A Moving Strut For Breaking Ground

[SolarAdmiral]

Something I'd really like, or would be interested in any existing mods, would be some movable struts for robotic parts. To help reduce the wobble of large parts attached to moving joints and such. 

 

Maybe they could 'go loose' when robotic parts are moving and lock the parts back in place when the movement stops. Or they could help fasten the two parts together restricted to the way they're designed to move in the editor to help prevent wobble or stiffen connections.

 

The robotic stuff is great but the joints aren't quite strong enough to do much with full fuel tanks and running engines without a whole lot of wobble.

[Superfluous J]

I'm wondering if they tried to make autostruts work that way and abandoned it for some reason.

But yeah automatically telescoping struts would be awesome, if unrealistic.

I'd settle for a stock EVA struts. Or, in lieu of that the mod EVA struts.

[Shadowmage]

13 minutes ago, SolarAdmiral said:

The robotic stuff is great but the joints aren't quite strong enough to do much with full fuel tanks and running engines without a whole lot of wobble.

QFT

2 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I'm wondering if they tried to make autostruts work that way and abandoned it for some reason.

Me too.

Knowing a (small) bit about Unity Joints, I'm wondering why they didn't explicitly create multiple joints on these to reduce the wobble/slop.  Would require some interesting positioning to ensure they still function as robotics, but they could remove/reduce the slop substantially if it worked.

I've been able to use the robotics parts for very simple stuff without issue, like stowing a comms-dish.  But any attempts to use them for variable-geometry craft designs have been... less than exciting... due to the sloppy joints.  E.G. folding wings for an aircraft, can never get them to sit anywhere close to '0 degrees' when deployed, and even when 'locked' (if you can even get them to lock) the hinges still bend like a wet noodle and flap all over the place.

TLDR:  A solution for wobbly joints on robotics is badly needed.  It was bad on regular rockets, but thankfully autostrut works there, and even regular struts when needed.  Neither work on robotics.

[SolarAdmiral]

58 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

But yeah automatically telescoping struts would be awesome, if unrealistic.

Ideally I'd like it to be skinned to look like some kind of piston or something maybe with hinge like joints for either endpoint. It could be done in a way that doesn't seem too unrealistic. Like we could use Breaking Ground hinges for the angle, then these movable struts would look like hydraulic pistons, making for joints that look like construction equipment arms or something.

 

50 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Knowing a (small) bit about Unity Joints, I'm wondering why they didn't explicitly create multiple joints on these to reduce the wobble/slop.  Would require some interesting positioning to ensure they still function as robotics, but they could remove/reduce the slop substantially if it worked.

The whole reason I wanted to suggest this idea, is I spent last evening working on a ship with a design I thought would be very practical. A couple of Jumbo 64 tanks I wanted to swivel 90 degrees. I tried to attach each of them at 4 points, a hinge at the base, hinges and pistons strut connected on three sides. Got it all to look perfect in the editor. 

 

It worked, but even still there was a bit too much wobble to make it very practical. Which is a shame, because if I built a static version of it in either configuration it could be made really stable with one or two struts. But even with 4 robotic attachments to each tank weighing like 15 tons in total, they still can't be made steady. It would just be nice to be able to beef up the connections to movable parts a bit more than currently available.

[AHHans]

I also would like struts - or at least something like rope - in the game! But, @SolarAdmiral have you tried autostruts in your vessel? They way they work now in the latest patch, is that they end at a movable joint that is not locked but can go across that part if the joint is locked. So with strategic use of autostruts and locking/unlocking of the joints one can get reasonably sturdy vessels.

[Shadowmage]

1 hour ago, AHHans said:

locking/unlocking

How to get a join to reliably lock?  Every time I try it says something about 'can't lock servo because it is in motion', even when not visibly moving, or under any (non-gravity) forces.

[AHHans]

9 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

How to get a join to reliably lock?

Well, for the launch from Kerbin I just set them to locked in the VAB. Once in orbit I can unlock, set to new position, wait till the wiggling has died down, and finally can lock them. Sometimes the locking doesn't work on the first try, but it does work after a few tries. If you are in free-fall with no other forces working on your vessel, then all movement should die down after a while.

For my folding-wing Eve plane - that needs to unfold its wings in Eve's atmosphere - I set it up so that the unfolded position of the wings is at the stop (180 degrees) of the hinges and that the lift forces will push the hinges into the stop. That one I also have to "wiggle around" so that the wind catches the wings in the right way to push them into the unfolded position.

[Edit:]
P.S. Because locking doesn't always work for me on the first try, I don't use the "toggle lock" action. If I do use an action group for the locks, then I use separate ones for "set lock" and "release lock". I also control each joint manually before proceeding.
P.P.S. Hmmm... I guess that means my answer to your question is: "I don't. (Get a reliable lock.)"

Edited July 27, 2019 by AHHans
Added P.S.

[hms_warrior]

18 hours ago, SolarAdmiral said:

Ideally I'd like it to be skinned to look like some kind of piston or something maybe with hinge like joints for either endpoint. It could be done in a way that doesn't seem too unrealistic. Like we could use Breaking Ground hinges for the angle, then these movable struts would look like hydraulic pistons, making for joints that look like construction equipment arms or something.

Can't you use the new In-Vehicle interaction-thingy and simply move a structual part in position?

[Shadowmage]

4 hours ago, hms_warrior said:

Can't you use the new In-Vehicle interaction-thingy and simply move a structual part in position?

That's like trying to make wet noodles be more rigid by using duct-tape.  Going to look terrible, work poorly, and be a waste of duct-tape.

We (at least I) want more rigid/stable joints on the robotics parts -- not to have to use more robotics parts to fix the floppy ones.