Make the Medium sized Landing Gear Steerable

[luizopiloto]

the new landing gears are a very nice addition to the stock game... but none of them can steer the planes...

[klgraham1013]

What?? That's...an odd choice.

[Hcube]

been playing 1.0 and browsing the forums for a while... and this doesnt even surprise me anymore.

Well, guess im gonna be sticking back to the old landing gear to taxi on the runway ! /sarcasm ....(oh wait... i will have to)

[Capt Snuggler]

Yeah I just found this too. Also they don't have suspension ether, so the planes just bounce and shudder when landing.

AND the wheels don't roll.

AND adjustable ride height would be handy for getting the nose level.

*I am super happy with v1.0 but just I think these need to be sorted out at some point.

[Murph]

Yeah I just found this too. Also they don't have suspension ether, so the planes just bounce and shudder when landing.

AND the wheels don't roll.

AND adjustable ride height would be handy for getting the nose level.

*I am super happy with v1.0 but just I think these need to be sorted out at some point.

It's been quite a while since I properly read the Unity docs on wheels, but visual rolling doesn't exist for Unity wheels, if memory serves. Unity wheels are not even round, in physics terms, they are an infinitely narrow vertical rod/ray. As for ride height, I'm less certain, but I don't think that's something supported by Unity either. Suspension is the only thing you've mentioned which can be done relatively easily. Rolling and ride height could certainly be implemented, but it would probably require re-inventing the wheel (i.e. either abandoning the use of Unity wheels, for a completely custom implementation, or a significant custom extension to the standard implementation).

I have to admit that I've yet to properly evaluate them in-game, but both GameData/Squad/Parts/Wheel/LandingGear/GearMedium.cfg and GameData/Squad/Parts/Wheel/LandingGear/GearLarge.cfg appear to have suspension defined. From an extended period of experimentation with wheel physics parameters a while ago, trying to make the B9 wheels behave sanely (before B9 5.x matured), my memory is that Unity's suspension and friction modelling is fairly crap overall. If the suspension parameters are perfectly matched to the specific vehicle, it will work well, otherwise it will stay permanently at the top or bottom of travel, depending on whether the weight is lower or higher than the weight the parameters are optimised for. With KSP, that is a HUGE problem, as the modularity means that it's almost guaranteed that the suspension parameters will not be appropriate for the vehicle they are being used on.