Project Tug eXperimental Reloaded

[Lisias]

So the TX has 6 TRJ/SJHPE's ...or is that 12? Doesn't roll off the tongue either way!

Well, I see it as 6 TRJ/Scramjet with a (coded) maximum thrust with 8 MegaN (that 10 MN was an accident in the shutter monitoring that allowed the thrust modelling code to work beyond the specifications... :beathead: ) on atmospheric flying.

To space (or environments without oxygen) travelling, there're 12 LREs giving 12 MegaN of thrust max. Six of that LREs shares the same exhauster of that 6 TRJ/Scramjets ( how happens, I don't have a clue :-D ).

Ah, poking fun aside - your research into remodelling the Tx with more plausibility is fascinating! Thank you.

To tell you the true, my efforts ended up being more to justify the current modelling than remodelling, with few exceptions.

Now that I finally realized this lady weights more than 2K Tons, and can carry almost 500 Tons on her back, that huge numbers (and her behaviour while flying) makes sense.

I'm polishing up some HUD widgets one would (badly) need in order to land the lady without smashing the land gears. The gears can handle a lot of abuse without payload, but landing her loaded is tricky - I could not find the face to implement the 400 fpm and 600 fpm rules, there's no way that little gears could sustain such a load: I ended up throwing the safeties over the window and give her a narrow landing envelope.

But since most of the landings (theoretically) will happens with low fuel and no payload, most people will not notice the change.

---------- Post added at 02:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:41 PM ----------

In time...

What's a SJHPE ? I didn't found it on google...

 

[Urwumpe]

What's a SJHPE ? I didn't found it on google...

I suspect, its a

ScramJet High Performance Engine.

Where ever this trademark comes from. :rofl:

 

[Lisias]

New Screenshots - direct from the trenches

I feature freezed the next release, now I'm polishing up some details I left behind somehow (there's a nasty glitch on the flight computer that sometimes shutdowns the control surfaces on atmosphere at Canards retracting - damn).

This release will allow to implement a plausible landing procedure when gear damages are implemented.

1) Load Factor (g) meter (on the left, below Engines): shows the current lift/weight ratio, also know in aviation as "G". Currently, it goes red over +10G and under -5G.

2) Landing Gear Stress Meter, the growing bar on the center. One for each side gear (note how the banking is shifting the load to the left gear!)

Green goes for a Good Landing, Yellow for a Rough Landing (a bad one, but without damaging the gears) and the Red goes for a Hard Landing, where the gears can sustain the hit but will need maintenance.

When the wheel icon flashes red, you are going to get a catastrophic failure on touchdown.

The Landing Gear Stress shows up with gears down and under 1.000 meters high.


3) A non catastrophic situation, but far from ideal attitude: one gear are going to hit the ground alone (so the Yellow flashing gear), but both gears are under the optimum landing load - so no damage will be done (except for your pilot reputation).

(that little trace on the bar is the optimum landing load)


4) The noose wheel CAN'T HIT THE GROUND on touch down, no matter the sink rate. POINT.

Hitting the noose gear will always lead to catastrophic failure, so it flashes red if your vessel as pointing down.


5) You are going to make the day of the mechanicians - kiss babe bye bye to your Christmas Bonus.

6) Precision Altimeter, that long colored bar between the Gear Stress Meter.

Gives your relative distance to ground under 500 meters, so you don't have to keep your eyes from the Gear Stress Meter while landing. It flashes near touchdown.


7) An update on the Gmeter - Negative Load Factors are now drawn above the Zero, and positive below. This is more intuitive for aviators, as the bar grows towards the sense of gravity.

In the screenshot, a -2.5G inverted fly near Star City under 500 Meters (as the Altitude Bar is shown).


8) An insane (and stupid) demonstration of static (ground) load over the gears, an TX loaded with 1 DGEX, 4 DGs and somewhat near 1.200 Kg Mass of Fuel on an external tank (using Velcro), somewhat as 11.2 Kilotons of weight. And a lot of boosters to get her flying.

This configuration is impossible as far as I know (I found no aircraft that could fly with 13 times her empty mass), but it demonstrates the Gear Stress Meter when landed - note that this vessel almost reached the Gear Collapsing Level just by standing with all that load!

(without the extra fuel, however, the payload mass are "just" 3 or 4 times the vessel mass).

Also in this screenshot, the front wheel turning widget, indicating I tried (frivolously at that speed) to turn right.

There's also a wheel break indication, but I was unable to break and hit the screenshot key at the same time.

 

[TachyonDriver]

I never realised I needed those HUD additions until I saw them! SWEET! I'm just waiting for the release....

 

[Lisias]

NEW RELEASE R025

Wait no more!

Download the new R025, Thread Head edited to reflect the new additions.

Mainly, this release implements the HUD additions mentioned in the latest screenshots and bug hunting.

That pesky bugs on loading scenarios and loss of control of the aerodynamic surfaces are, finally, in the past.

Damage modelling is not implemented yet - this will need some code refactoring to allow to override the damages for the people that don't want to be bothered with this.

Enjoy!

---------- Post added at 02:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:09 PM ----------

I LIKE IT! the TXR setup works well on my screen, but not in D3D9 as you correctly surmised. (Someday maybe??)

I was fooling around the Orbiter SDK's API and found something that I was'nt aware, the DrawAPI. On a superficial look, it appears to be a abstraction layer to allow exactly this: drawing 2D graphics on a portable, subjacent drawing layer independent way.

I'll spend some time, somewhere in a near future, studying this and will try to estimate how much effort it will cost to convert the HUD drawing routines to DrawAPI.

 

[Urwumpe]

I was fooling around the Orbiter SDK's API and found something that I was'nt aware, the DrawAPI. On a superficial look, it appears to be a abstraction layer to allow exactly this: drawing 2D graphics on a portable, subjacent drawing layer independent way.

I'll spend some time, somewhere in a near future, studying this and will try to estimate how much effort it will cost to convert the HUD drawing routines to DrawAPI.

Take the time to simply experiment. While it often is a 1:1 translation to concepts from GDI, it is more hardware oriented and often has its own "I don't want to work like you expect" modes there.

 

[Lisias]

Take the time to simply experiment. While it often is a 1:1 translation to concepts from GDI, it is more hardware oriented and often has its own "I don't want to work like you expect" modes there.

It's included on what I call "study" (language barrier will be always a problem!).

But I must be honest, my available time will became short in the near future, so I must pick my fights carefully.

But one of the good things I did in the code that isn't visible to users, I mean, Pilots is the (heavy) code refactoring. I managed to isolate all the HUD functionalities in one single module (I plan to release this as a reusable code to everyone!), so perhaps opening this piece of code and ask for help will be the way to go. (The rest of the code is not up to me, I would need permission from the original authors first).

---------- Post added 08-05-15 at 12:39 AM ---------- Previous post was 08-04-15 at 03:53 PM ----------

DialogBox based application programming dealing directly with the Win32 API can be A Series of Unfortunate Events (pun really intended).

(God damned MSDN documents)

 

[TachyonDriver]

I had a VERY quick test flight last night (real life in the way) - the stress indicators disappear above a certain altitude and also when the gear is retracted, correct?

 

[Lisias]

I had a VERY quick test flight last night (real life in the way) - the stress indicators disappear above a certain altitude and also when the gear is retracted, correct?

Correct. The Stress Indicator appears with gears deployed and under 1.000 meters high.

The visual altitude cue appears at 500 meters.

 

[Interceptor]

Hi I gave this a quick spin last night,but my hud is to big being that some of the readouts such as the lights indicator are running off the screen,is there a way to set the hud size.Thanks

 

[Lisias]

Hi I gave this a quick spin last night,but my hud is to big being that some of the readouts such as the lights indicator are running off the screen,is there a way to set the hud size.Thanks

Yeah, vchamp had this problem too. Could you please send me a screenshot and your Window Size (in pixels)? If you gone full screen, please give the Resolution used.

As a workaround, use a 4:3, 16:10 or 16:9 A/R resolution. These aspect/ratio works for sure.

I tested the following resolutions in Full Screen on my box:

In Windowed mode, you can select one of the Radio Buttons after ticking the CheckBox:

A resolution should be fully supported if the Width divided by Height gives you ~1.33333 (4:3), ~1.77777 (16:9) or =1.6 (16:10) .

 

[Interceptor]

Hi again Lisias,and, thanks for this addon my screen size is full 1920x1080,but I will send you a screen shot this evening sometime when I get a chance.

 

[Lisias]

Hi again Lisias,and, thanks for this addon my screen size is full 1920x1080,but I will send you a screen shot this evening sometime when I get a chance.

But this is a 16:9 A/R resolution, the code should had handled that without hassle...

I must be doing some propagating rounding error on the code that is just noticeable on higher resolutions...

 

[Interceptor]

OK here you go Lisias.

 

[Lisias]

OK here you go Lisias.

Thanks.

As it appears, I made something dumb and/or stupid while calculating relative positions. I'll address this problem before implementing the Gear Damage Modelling.

 

[Interceptor]

Thanks Lisias, looking foward to future updates.

 

[Lisias]

Thanks Lisias, looking foward to future updates.

, I knew I did something dumb, but not *that* dumb. =(

When you select Windowed mode for Orbiter, the resolution you set is for the WHOLE WINDOW, not the Client Area!! :beathead:

Since I'm currently single headed, it was easier to test the thing on a window than on full screen, so I ended up trimming the widgets positions on Window mode. But on a window, your Client Area are 6 pixels width and 32 pixels height less than you define in the Launcher, what's causes a little difference on the calculated A/R value that I use for redimensioning and repositioning (together the Markersize) the widgets over the HUD. And since the Windowed A/R is different from the Full screen mode with the same defined resolution, this little difference mess up the widgets a little - and the greater the resolution, the greater is the mess. :facepalm:

Well, I will spend the Weekend redoing the HUD, as it appears!

 

[Lisias]

New Release R028

Greetings.

I hurried up this release so you guys can give it a try on the Week End.

Tnis new Release fixed that (stupid) HUD problems and implemented the Landing Gear Damage Model.

The Damage Model is far from perfect, I have the feeling tha I'm flying a glass vessel =P. Further development will be needed, and this is the reason I'm not saving the damage state on the Scenario yet - you must manually turn Damages ON on the Settings Dialog.

Every gear are independently modelled, but the failing of one will lead to all of them being instantly retracted to simulate a catastrophic failure.

A (gross) health state for each Gear is informed by the HUD, using colors on the Gear widget (green to OK, yellow for some damages, red to imminent collapse).

I tried to model every stress situation a landing gear can face:

* Overspeed on ground
* Overspeed on air
* Trying to steer with too much ground speed
* Kinetic energy on landing
* Load distributed on gears based on vessel pitch and bank (you can damage the left gear, but not the right by landing banked left).

Damage gears are more susceptible to further damages and will deteriorate fast while:
* Steering
* breaking
* landing
* overspeeding.

So you should recover the vessel for maintenance as soon as possible if the gears are not in green condition (or simply hit the "FixMe!" burron! ).

I will not touch the Damage Modelling for a while, my priorities at the moment are bug fixing and Virtual Cockpit reintegration - but please don't hesitate on suggest enhancements on the modelling.

The current damage rules are:

	Damage Rules

	1) Nose Gear
		Steering at Overspeed		: 0.001 * hspd/max_steering_spd per second
		Touchdown first on green	: E/E_Optimum * atan(bank)
		Touchdown first on yellow	: E/E_Rought * atan(bank)
		Touchdown first on red		: 1.0
		Touchdown first on everred : 1.0
	
	2) All Gears 
		Ground Overspeed		: (1 - current_health) * (0.001 + hspd/max_ground_speed) per second
		Air Overspeed			: (1 - current_health) * (0.01 + dynpress/max_gear_dynpress) per second

	3) All Gears with health 1.0
		Touchdown on green		: 0
		Touchdown on yellow		: 0
		Touchdown on red		: 0.5 * (E / E_RED)
		Touchdown on over_red	: RANDOM(0.8 ... 1.0) * (E / E_MAX) 

	4) Side Gears with health < 1.0
		Wheel breaking			: 0.001 * hspd/max_sterring_spd per second 

	5) All Gears with health < 1.0
		Touchdown on green		: 0.1 * ABS(E- E_OPTIMUM)/E_OPTIMUM
		Touchdown on yellow		: 0.5 * ABS(E - E_ROUGH)/E_ROUGH
		Touchdown on red		: 1.0 (immediate breakdown)
		Touchdown on over_red	: 1.0 (immediate breakdown)

The download link is here, and the Head Post was updated as usual.

Have Fun!

 

[Interceptor]

I gave the newest version of tx reloaded a spin,and I just wanted to let you know that it flys great,I made it to a stable orbit with about 15 percent fuel left,and no heat problems,I know I need to get my technique down better,but all,and all you have done a great job so far,I haven't tried to deorbit,reenter,and land yet,but I will get at it sometime in the next couple of days,thanks for all your effort.

 

[Lisias]

I gave the newest version of tx reloaded a spin,and I just wanted to let you know that it flys great,I made it to a stable orbit with about 15 percent fuel left,and no heat problems

There's a good chance that I messed up the RAMJET modelling a little by allowing it to reach 10 MegaN of thrust.

I don't know, yet, what to do if I really did that - Kulch's documentation doesn't declares these values, so perhaps I'm allowed to some slack.

Perhaps I can use this over the limits performance for the engine damage model - you're allowed to get that extra thrusting by sacrificing the engine's health (if damage control is enabled)

I know I need to get my technique down better,but all,and all you have done a great job so far,I haven't tried to deorbit,reenter,and land yet,but I will get at it sometime in the next couple of days,thanks for all your effort.

You're already better than me on that, and I'm the developer of the thing! :rofl:

You're welcome!

---------- Post added at 04:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:14 AM ----------

After months, I give the original TX5 a shot.

I have the impression that TXr is a bit more challenging, as I easily put TX5 in a round ~300Km orbit lifting 102K mass of fuel (about 18.38%) ascending to East (I could not prevent hull overheating without Juliette, except by switching to external view all the time to observe the plasma sheath).

As I was curious to know if Orbiter models the Earth's spin while computing the vessel acceleration, I did the same to West, and managed to get a not so round orbit (320 x 260Km) with just 72k of fuel (~12.97%). So yes, it appears that Orbit models the Earth's spin (or I messed up the ascending without realizing it! )

As I remembered from my previous experiences, I didn't reached the 10.0 ~ 10.3 MN of thrusting, so we can see my modeling (that reaches 10.3 in optimum conditions) as a kind of engine abuse. When engine damage modeling is implemented, ascending with damage enabled will be a little more challenging in Override mode, as the flight pilot will prevent the damaging condition on normal mode.