Mining and KerbalFoundries Tracks.

[LN400]

First, I could post this in the KF mod thread but I figured some replies here might be outside that thread's scope so here goes:

Now, for some issues I have that might have a workaround or a solution (this is where I hope you guys will chime in with your experiences):

I use the mod KerbalFoundries for the wheels and tracks. They work... kind of BUT tests on Kerbin had the Kraken rear its ugly head: If a kerbal so much as came near the KF wheels, it would rocket left and right up and down like crazy, stretching out like mad spaghetti before exploding in a puff of dust. Weird thing is, the KF tracks work like a dream on Mun where the Kerbals can climb the tracks and all is fine and dandy, Kraken sound asleep.

I plan on a Minmus mining operation, big scale and the decision has been made to make it module based using winches to hook all the modules together. This to allow for expansions for more drills or power or battery banks, fuel tanks, cooling etc etc etc. The drill unit will be a quad drill with large ore tanks on the same unit. This unit I really would like on tracks since it might need to move around. One design has some mamoth sized tracks and the whole thing has a dry mass of around 40 tons. The fuel tank unit that will hook up to this is also around 40 tons. Refinery, PSU, coolers and battery banks will all be separate modules but again, tests on Kerbin had all the light weight modules go bananas as soon as they hooked up to the heavies, jumping around until they tore themselves apart and exploded. I have no idea but I suspect the CoM calculation is not coping well with the winch but at the same time,, I do keep in mind how the KF tracks changed behaviour as described above as soon as they landed on Mun.

 

So, any inputs/ideas on how I should go about it? Any of you ever had similar issues? For a wheeled/tracked, module based operation, how would you go about it? Any tips or suggestions on mobile mining/refinery operations on other bodies than Kerbin?

[bewing]

Are you using autostruts? That might account for the modules jumping around.

In order to avoid the Kerbal/Wheel nasty interactions, in stock the devs moved the wheels to a different "Unity layer" -- which prevents interactions from happening at all. So it seems strange to me that you see interaction on Kerbin, but not on the Mun. I don't understand how that could be. The interactions happen inside the PhysX library, as far as I know, because of the colliders.

 

 

Edited November 6, 2017 by bewing

[LN400]

20 minutes ago, bewing said:

Are you using autostruts? That might account for the modules jumping around.

In order to avoid the Kerbal/Wheel nasty interactions, in stock the devs moved the wheels to a different "Unity layer" -- which prevents interactions from happening at all. So it seems strange to me that you see interaction on Kerbin, but not on the Mun. I don't understand how that could be. The interactions happen inside the PhysX library, as far as I know, because of the colliders.

 

 

As for auto struts the answer is no. In fact that was the reason I went for the KF wheels as they don't have forced auto struts.

As for not understanding the behaviour, that makes 2 of us. It is weirder than weird Al and it baffles me a great deal not to mention troubles me as a failed design of a mining installation will be quite damaging to my career mode bank account.

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, LN400 said:

So, any inputs/ideas on how I should go about it? Any of you ever had similar issues? For a wheeled/tracked, module based operation, how would you go about it? Any tips or suggestions on mobile mining/refinery operations on other bodies than Kerbin?

All wheels, even stock ones, are poison to Kerbals and have been since 1.0 or whenever the major Unity change to them happened.  KF uses its own module for wheels, not the stock one, but still has the same problem so I'm thinking it's more of a deeper Unity thing independent of the wheel module.  So, the only solution is to never let Kerbals come in contact with wheels (or lander legs, for that matter).

As to your base jumping and exploding, this has long been a problem with the KAS winches.  Those things are good for getting rovers up steep cliffs and moving small, simple assemblies (like recovering splashed pods).  They're also good as temporary connections to transfer resources.  But they are not to be used to for holding large assemblies permanently together.  In fact, it's ill-advised to use KAS pipes for permanent base connections, too.  The Kraken really hates KAS connections of all types.  Eventually, after repeated physics loads, things will jump and/or explode.  And if any of the connected modules are sitting on wheels, tracks, or lander legs (anything with a suspension), this happens sooner rather than later, and usually more violently.

In general, the most Kraken-resistant way of building a base is to use one of the mods that allow wireless resource transfers between nearby but detached modules.  It's also a good idea to have the modules sitting on the ground, but not anchored to it, instead of leaving them on suspensions.

 

[LN400]

47 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

All wheels, even stock ones, are poison to Kerbals and have been since 1.0 or whenever the major Unity change to them happened.  KF uses its own module for wheels, not the stock one, but still has the same problem so I'm thinking it's more of a deeper Unity thing independent of the wheel module.  So, the only solution is to never let Kerbals come in contact with wheels (or lander legs, for that matter).

As to your base jumping and exploding, this has long been a problem with the KAS winches.  Those things are good for getting rovers up steep cliffs and moving small, simple assemblies (like recovering splashed pods).  They're also good as temporary connections to transfer resources.  But they are not to be used to for holding large assemblies permanently together.  In fact, it's ill-advised to use KAS pipes for permanent base connections, too.  The Kraken really hates KAS connections of all types.  Eventually, after repeated physics loads, things will jump and/or explode.  And if any of the connected modules are sitting on wheels, tracks, or lander legs (anything with a suspension), this happens sooner rather than later, and usually more violently.

In general, the most Kraken-resistant way of building a base is to use one of the mods that allow wireless resource transfers between nearby but detached modules.  It's also a good idea to have the modules sitting on the ground, but not anchored to it, instead of leaving them on suspensions.

 

THe bit I bolded there is a major pain in the neck. I have a contract for a Mun surface base for 12 kerbals, 7000 units of LF, 5000 units of ore and the whole bleedin monstrosity has to be on wheels, as per contract. There is no way I will get that in one piece from Kerbin to Mun even with empty fuel/ore tanks.

[Geschosskopf]

6 minutes ago, LN400 said:

THe bit I bolded there is a major pain in the neck. I have a contract for a Mun surface base for 12 kerbals, 7000 units of LF, 5000 units of ore and the whole bleedin monstrosity has to be on wheels, as per contract. There is no way I will get that in one piece from Kerbin to Mun even with empty fuel/ore tanks.

See,, this is exactly the sort of contract you should never, ever accept.  It's a major pain to do and the requirements are just plain silly so it's not something you'd like use yourself afterwards.

Probably the least-painful way of doing this would be with Pathfinder, using the inflatable tanks and habitats hanging off the side of a Buffalo rover.  Then just run the drills and ISRU until the tanks are full.

[LN400]

Well, the modules for the Mun (legs, not tracks or wheels on these modules) operation is already orbiting Mun ready to land as soon as the rovers on the ground have found the highest ore concentration. Already on the ground are 2 fuel tanks on legs and a science probe also on legs. They were hooked up using winches and there was no hint of trouble then. I will land the mining modules soon and find out if Mun is generally more Kraken free than Kerbin which apparenly is where Kraken and its mom live.

Edited November 6, 2017 by LN400

[JK_Kerbineer]

13 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

 

Probably the least-painful way of doing this would be with Pathfinder, using the inflatable tanks and habitats hanging off the side of a Buffalo rover.  Then just run the drills and ISRU until the tanks are full.

 

Perhaps the USI cargo containers and rovers could be useful too?

[Geschosskopf]

7 minutes ago, JK_Kerbineer said:

Perhaps the USI cargo containers and rovers could be useful too?

Anything that's inflatable would be the stuff to use.