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


Shadowmage

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On 17/01/2017 at 8:41 PM, Beetlecat said:

For me, the idea of a "walker" being supported by this mod would be the Critter Crawler from this pack:

Wanted untouched version of Critter Crawler,  untouched as in untouched, no cfg edits or changes . Haven't found a working link as yet.

Edited by SpannerMonkey(smce)
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Just now, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Wanted untouched version of Critter Crawler,  untouched as in untouched, no cfg edits or changes . Haven't found a working link as yet.

I'll check my downloaded mods folder--some legacy stuff still in there.

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12 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

oddly the sf link i found took me to a not found page but thanks, I have all the bits I need now I think, apart from luck :)

 

The link at the top of the thread was broken, but I dug around doing different searches, and eventually found them again. He must have re-uploaded.

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5 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

A bit out of the scope of the mod.  Seems more like an IR/KOS deal.  (unless I'm misinterpreting what you mean by 'walker'; certainly a geriatrics style 'walker' would be in the wheels domain (if of questionable use in KSP), but a star-wars style 'walker' clearly is not)

 

4 hours ago, Beetlecat said:

For me, the idea of a "walker" being supported by this mod would be the Critter Crawler from this pack:

Beetlecat's right, the idea I had in mind would be just a more industrial-looking critter crawler running on the new Kerbal Foundries / KSP Wheel plugin system.  Essentially just animated legs that 'walk' instead of wheels that roll, still using wheel colliders to provide functionality but otherwise just behaving as really cool looking tracks.

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On Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at 5:47 PM, Madrias said:

Beetlecat's right, the idea I had in mind would be just a more industrial-looking critter crawler running on the new Kerbal Foundries / KSP Wheel plugin system.  Essentially just animated legs that 'walk' instead of wheels that roll, still using wheel colliders to provide functionality but otherwise just behaving as really cool looking tracks.

I don't have any personal interest in making (or using, or maintaining) a crawler/walker type part.  To me it would be nothing more than a novelty; spend a bunch of time and effort getting it working, use it once for a few giggles, and then never touch it again.  Poor investment and use of time, from my personal perspective on it at least.

With that said, there is absolutely nothing stopping someone else from using the KSPWheels collider (or full part-module set) to make one.  Off the top of my head they would need at least one custom part-module to manage linking the 'walking' animation speed with the driving of the wheels/speed of the wheels and the throtte input.  Could use a standard static 4/8 wheeled setup (no animations on the wheels; I really don't think they would like being animated like that).  Not quite sure how one would manage 'turning' in the animation stuff; but the wheels themselves could be setup into two groups of 2 (or 2 groups of 4 if 8 wheels total) with tank-steering enabled.  Making it 'walk' sideways would be....tricky... probably not easily doable without a full custom part-module set that managed each wheel collider individually.

If anyone does want to undertake that task, and needs some insight on the KSPWheel colliders or modules, please let me know.  I'll be more than glad to answer questions or help sort out configs if needed.

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Doing some tinkering on some parts that may be joining Kerbal Foundries shortly...

h8672pu.png


Took a much closer look at the ALG models in regards to their intended functionality, disregarding the current rigging and transform setup.  Actually going to be a much simpler task than I had thought.  Only took a short while to re-rig the first model, and the overall model and rigging is much simplified (42 objects -> 12).  Still need to clean up the model smoothing and double-check that the uvmap came through the import/export process, but the raw meshes at least are intact and usable.

The plugin code won't be too difficult to get finished either.  The suspension brace and carriage angle code is already 'working'.  The length/height update code can be mostly borrowed from the repulsors.  The scaling is built into the base module set.  The most difficult part will be writing the deploy animation code (as it is all procedural), but even that is just managing a few timers and state flag(s) and feeding values into lerp functions.

I wasn't planning on doing any of these for a few weeks, but if it all keeps going smoothly I -might- have them available with this weekends update.

Edited by Shadowmage
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Aw yiisss! Floof Space Program is back up and running! Time to throw space cars to the stars once more!

 

Edit: So nice to have the tracks back, but they're almost unuseable at any kind of speed because they just refuse to steer. Same problem the wheels have, but the speed table I usually edit isn't there. How do I get some semblance of control out of nothing but two tracks beyond 'Merging onto an autobahn' at speeds north of 10m/s?

Edited by Kenobi McCormick
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45 minutes ago, Kenobi McCormick said:

Aw yiisss! Floof Space Program is back up and running! Time to throw space cars to the stars once more!

 

Edit: So nice to have the tracks back, but they're almost unuseable at any kind of speed because they just refuse to steer. Same problem the wheels have, but the speed table I usually edit isn't there. How do I get some semblance of control out of nothing but two tracks beyond 'Merging onto an autobahn' at speeds north of 10m/s?

As the motors are now based on an electric motor, and the tracks use the motors to steer, you simply -won't- get good steering at high speed -- there is no torque available.  Either change the gear momentarily so you are not at the top of the gear range (so torque is available), or slow down a bit until torque is available.

In the future I may add some brake input into the track-steering, but it can only slow down one track and does nothing to increase the speed of the other (only more torque can do that, which requires slowing down or changing gears).

The tracks all have a default top speed of ~23m/s (at default scale, except for the smallest 'tiny' track); this should be a sufficient range to allow decent turning ability up to about 15m/s, beyond that there will not be enough torque available.  I found those limitations to be perfectly usable, especially in light of previous complaints about lack of steering curves.


To answer your question -- there are no steering curves on tank-steering.  The motor torque curve is what is determining the power available for steering.

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Just a heads-up: Tanks steer by braking the side which you want to turn to. Not by accelerating the other.

Another thing:
In the difficulty settings you can adjust the "resilience" of the wheels to the different damage sources. However, this can only be done in integer steps (0, 1, 2, ...) with he default at 1. That means there is currently no way to make the wheels slightly more resilient because it just jumps instantly to 0 (invulnerable). Correct me if I'm wrong.

Imho a float would be much better as an input for the multipliers.

Third:
Much thanks for taking over the ALG! One of my top 5 mods.

Edited by DocMop
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