Manual overrides for throttle and time warp control
tavert opened this issue ยท 6 comments
During ascents and node execution, it can make sense sometimes to have MechJeb control attitude but manually control throttle. The closest approximation for that now is typing numbers in the "Limit throttle to %" box. The other places MJ controls throttle that I can think of are Translatron and Landing, for which manual throttle overrides are a bit less likely.
Likewise I don't always want MechJeb to time warp for nodes or landing (where else does it control warp? obviously the warp helper, overrides aren't meaningful there). I have some super-light ships with Kerbals hanging on to ladders, so standard time warp isn't allowed. If MechJeb weren't constantly trying to get into time warp though, I would be able to manually do physical time warp (alt-.) up to 4x.
Or you could simplify the current window. In the same way that you can edit your own windows, you could remove all the constraint checkboxes as they are now. Instead, add two buttons, add constraint, and remove constraint. Clicking "add" would create a list item with a drop down to defign a variety of values to constrain by. Like this you could constrain the launch by:
throttle> G-force
throttle> overheat
throttle> terminal velocity
timing> daylight
timing> target orbit intersect
timing> Local target
timing> phase angle to solar orbit (for interplanetary travel)
timing> MECO> altitude (for interplanetary travel)
timing> MECO> angle to prograde (for interplanetary travel)
timing> MECO> velocity (for interplanetary travel)
apoapsis> value
apoapsis> target
Obviously, some of these would only be useful if mechjeb knew the launch characteristics, but that's what practice launches are for.
Cool, thanks! Can Landing AP be made to also respect the auto-warp setting?
Done. =) 2699fd7
I'm not sure how best to handle the throttle scenario you described. I'll have to think about it some more.
I just added an "auto-warp" toggle for node execution (7cc29fc) that should be in 2.0.6. It's on the Maneuver Planner and Ascent Autopilot windows.
For the throttle override, can you explain in more detail how this would be useful? The main reason I can think of is to prevent excessive thrust from breaking your ship, but the Ascent Autopilot and Throttle Control windows already let you do that (with the "Limit acceleration to ... m/s" option).
Cool, thanks! Can Landing AP be made to also respect the auto-warp setting?
With MJ1 I had some ascents where I manually throttled in order to keep Time to Apoapsis constant and not too large. Maybe changing throttle 1% (or X m/s^2) at a time can accomplish the same thing and I'd just have to get used to typing numbers instead of adjusting with shift/ctrl.
If I'm not the only one who flies by that number it could even be possible to put in another throttle limiter type to close the loop on Time to Apoapsis, I think it's only meaningful during ascent though.
The "manual throttle while executing a node" is now possible with the Smart A.S.S. "Node" button. I'm going to investigate whether any of the new Ascent Guidance checkboxes allow you to manually throttle. Personally, I have done some launches where I modify the "limit acceleration" option on the fly to get the behavior I want, specifically not flipping over during Max Q.
