building a walking tank

[Komander Faul]

i was wondering if anyone has made this bad boy:

i know it has a KV2 turret, but the other mods that is in the 'walker' is not available, to my knowledge, that is.... i was hoping there's a way developers can make a mod on it, or if it requires the existing mods, and if anyone made it, that would be great!

 

credits go to:

gajin for the walking tank...

[Mikki]

Not exactly bipedal, but pretty much realistic:

Look here:http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/130336-robotic-miner-105-1028/&do=findComment&comment=2371126

Take a look at the youtube vid

https://youtu.be/20Y2SX6UIr4

I assume that building a functional bipedal walker which can walk stable in any situations is not doable in KSP. It is a hard task in reality, fourlegged is doable. 

Edited April 24, 2016 by Mikki

[selfish_meme]

 

[FungusForge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVSr0r9L9wE

@allmhuran Has made some Battletech mechs. He's even programmed AIs for them. Sadly though, if I remember correctly, he had some bonkers-dense resource being passed back and forth between the feet with each step. Making an armored bipedal beast is going to be a massive pain without doing that, but that's kinda cheaty so I don't do it.

Edited April 24, 2016 by FungusForge

[Komander Faul]

Ty all...for the resources and information that I can use.....

[Azimech]

6 hours ago, FungusForge said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVSr0r9L9wE

@allmhuran Has made some Battletech mechs. He's even programmed AIs for them. Sadly though, if I remember correctly, he had some bonkers-dense resource being passed back and forth between the feet with each step. Making an armored bipedal beast is going to be a massive pain without doing that, but that's kinda cheaty so I don't do it.

I feel that's a very intelligent and creative way to solve a problem.  And why cheaty ... it's not like there's a mech battle or challenge going on.

[BaconBurger cat]

I can't build a walking tank but if anyone wants any sort of helicopter, doublecoptor( helicopter with two blades) or a quadcopter i would be happy to build one for u.It takes me about 2 days to make a stable easy to fly machine. If u want any of those just say so in this post site thing.

[Komander Faul]

2 hours ago, BaconBurger cat said:

I can't build a walking tank but if anyone wants any sort of helicopter, doublecoptor( helicopter with two blades) or a quadcopter i would be happy to build one for u.It takes me about 2 days to make a stable easy to fly machine. If u want any of those just say so in this post site thing.

I always wanted to have that attack helicopter from the game fireblade, as well as that doublrcoptor from the movie avatar..... as well.....

 

[BaconBurger cat]

I already have the avatar helicopter, ill look up the fire blade thing and build it. I don't know how to post my ship here,plus u will need Bd armory

[BaconBurger cat]

post a pic of the fire blade helicopter so i can have a model

[Komander Faul]

27 minutes ago, BaconBurger cat said:

post a pic of the fire blade helicopter so i can have a model

I only got this view... my bad :/

 

I also have bd armoury,  but idk the working mod for helicopters 

 

[BaconBurger cat]

KAX is the helicopter mod, and i hope u have version1.0.5

 

 

[Komander Faul]

...I have 1.1...

[BaconBurger cat]

Im trying to post the picture to confirm the avatar chopper with u, i can seem to get the picture on this page

I'm, is 1.1 the latest version?

 

um* 

[Komander Faul]

Yes

[FungusForge]

7 hours ago, Azimech said:

I feel that's a very intelligent and creative way to solve a problem.  And why cheaty ... it's not like there's a mech battle or challenge going on.

Ehh, it just breaks the rules I have set for myself. It is a great idea, don't get me wrong, it's just something I'll never do for my own designs.

Anyway @Komander Faul, I have made a rough prototype of an ST-1. Spent something around two hours to get it to go from the starting position to its first step without falling (first time I've made a bipedal thing that didn't face-plant :D). If I can get it to go from its first step to its second, then I'll see if I can get it to crouch and stand even taller than normal (which it was capable of in-game) and still walk safely.

[Komander Faul]

Nice 

[BaconBurger cat]

 i built such a nice quadcopter and now it will be gone in the new update

[allmhuran]

So, I can provide quite a lot of information on mech-building in KSP. 

As FungusForge said, I use a custom resource which transfers between the feet of the my mechs to prevent them from falling over. Now, that's not strictly necessary. In a previous iteration I used far more complex legs that actually brought the foot in to the centreline while walking. You can see a quick example of that here or watch it in action here

The problem with that design is that the legs need a bunch of extra servos and a bunch of extra programming, and KOS is not a high performance environment. More servos also means a lot less stability, since IR servos have "loose" joints. Of course, the mechs that I made are replicas, which means the legs are widely spaced because that's how they are on the "real" battletech versions. If you can have narrower legs balance is less of a problem.

Unfortunately there are other problems that are harder to get around. The biggest is, again, the fact that IR servos have loose joints. They can't support a lot of weight without flexing and bouncing, which is why you see a lot of it in the video I just linked. The more recent versions (linked by FungusForge) are heavily edited. Each main section (torso, upper leg, lower leg) is welded into a single piece using the welding mod, and then edited to have very low mass. The arms and legs are also edited to be physicless, since only physicsless parts have rigid connections to infernal robotics servos.

If I used welded, mass-and-physics-edited parts then the timberwolf from the original mechwarrior program video wouldn't be so bouncy, but the performance penalty of such a complex leg would of course remain.

There's basically no way to make a large mech using infernal robotics without doing something like this. I spent months trying. Small, light mechs can be done (Parallax has a lot of great examples), but even those will bounce around a little unless you use phyicsless connections.

Here are my own thoughts about whether or not the resource transfer thing is cheaty. 

Edited April 25, 2016 by allmhuran

[Bubbadevlin]

hmm.. this is very cool!

Honestly I think something like this would even be doable in stock, you would just need a TON of reaction wheels clipped together

I have been meaning to try to make a stock bipedal walker, however that was put on delay with 1.1 breaking basically any small bearing :/

 

[FungusForge]

Just wanted to drop by with my progress. I armored up the frame and plonked a KV-2 turret on top and ended up with wobbly joints (particularly when I poked at it with other tank guns, the legs would spazz out), I fixed this by strutting the rotor's child part to the rotor (hips->thigh, knee->lower leg, ankle->foot), as strutting the rotor's parent to the rotor summons the kraken. Anyway, this made the whole thing far more resistant to falling over from being shot. This was a rather serious improvement to going wet noodle. This also means that the heavy (10+ tons) walker is somewhat less likely to collapse from wobbly knees. Somewhat, simply because, as allmhuran mentioned, rotor joints are inherently weak, so with a heavy machine this issue may rear its head when I start taking big steps. Speaking of steps, currently, the ST's movement is more closely related to awkward shuffling rather than walking, but it can move. However it physically can't steer because I haven't added pivotrons for that yet.

Anyway, pictures of the current prototype after having taken its first baby step:

Spoiler

Its legs are a bit too long and not beefy-looking enough to really be the WT ST-1. But as a weighted prototype it works.

Anyway, because KOS makes Brain.exe fail, I think I'm going to try and get all its movement things down on IR Sequencer.

Yes, people more experienced with making mechs and walkers, I am aware I am making this whole thing harder on myself with my 'purist' stance. 

[Komander Faul]

23 minutes ago, FungusForge said:

Just wanted to drop by with my progress. I armored up the frame and plonked a KV-2 turret on top and ended up with wobbly joints (particularly when I poked at it with other tank guns, the legs would spazz out), I fixed this by strutting the rotor's child part to the rotor (hips->thigh, knee->lower leg, ankle->foot), as strutting the rotor's parent to the rotor summons the kraken. Anyway, this made the whole thing far more resistant to falling over from being shot. This was a rather serious improvement to going wet noodle. This also means that the heavy (10+ tons) walker is somewhat less likely to collapse from wobbly knees. Somewhat, simply because, as allmhuran mentioned, rotor joints are inherently weak, so with a heavy machine this issue may rear its head when I start taking big steps. Speaking of steps, currently, the ST's movement is more closely related to awkward shuffling rather than walking, but it can move. However it physically can't steer because I haven't added pivotrons for that yet.

Anyway, pictures of the current prototype after having taken its first baby step:

  Hide contents

Its legs are a bit too long and not beefy-looking enough to really be the WT ST-1. But as a weighted prototype it works.

Anyway, because KOS makes Brain.exe fail, I think I'm going to try and get all its movement things down on IR Sequencer.

Yes, people more experienced with making mechs and walkers, I am aware I am making this whole thing harder on myself with my 'purist' stance. 

amazing!

I also know u can put 2 turrets on the main one, tho it does weird stuff, Just a fyi

Edited April 28, 2016 by Komander Faul
added for professionalism

[Komander Faul]

[Tirehtoori R.I.P]

Behold ;D

[Tirehtoori R.I.P]

and btw more of my awesome mech designs and vids can be found at the link here https://www.youtube.com/user/Xanhast08 also got some few tutorial that should cover basic leg systems with or without IR sequencer