Bouncy Stations

shadow_slicer · Post by **shadow_slicer** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 4:00 am

Has any one noticed the mining base in Cephid bouncing around (you have to be pretty close to see)? On my Gentoo system the mining base appears to bounce rather significantly. I set it as my point of reference and my thrusters were firing almost constantly attempting to correct for it (as seen from external viewpoint).

It doesn't bounce constantly though. It stopped for a while and I was able to enter the tunnel to the small docking port, but then it shook quite a bit (looking from the tunnel entrance to the tunnel exit the exit position appeared to jitter about 1/8 of the screen). And then it stopped.
I'm running svn 11537.

Another Weird thing:
After that I docked (and was sure to set my velocity to 0). I went about my business in the station, and then when I undocked, although my set velocity was still 0, my current velocity was 240. Needless to say this resulted in a large explosion, and my death...

eddit · Post by **eddit** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:16 am

Yes, I've seen that too!! (Running WinXP).

Seems to be related to approaching the stations on the new ASAP / spec. If you look at the speed indicator it flicks from 0 to your set speed as it jitters. Perhaps ASAP hasn't turned off properly?

Edwin

Post by **safemode** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 3:04 pm

I've noticed a resurgence of some crazy vibrations of stations as well. Not like before when stations were orbiting your ship, but some wierd happenings seemingly related to SPEC.

I've done no edits in this area so dont blame me

eddit · Post by **eddit** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:03 pm

safemode wrote:I've noticed a resurgence of some crazy vibrations of stations as well. Not like before when stations were orbiting your ship, but some wierd happenings seemingly related to SPEC.

By the way, how do you engage spec without turning on ASAP? I was trying to chase a ship before in the new version and things go haywire when you press A

winthrowe · Post by **winthrowe** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:38 pm

@eddit:

It's not currently bound to any key in the config file, but you can bind a key to command="ToggleWarpDrive" and get it back.
just look at the other bindings in the config file for examples.

Post by **safemode** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:43 pm

really, you cant. Perhaps we should make spec a different key, like shift a, and autopilot is a. Basically take manual control over the spec drive on specific situations, and allow the computer to fly spec in others.

Another issue is spec over long distances does not ramp down spec speed fast enough to stop at many station and even planet destinations, you will slingshot. The autopilot is not smart enough and relies soley on the effects of gravity and shields to slow down, this is not correct. The computer should disengage spec, reengage once the velocity reduces to an arbituary level, then reengage, repeat at a given interval until we are close enough that spec no longer has an effect, then autopilot can disengage.

That to me, is the only way to avoid slingshotting, since you cant control the "power" applied to spec, it's soley dependent on gravity and shields. So flicking it on and off to slow down is the only way to go.

That's aside from the vibration issue i think, though i may be wrong, perhaps spec's autopilot is directly at fault in some way.

Miramor · Post by **Miramor** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 6:21 pm

This could be a good ingame excuse for making SPEC purely manual again... Claim that brains have an intuitive capability for handling SPEC that nav computers lack.

(To enhance the flavor, it might help to mention that expensive Andolian capships like the Tesla use neurological expert systems as autopilots. Wouldn't hurt (much), since the player isn't supposed to be flying such ships under normal circumstances.)

eddit · Post by **eddit** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 7:44 pm

winthrowe wrote:It's not currently bound to any key in the config file, but you can bind a key to command="ToggleWarpDrive" and get it back.
just look at the other bindings in the config file for examples.

Thanks for that.

I think that it should be added to the default keymap before the next release. Flicking on spec for short times (without the autopilot) is really useful.

Post by **hellcatv** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 5:12 pm

is it fixed now? I committed some changes that were mostly tested by safem0de

Post by **jackS** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:30 pm

eddit wrote:
winthrowe wrote:It's not currently bound to any key in the config file, but you can bind a key to command="ToggleWarpDrive" and get it back.
just look at the other bindings in the config file for examples.
Thanks for that.

I think that it should be added to the default keymap before the next release. Flicking on spec for short times (without the autopilot) is really useful.

Oh, the intention has always been to re-enable manual SPEC before releasing -- we just wanted to ensure that the auto-pilot feature was being tested even at the points in its development when it really wasn't working very well. It's much more stable now, so I think we can re-enable manual SPEC and still have useful testing feedback (i.e. it will still be used).

Post by **safemode** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 8:12 pm

autopilot isn't really stable, unless you consider not functioning stable. Autopilot doesn't decrease relative velocity fast enough on approach to destinations because it only relies on gravity to do so, and once you're at 99C the gravity well around your destination isn't big enough to slow you down fast enough and before you know it' you've passed it and have to slingshot around.

That is broken.

Autopilot needs to be intelligent enough to know when to start pulsing the SPEC drive so that you're not going so fast that the gravity well doesn't have time to slow you down. Basically, start pulsing spec so that you're below a couple C when you get within a light minute of your destination. The pulsing is to maintain an average spec velocity that is low, since you have no way of setting a given spec velocity, it's all dependent on gravity and shields.

Post by **hellcatv** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:03 pm

it has that ability--but I think it's more fun to slingshot around a few times

you can turn it on with one of the config vars about only specing when facing

Post by **safemode** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 5:29 pm

that and for some reason, when you disable spec / autopliot , the speed takes a while to drop, shouldn't turning off spec result in an instantaneous drop in speed down to your thrust velocity?

Post by **hellcatv** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:55 pm

I think I may have made spec autopilot better...
I turned off warp rampdown for autopilot and added a fudge factor the size of which is how much you travel in one frame---

sometimes in the boonies it has to come around a few times to get to something without interdiction--but it's no more than a handful

eddit · Post by **eddit** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 4:00 am

hellcatv wrote:is it fixed now? I committed some changes that were mostly tested by safem0de

Bouncy stations seem to be fixed. I'll see with a bit more flying around in my lunch break!