[1.9-1.10] Throttle Controlled Avionics

[Gordon Dry]

On 11/12/2019 at 5:08 AM, ss8913 said:

I'm guessing not, since it depends on configurable containers (core)

afaik this is not true anymore. Only AT_Utils is needed for TCA.

@allista please confirm

@allista I suggest to not use mega.nz for images. Click-and-wait for a small .png is not allright imho. Just embed them with an image hoster like imgur.

[Gordon Dry]

@allista perhaps this is old knowledge, but I wonder if it is okay that FAR just patches itself into any part that does not contain a MODULE[LaunchClamp] ...

I ask because the "dummy" TCA parts for the tech unlocks do not need

		MODULE
		{
			name = GeometryPartModule
		}
		MODULE
		{
			name = FARAeroPartModule
		}
		MODULE
		{
			name = FARPartModule
		}

or do they?

Edited November 30, 2019 by Gordon Dry

[allista]

3 hours ago, Gordon Dry said:

or do they?

They most certainly do not 

But this should not have any impact on the game, as these parts are never instantiated from prefabs and are only looked for by their names when TCA decides what modules are currently available.

3 hours ago, Gordon Dry said:

Only AT_Utils is needed for TCA.

@allista please confirm

This is both true and not:

• If you look at conventional distribution archives (read SpaceDock) there's no such thing as CC-core, and both CC and TCA depend on AT_Utils.
• But in CKAN the packages are split as follows: CC-core (contains core CC-configs only) <- AT_Utils (contains CC.dll that requires those configs, thus the dependance) <- everything else...

3 hours ago, Gordon Dry said:

Just embed them with an image hoster like imgur.

They're very inconvenient to use for such a trivial matter. With MEGA, Dropbox etc. I don't have to even open a browser; I just copy the image to a synced folder and immediately get the link. While with Imgur I have to open the tab, reauthenticate, go to the upload page, wait for the upload, copy the link... 

[allista]

Version 3.6.0 for Kerbal Space Program 1.8.1

Released on 2019-11-30

Status UI

• Added Status Panel
  • It replaces the status string that was located at the top of the main TCA window.
  • All statuses are displayed on the panel as a grid of small indicators with icons and tooltips.
  • Indicators are divided into two groups: the top row contains indicators common for all situations and is shown always; below there are indicators relevant to VTOL flight on the surface.
  • Most indicators belong to corresponding TCA modules and in career game will be missing until the backend module is installed on the ship.
  • An indicator may be in 3 different states:
    • Inactive: almost transparent. The indicator is irrelevant right now.
    • Passive: grey icon. The situation that it should indicate is not present.
    • Active: red, yellow or green (configurable); sometimes blinking; sometimes with a sound alert (can be disabled).
• Added Info Panel
  • It replaces the information pane that was located at the bottom of the main TCA window.
  • It shows any info that TCA modules need to display, like trajectory search progress.
  • Its position may be set by dragging it when it displays a message. When nothing is displayed you can open the Advanced Tab and press the InfoPanel button to display sample message.
  • As before, some messages disappear after a short time and some are displayed until you click on them.
• Show collapsed TCA window after 300ms of mouse hovering. Hide it after 500ms when mouse left its bounds. This prevents flickering when mouse accidentally passes through collapsed window.
• When the Anchor program is activated above a building, the anchor whaypoint is placed on top of that building rather than on the ground below it.
• Added progress indication for initial scans when Rendezvous Autopilot. starts to search for possible transfers.
• Do not display up/down arrow in Vertical Flight HUD for |v.speed| < 0.01
• When Rendezvous Autopilot is aborted its trajectory calculation tasks are canceled.
• Fixed "Getting control 0's position in a group with only 0 controls" exception that appeared each time TCA window was shown-on-hover.
• Fixed relative altitude and velocity calculation.

 Download 

[Dzarin]

Hello,

I didn't play ksp for some time now, so when I started playing some time ago I was very excited to see that you add orbital autopilot to TCA, especially auto Land mod.

Everything is working perfectly, except for the Land autopilot. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, but it doesn't do anything at all.

When I select the target, press Land then press Start, the message just pops out: ¨Testing aerobrakes¨ .. and then it doesnt do anything at all

I've tried it when i was already deorbiting, there is a notification: ¨Already deorbiting. Trying to correct course and land.¨ and then it does exactly nothing.

Are there some settings i need to set before i attempt to do this? Or is it just broken at the moment?

[allista]

10 hours ago, Dzarin said:

Hello,

I didn't play ksp for some time now, so when I started playing some time ago I was very excited to see that you add orbital autopilot to TCA, especially auto Land mod.

Everything is working perfectly, except for the Land autopilot. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, but it doesn't do anything at all.

When I select the target, press Land then press Start, the message just pops out: ¨Testing aerobrakes¨ .. and then it doesnt do anything at all

I've tried it when i was already deorbiting, there is a notification: ¨Already deorbiting. Trying to correct course and land.¨ and then it does exactly nothing.

Are there some settings i need to set before i attempt to do this? Or is it just broken at the moment?

What you describe does sound like a bug, so I'll need a bit more info to dig into it.

Preferably a Player.log after you tried it and it didn't work, and if I don't find anything there, a save file with the list of mods (preferably .ckan) to reproduce the issue.

[allista]

@Dzarin here, see for yourself

 

[allista]

Version 3.6.1 for Kerbal Space Program 1.8.1

Released on 2019-12-21

• Added RCS Rotation option (Advanced Tab) to disable the use of RCS for attitude control. Sometimes you have enough control authority from reaction wheels and only want to use RCS as thrusters for translation.
• When using Bearing Control or Cruise mode the Forward Direction is shown even if the main window is collapsed
• Fixed attitude control in orbit for vessels without engines
• Various small fixes

 Download 

[Dzarin]

On 12/21/2019 at 10:42 PM, allista said:

What you describe does sound like a bug, so I'll need a bit more info to dig into it.

Preferably a Player.log after you tried it and it didn't work, and if I don't find anything there, a save file with the list of mods (preferably .ckan) to reproduce the issue.

Well i don't know what you changed in the last update, but its working now! Only issue i have now is that the autoland fuction slams the ground at some 15m/s. 

It seems to me, that the autopilot will take in account the ground altitude of selected target location, but when you want to land on some planet with atmosphere and landing location changes with the aerodynamic forces, that it will not take account of the ground level of tne new landing location. I only tested it so far, when i was trying to land on KSC. I Will try some other scenarios today and let you now.

[salajander]

Hi there,

If an engine fails while using the To Orbit autopilot, TCA will immediately stage, even if there are other working engines in the stage where the failure occured.

I'm playing with Kerbalism, which among other things simulates engine reliability. This means that engines have a MTBF rating, and a limited number of ignitions. Most launch engines (at standard reliability) have MTBFs of around 5 minutes, so failures, while rare, aren't unheard of.

Also, it would be nice if TCA had an option to limit re-ignitions when coasting to apoapsis - currently it will pulse the engines now and then to keep the Ap at the right altitude, which will use up remaining ignitions.

One more thing - I can't seem to input a negative inclination, either by typing directly or using the -5/+5 buttons. Nor can I fake it by using, say, 354º to get -6º

[salajander]

2 hours ago, salajander said:

One more thing - I can't seem to input a negative inclination, either by typing directly or using the -5/+5 buttons. Nor can I fake it by using, say, 354º to get -6º

Now that I've Read The Fine Manual:

Quote

Ascending/Descending Node switch defines the type of the orbit node located above the starting point. I.e. AN orbits start to the North of the equator, and DN start to the South.

I guess I set inclination to 6 and select Descending Node.

[salajander]

On 12/28/2019 at 3:00 PM, salajander said:

If an engine fails while using the To Orbit autopilot, TCA will immediately stage, even if there are other working engines in the stage where the failure occured.

I've seen the AutoStage option, but I still believe there's a bug here, because it will stage if _any_ engine has a flameout, even if there are others still working.

[SILT]

While I love this Mod, I have an issue, which might be due to my ignorance or a bug: 
Sometimes the orbital autopilot decides to get the Ap to ~10km and then falls back down

 

[allista]

3 hours ago, SILT said:

While I love this Mod, I have an issue, which might be due to my ignorance or a bug: 
Sometimes the orbital autopilot decides to get the Ap to ~10km and then falls back down

Hi, could you explain in more detail? Some screenshots may also help to understand the situation.

[allista]

On 12/28/2019 at 11:00 PM, salajander said:

If an engine fails while using the To Orbit autopilot, TCA will immediately stage, even if there are other working engines in the stage where the failure occured.

That's not a bug per se, but rather a technical debt on my part.

From the code point of view the stage is just a collection of parts with the same stage index.

There's no simple and clear way to know what the activation of the next stage would do: would some parts be separated by decouplers? If so, which ones? And what if (as is often with asparagus staging) all engines are activated at the same stage, and the next stages only separate the empty boosters?

To answer all these questions one needs to build a pretty comprehensive model of the vessel. That's what MJ does using a whole bunch of classes that re-describe vessel structure, simulate fuel flow and stage separation.

In TCA I got lazy (or rather preferred to use resources on different things) and simply assume that the vessel is built using asparagus or linear staging; which actually covers almost all cases.

On 12/28/2019 at 11:00 PM, salajander said:

I'm playing with Kerbalism, which among other things simulates engine reliability. This means that engines have a MTBF rating, and a limited number of ignitions. Most launch engines (at standard reliability) have MTBFs of around 5 minutes, so failures, while rare, aren't unheard of.

But that is a different matter. With mods that simulate engine failures even properly (yea, I mean linear or asparagus again) designed vessel would unnecessarily activate the next stage. The problem (as you have already guessed) is that to fix this I would have to pull in and adapt the staging simulation code from MJ or some other mod, or, heavens forbid, develop it from scratch

Fortunately, the gain would be not only the compatibility with engine-failing mods, but much more accurate predictions of to-orbit/from-orbit flight trajectories and multi-stage maneuvers. So I'm not against it. It's just a good bit of work.

On 12/28/2019 at 11:00 PM, salajander said:

Also, it would be nice if TCA had an option to limit re-ignitions when coasting to apoapsis - currently it will pulse the engines now and then to keep the Ap at the right altitude, which will use up remaining ignitions.

While this should be relatively simple, it would only be needed for modded games that add this limitation. But it would require additional UI elements and code. Which should somehow be hidden/inactivated when engines may be reignited infinitely...

[Atlessa]

On 1/13/2020 at 7:54 PM, allista said:

[snip]

While this should be relatively simple, it would only be needed for modded games that add this limitation. But it would require additional UI elements and code. Which should somehow be hidden/inactivated when engines may be reignited infinitely...

 

I had a slightly different feature request also because of behavior I observed with Kerbalism, that might as a side effect also circumvent the engine relighting while still being of use for otherwise un-modded installs:
Can we have an option to limit how deep TCA throttles an engine?

 

Current behavior: Steering to the right will have TCA cut ALL throttle on the right side engines.

Desired behavior: Steering to the right, TCA will reduce throttle on rightmost engines to 50%

 

I had several cases, even before Kerbalism, where my VTOLs or 'Falcon' style boosters would crash on landing attempts because control inputs ended up reducing total TWR way under 1.0, I feel those could be prevented with such a setting while also keeping engine relight counts to a minimum as a side effect.

[Nicky21]

TCA has a problem with SRB's from the KW rocketry mod. It's like it doesnt compute their trust at all. (1.8.1). I tested this with the Globe VI SRB while trying to make somethign akin to the space shuttle.

[Beetlecat]

3 minutes ago, Nicky21 said:

TCA has a problem with SRB's from the KW rocketry mod. It's like it doesnt compute their trust at all. (1.8.1). I tested this with the Globe VI SRB while trying to make somethign akin to the space shuttle.

I wouldn't have guessed TCA would work with *any* solid boosters--since they're by definition not throttle-able   balancing against thrust *is* something this mod does, but there could be another issue with the fact that they're from a mod.

[NoUsernamesLeft]

This is probably and obviously a problem with the 1.9 update. But I actually changed a bunch of mods for the update and now I don't know if it's a version issue, a conflict with another mod, or simply there is some button I should press.

The issue is that I can't see all the floating menus for TCA. I can see the main window & Module manager, but can't see the T-SAS window or the execute maneuver / warp floating menus.
Anyone know if there is some way to reset those or turn those on/off?

[q p]

Hi, @allista this was the only mod of yours I was hesitant to play with at first and omg, what an amazing mod, I wonder how I was playing KSP without it all this time. Thank you for the amazing mods you have for KSP!!

I have a quick question for TCA, running on 1.8, as I am not sure I am doing this right and I couldn't find a clear mention about this in the readme/documentation.

I have an orbital station with docking ports, and would like to use the 'control from here' on an available docking port and have the station rotate when selecting T+ to align towards the target.
However with TCA my experience is that there is no clear correlation as to how to enable this functionality. When I normally select the docking port and select T+ it typically rotates to some random orientation instead. Is this functionality supported with TCA installed? If so, am I doing something wrong?

Also a small request if it's possible, on the To Orbit autopilot, it would be awesome if we can select the desired Longitude of Ascending Node (LAN) so it's easier to launch to a specific orbital plane. I believe it's able to do that as part of the Randevous autopilot when it launches from the ground to direct randevous with target, so it shouldn't be that hard to expose this for manual selection, right?

@salajanderIIRC with Kerbalism installed, if you have for example 4 engines on your first stage all grouped in the same group (G1 for example) and configured for both Maneuver and Thrust setting, and one of them turns off or malfunctions, TCA will not autostage, as long as it can keep the craft going with the remaining 3 engines - I believe I have witnessed TCA disabling an additional engine to compensate for the loss of thrust from the failed engine. I do recall TCA autostaging when it's impossible to balance the remaining engines, although it doesn't do it right away, so you might end up with a few seconds of unbalanced thrust that might throw you off course, before autostaging. EDIT: scratch that, did some test today and figured out that TCA will autostage if an engine fails with Kerbalism, if autostage is enabled. I probably had autostage disabled and that's why I recall this incorrectly.

Edited February 18, 2020 by q p
correcting previous assumption

[Dessix]

On 2/16/2020 at 11:45 AM, NoUsernamesLeft said:

This is probably and obviously a problem with the 1.9 update. But I actually changed a bunch of mods for the update and now I don't know if it's a version issue, a conflict with another mod, or simply there is some button I should press.

The issue is that I can't see all the floating menus for TCA. I can see the main window & Module manager, but can't see the T-SAS window or the execute maneuver / warp floating menus.
Anyone know if there is some way to reset those or turn those on/off?

I also reproduced this issue on 1.9 but with only the default squad/squadexpansion gamedata files, modulemanager, and TCA. I think it's a 1.9 compatibility issue, but I don't know where to look for logs indicating why the windows wouldn't be rendering.

@allista is there any specific information I could gather to be of assistance?

[allista]

On 2/13/2020 at 9:55 AM, Nicky21 said:

TCA has a problem with SRB's from the KW rocketry mod. It's like it doesnt compute their trust at all. (1.8.1). I tested this with the Globe VI SRB while trying to make somethign akin to the space shuttle.

Do they use the stock ModuleEngine/FX to generate thrust? If so, they should be accounted for, though, as @Beetlecat rightly mentioned, TCA cannot control their thrust.

Note, that TCA was not updated for 1.9.0 yet, do if you're playing this version, TCA is likely broken.

On 2/16/2020 at 10:45 PM, NoUsernamesLeft said:

This is probably and obviously a problem with the 1.9 update. But I actually changed a bunch of mods for the update and now I don't know if it's a version issue, a conflict with another mod, or simply there is some button I should press.

The issue is that I can't see all the floating menus for TCA. I can see the main window & Module manager, but can't see the T-SAS window or the execute maneuver / warp floating menus.
Anyone know if there is some way to reset those or turn those on/off?

I wouldn't count on TCA to be working with new major release without adaptation and recompilation.

Edited February 20, 2020 by allista

[allista]

On 2/17/2020 at 5:38 PM, q p said:

I have an orbital station with docking ports, and would like to use the 'control from here' on an available docking port and have the station rotate when selecting T+ to align towards the target.
However with TCA my experience is that there is no clear correlation as to how to enable this functionality. When I normally select the docking port and select T+ it typically rotates to some random orientation instead. Is this functionality supported with TCA installed? If so, am I doing something wrong?

TCA is all about engines and their thrust. T-SAS means Thrust-SAS, and T+ means "point the ship so that it's total thrust could propel it towards the target"

So when you select a controller part as reference (control from here) it doesn't change where the total thrust points.

But there was a bug that caused T+/- and other related attitude cues to missfunction in the absence of active engines. I remember fixing it, but it could be that the fix had not yet reached a release.

On 2/17/2020 at 5:38 PM, q p said:

Thank you for the amazing mods you have for KSP!!

Thank you for kind words 

On 2/17/2020 at 5:38 PM, q p said:

Also a small request if it's possible, on the To Orbit autopilot, it would be awesome if we can select the desired Longitude of Ascending Node (LAN) so it's easier to launch to a specific orbital plane. I believe it's able to do that as part of the Randevous autopilot when it launches from the ground to direct randevous with target, so it shouldn't be that hard to expose this for manual selection, right?

Good point. That would be equivalent to waiting for a particular launch time; though I'm not sure what is the reference direction for the LAN in KSP is; especially in general. The orbital velocity of the celestial body?

[q p]

15 hours ago, allista said:

But there was a bug that caused T+/- and other related attitude cues to missfunction in the absence of active engines. I remember fixing it, but it could be that the fix had not yet reached a release.

Ah! this might be why a MK3 pod with no engines attached always points to the wrong direction when TCA is installed, probably that fix you mention isn't in the release version. Would happily beta-test for you  Do you post dev builds in your GitHub repo?

15 hours ago, allista said:

Good point. That would be equivalent to waiting for a particular launch time; though I'm not sure what is the reference direction for the LAN in KSP is; especially in general. The orbital velocity of the celestial body?

Not sure how to answer your question. AFAIK I had a contract from the GPS Satellite mod that required specific LAN - I found it's displayed under the advanced orbital information window (bottom left where your staging/docking panel is) and I figured out (trial and error, didn't actually read upon it) that I had to count +90 degrees from KSP launchpad to arrive in orbit at the correct LAN inclination. So if I want to deploy a satellite at 0 degrees LAN, I should launch when I see LAN approaching 90 degrees aprox. as it takes some time to circularize, but most of the times I would make it into orbit with less than a degree of error by using the ToOrbit autopilot default settings. Not sure about the theory, but if I had the option to select a specific LAN during the setup of the ToOrbit autopilot, that would be really helpful.

Edit: Here's the link to the mod, it gives you a contract with the required orbital coordinates that include the desired LAN. Maybe this helps?

Ah, just noticed yesterday, there is a small typo error when you mouse over the Thrust to Mass ratio in the TCA engines window, the tooltip that appears says "Thrust ot Mass" instead of "Thrust to Mass" 

Edited February 21, 2020 by q p
link to mod

[allista]

30 minutes ago, q p said:

Would happily beta-test for you  Do you post dev builds in your GitHub repo?

Not at the moment: haven't have time since the end of the year to even look in the direction of KSP, or any other game for that matter 

4 hours ago, q p said:

there is a small typo error when you mouse over the Thrust to Mass ratio in the TCA engines window, the tooltip that appears says "Thrust ot Mass" instead of "Thrust to Mass" 

Thanks, noted.

4 hours ago, q p said:

: Here's the link to the mod, it gives you a contract with the required orbital coordinates that include the desired LAN. Maybe this helps?

Yeah, I'll figure it out