Ascent Program Evolution: Episode 5, Jerk Strikes Back

[@kwinvdv]

The book Numerical Recipes in C, which I believe can be downloaded for free, has some good formulas for calculating the roots of a cubic equation in section 5.6 Quadratic and Cubic Equations.

[@TheGreatestFez]

Oh really? I don't think I have gone through that book more than a glance, I will definitely be getting it and check on those formulas.
Thanks! Would definitely have made this cleaner, but it also gave me a push to finally make a standard solver even for bisection method haha

[@RickWilliamsPlus]

Thanks for updating!

[@biomecaman3514]

i do the angle calc via the apoapsis. works well

[@TheGreatestFez]

What do you mean? Pitch the ship over as a function of the apoapsis?

[@biomecaman3514]

@@TheGreatestFez yes, exactly,
set dif to targetAP - SiAP.
set frac to dif/targetAP.
if frac < 1{
if frac > -1{
set theta to arcsin(frac).
}
}
Lock heading to (90,theta).
explanation; targetAP = target final orbit height, SiAP = ship:apoapsis, dif = how far the ship has left to go (vertical), frac = converts dif to a decimal, the if statements protect against invalid inputs for arcsin, arcsin converts the decimal into degress

[@biomecaman3514]

and if u do target AP as a function of the diameter of the body you're launch from, it will work on any planet

[@TheGreatestFez]

@@biomecaman3514 Top notch, that is a very elegant solution

[@biomecaman3514]

@@TheGreatestFez :-)

[@biomecaman3514]

How many frames do you average the jerk over?