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[1.0.5] Adjustable Landing Gear v1.2.0 (mass/cost scaling, tech nodes, drag) - May 30


BahamutoD

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I Love it,... I know a couple of spaceplanes that would work better with this mod than with my personal ministrations.

Here is a problem I bumped into a few times... Maybe it's something you'd like to work with?

If you're in the VAB with a circular flat tank or cupula, and slap 6 wheels on it, the vab places them with their angles all messed up. Right now you have to fiddle a lot with individual wheels to get to a viable rover. It would be awesome if your mod could accomplish this.. I know it is rover wheels not landing gear, but I think it would be perfect to get those base mods all lined up, certainly with variable heights.

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You can also click on "Auto-align wheel" to make the wheels perpendicular to the ground.

It uses the Firespitter wheel module, so it also has steering and a motor.

Similar to the B9 wheels, you can "Toggle Heatshielding" to turn the bay doors black!

Praise the Kraken! you don't want to know how often my planes have crached on the runway because of misalingment of the weel! The only way to align them it by trial and erro. This should save a lot of time and dead kerbals! I can't thank you enough if it realy works as promised :D

Edited by FreeThinker
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I’ve been really into building aircraft recently (funny how one can play a game with an entire solar system to explore, and yet have hours of fun designing conventional aircraft without ever once leaving the planet) and my current biggest annoyance is probably how limited the landing gear is compared to real aircraft configurations. This became apparent with difficulties trying to put rear landing gear on my work-in-progress F-16 replica and the annoyance that it wasn't possible to place it like the actual plane.

330px-Royal_Netherlands_Air_Force_F-16_arrives_RIAT_Fairford_10thJuly2014_arp.jpg

I figured that in a game centred on rocketry, I should just be happy to have the aircraft-builder type mods that currently exist, yet I still wished there was something specifically for landing gear. Like magic, this appeared the very next day.

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This is amazing @_@ I can't wait to give them a try!

Question though about the animations plugin: I already have a ton of your other mods, including the one with the CritterWalker and I believe that's the pack that already comes with the animate plugin. Is the .dll in *this* download superior in version or are they the same?

Thanks a lot in advance! My KSP install hates you for all the parts you're making me install xD

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I'm glad most of you got them to work, and are enjoying them!

To those who are falling through the ground, can't see the tweakable sliders, or generally can't seem to get them to work:

First, make sure you have the latest Firespitter.dll. I updated the link on the first post to take you to Snjo's github, where you can get the 0.25 compatible library by itself.

I recommend installing it in GameData/Firespitter/Plugins. <-This is where it would be if you already have an old version.

Then, make sure you have the latest BDAnimationModules.dll. This is included in this pack, but if you already had one from one of my other mods, that existing one is out of date.

Make sure to use the one from this pack, and replace the one you still have.

Then, make sure you click "Adjustment" in the part window to show the tweak sliders.

Excellent stuff, solves a lot of problems.

One tiny issue, if the brakes are triggered while the gear is moving, the indicator light won't go back to blue again.

Also a thought: Would it possible/useful to have the leg's forward/backward angle adjustable as well?

1: That functionality is part of Firespitter. If it bugs you too much, you can report it as an issue on Snjo's github :P.

2: I think it would be useful, and I will look into it.

Well, since the firespitter tank switcher allows tanks to switch resources as well as textures, and DRE heat shields use the resource ablative shielding, I guess it could be possible.

I'll look into that.

Pretty much the only thing I would want to see is the ability to change the wheel size, and also general scaling with TweakScale. Current models (small and medium) are just a bit too small for some of my purposes...

I can see the benefits of adjusting the scale. I'll see what I can do to either make it more compatible with tweakscale, or write in my own scaling method.

Minor suggestion: Maybe add a way to tweak the strength of the brakes.

I'd like to make mine stronger since I had some difficulty stopping.

I wanted to do this, but unfortunately the brakes settings are being constantly overwritten by Firespitter, so I need to find out how to modify the FSwheel variables without creating a hard dependency... Until then, you can change the brake torque in the part configs for your own personal taste.

Might I suggest putting the gear in the advanced landing node after the first gear? [TechRequired = advLanding] So they are less of a replacement and more of an upgrade?

Hmm, maybe that's a good idea.

Things I noticed:

1) Attaching in symmetry, launching, then turning on motors and attempting to drive results in the motor on one side being reversed - have to enable/disable reversed motor on one wheel, by default.

2) Possibly at all times, but definitely when tweakscaled to 500%, raising gear and having your plane come to rest on the ground, then lowering gear again does not cause the plane to raise back up (landing gear lowering doesn't push the plane up).

3) Takes a very long time / multiple presses of keys (or something, don't really know what's going on here) for a change in direction to register when driving with motor-enabled wheels. Meaning that once you accelerate a little, to the (apparent) max forward speed of the wheel, stepping on reverse (i.e. the S key) doesn't seem to slow down the vehicle.

4) Can the wheels be made only to apply force while the W/S keys are pressed, perhaps with a separate cruise control option?

I think if the internal variables (the ones used in the code, I don't know, I just remember vaguely something Biotronic wrote about this) that need to scale with size can be identified, TWEAKSCALEEXPONENTS definitions can be written that make various strengths scale appropriately (like suspension, motor power, etc.)...

Otherwise they do actually work, though they don't seem very springy at all and their torque seems crazy, when tweakscaled.

EDIT: Additional thing that would be awesome, if you're happy to have suggestions, is to be able to alter the length of the gear so that tripod-style gear sticking out at an angle can be made longer, or nose gear shorter, to get level-ish footprint on the ground.

1: I know.. sorry, just deal with it for now. There's not much I can do about it. Firespitter by itself automatically fixes that, but then my plugin rotates the wheel around on the other side to maintain symmetry, which negates this fix.

2: I haven't done any intentional compatibility with Tweakscale. Attempting to scale it voids warranty. (I'll look into it.)

3: As someone said before, that's the nature of the method used to limit max speed. Just use brakes to slow down.

4: I'm not sure what you mean by this, but wheel motors are just intended for taxiing your plane around the landing site/ksc, not for long cruises..

Thanks for the tweakscale tip. I might just write my own scaling slider though to make sure it works specifically for this.

Before I get a chance to try these things out ingame... anybody know whether FAR recognizes there shouldn't be any drag in the retracted state?

It appears to have the same amount of drag regardless of its state.

I Love it,... I know a couple of spaceplanes that would work better with this mod than with my personal ministrations.

Here is a problem I bumped into a few times... Maybe it's something you'd like to work with?

If you're in the VAB with a circular flat tank or cupula, and slap 6 wheels on it, the vab places them with their angles all messed up. Right now you have to fiddle a lot with individual wheels to get to a viable rover. It would be awesome if your mod could accomplish this.. I know it is rover wheels not landing gear, but I think it would be perfect to get those base mods all lined up, certainly with variable heights.

The alignments and symmetry are only tuned for use in the SPH, but it sounds like someone needs to make Adjustable Landing Legs (what..don't look at me).

Praise the Kraken! you don't want to know how often my planes have crached on the runway because of misalingment of the weel! The only way to align them it by trial and erro. This should save a lot of time and dead kerbals! I can't thank you enough if it realy works as promised :D

It is still possible to misalign these on the yaw axis (at least for now), so try using the alignment guides to help (press f2 or use the button in the part window).

This is amazing @_@ I can't wait to give them a try!

Question though about the animations plugin: I already have a ton of your other mods, including the one with the CritterWalker and I believe that's the pack that already comes with the animate plugin. Is the .dll in *this* download superior in version or are they the same?

Thanks a lot in advance! My KSP install hates you for all the parts you're making me install xD

Use this plugin in this download!

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I literally spent an hour scouring the in development thread looking for this, after seeing it on FB. Nice work downloading now and moving to my permanent mod folder, withe these and the critter AND the MK Lightning cockpit (he he cockpit :D ) I can't wait for future mods!

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Thanks +Baha :) Will do! I figured the best thing was to use the .dll in the latest file updated, but you never know if you wanna be 110% sure!

EDIT: Hmm, the Firespitter download you link to in your OP is pointing at a Firespitter version that says it's for 0.24.2, not 0.25. Is that right?

Edited by MonaBabii
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Thanks +Baha :) Will do! I figured the best thing was to use the .dll in the latest file updated, but you never know if you wanna be 110% sure!

EDIT: Hmm, the Firespitter download you link to in your OP is pointing at a Firespitter version that says it's for 0.24.2, not 0.25. Is that right?

Click "Download plugin"

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lol... reverse jet engine sounds on braking as well. Haha! Ace.

Couple of minor issues:

  • Is it possible to have a tweak button to add/remove a set of gears from the braking action group? This ability is present on the stock gear.
  • It's not immediately obvious what "dynamic steering" does.
  • It's not obvious which keys control the motor.

Other than such trivia... just brilliant.

Edited by TMS
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r gear pls!

I want to make some bigger, beefier gear sets for jumbo-sized planes, so stay tuned for that.

Smaller and weaker, for mini crafts will be usefull too! :)

Your wheels pretending to mod of the year competition! No doubt. ;)

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it's working great now. this really needs to be made stock after some refinement.

also, you totally helped me land my spaceplane even after it lost half of it's control surfaces, so kudos to you.

(yes I know, I'm mechjeb trash, but I'm a glutton for day long burns) 10807606_10204347664226141_2131887232_o.jpg?oh=d9d9022e49aeb5a2f9733931f4fb226f&oe=5463E4C9&__gda__=1415817508_aa3af1330ab50713ee2520c1e4ef715b

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