[1.9-1.10] Throttle Controlled Avionics

[allista]

BTW, I've almost fixed the Deorbit Autopilot that caused trouble in the first place. At least, this ship now lands perfectly 

[Liquid5n0w]

I am aware this is probably not a solvable problem, but I have been using ships that are powered by beamed infrared in KSPI-E, and TCA has huge trouble landing these.  I've noticed from doing maneuver nodes in the ship that it waits until t=0 before starting the burn, which is probably what it does in the final burn of landing, but waiting until touching the ground before landing is sub-optimal.  A craft file won't help because the ships rely on a beamed power station and a relay network.  Do you want my save?

Edited February 11, 2017 by Liquid5n0w

[_Astra_]

Dear allista, your mod is a true gem.

 

Can you clarify something please ? Still wondering how do i add a keyboard shortcut for a specific macro.

 

I have added some macros, but the command module show no new actions to action group editor. It is possibly to bind a key to macro ?

[allista]

1 hour ago, _Astra_ said:

Dear allista, your mod is a true gem.

Can you clarify something please ? Still wondering how do i add a keyboard shortcut for a specific macro.

I have added some macros, but the command module show no new actions to action group editor. It is possibly to bind a key to macro ?

Sorry, but that's not possible at all. The only way to run a macro is from the Macros Tab in the TCA window. The idea to attach a macro to action group is interesting, though. However, I wouldn't even know where to start with this... One thing is to add an action to execute currently selected macro; but there's no way (that I know of) to add actions at runtime.

[allista]

6 hours ago, Liquid5n0w said:

I am aware this is probably not a solvable problem, but I have been using ships that are powered by beamed infrared in KSPI-E, and TCA has huge trouble landing these.  I've noticed from doing maneuver nodes in the ship that it waits until t=0 before starting the burn, which is probably what it does in the final burn of landing, but waiting until touching the ground before landing is sub-optimal.  A craft file won't help because the ships rely on a beamed power station and a relay network.  Do you want my save?

Err... the real question is what type of engines your ship uses? The trouble you describe probably arises due to incorrect estimation of thrust/mass-flow/ect. of the engines. Throttling delay, if it exists, will also cause trouble.

So first, I need to look at the configs of the engines, so I need their names. Then I'll look into KSPIE's configs/code and see what is happening.

[_Astra_]

Quote

Sorry, but that's not possible at all. The only way to run a macro is from the Macros Tab in the TCA window. The idea to attach a macro to action group is interesting, though. However, I wouldn't even know where to start with this... One thing is to add an action to execute currently selected macro; but there's no way (that I know of) to add actions at runtime.

 

You can do it the same way as you did the engine groups (G1, G2 etc). A command module may have a predefined set of "Macros" or of profile sets (Set 1, Set 2, etc, distinguished by color if AG edtor allows setting HTML colors).

 

My craft has dozens of engines of different types. Just remembered two things:

 

1) The fenestron from Firespitter cannot be assigned to engine groups, it does not have a corresponding tab

2) Because TCA itself has a helicopter style of pilotage the horizontal cruise engines need to be assigned to Manoever, not Thrust. Setting em to Thrust always lead to a disaster.

Surprisingly I found also no way to disable the TCA main hotkey. Pressing this key by occasion in flight debalances the ship immediately.

[allista]

12 minutes ago, _Astra_ said:

 

You can do it the same way as you did the engine groups (G1, G2 etc). A command module may have a predefined set of "Macros" or of profile sets (Set 1, Set 2, etc, distinguished by color if AG edtor allows setting HTML colors).

My craft has dozens of engines of different types. Just remembered two things:

1) The fenestron from Firespitter cannot be assigned to engine groups, it does not have a corresponding tab

2) Because TCA itself has a helicopter style of pilotage the horizontal cruise engines need to be assigned to Manoever, not Thrust. Setting em to Thrust always lead to a disaster.

0) Don't quite catch your meaning. Macros Tab already has a list of ship-specific as well as global macros (if you have created any).

1) If fenestron does not has group slider in its part menu, it probably means it is powered by some module that does not inherit the stock ModuleEngines. If that's the case, TCA simply cannot see it.

2) You need to set those to Manual; thus you can control their thrust from TCA window, and any of TCA's navigation programs will use them automatically. Suggestions on better naming of the "Manual" mode are welcome! 

[_Astra_]

I meant actions in KSP AG editor, not TCA macros.

 

1) Sad news

2) Setting to manual does not work as expected, but the Manoever mode is fine. The cruise turbines are perfecly used as a surplus RCS  

[allista]

21 minutes ago, _Astra_ said:

I meant actions in KSP AG editor, not TCA macros.

 

1) Sad news

2) Setting to manual does not work as expected, but the Manoever mode is fine. The cruise turbines are perfecly used as a surplus RCS  

1) My suspicion was wrong, though. It does use the stock ModuleEngines: https://github.com/snjo/Firespitter/blob/master/Legacy Parts/Firespitter/Parts/Engine/FS_copterRotorFenestronNoFins/part.cfg

Or is it not the correct part?

2) Does not work? If so, it's a bug. What exactly happens when you set it to Manual?

[_Astra_]

1) Yes it is, there is only one part named fenestron

2)  The ship become extremely debalanced (when all engines are on, the balance percent is 82 and green, but in manual mode the balance is 79 or so).

 

There's no complaint  - the Bearing function is awesome, my only suggestion is to add some action keys to TCA profiles / macros AND to provide some way to disable the "instant TCA-off" key.

[allista]

10 minutes ago, _Astra_ said:

1) Yes it is, there is only one part named fenestron

2)  The ship become extremely debalanced (when all engines are on, the balance percent is 82 and green, but in manual mode the balance is 79 or so).

 

There's no complaint  - the Bearing function is awesome, my only suggestion is to add some action keys to TCA profiles / macros AND to provide some way to disable the "instant TCA-off" key.

1) I'll see what's wrong with it. Thanks for the info.

2) You mean in editor? It's because in Maneuver mode the cruise engine is used to balance the ship (i.e. modify torque). So to achieve comparable balance percent while using it in Manual, you need to move the highlighted engines relative to the CoM somewhat.

Well, as I said, interesting idea. But needs thinking through.

Hm... remove TCA toggle shortcut completely? Never thought someone would need this. But the option should be there, of course. Meanwhile you can edit the:

GameData/ThrottleControlledAvionics/Plugins/PluginData/ThrottleControlledAvionics/config.xml file and remove the line with "TCA_Key" in it:

<keycode name="TCAGui-TCA_Key">Y</keycode>

Or simply delete the key that is between ">" and "</".

[Liquid5n0w]

4 hours ago, allista said:

Err... the real question is what type of engines your ship uses? The trouble you describe probably arises due to incorrect estimation of thrust/mass-flow/ect. of the engines. Throttling delay, if it exists, will also cause trouble.

So first, I need to look at the configs of the engines, so I need their names. Then I'll look into KSPIE's configs/code and see what is happening.

Well the MJ powered engines don't know their thrust and ISP until they are running as it's based on available power which can change dramatically when it's beamed power.  Is based on the orientation of the ship compared to incoming beams, distance, etc.  Mechjeb can't do burns on that type of engine either.

But we should be able to solve the engines if they are locally producing power in a reliable way.  Or could you use the last observed thrust of the engines and ISP of engines instead of the thrust that is reported?

[allista]

27 minutes ago, Liquid5n0w said:

Well the MJ powered engines don't know their thrust and ISP until they are running as it's based on available power which can change dramatically when it's beamed power.  Is based on the orientation of the ship compared to incoming beams, distance, etc.  Mechjeb can't do burns on that type of engine either.

But we should be able to solve the engines if they are locally producing power in a reliable way.  Or could you use the last observed thrust of the engines and ISP of engines instead of the thrust that is reported?

If these engines are a modified version of ModuleEngines I could try to work them out. Could you name a specific part so that I could look at its config?

[Liquid5n0w]

@allista The engine i've been using lots is the FNSmallAugmentedArcjet from KSPI-E (in the warp plugin folder). In game it's called ATTILA Thruster.

Here is the cfg for the part I am looking at:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0STyNDHlUuyZm1KcUtKYlA2UVk

[allista]

2 hours ago, Liquid5n0w said:

@allista The engine i've been using lots is the FNSmallAugmentedArcjet from KSPI-E (in the warp plugin folder). In game it's called ATTILA Thruster.

Here is the cfg for the part I am looking at:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0STyNDHlUuyZm1KcUtKYlA2UVk

OK, I see. As with the KV problem, KSPIE uses the stock ModuleEnginesFX (which is fine) and an ElectricEngineControllerFX to change engine parameters. I'll look into the code of the latter and see if I can do anything...

[eLDude]

hey allista,

it is very hard for me to see if a feature is on or off on first sight.

is it possible to increase contrast between on/off a bit?

or change color / add retardedmode

 

[allista]

4 minutes ago, eLDude said:

hey allista,

it is very hard for me to see if a feature is on or off on first sight.

is it possible to increase contrast between on/off a bit?

or change color / add retardedmode

It is possible to customize colors, yes.

For that you need to add the GameData/000_AT_Utils/000_AT_Utils.user file with the following content:

StylesConfig
{
	//available colors: normal (meaning white), grey, red, dark_red, green, dark_green, yellow, dark_yellow, cyan, magenta
	EnabledButtonColor = green
	ActiveButtonColor = yellow
	InactiveButtonColor = grey
	ConfirmButtonColor = green
	AddButtonColor = green
	CloseButtonColor = red
	DangerButtonColor = red
}

And change the colors as you please. You can omit the any of the options for them to follow default style defined in corresponding .glob file.

[eLDude]

THANKS

...don't rely on users competence  

 

[allista]

30 minutes ago, eLDude said:

THANKS

...don't rely on users competence  

Well, this is intentionally not so obvious; the feature was added specifically for color-blind users, while general public is mostly happy with the defaults. So I left it without UI and provide the answer I gave you per request.

This is just like with other .glob files where tons of options and settings are "hidden"; and any of them could be overridden via corresponding .user file.

[DStaal]

Another weird oddity for you: I landed this ship on Minmus, and decided I wanted to move it ~100m.  I figured 'Hey, it's got 4 engines!  TCA should be able to do this!' - so I turned on Smart Engines, set a waypoint to where I needed it, and enabled TCA, then throttled up to get off the ground to start the trip.  At which point TCA *shut down* two of the engines, causing the ship to flip over as the thrust was unbalanced.  (It turned off two engines next to each other, not two across from each other.)  I reverted to a quicksave, and tried again - it did exactly the same thing.  This time I was ready, and manually re-activated the engines, at which point TCA flew perfectly to the location I had marked.

Major parts are USI, NFE, and Lithobrake Exploration Technologies, though I might be able to generate something slightly more stock if I'm right on what was causing it: I mentioned it was on Minmus - it was also nearly empty, in that the Kontainer it's built around was empty, and the fuel tank on top was less than 1/3 full.  This meant that the weight of the ship was *to low* to engage the suspension of the heavy-duty landing legs: It was dancing around continuously.  (Which was why I was moving it - I wanted it closer to another craft so I could fill the fuel tank with ballast...)  My guess is that the dancing and the severely tilted radial engines (I didn't check, but it's quite possible they're tilted more than 45 degrees) combined to confuse things on takeoff.

[allista]

On 2/19/2017 at 6:52 AM, DStaal said:

Another weird oddity for you: I landed this ship on Minmus, and decided I wanted to move it ~100m.  I figured 'Hey, it's got 4 engines!  TCA should be able to do this!' - so I turned on Smart Engines, set a waypoint to where I needed it, and enabled TCA, then throttled up to get off the ground to start the trip.  At which point TCA *shut down* two of the engines, causing the ship to flip over as the thrust was unbalanced.  (It turned off two engines next to each other, not two across from each other.)  I reverted to a quicksave, and tried again - it did exactly the same thing.  This time I was ready, and manually re-activated the engines, at which point TCA flew perfectly to the location I had marked.

 

Major parts are USI, NFE, and Lithobrake Exploration Technologies, though I might be able to generate something slightly more stock if I'm right on what was causing it: I mentioned it was on Minmus - it was also nearly empty, in that the Kontainer it's built around was empty, and the fuel tank on top was less than 1/3 full.  This meant that the weight of the ship was *to low* to engage the suspension of the heavy-duty landing legs: It was dancing around continuously.  (Which was why I was moving it - I wanted it closer to another craft so I could fill the fuel tank with ballast...)  My guess is that the dancing and the severely tilted radial engines (I didn't check, but it's quite possible they're tilted more than 45 degrees) combined to confuse things on takeoff.

Sorry for the delay. Too much work at work 

I see I have confused you with the Smart Engines by failing, yet again, to describe it properly in the docs.

First, I didn't mean this mode to be used for anything but orbital maneuvering. I even recorded a video about it, but never got the time to edit and publish it

Second, your guess is correct: SE works by dividing engines into a mutually exclusive groups by their thrust direction; dividing line being, obviously, +/- 45 deg, or 90 deg cones, to be precise. It then keeps enabled only one group at a time, trying to minimize rotation, or maneuver time, or fuel usage. It would "work" with VTOLs that have their (non-maneuver) engines pointed in the same direction (this having only one group); but in other cases just don't engage it unless in orbit.

[_Astra_]

On ‎11‎.‎02‎.‎2017 at 5:35 PM, allista said:

GameData/ThrottleControlledAvionics/Plugins/PluginData/ThrottleControlledAvionics/config.xml file and remove the line with "TCA_Key" in it:

<keycode name="TCAGui-TCA_Key">Y</keycode>

Or simply delete the key that is between ">" and "</".

 

Whenever i'm doing this TCA rewrites config.xml at its own. Tried twice. Y key is hardcoded into mod and is restored on game start.

[allista]

6 hours ago, _Astra_ said:

Whenever i'm doing this TCA rewrites config.xml at its own. Tried twice. Y key is hardcoded into mod and is restored on game start.

Noted. Working on it.

Edit: fixed. No when you choose the key, you have three options: ESC cancels the process; BACKSPACE sets key to None; anything else (or, on some systems only alpha-numerics) are set as the new hotkey.

Edit2: releasing new version today. The fix will be included.

Edited February 21, 2017 by allista

[_Astra_]

Supposed just a simple checkbox to Enable / Disable the main key but okay, thanks. We'll see it.

 

There is another problem: both of AutoBreak and AutoGear functions reset the Level mode to Stop upon activation on low altitudes. A large unbalanced craft would fall then.

Pretty hard to understand why Level cannot be kept active in any mode.

[allista]

2 hours ago, _Astra_ said:

There is another problem: both of AutoBreak and AutoGear functions reset the Level mode to Stop upon activation on low altitudes. A large unbalanced craft would fall then.

Pretty hard to understand why Level cannot be kept active in any mode.

AutoBreak/Gear/Chute and so on are not per se functions, just flags that are allow or forbid the use of corresponding actions by autopilots. They don't do anything by themselves.

Also, I cannot reproduce this one: just now Level stayed active throughout more than two minutes of piloting around KSC at 10m above ground.