Captains Orders

Captain's Orders

Captain's Orders are short, direct commands the bridge understands on its own, before any AI sees your message. That makes them instant and reliable, and they work even with a tiny local model. Anything that doesn't match one exactly (say, "fly to KSC and land at 3 km, then do a barrel roll") goes to the AI as normal, and the AI can still trigger every order below through its own tool.

The pilot answers each one, for example Sidry: Gear down, Captain. Capital letters, extra punctuation and trailing "please" are fine.

[INTERCOM] Bob (Sci): Can I give orders too? Sidry: You can give them. I'm the one who follows them.

Speed, altitude and heading

Say	What happens
speed 150 / set speed 150	Target airspeed in m/s, flown with the throttle only (it never dives for speed). With nothing engaged in flight, this engages the holds at your current altitude and heading.
climb to 3000, descend to 1500, drop to 800, go down to 2k, altitude 5km, set altitude 4000	Altitude target in meters (5k and 5km both mean 5000). Above sea level by default, like KSP's altimeter. Add agl for height above the ground.
NOW MAX DOWN TO 5km	Loose phrasing works when it's unambiguous. Words like now / max / asap make it urgent: descents go up to 30 m/s instead of 15, still never a dive.
heading 270 / hold heading 270	New heading for the holds.
turn left 45 / turn right	Turn from the current heading (default 90 degrees, max 175).
level off / wings level	Cancels pitch, turn and circle commands; holds the current altitude and heading.
circle here / circle here left	Banked orbit at the current altitude (15 degrees of bank).
pitch up 10, nose down 5, pitchup 90	An exact pitch attitude for the holds (0-90 degrees, default 5). Nose up adds power and levels off briefly near the stall to rebuild speed; nose down stops at your altitude target or a safe height above the terrain. A new altitude order ends the pitch hold.

A bare number under 100 ("climb to 50") is left to the AI, since it's probably a helicopter height or a typo. Asking to "descend to" something above you gets a polite refusal with a hint.

Throttle and engines

Say	What happens
throttle 60 / throttle to 60%	Manual throttle. While the holds are flying, this takes the throttle away from them until you say throttle auto or give a new speed or altitude order. In flight it never goes to 0; idle is 5%.
throttle max / throttle idle / throttle auto	Full, idle, or hand it back to the autopilot.
engines on / engines off	Start or stop the engines.
cut engines	Asks yes/no first, then: autopilots off, throttle 0, every engine shut down.
switch engine mode	Toggles multi-mode engines like the RAPIER.
afterburner on / afterburner off	For engines with Wet/Dry modes.
trim nose up 5 / trim nose down / reset trim	Pitch trim as a percentage of its range.

On propeller craft, throttle orders also set the rotors' torque limit. Prop-specific orders (RPM, blade pitch, reverse) are on the Autopilots page.

Gear, flaps, brakes and other switches

Say	What happens
gear down / gear up (or wheels)	Landing gear. It won't raise the gear while you're sitting on it.
flaps 1 / flaps 2 / flaps up	Flaps 1 = action group 5, flaps 2 = AG 5 + AG 6, up = both off. You can remap these in bridge_settings.json (see Settings).
brakes on / airbrake on / brakes off	The Brakes action group. It tells you if the craft has no airbrake parts.
deploy chutes / chutes	Parachutes. "No parachutes on this craft" if there aren't any.
stage	Next stage.
SAS on / SAS off, hold prograde / hold retrograde	SAS and its mode.
RCS on / RCS off	RCS.
lights on / lights off	The Light action group.
AG 3, action group 7 on, AG 2 off	Custom action groups 1-10.
eject	Asks "Eject Sidry? (yes/no)", then pops the kerbal out of the hatch on EVA. eject now or confirm eject skips the question.

[COMMS] Bill (Eng): For the record, "eject" means out the hatch. There is no seat. There is a door. Please mind the door.

Reports

Say	What you get
report / sitrep	Altitude, height above ground, speed, vertical speed, heading, fuel %, distance and bearing to the KSC, what the autopilot is doing.
fuel check / how much fuel do we have	Fuel %, endurance and range at the current burn rate, compared with getting back to the KSC with a 30% reserve.
how far to Island Airfield	Distance, bearing and ETA at your ground speed.
eta / time to target	Landing ETA, or the ETA to your KSP target.
damage report / what are we missing	Only what the emergency watcher actually saw: lost parts (by name, like "left main wheel"), upside-down events, active alerts. It won't invent damage, and it won't claim "no damage" if there is some.
crew report / who's aboard	The crew and their jobs.

Takeoff, landing and navigation

Say	What happens
take off / takeoff	Planes and prop planes: a runway takeoff on the runway heading. Helicopters: a vertical liftoff to a 20 m hover. (For rockets, say "launch".)
land / land at KSC / land at Island	Planes: autoland at that runway. Rockets: a powered landing (land here, or at the KSC with MechJeb).
fly to KSC / fly to Island / fly to <saved spot>	Runways: fly there and land. A spot that isn't a runway: fly toward it with the holds, no landing.
return to base / RTB / go home	Same as fly to KSC.
go around	Abandons the approach and climbs to 600 m above the field on the runway heading.
touch and go	One touch and go, then a full stop.
deorbit	Deorbit burn.
abort	Asks yes/no, then stops every bridge autopilot and fires the ABORT action group.
abort autopilot / stop autopilot	Stops the bridge autopilots and releases the controls, no question and no action group.

Overrides and the authority markers

The autopilots keep you inside some safe limits: 20 degrees of bank (15 above 250 m/s), a 220 m/s equivalent-airspeed cap down low, an estimated safe ceiling for your craft, and so on. When you ask for something outside them, the bridge asks first:

That's above the 220 m/s low-altitude cap. Grant override authority? (yes/no)

Answer yes or no in the same chat. You can also set overrides directly:

Say	Limit	Range
override bank 45	bank limit (never applied on final or in the flare)	5-80 degrees
override pitch 30	the holds' climb attitude (stall protection still levels off)	5-90 degrees
override speed 400	speed cap (equivalent airspeed)	50-3000 m/s
override speed max	no cap and full throttle
override altitude 25 km	safe ceiling	500-70000 m
override bank off / override off	back to the default (one limit, or all of them)

How much it asks depends on the marker at the end:

• override bank 50 or override bank 50 *: ask ("Override the bank limit 50 deg for the rest of the session? (yes/no)"). No answer within two minutes counts as no.
• override bank 50 ***: pre-authorized, applied straight away.
• authorise all (or authorize all): every override and every speed-cap or ceiling question applies without asking, until override off.

Overrides work in every situation: holds, fly-to, autoland (with a caution on final), Flight Plans, or nothing engaged at all (stored for whatever engages next). They last until the bridge restarts. The physical max-speed estimate still applies: if you ask for 400 m/s and the bridge reckons the plane can only do about 326 here, it flies 326 and says so.

Even with an override, the airframe watcher keeps an eye on things: above 6 G, a part at 90% of its heat limit, or bits falling off, it eases the overridden amount back in steps and tells you why.

Sidry: Override authority granted. Somebody hold Bob's snacks.

Talking to the crew vs. giving orders

"Hey Bob, how's the view?" is a chat with Bob. "Bob, gear down" is an order, so it goes to the pilot like any other. See The Crew.

Typo tolerance

Command words of six letters or more are fuzzy-matched before parsing, so throtle 60, altitdue 5000, circel here, Overide speed to 325, over ride and authorse all all work. Words that already contain a keyword (like pitchup) are left alone, and anything that still doesn't parse goes to the AI exactly as you typed it.

[INTERCOM] Bob (Sci): Wait, so I can spell "altitude" wrong and it still works? Sidry: Bob, you spelled "Bob" wrong on your helmet.