[1.9-1.10] Throttle Controlled Avionics

[gilflo]

Ok, thank's I'll look at that

[allista]

TCA v3.3.2 for KSP 1.2.2 (2016.12.29)

ChangeLog:

Spoiler

• Fixed ToOrbit Autopilot for ~0 inclination target orbits.
• Fixed Deorbit Autopilot for retrograde orbits.
• Improved ETA and brake time calculation in Point Navigator. Should help with overshooting problem in low gravity and with slow engines.
• Improved LandingAutopilot performance for low-thrust ships.
• Maneuver Autopilot now aborts the maneuver if no fuel left.
• Show Countdown and Thrust Duration for uncontrollable ships too.
• Various bugfixes.

 

[Charon Moloch]

Hi, your mod is great and helpful but I never saw anything about how to disable collision prevention system, not the ground collision (that too, the what is considered flat ground part), the vessel to vessel collision system.

[MaxxQ]

3 hours ago, Charon Moloch said:

Hi, your mod is great and helpful but I never saw anything about how to disable collision prevention system, not the ground collision (that too, the what is considered flat ground part), the vessel to vessel collision system.

Previous page.

[Jarin]

Hey, I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out VTOL aircraft settings. I've dug through the manual, but I must be missing something, so I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. 

I've got hovering down just fine. Can zip around KSC and land on whatever I want in various modes, terrain-follow or otherwise. But I can't for the life of me figure out how to make a VTOL craft with forward thrust engines transition to horizontal flight. It either throttles the horizontal engine to zero, or it tries to use it to hover, pointing my nose at a 45 degree angle and balancing on both the lift and thrust engines.

How do I configure it to use one set of engines to maintain vertical velocity, and another to accelerate horizontally? Is that possible? At the moment, I'm using TCA for takeoff and landing, then doing an awkward dance of switching it off and taking manual control to transition to horizontal flight.

Edit: Simple example craft for what I'm talking about

Spoiler

 

Edited December 30, 2016 by Jarin

[allista]

1 hour ago, Jarin said:

Hey, I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out VTOL aircraft settings. I've dug through the manual, but I must be missing something, so I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. 

I've got hovering down just fine. Can zip around KSC and land on whatever I want in various modes, terrain-follow or otherwise. But I can't for the life of me figure out how to make a VTOL craft with forward thrust engines transition to horizontal flight. It either throttles the horizontal engine to zero, or it tries to use it to hover, pointing my nose at a 45 degree angle and balancing on both the lift and thrust engines.

How do I configure it to use one set of engines to maintain vertical velocity, and another to accelerate horizontally? Is that possible? At the moment, I'm using TCA for takeoff and landing, then doing an awkward dance of switching it off and taking manual control to transition to horizontal flight.

Edit: Simple example craft for what I'm talking about

  Hide contents

 

There are two options.

Both require the aft engine to be set to Manual Thrust mode:

1. With this setup you can use Path navigation or Cruise Control, or Go To program. The autopilot will automatically use "manual" engines to control horizontal speed instead of pitching. Or you could just use them yourself: push "Show manual engines" and use the appropriate throttle slider.

2. You can use one action group to manually enable the aft engine to accelerate and gain enough horizontal velocity; then use another to disable VTOL engines and TCA itself. Thus you can switch to conventional airplane mode.

Edit: ah, and you can automate the latter using a simple macro.

Edited December 30, 2016 by allista

[Charon Moloch]

frankly I love pogo planes, and this mod makes them able to land

[Jarin]

I'll give that a shot, thanks! I tried using manual control, but anytime I tried to drag the throttle bar above 0%, it wouldn't actually move. That gives me the right direction to look, though.

1 hour ago, allista said:

2. You can use one action group to manually enable the aft engine to accelerate and gain enough horizontal velocity; then use another to disable VTOL engines and TCA itself. Thus you can switch to conventional airplane mode.

Edit: ah, and you can automate the latter using a simple macro.

Ooh, didn't realize you could enable/disable on an action group, where would I find that? And I'll have to look at the Macro guide again once I get the manual mode figured out.

Edit: Okay, macros are still baffling, but for the rest... success!

Spoiler

 

Edited December 30, 2016 by Jarin

[allista]

36 minutes ago, Jarin said:

I'll give that a shot, thanks! I tried using manual control, but anytime I tried to drag the throttle bar above 0%, it wouldn't actually move. That gives me the right direction to look, though.

Ooh, didn't realize you could enable/disable on an action group, where would I find that? And I'll have to look at the Macro guide again once I get the manual mode figured out.

Non-movable manual limiter means there's an autopilot engaged. Probably the Stop program which was automatically engaged after you took off to steady the ship.

The TCA is installed into every control part (cockpit, probe core, etc.), so each one will have the "Toggle TCA" action which you can assign to one of the action groups. The caveat is: if you have more than one control part you will want to add this action from each of these parts to the selected action group to ensure consistent behaviour. Because in flight there's no guarantee that there will be no switching between TCA instances if, for example, you somehow damage the ship and some parts will be destroyed. I'm probably becoming too technical here... 

[Jarin]

2 hours ago, allista said:

The TCA is installed into every control part (cockpit, probe core, etc.), so each one will have the "Toggle TCA" action which you can assign to one of the action groups.

Huh, I must have something borked in my install, since I'm not getting that option. Is this linked to every control unit inherently? Or is it specifically added to stock parts?

[allista]

5 hours ago, Jarin said:

Huh, I must have something borked in my install, since I'm not getting that option. Is this linked to every control unit inherently? Or is it specifically added to stock parts?

No, TCA is added to absolutely every part that has ModuleCommand. And it doesn't seem the install is messed up, as it usually leads to simple absence of TCA in flight, which is not the case here.

And I'm sorry for misinformation, but I have outsmarted myself here and forgot about it. I'm looking at the code now and see, the action is active in editor only for the part where TCA is enabled. This part indicates so on the context menu. But the action group you assign to it is saved in the vessel-wide configuration, and when something causes the switch off the active TCA instance, the action group is restored from it.

So, how it should work: in editor you find the part that says "TCA Active: true" in its context menu. You use it to assign the action group. The multi-part situation TCA handles by itself.

It's a shame to forget such things. But I hadn't have the time to play KSP for over a year, launching the game only to test things 

 

I know. In editor I'll add highlighting for the part with active TCA, so one won't have to click through parts to find it.

Edited December 31, 2016 by allista

[allista]

TCA v3.3.3 for KSP 1.2.2 (2017.01.04)

ChangeLog:

Spoiler

• Considerably improved Bearing Control:
  • It now uses 2-PID cascade, which is a more geneal solution. Works much better for medium to heavy crafts (Max.AA ~0.1-3 rad/s2). Very high-torque crafts (Max.AA ~10-15 rad/s2) work fine, but don't react as quickly as they possibly could.
• Implemented active gimbal handling. Now engines with gimbal capability will be using it for maneuvering.
• In Editor, added highlighting of the command part where TCA is active.
• Fixed target and orbital attitude cues calculation for Kerbol-centric orbits.

 

[gilflo]

35 minutes ago, allista said:

TCA v3.3.3 for KSP 1.2.2 (2017.01.04)

ChangeLog:

  Hide contents

• Considerably improved Bearing Control:
  • It now uses 2-PID cascade, which is a more geneal solution. Works much better for medium to heavy crafts (Max.AA ~0.1-3 rad/s2). Very high-torque crafts (Max.AA ~10-15 rad/s2) work fine, but don't react as quickly as they possibly could.
• Implemented active gimbal handling. Now engines with gimbal capability will be using it for maneuvering.
• In Editor, added highlighting of the command part where TCA is active.
• Fixed target and orbital attitude cues calculation for Kerbol-centric orbits.

 

Active Kimball handling was one of my question. Thank you for this improvement

 

[allista]

51 minutes ago, gilflo said:

Active Kimball handling was one of my question. Thank you for this improvement

Well, as it is now, it's not much. Gimbals are not disabled by TCA anymore and work as they should; while TCA is coping by deliberately not taking the resulting variations in thrust direction into account. In my tests this has no perceivable drawbacks, while maneuverability is somewhat improved; but users always manage to find a way to break things find bugs .

Edited January 4, 2017 by allista

[aluc24]

@allista , I just started using your wonderful addon. It works just fine in Sandbox. But in Career, I can't seem to understand how to unlock it. I have already unlocked Propulsion Control Module and Attitude Control Module. Still, TCA says "TCA Subsystem NOT purchased. Get it in R&D first". Have I missed something? I can't find anything in R&D that would look like a "core" module. Every pod or probe core I have says "TCA: unavailable".

What do I need to do?

[allista]

4 minutes ago, aluc24 said:

@allista , I just started using your wonderful addon. It works just fine in Sandbox. But in Career, I can't seem to understand how to unlock it. I have already unlocked Propulsion Control Module and Attitude Control Module. Still, TCA says "TCA Subsystem NOT purchased. Get it in R&D first". Have I missed something? I can't find anything in R&D that would look like a "core" module. Every pod or probe core I have says "TCA: unavailable".

What do I need to do?

From TCA config file:

Quote

TechRequired = stability

title = Throttle Controlled Avionics Subsystem

description = Upgrades ship's mainframe with TCA (tm) technology for realtime engine balancing.

You need to look for a blue box with letters "TCA" on it near the beginning of the Tech Tree. The third node through either of the two paths from the Start, if I'm not mistaken.

[aluc24]

51 minutes ago, allista said:

From TCA config file:

You need to look for a blue box with letters "TCA" on it near the beginning of the Tech Tree. The third node through either of the two paths from the Start, if I'm not mistaken.

Thank you! I somehow missed it. Unlocked it, but didn't purchase.

[aluc24]

@allista , one more question, if I may - is there any chance of using TCA with air-breathing engines? I made a craft with 4 Wheesley engines, but since their thrust response time is very slow, the TCA doesn't seem to be able to control it. Is it even possible?

[Mandella]

One possible bug, one feature request.

In Science Career mode, it appears that all the flight control elements are automatically unlocked, even though they appear in tech nodes that have not been reached yet.

And the feature request: Is it possible to make the control box pop-up vertical (rather like MechJeb)? It would fit on current 9:16 ration screens a bit better, at least on my layout. Another option would be for some sort of "mini" mode, where maybe only the currently running flight control program could be visible.

And thanks again for such a great mod -- as far as I know, your's is the only one that allows simple sub-orbital flights.

[Beetlecat]

55 minutes ago, aluc24 said:

@allista , one more question, if I may - is there any chance of using TCA with air-breathing engines? I made a craft with 4 Wheesley engines, but since their thrust response time is very slow, the TCA doesn't seem to be able to control it. Is it even possible?

I find it works fine with jet engines. Just make sure to have a high enough TWR to compensate for the response time. --or fly it very carefully!

[aluc24]

Just now, Beetlecat said:

I find it works fine with jet engines. Just make sure to have a high enough TWR to compensate for the response time. --or fly it very carefully!

Well, my total TWR is 4... It takes off just fine, TCA balances it well, but as soon as I try to change pitch or anything, the craft starts tumbling more and more, until it crashes

[Jarin]

Just now, aluc24 said:

Well, my total TWR is 4... It takes off just fine, TCA balances it well, but as soon as I try to change pitch or anything, the craft starts tumbling more and more, until it crashes

Got pictures of the craft? I've been working out the bugs in my VTOL designs recently, so I can at least see if you're tripping over one of the problems I've found a workaround for.

[aluc24]

4 minutes ago, Jarin said:

Got pictures of the craft? I've been working out the bugs in my VTOL designs recently, so I can at least see if you're tripping over one of the problems I've found a workaround for.

Sure thing. Here it is. Very basic, just for scouting mountains near KSC.

[Beetlecat]

Just now, aluc24 said:

Well, my total TWR is 4... It takes off just fine, TCA balances it well, but as soon as I try to change pitch or anything, the craft starts tumbling more and more, until it crashes

Goodness!

I've never experienced that with my jet VTOLs. The first things I would think to check are the individual engine settings (to see what TCA "mode" they are in) to determine why they would over-thrust or fail to compensate for the changed pitch. Like @Jarin said, a picture of the craft could be helpful.

Do you use any other flight assist mods, by chance? Atmosphere Autopilot was known to flip control inputs in some situations, for instance.

[aluc24]

1 minute ago, Beetlecat said:

Goodness!

I've never experienced that with my jet VTOLs. The first things I would think to check are the individual engine settings (to see what TCA "mode" they are in) to determine why they would over-thrust or fail to compensate for the changed pitch. Like @Jarin said, a picture of the craft could be helpful.

Do you use any other flight assist mods, by chance? Atmosphere Autopilot was known to flip control inputs in some situations, for instance.

I just uploaded a picture just above your post. I have Pilot's Assistant, but it is deactivated during flight with TCA.