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Cruise Control

2017-11-17 Update: No longer needs a timer block. If you had one before, I recommend you "disconnect" it from the prog block (remove all its actions) to reduce surprises.

Cruise control for ships of any size. Fixes your speed at whatever speed you want, in any direction you want, using whatever combination of thruster types (ion, atmo, hydrogen).

How is this different than simply turning off inertial dampeners? Well, the main difference is that you can actually steer and it will automatically change directions. ;) Also, no need to hold down your forward thrust button for however long. (Great for large, slow ships!)


Just load it into a programmable block. No timer block required.


If your grid axes are off (and you'll know, because you'll start moving in another direction besides forward), you need to set a reference group.

Select a block that is properly oriented with the "forward" and "up" directions of your ship, most likely a cockpit/flight seat/remote control etc. Create a group with this block named CruiseControlReference (note: case-sensitive!)

After creating the reference group, be sure to also re-compile the script.


You use the script by running it with certain arguments. So you would normally set these up on your cockpit/remote whatever toolbar (i.e. drag programmable block from 'G' menu to toolbar, select "Run", and when prompted for an argument, enter one of the following commands)

Note that some commands may take a "thruster specification." This allows you to specify which types of thrusters to affect. By default, all thruster types are used. The thruster-spec is simply a string with one or more of the following letters:

• i -- For ion thrusters
  
• a -- For atmospheric thrusters
  
• h -- For hydrogen thrusters

Letter case and order doesn't matter. So "ah" and "ha" will use atmo & hydrogen thrusters. Also note that since Keen provides no way for scripts to determine the type of thruster (aside from name), this feature may not be usable when the game is not set to English.

• cruise reset -- This will re-enable all thrusters, reset their thrust override to 0, and shut off the cruise control script if it is running.
  
  
• cruise reset <thruster-spec> -- Similar to the previous, but will only touch the thruster types specified by <thruster-spec>. For example "cruise reset h" will stop the script and re-enable all hydrogen thrusters. The other thruster types are left alone.
  
  
• cruise stop -- This shuts off the script and restores the state of all thrusters as they were before the first cruise command you issued since last stopping.
  
  
• cruise <speed> -- Cruises forward. <speed> is some number representing the desired speed in meters per second. For example "cruise 25" or "cruise 104.4"
  
  
• cruise <speed> <direction> -- Similar to the previous, but allows you to cruise in any direction. <direction> can be one of the following words: "forward" "forwards" "backward" "backwards" "up" "down" "left" "right"
  
  So "cruise 50 up" will cause your ship to thrust upwards at 50 m/s.
  
  
• cruise <speed> <direction> <thruster-spec> -- Similar to the previous, but will only touch thruster types given by the <thruster-spec>. For example "cruise 25 forward ia" to cruise forward at 25 m/s using only ions + atmo. Note that in order to specify a thruster-spec, you must also specify a direction.
  
  
• cruise reverse -- Similar to "cruise stop" but will also re-orient the ship so its rear is against the current direction of motion. Not recommended for use in a gravity well.
  
  
• cruise set -- Activates cruise control using the ship's current speed (technically, it uses the magnitude of the ship's velocity... so keep this in mind if you're moving backwards, for example)
  Similarly, you can substitute the word "set" or "current" for <speed> in any of the commands above and it will use the ship's current speed.

Once your speed is "close enough," your thrusters along your direction of motion will be turned off. They will be activated again if you change directions or set a new speed.


See this post.


For the bleeding edge, as well as a more readable and modular version of the script, go see GitHub[github.com]. I usually only update the workshop version when things break or major features are added.