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Rover Pilots - Parts falling off, exploding randomly?


Overland

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Id like to see if anyone else is encountering this bug or if its a symptom of any experimentation im doing.. I dont quite think its a mod thats causing it..

I drive rovers alot .. trains actually.. with over 2 years experience ive had my fair share of random explosions, physics problems etc etc

sometimes in the past when im driving a long way the train will bunch up and spring back I assume as a new "sector" of the map loads momentaryly?

its never been an actual problem.. until now.. I keep encountering that windy sound that you get when you stall a plane.. or more recently eject a kerbal onto a ladder .. the camera shakes etc..

constantly now it seems as though I get to a certain place in the terrain and the camera shakes. and loses attachment to the train...it ends up pointing to the ground at something that isnt there.. the train shudders and oddly.. all my wheels fall off.. leaving the locomotive unharmed..

without the railway additions. has anyone encountered any random disassembly of rovers over kerbin recently.. id like to know if its just me of if its more wide spread. it almost seems as if the physics dont like the wagons or how the wheels are attached..

the design hasnt changed much in months apart from some painting and adding fuel instead of oxidizer.. there just LT800 tanks so nothing exotic, the wagons wheels too are just painted and made stronger.. nothing that should be causing this

apologies for the vauge unconventional description.. its really something hard to describe.. made more so by I dont know whats causing it.. I drive in cab view mostly too

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Yep, had this almost continuously with my elcano attempt, which was also with a long, kind of train like craft. Glad to see it's not just my bad design.

I don't know the cause, but I think it might be a problem with the terrain. It seems especially bad with big rovers and particularly ones with multiple sections, like your trains and my elcano rover.

I don't really know how to fix it, but I think it does reduce if you avoid parts with weak joints to attach your wheels - especially avoid wing sections.

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Greetings fellow Elcano traveller;

I can't say specifically what problem you're having, but Kerbin seems to have the roughest surfaces of any body I've driven on, because many places have a ground "texture". I've certainly found seemingly randomly exploding parts are more common on Kerbin than, say, Mun. If I had to guess, lengthy "rover" bodies like yours probably make that problem all the worse since the shaking induced by uneven ground will have the whole length for leverage on every bounce. Physics speed up past x2 leads to explosions on Kerbin for me even with vehicles that survive x4 on other bodies just fine.

Never heard the wind sound, though.

At first I thought it was some flaw in my rover caused maybe by wheel contact "biting" something with suspension compressed (Kerbin is what, the second highest gravity environment? Probably rougher on suspension than most places.) but numerous tests convinced me it's just the way Kerbin is, at least in big rovers.

Hope you solve it, I enjoy how you really appreciate the landscape in your Elcano.

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Thanks for the replies elcano brethren :) Ive just come back from running some tests.. it turned out to be one of them epic emotional moments that KSP lends itself too at the most unexpected times..

I ran a 40 class locomotive and standard 4 car train over the grade again heading towards the trees..everything was running great until what seemed like the *EXACT* spot the other train came to misfortune everything again went wrong.. there was actually some debris left over from last time.. I was in external view most of the time and this time I observed the wheels of the wagons simply.. disapeared completely.. as if they wernt even there. deleted.. no explosions no puff of smoke just... gone..

as to why this happens on the train and not the locomotive im at a loss to understand. since their the same model and both have the same settings aside from powered and unpowered. there just stock M1 wheels repainted that dont explode when you look at them wrong.. the very same stuff ive been running for 2 years.. (2 real years.. not kerbin years)

to make sure it wasnt a fluke.. I left the remains of the 40 class and her train intact and launched another train.. but this time incase it was the tankers causing the problem.. I built passenger cars.. and.... filled it with 23 kerbals just... because..

with my ipod plugged into my PCs line in.. I had a playlist from youtube on.. an anime mix..

as I started the loco's engine.. gave a horn blast and set off.. "fields of hope" started to play.. from gundam seed fame..

the moment wasnt lost on me.. having 23 kerbals in this train.. faces looking a mix of confusion and grim dread.. and caring for my trains as I do a little too much at times..

the train lined up with the remains of her fallen sister train..I unusually lit both engines rather than just the 1.. usually saving a second one as a backup.. the speed slowly climbed to 25 then 30ish as the 2 detriot diesel engines reverberated with eachother.. the engines also starting to heat up slightly due to running full

as the music joined full chorus.. the engines seemed to join in their own way. and the distance counter counted down from target from 3km down to 1000 metres and less.. the 40 class loco at full throttle heading to what was going to most likely be its last moments on kerbin and the death of many kerbals.. all I could do was blast the horn continuously..

alas.. it happened.. at the exact same spot.. the wheels of the passenger carriages disapeared.. the camera detached from the train..

luckily... the passenger carriages didnt explode but rather become a long catepillar like worm slowly rubbing its way along the terrain without wheels with the locomotive no longer under my control.. KOS still set to forward gear. and the generators running at full power.. what could have been horrible.. turned into something sad and almost funny....

no kerbals died.. but :( the bug remains.. ive never had this problem in 2 years.. if anyone can find a solution that'd be great.. its not my train designs.. its some kind of damn bug.. ive driven this terrain hundreds of times with similar trains in the past KSP versions too sadly..this.. this is new.. in a not very nice way :(

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I've built rovers on and off since 0.18.4, and I can say that doing any cross country driving on Kerbin at any decent speed (<>25 and 45 m/s) is tricky and fraught with hazards. The terrain can go from glass smooth at any area to the equivalent of having 1 metre diameter boulders every 4 metres in a blink of an eye. The Mun and Minmus are boring in comparison.

Anybody that can complete the Elcano challenge and lose only 5% of their parts has my respect. If they complete the challenge with a functioning Rover is a grand accomplishment in itself.

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Solved it!. and things arnt what they seem.. all this time I thought it was the wheels. the report screen said it was the truss XL sections structural failure between 2.. the bogeys are traditionally made up of 3 of them .. one in the center to grip the wagon or locomotive and 2 on the side of that where the wheels mount too..

ive been using this design for ages.. SOMETHING went wrong somewhere in that with the tiny physics skip when a new sector is loaded that happened to be where the bermuda triangle of KSC is.. somehow something happened to the parts that would cause the wheels to shoot off underground as the truss XL bits must have momentaryly seperated.. it puzzled me as to why the locomotives wheels always survived ..

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I still dont know WHAT the problem was, it was built like every other bogey set ive ever built in a 2x2 configuration..

the temptation of the kracken seems to be .. I got lazy.. I used to build every wagon separately and shunt them in the yard.. these days I just copy x amount of wagons from the first..

This proved to be my undoing.. because I copied the error however slight across both sides of the wagon.. and to that. copied the wagon 3 more times to make the 4,5,6 car trains ive been running with

so a little ashamed of my engineering skills all up.. but maybe a lesson for those who also build and pilot trains... no inbreeding!... build. dont just copy from copy from copy.. it never works out too well for clones.. and same goes for trains in KSP appparently

to make sure it wasnt a fluke I circled the 2 wrecks of lost trains that both encountered the kraken .. even pushed some parts out of the way with the locomotive for fun.. nothing happened.. if anything im very impressed with this trains ability to survive terrain having jumped off a small cliff and survive upright to keep going..

with everything sorted, it was time for the victory song.. that seems to have become the standard .. moody blues - the story in your eyes..

it has a quite KSP tone to it..

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I pushed on for 10km to park at the "sand patch" that tiny crater on the coast. the patch of yellow in the sea of green.. everything went well. even if the train did kind of.. jump half way down the steep grade rather than descend it.. some quick action with the steering wheel and brakes.. she was fine

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Hey Overland! Quick question:

What's the mass of each of the train cars? I've had issues with the XL Trusses if the mass of the vehicle exceeds about 2 1/2 tonnes per Truss (and it doesn't seem to matter if you have one or 4 wheels per truss). The only cure I found is joining the trusses with the stock extendable struts in a cross pattern, one pair in the front and one pair in the back in a "X" pattern.

Not sure if you can do that with your train cars, but it might be food for thought.

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