lo-fi

It's an option that had crossed my mind, yes! I'll have a word, see what we can arrange

Not for the foreseeable future - see previous posts for details. Gaaidas hasn't been seen for a while, which is problematic with respect to updating the OP... I'll speak to a mod, or were going to get bombarded with questions like that, I fear!

Sorry, I remember now. You have a copy of Unity 4.2.2? I'll create a .unitypackage with the relevant bits in for you. 1.1.1 has a lot of wheel tweaks in. Having a go now, as they're modified some of the global settings for wheels (if I've read the release notes correctly) EDIT: Yeah, gonna lose the will to live if I keep on like this. Actually worse that before for random, sporadic, crazy behaviour. And that's just me...

Sorry - yes, of course! What do you need?

Well that's... comforting!

Thank you all, on behalf of all our many contributors! Kinda humbling knowing how many people are waiting eagerly on this... The current plan involves creating our own wheel collider - one that works properly in KSP. Whether this is practical is open to debate, but @Shadowmage has made a start, and I have some ideas. Plenty of people have gone this route before in other games, having found that wheel colliders are simply not up to it. My only concern at this point is how we achieve it without overloading an already stressed physics engine. I'm afraid it won't be quick, but we'll have something quite special if we can pull off such an ambitious project... @damerell, I could probably use some help figuring out how best to apply forces, making a grip model and how best to calculate a few things, if you don't mind me picking your brain?

Appreciate the kind words and support I'm afraid there's no quick fix here, but rest assured that we're working on it, and quite literally going to reinvent the wheel again...

I have to admit, making a custom collider is an idea I have toyed with many, many times. Absolutely up for some collaboration - will pm shortly

That's what I've been doing :/ My other option is to try messing with the EVP classes which are all rolled into KSP now, but without paying for EVP, I've got no documentation and left looking at it thinking "What The.....?" Believe me, it's almost brought me to tears too....

At the moment, all of this is a moot point. Well, while I *can* get tracks to (sort of) work, they're about as stable as a stack of ping pong balls. Launch..... fine. Maybe one side will collapse and the craft will go flying sideways. Maybe it'll flip over! Maybe it'll drive fine, the suspension will collapse, get driven sideways by some phantom force, THEN flip over. I've no idea what Squad have managed, but things that work absolutely fine in vanilla U5 simply don't in KSP. Writing this one down to "not gonna happen" for the moment. Other options are... drastic, and probably not practical, but have yet to be explored.... Wheels are a maybe, but can probably work with the stock module fine anyway. What you want is a wing, not a repulsor, MokStar Been discussed many times, and not possible I'm afraid.

There is a hard limit in any system where work in equals works absorbed, so that's essentially what will happen. This will be a lot lower than the freewheel limit, as with any electric motor. The current torque model is an odd one, and that's a fair point about reverse torque (in this context applying torque against the current direction of rotation) being very weak. I'm not sure I've ever actually tried this with an electric motor, or certainly not deliberately. What I do know - and this is something cleverly leveraged in new electric cars and hybrids - is that an electric motor used as a generator is a very effective brake. In other words, there is a precedent for this, and it's called regenerative braking. Given that we're in a space program situation, and every watt counts, it makes sense to have energy recovery from braking. Perhaps a nice tech tree upgrade for each part, if we can work than in (I've no idea how the tech tree actually works).

Long post completely justified there! Certainly saved me a lot of research, and we're on the same page about the torque calculation needing to be tied to rpm, not vehicle speed.

Hehe. Understandable, it's a loooong way from steam engines to KSP modding. I like to have a broad skill set. https://www.facebook.com/GWR-Hawksworth-Large-Pannier-Tank-9466-202746429748847/# As far as KF goes, I'm currently experimenting with using naked U5 wheel colliders - which do have their quirks in KSP - and getting the Edy's Vehicle Physics wrapper working.

I have an ancient Land Rover I tinker with, but I will get myself a tractor one day I do love the steamers, there's just something about them. We're lucky we have so many preserved here!

Read the thread a couple of pages back and don't be so darn rude.

Lol. A lot of work to do, but I'm hacking away at it here and there when I get time. Appreciating the encouragement and enthusiasm Ah, very nice. I've not been to the Moors - I really should put that right. I'll be spending quite a bit of the summer in Dereham with 9466 on the Mid Norfolk, which I'm rather looking forward to. For those that don't know, we're talking steam engines - another one of my many hobbies. When you return, I'd appreciate some help getting some sensible torque/rolling resistance curves if you're willing? No hurry, as I need to get everything behaving sanely first anyway.

Nope, I've stripped all of that out. Even to the point of forcing the brakeTorque to 0 every physics frame... can't figure it out.

Thanks guys. It's still not without its challenges, and there's a lot of work to do to get things working as well as I'd like. I suppose the worst thing is the grip/mass settings that cause either bouncing or drift mode when approaching anything reasonable, and I can't figure out why it seems like the brakes are slammed on when motor torque returns to zero, which doesn't happen in my U5 test rig. I'll figure it out eventually

I've no idea what the pogo was about... Anyway, I've got the plugin working fine with wheels in 1.1, which gives me a good basis for experimenting with suspension, grip and all that sort of stuff. I quite like Squad's idea of adaptive suspension, so I'm going to pursue my own method. I'm crossing fingers the new colliders will allow on-the-fly spring and damper updates, which would open up a load of cool possibilities. Tracks are not playing ball so far - getting a nasty explosion and Collision Enhancer Punched Through Terrain messages the moment physics starts. EDIT: alright, tracks are working. We have the classic problem of runaway RPM caused by the correct grip models now being implemented, which I think I can see a neat way to fix. This is all detail stuff, though. TRACKS WORK IN 1.1, BABY!!! I used the long tracks for testing, as these have the most wheel colliders in a single part. I have to say, I really like what I'm seeing in the new colliders.

I was too busy laughing to think of screen capping Apparently it's not to do with suspension settings.... Even held off the ground, the moment you launch it shakes itself to bits and heads for orbit. Oh what fun.

I haven't yet unpicked what brand of bodgeification the stock modules do, so I'm steering well clear and will be working up from scratch using my unity test bed as a basis. I ought to export the parts using new part tools, really, and I know the mass settings will be all over the place. Still, I didn't get scrolling null refs after bashing the plugin for five minutes, which is a massive bonus, and the wheels did at least activate, even if they turned into pogo sticks!

I've been very kindly gifted a steam access code for KSP, so got 1.1 pre-release on the go. Stock wheels are weeeeeeiiiiird. I know they're still playing with them, but wow. Took me a few minutes to get the KF plugin updated with the new references, fired up KSP, slapped some KF wheels on and BOOOOOOOOIIIIIINNNNNNG............. BOOOOOM. Guess I'll be working on the suspension settings, then

Oh, I see! Yes, that's rather puzzling. Honestly, the entire reason I gave up with the Squad modules and wrote my own was because I got fed up with battling odd issues like that. Mine may not have been perfect, but at least I had some idea of what I'd stuffed up. A nice gotcha with Unity is the of the scale of a parent object affects the translation of a child. Have you checked the scale of all your GO's in that model? They can come through real funny, particularly from FBX. Unless it's scale 1.0 throughout, you're going nowhere. In old money, I'd immediately be looking up the chain from the WC or the WC GO itself. You may have covered this base already, but it's easy to miss or forget about (wood for trees - haven't we all been there).

Some great info here, guys. I wish I could help, but I don't have the steam version. So this is what replaces the "bounds" object. In your example above, did you move the visible representation of the leg to match the fully extended position in Unity when changing the suspensionDistance property? Apologies if I'm getting confused about what you're struggling with, or there's a nuance of the new module I'm not aware of yet.

Looking over Eddy's sales pitch, I'm inclined to think it's mostly a wrapper which simplifies the settings somewhat (or certainly the bit Squad are using). The spring rates and damper rates, if you take them as arbitrary units, are very different between U4 and U5 to get the same result, so take from that what you will. I've been testing in U5 directly, though. Tempted to pay the £60 for VP just to see the source... I know it won't be exactly what's gone into KSP, but it might well bring some insight. Lot of wonga just to satisfy curiosity, though. Interesting information. Seems they've abandoned the "bounds" helper object you used to see in wheels and legs.