This is a flight controls script designed for use on the Draconis Expanse server to carry out certain common maneuvers such as the Flip and Burn, as well as being an autopilot. Ships will have the vast majority of their thrust facing forward with the epstein drives. This script is intended use this forward thrust effectively, and make piloting expanse style ships easier and fun.
NavOS has NO collision avoidance!
You can also find it on the steam workshop.
¶ Features
- Turn the ship Retrograde (against direction of travel).
- Turn the ship Prograde (matching direction of travel).
- Point the ship Retrograde and stop the ship.
- Autopilot the ship to a GPS, a certain distance ahead (20,000m for example) or to a coordinate.
- Provide a rough ETA broken into accelerate, cruise and deccelerate sections
- Multi point trips allows the user to put multiple GPS into the PB custom data, and plot a course. Using the Journey Load and then Journey Start commands, the script will engage autopilot and fly to the GPS sequentially. (Warning: This is experimental and does not work across instances.) This online map can help plot a Journey around slow zones.
- Orient the ship to always point towards a GPS.
- Display the current status of the journey, ETA and any errors that could occur, shown in the PB details or on an LCD screen
- Match the vector of the current WC target
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| NavOS details from an LCD screen, projected to the hud using the hudlcd plugin mentioned in the NPG |
¶ How do I setup the script?
- Put the ScriptTag (
Navby default) in the name of the primary cockpit - Create a
NavThrustgroup, containing all the drives and thrusters you want the script to use (make sure to exclude forward RCS to save on a lot of fuel) - Add the script to the programmable block.
- Set the settings in custom data to your preferences, especially offset distances!
- Use the CalibrateTurn command to find the time to do a 180, it is recommended to redo this if the ship has large weight changes.
- Recompile the script if you change the control block, LCD, Gyros, or any of the forward thrust.
It is recommended to at least put the Abort command on the hotbar for easy access.
¶ Custom Data Settings
In custom data you can adjust the settings of the script. Make sure to set up one of the offset distances, it is HIGHLY Recommended to set this to at least 1000, and 3000 has been found to be the best. This will ensure you do not crash into any object that is on or near the GPS.
ShipControllerTagis the text you need to add to the primary cockpit. You can change this to whatever you want.CruiseOffsetDistis the distance from a destination GPS point you want the ship to be stopped at, when using the auto pilot. Set this to 0 if you use CruiseOffsetSideDist.CruiseOffsetSideDistis the distance you want to be away from the GPS laterally. Set this to 1 if you use CruiseOffsetDist.MaxThrustOverrideRatiois the max percentage of thrust the script is allowed to use for the forward drives.IgnoreMaxThrustForSpeedMatchis whether navos can use more thrust than the max thrust for the purposes of matching vectors.GyroGroupNameis the name for the group of the gyros you want Navos to control. It is optional and if the group does not exist then Navos will use all the gyrosThrustGroupNameis the name for the group of thrusters you want Navos to control. Again it is optional and if the group does not exist it will use all the thrusters. If you do want to make Navos not use the forward RCS then make a group that contains all thrusters apart from forward RCS (Navos needs lateral thrust to make fine adjustments)ConsoleLcdNameis the name of the LCD you want Navos to display the status to.Ship180TurnTimeSeconds. This will provide a default value for the autopilot, if you know the ship's mass will not be changing then it is reccoemended to calibrate turn and set this to the value displayed once the command is finished. If you know the mass will be changing dramatically (I.E. a hauler) it is reccomended to make it 30 seconds to give you enough time to turn when you are really heavy and forget to CalibrateTurn.MaintainDesiredSpeed. This means that once Navos has reached the desired speed it will maintain that speed until it needs to decelerate, it defaults to True and it is reccomended to leave it as True
¶ Arguments
Abort: Stop all actions and cancel the autopilot route. This is reccomended to have on your hotbar.CalibrateTurn: Does a 180o turn to tune the rotation speed. Prevents overshooting when during rotations. [DO THIS FIRST]Retroburn: Flip and burn to stop. This is reccomended to have on your hotbar.Retrograde: Points the ship in the opposite direction of travel. This is reccomended to have on your hotbarPrograde: Points the ship in the direction of travel.Cruise <DesiredSpeed> <ForwardDistanceMeters>: set the autopilot to go to a point a certain distance ahead at the desired speed.Cruise <DesiredSpeed> <X:Y:Z>: it will automatically travel to the provided coordinates at the desired speed.Cruise <DesiredSpeed> <GPS>: This will automatically travel to the provided GPS at the desired speed. (This is the most used command)Orient <GPS>: This will point your ship at the provided GPS.Reload: Reload the config in the PB Custom Data, must be run after the config is edited. (Recompiling the script also works)Match: This will match your speed and vector to the Current WC target lock. It will continue to match even if the locked target changesThrustRatio <ratio>: This will edit the MaxThrustOverrideRatio value, it must be greater than 0 and less than or equal to 1Thrust Set <ratio>: this will set the forward thrusters to the provided override. For a thrust override of 50%, the command is: Thrust Set 0.5Journey Load: This will load the GPS in the Journey section in the config (Experimental)Journey Start: This will start the Journey if the waypoints are loaded (Experimental)