[URGENT] TOPOINT/TOPT command used on roboarm let it break off. [dev 0.8.0269]

[hyphon 10]

If I use the toppoint / topt command on my roboarm, the robotic arm will break off.

Tried it stowed, unstowed, moved by myself in the near of the point, unstowed it manually. It always breaks off.

I'll add a video later, when I have the time to made one.

[Thales 45]

Hi Hyphon! We know about this and it happens because this specific action is not completely done yet (WIP). We're finishing it right now and it will be imlemented soon.

[hyphon 10]

Hi Thales,

good to know, that you already know this. So you are able to work on it.

That error is just happening, because the program don't know how to react in a proper way to this command, because the code is not full implemented, right?

[dram 14]

Hi Hyphon, yes the programming command is not yet complete, but should be by the end of next week.

[hyphon 10]

@Dram: Yep, but after the update on the .369 (dev) branch, topt will work just from time to time on roboarm, the other case is that nothing happens and the progress bar will fill to a quarter and fall back to 0 all the time. Seems to be a loop in the sequence which tries to evaluate the actual position of arm and head.

But now "unstow roboarm1" will break it by driving the arm segment under the rover, lift the rover up (like the screenshots you made, to show us the new length of the roboarm).

Stow seems to work as planned.

By the way, will the topt command later pointing the right (mostly the active) instrument on a roboarm's head segment?

hud inst //Select instrument mode for HUD
unstow roboarm1 //Drives roboarm1 in initial position
select apxs1 //Makes the APXS active
topt roboarm1 //To point command for roboarm. Also makes the roboarm1 head go into the right position for use the APXS
use apxs1 //Start the analysis

Maybe instrument to align as additional parameter?

topt roboarm1 apxs1 //Combined command

[powermatt 10]

I'd also like to mention that the "stow" command has a bad habit of breaking the roboarm. As does any movement of the arm after using the "unstow" command. If I unstow the arm and then issue a "topt" command, the arm literally jumps off the rover. It's quite spectacular. Also, topt command's accuracy is extremely hit or miss, and often will never actually finish the command.

Related to this... is there any way to manually control the rover's secondary joint besides the "topt" command? In other words, while it seems I can manually control the "shoulder" joint and the head or "wrist" joint, there doesn't seem to be a way to manually control the "elbow" joint. The up/down controls (which I thought might do this) don't seem to do anything.

[dram 14]

Hi powermatt, yeah the commands for the robotic arm are incomplete, but will be in the future. The arm breaking issue is due to this.

The manual control of the arm is somewhat simplified (also because in reality they never really control it directly, they simply tell it where to go), so the shoulder controls the shoulder as well as the elbow - that is, if you hold forward, it will extend the arm entirely, going through an animation sequence of sorts. This sequence was tweaked to allow extensive use of the arm in most situations.

[powermatt 10]

Thanks for the reply. I did figure out last night that I could avoid the issues I was having by not using the "topt" command at all. The issue was it would get the elbow joint into strange positions that I couldn't work with. Just manually controlling the arm as you say works much better right now, as it keeps in the elbow joint in a more useful straight down position.

Keep up the good work. It's still a hugely impressive game even as it is.