Pitch, Yaw, and Roll control for Autopilot.

[Hotblack Desiato 42]

To Keen Software House,

I've been playing around quite a bit with the new autopilot feature for the remote control blocks. Perhaps plans may already be in place, but I would really like to recommend adding pitch, yaw, and roll alignment of the remote control block relative to the axis' of the Cartesian coordinate system in place with the GPS.

I would very much like to be able to control the alignment of my drones at their final (or preferably each) waypoint on a one-way autopilot trip. My goal is to automate my mining drone beyond just boring a hole through an asteroid autonomously to also bringing back it's load to a connector port.

Using pistons, sensors, and timer blocks I can extend connectors to meet and lock with the ship once it is in position, but the ship alignment has presented a bit of a problem. I've tried persuading proper alignment by using artificial mass blocks on the ship and grav-generators aboard a station surrounding the docking position for the craft; but it is too unreliable.

Thank you.

Kindest Regards,
Hotblack Desiato 42

[CptTwinkie]

:slow clap: This post is beautiful. I want to print it out and hang it on my wall. Format, grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc. You present a reasonable request in a polite way. If I had a trophy to give you I would. Thank you for making my day :)

[Hotblack Desiato 42]

LtTwinkle,

Thank you for the kind words. Perhaps you may find the following humorous. The reason I had to edit the original post was to add a space between the paragraphs, because it did not maintain the indents I had placed.

Kindest Regards,
Hotblack Desiato 42

[lil_kahann]

Just throwing ideas out there, but maybe something like a key bind, for example number pad 5 and 2. In witch one will just apply a GPS waypoint. The other will apply one with alignment. You can place waypoints while flying, (these waypoints should only be seen with a ship antenna installed,) and set certain alignment waypoints that when a ship passes by it, it tires to roll into the correct orientation.

[CptTwinkie]

Double binding the number pad would probably work as badly as it does with the ctrl key at times. Maybe it would just be better to add another button to the gps panel

[Hotblack Desiato 42]

To the forum,

My thoughts on an idea to implement alignment would simply be adding an optional additional box (for a 0-359 degree rotation upon an axis relative to an adjoining axis) in the GPS coordinate. In other words, when you create a GPS point in the GPS menu, alongside (above/beneath/wherever) each of the editable Cartesian axis' positions shown, have an addition box (for waypoint use) that allows the user to set a rotational value for it's coinciding axis.

Those rotation values set in the GPS marker could then be used in autopilot waypoints to adjust positioning, or more specifically rotational alignment of the autopiloted remote control block. Since remote control blocks require orientation to designate the bow, aft, port, starboard, (etc.) sides of the ship it makes it the perfect block to also control orientation relative to the fixed Cartesian system.

Mind you the rotational values in the system I suggest would need to have a fixed relation between the Cartesian axis' in that a 0-359 degree rotation on the X axis one needs to frame the reference for 0 degrees (example: 0 degrees X is to positive Y, hence 180 degrees X is to negative Y, and so on). I think relating X to Y, Y to Z, and Z to X to define the system would suffice.

Calculating the three rotational values one would require (i.e. need to insert into thier GPS coordinate waypoint) to align a ship travelling along the Z axis (in +Z direction) to align against a fixed structure in -X direction may prove to be a little challenging some however.

Kindest Regards,
Hotblack Desiato 42

[Hotblack Desiato 42]

To the developers and all,

With the 4th of June, 2015, update. Alignment can be manipulated/controlled via the directionial flight in autopiloted control block. In other words, now that one can specify vertical (up/down), lateral (left/right), as well as foward and backward flight (with respect to the orientation of the remote control block) from one waypoint to the next, one can manipulate the orientation of the ship for a multitude of purposes, including docking. The precision mode is also another nice feature.

My sincerest thanks to the Devs for all the hard work and effort they continually place into the game's development.

Kindest regards,
Hotblack Desiato 42

P. S. Throttle control for autopiloted ships would be nice. (I'm sure as I say this, KSWH is probably already ahead of me.)

[lordNorc]

How did you able to rotate ship based on pitch, yaw and roll with directional flight?

[Hotblack Desiato 42]

@ lordNorc

The alignment is not really based on actually controlling pitch, yaw, or roll directly, but rather by using a combination of directional flights to waypoints in order to orient/align the remote control block (and thereby the ship by extention) with the Cartesian axes or the axes of another body.

Rember that the orientation of the remote control block specifies front/back/left/right/top/bottom just as a cockpit does in relation to flight control. Hence when using directional flight in the RC block autopilot one can force rotations in autopiloted flight. For example, if one sets the autopilot to fly upwards to a waypoint and the top of the ship happens to be facing the opposite direction of that waypoint the ship will rotate until the top of the ship is facing that waypoint, then it will fire the bottom thrusters to fly upwards to that point. Now the top to bottom (or vertical) axis of the ship are aligned with respect to the vector in which it has just flown. If one then flies the ship forward/back/right/left to the next way point one can then align the front to back or left to right (horizontal/lateral) axes of the ship with the additional vector(s) of flight.

Mind you, one really only needs to insert two waypoint vectors using directional flight paths on seperate planes to align the axes of the auotpiloted vessel with axes of any other body.

I hope this clarifies it for you.

Kindest regards,
Hotblack Desiato 42

[andreykl]

+1 I also noticed some difficulties with cases where connector is too far from center.

[lordNorc]

Hotblack Desiato 42 thx for clarification.

Well alignment based on direction will align ship only to base grid. I'm trying to perfectly align ship with another ship so that they can merge together. Look at the picture.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10875470/2015-10-05_00001-2.jpg

[Hotblack Desiato 42]

@Andreyki

Yes, the position of the RC block with relation to the vessel’s center of mass can increase the margin of error due to drift. So does the recently added dynamic of cargo loads increasing ship mass, thereby affecting the ship’s delta-v.

That’s one of the reasons I’d like them to add throttle control to autopilot, or at least a velocity regulator to limit the travel speed from waypoint to waypoint. The only thing I can recommend is to make sure you have precision mode on, and add a few very short distance waypoints before the final docking waypoint (in other words, baby step it to the connection/merge point). It should help with minimizing drift and give you a more consistent stopping point.

Cheers,
Hotblack Desiato 42

[Hotblack Desiato 42]

@ lordNorc

While it may be a bit of a hassle, I recommend placing an RC block on the carrier/mothership and running it through an autopiloted alignment process first. That way when you program the satellite vessel to perform alignment maneuvers, both ships should be aligned to the same planes.

Cheers,
Hotblack Desiato 42

[lil_kahann]

to have a good allighnment for docking on stations at least, you would need 3 gps points per dock. the first one is just a starting point for the docking percedure (spelling?) then have it go sideways, using either left or right, that will align all but the pitch, then going straight down to the dock, with the bottom set, will align said pitch, and you will be good.