DGIII alpha release available part 1 (closed)

[DanSteph]

Don't get me wrong, I'm loving this version. I'm just doing my job as a beta tester to write down
what's broken or wrong and report that to you, hehe! hopefully you don't mind terribily.

No worry, I preffer 100 time to much AWARE report (would be different if there would
be question such as "and... where does the zip file goes you said ?" )
than no reports... the silence, you suddenly wonder if you ever released something
And after all it's your job as alpha tester, this is why I give you 7% of my
add-ons income

and it's spetS, not spet!

No problemo Andrey

your name isn't the only one that suffer from my hurry, I'm affraid
my english is terribly far from what real englishmen call "english"
but that's not my native tongue and I'm currently doing 3 things in same time


BTW: it's right the power and fuel setting are terribly messed I'll finish to fix
that tomorrow and release a new alpha (my fault I didn't tested all the situation)


Dan
"going to now , back tomorrow"

[MattNW]

Just took it for a spin. I love the way it flies in atmosphere. Feels a little heavy though. In space
it's fantastic. The ground taxiing is great but the engines produce way too much power when
taxiing.

I have the white around the letters in the HUD. I have Clear type turned off. When I turn it on it's
much worse but with it off it only appears around the bold font. The ones that show the values
don't have it. It's also a lot less if I use the same color for the custom HUD as the regular HUD
(flourescent green).

Frame rates are fine on my computer: AMD 1800+, 1G RAM, Abit KR7A-RAID, GForce 4 128mb. I'm
getting 50+ in the cockpit (drops to 20 with the lower panel) and 100 outside view. I'm trying it in
a scenario where the DG III is docked to Vespucci Aux. docking ports and Helios is docked to
Vespucci main docking port. With that many ships and the frames I'm getting I don't see a frame
rate problem at all.

I had one instance where the panels quit scrolling and I couldn't switch panels but it only
happened once. I'll watch for it to happen again.

I've been thinking about the cockpit canopy. How about putting a button next to the "Seatbelt"
sign for "helmets" and provided a way to depressurize the whole ship cabin. If the button is on
and the pressure is 0 then you can open the cockpit canopy in space. Similar to the airlock. Of
course the pilot and passengers don't have helmets modeled but a little imagination can get past
that one. Something similar can also be done for the airlock when on a planet with non Earth
airpressure like Blue Mars. Just something to think about for another release.

Currently everything seems to be working OK. I still have to try out the AP funcitons and the Hover
AP. Uh, one question. How do you start the hover AP? I assume that the other AP program #s are
the same.

[Hoverboy]

I just now tried the hover autopilot.  It is PRO200SPEC7 or PRO200SPEC8.

[DanSteph]

both hoverboy, spec7 is manual and spec8 is auto descent you can switch beetween both
read the flight computer to have the keyboard key.

Matt I'll reply to you tomorrow I MUST go to bed
try entering/running pro200spec7 for hover

Dan

[Snappy]

sorry for my bad English

Great Job, Dan your new Deltaglider is very Good.

[Spets]

Ack! Dan is a spy! he knows my real name!

(or my email address gave me away..)

Too tired myself, will wait for next version for further testing.

[MattNW]

DanSteph wrote:

>both hoverboy, spec7 is manual and spec8 is auto descent you can switch beetween both
>read the flight computer to have the keyboard key.

>Matt I'll reply to you tomorrow I MUST go to bed
>try entering/running pro200spec7 for hover

>Dan


That works. Found it and tried it out. It works perfectly. Never had much problem with that part of
flying but it's nice to have anyway. Get some sleep. You've done a heck of a job with this release.

[canadave]

Fantastic job as expected, Dan  I'm still waiting for the stewardesses to come around with the
muffins, though.  I guess that'll be in the beta, right?

Regarding putting in too many features and making the DG3 too hard for newbies--I'd just like to
point out that in my opinion, you should design the DG3 to the max; for newbies, there's always
the DeltaGlider and the DG2.  Also, I don't think the DG3 will present too many problems for
framerates.

Other notes:

--I really like the idea of red/green nav lights, for the sole reason that sometimes, in the black
night of space, it's hard to tell which way the ship is oriented in the external view.  Red/green
navs would make it easy to tell.

--Descent seems to be different...has anyone tried this?  I was started re-entering Earth's
atmosphere, and kept gliding...and gliding....and gliding.  Kept wavering between 55km and
65km.  Even though the ship's speed was constantly slowing down, I never lost much altitude.  
This went on for about five minutes or more.  Finally gave up and went to bed.  I'll have to do
some more testing, maybe I just tried reentry at a really shallow angle.

--If it's possible, I'd institute some code where the cockpit canopy "breaks off" at a certain speed
in the atmosphere (maybe just make it so the canopy "disappears" from the mesh).  I ascended
toward orbit with the canopy open, no problem.  Seems to me that the darned thing would break
off above 1,000 knots!

--I think the open/close status lights on the panel for the nose cone/inner/outer airlock need to be
tweaked.  I think sometimes the lights are on for open when the door is closed, and vice versa, in
some cases.

I'll post some more when I get a chance to really sit down with the DG3 and play with it.  But as I
said, of course---a wonderful job for an alpha version!

Dave

[DanSteph]

The stewardess are planned but about the muffin...
It was proved that the first DGIII lost by accident in 2021
was because some small part of muffin flyed into the cabin
right into the computer's cooling and caused a
general malfunction with a loss of control.
So Muffin are STRICLY forbidden now

-About descent did you used the pro104spec40 ?
-canopy speed test you wont be able to open it
without a given pressure.

I maintain a "todo" and "bug" list so any remark is noted
and taken in account for futur update.

I Juste woke up, I'll start to work on the most urgent update,
(fuel and power setting) it will be ready in some hours.

Dan

[DanSteph]

NEW RELEASE AVAILABLE

Alpha 040121 rev1
------------------------
-Fuel and power setting problem fixed, now the ascent autopilot should work
 as expected with all the setting.
-Problem with the right hud displaying white border fixed, fixed also in customhud.exe.

I expect a new release today (11pm gmt?) with more things added.
you'd better bookmark and visit each day the alpha download page

Dan

[jgrillo2002]

It was good, but I found some bugs.

1. I saw some white spots that are on the custon HUD on the sides of the font.
My Specs are a NVIDIA GE Force FX 5200 512 MB RAM
& the config for the lauchpad is Direct 3d HAL TL
2. I dont hear a clicking sound when u press a button. it supposed to occur or ommit the sound.

My Sound Spacs are: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card


Extra Specs: Win XP   140GB 950Mhz AMD Athelon Processor

[Spets]

Will download new version when I come home from school, just wanted to add a note about
complexity:

I don't mind if the DGIII has greater complexity, however I do not want it to reach the levels of
Radu's space tugboat. I do NOT want to micromanage H2, N2, O2 levels, with heating venting
piping, etc. So somewhere between the two extremes is a good compromise, I think. But I'm also
not sure if Dan is willing to code another thousand lines to complexify (is that a word?) everything!

[icebrain]

Couple more bugs/ideas:

can you set it up so that using one of the built-in autopilot modes (prog, retro, att, killrot, etc)
doesn't exit any current running programs (like ascent or reentry), and would just "pause" them
instead?  Very much a pain in the ass to have to restart the reentry prog all the time.

Also, can you tone down the thruster usage in the reentry prog?  It's firing continuously even
above 200km, wasting all of my fuel... maybe just make the error limit less precise.

Also, even the low-smoke setting makes a ton of smoke... how about a smoke density like the fuel
and ecs venting, maybe a bit more?

The trim is either ineffective, or the main engines aren't aligned right.  Can you maybe rig the
thrust vectoring up so that they work with the stick, and have a switch (center/manual (set with
slider)/auto (vectors with stick to augment roll/pitch, moves with trim too)?  You don't need the
rate-limiting stuff or the auto-damping the 3.2 shuttles have; just a simple vector.

[andy]

Alpha 040121 rev1

At KSC "Life support...." Input pressure on "Ext" switching to outside view
and back with "F1" gives an "Ext valve error no pressure"

[DanSteph]

JGrillo:

The white spot around the font are supposed to be resolved in the current release
( 040121 rev1 ) do you use this version ?
About sound you mean no button have click sound , or just some ?

IceBrain
The only autopilot that would be usefull while another running would be killrot
and even your not supposed to need killrot if one is having control !!??
The tips is to load the program at the last moment when you need it and your done
with prograde or any other !!??  (notice killrot work with hover autopilot but here it's
a needed feature.

RCS thruster firing continuously at 200km ? that's may be a bug !?
appart very small adjustement there is no need of big fuel here.
I usually fire the reentry program only at 120km when it's really needed
otherwise I keep the ship under prograde (or no pilot after a killrot)

Low smoke setting isn't implemented for yet....

The trim work well but you must have some speed (around 180m/s at least)
like plane you must readjust it for each speed. anyway I can't act on this because
the thruster are already aligned to give 0 pitch and I don't have any other
action on the trim appart on/off.  That's martin's atmosphere flying model
in fact. (as a former student pilot I don't find there is anything really wrong here!??)

Andy
Bug added on my bug list. will watch this.


To all
just take care to report bug for the current version (see alpha download page
if your not sure witch version is te current)

Anyway, really thanks for taking the time to give feedback.

Let's return to blueprint  

Dan

[icebrain]

"The only autopilot that would be usefull while another running would be killrot
and even your not supposed to need killrot if one is having control !!??
The tips is to load the program at the last moment when you need it and your done
with prograde or any other !!?? (notice killrot work with hover autopilot but here it's
a needed feature."

Well, could you at least keep killrot from clearing any other programs that are running?  I like to
set the reentry prog up early, and then time compress until about 180km.  However, I end up with
some massive residual rotation, which I then have to killrot... and it clears the autopilot and
reentry display.  Then, I have to go back and run both of those again.  It's a pain.  And in a real
aircraft, selecting something like wings level (closest thing to wings level) doesn't clear out a flight
plan that you have loaded.  It may disconnect the autopilot from following it, but you can always
resume without having to enter it all over again.

Basically, could you set it up so that, if I hit killrot while the reentry program is running, it won't
clear it out from memory, but instead set it back to the state where you just need to hit execute
(as opposed to PROG+104+SPEC... EXEC)?

"RCS thruster firing continuously at 200km ? that's may be a bug !?
appart very small adjustement there is no need of big fuel here.
I usually fire the reentry program only at 120km when it's really needed
otherwise I keep the ship under prograde (or no pilot after a killrot)"

Well, the continual thruster firing is more like boomboomboomboom (multiple firings per second,
sounding almost continuous) while it is trying to maintain a pitch angle.  What I suggest is making
it, instead of trying to maintain 40 degrees within .001 degrees, instead to within maybe 1-2
degrees (at least until aerodynamic forces build up a bit).  Or at least something to reduce the
number of firings.

"Low smoke setting isn't implemented for yet...."

Ah, ok.

"The trim work well but you must have some speed (around 180m/s at least)
like plane you must readjust it for each speed. anyway I can't act on this because
the thruster are already aligned to give 0 pitch and I don't have any other
action on the trim appart on/off. That's martin's atmosphere flying model
in fact. (as a former student pilot I don't find there is anything really wrong here!??)"

Well, the problem is that, by the time I'm about mach 5-6, and 40-50km up, even full up trim isn't
quite enough to keep the nose from slowly dropping.  I end up using the main engine vectors to
try and compensate.  I know you need to readjust trim with airspeed changes (I'm a pilot myself)
but what I'm saying is that it doesn't have enough authority in some flight regimes.

[canadave]

Request to Developer:

Can you tone down the strength of the RCS a bit?   IMO, they're too powerful.

Thank you!
Pilot Dave

[jgrillo2002]

DanSteph said

"JGrillo:

The white spot around the font are supposed to be resolved in the current release
( 040121 rev1 ) do you use this version ?
About sound you mean no button have click sound , or just some ?"


none. when I press any button, it doesnt make the click sound

[icebrain]

And also, the glider has pretty poor low-speed handling... you don't take off till about 300 mph, far
above the speeds of any aircraft.  The 80 knots call really comes at about (quick mental estimate)
170 knots.

Wait, another idea... a way to display altitude and velocity on the little side HUD in English units
too?  Would be nice for atmospheric handling.  maybe just a couple new data fields (velocity in ft/s
and knots, altitude in miles and feet, and acceleration in ft/s/s) in the drop-down boxes.  You could
have one HUD in metric, another in English

[Arkalius]

Hate to be a stickler, but this is technically a beta version... An alpha test by definition is
conducted in a controlled environment, ie at the place where the program is made. A beta test by
definition is one that is conducted on the end user's environment... so technically this is a Beta
release

[DanSteph]

as stated in the download page:
This is an ALPHA release, this mean that this add-on is not finished yet ...[snip]... This download
is mainly here so you can start to play without waiting too much time the beta release.


Icebrain
The take-off speed is a bit to high but this is how behave the stock deltaglider,
If I rework that I can rework also 1/3 of my code about reentry, autopilot etc etc.
(autopilot took me one month)


I can't reply to all because it take too much of my time but I take note and
put interesting stuff or bug on my todo list. Anyway not all is possible
and I can't make the "perfect add-on of the century" so You'll have to live
with some imperfection


Anyway Gentlemen !!!,
New release again, (040121rev2) see history of download page
to know what are the changes,

Dan

[reekchaa]

Brilliant work, Dan!  
 The Ventings, the HUD, the Cockpit, the Damage Response, the Autopilots... Great Fun!!

[Peer]

Framerate is fine on my celeron 1.2 notebook (192 ram, 32 graphics).
No problems with the glider, only too much smoke may cause a bad framerate, but that's a
problem with all ships producing smoke. I had that white spots on the hud too, but now with
current version it's fixed.
Gear can be retracted when grounded. (I'm not really sure if this is a bug, but it doesn't work with
older glider or in any other flightsimulators.)
Please excuse my bad english, I'm tired.

Peer.

[Spets]

Dan,

Confirmation: Cleartype issue is fixed.

Still bugged: you get radiator warning that it has no power when it is stowed and lifepack power
is turned off.

Suggestion: I notice a high fuel use rate when turning on the air intake and the airspeed is slow.
shouldn't the opposite be true? a high airspeed means more fuel is needed to maintain proper
air/fuel mixture.

suggestion: When running out of atmosphere and the air intake is left on, engine should shut
down and you need to manually reset the circuit breakers because engines ran out of air. instead
currently just the fuel flow rate goes up.

suggestion: make the autopilot commands (PRO___SPEC___) simpler. why PRO903SPEC42 when
you could use PRO1SPEC42, then PRO2SPEC__ for space, and PRO3SPEC__ for re-entry? sounds
simpler and easier to remember.

Possible bug: when turning at 30 degree bank using reentry autopilot, the low wing has a less
temp than the high wing. shouldn't this be the opposite? the low wing should face more friction
from the airflow. Also, when having an AoA of 40 degrees, the nose warms up yet the belly of the
craft stays relatively cooler. shouldn't the belly experience more severe heating at high AoA?

No other bugs found yet, I burnt up on re-entry..

[Spets]

second flight more sucessful using re-entry angle of 1 degree instead of 2

suggestion: the reentry autopilot stops under time accel.. maybe make it possible to work under
10x?

Comment: Use of Turbo button? does it really help or just another button to push?

comment: high temperture gains on wings and nose when I am tilting the craft using reentry
autopilot. perhaps too high? I tilt 30 degrees and temp jumps 100-200 degrees while it's tilting
before settling down to normal.