parts [1.2] Karibou Expedition Rover [0.3.0]

[Waz]

On 3/26/2016 at 2:02 AM, Geschosskopf said:

Yeah, TCA is now on my must-have list and VTOLs are now in my fleet as a result.

I tried using the Karibou with TCA and it performed very poorly. I think the VTOL engine is a single thruster, even if it looks like 2 independent engines. I'd love to hear otherwise, because it looks way cooler than 4 Thuds.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Waz
typo

[RoverDude]

It is a single engine with two transforms, and I would be surprised if TCA could handle that.  I don't personally use TCA as I optimize all of my VTOL mods to work without it, so not much of a help to you I'm afraid.

[goldenpsp]

8 minutes ago, Waz said:

I tried using the Karibou with TCA and it performed very poorly. I think the VTOL engine is a single thruster, even if it looks like 2 independent engines. I'd love to hear otherwise, because it looks way cooler than 4 Thuds.

Unlike roverdude I am far too lazy to balance my VTOLS.  I have used the Karibou with TCA successfully many times.   To be fair though I am just now starting to play since 1.1 came out so I haven't flown one yet in my new save.

[Geschosskopf]

11 minutes ago, Waz said:

I tried using the Karibou with TCA and it performed very poorly. I think the VTOL engine is a single thruster, even if it looks like 2 independent engines. I'd love to hear otherwise, because it looks way cooler than 4 Thuds.

Well, if you have only a 2-post VTOL, TCA seems to have the best luck if you set the 2 lift engines to "balanced thrust" instead of "main engines".  But for that to work, you have to TWR well over 1:1.  If you're close to 1:1, then TCA's thrust-limiting to balance slighly off-center thrust can keep you from getting off the ground at all.  To use TCA "main engine", you need at least 3 lift engines that are all along the same line.

[KhaosCorp]

Balance a VTOL?!? 

BAH..that's for suckas that like 'textbook' landings.

 

Landing should be at least 90% chaos...it's more fun like that ya =P

[Waz]

16 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

Unlike roverdude I am far too lazy to balance my VTOLS.  I have used the Karibou with TCA successfully many times.   To be fair though I am just now starting to play since 1.1 came out so I haven't flown one yet in my new save.

It works okay, but you need either powerful reaction wheels or extra engines (a few Twitches). But it doesn't compare to the maneuverability of a 4-Thud VTOL (except in aesthetics).

[Vrana]

34 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

It is a single engine with two transforms, and I would be surprised if TCA could handle that.  I don't personally use TCA as I optimize all of my VTOL mods to work without it, so not much of a help to you I'm afraid.

Karibou VTOLs work great under TCA. I would dare say the two complement each other perfectly.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Vrana

[FirroSeranel]

I've also had enormous problems using the Karibou VTOLs with TCA, and I do think it's because each is really only one engine with two transforms. TCA oscillates wildly in most settings, though a couple of settings, such as Hover and Kill Rotation seem to work okay. But something like Retrograde is a catastrophe.

I've also had a lot of trouble with the wheels retracting and extending. They seem very temperamental, and sometimes just ignore me, then retract or extend on their own sometime later (like hours later in game-time sometimes). I also had a very strange issue the other day, where the wheels refused to retract after leaving the Mun, and when I reentered Kerbin atmosphere, they had ENORMOUS drag. Like, I hit 69,999m, the craft spazzed out flipping and flopping and flying all crazy for a few seconds, and suddenly I was going 24 m/s instead of 3000. I fell gracefully (if wheels-up) at that lazy 24 m/s all the way down to about 12,000m, at which point -seven- of my eight wheels suddenly decided to retract, at which point the thing fell with that -one- wheel up, accelerating to about 120 m/s. That one finally retracted as well, just shy of the ground, just in time for me to flip back over with my parachutes (the wheels were -way- higher drag than even deployed parachutes, so the chutes had no chance of getting me oriented properly). Needless to say, that was an... exciting landing.

I will admit that I edited the wheels' torque to be far higher at low speed, because they were simply incapable of climbing even the shallowest of slopes on the Mun. With the torque set to 12 for the lowest portion of the velocity curve, it could at least crawl up hills up to about 30°, where before even an 8° incline would stall it out completely. So... could that edit have screwed something up with the drag model? This was without FAR, though now I reinstalled FAR 'cause it would prevent craziness like that in the future.

The wheels not retracting properly I suspect might be related to TCA's "VTOL Assistant" feature, which does things like automatically retract and deploy landing gear. But I had that turned off at that point, so I'm not sure. :/

[RoverDude]

Sounds like TCA to me.

Unrelated:  

Edited May 15, 2016 by RoverDude

[Vrana]

Is that the new mini Rover? Replacement for Logistics Rover?
 

Looking at the amount of criticism TCA gets from Karibou users i guess i should rethink my earlier statement. I landed a very unbalanced VTOL Karibou on the Mun in 1.1.2 with TCA but considering the experiences others have had ill do some proper tests.

TCA may be trying to do too much. It started as a simple thrust balancing tool but is now turning into an autopilot similar to MechJeb, i suspect these advanced features might be source of many of the problems people are having.

[DStaal]

Looks awesome, RoverDude.    Looking forward to it.

[mcortez]

Super awesome @RoverDude shared a beta pre-release of the new Akita rover during his KSP-TV stream tonight.  Watch the stream and note the fact there is NO, and I repeat NO guarantees of it working and no support will be provided yet.

For a quick peek, here's a Karibou with cargo bay carrying the Akita.  I ended up just pushing the Akita out sideways with my Kerbal, but I think it can be maneuvered out as well.  Going to need to get creative with mounting, maybe a stack separator attached on the bottom to the floor node in the cargo bay.

Update: Just added a pair of shots to show the Akita with it's Cargo box and my mounting strategy.  Again, pushed it out sideways with my Kerbal to deploy.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited May 16, 2016 by mcortez
Added new photos with Cargo Box to album and updated description.

[mikerl]

To those having trouble with TCA, are you using the karibou command pod or the radial probe for control?

Something I noticed on the command pod for the karibou: the control direction is slightly off.

Go to the VAB, pick the Karibou pod, then pick either a pod, probe core, or docking port and attach it to the front attachment node on the Karibou.  Launch, and watch the Navball while changing the control from here option on the two.  It is maybe about 1-2 degrees variation from normal.  So slight it could be missed without knowing about it.  Just a minor bug really, workaround would be to use another control point.  It only affects flight and not driving around, but it is exaggerated when using an automatic piloting program.

[oniontrain]

What would be causing the Karibou wheels to deploy and not be able to retract? I keep having this intermittently, but usually on loading a quicksave.

[DStaal]

Since the plan is to do rover PRs when I get home from work today: I've got a part to suggest for this pack, but I want opinions, as I'm not sure how to balance it in the absence of USI-LS.

Here it is as a patch (if I do a PR for it, I'll be creating a full file, but this gets the idea better):

+PART[KER_CrewCab]
{
    @name = DS_KER_PassengerCab
    @title = Karibou Passenger Cabin
    @description = Some of the accountants were going over the numbers for the Mun missions, and wondered why we needed so many TVs for short drives.  So Bill went and tore out everything from a Crew Cab, and filled it with seats.  It fits a lot more Kerbals now, though there's been some grumbling about a 'sardine can'.
    @CrewCapacity = 10

    -MODULE[ModuleScienceExperiment]{}
    -MODULE[ModuleScienceContainer]{}
    -MODULE[ModuleHabitation]{}

	{
		name = ModuleConnectedLivingSpace
		passable = true
	}
}

The basic idea is that the normal Crew Cabin is like a motorhome - a lot of space is taken up by creature comforts.  This is the 'bus' version of the same cabin - strip out all the creature comforts, and stack in as many seats as possible.  If my calculations are correct, it should add less overall habitation to a ship than the Crew Cabin, but it holds a lot more Kerbals.  I've even considered making it cheaper than the Crew Cabin in light of that - which would cause even more issues with non-LS balance.

The use-case that made me think of it was that I built a large Munar base using EL and then had to crew it.  To keep the local part count down, I set up a landing site a few kilometers away and landed a big lander with the crew - and then had to take three/four trips back and forth to get the crew from one to the other.  I realized that the Karibou was big enough to fit more Kerbals, but it was designed more for habitation.  One of these would have crewed an entire Akademy in a single trip.

[mcortez]

1 hour ago, DStaal said:

The basic idea is that the normal Crew Cabin is like a motorhome - a lot of space is taken up by creature comforts.  This is the 'bus' version of the same cabin - strip out all the creature comforts, and stack in as many seats as possible.  If my calculations are correct, it should add less overall habitation to a ship than the Crew Cabin, but it holds a lot more Kerbals.  

 

This made me wonder if there was a way to enforce an overload penalty against life support.  Kind if like a recycler but with a negative percentage.

As for bus cab part, I like it although I don't think I'd ever use it.  Between the cockpit, crew cabin, and other bits I can bolt on (DERP pod, or MKS parts on a flat bed) I've  never needed this much seating capacity.

[DStaal]

As I said: it came up for me.    Partly it was that I'd installed Autorove, so traveling long distances by land no longer had the real-time penalty it does in the stock game - this made the concept of a separate launch/refuel site much more appealing: I could have two smaller bases, each focused around one thing, and shuttle Kerbals between them.  Most of my bases are smaller, but a Munar training Akademy benefits a large staff in a couple of different ways.  (And it's one you're likely to change Kerbals through on a regular basis.)

You can build a Karibou with the equivalent seating capacity, of course, but it gets long and hard to maneuver.  I wanted to be able to drive in fairly close (Autorove to the general area, then manually position near a hatch), and I figured this part wouldn't be much work for @RoverDude - it reuses the model from the Crew Cabin, and he doesn't have an IVA for that, so the only thing to keep current is one config file - and by design it's a config file without many 'extras'. 

[RoverDude]

Making more IVA work for me I see?

On 5/17/2016 at 6:54 PM, oniontrain said:

What would be causing the Karibou wheels to deploy and not be able to retract? I keep having this intermittently, but usually on loading a quicksave.

I've not seen this - screenshot?

[DStaal]

12 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Making more IVA work for me I see?

Well, as I said - the part I'm duping doesn't actually *have* an IVA, so unless you decide to change that...    (And, of course, take my part idea.  Which I still don't know how to balance in the absence of a habitation mechanic.)

If you do decide to take it and do an IVA, what I'm envisioning would be a few rows of seats, suitable for unhelmented kerbals.  And a locker in the corner labeled 'helmets'.  (I'm trying to remember - I actually had it measured out, somewhat.  I put a kerbal on the roof of a crew cab and walked off the space needed.  I had one interupped row I think - space for the locker.)

Edited May 19, 2016 by DStaal
Added IVA suggestion. Because I'm feeling cheeky.

[oniontrain]

21 hours ago, RoverDude said:

Making more IVA work for me I see?

I've not seen this - screenshot?

It's weird, I can't replicate the problem reliably. I'll try to get one next time it happens, but as I have gone crazy installing mods since 1.1 I don't know if it will be of any help.

[drhay53]

With the Karibou I could get mechjeb to handle it by drastically messing with PID settings. I think I heavily damped the P and I terms, and probably even set the I term to 0.

[Vjrcr]

On 2016-05-17 at 7:54 PM, oniontrain said:

What would be causing the Karibou wheels to deploy and not be able to retract? I keep having this intermittently, but usually on loading a quicksave.

I get the same issue. It tends to happen when I'm working with an kerbal outside the rover and switch to it.

[Zenteck]

Hi there, before anything else I should use my first post on the forums to thank you Roverdude for all your mods. I've been using most of your USI suite for the time I've been playing KSP, and I can't imagine ever playing without them again.

Now to chime in on the discussion, I'm also having the same problem with the wheels. For just a moment after loading in they work fine, and I can toggle the wheels with G or action group, even mid animation. Within maybe ten seconds this stops working and will only toggle them once in a while. If I tap g constantly they might switch after 30 seconds or so. The right-click menu for the the wheels hangs on 'deploying' or 'retracting,' changing each time I press G, but never actually executing the switch.

The brakes are doing something similar. Sometimes when I hold B I start to slow down, sometimes I don't. This usually ends in explosions.

I thought it might be Action Groups Extended, so I uninstalled that and made a new Karibou back at KSC. Same problem. But I think it only starts when I drive off the side of the runway. I'm not using TCA, and Remote Tech is not in signal delay mode so I know that's out.

Sorry I haven't got any screenshots, but I hope I've described all the relevant detail.

[Vrana]

Concerning the recent TCA discussions. Yes, it seems i was wrong to recommend it.

TCA is kinda flaky at the moment, when it works it works great however sometimes it doesn't work at all. For me, i now see i am sometimes not even able to open the TCA control panel. When i can access the options they work great, even with Karibou VTOLS but that's no good if all i can open is the TCA manual.

 

While awaiting a fix i have switched (back) to Davon Throttle Control System, as long as you don't need any of the fancy TCA autopilots Davon TC handles thrust centering just fine on Karibou and AES and, presumably, other USI VTOLS.

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

Lack of download?