OHM DVToolsMFD 1.0

[OrbitHangar]

Author: mjh

Delta-V Tools MFD (DVToolsMFD) consists of two programs:

• Thrusters Program: A program to monitor Delta-V usage.
• Calculators Program: A set of sub-programs to help calculate Delta-V parameters and time to burn for typical orbital maneuvers.

DVToolsMFD contains a detailed user manual in the Doc\DVToolsMFD directory.  The user manual contains the following step by step tutorials to demonstrate the DVToolsMFD Calculators Program:

• Altitude Change Calculator Tutorial
• ISS Synchronization Tutorial
• Moon Landing Tutorial
• Earth Landing Tutorial
• Mars Landing Tutorial

DOWNLOAD

 

[Interceptor]

I found this addon to be very useful,and easy to use,great job,thank you.

 

[Mojave]

Wow, this is awesome. This is on my "use" list.

 

[mjh]

Thank you Interceptor and Samuel Edwards for the kind words. I'm happy it works for you, and you are finding it useful!

 

[sorindafabico]

I used for powered deorbit and landing on the Moon. Works fine!

Some guy asked for something to do instrument landing on the Moon. This MFD helps it a lot.

 

[Cras]

Holy

Just reading the manual has got me excited.

This is a fantastic idea for an MFD. I had work to do, but that can wait now! I am installing it right now and I cant wait to try this thing out.

---------- Post added at 02:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:17 PM ----------

I got a question. I am working through the tutorials, so far did the moon orbit adjustment and the lunar powered descent, great stuff both times, now I am working on the Earth Deorbit. I am having trouble getting the program to accept target runways. The PDF says that if bases are not in the standard location or are not using recommended naming conventions, the MFD will not be able to read and verify the specified launch pad or runway.

What exactly are "standard" location and recommended naming conventions, because I admit to having done quite a bit of editing of my base files. I renamed Cape Canaveral for instance, removed many of the bases I never use, and added things like Slats Edwards and White Sands bases, and Wideawake, but none seem to work. I can target the base, but not the runway. I was looking at all these files to one that did work for me, the default Habana after re-activating it, but I just cannot see what the difference is.

 

[mjh]

Thanks Cras for taking time to test this.

The location of the configuration file read by DVToolsMFD is at:
$ORBITER_DIR/Config/<surfaceName>/Base/<baseName>.cfg
Where <surfaceName> would be Earth in your case.

The algorithm to derive <baseName> is:
If the base is "Cape Canaveral" it is hard-coded to use "CANAVERAL.cfg" (case insensitive).

So for "Cape Canaveral Runway 33" it would look for the following Config file
$ORBITER_DIR/Config/Earth/Base/Canaveral.cfg

For all other bases, it takes the TGT as entered (say "China Lake Runway X"), removes the "Runway X" so you end up with "China Lake". Then it replaces spaces with underscores (i.e. "China_Lake"). This should be case insensitive. This is the way I read the "Linking surface bases to planets" in OrbiterConfig.pdf, which is why I implemented it this way (and stated "standard" location and recommended naming conventions, which obviously does not apply to "Cape Canaveral", which is why I coded an exception for it).

Once the configuration file is located it searches for RUNWAY tags and it uses the END1 and END2 offsets underneath each RUNWAY tag to calculate the beginning and ending position of each RUNWAY found. From the positions it calculates two runway headings (rounding down to the nearest whole number) for each RUNWAY found. Then it matches these numbers with those entered to find a match.

One thing I did notice when looking this up for you is that "Brighton Beach" on the moon by default appears to be in a config file:
$ORBITER_DIR/Config/Moon/Base/Brighton.cfg
So if somebody added runways on the moon they would need to add a configuration file named $ORBITER_DIR/Config/Moon/Base/Brighton_Beach.cfg in order for the current DVToolsMFD to find it.

For Pad's it uses the Orbiter API so you should not run into any config file issues with Pad's. I could not find a corresponding API for runways, which is why I needed to implement it myself. If anyone knows of an API function for runways I can change the code to use it in a future version.

I hope this helps.

 

[Cras]

This makes perfect sense to what I was seeing, since my Canaveral is now renammed Kennedy Space Center (with the file as KSC.cfg) and Wideawake International has the file Ascension.cfg. I will change those up and see how it goes.

I am loving this add-on by the way.

---------- Post added at 04:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:20 PM ----------

and now it works. I changed KSC.cfg to Kennedy_Space_Center.cfg and now I now the MFD accepts the target of "Kennedy Space Center Runway 33"

I am off now to finish the Earth deorbit tutorial!

 

[Donamy]

Will this addon work with SC3 vessels ?

 

[mjh]

Will this addon work with SC3 vessels ?

The short answer is I don't know.

The long answer is I developed this MFD mainly for DeltaGlider vessels.

The majority of the testing I did was with DG4, so that is the only vessel I can say should work in most scenarios. I did some basic testing with the XR fleet (Thrusters and Calculators program) and in all cases I tested it seemed to work well. I did minimal testing with the standard DeltaGlider (Thrusters program and Powered Deorbit and Powered Landing Cacluators) which seemed to work.

The only non DeltaGlider vessel I tried was AMSO (Thrusters program only) and that seemed to work.

If you can recommend a couple of your favorite SC3 vessels, I'd be happy to give it a try. Or just give it a try yourself and let me know how it works.

 

[BrianJ]

This looks very useful. Thanks mjh :thumbup:

 

[boogabooga]

OK, I tried the Earth re-entry tutorial (except on XR-1 instead of DG IV) and I think I have some constructive criticism.

This seems like it could be a replacement for BurnTimeMFD, with some added functionality. However, the one thing that BurnTime can do that this can't is fire the engine by itself.

With all the data it's keeping and knowing exactly the time to burn and duration of the burn, IMHO it should be able to perform the burn by itself. I'm not even saying it needs to have an autopilot to point in the right direction. Just burn. AFAIK, it's only calculating prograde/retrograde maneuvers, no plane changes or anything. So the user could be responsible to set the Orbiter pro/retro autopilots, and let the MFD perform the burn.

As it stands, it is fairly awkward to have to load up IMFD and try to enter the TEj to match that of DVTools. It wouldn't be too terrible, except that the re-entry procedure outlined already has some awkward (but clever) interactions with AerobrakeMFD that requires pausing the sim to physically write down information (I almost always play Orbiter at night in a pitch black room and I doubt that I am the only one). Yes, I was able to hold a smoothish 40 deg re-entry and it was more accurate than what I can usually get. However, for XR type vessels, the traditional BaseSynch + Aerobrake combo is probably close enough most of the time, for me anyway.

It IS a pretty cool MFD, and I'm interested in trying the moon landing next. But, IMHO, it should do the burns by itself.

 

[mjh]

Thanks for the feedback boogabooga.

I thought about adding an autoburn for this first version, but thought I would put a first version up so people could start using it sooner rather than later. Furthermore, I thought this would be a good way of getting newcomers familiar with some of the less used features of IMFD.

BTW, the tutorials recommend copying the Time To Burn MJD into IMFD so you don't have to worry about syncing up the TEj. Anyway point taken, and when I get a chance to work on the next version it should be no problem adding autoburn because as you point out is just calculating prograde/retrograde burns so it should be fairly straight forward.

Also, before beginning DVToolsMFD I originally looked at modifying the AeroBrakeMFD to incorporate the AeroBrake Deorbit Calculator into that. I never intended to write a new MFD. However, the code included with the AeroBrakeMFD seemed out of sync with the provide AeroBrake.dll. So I decided to build DVToolsMFD as in addition to stale code issues, I had other ideas as well which I felt warranted a new MFD. If the author of the AeroBrakeMFD can provide me the latest code, I could make the modifications. Or even better I could add some hooks into AeroBrakeMFD so I could share the information from AeroBrakeMFD into DVToolsMFD. If you combine that with autoburn, everything would be automated.

Thanks again for the constructive feedback as you have some really good points!

 

[Tommy]

I haven't had time to try this yet, but after reading the sync tutorial I can offer a suggestion. IMFD's Velocity Match program is much easier than trying to null your R-vel "by hand", especially that last few m/s. All you do is set the target, and press AB.

Keep in mind that IMFD won't actually begin the burn until the vessel is properly orientated, so there can be a significant delay between pressing the AB button and engine start. You should roughly orient the vessel a minute or two before you will want the burn to start, and the delay won't be noticable.

 

[mjh]

Thanks for the suggestion Tommy.

I was aware of the IMFD velocity match program but I created the sync program as a more user interactive alternative. I personally like having full control of a sync burn especially since DVToolsMFD will give you immediate feedback on the distance you will end from the target if you were to burn at any given time. And I personally don't find nulling the last few m/s very difficult. In fact I find the hardest part of the manual burn is keeping the ship in the correct position. But I find this kind of fun.

If you prefer a more hands off approach, then use IMFD. If you want a little more hands on without having to guess when to burn, then use DVToolsMFD. I like to think of it as the difference between the person that prefers to own a car with an automatic transmission vs. the person that prefers a car with a manual transmission. Both are fine, it's just a matter of personal preference. And if car manufactures where to only provide one or the other you would have some unhappy people.

 

[McGalcri]

We need a new version for Orbiter 2016, this v1.0 crash the game just opening it.

I really need this MFD!!! hahaha.