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[1.8.x] Kerbal Foundries -- Continued - Tracks, Wheels, and Gear


Shadowmage

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4 hours ago, MacLuky said:

Hi Shadowmage

This looks very good. I want to start a new mod for foldable wheels, kind of like the lunar rover. Can I use your project as a starting point? It seems like the best (and only) example out there.

Regards

Chris

Sure thing.

You don't actually need anything from KerbalFoundries -- all the plugin magic is contained in the KSPWheels mod.  Nice simple lightweight plugin that you can distribute with your mod.

Let me know if you run into any problems/questions/etc.

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Hello, I've recently got this mod because of ALG parts and I'm very happy that they were picked up and updated for 1.2.  That said, I've run into one minor issue and was wondering if it's intentional or if I'm doing something wrong.  No, it's not the suspension.

ALG wheels seem to cause braking force on moving craft.  I've tried playing with editor values, but i couldn't find anything that affects it. Now, I relize that force might be there to simulate friction from wheels rolling over ground, but I think it might be a bit too strong.

I did a quick test with an aircraft weighting a bit over 6 tons, rolling on three wheels, two at .75 scale, one at .50 scale.  From speed of 20 m/s average decceleration until full stop was about 1 m/s^2, which would mean a force of about 6 kN, or almost 10% of weight of the aircraft.

I'd like to know if I'm the only one with this issue and if required, I'm ready to do some testing.

Note: While I did discover this in modded game, including FAR and many other mods, the quick test described was done in fully stock install, except for Kerbal Foundries, KSPWheel and MM.

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Updated Kerbal Foundries release is available:

https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2/releases/tag/2.0.1.3

Tons of fixes and changes, new ALG models + rigging, updated motor mechanics, tanks-steering-brake-input, high/low speed steering limiters and steering response configurability, repulsors AGs, and much more.  See the link for downloads and full changelog.

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@Shadowmage, I'm thoroughly enjoying your :prograde: work. There should be a ton more wheel parts in the stock game! As much as I've used them, I've come up with a few interesting ideas. We've got great options, but I haven't seen any wheels I can put objects right in the middle of... Think of it sort of like an inverse reaction wheel-- its gear on the outside. Attach it the same way, or surface attach anywhere by the inner circumference of the wheel with the friction on the outer circumference. Does that make sense? I'm thinking (with the help of Tweakscale:wink:) this "ring wheel" could slip over almost any rounded or cylindrical part flush and provide an abundance of uses otherwise left to the imagination.

I found an okay example to sort of illustrate. The first Star Trek movie-- uh, well the first one with Chris Pine; remember the bike Kirk gave away when he gets on the shuttle for the Academy? Have a look at those wheels and maybe you'll see the little green node sphere in the middle of it too! :confused:

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23 hours ago, bzimac said:

Hello, I've recently got this mod because of ALG parts and I'm very happy that they were picked up and updated for 1.2.  That said, I've run into one minor issue and was wondering if it's intentional or if I'm doing something wrong.  No, it's not the suspension.

ALG wheels seem to cause braking force on moving craft.  I've tried playing with editor values, but i couldn't find anything that affects it. Now, I relize that force might be there to simulate friction from wheels rolling over ground, but I think it might be a bit too strong.

I did a quick test with an aircraft weighting a bit over 6 tons, rolling on three wheels, two at .75 scale, one at .50 scale.  From speed of 20 m/s average decceleration until full stop was about 1 m/s^2, which would mean a force of about 6 kN, or almost 10% of weight of the aircraft.

I'd like to know if I'm the only one with this issue and if required, I'm ready to do some testing.

Note: While I did discover this in modded game, including FAR and many other mods, the quick test described was done in fully stock install, except for Kerbal Foundries, KSPWheel and MM.

Rolling resistance should be 0.005x craft weight, so what you are experiencing is far beyond that.  Are the wheels attached straight?  Any toe in/ toe out setup will cause friction.

Few things to check -- are the wheels overcompressed?  When you open the debug GUI, what does the comp% value read for each wheel?  If the wheel is overcompressed it will drag the collider on the ground, which currently has quite a bit of friction.
Also, what do the fX and fZ values read for each wheel while the deceleration is in effect?  fX should be zero, fZ should be minimal during coasting.  If fX is not zero, it means you have some toe in/toe out that is causing drag.  If fZ is not zero or very low, it means there is friction being caused by something.  If both are zero / very low, and you are still experiencing friction, it means there is drag elsewhere not caused by the wheel simulation (e.g. check for overcompression or other parts with improperly setup colliders).

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1 hour ago, mechanicH said:

Well i just updated to the latest version and basically all the craft that i have ALG installed on are all out of wack... sideways, upside down, struts compressed all the way...Did i install this wrong or is it supposed to be this way? 

2nd line in the change-log:

  • CHANGE - Updated ALG models and rigging.
    • WARNING -- These new models will not be compatible with the old, and the strut/wheel angles will be incorrect for vessels created with the old models.  You will need to bring the craft into the editor and adjust the angles and flip state in order to correct them.

 

 

 

 

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Hey @Shadowmage I'm off to a very "explosive" start with that new update :)

Obviously I'm still tinking with everything so nothing solid. But. I am still working on that LCAC / LPD setup. So now it will spawn in gracefully. As well as I am able to get the boat in the water with VM. But as soon as I decouple the docking port connecting the LCAC to the Boat...... Well lets just say I found a new way of making Pea soup. I am still working on I. But I wanted to throw out the idea to see if anyone else is having better luck with docked Repulsor craft. It very well mayt be something I can design around. Just haven't found the answer yet.

This new update looks great. Gonna take me a bit to see everything on this one.

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6 minutes ago, V8jester said:

Hey @Shadowmage I'm off to a very "explosive" start with that new update :)

Obviously I'm still tinking with everything so nothing solid. But. I am still working on that LCAC / LPD setup. So now it will spawn in gracefully. As well as I am able to get the boat in the water with VM. But as soon as I decouple the docking port connecting the LCAC to the Boat...... Well lets just say I found a new way of making Pea soup. I am still working on I. But I wanted to throw out the idea to see if anyone else is having better luck with docked Repulsor craft. It very well mayt be something I can design around. Just haven't found the answer yet.

This new update looks great. Gonna take me a bit to see everything on this one.

repuser has ag now

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51 minutes ago, TOMMY (JEB 2.0) said:

repuser has ag now

Yes they do. But, They will however (I believe activate upon undocking from mothership) And as I said. Still tinkering and just asking if anyone else was working on Replusor crafts docked to larger crafts and what they have come up with.

I am using the Kerbal Foundries 2.0.1.3 and KSPWheel 0.9.3.13

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Have you rebalanced the ElectricCharge again? My Bounder now uses 160ec/s on drive, far outstripping the four fuel cell arrays (meaning it was drawing <72ec/s) I'd dedicated to it previously. Wheels are Small Rover Wheel, scaled 2.25x. Each now draws over forty ec/s at a standstill, and also doesn't appear to produce nearly as much torque.

Edit: Comparing the config files, I note that the "motorPower" field is absent in the 2.0.1.3 smallWheel. Is this intentional?

Edited by 0111narwhalz
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Let me do some math on it quickly...  but no, I had not changed anything for power draw between the dev versions last week and the current 'release' version.  Yes, it is intentional that there is no 'motorPower' field -- it is now back-calculated from the amount of torque and the motor efficiency (default of 85% efficiency).

However yes it looks like, the 'Small Wheel' should draw 40ec/s at stall at 2.25x scale.  And it should output ~20 kNm of torque.  ( precise values are: 45.329533ec/s : 20.3041919kNm  ).  This is a base power draw of 3.98 ec/s, and base torque of 1.78, multiplied by scale (2.25*2.25*2.25 = 11.39 scale factor).  Keep in mind this is still only 1/65th of what they should draw if 1ec/s = 1kw as stated by many other mods (really it should be 2,925 ec/s for those scaled wheels, at 1ec/s=1kw).

If you were comparing the 'new' values to the ones from the previous KF release, then yes, power and torque were rebalanced with the reworked motor mechanics.  Was stated pretty clearly in the change-logs and mentioned many times in both the KSPWheel and KF threads (and is also directly in the change-log):

On 2/25/2017 at 3:26 PM, Shadowmage said:

Updated Kerbal Foundries release is available:

https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2/releases/tag/2.0.1.3

Tons of fixes and changes, new ALG models + rigging, updated motor mechanics, tanks-steering-brake-input, high/low speed steering limiters and steering response configurability, repulsors AGs, and much more.  See the link for downloads and full changelog.

 

 

15 hours ago, V8jester said:

Hey @Shadowmage I'm off to a very "explosive" start with that new update :)

Obviously I'm still tinking with everything so nothing solid. But. I am still working on that LCAC / LPD setup. So now it will spawn in gracefully. As well as I am able to get the boat in the water with VM. But as soon as I decouple the docking port connecting the LCAC to the Boat...... Well lets just say I found a new way of making Pea soup. I am still working on I. But I wanted to throw out the idea to see if anyone else is having better luck with docked Repulsor craft. It very well mayt be something I can design around. Just haven't found the answer yet.

This new update looks great. Gonna take me a bit to see everything on this one.

Hmm...  don't think I changed anything with repulsors really in these updates, aside from enabling the proper functioning of the power button and adding action groups.  I'll take a look through the diffs to see if anything sticks out at me.

One thought -- when you decouple the repulsor craft from the parent craft -- are the repulsors enabled or disabled?  I would start with them disabled, and then enable them after undocking.

 

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The repulsors will likely enable as if they had been loaded into the flight scene directly since, upon undocking and/or decoupling, they are technically being respawned as a brand new vessel.  However, some states do carry over to the new craft so it's possible it would work as intended but might activate for a split second before the settings are applied properly.  In older test-builds I did, when I was heading this up, I had them disabled by default which meant you had to have a grounded landing option for your vessel for the first launch.  I never thought about decoupling or undocking.

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Heads up --  New part(s) more than likely coming out with the next KF release - big-rig styled dual wheel (based on the KF large wheel, scaled around a bit, will probably not have steering):

0lMdVuI.png

May include a single-wheel steering-enabled version of it as well.  Should be super-low-footprint as it will only include a new model(s), existing textures will be re-used.

Might be a few other places where I can create 'new' parts by bashing around the existing part models/geometry into something new.  Will keep an eye out as best I can for situations like those above, where existing models can easily be reworked into something 'new'.

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@Shadowmage one of my favourite hobbies derivatives, nice one

Got to ask as I've just made a dually set for the low loader trailers    how dd you arrange the cfg?  , I have used two WC's  BTW. and i've tried various methods and arrangements but not found anything just right so far, as regards, motors , brakes , wheel index usage etc  . two motors, one motor,  both wheels under 1 index , wheel damage broken wheels for both or one ?  You get the idea, there's dozens of possible cfgs for that set up , be nice to get the masters viewpoint :)

Spoiler

AngXrSR.png

 

Edited by SpannerMonkey(smce)
typo frenzy
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@SpannerMonkey(smce)

I'll be rigging them with a single wheel collider as there is no way to use two WC's on a single suspension rigging.  As it is only a single wheel-collider, it will use only a single motor, steering, brakes, damage, etc. modules.

If your wheel part contains the wheels from both left and right sides (a dual-dually set), as long as they have independent suspension you should be able to use a single base-module with multiple wheel collider definitions (one collider for each side).

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Just now, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Now that i didn't know. and does explain oddness noted elsewhere thanks

Yeah, multiple wheel colliders in a single part have a fairly narrow set of uses - mostly in tracks and track-like setups or other parts that have multiple independent wheels / suspension rigs.

However I'm in the early stages of planning of a 'compound' suspension-sweep setup that will use a user/model-provided mesh for its sweep -- will allow for much higher fidelity for collision response for 'odd' wheel shapes, such as dual-tires, tracks, skids, etc.  Very early stages... as in I have some ideas about it, but zero functional code (and zero experimental code).  Okay, so it is little more than an idea or concept at this point, have been pondering it for a few weeks and still trying to figure out how to implement it without it being a huge performance hit while maintaining compatibility with existing rigging and models.

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Once in awhile it feels nice to create something new, rather than continuing to work on the same old stuff... (for various definitions of new).  Both the single and dual-wheel versions in-game and working (suspension, steering, motor, constraints, etc).  Should definitely be available with the next release.  Might still play with the suspension geometry a bit to see if I can come up with something a bit more 'truck-like'... but I'm also okay with the existing stuff if I can't find anything clever.

j5NTKqA.png

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