Stormworks: Build and Rescue

Stormworks: Build and Rescue

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Dynamic Positioning
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24 Jan, 2021 @ 12:22pm
30 May, 2021 @ 4:49am
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Dynamic Positioning

In 1 collection by Hunter Falkner
Falkmarine Microcontrollers
21 items
Description
So you want to keep your ship in one place, great, you don't want to use 8 azimuth thrusters, jet engines and nuclear warheads to do that though - which is not so great because most Dynamic Positioning microcontrollers will require you to - that's fine though because this microcontroller will utilise thrusters 90% of ships will have installed and do it very well.

Ships that have it:
Far Fosna: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2413146588
ALP Keeper: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2398050934
ALP Defender: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2397951606
MPSV Hercules: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2435428433

Requirements:
- 1 Bow tunnel thruster driven by electric motor
- 1 Stern tunnel thruster driven by electric motor
- 1 or more main thrusters (azipods preferred) driven by electric motors (You can clutch in an electric motor only for DP to avoid losses when not in DP)

Features!!!!!:
-Azipod authority limiter, keeps your azipods from giving too much turning authority at high throttle settings while allowing for 180 degree rotation below 0.1 throttle settings.
-Tunnel thruster controller
-GPS position holding with 1m circular error probable (3m in 100% wind if your ship has enough thruster power to fight the weather)
-Position adjusting while in DP, relative to the closest cardinal direction the vessel is pointing to(using arrows)
-DP Heading Hold
-DP Weather-vaning - The ship will turn itself to face the wind to reduce the effects of the wind on the ship.
-DP HIGH mode - For when you need to be PLANTED on the spot. It increases the hardness with which the DP program attempts to keep it on the spot, doesn't increase the maximum thrust.
-DP Wind Feed-Forward - The system reacts to the strength of the wind to react to the weather changes before the ship is blown off position.
-Seven colour schemes (Monochrome Orange, Monochrome Green, Sea Green, Inverted, Ancient Sky, Dry Blood, Nasty Crimson)
-Built-in sensor test.
-Self-Calibrating program.

--SETUP NOTES--
1. If you're using diesel engines for propulsion and don't want to suffer losses associated with diesel-electric transmission
a) Use a clutch to disengage the engines and another clutch to engage the electric motor to the main shafts which will operate as you turn the DP on and off
b) Still connect the throttle lever to the microcontroller, throttle position is one of the variables that are determining the azimuth authority limiting
c) Still connect the steering controls as they're used for position adjustments when in DP

2. If you're not using azipods
a) Connect the rudder rotation normally without the microcontroller

3. If you are experiencing DP induced rolling or oscillations with the recommended DP values
a) Decrease the dynamic resistance value, keeping it high allows the ship to sense being blown off position but having it too high will induce oscillations due to propulsion inertia.
b) If that is not enough decrease the overall DP strength.

--TUNING--

a) Self-Calibrating
1. Enter Calibrating Mode in the microcontroller properties.
2. Sail out to sea to be free of obstructions in every direction, stop and enable DP.
3. Run the sensor BIT tests and after SENSORS OK message run the calibrating programs.
4. Remember the values in the BIT COMPLETE screen, use them for tunnel and main thruster power in DP, if the stationkeeping is not satisfactory regulate the overall DP strength.

b) Manual
1. Regulate bow and stern manual tunnel thrusters power so that the ship can travel sideways without turning or toppling when using left/right arrows when not in DP.
2. Regulate bow and stern DP tunnel thrusters power so that the ship can turn around and face the wind with the WIND mode activated but the excess power doesn't cause it to oscillate around a setpoint.
3. Regulate the main thrusters power so that the ship can fight the weather when facing the wind with the WIND mode activated but the excess power doesn't cause it to oscillate around a setpoint. (20% is fine for electric motors as main propulsion, higher numbers might be necessary for weaker, clutch-in on demand motors)
4. Regulate overall DP strength for optimal hardness.



**DISCLAIMER**
The microcontroller is scrambled, the reason for that is a person I know stealing my microcontroller designs. I left the LUA blocks out of the scrambled mess because they are only used to draw data on the screen and I don't want anyone to think I'm hiding malicious code in them.
53 Comments
DangerInstructor 6 Apr @ 5:59pm 
I'm having trouble with the ship constantly rotating all the time even when the direction should be fine
Hunter Falkner  [author] 4 Apr @ 1:09pm 
@DerangedCombatant If you're using rudders (and not azipods - as in propellers on robotic pivots) then you should probably avoid using this feature and connect your rudders directly to the pivots. This feature was conceived due to the nature of azipods being able to put out large amounts of thrust in directions which can get the ship capsized.

However if you still want to use this feature there are still two things you can do:
a) make sure the directional velocity sensor is set to "directional" and pointing to the side as other settings might cause severe limiting
b) disconnect the directional velocity sensor if that proves unsatisfactory
c) have some kind of microcontroller which will divide throttle input by a factor of 2 or 3 and input that into the DP

If none of the above solutions help then you probably not have enough turning force on the rudders to need to limit the deflection. I hope this helps!
Nashy 29 Mar @ 10:34pm 
Is there a way to turn down the Azipod authority limiter without un-scrambling your logic, im using rudders controlled via pivots but its no letting them turn anywhere near enough at any speed other than a crawl
Hunter Falkner  [author] 31 Aug, 2023 @ 11:18am 
@KeroseneViking Hello and excuse my late response - I am very glad you're enjoying my work, seeing people like my stuff makes all the difference in drive to do these things. Answering your question - it would be possible to do all these things, however I would need to sit down to it and actually do it. I have not had much time to play stormworks and as far as I remember I would need to sit down to it and redesign a whole lot of the controller to actually make it possible before I add any features due to the thing being horribly made and completely not modular. However if I get the time I will take these into consideration and attempt to redesign and improve the chip. I promise not to leave this as is and actually come back to it because it's one of few projects I did that I fully intend on supporting and I will not abandon it any time soon. Cheers :)
KeroseneViking 3 Aug, 2023 @ 4:52pm 
Hey Hunter! Do you think it would be possible to add the ability to adjust sensitivity variables on screen? If not then maybe add a composite input node to do so? Again if not, could I get a way to adjust the heading hold on screen? All in all, I absolutely love your work here; I've put it on every ship I have made. These are just requests that I have had from literal years of using it! :)
Hunter Falkner  [author] 12 Jun, 2023 @ 8:19am 
@RayCubed I'm glad you're enjoying it, if you're unsure of anything you can feel free to post here or hit me up directly!
RayCubed 11 Jun, 2023 @ 5:15pm 
Fantastic work.

Thank you for including builds that also used your controller, makes a world of difference for troubleshooting my own implementation.
Hunter Falkner  [author] 22 Feb, 2023 @ 10:27am 
@kclarke13 the only way for now would be having an azipod turn 90 degrees to left or right and act as a tunnel thruster, this controller is not designed to work with bow azipods per se, sorry :(
kclarke13 22 Feb, 2023 @ 5:26am 
Is there a way to use this with bow azipods instead of tunnel thrusters?
Hunter Falkner  [author] 16 Oct, 2022 @ 3:50am 
@space_pirate I'm glad you're enjoying it :) I'll look at the issue of not being able to adjust the ships' position with arrows and maybe do some improvements to the system, which are long overdue.