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[1.0.x] [V1.9f] Kerbal Foundries wheels, anti-grav repulsors and tracks

lo-fi

By lo-fi
in KSP1 Mod Development

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What to work on next?  

1,282 members have voted

  1. 1. What to work on next?

    • More wheels
      123
    • More tracks
      453
    • Rover bodies
      241
    • Landing gear
      137
    • Landing legs
      108
    • Something completely different
      193

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Vonnmillard

Vonnmillard

Posted
Posted
On 6/26/2014 at 1:24 AM, lo-fi said:

1.1.x NOTES:

There is currently no 1.1.x compatibility. We're working on it, but as Squad found, U5 wheel colliders in KSP are about as stable as a stack of ping-pong balls. It's being working on by some very clever people, so please be patient. In fact, we're working on an entirely new wheel collider (the bit of U5 that's given Squad so many problems). As you may imagine, this is not easy or quick, but progress is being made. Please do not ask when it'll be ready or badger us to update. Such requests will b met with a slap around the face with a wet fish. You have been warned - we have the Holy Mackerel primed and ready, and it won't be pretty.

By all means, stay tuned, offer encouragement, post what you're doing (in previous KSP versions) with KF stuff and do suggest whacky stuff we might be able to have fun creating when we've got working wheels again. 

DOWNLOAD: KF v1.9  which is 1.0.x compatible can be downloaded here.

1.9 Changelog:

New parts:

Giballed repulsor. Less crashy-crashy-boom-boom.

Simple track (quite small)

More to follow shortly when textures/IVA's have been finished!!

New features/enhancements:

DustFX! This is similar to the CollisionFX mod, but totally re-purposed specifically for wheels

Dust colour can either be updated by biome information, or in realtime by sampling the ground colour.

Repulsor effects. They throw dust too, as well as creating eerie blue light... New animated texture as well.

Gui: you can toggle various things like the repulsor lights, dust, VAB/SPH orientation marker from the simple GUI

Wheel acceleration is now affected by vessel mass. Bet you never noticed it wasn't before :wink:

Control input improvements. Hopefully you'll feel rovers are a little less.... arcade-ish.

APU now has configurable target battery state. Sound has been improved too.

Memory footprint reduction. It's about 40M. Less that a third of the previous release.

Various performance improvements, which I won't bore you with.

You may notice that the simple track is not an asymmetric part, which is not common in KSP. More like this will follow now the plugin stuff is in place to enable this.

Logging has been improved to show KF related things clearly.

TweakScale support has been vastly improved. Everything that should, I believe, now scales with the parts

Rebalance of cost/weight/speed/tech node (Community Tech Tree too) for all parts. This may need some more work.

Support for alternate resources added.

Information, description, EC usage is all now displayed in editor

Icon size fixes for the tracks is bow built in

Tracks no longer make the craft appear larger than it really is in the engineers report.

Track textures flip over to create symmetrical track patterns on opposite sides. Neat, huh?

Probably a bunch of stuff I've forgotten too, as well as stuff that enables forthcoming parts....

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Install Instructions:

Delete existing 'Kerbal Foundries' folder. Unzip new version into KSP folder. You will end up with GameData\KerbalFoundries. Enjoy the Kerbal mobility goodness :)

Optional:

TweakScale: No further explanation should be required. Nothing bad will happen if you don't have it.

FAQ & Troubleshooting:

This mod crashes my game. There are a few possibilities:

You're running KSP Win64. DON'T. It doesn't work correctly, Squad don't support it and neither do I. Some people manage; bad luck if you're not one of those.

You're running active texture management. It hasn't crashed, be patient while it compresses the textures for the first time. Startup will be quicker subsequently.

You're running too many mods and you're out of memory. Trim down your install, force OpenGL or run Active Texture Management (or similar).

I've yet to run into anything that isn't caused by one of those things listed about. Crashing is usually memory related.

The wheels don't work and sink into the ground:

You've put them upside down. Download 1,8d and you'll have nice orientation markers.

The repulsors behave a little quirky:

They're anti-gravity devices, what do you expect :wink:

Filing bug reports:

If you run into trouble, please do the following: Post an output_log. This can be found in the KSP_Data directory. Preferably stuffed into dropbox or similar, rather than pasted into the thread (between SPOILER tags please, if you must) as they can get quite lengthy. Screen grabs are helpful, as are craft if they're mostly stock apart from KSP parts. A detailed description of the problem too, please. Just saying 'hey, (whatever part) isn't working' is not helpful.

If you have an issue with odd behaviour, rather than something that's likely to be revealed by a log file, please post screen shots, KSP version & platform and KF version, along with as much info as you can give.

General release notes:

AGAIN!! Everything has changed. I've completely ditched the stock wheel module in favour of my own home-grown alternative. Some might say this is a bold move, and rightly so. There will be bugs, there will be certain situations where the wheels behave a little differently to stock. If you don't want to deal with that and file sensible bug reports should you run into something strange, please don't update for the moment. The new plugin is mostly helpful because it greatly simplifies creating new parts, as the stock modules are rather fussy. However, subtle differences do exist and you should find that the dynamics are much better now. Parts have all received a CoG tweak which has also helped.

Apologies for breaking saves, I found that the old and new versions are simply not compatible and weird, weird bugs occurred. Forcing fresh craft files is about the only way to deal with this, so that's what I've done. If you want to re-use existing craft files, just remove KF parts and re-save before updating the mod, then add the new versions.

 

Groups:

You'll notice a UI slider called Group Number, along with an Apply Settings button. This does several things. For repulsors, it changes the hover height of all other repulsors on the vessel in the same group number as the selected part. For wheels, steering ration and direction calculation will happen for parts in the same group. Useful for multi vehicle vessels and those with docked rovers. Group 0 is special! A part set to group zero will only update its own setting, and will not receive settings from other parts (even in group 0). Sounds complicated, but it's easily udnerstood when you're in-game. Parts default to group 1.

Repulsor notes:

1) They do levitation. Nothing more!! Propulsion, braking and control are all up to you. Get inventive!

2) The height adjustment and retract/deploy function has now been rolling into one. Setting to 0 height turns the repulsors off. There are two action groups to change the height, as well as the UI slider to change individual units. The action groups change the height .5 for each activation.

3) Surface mount repulsors are now smaller and uni-directional. The have no stability of their own, so you'll want to use at least three if you want a self stable craft. I've added TweakScale support to facilitate easy placement. It makes them a little trickier to use, but much more flexible when using lots of them.

4) Effects are on the way. Lights and emissives are all in the works.

5) Energy usage depends on hover height.

6) Fixed a major bug where repulsors would randomly switch off due to low energy when there was plenty available.

7) You will need the TweakScale plugin if you don't already have it and would like to use this feature: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80234-24-2-TweakScale-Rescale-Everything!-(v1-33-2014-07-28-20-00-UTC)

Wheel notes:

1)I've done some funky stuff detecting each wheels position in the vessel and calculating how much it should be steering. If you make a truly whacky vessel with the root part in a strange orientation this may not work correctly (Should now be fixed in 1.7).

2)Docking/undocking needs some attention, especially if rovers are mounted on a launch craft in an odd orientation. This will be fixed, I just need some time to work out how KSP handles the tree rebuild and get my code to recalculate accordingly. Groups will help with this.

 

Track notes:

1)There is a KSP bug in the bounds detection of the skinned mesh that the tracks are made of. This means the editor icon is _tiny_. It's a known KSP issue and something I can do nothing about at the moment I'm afraid.

2)Steering is slightly different to wheels. Pressing D, for example, tells the vehicle to rotate clockwise (looking down), rather than steer right. This might sound like the same thing, but you'll find the controls are reversed compared to driving with wheels. This is by design. Otherwise there is a nasty crossover region between forward and backward motion when rotating on the spot.

3)There is a UI slider and action groups to change the torque, along with an action group and button to disable steering. This hopefully opens up the design possibilities. Energy consumption is related to torque.

4)I've hopefully nailed the direction detection code. It works for all of my designs, I'll wait to here if it works for everyone.

A massive, massive thank you to the RBI guys for open-sourcing the originals. I can't tell you how helpful it's been :D

5) The steering on the re-released RBI unit can get a little funny when mounted upside down. I'll fix later. For the moment, enjoy them right side up, please :wink:

APU notes:

This is designed to be used alongside anything that requires ElectricCharge. By default, it will spool up and down depending on battery state and current load. Having too small a battery can cause problems, though, so take at least one small pack, rather then relying on tiny charge storage from command pods etc.

 

We could really use another hand with the texturing. Justin does a cracking job, but it's time consuming compared to everything else so there's now quite a backlog of untextured parts. Any offers greatly appreciated!

CC-BY-NC-SA

 

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR

IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,

FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE

AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER

LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,

OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN

The SOFTWARE.

To clarify licenses:

Publicly released parts, configs and textures are covered by Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA

Publicly released plugin code is covered by GNU GPL3.

Anything else to be considered all rights reserved.

 

Can you please add a M1 Abrams Hull with the option to change the Camo (M1 Abrams Turret Color as Default)?

Please...

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TARDISES

TARDISES

Posted
Posted (edited)

Quoting the entire first post and double posting? AND requesting a feature that would be more appropriate for BD Armoury than KF?

AND not waiting for the wheels to be working again? (because they really can't do ANYTHING with KF until they do that)

 

FISH HIT! x1 Killicon_holy_mackerel.png?t=20110425100

FISH HIT! x2Killicon_holy_mackerel.png?t=20110425100

FISH KILL! Killicon_holy_mackerel.png?t=20110425100

Edited by TARDISES
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TwinKerbal

TwinKerbal

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Vonnmillard said:

Can you please add a M1 Abrams Hull with the option to change the Camo (M1 Abrams Turret Color as Default)?

Please...

Solution: make an m1 Abrams hull out of structural plates. And girders. 

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lo-fi

lo-fi

Posted
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Posted
7 hours ago, Vonnmillard said:

.................................................(*nothing to say for now*)

Looks like you're new here, so a few words on how this all works. 

From a forum point of view, posting "please make this for me. Please" doesn't tend to be well received. "I'd like to make an M1 hull. Where do I start" or "would love an M1 hull. Anyone got any suggestions? " will get you much further. Modding is a lot of work; please respect that we do this for free, and that making any kind of part is a fair undertaking. 

On a personal note: I've never done requests. Certainly not for replicating real stuff. It's too much work, everyone's  a critic, and I find it uncreative and rather boring. Not that I'm getting at or dissing anyone who likes that sort of thing - there's some stunning replica real stuff out there - it just isn't my bag. Inspiration from real things is a different thing. Taking a look at something, turning it upside down and coming up with something new that kind of resembles it; that's my cup of tea. And, of course, nobody can tell you it "doesn't look right". 

If there's something you really want, the tools are free and the processes are well documented so go get creating! I'm sure if you were to make a decent M1 hull, it would be quite popular. 

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TARDISES

TARDISES

Posted
Posted (edited)

Not to mention, again, that kind of thing is more suited to BD Armoury. KF's things are wheels, repulsors, tracks, long-duration rovers and The Mole (Yes, I got the reference in the description for the mole tracks. And not just because it got a reboot last year.) Not military stuff.

Edited by TARDISES
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lo-fi

lo-fi

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Posted

Hehe. The mole tracks are a fun oddity that came from the original tracks mod. I'm glad at least someone got the reference :)

I've been away over the weekend, so not much progress I'm afraid. I do have the suspension working, but have somehow broken the bump stop limits due to placement of the ray origin. It needs some tinkering then ought to be in a fit state to commit. 

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qromodynmc

qromodynmc

Posted
Posted

It's been a long time since I used this mod, cant remember well but this didnt hat Neutral steering support right? Is it hard to implement in future (Of course our main goal is to make this mod working again :) )

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Kenobi McCormick

Kenobi McCormick

Posted
Posted
33 minutes ago, qromodynmc said:

It's been a long time since I used this mod, cant remember well but this didnt hat Neutral steering support right? Is it hard to implement in future (Of course our main goal is to make this mod working again :) )

They do, yes. To do so simply hold a steer key while stationary, the tracks will spin in opposite directions and the vehicle will pivot.

30 minutes ago, lo-fi said:

Not sure what you mean? 

He's referring to pivoting the rover about its center of mass, rather than about the center of friction of the stationary track, while at a standstill, which with tanks is termed 'neutral steering'.

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