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Prodding the Kraken round two!


Comrade Jenkens

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Ok ARM seem to have made K-drive unreliable with the new joint system but phantom forces still exist. As before I want everyone to go prod the Kraken with a long stick to see what happens and document the results.

My goal is to get the K-drive working again and this time I'm hoping to find a method more reliable than landing legs as they tend to break.

Happy prodding everyone! ;)

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If it helps at all, I can say my FTL egg's method of propulsion still works :P

I've managed to verify that the basic concept and physics (or lack of) still work. The main problems I'm having is that the landing legs aren't interacting with the base plate in the same way, either resting on it or passing straight through.

Its good to see that kerbals on ladders still work though which further confirms that the glitch in the engine is still there.

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What is the core design behind Kraken Drives anyway? How do you produce phantom forces reliably?

It seems to be that when the landing legs pass through a part to press against the part beneath they create a phantom force. However to get it working they have to be positioned perfectly and they will also generate rotational torque requiring large amounts of reaction wheels. Another problem is the legs tend to break because of the extreme forces involved.

The aircraft landing gear and docking ports can create similar forces but no one has managed to make a drive with them. The advantage with these parts is that they won't break. I'm also wondering if the claw is able to generate these forces as well.

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have you seen the stock Ornithopter? http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/77760-A-Proper-Ornithopter-no-tricks-no-engines-no-control-surfaces

It would seem that he has some magic up his sleeve!

I have also just encountered some very odd happenings to a Kerbal (Jeb) on Minmus - he did more than his usual share of EVA's (for SCIENCE! why else?) and at one point after using his EVA jetpack to nearly get back to his one-kerbal ship, I misjudged a keypres which sent him ragdolling along for a bit... funy thing is, I was almost able to control him... in ragdoll... but somehow managed to get him to do a weird spin-kick thing which kept bouncing him off his helmet at the right time to keep him going, then a leg would fly out and perpetuate the spinning... it wasn't pretty, and had me worried for a bit, until he 'glitched' and all of a sudden he wasn't in ragdoll mode anymore :huh:

Another glitch I found was if you have multiple one-kerbal-pods on a ship and have them all decouple/stage 'chutes at once over water, you better not recover one pod then go back and try to fly the others - the pod seems to bounce in the water once, then next thing is it's flying straight up, with the camera stuck directly overhead!

So, from this, I have deduced that 1) Kerbals can still 'access' these phantom forces on their own (which is why the FTL egg probably still works - never played with it!) and 2) Water may now help trigger it... so maybe build a craft to be launched from the surface of Kerbin's water to activate the Kraken?

Heh, Water-Kraken... the Original Beast has awoken!

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So, let me see:

We are using the Kraken to slap our ship around space in place of actual engines, using glitches in the physics engine?

Yes! And besides being an occult way of meta gaming in some way, it is dangerous to play with the forces of the kraken. I myself go the conventional way, using engines only. As far as i know, the kraken drive has already made it into the ksp wiki.

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It has too! http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Kraken_Drive.

My own ladderlift propulsion systems have not been effected, but then, I've concluded that bug is unrelated.

The bug is essentially the same; only one side of the applied force being registered. It seems the act of being on a ladder is what effects the kerbal and for landing legs it is passing through something which does it for them.

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The bug is essentially the same; only one side of the applied force being registered. It seems the act of being on a ladder is what effects the kerbal and for landing legs it is passing through something which does it for them.

Hang on, that was poorly phrased my me. Not related to the techniques used to create clipping forces that most kraken drives depend on.

The difference is in what's providing the force- part of the ship, or a kerbal, technically a separate 'vessel".

However, as you don't actually invoke the power of the power of the kraken, I'm reluctant to call it a kraken drive. Perhaps it could be considered a sub-type.

My experiments seem to show that no force is put on the ladder as a kerbal moves. This frame has little mass, it should turn when the kerbal moves. But it does not, he moves around it.

d8Fl0t9.gif

This was more apparent in the game- the gif is less clear.

Using KAS, I can make a traditional clipping type kraken drive with a kerbal on a ladder:

PgFZ0ua.gif

But this is less controllable than ladder a ladderdrive, and the kerbal falls of if you increase the clipping forces:

G1YIVVn.png

Edited by Tw1
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Wonder how long until this thread gets put in the wiki references? hehehe...

I'm wondering how much the stronger joints affect the old K-Drives, as I never got one to work... maybe using more landing legs instead of less might work now? or maybe attaching smaller parts to bigger parts (so instead of using the standard 1.25m SAS, try using the 2.5m ASAS?) It would seem they (the Devs) have 'corrected' many of the connection points so they are the 'right' size for the part now - mainly noticed with the 2.5m RCS tanks and batteries...

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Ehm... Are you trying to awaken the beast that the dev team fought almost to death?

Beware, kids. Kraken kills kerbals.

Guessing some people missed round 1... and didn't bother reading the rest of the thread! (It's even on the wiki, siting A Fat Pokemon and Comrade Jenkins as instigators of the Kraken-poking...)

Edited by Cmdr. Arn1e
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Yes! And besides being an occult way of meta gaming in some way, it is dangerous to play with the forces of the kraken. I myself go the conventional way, using engines only. As far as i know, the kraken drive has already made it into the ksp wiki.

Where do I sign?

Edit: is it okay if I use mods? (Like B9 and some mods that add weapon, if you need a list, ask).

Edited by Special Agent Sigvan
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Where do I sign?

Edit: is it okay if I use mods? (Like B9 and some mods that add weapon, if you need a list, ask).

I think they are aiming to do this in stock, so anyone can have a go if they want to try, and makes it less torture to share designs for testing/SCIENCE/fun times :P

(feel free to correct me if i'm wrong though, OP!)

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