This script just claims I'm not in planet gravity and shuts down immediately.

I've tried it and it doesn't seem to work, throws an exception on compile in star system.

Advanced liftoff control does support mixed thrusters and should be able to do everything this one does. I dont know if it actually still compiles on the current release though. If it does, it will run just fine, if it doesnt i might get around to fixing it eventually.

Guess you can't edit. Going through my list and I found I have a 3rd liftoff script also marked: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=637302443

I have 2 of these launch control scripts marked. This one and https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=773073270
That other one looks to have better option for mixed thrusters, but both haven't been updated in over 2 years. Anyone done any comparing/checking of them. Anyone try them in the testing branch they've been giving access to a few days at a time? Next test, tomorrow.

I've gotten the script to work just fine. The only thing I haven't gotten to work yet is the automatic turn off when you pass under a certain gravity threshold.

It seems that the script is not working anymore.
I have tried it with the Simple Rocket in the "Easy Start Earth" world without mods.

The script ignore the speed limit what i set when there is a higher (modded) speedlimit in the world.
But the rest is great. I transported 1.300.000 kg (1 Big Chest in 1x Inventory) to space with only 3 Big Thruster and 1 Hydrogen Tank!

It where great if the "Rocket" make a 180 Grad turn then 0.0g is arrived and take the "Up thruster" to stop the rocket.

Yes! Perfect With Last second landing (Suicide Burn)

Just perfect. thx a lot.

I have 2 warnings:

Program(23,6): Warning: The field 'Program.initialOverride' is assigned but its value is never used.
Program(25,5):Warning: The field 'Program.firstRun' is assigned but its value is never used.

Is this a problem?

Does this work now?

Sounds very promising, going to test tonight! :)

Gave a star! Cannot wait to test it.

Since last patch script gives some error on unused arguments. The script still working even in DEV, but running the script with the STOP argument wont stop it at all.
Could you look at it?

I've used this script on several ships now. As Dwarf-Lord says, this is essential for SSTOs. Great stuff.

Most underrated script on the Workshop. This deserves stars.

This is a lifesaver. It makes hydrogen based designs vastly more efficient, to the point where it can affect whether or not an SSTO design is viable.

You script + align script in action : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhSjqWXPAlU

Thanks so much for sharing this & your hard work, this is friggin amazing!

no thats fair enough :), I actually managed to get what i wanted via a "hover" script, but i simply aligned it so it hovers with the nose facing up, then it starts your script! currently messing with timers, as what i want to "auto" happen in order is = Ship flys up 20-30m ->starts align script to point nose up -> starts your script and blasts off into space!

@Syntax1985: yea, that would work (for solving issue 1). At least until somebody misunderstoods/makes a mistake/doesn't read instructions. At wchich point the ship might all of a sudden turn sideways and crash :)

Current version is relatively simple to setup, user friendly and foolproof. I wouldn't want to sacrifice that. I'm also not playing SE as much as I used to, so I'm not really inclined to start a sizable project for it.

Thank you for the reply and insight!

Could a dedicated remote control block facing the right direction not be used?

@Syntax1985: Thanks :) For now script does calculate and display on LCD number of degrees your trajectory is off from straight up - which should be a good aid to make sure it is actually vertical while in flight. If you have the cockpit oriented like in my example you can aim straight up by alighing with ground indicator on HUD.

I have actually considered making the script aim. Sadly programming any "manual" rotation of the ship turned out to be pretty huge can of worms:

1. There is no easy way to tell where the "nose" of the ship is. Asking for blocks to be oriented in special way would make it harder to use.

2. It isn't easy to figure out what exactly to tell the gyros to do. Though this is probably the easiest part as it's just some vector math.

3. How to make sure that aiming trajectory will not make the ship crash, especially if it is aiming in completely wrong direction. Any errors in script setup would have potential to result in catastrophe.

Amazing! Been trying out so many of these scripts and this is the only one that does what it says on the tin.

Just a thought tho, do you think it would be possible to "aim" the ship with a script? Would be nice if there was some auto align to go straight up, making the shortest possible time to exit a grav well.

Fantastic. Ill take a look when i get a chance

@SileniusFF, @DarkDragon: I've fixed the issue now. It indeed was introduced by game update.

I'm getting same error during compilation in stable build. Likely it is due the last
update. Really useful srcipt otherwise. Nice work!

Not sure if this is still monitored or not but i thought id leave a message, As of the latest update its generating an error that:

'IMyBlockGroup' does not contain a definition for 'Blocks' and no extentionmethod 'Blocks' accepting a first argument of type 'IMyBlockGroup' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

This works quite nicely! Thanks for writing it!

@Iye yes I know that script, wors pretty well, but it does not use override, just speed limitation. What I want is some script that can take the total mass weight of the ship and planet gravity, and then control the override thrusters to land smothly.

Oh, that would be excellent!

I have updated script with new APIs and fixed it after speed change.

@lye: good job :) I might shamelessly steal ideas back to this script if I find inspiration though :)

@Dakroth, SpetS - it is actually not that hard to make based on this one. Actually if you switched increase / decrease multipliers around and commented out line "setSpeed=speed" it should already work as one. Now that I think about it I'll probably get around and add it as option with next update.

@SpetS the "large grid lander script" https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=639952992 sounds like it does just that, even though i havent tested it yet.

+1 to Dakroth suggestion. I'm searching for a script to land smoothly on a planet using the thrusters override.

Hey, do you think it would be possible to invert this script so it works as a descent manager, too? (It would be a separate script, obviously.) I've found landing larger craft on planets when the speed limit is much higher than 200m/s to be rather difficult without having to overload the craft with extra thrusters and whatever. Having a descent control that attempted to keep the vehicle traveling at a reasonable speed, 50m/s say, for the entirety of the descent would be nice. If I recall correctly, it isn't possible to gather information on indicated altitude via scripts, so it would have to be shut off manually before landing, but the speed control alone would be a huge help.

hey, i did an advanced liftoff manager based on your script.
let me know what you think:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=637302443

Just tried the script out and its brilliant. Thanks for doing hte manual stop feature, but would be nice if I had a condition to trigger a timer block at 0.5 gravity... To use my mass drive to conserve hydrogen...

I've done some digging and fixing issues you mentioned Dakroth. I didn't notice previously, but (Up) in thruster names only appears if ship is under control - so the script didn't work as intended if you tried to start it externally. I've gone around that issue and solved all potential weirdness with different cockpit/remote orientations by using a group instead. I've also fixed error message about no thrusters being found.

I've also added list of steps to make script work both here and in the code itself. Hopefully that will make it easier to setup. If you have any ideas what else to improve feel free to tune in.

Lastly - I've gone around and made manual abort possible by passing "STOP" argument. Feature artiedee wanted a few days ago.

Hmm, I have not exprienced trouble with recognizing "(Up)" but I'll look into making it more robust. Confusing notice was due to my haphazard implementation of more helpful error messages.

I'll get around to working on this in a day or two.

Okay, that is what was missing. You should mention that you have to actually put (Up) in the thruster name despite the fact that the game puts one in there automatically.

Okay, I think I see the problem now. On your blueprint, you added (Up) in addition to the (Up) that gets automatically tacked on anyway. I was just using the automatic one. I'm gonna try again and see if I get some different results.

Alright, I'm having an issue with this. Firstly, I had to figure out what I was supposed to do with my thrusters and the timer block on my own, which was rather annoying. I would suggest adding a complete set of instructions either here or in the intro to the script.

More importantly, however, I cannot get this script to function. I have all the blocks named properly, including the Up thrusters that I wasn't initially aware needed a specific name. Now, when I trigger the timer block to activate the program, nothing happens. When I look at the prog block in the control panel, it says "No thrusters named Rocket Remote Control found on this grid..." and then something about an exception with the parameter "index." I tried adding "Rocket Remote Control" to my thrusters, but it still refused to function. Any ideas?

This is strange I tested it yesterday 3 times to see if it was somehow my mistake and the error always happend but now I'm in my test world again and everything works fine. ^^

Nexarius: I couldn't reproduce the issue, not even while using your blueprint. A semi-solution would be to recompile the script each time it happens. Other than that I could make the script forcefully reinintialise all part indices if started with "Reset" argument. That could help, but at the same time will make initial setup a little trickier.

Nice script just what I need for my rocket :)
I have a problem I'm using it in my blueprint Link and it works for liftoff the first time BUT when I land back on earth and try to start it again I'm getting an error. Link [imgur.com]

Ok, awesome. I guess I should actually look at the script some before suggesting a feature, eh? Groups or tags should both work about equally well for compatability with everything, so whichever is easiest for you to implement is likely the best way to go in that regard xD

As an afterthought, maybe the description above should mention that any speed can be set, but it is defaulted to 104.4 m/s. Then people reading the description won't pass by this script simply because it doesn't appear at first glance to allow different speeds.

Option to alter speed was in the script from the start:

double setSpeed = 104.4; //Change if you are using a speed mod.

I'm not entirely sure whether tags make more sense, but I might consider them. Or just using groups. Since it seems that this script will be using more blocks in future.

In fact because of other scripts like that, if it's not too much work, it might be best to simply make this entire script run on a tag rather than on the full name of the items. Some other scripts rename items, for example Show Damaged on HUD , which renames the blocks when they become damaged. This type of renaming would likely interfere with a script that reads the full name of an item, but not one that is triggered by a tag.

I don't know of any specific circumstances that would cause my second suggestion to be much of an issue so it may not be all that important, but compatibility with as many other mods and scripts as possible is always a good thing. However, allowing the target speed to be altered would make this script a fair bit more usable to those who have increased max speed.

Regardless of everything mentioned above, this is a very useful script and I'd like to thank you for creating it.

Is there a way to alter the speed that this attempts to maintain? I'm sure many people, myself included, use mods that increase the max speed, so keeping it at 104.3 m/s could be quite inefficient for those people.

Best solution for the user would be so that a person can set the target speed simply by adding it as a tag or argument after the name of the block much like how item management scripts such as Taleden's Inventory Manager works, though I'm not sure how much effort it would be to allow altering the target speed in this way.

Continued in next post... (I really hate Steam's comment character limit)

Very good!

I like that your open to suggestions! Thank you !

LCD output is pretty easy to do and I'll add it since you seem interested in it. There is some output to the programming block text area itself already.

Idea with argument for programmable block is great and I'm going to use it.

Aligning to gravity vector is significantly more complex, but I wanted to handle it for miners anyways. So a big maybe here.

Stopping point is based on gravity strength - it is a trivially accessed value within remote control block. You can calculate distance from the planet center out of it probably.