I'm having trouble with the ship constantly rotating all the time even when the direction should be fine

@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!

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

@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 :)

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! :)

@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!

Fantastic work.

Thank you for including builds that also used your controller, makes a world of difference for troubleshooting my own implementation.

@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 :(

Is there a way to use this with bow azipods instead of tunnel thrusters?

@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.

@Hunter Falkner
Yes it's crazy that it actually still works or we'll almost the only thing that have seemed to stop working is moving the ship in full do with the arrows but the dp mode still works like a charm wich is truly amazing 🥰

@kclarke13 I definitely recommend trying the calibrating mode when you run into issues, it helps to rule out several causes of problems - thrusters not armed included :)

Now come to think of it I could definitely add a message that pops up in the middle of the display whenever thrusters are not armed while attempting to operate the system.

disregard... arming thrusters is a nice thing

i'm not getting any power at my thrusters. i've tried them manually and they work. any quick ideas or do you recommend the calibration procedure?

@kclarke13 go right ahead buddy, that's what it's for :)

thank you so much, this looks awesome. mind if i use it on a project?

@space_pirate thank you so much for the kind words <3. It's one of the microcontrollers that stood the test of time and didn't let the devs break anything in it. I'm actually impressed it still works well after all this time.

16-06-2020 still works like a charm one of the best things i have ever put in my ship <3 if it dosent work for you well then you have made something wrong. i have it installed in 4 different ships small and big and it works in ALL of them.

@Noremac I'm glad you're enjoying this controller, it's true, it might be a little be more difficult to set up than your regular *whatever* controller but you have to keep in mind that this piece of kit controls the entire ship in some tricky weather conditions so it needs a bit of care to get right. As to the problem you're experiencing - I've been aware that this might be an issue as this sometimes did pop up in the testing and sometimes didn't. It's because it uses a very dated (and not particularly good) heading hold autopilot I made back when I was starting out making controllers but I never considered improving on it as I thought that if it only *sometimes* happens on this one *particular* direction out of all of them in this one *particular* mode - it won't be much of an issue - which at the time was a very poor excuse for me not to fix this issue. I haven't played the game in a good while but when I find the time I will look into it and come up with a better solution :)

Awesome controller, thanks for sharing it. A little tricky to get working well, figured out big motors and props work way better than small motors and props. Big problem I'm having right now is it seems to get confused while heading hold is enabled around the 360-0 heading. So if its set to 358 and wind rotates my ship past the 360-0 heading the DP goes max rotation clockwise slamming the ship into the dock.

@Yarick you will need to have an intermediate controller that will actuate the reverser doors on the waterjets as turning the waterjets in the opposite direction will not create opposite thrust. If you want to use waterjets with differential steering provided by a controller then you should also subscribe to the DP raw value conversion kit which will allow you to turn thruster commands into generalized motion commands.

can i use (water) jets with this MC?

Thanks for the response.

Yes, if that becomes an issue the calibrating program will display INVERT TUNNEL in the BIT COMPLETE screen. There is no option for that in the properties (yet, might be a good idea to add it if I decide to revise the chip) and you will have to either multiply tunnel thruster outputs by -1 or invert the tunnel propellers so they point the other direction. The option in the properties is for rudder steering when not in DP.

Thank you so much, really appreaciate it. One question, I saw in earlier comments someone had to invert their thrusters, will the calibration advise of this if it is required ? And what is inverted steering for in the properties.

Cheers,

@Ronchi I'm glad you're enjoying it. If you're talking about utilising the tunnel thrusters automatically to aid turning - I suppose it could be integrated. I haven't looked at this microcontroller in a while and it could definitely use a small revision, I'll look into integrating such a system :)

This is awesome, thanks heaps, any chance of adding functionality so this MC could also assist my boat in normal turns to increase the turn speed ?

That confused me was the invert tunnel. I seen there was a option in the menu and thought when I select it the microcontroler would invert it in software. Didn't understand that it wanted my to physically flip them. Aside from that yes it was very straight forward and easy to set up.

I am glad it works for you. I tried to make the system as easy to install and calibrate as possible but it is quite a complex package so mistakes can be made. Enjoy!

Its all good now. I downloaded a few other ships with the system and seen how they had it set up. I increased the size of my thrusters but what was killing me was the inverted tunnel. Tested her in near 100% wind and happy with the results.

Hey guys, sorry for the late response, I haven't been checking the workshop for a while.

@Reddixa: Yes, absolutely, just connect the rudder without the microcontroller.

@chevelle_rr1: No wind and a runaway sounds like a positioning data issue. Please make sure the system is fed GPS X into GPS X and GPS Y into GPS Y and not crossed over as in GPS X into GPS Y port and vice versa. Also please make sure the compass is heading the correct heading of the ship. And make sure the calibrating program didn't show the "invert tunnel" message and if it did - you will need to fix that too.

Ive been working on this for to many hours and need some advice. I have it all installed. Did the test and gave me 28 for main and 100 on the tunnel. Tried that and no luck. I started to manual tune it. At this point when I turn it on perfect for the first min or two. After that it gets a small drift that shouldn't be a problem but it turn into a runaway. This is all with wind turned off for testing. Any ideas?

Thank you for this awesome mod! Is it possible to use this with propeller thrusters instead of Azimuth?

It´s already awesome just for the description.

It is going to spin by design and then drive forwards to calibrate thruster power. You need to wait for it to finish the calibration and display the recommended values.

Hey I don't what I'm doing wrong but every time i try and calibrate it just spins in a circle.

I put that in the FAQ but it doesn't pop up as the featured discussion for some reason.

VANE will turn the vessel bow first into the wind to reduce effects of waves and wind on it.
HDG will maintain current heading.
Neither will leave the ship free to turn on its own.

What's the difference between vane and heading?

Howdy, I've incorporated this into my ship: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2502671140 With credit given in multiple places in the desc. Thanks for making this!

Thanks for the screenshot, I'll definitely look into this

Here is a screenshoot

https://imgur.com/a/ttJFjdk

Thanks for your awesome work!

Oh... I should look into this, the system did inherit some imperfections with the calibrating mode introduction that I have never got around to ironing out so that might be 100% my fault, although this is the first time I'm ever hearing of this bug. Either way I'm super happy it works for you, enjoy it!

Thank you!! I added the steering output to my own steering diff throttle and it works perfectly. I have a problem on experimental (0.0.67) that sometimes, after a while using DP, the Calibration Screen appears overlapping the main screen, but the positioning keeps working OK.

Connect bow and stern thrusters as normal and to the main thrusters you can only connect the forward/reverse throttle and ignore the steering altogether, it's not necessary for DP operation, it only aids it by not a significant amount. Do steering however you want. Just get the forwards/reverse throttle from the microcontroller as out of DP it will simply pass through the steering input and in DP it will do its own thing.

I have a ship that uses both bow and stern thrusters, and main electrics with differential steering. How can I connect this MC ?

<3

Being a DP operator I find this amazing that you created such a complex system in Stormworks, congrats man!

hi, can it be that "Stern Tunnel Thruster manual Power" and "Bow Tunnel Thruster manual Power" settings are reversed?

The facing of the speed sensor is not important, that's why it's not specified. Also the composite channels are described when you hover over them :)

Maybe also clearly say what composit channel is what in the description