First iteration of Rockhopper Angle-Mode.

Angle-Mode is activated by selecting the Angle-Mode option under the rotation assist types. Angle-Mode can be accessed from the Ship Settings menu in the Rockhopper Menu, or from the pause menu while playing the Rockhopper.

Angle-Mode is a self-levelling mode where the tilt of the pitch and yaw (it's yaw if the ship is flying full forward tilt, but roll if the ship is on a hover upright) are correlated to the tilt of the players input stick. If using a game controller, for example, fully tilting the thumbstick to the right will put the setpoint of the rockhoppers PID controller to 45 degrees to the right. Then, the onboard PID controller will attempt to use the thrusters to achieve that tilt. This means that these two axis are no longer tied to the thrusters at all, and all thrust on these two axis is actually controlled by the PID controller.

While a weight is connected, the PID controller will incorporate the horizontal translation thrusters as well. (this is because the weight is connected to the bottom of the rockhopper, so using these horizontal thrusters will result in a rotation to the rockhopper-weight system). The player will still be able to apply horizontal thrust in the normal way, however it is possible that the PID controller will battle the player input for control. The thrust will still be applied, although it may occur that the PID controller counters that thrust for stabilization.

Angle-Mode does not work in any of the spin-gravity levels. It is possible that angle-mode will never be supported in the spin gravity levels without updates from unity that make compound angle comparisons more consistent and stable, which may not happen during this generation of computing technology. However, spin-gravity is much more challenging to fly and therefore it is my personal expectation that most players will advance beyond angle-mode before spin-gravity is particularly important for them anyway.

There have been some general bug fixes to other rotation assist types associated with dockable weights as well, improving the performance of the vehicle while using dockable weights and rotation assist, as well as fixing how the visual thrusters were .... oops... backwards sometimes.

My future plans for angle-mode include player settable PID values as well as multiple selectable PID options that will correlate to the power profiles. I also think it may be desirable to have an automatic switch to a separate set of PID values while the vehicle is docked to a weight. I do not have a timeline for these features, although I do plan to start working on them in the near future, and do expect that they will be a few weeks out.

I may also consider adding a PID controlled velocity stabilization system, as well as an altitude hold system, although this may require more study, while the above expected features only require menus and options building so a velocity stabilization system is not a future plan as of yet. I am concerned that some of the "gimbal lock" problems I experienced with spin-gravity may affect the gimbal-thruster vehicle types and the forward-only vehicle, as they will require a similar vector to angle correlation as they can only thrust in one direction, so I am concerned that a velocity stabilization system may be a "basic drone and rockhopper" thing for a while, but do think the solution will be easier than the spin-gravity problem.

If someone knows how to make my angle-mode in spin-gravity work, I would love suggestions! Thanks!