[1.12.x] Konstruction! Weldable ports, servos, cranes, and magnets!

[FirroSeranel]

1 hour ago, Freshmeat said:

I beg to differ. I have made a base with a very tight fit between a set of fuel tanks (industrial scale refueling on Minmus). The only way I could do that was by being creative with leg positions.

In that case, maybe adding a basic height control to the normal PAL wheel, and keeping the Adjustable as is, would be good.

[Wyzard]

4 hours ago, FirroSeranel said:

Is there a mythical secret to getting the wheels to attach to the Akita Core's wheel mounts in situ with KAS? It only seems to think the main rectangular piece and the fuel tank actually exist, for surface attachment, so getting the wheel to actually go to the wheel node is next to impossible. Is this something that @RoverDude could somehow fix, by adjusting... I dunno, its collider or something, maybe?

Yes, it's a collider issue — see this bug.  You have to orient the camera so that the collider box is behind the axle.  The Collide-O-Scope mod is helpful.

[oniontrain]

On 3/7/2017 at 2:59 PM, maranble14 said:

And here is a 2nd video that is an even better demonstration of the bug! This time it starts out stabilized, and then the wheels just freak out on their own.
 

 

So that's what's been causing my problems! I was thinking it was because I had a Klaw on the bottom of my vehicle instead of a magnet.

 

How do I get my groups to move together again? They have one set as master and the other three set as slave in the same group but only two of them are moving together.

 

Edited March 28, 2017 by oniontrain

[sh1pman]

I made a short clip about my PAL rover and its crazy wheels. This is hilarious:

BTW, is this a stock issue or a Konstruction issue? It makes the PAL kinda unusable on Eve.

 

[goldenpsp]

29 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

I made a short clip about my PAL rover and its crazy wheels. This is hilarious:

BTW, is this a stock issue or a Konstruction issue? It makes the PAL kinda unusable on Eve.

 

Looks like a collider hitting the ground to me.  That being said how is the inability to raise the wheels higher than the bottom of the forklift make it unusable?

[sh1pman]

Just now, goldenpsp said:

Looks like a collider hitting the ground to me.  That being said how is the inability to raise the wheels higher than the bottom of the forklift make it unusable?

It starts shaking if I set the outer hinge lower than -20. That means I can't kneel it enough to grab a 3.75m tundra module with the AGU. I tried using the magnet, but with Eve's high gravity it's very hard to lift anything with it, and it alsostarts shaking when the magnet is activated. If I set the magnet strength too high, it just jumps into the air and flips over. So I'll have to use the crane instead, I guess.

[oniontrain]

One additional problem, what would be causing two Konstruction ports oriented the exact same way to just rub up against each other and never acquire? As in, the magnetic forces never happen even if I'm literally pushing them across the ground up against each other. Angle snap is turned off on both ports and the force and range are set to 6 and 1 respectively on both sides. I've tried looking for one that had state = acquire in the persistent file, they're all set to Ready like they should be. This vessel had previously docked and welded another segment on to it with no problem. Both parts have a probe core on them.
.

[Jim Starluck]

I'm also getting PAL wheel freakouts, though in my case it's just when testing it on the runway at the KSC.

[oniontrain]

OK here's a screenshot of the settings for both ports, they should be sticking together at this point, right? Both of those sections have a probe core and power

[Rudolf Meier]

little question... I did download it, because I like the idea of permanently connecting the ports... but, when I try it (on the launch pad with a test robot) then I can dock, but when I activate one of the 3 functions (compress, compress rotate or weld), the two ports explode and disappear and the robot slowly flies away for ever (let's say at about 0.1 m/s towards the sky) ... ideas why this happens?

[Fr8monkey]

On 4/5/2017 at 2:20 PM, oniontrain said:

OK here's a screenshot of the settings for both ports, they should be sticking together at this point, right? Both of those sections have a probe core and power

 

I was about to post that my weldable docking ports wont stick together either.

[The Aziz]

On 14.04.2017 at 11:02 PM, Rudolf Meier said:

little question... I did download it, because I like the idea of permanently connecting the ports... but, when I try it (on the launch pad with a test robot) then I can dock, but when I activate one of the 3 functions (compress, compress rotate or weld), the two ports explode and disappear and the robot slowly flies away for ever (let's say at about 0.1 m/s towards the sky) ... ideas why this happens?

Similar issue here. I am building orbital station, and I just recently sent mobile lab there and docked. Docking went good, though the new module is a rotated a bit - so I wanted to use Compress(Rotate) but it just explodes.

Here pic

Edited April 17, 2017 by The Aziz

[overkill13]

On 4/5/2017 at 5:20 PM, oniontrain said:

OK here's a screenshot of the settings for both ports, they should be sticking together at this point, right? Both of those sections have a probe core and power

I had an issue docking the weldable ports in space.  I had to rotate them so they lined up just the way they wanted to be.  Obviously that was possible in space, on the ground, not so much.

[goldenpsp]

22 minutes ago, overkill13 said:

I had an issue docking the weldable ports in space.  I had to rotate them so they lined up just the way they wanted to be.  Obviously that was possible in space, on the ground, not so much.

That is how they are designed to work.

[overkill13]

42 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

That is how they are designed to work.

Not with snap off.  I had the same issue with snap off, but attempts to recreate it just now haven't produced the issue.

[goldenpsp]

2 minutes ago, overkill13 said:

Not with snap off.  I had the same issue with snap off, but attempts to recreate it just now haven't produced the issue.

I missed that key information in your other post, oh wait...

[overkill13]

2 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

I missed that key information in your other post, oh wait...

It was in the post I quoted...

Rather than filling up the page with one line posts... Snap off was mentioned by oniontrain, but I did fail to add it to my original response that I too had an erroneous problem with snap off still requiring snap...  I can't reproduce it so fair chance I might have messed up one of the port settings, and it shouldn't stop the ports from magnetizing at any rate.

Edited April 19, 2017 by overkill13

[goldenpsp]

2 minutes ago, overkill13 said:

It was in the post I quoted...

I meant your reference to snap off, which isn't anywhere else on the page, but it's all good.  You didn't quote the picture that had the reference

Edited April 19, 2017 by goldenpsp

[Kobymaru]

@overkill13  @Fr8monkey

Sorry guys, I didn't quite follow the conversion but here is a somewhat lengthy Wiki entry that I wrote about the docking port usage:

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Functions-(Konstruction)#advanced-construction-port-usage
 

When @dboi88  (or someone else with Unity skills) finds some time, this section is poised to go into the in-game KSPedia. 

tl; dr: Snap and Angle settings must be identical for *both* ports, otherwise they won't acquire. Snap and Angle don't work as you probably expect they work.

@Rudolf Meier @The Aziz  The "Compress Parts (Rotate)" functionality is DEATH!!!! For me it leads to a catastrophic failure in almost all cases. It's best to just use Snap properly. We have a GitHub Issue for this already: https://github.com/BobPalmer/Konstruction/issues/46 but my crystal ball tells me that this is a very low priority issue for RoverDude. Don't expect it to be fixed anytime soon.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Kobymaru

[dboi88]

@Kobymaru I'm so glad you got that worked out and wrote up, it's going to make including the corrections in the KSPedia loads easier. I've been play testing some parts this week and i'm 9 version behind on USI-Tools  

So yeah, lots of new USI goodies to play with then i'll get the KSPedia updated  

[dunebugmi]

I'd like to resize these Konstruction stilted crane wheels to be 10x (using module manager).  Is that possible? 

 

When I attempt it, the wheels just spin and the brakes don't work, like the wheel colliders aren't working.  Any suggestions would be really appreciated!

 

Thanks!

[TheRagingIrishman]

11 hours ago, dunebugmi said:

I'd like to resize these Konstruction stilted crane wheels to be 10x (using module manager).  Is that possible? 

 

When I attempt it, the wheels just spin and the brakes don't work, like the wheel colliders aren't working.  Any suggestions would be really appreciated!

 

Thanks!

How did you try to do it? I think that changing rescaleFactor from 1 to 10 would do the trick but you might have to go in and change a bunch of the wheel collider related stuff (ModuleWheelBase:radius and center, ModuleWheelSuspension:suspensionDistance and targetPosition look to be the likely places where changes would be needed)

[dunebugmi]

1 hour ago, TheRagingIrishman said:

How did you try to do it? I think that changing rescaleFactor from 1 to 10 would do the trick but you might have to go in and change a bunch of the wheel collider related stuff (ModuleWheelBase:radius and center, ModuleWheelSuspension:suspensionDistance and targetPosition look to be the likely places where changes would be needed)

Thanks for the feedback; I appreciate the help!

 

So far I have tried the following without success:

1) Adding the anisotropic resizer module using module manager (I think this module is in the Hangar mod and is similar to TweakScale).  Using this method with the Squad landing gear and powered wheels works: the wheels still collide and drive.

2) Creating a new part (using module manager) that is 10x the size

3) Creating a new part (using module manager) that is 10x the size and changing the wheel collider radius from 0.385 to 3.85

4) Resizing and setting FitWheelColliderToMesh = True

 

I haven't tried adjusting the center yet.  I'm not sure what the mathematics there would be?  Also I'm not sure if, when changing the .cfg resize factor to 10x, that means 10x in each dimension or 10x volumetrically, or something else?  I might need to multiply the wheel radius by the cube root of 10 or something like that instead of 10?

 

What physical parameters do suspensionDistance and targetPosition refer to?  

Edited April 20, 2017 by dunebugmi
remembered tweakScale mod

[cyberKerb]

On 4/20/2017 at 1:13 AM, Kobymaru said:

@overkill13  @Fr8monkey

Sorry guys, I didn't quite follow the conversion but here is a somewhat lengthy Wiki entry that I wrote about the docking port usage:

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Functions-(Konstruction)#advanced-construction-port-usage
 

When @dboi88  (or someone else with Unity skills) finds some time, this section is poised to go into the in-game KSPedia. 

tl; dr: Snap and Angle settings must be identical for *both* ports, otherwise they won't acquire. Snap and Angle don't work as you probably expect they work.

Hey @Kobymaru - thanks for your work on the wiki.
Just wondering if my understanding was correct for these "most-case" situations I use the ports in? (Also - I hope the info might help others still working it out)
NB: Images show docked orientation
 

Docking Expectation > Clamp-o-tron "a-like" functionality (dock any angle)
 - Set Snap = Off on both construction ports
 - Roll Force = 0 on both construction ports

Docking Expectation > Clamp-o-tron "a-like" functionality with restriction to a single specific angle
 - Set Snap = On on both construction ports
 - Angle = 0 on both construction ports (orientation of ports match)
 - Roll Force = 0 on both construction ports
I use these settings mostly for specific orientation docking - only docks one specific way.



Docking Expectation > Clamp-o-tron "a-like" functionality with restriction to a single specific angle and rotational torque assistance
 - Set Snap = On on both construction ports
 - Angle = 180 on both construction ports (expected orientation of ports is upside down to each other)
 - Roll Force >= 1 on both construction ports (add more force for bigger parts)
I use these settings mostly for station construction and assisted docking other ships, as the rotational torque helps get the exact angle I want.

I'm specifically not using the "Compress Parts (Rotate)" due to the bug / reported issue you mentioned and only using the "Compress Parts" to compress in the docked orientation.

Edited April 24, 2017 by wile1411

[Kobymaru]

@wile1411 Looks good to me and thanks for the summary!

Two minor details:

• I'm not entirely sure if the angle setting has to be the same if snap is Off. Could be that angle doesn't matter in this case (needs checking).
• Roll force does not need to be >= 1 to exert a torque, you can also use anything >= 0.