[1.12.x] Konstruction! Weldable ports, servos, cranes, and magnets!

[Kamuchi]

Just had a look at 1.2.2 and @RoverDude ,these parts are awsome, well done! 
Along with all your other mods, I am really tempted to pickup a career and play ksp full time again as like the USI Bootched, mixing your parts make for quite brilliant designs xD

Planetary base building would be so much fun again

Spoiler

 

[Kamuchi]

Sorry for bumping again (not really as you deserve it! xD) but I`ve been having a blast with Konstruction!
Here`s the final version which was so much fun to make ( album: https://imgur.com/a/FELxD )

Spoiler

 

[Jiraiyah]

@RoverDude

Hi sir, Excuse me if this question was asked before but in my defense, I looked to the last 10 pages for your answers to see if you replied to this question or not and I didn't find anything.

In one of your last streams on the munar base, you showed that you were working on pivoting the gear on the legs but they had issues, question is, did you manage to make it work or did you completely drop the idea?

thanks

[theoracle09]

Also running into the problem of two construction ports not docking properly. The very first time they were aligned, the magnets attracted and it stayed that way for a while, until the two ships got further along their orbits. After that one time, they no longer attract. Background: launched a station core around Kerbin with stock docking ports. Launched a second station module with construction ports in a KIS container (after reading the stock port doesn't lock into construction ports.) Used an engineer to replace one of my stock ports with a construction port, and tried to dock the second module (now both ships are using construction ports.) After initial attraction, with no lock, I'm not getting any attraction at all. I've turned snap off on both ports, and slowly increased the force to all the way, trying each increment. I've loaded past saves, even relaunched and attempted to replace again, all with the same result. 

The second module's second stage was attached to the payload via construction ports. I undocked the second stage, and sent it back to kerbin to burn up. Does this mean my construction port is now root, and that's why it's not docking to the station core's construction port? How do I tell if this part is root, as opposed to my probe core on the payload being root? Thanks.

edit: Should have said my ksp version is 1.2.2. Also, I'm not getting a "can't merge with root part" error, so I'm not thinking that's the problem. Just want to explore all possibilities. After the initial attraction, when I tried to compress, it told me it can't merge two ports that aren't welded.

Edited December 19, 2016 by theoracle09

[mjl1966]

Can you attach/detach items from the pallettes (trusses/truckbeds) in situ?  i.e. can I drive something somewhere and then unload it with the forklift or some such?  If not, no problem, was just wondering if that functionality was in there.

[dboi88]

36 minutes ago, mjl1966 said:

Can you attach/detach items from the pallettes (trusses/truckbeds) in situ?  i.e. can I drive something somewhere and then unload it with the forklift or some such?  If not, no problem, was just wondering if that functionality was in there.

Not if they are attached by the usual attachment nodes. You could do it with docking ports though. Using the magnets on the Konstruction docking ports would probably take out a lot of the frustration you'd get using normal docking ports.

[DStaal]

9 hours ago, mjl1966 said:

Can you attach/detach items from the pallettes (trusses/truckbeds) in situ?  i.e. can I drive something somewhere and then unload it with the forklift or some such?  If not, no problem, was just wondering if that functionality was in there.

I'll qualify dboi88's comment a bit: Not with just this mod.  However, this mod does support KIS, and makes it easier to manipulate parts.  (Things like the forklift can help lift things with KIS.)  So with the two mods in combination you could do that, even with the usual attachment nodes.

[theoracle09]

15 hours ago, theoracle09 said:

Also running into the problem of two construction ports not docking properly. The very first time they were aligned, the magnets attracted and it stayed that way for a while, until the two ships got further along their orbits. After that one time, they no longer attract. Background: launched a station core around Kerbin with stock docking ports. Launched a second station module with construction ports in a KIS container (after reading the stock port doesn't lock into construction ports.) Used an engineer to replace one of my stock ports with a construction port, and tried to dock the second module (now both ships are using construction ports.) After initial attraction, with no lock, I'm not getting any attraction at all. I've turned snap off on both ports, and slowly increased the force to all the way, trying each increment. I've loaded past saves, even relaunched and attempted to replace again, all with the same result. 

The second module's second stage was attached to the payload via construction ports. I undocked the second stage, and sent it back to kerbin to burn up. Does this mean my construction port is now root, and that's why it's not docking to the station core's construction port? How do I tell if this part is root, as opposed to my probe core on the payload being root? Thanks.

edit: Should have said my ksp version is 1.2.2. Also, I'm not getting a "can't merge with root part" error, so I'm not thinking that's the problem. Just want to explore all possibilities. After the initial attraction, when I tried to compress, it told me it can't merge two ports that aren't welded.

Update: I decided to deorbit the station and second module. I rebuilt the station core with the construction ports, launched. Then launched the second module and it docked just fine. Had to turn off "snap" for the ports to lock in. They compressed just fine. 

I ran a test on the launchpad, and it seems that construction ports that are placed via KIS by a kerbal won't lock into other construction ports. I took a look at my persistence file and the placed ports (placed by a kerbal) have some very wacky position and rotation values. Perhaps this is a reason why they won't lock into ports that were attached in the VAB? 

[mcortez]

Needing a bit of help with what "Multi-Weld" is used for.  I had thought it was to be used when you had multiple docking ports that needed welding at the same time, for example when using multiple docking ports to attach too vessels together.  But it doesn't seem to do what I was trying to do -- and perhaps what I'm trying to do just isn't supported.  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so:

Spoiler

Basically I flew in a second vessel and got two sets of Construction Ports to kinda sorta dual dock.  Basically of the pair on the left, the top one is giving me an "Undock" option -- implying that pair is docked, and of the pair on the right the bottom one is giving me an Undock option -- again, implying that they're docked.  If I try to Multi-Weld or Compress Parts and align -- what happens is the two ports on the right go poof, and a hard connection is made there.  Of the two on the left, usually one port seems to go poof, but the other port stays and jams up the process, resulting in just one docking port remaining and being stuck between the crew module and the Tundra Hub.  Sometimes it's partly embedded into the Tundra hub.

If I go over with an Engineer and remove the extra port, I'm then left with a sizable gap the side of the one port.

This is rather similar to the situation I saw on the KSP-TV stream about a month ago, with trying to assemble the ring in space using multiple docking ports.

--

What I'll likely end up having to do, is split the vessel on the bottom in half at the RCS tank and then dock/compress the two halves separately -- unless anyone here has any good suggestions?

 

 

[RoverDude]

The parts hierarchy is still a tree.  So multi-weld is great for 'tree' type welds, If they were in fact actually docked they should have welded, but multi-dock in general with rings is pretty tricky.

[Jiraiyah]

4 hours ago, RoverDude said:

The parts hierarchy is still a tree.  So multi-weld is great for 'tree' type welds, If they were in fact actually docked they should have welded, but multi-dock in general with rings is pretty tricky.

sir I think you missed my question, in one of your last streams on Munar Base, you showed an idea of having pivots for the legs, but in your last versions I can't find it, did you drop the idea or does it need more work before publishing?

[RoverDude]

There are two versions of the leg with alternate wheel positions.

 

 

[Jiraiyah]

1 minute ago, RoverDude said:

There are two versions of the leg with alternate wheel positions.

 

 

I see that, but that exactly drops the idea of what you tried in the stream (having the vessle go on one direction and then change the direction of the wheels to go to the perpendicular direction) or am i missing something?

[RoverDude]

Right, that's not on the table right now.

[Jiraiyah]

13 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Right, that's not on the table right now.

kk, thanks for your time, and all you do for the community sir

[Rocket88]

I have a problem with the akita wheels just spinning on the runway and the rover will not move, I tried disabling auto friction still not working. Only mod running on clean install Construction Version 0.1.8 from CKAN

I also had problem before I uninstalled it, With MKS/OKS Duna Modules legs being extended suddenly on launch on runway causing module to fly in the air .They were retracted before launch in SPH.

Not sure if related. I'm sure its isolated problem on my end.

Thanks for your help.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Rocket88
more info

[DStaal]

15 minutes ago, Rocket88 said:

I have a problem with the akita wheels just spinning on the runway the rover will not move, I tried disabling auto friction still not working. Only mod running on clean install Construction Version 0.1.8 from CKAN

Thanks for your help

Most common reason for that is having the wheels upside down.  Can we get a pic of your rover?

[dboi88]

26 minutes ago, Rocket88 said:

I have a problem with the akita wheels just spinning on the runway the rover will not move, I tried disabling auto friction still not working. Only mod running on clean install Construction Version 0.1.8 from CKAN

Thanks for your help

This is almost certainly because you've put them on upside down or on their side (it's really easy to do). 

Sniped by @DStaal

They should be this way round.

There's a full guide for all the wheels and parts with loads of images like this in the KSPedia entry available here, it'll be included in the next release or you can download and stick it in your gamedata folder now.

Edited December 24, 2016 by dboi88

[Rocket88]

Thats all it was, and thanks for quick response.

Thanks DStaal and dboi88

[Guest]

Hi, some queries and feedback...

 

Lifting stuff with magnets without any docking involved is great, but I wonder, how much they are expected to lift by design (assuming Kerbin gravity)?

What part they grab onto seems to influence how much pulling force they have (eg. connection to an ore tank is stronger than to a decoupler or cubestrut attached to it). Does autostrut affect this or is it based on something else like the breakingforce/torque param?

 

A lot of parts have 45m/s impact tolerance, but the structural/core pieces and surface attach magnet only have 6m/s, which can lead to some unfortunate moments for a construction vehicle (especially considering that the magnet connections are far from rigid), particularly in gravity comparable to Kerbin's. You might want to review this.

Is magnet power consumption planned? I'm thinking a fairly big draw like 10EC/s at 100%.

 

What does PAL mean? Planetary Assembly Lander, I think?..

Edited December 24, 2016 by Guest

[Merkov]

Hey @RoverDude, I had a thought/question: with the Konstruction mod/parts being included in the MKS install, is there any reason that the four Akita rover parts are not included as well? It's certainly not a big issue, but it just seems like that one small folder would be a natural inclusion.

[RoverDude]

Ahhh - I thought Akita went along for the ride, so I will have to fix that

[Merkov]

4 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Ahhh - I thought Akita went along for the ride, so I will have to fix that

Do you want me to log an issue? If so, where (MKS or Konstruction)?

(I will use an issue this time, not a pull request!)

[RoverDude]

Please

[Merkov]

Alright, I think I did this correctly. #1063.