA tries to minimize the thrust of these engines. In a perfectly balanced ship these engines produce thrust only in response to control input. These engines are used to control attitude and for translation.
Manual Control: balancing does not change the thrust of these engines, but includes them in calculations. HSC, however, may use them to change horizontal speed of the vessel.

There's also unBalanced thrust which isn't in the manual but I think it's basically balanced thrust without the balancing; obviously.

The name of Manual control is somewhat confusing; it doesn't mean you can control them with the throttle control (at least I don't think so, correct me if I'm wrong). If you're not using one of the TCA modes that controls horizontal velocity, you can find the slider for controlling their throttle value in the 'show manual engines profile" or something like that.

Some notes from me on the modes:

- be careful with balanced thrust. If too much of your craft is on balanced thrust then it won't be as maneuverable.

- be careful with maneuver engines that are jets. I've found that sometimes, especially with any time warp at all, the engines are not able to respond quickly enough to certain behavior of the craft and you can still crash.

I tend to play with the engine modes a little bit for each craft I design.

Clanf · June 4, 2016

well, it's kinda works, but other way around of how i want - VTOL engines on "balanced" or "main" and controlled by throttle (to set minimum altitude), main engines on "manual" and controlled manually by mouse in TCA menu, but... it's kinda wonky and "other way around of how i want", oh how i wish there was a bit more options...

hm, another question - how to make VA1/VS1 VTOL engines from B9 to work with TCA? as soon as i rotate engines vertically for taking off - TCA set their thrust limiter to 0 and no matter what engine mode or altitude i set - it always at zero

Edited June 4, 2016 by Clanf
add

GrimDarknight · June 4, 2016

I am having an issue using the Extendable Nuclear Engines from the Orbital utility mod with TCA's Level mode. The engines have the ability to reverse thrust without changing vessel direction. Problem is when I enable TCA's Level program it points the thrust into the ground, if I reverse the thrust TCA flips the vessel over and tries to smash into the ground again. Is there a way to get this working properly with engines of this type?

Teilnehmer · June 5, 2016

I’m trying to make regular engines work as RCS.

I’ve built a test vessel without any reaction wheels or RCS thrusters:

Spoiler

With the main engine disabled it works perfectly:

Spoiler

But when I try to execute a maneuver, problems begin.

If I enable both the main engine and the maneuver engines, it starts the main engine burn immediately, it doesn’t wait for the maneuver.

If I disable the main engine, it starts to rotate uncontrollably. I suppose, it tries to align its thrust vector to the direction of the maneuver, but with the main engine disabled there’s no thrust vector, and it fails.

What am I doing wrong?

allista · June 8, 2016

On 6/5/2016 at 8:53 AM, Teilnehmer said:

I’m trying to make regular engines work as RCS.

I’ve built a test vessel without any reaction wheels or RCS thrusters:

Reveal hidden contents

With the main engine disabled it works perfectly:

Reveal hidden contents

But when I try to execute a maneuver, problems begin.

If I enable both the main engine and the maneuver engines, it starts the main engine burn immediately, it doesn’t wait for the maneuver.

If I disable the main engine, it starts to rotate uncontrollably. I suppose, it tries to align its thrust vector to the direction of the maneuver, but with the main engine disabled there’s no thrust vector, and it fails.

What am I doing wrong?

Unfortunately, what you're trying to do is not currently possible. The reason being the way the ModuleEngines in KSP works: each engine reads the MainThrottle state independently and calculates its thrust accordingly. This means that when the throttle is down none of the engines will produce thrust, whatever TCA mode they're in. And vice-versa, when the throttle is up all engines that are not thrust-limited by TCA (maneuver engines have their limiters set to 0 by default) will be burning.

I say "currently" because in space TCA uses limiters only to balance engines, leaving throttle control for the user and other mods like MJ to handle; and when you use TCA's own maneuver autopilot it does the same: controls main throttle instead of limiters. The alternative would be to operate like TCA does on planets with AutoThrottle option enabled: main throttle goes to 100% and everything is handled by the limiters. This may be done, but would be incompatible with any other mods that execute maneuvers (RemoteTech, MechJeb, you name it).

I will think about adding such an option -- in-space AutoThrottle mode of operation -- but for now you have to have a main-throttle independent torque provider; either reaction wheel or RCS.

On 6/4/2016 at 8:37 PM, GrimDarknight said:

I am having an issue using the Extendable Nuclear Engines from the Orbital utility mod with TCA's Level mode. The engines have the ability to reverse thrust without changing vessel direction. Problem is when I enable TCA's Level program it points the thrust into the ground, if I reverse the thrust TCA flips the vessel over and tries to smash into the ground again. Is there a way to get this working properly with engines of this type?

I'm afraid not. First, the Level program does exactly what you've described: tries to always point the total thrust vector strictly downward. So when the vector changes, TCA adapts as it's supposed to. Second, if these engines use the same technique for the reverse operation as the stock ones (through a generic animation of the thrust transform, not through the ModuleEngines itself) there's no way of controlling the process or of telling the difference between a reverse and an actual vessel overturning. From TCA's point of view when you use reverse the state of engines does not change, but the direction of the thrust does suddenly.

allista · June 11, 2016

On 5/26/2016 at 0:34 AM, HofMaus said:

So I have used TCA quite a bit in sandbox mode but am now using it on Minmus with the EEP-13 - Spirit ION thruster that came as part of a Mk2 pack. I can hover manually with about 1/3 power. When I go to engage TCA while on the ground to move around and science mine, it wont lift off, the throttle goes to 100% like it usually does and the limiter bounces around 13%. I have plenty of power and plenty of fuel, just never used an ION engine (much less a 3rd party part).

KSP 1.1.2
TCA v3.1.0
Lots of other mods-

Reveal hidden contents

05/04/2016 09:58 PM <DIR> 000_Toolbar
05/04/2016 10:25 PM <DIR> 000_USITools
05/04/2016 09:58 PM <DIR> B9AnimationModules
05/20/2016 10:25 PM <DIR> B9PartSwitch
05/04/2016 09:58 PM <DIR> B9_Aerospace
05/04/2016 09:58 PM <DIR> B9_Aerospace_HX
05/04/2016 09:58 PM <DIR> B9_Aerospace_ProceduralWings
05/18/2016 07:30 PM <DIR> BoulderCo
05/20/2016 08:56 PM 225 cls_settings.dat
05/15/2016 12:20 PM <DIR> CommunityResourcePack
05/20/2016 10:25 PM <DIR> ConnectedLivingSpace
05/06/2016 09:04 PM <DIR> ContractConfigurator
05/15/2016 02:10 PM <DIR> Crowd Sourced Science
05/06/2016 02:09 PM <DIR> DatedQuickSaves
05/18/2016 07:30 PM <DIR> DMagicOrbitalScience
05/18/2016 07:30 PM <DIR> EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements
05/04/2016 10:24 PM <DIR> EVAStruts
05/04/2016 10:24 PM <DIR> EVATransfer
05/15/2016 12:20 PM <DIR> Firespitter
05/15/2016 02:17 PM <DIR> ForScience
05/04/2016 10:24 PM <DIR> Impact
05/23/2016 09:36 PM <DIR> InterstellarFuelSwitch
05/04/2016 10:24 PM <DIR> JSI
05/04/2016 10:24 PM <DIR> KerbalFlightIndicators
05/04/2016 09:58 PM <DIR> KerbalJointReinforcement
05/14/2016 10:18 PM <DIR> Kerbaltek
05/25/2016 08:37 PM <DIR> KIS
05/06/2016 10:16 AM <DIR> KronalUtils
05/25/2016 09:19 PM <DIR> KSP-AVC
05/25/2016 08:37 PM <DIR> KWRocketry
05/06/2016 02:04 PM 1,088 MagiCore-License.txt
05/06/2016 02:04 PM 14,336 MagiCore.dll
05/06/2016 02:04 PM 460 MagiCore.version
05/04/2016 09:58 PM <DIR> MechJeb2
05/04/2016 10:24 PM <DIR> MiningExpansion
05/14/2016 09:52 PM <DIR> Mk2Expansion
05/14/2016 09:52 PM <DIR> Mk3Expansion
05/20/2016 10:25 PM <DIR> ModRocketSys
05/25/2016 09:22 PM 0 mods.txt
05/19/2016 06:10 PM 62,464 ModuleManager.2.6.25.dll
05/25/2016 03:51 PM 5,011,096 ModuleManager.ConfigCache
05/25/2016 03:51 PM 541,289 ModuleManager.ConfigSHA
05/25/2016 03:51 PM 6,995 ModuleManager.Physics
05/25/2016 03:51 PM 29,997 ModuleManager.TechTree
05/04/2016 09:59 PM <DIR> REPOSoftTech
05/04/2016 10:24 PM <DIR> SCANsat
05/08/2016 08:36 PM <DIR> scatterer
05/04/2016 10:24 PM <DIR> Science-Full-reward
05/14/2016 09:52 PM <DIR> SmartParts
05/04/2016 09:59 PM <DIR> SmokeScreen
04/30/2016 09:45 PM <DIR> Squad
05/11/2016 09:23 PM <DIR> TextureReplacer
05/04/2016 10:24 PM <DIR> ThrottleControlledAvionics
05/25/2016 05:04 PM 2,987 toolbar-settings.dat
05/14/2016 09:41 PM <DIR> UbioWeldingLtd
05/15/2016 12:20 PM <DIR> UmbraSpaceIndustries
05/14/2016 09:52 PM <DIR> UniversalStorage
05/25/2016 08:37 PM <DIR> WaypointManager
05/25/2016 08:37 PM <DIR> [x] Science!

Any recommendations?

I've just checked those engines on Minmus; I used KSP-1.0.5 in that test, but since nothing in the balancing algorithm has changed between 1.0.5 and 1.1.0, the only reason for this not to work properly is the Mk2Expansion itself. Also, could you show a screenshot of your ship or share a .craft file?

[1.9-1.10] Throttle Controlled Avionics

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