Auto pilot eratic/unreliable

[nostrebor66]

Auto pilot having problems docking with orbiting stations around 75% of the time , and ground stations around 10% of attempts . Not docking or crashing into station or port .

This is only issue found so thanks to all the developers for the hard work

Linux 64 20170304 Linux Mint 18.1 Amd fx4 Gtx760 16 Gig ram

[bszlrd]

It should be fixed in the next release. The fix is already merged, but not sure when the new build will happen. At least for the issue with the orbitals.

Could you elaborate on the crashing into the station part? Do you have a save where it happens?

[impaktor]

I think we should maybe ask @robn (ping) for a build now?

[nostrebor66]

Sorry no save it appears to happen randomly , auto pilot just appears to fly into the side of a station or on the odd occasion it will fly into the starport or ground .

[bszlrd]

@nostrebor66 What ship you have? How much cargo? I'm asking that most ships have quite weak retro thrusters, and that could cause issues with the autopilot, if you are overloaded. Since it approaches heads down before using the belly thrusters.

[nostrebor66]

Started with Sinonatrix from earth had problem with it . then after making some money moved to a Mola Mola , load wise it can happen with only a tank of fuel and a package or two on board , the Mola Mola is worse for auto pilot error than Sinonatrix . It happens if you use the crew order as well , crew with 100% experience in piloting .

[impaktor]

Could you please download and try the latest release. The bug should be fixed there. Report back here if you still experience strange behaviour.

[nostrebor66]

Have downloaded latest and have tested a bit in the Sol system as requested

Testing latest version of Pioneer 20170415-Linux

Sol system test

Still unable to dock at Torvalds Platform (as was the case with 20170304) Docking granted OK but will not dock

Autopilot has crashed into two stations so far

having a new problem with game crashing with following error

[string "[T] @modules/PolicePatrol/PolicePatrol.lua"]:47: attempt to get length of upvalue 'patrol' {a nil value} stack traceback: [string "[T] @modules/PolicePatrol/PolicePatrol.lua"]:47: in function 'cb' [string "[T] @libs/Event.lua"]:34: in function '?'

when travelling to following stations Daniels Haven Poseidon Station Oasis City

Distance from destination varies from

0.40AU - 2.42AU

no other ships in area and no proximity alerts

Departure points tried include

Mars High Thebes Gas Refinery Clarks Station

Ships Tested include Sinonatrix Bowfin Mola Mola Pumpkinseed

Have tried a Clean restart from Earth (in case of a glitch in earlier save) still have problems at Torvalds Platform and game crash with error message

Hope this is of help and Thanks for reply

[nostrebor66]

Stupid me have got rid of problems ,can dock at Torvalds and error seems ok now .

Did a restart on comp and it seems to have sorted out the glitch .

Autopilot still flew into Earth rather than go the long way round hohum technology eh .

Again a big thanks to you guys for helping out , and for all the work on this project .

Maybe I will fire up blender and see what happens .

[impaktor]

The only thing I can think of that would "sort out the glitch" is if you we're playing an older version of pioneer before, when you had the bug, and if you are first now playing the April version, which includes a bug fix for the bad auto pilot.

It's not like pioneer "installs" itself and nestles it's way all over your computer like other windows programs can do. It's just sitting in a folder, self contained.

Or at least, that's my thinking of it.

[nostrebor66]

Only started with the 20170403 build (yup a newbie) played Frontier a lot on my A1200 Amiga (might have to dust it off for old times sake)

I had deleted the 20170403 build before I unpacked the 20170415 build , only thing I did was shutdown and restart my comp . Will try to get a few more hours of testing in and let you know what happens .

thanks again for the help

[pcercuei]

I noticed that when I'm travelling to a remote planet my reserve of hydrogen goes down slowly; I believe because the auto-pilot corrects its trajectory to compensate for the movement of the planet.

Could we maybe have an option to buy a smarter (and expensive) auto-pilot, that would calculate the position of the planet at time of arrival, and use that?

[bszlrd]

As a workaround you could goto the parent body until you get reasonably close, then switch over to your destination.

[laarmen]

The upgraded autopilot would be a nice touch indeed.

On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 1:23 PM Szlrd notifications@github.com wrote:

As a workaround you could goto the parent body until you get reasonably close, then switch over to your destination.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/issues/3972#issuecomment-312243050, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAkONQza5r8PZzVIBH2cB831grzWbq69ks5sJNq4gaJpZM4M-AFN .

[ecraven]

The upgraded autopilot would be a nice touch indeed.

I want to show distance at closest approach in the ui, to calculate that, I'd need to find the point the autopilot should aim for. Maybe when we do that, we can fix / upgrade the autopilot ;)

[nostrebor66]

Sorry for not being around life and health problems but hey ho , have had no further issues with autopilot accidents . I have also noticed fuel use on longer in system travel just asumed that it was course addjustments taking place inflight .

[bszlrd]

It's that and the lateral thrusters are less efficient then the mains, so they gobble up propellant faster. I had some very stressfull SAR missions recently because of that, where I had to tweak orbits for weeks in-gabe because of the autopilot botching the transfer.

[impaktor]

have had no further issues with autopilot accidents .

FIxed, closing.