Thrusters Only Guide

[DaFraggle]

if my brain works correct that is 0.83333... or 5/6 because G eliminates itsself.

[Bernie]

You are right DaFraggle, but making the entire line multiplied by a valor of G like [G/(G*1.2)] instead of a constant like 0.8 permitted me to avoid another conditional statement when G=0 all the line is ignored.

but you pointed on an error , I made ...
for a non constant multiplicator 1/(G*1.2) was working ... but to avoid division by zero I multiplied it by G ! ... making it constant ...
I was totally wrong and worst I didn t get it at the firsts posts ...
(blind and slow motion brain)

Sorry for other posters I didn t get an evidence
and thanks to get me pointing it .

I ll revisit this part of the expression ... and edit first post with new chapter.

The simplest way I had was using the "ELSE", like
(G==0 ? use spacedrive expression : use hovering expression)

Doing (A>B ? A=C : A=D) is working great but making (A>B ? A=C, B=E : A=D,B=F) is making syntax error ... I ve already played around with putting parenthesis almost everywhere with no succes ... anyway if even doing this my lines exceeded the 92 max chars per line so I renamed the Variables and changed the expression ....

and for G valor I made it doing 100/G, it seems ok ...

I am correcting first post right now .

Sorry and Thanks again

[Bernie]

Well, my first attempt actually balanced my platform on pitch, roll, yaw and height, while I controlled my height with a thruster in the middle. It was triggered by key W and S, and I made it so when you don't press something, it makes the current GpsZ TargetZ and then it hovers, with help of the ~W and ~S, so it will only be triggered once you don't press something, and not all the time, so it won't constantly chance TargetZ.
But to make the height in the pitch and roll thrusters is far more effective I guess.
I'll try it again, but, I gotta go to driving school in some time, so not today.
Anyways, I thought about using vector thrusters. 'Cause, actually, wouldn't it be the easiest way to just specifiy the pos of your ship in a 3D room, with 3 coordinates?
But I don't really know how to use those damn VThrusters (I know what vectors are and what you do with them, and how you calculate with them), and they're giving me some error messages anyways.

Edit: What I actually wanted to say was "Ah, the $ means delta!", because in the documentation it's just an empty space and I already wondered what the delta could be.

Your ideas sounds interesting in both ways : the one to only trigger when a change is done could lower down the processes , could be a nice improvement

and vector space drive would be great too .
last thinking I had about it (and trying to see what I'd like the most)
, that was making a combined handling between Homewold space nav ( a 3d representation of the space where you can place your destination point) and I-War (in this one the ship was turning back to decelerate what is same groove as making thrusters instead hoverballs)

I had made the 3d representation with holo emitter but abandonned it cause it s generating such a big unplayable lag.

For vector drive my problem is : I have to check destination before starting thrusters to get right direction and overmore max speed reachable and decrease speed at right moment avoiding extra fuel burning and reaching a planet with like a speed to get out of our constellation :lol:!

the other way is making a realtime thruster based on vector in instant t what is more or less same way to drive than the simplest one I did .
If you hadn t seen it yet, look at the shandolum one's in this way, its is great :http://www.wiremod.com/1661-high-tec...shandolum.html

cheers

[mjmr89]

I wanted to weigh in a bit on this too . I didn't really understand much of the first post because I'm still pretty nooby. But I have my own expression that is pretty simple and could help some people get started. It isn't too fancy and definitely not prepared for space use - but it does just fine for my purposes.

N@hover
I@Roll Pitch Gz Tarz Thrustmul Wmul
O@Rpos Rneg Ppos Pneg Thrust Weight
Rpos=(Roll+()*Bmul)
Rneg=-Rpos
Ppos=(Pitch+()*Bmul)
Pneg=-Ppos
A=(Tarz-Gz)
A >=0 -> ThrustA=A;
A <=0 -> ThrustA=0;
A <=0 -> Weight=1*Wmul;
A >=0 -> Weight=0.01;
Thrust=Thrustmul*(ThrustA+(*-5))

The main expression connects to the Pitch/roll of the gyroscope, Gz is your current Z position (connected to a GPS) and Tarz is your target position Z wise. Outputs go to roll +/- thrusters, pitch+/- thrusters, and height thrusters. I find you get a cool floating effect downwards if you have more than 1 thruster (like 4 in a square centered). Weight can be discarded along with the lines associated with it if you like - it helps it fall faster if attached to a wire weight. Wmul tells it how much to weigh. Thrustmul tweaks how fast it centers on the Z coord, but don't put it too high. The Bmul value controls how fast it balances. I think that's about it... Just keep tweaking stuff to fit your particular purpose. Too little on the values is bad, too much makes it freak out, I suggest to start them at about 5ish.

Oh and a seperate thing for Yaw that might have been covered in the OP (I forget). Take the delta of the yaw and input it to thrusters that are pushing towards eachother in opposite corners like this

>--
| |
| |
|--<
Where the pushing end is at the large side of the </>. You can also add more thrusters to the opposite ends of the thing (upper right and lower left of the diagram) if you use a negate chip w/ them.

Hope this is understood easily

Oh, and I almost forgot - I basically consolidated the stuff Orb did in his 25th tutorial into that expression - take a look at his tutorial if you're having problems

EDIT: Huh.... I dunno why, but in my code up there, part of it isn't showing up. in the () before Bmul, there should be a $Roll and $Pitch respectively. Also, there should be a $Gz before "*-5" in the last line.