[1.9-1.10] Throttle Controlled Avionics

[allista]

3 hours ago, Tokamak said:

Quick question, because I m ust be doing something wrong:

I'm trying to use the "land" function from orbit. I'm using the one in the "orbital autopilots" of course. I target the craft that I want to land next to, click "land", and click "start", and TCA gives the error "Target should be a vessel or waypoint". But my target _is_ a vessel. What am I missing?

Unfortunately that's a bug; I've just reproduce it.

The workaround is to start the Land program again, as the first time it creates a waypoint at vessel coordinates.

[Tokamak]

1 hour ago, allista said:

Unfortunately that's a bug; I've just reproduce it.

The workaround is to start the Land program again, as the first time it creates a waypoint at vessel coordinates.

I was unable to make that work, unfortunately. Successive attempts to use the land program, with that newly created waypoint selected, just gave the same error. Hmm. But if it's a proper bug, I probably ought to submit a bug report, with logs and everything

 

[allista]

4 hours ago, Tokamak said:

I was unable to make that work, unfortunately. Successive attempts to use the land program, with that newly created waypoint selected, just gave the same error. Hmm. But if it's a proper bug, I probably ought to submit a bug report, with logs and everything

Yeah, right, here's the issue for tracking

https://github.com/allista/ThrottleControlledAvionics/issues/98

Upd: fixed. Thanks for the report!

Edited June 20, 2020 by allista

[Pogosi]

Im loving this mod, but is there any way to toggle some of the gui elements? I mostly use tca for low level flying so have no need for the warp/maneuver panels. 

[wreckreation]

On 6/13/2020 at 9:47 PM, udayan M said:

Hi! In the past couple of day I have turned into a fan for this mod. Thank you for making this mod. But I have a question.. I have created this heavy lifter for lifting the rovers from one place to another place in the kerbin, and it works fine. But, I would like to know if I can go back during (ETA 1hr) to the space center or tracking station when this mission is continuing in autopilot. Once the heavy lifter reaches the target kerbal alarm clock pops to let me know so i can continue the mission!!!???... 

Bon Voyage might work.  I haven't tried it for flying craft myself, yet.

Please note:  I've had the game crash in the middle of piloting a vtol with TCA, and when I reload, in the second or two before TCA kicks in the aircraft loses altitude, sometimes a few hundred feet.  I imagine the same would happen when switching to an aircraft that's been moved by Bon Voyage.  So you'd likely want to make sure your aircraft has enough altitude to handle this.

[wreckreation]

Great mod!  I've got a vtol rescue/recovery craft that is basically unflyable without it.

I have a request.  In hover mode, when I type in a desired altitude the action groups associated with those number keys also get triggered.

For example, '2' toggles the downward engines on/off & '0' opens the cargo bay ramp.  So when I type '250' into the altitude widget to set my altitude at 250 meters, it also triggers the action groups to turn off my lift engines and open the cargo ramp.  Not good when you're in-flight!

So, is this something that can be fixed, or do I just have to live with it?

[allista]

20 hours ago, Pogosi said:

Im loving this mod, but is there any way to toggle some of the gui elements? I mostly use tca for low level flying so have no need for the warp/maneuver panels. 

You can disable any TCA modules in Editor while building your ship.

The warp/maneuver panel is the UI of the Maneuver Autopilot module.

7 hours ago, wreckreation said:

Great mod!  I've got a vtol rescue/recovery craft that is basically unflyable without it.

I have a request.  In hover mode, when I type in a desired altitude the action groups associated with those number keys also get triggered.

For example, '2' toggles the downward engines on/off & '0' opens the cargo bay ramp.  So when I type '250' into the altitude widget to set my altitude at 250 meters, it also triggers the action groups to turn off my lift engines and open the cargo ramp.  Not good when you're in-flight!

So, is this something that can be fixed, or do I just have to live with it?

I think this may be fixed by using the input locks properly.

Thanks for the report. Here's the issue to track:
https://github.com/allista/ThrottleControlledAvionics/issues/99

 

[M443556]

I have a craft with 4 altitude control engines and 2 that must be used for both turning and horizontal thrust:How do I setup this in TCA? If I set them to manual TCA uses them for hspeed correctly but no turning. if I set them to maneuver - they tend to do nothing at all...

Edited June 26, 2020 by M443556

[allista]

6 minutes ago, M443556 said:

I have a craft with 4 altitude control engines and 2 that must be used for both turning and horizontal thrust:

How do I setup this in TCA? If I set them to manual TCA uses them for hspeed correctly but no turning. if I set them to maneuver - they tend to do nothing at all...

Hm, interesting case.

• Balancing of the maneuver thrusters is somewhat broken at the moment; the fix is coming in the next release.
  They should work fine in this setting though -- for torque and small translations (if the RCS translation toggle is enabled in Advanced Tab).
• But for the proper horizontal thrust (for dV > 5m/s) TCA only uses thrusters in manual mode.

I should think on this. Your design is really useful. But I don't want to add any more engine modes... 

Maybe add a translation limiter into engine's PAW? But then it had to also be managed per engine group. And it is only relevant for maneuver mode.

[M443556]

6 minutes ago, allista said:

But I don't want to add any more engine modes... 

Maybe add manoeuvring capabilities to manual mode? At least if I put them in 2 different groups, so TCA can set 2 'manual thrusts' individually...

[allista]

3 minutes ago, M443556 said:

Maybe add manoeuvring capabilities to manual mode? At least if I put them in 2 different groups, so TCA can set 2 'manual thrusts' individually...

Or the opposite: remove any control over manual mode so that its title corresponds to its behaviour without exceptions.

And actuate horizontal thrust via maneuver thrusters.

I think I'll try that.

[M443556]

3 hours ago, allista said:

so that its title corresponds to its behaviour

Using slider to control engines in-flight is not that useful IMO. There must be at least some keyboard throttle control there...

[DStaal]

11 hours ago, wreckreation said:

Bon Voyage might work.  I haven't tried it for flying craft myself, yet.

Please note:  I've had the game crash in the middle of piloting a vtol with TCA, and when I reload, in the second or two before TCA kicks in the aircraft loses altitude, sometimes a few hundred feet.  I imagine the same would happen when switching to an aircraft that's been moved by Bon Voyage.  So you'd likely want to make sure your aircraft has enough altitude to handle this.

Bon Voyage requires the craft to be landed and have at least 3 wheels on the ground before it will attempt to operate.  It's explicitly for rovers.

[Tokamak]

Edit: Removed entire question. Things won't work the way you expect if "hover" is on when you didn't mean it to, especially when the altitude is set to a negative value

Edited July 1, 2020 by Tokamak

[allista]

Version 3.7.0 for Kerbal Space Program 1.9.1

Released on 2020-07-05

Maneuver Engines Reloaded

• Manual engines are no longer used for horizontal thrust, instead the maneuver engines are used.
• Added Mode of operation of maneuver engines
  • Rotation & Translation -- a maneuver engine in this (default) mode responses to both rotation and translation controls and may be used for horizontal thrust.
  • Rotation -- a maneuver engine in this mode only responses to rotation controls and is never used for horizontal thrust.
  • Translation -- a maneuver engine in this mode only responses to translation controls and may be used for horizontal thrust.
• Fixed balancing of engine profiles that have only maneuver engines active.
• Improved handling of R&T maneuver engines that provide more thrust than torque (i.e. they're more or less in line with CoM). Even if you don't set such engines to Translation mode, they won't be firing much during rotation. Such engines are also no longer switched to UnBalanced mode.
• Added two new settings to Advanced Tab:
  • Hor. Thrust switch toggles the use of translation-capable maneuver engines for horizontal thrust by on-planet navigation autopilots
  • Minimum specific horizontal thrust (which is the same as acceleration) - this number limits the use of maneuver engines for horizontal thrust by the acceleration they can produce. So if your ship has maneuver thrusters for normal rotation/translation purposes and you don't want the TCA to try to use them as horizontal thrusters, just set this limit high enough.
• Added support for Cargo Accelerators:
  • ModuleTCA now handles the ExecuteManeuverNode message, which allows it to continue maneuvers that were only partially executed by an accelerator.
• Added support for Hangar:
  • ModuleTCA now handles onLaunchedFromHangar KSPEvent and, in case of launching from fairings hangar, continues what the TCA of the previous stage was doing (e.g. the To Orbit program).
• Various bug fixes, including TCA WayPoints, Landing from orbit targeted on another vessel and more

 Download (531.02 KiB) 

Edited July 5, 2020 by allista

[allista]

And here's the demonstration of the above.

I apologize for lame ending -- was distracted by my daughter  

 

[allista]

Version 3.7.0.1 for Kerbal Space Program 1.10

Released on 2020-07-05

Compiled and tested for KSP-1.10

 Download (531.04 KiB) 

[Waltert]

Im running on Kerbal 1.8.1, so only TCA 3.6.1.

I'm having trouble understanding the different engine modes. I have this lovely plane, two lift fans, 2 vtol engines in the main body for lift. Theres also the prop at the back and 2 jet thrusters underneath (hidden) for horizontal flight. I'm looking to have it setup similar to your VTOL plane video, but I need TCA on in normal flight to balance the jets and props.

Another thing I cant work out how to do, if I use your 'jump to' autopilot, what engine mode woild I need for TCA to automatically NOT use the rear engines for liftoff, but use more of their power during the translation. All engines are using 'thrust and manuver' at the moment, but with the speed slider set to 150ms, its only doing 60, and barely using any thrust from the rear engines.

http://imgur.com/gallery/DqeQDoO

The same for a 'to orbit' from minmus, it seems to use the inefficient VTOL engines all the way up, instead of switching to the rear engines, how can I program this?

Many thanks for this mod, its amazing so far

Edited July 7, 2020 by Waltert

[allista]

1 hour ago, Waltert said:

Im running on Kerbal 1.8.1, so only TCA 3.6.1.

I'm having trouble understanding the different engine modes. I have this lovely plane, two lift fans, 2 vtol engines in the main body for lift. Theres also the prop at the back and 2 jet thrusters underneath (hidden) for horizontal flight. I'm looking to have it setup similar to your VTOL plane video, but I need TCA on in normal flight to balance the jets and props.

Another thing I cant work out how to do, if I use your 'jump to' autopilot, what engine mode woild I need for TCA to automatically NOT use the rear engines for liftoff, but use more of their power during the translation. All engines are using 'thrust and manuver' at the moment, but with the speed slider set to 150ms, its only doing 60, and barely using any thrust from the rear engines.

http://imgur.com/gallery/DqeQDoO

The same for a 'to orbit' from minmus, it seems to use the inefficient VTOL engines all the way up, instead of switching to the rear engines, how can I program this?

Many thanks for this mod, its amazing so far

1. Horizontal flight: until the latest version you'll need to set horizontal thrusters to "manual control" role. Counterintuitively, but that's the way it was.

2. 60m/s is what your plane can physically do while propelling itself by dividing vertical thrust between lift and horizontal acceleration. Enabling the usage of horizontal thrusters would help there.

3. "Jump To" is not recommended for atmosphere flight, for obvious reasons. It's made to conserve fuel on low gravity zero pressure worlds by using ballistic trajectories. Use "Go To" instead.

4. To use different engines for different situations in different roles you may set up several engine profiles from the Engineers Tab. For example, you may set up the second profile that disables props and enabled rear engines; end switch the profiles while accessing - this won't break the "To Orbit" program.

You can even make a macro that'll do this for you when appropriate conditions (say, atmosphere density) are met.

[M443556]

19 hours ago, allista said:

3. "Jump To" is not recommended for atmosphere flight, for obvious reasons. It's made to conserve fuel on low gravity zero pressure worlds by using ballistic trajectories. Use "Go To" instead.

Shouldn't ballistic flight be more fuel (and speed) effective in atmospheric environments, than hovering to target? Why do we still use ICBMs, not hover-nukes?

[allista]

2 hours ago, M443556 said:

Shouldn't ballistic flight be more fuel (and speed) effective in atmospheric environments, than hovering to target? Why do we still use ICBMs, not hover-nukes?

Fair point, but to be honest, the proper answer is a bit complex.

First of all, the reasons behind ICBMs being what they are lie... I'd say a bit away from fuel efficiency. Military have the most money of all government branches in most countries; and for ICBM it is crucial to get to the target as fast as possible, leaving as little opportunity for interception as possible.

Sure, if you don't have any atmosphere or you do have an aerodynamically good rocket and would want to go to another continent spending less time and less rocket fuel in the process, the ballistic trajectory is what you need.

But if you have high-bypass turbofans, wings and a bit more time, you would end up spending much, much less, even for the full circumference of the planet.

Gravity's a poodle (c)

[M443556]

9 minutes ago, allista said:

But if you have high-bypass turbofans, wings and a bit more time, you would end up spending much, much less, even for the full circumference of the planet.

Wings make it really complicated... I wonder if wingless pure turbofan VTOL will be more fuel-effective than a wingless ballistic rocket...

[allista]

6 minutes ago, M443556 said:

Wings make it really complicated... I wonder if wingless pure turbofan VTOL will be more fuel-effective than a wingless ballistic rocket...

Don't know; should just try it out 

[Tokamak]

Regarding hovering: Remember that the final stage of Apollo landings was to hover for a bit, with a bit of horizontal velocity, until they were above a good landing site.

[allista]

1 minute ago, Tokamak said:

Regarding hovering: Remember that the final stage of Apollo landings was to hover for a bit, with a bit of horizontal velocity, until they were above a good landing site.

That's what the Land (from orbit) does; albeit a bit more elaborate than just slide...