[1.9-1.10] Throttle Controlled Avionics

[allista]

25 minutes ago, hab136 said:

Does TCA handle non-linear throttles, where for example increasing the throttle from 0-70% only increases thrust from 0-10%, but increasing the throttle from 70-100% increases the throttle from 10-100%?

(Kerbal Atomics + Near Future Electrical + optional KerbalAtomicsNFE.cfg patch makes all the nuclear engines have the above throttle/thrust curve)

This is different from jet engines, which simply take time to spin up, but 70% throttle = 70% thrust (eventually).

The non-linear throttle confuses MechJeb's landing guidance and it tends to crash, so I currently land manually with a series of burns at 100%.

Interesting question!

But first, you're mistaken in one detail: Kerbal Atomics does not change thrust per se. It changes Isp without changing the maxFuelFlow of the engine. So the thrust is limited, eventually, by fuel flow at low Isp values. I point that out because this makes things much more complicated for me

Now, I don't know if TCA will handle these well. You are welcome to try and tell me: I'm very curious!  Judging by the code it should work, because TCA updates engine stats in real time, so it will use the changed Isp curves to calculate max available thrust.

What will probably not work is TCA's evaluation of maneuver duration, as KA mechanics adds yet another layer of latency which is unavailable to TCA. So it may miss with maneuvers, which is crucial for landing.

[Bluebottle]

I love the idea behind the new UI, but, ummm, is it supposed to look like this? KSP v1.2.2, TCA v3.4.0

Edited February 7, 2017 by Bluebottle

[allista]

2 hours ago, Bluebottle said:

I love the idea behind the new UI, but, ummm, is it supposed to look like this? KSP v1.2.2, TCA v3.4.0

It is not. I'm battling with this issue right now, but fortunately there's a quick way to solve it: hide TCA UI using toolbar/applauncher button, then show it again. The positions of subwindows should be reinitialized.

Edit: and don't forget you can move the floating windows around by dragging their anchor -- the green dot.

Edited February 7, 2017 by allista

[hab136]

On 2/6/2017 at 4:48 PM, allista said:

Interesting question!

But first, you're mistaken in one detail: Kerbal Atomics does not change thrust per se. It changes Isp without changing the maxFuelFlow of the engine. So the thrust is limited, eventually, by fuel flow at low Isp values. I point that out because this makes things much more complicated for me

Now, I don't know if TCA will handle these well. You are welcome to try and tell me: I'm very curious!  Judging by the code it should work, because TCA updates engine stats in real time, so it will use the changed Isp curves to calculate max available thrust.

What will probably not work is TCA's evaluation of maneuver duration, as KA mechanics adds yet another layer of latency which is unavailable to TCA. So it may miss with maneuvers, which is crucial for landing.

Just to be sure we're in agreement... in the VAB, the stated settings for the LV-N500 are 925s ISP, 310 kN.  Right-clicking on the LV-N500 during flight shows me:

0% throttle: 925s ISP, 0.0 kN

25% throttle: 188s ISP, 20.2 kN (6.5% of 310 kN, not 25%)

75% throttle: 344s ISP, 75.1 kN (24.2% of 310 kN, not 75%)

100% throttle: 925s ISP, 310.0 kN (100% of 310 kN)

Without the patch, 25% throttle would be 25% thrust (77 kN) and 75% throttle would be 75% thrust (232 kN).

 

Anyways, I could not for the life of me figure out how to enable the landing autopilot, or anything else.  I tried it on three ships - a nuclear-powered craft, a normal LFO powered craft, and a space station.  The nuclear-powered craft only had two tabs: engine setup and settings.  The LFO craft (with the same probe core!) had one additional tab, Maneuvering, and the popup PG/RG/R+/R-/etc window.  The space station seemingly had everything, including Orbital Autopilot and a button for "land".

http://imgur.com/a/PM6bN

I have no idea why some ships are showing some options and others are not.  I don't see any feedback within the mod to tell me why an option is missing, and the manual makes no mention of requirements for any of the autopilot programs beyond "engines and/or RCS thrusters" and purchasing everything in the R&D center.  For this test, I unlocked the whole tree and bought ALL the parts in every node, and I upgraded all the buildings using the cheat menu.

I did unlock the tree after visiting the first ship, though.  Do in-flight ships get upgraded?  The manual says they do.

[Fobok]

1 hour ago, hab136 said:

I did unlock the tree after visiting the first ship, though.  Do in-flight ships get upgraded?  The manual says they do.

 

The last update added the requirement that modules be added to a ship in the VAB. Perhaps the manual hasn't been updated with this yet? 

[Bluebottle]

11 hours ago, allista said:

It is not. I'm battling with this issue right now, but fortunately there's a quick way to solve it: hide TCA UI using toolbar/applauncher button, then show it again. The positions of subwindows should be reinitialized.

Edit: and don't forget you can move the floating windows around by dragging their anchor -- the green dot.

Oh, so that's what the dot is for. I thought it was a non-clickable status indicator. As for hiding and re-showing the UI, that didn't fix the problem last night. But I might have a lot of old configuration files to delete, since I have been using TCA for ~18 months. I'll try that.

[allista]

11 hours ago, hab136 said:

Just to be sure we're in agreement... in the VAB, the stated settings for the LV-N500 are 925s ISP, 310 kN.  Right-clicking on the LV-N500 during flight shows me:

0% throttle: 925s ISP, 0.0 kN

25% throttle: 188s ISP, 20.2 kN (6.5% of 310 kN, not 25%)

75% throttle: 344s ISP, 75.1 kN (24.2% of 310 kN, not 75%)

100% throttle: 925s ISP, 310.0 kN (100% of 310 kN)

Without the patch, 25% throttle would be 25% thrust (77 kN) and 75% throttle would be 75% thrust (232 kN).

 

Anyways, I could not for the life of me figure out how to enable the landing autopilot, or anything else.  I tried it on three ships - a nuclear-powered craft, a normal LFO powered craft, and a space station.  The nuclear-powered craft only had two tabs: engine setup and settings.  The LFO craft (with the same probe core!) had one additional tab, Maneuvering, and the popup PG/RG/R+/R-/etc window.  The space station seemingly had everything, including Orbital Autopilot and a button for "land".

http://imgur.com/a/PM6bN

I have no idea why some ships are showing some options and others are not.  I don't see any feedback within the mod to tell me why an option is missing, and the manual makes no mention of requirements for any of the autopilot programs beyond "engines and/or RCS thrusters" and purchasing everything in the R&D center.  For this test, I unlocked the whole tree and bought ALL the parts in every node, and I upgraded all the buildings using the cheat menu.

I did unlock the tree after visiting the first ship, though.  Do in-flight ships get upgraded?  The manual says they do.

Yea, well, as I said, the KN patch does limit the thrust in the way you described, eventually. But not directly; rather, by limiting Isp without changing maxFuelFlow. Which is important to me.

9 hours ago, Fobok said:

The last update added the requirement that modules be added to a ship in the VAB. Perhaps the manual hasn't been updated with this yet? 

Yea, sorry for that; didn't have the time to update the manual for a while now, with all that MKS+GC business

I will update it with the next release; and also make the Status tab less confusing with this regard.

As for the change itself, I've posted a question about it here on the forum, but didn't get many responses. So I just did what I felt was right: if one has chosen to not include some subsystem into a ship, this choice should be permanent (hence more conscious) -- it's too risky to upgrade ship's core systems in flight. And ships that are already in flight will receive every module available at the time. That's why, @hab136, your first ship has less functions than the second. It was that "one last OTA".

 

[Fobok]

I, personally, like the change. It makes sense, as you wouldn't program a flight computer for functions you wouldn't need. And, it helps clear interface clutter. Adds to the planning stage, specifically in a way that feels a natural part of mission planning. And, if you're not sure what you might need, there is a button to add all unlocked modules to a ship. 

[allista]

6 minutes ago, Fobok said:

I, personally, like the change. It makes sense, as you wouldn't program a flight computer for functions you wouldn't need. And, it helps clear interface clutter. Adds to the planning stage, specifically in a way that feels a natural part of mission planning. And, if you're not sure what you might need, there is a button to add all unlocked modules to a ship. 

Exactly my thoughts!

[allista]

8 hours ago, Bluebottle said:

Oh, so that's what the dot is for. I thought it was a non-clickable status indicator. As for hiding and re-showing the UI, that didn't fix the problem last night. But I might have a lot of old configuration files to delete, since I have been using TCA for ~18 months. I'll try that.

I've retested it. The problem should go as soon as you change the scenes from-to Flight.

And I have found and fixed the bug that caused it in the first place in the code today. Thanks again!

Edited February 8, 2017 by allista

[hab136]

4 hours ago, allista said:

As for the change itself, I've posted a question about it here on the forum, but didn't get many responses. So I just did what I felt was right: if one has chosen to not include some subsystem into a ship, this choice should be permanent (hence more conscious) -- it's too risky to upgrade ship's core systems in flight. And ships that are already in flight will receive every module available at the time. That's why, @hab136, your first ship has less functions than the second. It was that "one last OTA".

 

All 3 ships were in flight before I installed TCA.

I made a new save and again filled out the tech tree and bought all the parts, THEN went to my in-flight ships.  Finally, my nuclear-powered craft had landing capability, but weirdly, the LFO ship did not.  Other random LFO ships did.  I launched a bare command pod and a bare probe core from the VAB and those both had full capabilities.

From what I've gathered now, there is no actual "over-the-air" update of ships already in flight.  Whatever features are available when the ship launched are the features the ship will have forever.  Is that correct?  If so, using the term "OTA" is highly misleading.  The whole point of OTA is that it updates devices that are already deployed - things that have already left the factory and are in customers hands.

ANYWAYS, now that I could finally test, the maneuver nodes executed perfectly.  The landing, however, did not.  "not enough thrust for powered landing - performing emergency landing" It seemed to go ok for a while but then it turned on the engine too early, and left it on, eventually stopping its descent and then accelerating back upwards. "Crash is imminent.  Vertical impact speed: 85.2m/s" while I have 8 minutes of fuel left, and the ship is actually climbing 100.7 m/s upwards, and accelerating.

http://i.imgur.com/AYDClUP.png

So.. no, it doesn't work.   Oh well.

[allista]

5 minutes ago, hab136 said:

All 3 ships were in flight before I installed TCA.

I made a new save and again filled out the tech tree and bought all the parts, THEN went to my in-flight ships.  Finally, my nuclear-powered craft had landing capability, but weirdly, the LFO ship did not.  Other random LFO ships did.  I launched a bare command pod and a bare probe core from the VAB and those both had full capabilities.

From what I've gathered now, there is no actual "over-the-air" update of ships already in flight.  Whatever features are available when the ship launched are the features the ship will have forever.  Is that correct?  If so, using the term "OTA" is highly misleading.  The whole point of OTA is that it updates devices that are already deployed - things that have already left the factory and are in customers hands.

ANYWAYS, now that I could finally test, the maneuver nodes executed perfectly.  The landing, however, did not.  "not enough thrust for powered landing - performing emergency landing" It seemed to go ok for a while but then it turned on the engine too early, and left it on, eventually stopping its descent and then accelerating back upwards. "Crash is imminent.  Vertical impact speed: 85.2m/s" while I have 8 minutes of fuel left, and the ship is actually climbing 100.7 m/s upwards, and accelerating.

http://i.imgur.com/AYDClUP.png

So.. no, it doesn't work.   Oh well.

OTA updates just gone with the last version; I will update the Help soon. Sorry for misleading information in it.

Well, this is interesting. Could, please, you publish the .craft file and a list of mods that are required for it to work?

[hab136]

1 hour ago, allista said:

OTA updates just gone with the last version; I will update the Help soon. Sorry for misleading information in it.

Well, this is interesting. Could, please, you publish the .craft file and a list of mods that are required for it to work?

Ah... well then never mind the comment about OTA!

.craft and persistent.sfs file are here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pinh0w2j2s8ilys/AAA6q5nQ-w5T1NWZa4NrcDNLa?dl=0

The ship is around the Mun and named "Minfueler H2 Lander".  The craft file doesn't exactly match the actual ship because it's been crashed a few times, and repaired with KIS.

Mods:

• Cryogenic Engines
• Cryogenic Tanks (included with Cryogenic Engines and Kerbal Atomics)
• Fuel Tanks Plus
• Kerbal Atomics (be sure to install the Extras/NearFutureElectricNTRs/KerbalAtomicsNFE.cfg patch)
• Lithobrake Exploration Technologies
• Near Future Construction
• Near Future Electrical
• Near Future Solar
• RealChute Parachute Systems
• RemoteTech
• Smart Parts
• SpaceY
• SpaceY Expanded (maybe)
• Taurus HCV - 3.75 m Stock-ish Crew Pod

If you want to create your own test ship, you really only need Kerbal Atomics (with included Cryogenic Tanks and KerbalAtomicsNFE.cfg patch) and Near Future Electrical.

[allista]

2 hours ago, hab136 said:

Ah... well then never mind the comment about OTA!

.craft and persistent.sfs file are here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pinh0w2j2s8ilys/AAA6q5nQ-w5T1NWZa4NrcDNLa?dl=0

The ship is around the Mun and named "Minfueler H2 Lander".  The craft file doesn't exactly match the actual ship because it's been crashed a few times, and repaired with KIS.

Mods:

• Cryogenic Engines
• Cryogenic Tanks (included with Cryogenic Engines and Kerbal Atomics)
• Fuel Tanks Plus
• Kerbal Atomics (be sure to install the Extras/NearFutureElectricNTRs/KerbalAtomicsNFE.cfg patch)
• Lithobrake Exploration Technologies
• Near Future Construction
• Near Future Electrical
• Near Future Solar
• RealChute Parachute Systems
• RemoteTech
• Smart Parts
• SpaceY
• SpaceY Expanded (maybe)
• Taurus HCV - 3.75 m Stock-ish Crew Pod

If you want to create your own test ship, you really only need Kerbal Atomics (with included Cryogenic Tanks and KerbalAtomicsNFE.cfg patch) and Near Future Electrical.

Thanks a lot!

I'll investigate the matter.

Edited February 8, 2017 by allista

[DStaal]

BTW: I was trying to use TCA to do a landing today, and it always seemed to want to land on the other side of Minmus from the designated target landing point.  The ship was pretty much pure KPBS - there's an antenna from someplace, and NF solar panels, but otherwise straight KPBS.  (Which probably doesn't have quite enough control - only two engines, one on each end.  Though SAS was enough to keep it pointed correctly for the burns that I let it apply.  I reset back to a quicksave once it passed over the landing point.)

[allista]

8 minutes ago, DStaal said:

BTW: I was trying to use TCA to do a landing today, and it always seemed to want to land on the other side of Minmus from the designated target landing point.  The ship was pretty much pure KPBS - there's an antenna from someplace, and NF solar panels, but otherwise straight KPBS.  (Which probably doesn't have quite enough control - only two engines, one on each end.  Though SAS was enough to keep it pointed correctly for the burns that I let it apply.  I reset back to a quicksave once it passed over the landing point.)

It seems that landing autopilot is the most difficult piece of TCA so far >_<

Can you post some screenshots so I could ~reproduce the craft?

[DStaal]

Here you go:

(It was literally a re-launch of this.)

For landing, I retract the big solar wings, if that makes a difference.

Might be worth noting that there are two probe cores - on inline, and one under the backbone solar panel.  The inline is the normal 'launch/drive' configuration, but I was landing with the one under the backbone solar panel, which aligns the controls to the engine thrust direction.  ('Up' is prograde, instead of 'forward' is prograde.)

Edited February 8, 2017 by DStaal
Control direction notes.

[allista]

2 hours ago, DStaal said:

For landing, I retract the big solar wings, if that makes a difference.

Might be worth noting that there are two probe cores - on inline, and one under the backbone solar panel.  The inline is the normal 'launch/drive' configuration, but I was landing with the one under the backbone solar panel, which aligns the controls to the engine thrust direction.  ('Up' is prograde, instead of 'forward' is prograde.)

Tried it. Terrible!

But I know what's wrong with it, so will try to fix it.

Thanks for the report!

[DStaal]

No problem.   

Is there a 'just balance the thrust over the CoM for me' mode?  For a lot of the situations where the autopilots and stuff get a bit wonky, if I could just have it balance the thrust around the center of mass, I can try to do the maneuvers myself, but I can't seem to find the toggle for that.  Just give me throttle (from 0 to 'I can't balance anymore') and let my try to fly it otherwise. 

[Beetlecat]

2 hours ago, DStaal said:

No problem.   

Is there a 'just balance the thrust over the CoM for me' mode?  For a lot of the situations where the autopilots and stuff get a bit wonky, if I could just have it balance the thrust around the center of mass, I can try to do the maneuvers myself, but I can't seem to find the toggle for that.  Just give me throttle (from 0 to 'I can't balance anymore') and let my try to fly it otherwise. 

I think that's the "Level" mode -- it'll just keep the ship upright, no matter what other inputs you give it.

[danielboro]

my miner was landed using MJ to aim at the wonted site TCA to balance the trust at COM and THROTTLE and orientation was manual(aided by MJ surfec up)

i did tried a number a times to let MJ and/or TCA land it
but computer aided manual landing was the only way it didnt crase

[allista]

6 hours ago, DStaal said:

No problem.   

Is there a 'just balance the thrust over the CoM for me' mode?  For a lot of the situations where the autopilots and stuff get a bit wonky, if I could just have it balance the thrust around the center of mass, I can try to do the maneuvers myself, but I can't seem to find the toggle for that.  Just give me throttle (from 0 to 'I can't balance anymore') and let my try to fly it otherwise. 

Well, that's simple. If TCA is just Enabled, it does balance thrust all the time, no matter what. You can disable every program and function, and manually control attitude and throttle: thrust limiters will be tuned as you go. You can even set engines to "Thrust" mode so that they don't respond to pitch-roll-yaw input and just stay balanced (zero torque) all the time.

A slightly aided variant will be to use TCA's "Execute Maneuver" for your own maneuver nodes, and to use T-SAS with attitude cues...

25 minutes ago, danielboro said:

my miner was landed using MJ to aim at the wonted site TCA to balance the trust at COM and THROTTLE and orientation was manual(aided by MJ surfec up)

i did tried a number a times to let MJ and/or TCA land it
but computer aided manual landing was the only way it didnt crase

I would appreciate if you could present your case in detail so that I can learn from it and improve TCA

[danielboro]

@allista it was more a replay to @DStaal then a bug report

TCA`s auto trust  balance wer extrimly important in the landing. all attempt to manual fix it or landing whit no trust balancing ended in a crase

p.s.
IIRC i installed TCA specifically to land the miner on mun, after failing to do it whit MJ and manually

Edited February 9, 2017 by danielboro

[DStaal]

8 hours ago, Beetlecat said:

I think that's the "Level" mode -- it'll just keep the ship upright, no matter what other inputs you give it.

Not quite what I was asking for: I don't necessarily want it upright, after all.  I may need to thrust sideways.    (Or be in orbit, where 'upright' doesn't make much sense.)

4 hours ago, allista said:

Well, that's simple. If TCA is just Enabled, it does balance thrust all the time, no matter what. You can disable every program and function, and manually control attitude and throttle: thrust limiters will be tuned as you go. You can even set engines to "Thrust" mode so that they don't respond to pitch-roll-yaw input and just stay balanced (zero torque) all the time.

A slightly aided variant will be to use TCA's "Execute Maneuver" for your own maneuver nodes, and to use T-SAS with attitude cues...

Thanks.  That'll get me thinking in the correct direction.    I was aware of Execute Maneuver - but for manual landings, I can't create the maneuver nodes fast enough to fine-tune final approach.

[allista]

1 minute ago, DStaal said:

Thanks.  That'll get me thinking in the correct direction.    I was aware of Execute Maneuver - but for manual landings, I can't create the maneuver nodes fast enough to fine-tune final approach.

Create deorbit maneuver that will get you to the vicinity of the target.

Then make a macro to enable altitude control and navigation to the target.

If you guess the landing trajectory well, it will be almost autopilot-style landing.