Explore even More with a Good Set of Wheels!

[Red Iron Crown]

2 hours ago, Vermil said:

It's not nonsense. The hardness of the rubber is balanced to the contact surface. They use extremely soft rubber to 'grip' the tarmac.

Your statement that increasing contact patch size "only works on loose or soft ground" is nonsense. Increasing contact patch size increases traction on tarmac, too, which is why performance cars use tire sizes and shapes that maximize contact area.

[Hevak]

2 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Your statement that increasing contact patch size "only works on loose or soft ground" is nonsense. Increasing contact patch size increases traction on tarmac, too, which is why performance cars use tire sizes and shapes that maximize contact area.

It's also why the teams for race cars use massive camber settings to maximize the contact patch when cornering, where it is needed most, and sacrificing contact patch on the straights where it's less of a concern.. Even your car uses camber, albeit a lot less, to help with cornering performance as well.

take a look at any race car and look how far they lean the tires over when it's sitting still,  and then look at how the tire reacts when the car turns, the whole tire is now in contact with the road surface..

its also, to some extent, why they run specific, often lower tire pressures to control the contact patch size when the tire heats up during use. There are other reasons for this as well, but part of it is the ballooning effect that happens with increased pressure, resulting in the outer edges of the tires losing contact due to the middle of it expanding more.

obviously not directed at you Red Iron Crown, just to further illustrate the point you were making above.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Hevak

[Hevak]

disregard this, I messed up posting. Sorry

Edited July 27, 2016 by Hevak

[Curveball Anders]

I don't know much since I've only used 1.1.3 rovers on Kerbin, Mün, Minmus, Duna and Ike, but I have to say that I haven't had any issues with the wheels.

Landing gear exploding when touched was an issues, and Kerbals getting sent on a 3km ragdoll journey when getting near is still an issue.

But if I might be so bold as to offer my opinion then I'd say that some people are annoyed because the wheels are behaving the way they want or expect them to behave.

While others are designing their crafts based on how the wheels actually behave.

[Alshain]

6 hours ago, pandaman said:

Also, we have a 'traction control' slider, if the 'friction' slider was called 'traction" it would be confusing.

The rover wheels do, the landing gear do not, but it's not an actual traction implementation.  Dirt, Grass, Concrete, and Regolith might as well be the same substance.

Simply renaming the Friction slider to Traction is NOT what should happen.  Implementing traction based on surface is what should happen and then friction should no longer be a setting.  Then @Red Iron Crown's self adjusting wheels could be an advanced part late in the tech tree.  If you think about it, most of the leg work is done.  Biomes essentially already define surface type.  So without truly having seen the Vehicle Physics Pro implementation, I would expect you would be able to send a different traction setting to the mod based on the biome you are currently in with some logic.  The only edge case is Shores, which is usually sand, except around KSC.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Alshain

[pandaman]

@Alshain.  I agree with you there.   Different traction levels or qualities depending on the biome/ground surface would be a valuable addition, which (on the face of it at least) seems like it shouldn't be too difficult to implement (insert the usual 'I'm not a programmer so I don't actually know' disclaimer).

EDIT...  A possible expansion to this could be to add the feature that once you have landed on a given biome (and transmitted a message from it so that crashing debris doesn't work) would be to add a 'configure to biome' menu option on the wheel settings in the VAB which lists all eligible biomes and sets the wheel sliders to optimum for the biome selected.  Before landing there it's pure guesswork.  Or a better solution could be to simplify it by having a list of surface types always available in the VAB (dust, rock, ice, sand, grass, choc-chip ice cream  etc.) to select from and landing on a biome simply tells you which surface type is the closest match.

Edited July 27, 2016 by pandaman

[KerikBalm]

5 hours ago, Alshain said:

The rover wheels do, the landing gear do not, but it's not an actual traction implementation.  Dirt, Grass, Concrete, and Regolith might as well be the same substance.

Simply renaming the Friction slider to Traction is NOT what should happen.  Implementing traction based on surface is what should happen and then friction should no longer be a setting.  Then @Red Iron Crown's self adjusting wheels could be an advanced part late in the tech tree.  If you think about it, most of the leg work is done.  Biomes essentially already define surface type.  So without truly having seen the Vehicle Physics Pro implementation, I would expect you would be able to send a different traction setting to the mod based on the biome you are currently in with some logic.  The only edge case is Shores, which is usually sand, except around KSC.

 

On 7/26/2016 at 9:29 AM, KerikBalm said:

Traction is a specific kind of friction, thus using the word friction for the slider is not so inaccurate. Yes it would be nice if static friction and kinetic friction were different for different surfaces, and if there were a difference between on road and off road. However, there was no difference before, and there is no difference now, and people are complaining about the *change* - so I thing this point is just misdirection. In theory aside from the tread, we could also change the material of the wheel. Steel vs rubber vs a plastic coating would all make big differences on the friction coefficient. There are ways to change friction coefficients by changing the design of a wheel, and I figure that's what the friction slider is abstracting.

I find it hard to believe that you'll complain about this realism when before wheels never slipped at all except on extremely low gravity worlds... when ts not so much wheel slipping as the craft coming off the surface at a slight force.

 

14 hours ago, Alshain said:

I didn't say the slider was incorrectly named, I said the slider was breaking the laws of physics, and it is.  The slider is definitely not traction control and that is the problem.  You are throwing up a straw man argument.

What is the straw man?

That you are mainly complaining about something that hasn't changed (no difference in surface types)?

That one can adjust friction coefficients (different wheel materials)

That one can adjust tread to alter traction? and effective static friction coefficients?

Or are you just throwing around strawman because you like the sound of it?

[Alshain]

5 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

 

 

What is the straw man?

That you are mainly complaining about something that hasn't changed (no difference in surface types)?

That one can adjust friction coefficients (different wheel materials)

That one can adjust tread to alter traction? and effective static friction coefficients?

Or are you just throwing around strawman because you like the sound of it?

What I'm complaining about is that something has changed very poorly and should either not have been changed, or change better.  Having a friction and traction slider without the proper mechanics and the usual consequences is overpowered, so they either shouldn't have put it there or they should have made it better.

" thus using the word friction for the slider is not so inaccurate. " <- I never said it was inaccurate, so it's a strawman.  You are rebutting an argument I did not make.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Alshain

[Red Iron Crown]

Meh, realism aside I like that players can mess with settings on the wheels to make them handle the way they'd prefer. Some people will want steady, sticky behavior while others will like to slide around like a rally car, making it adjustable pleases both camps. Allowing it to be adjusted on the fly cuts out a lot of back and forth to the editor (which isn't even an option on other bodies). I don't see it as particularly overpowered, because it doesn't really help with the game's goals. 

[KerikBalm]

6 minutes ago, Alshain said:

" thus using the word friction for the slider is not so inaccurate. " <- I never said it was inaccurate, so it's a strawman.  You are rebutting an argument I did not make.

Lets look at what you said:

"Simply renaming the Friction slider to Traction is NOT what should happen.  Implementing traction based on surface is what should happen and then friction should no longer be a setting"

"Traction, not friction."

"If you wanted to allow us to alter traction, that would be fine.  However it is not the same, and simply considering the friction control to be traction is incorrect. "

(bold added by me)

 

I said: "TRACTION can be defined as the friction between a drive wheel and the surface it moves upon. It is the amount of force a wheel can apply to a surface before it slips. A wheel will have different traction on different surfaces; as described above, the coefficient of friction is based on pairs of surfaces. 

...

Traction is a specific kind of friction, thus using the word friction for the slider is not so inaccurate."

Anyway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traction_(engineering)

"Traction, or tractive force, is the force used to generate motion between a body and a tangential surface, through the use of dry friction, though the use of shear force of the surface is also commonly used.^[1][2][3]

Traction can also refer to the maximum tractive force between a body and a surface, as limited by available friction; when this is the case, traction is often expressed as the ratio of the maximum tractive force to the normal force and is termed the coefficient of traction (similar to coefficient of friction)."

You took issue with friction being used to refer to traction. I point out that since traction is based upon friction, changing one changes the other, so its not sooo inaccurate (or incorrect) - its not very precise either, but there is a strong relationship. One could consider traction a subset or specific type of friction.

By controlling friction, you do control traction. Friction control is a form of traction control

While changing the tread has a lot to do with changing the shear force of the substance the wheel rests opon rather than dry friction, and I initially gave examples of changing tread, I have also given examples where you can change the material of the surface of the wheel to alter friction proper.

"aside from the tread, we could also change the material of the wheel. Steel vs rubber vs a plastic coating would all make big differences on the friction coefficient. There are ways to change friction coefficients"

 

You very much did bring up the issue of the correctness of the naming (if saying inaccurate instead of incorrect turns it into a strawman, then you've got a pretty low threshold for what consistutes a strawman)

Also, please note that traction doesn't just affect whether or not a wheel spins in place when torque is applied ot it. Its also relevant when turning and whether or not there will be "drifting". That would be a force between the craft (a body) and the ground (a tangential surface) generating motion along another axis (turning). It applies equally to accelerating and decelerating. Even if the wheel is slipping, or when brakes are engaged and the wheels lock (no ABS), there is still that force between the body and the tangential surface... traction - its just that the force, the traction decreases a lot when the wheel starts to slip.

In KSP when friction is set really low, they slip all over the place, but the friction we are concenred with is the force between the body and the tangential surface... that friction is traction. For these purposes, I do think friction and traction are interchangeable. Its not a strawman argument.

[klesh]

... and the last 2 pages are why your marketing department shouldn't be focusing on wheels right now.  

[Alshain]

2 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Lets look at what you said:

"Simply renaming the Friction slider to Traction is NOT what should happen.  Implementing traction based on surface is what should happen and then friction should no longer be a setting"

"Traction, not friction."

"If you wanted to allow us to alter traction, that would be fine.  However it is not the same, and simply considering the friction control to be traction is incorrect. "

(bold added by me)

 

So, I say renaming friction to traction is incorrect and you say that I'm wrong because friction should not be renamed to traction.  That's actually agreeing with me, except you made it sound like I said the opposite.  That's a strawman, very plain and simply.  That's the last I'm saying on the matter.  I've made my point pretty clear here, if you don't understand it, then you won't ever understand it.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Alshain

[KerikBalm]

"So, I say renaming friction to traction is incorrect and you say that I'm wrong because friction should not be renamed to traction."

No you said it was incorrect. I said it was not incorrect because they are interchangeable in this context.

I never said friction should not be named to traction.

The only strawman here was committed by you, as in the post directly above

Edited July 27, 2016 by KerikBalm

[Alshain]

20 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

"So, I say renaming friction to traction is incorrect and you say that I'm wrong because friction should not be renamed to traction."

No you said it was incorrect. I said it was not incorrect because they are interchangeable in this context.

I never said friction should not be named to traction.

The only strawman here was committed by you, as in the post directly above

I apologize I just realized I did in fact confuse this discussion with another.  You said " thus using the word friction for the slider is not so inaccurate ", that was the strawman.  I never said the friction slider wasn't altering friction or that its name was incorrect, I said friction shouldn't be a setting. 

But I disagree with you on traction and friction being the same thing.  They are very closely related, but they are two separate things, which is evidenced by the fact that on rover wheels they are two separate sliders.  Imagine the spiked bike wheels you posted earlier.  Those work great on dirt and sand, but on concrete very little of that tire would actually touch the pavement making less gripping surface.  The friction coefficient remains the same, there is just less traction to create friction.  These consequences of altering the wheels do not exist in KSP, so it's really only a poorly implemented overpowered slider.  So anyone trying to relate the slider to altering the rubber or tread materials is incorrect.  It's in fact nothing like that, it's just god mode.

So anyway, I know I said I was done, but I did want to apologize for my mistake there.  It's still a strawman though

Edited July 27, 2016 by Alshain

[KerikBalm]

Well, I think friction should be a setting, as I mentioned we can change the material of the wheels, not just their tread.

But as to the strawman. You said multiple things. One of them was "considering the friction control to be traction is incorrect."

I said its not "so incorrect" because controlling friction does control traction. I fail to see how this is a strawman. Yes you had other points, but in this sentence I was only addressing one point, and I don't think it was a strawman. The distinction between traction and friction is a real argument that you brought up, that distinction is not a strawman argument.

Note the use of "so" implies some level of agreement - I do agree its not very precise... like calling something a mammal when its a lion... one could be much more specific and precise.

"They are very closely related, " Ok, so we've at least got some common ground

"they are two separate things, which is evidenced by the fact that on rover wheels they are two separate sliders." From what I've seen, the traction control slider adjusts the wheel torque. I think this is like anti-lock breaks, where traction control is used to prevent wheel slipping due ot motor torque... although I'm not sure.

"Imagine the spiked bike wheels you posted earlier.  Those work great on dirt and sand, but on concrete very little of that tire would actually touch the pavement making less gripping surface.  The friction coefficient remains the same, there is just less traction to create friction."

If we go back to that definition I posted earlier:

"through the use of dry friction, though the use of shear force of the surface is also commonly used." In the case of spiked wheels, the dry friction isn't used so much, its mostly shear force... but that also comes down to friction.

"Shear strength is a term used in soil mechanics to describe the magnitude of the shear stress that a soil can sustain. The shear resistance of soil is a result of friction and interlocking of particles, and possibly cementation or bonding at particle contacts."

Note it still comes down to friction... and its not clear if the slider is talking about coefficient of friction for dry friction, or the sum total of friction from shear stength (where digging those tire "spikes" in increases the total "friction" gained through those soil particle interactions).

I agree with you that traction is the precise term that should be used, but traction still falls under the umbrella of generic friction. The slider does seem to be altering traction itself. Something with zero traction has zero friction with the ground.

Its still imprecise as it doesn't alter rolling friction, aerodynamic friction, etc. Its altering the friction of that part with the ground, which is altering the force between the craft and the tangential surface, thus it is actually a traction slider.

We can alter traction through changing treads to make more use of the shear strength of the ground (really only works if its a bunch of particles). We can alter dry friction with the outer material of the wheel. Combined, these would alter traction over a given surface.

That KSP is treating all surfaces the same is unrealistic... Yes. However, that lack of realism has always been around, and so in the context of arguments that wheels are worse than they were in 1.05 is completely irrelevant.

[Curveball Anders]

Or you could just accept the current settings and design a rover that works, slipping, sliding and all.

But what do I know? I just design by trail and error and accept the Kerbal laws of physics.

[foamyesque]

@Alshain: If you think modifying how much friction something has is "physically impossible", I invite you to try driving your car with an empty oil tank.

[JAFO]

On 28/07/2016 at 10:18 AM, foamyesque said:

I invite you to try driving your car with an empty oil tank.

Whilst I've owned motorcycles that had an oil tank, I don't believe I've ever seen a car that did.

[KerikBalm]

Then where did you pour the motor oil? You wouldn't call that a tank of some form?

[JAFO]

4 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Then where did you pour the motor oil? You wouldn't call that a tank of some form?

Into the engine*, of course.. and an engine isn't a tank.

*technically.. into the engine's sump, that is.. which still isn't a tank.

[foamyesque]

"If the Creator had said 'Let there be light' in Ankh-Morpork, he'd have got no further because of all the people asking 'what colour?'." -Terry Pratchett