translation assist (with altitude hold) for rockhopper

basic translation assist (translation damping) for rockhopper.

translation assist sets an altitude setpoint whenever the altitude change velocity reaches 0.

as with the drone, translation assist has 2 modes: translation assist only while no translation input is given, and translation assist for each axis independently.

This difference in modes is significantly more pronounced with gravity. With the drone in translation assist mode 2, while travelling fast forward the player can hold forward thrust and then translation assist will cancel relative horizontal or relative vertical velocity, so there is a difference, but with the rockhopper the impact of gravity is more complex for the player to overcome, so the difference between the two modes is more immediately noticeable.

As with the drone, docking to a weight changes the center of mass, with the result that translation assist induces rotation. This basic translation assist mode is "dumb" and does not appropriately manage this rotation, therefore is basically useless if playing docked to a weight. It WILL certainly help when attempting to dock to the weight if translation damping is desired by the player, but will be very difficult to control once the weight is connected and my recommendation is toggling off translation assist while a weight is connected. (rotation assist alone does work with weight connected, translation assist alone does not!)

translation assist does not work in spin gravity in this basic system, and is automatically disabled for spin-gravity levels regardless of settings.

My personal opinion about translation assist is that it will be most useful for beginners to get acquainted with lunar lander style vehicles using keyboard only input. This is because it creates a gameplay scenario where the player can have plenty of time to observe between inputs without losing control of the vehicle, and therefore they will have plenty of time to think look and select the next desired input. (default keys are qweasd for translation, and uiojkl for rotation)