Lockable Differential with 5 Drive modes and Shift-able ratios!

[AcidTonic]

I had another thread where I was asking about a differential for Kerbal Space. I decided to build one and after polishing it a bit I'm ready to show it off. Works in 1.2.2 currently using the Infernal Robotics plugin, TweakScale, and ColliderStrikesBack for intra-vessel collisions. Doesn't explode with cheats off either thus it would work for campaign players.

This one is jammed full of features!

Selectable drive modes.....
* Left wheel drive with low torque (slips easily, may be good for traction on slick surfaces)
* Right wheel drive with low torque (Right drive engaged but not locked, left disengaged)
* Right wheel drive locked (Right drive engaged all the way into lock, left disengaged)
* Left and Right Wheel Torque Biasing Drive (Both engaged but not locked)
* Left and Right Wheel Locked (Left engaged, Right engaged fully into lock)
* 3-Way custom gear ratios  (Move pistons individually and asymmetrically)

About the 3-way ratios... Since each piston is independently movable you can underdrive the left or right wheels by retracting a few on only one side. This would produce a yaw effect for turning or allow you to essentially have more than one rear end speed if you do it for both sides. Start with 4 out for slow crawling speeds and shift 4 more out for high ratios.

Should be all we need for some serious fun!

Turn on subtitles (CC) for a walkthrough as the video plays. Recommended.
 

 

I'll get the craft uploaded and provide a link shortly.

Edited January 5, 2017 by AcidTonic
Fixed typo

[Azimech]

First of all, very cool contraption!

Second ... CollidersStrikeBack has had an update?! Wow! That's going to make my piston engines a whole lot better to build.

You might like this video, made it two years ago.

 

 

[AcidTonic]

Love it! Regarding colliders strike back I simply put the DLL in the game folder, nothing worked, upon restarting a few times I think module-manager or something updated it since it started working randomly. If it matters I'm also running Linux rather than the Windows build and using a KSP install that I've upgraded up to 1.2.2 rather than a fresh install. 

I actually went driving with two of my differentials in a 4x4 configuration but each using a separate drive, basically copied the existing design twice into a project with a small frame around it. Main problem is the heat shield wheels are too heavy. I can't drive it in standard gravity without the input drive simply pushing the input gear out of the way because it's essentially acting like both wheels are locked as in my demo. 

However by lowering gravity down to 0.20 or so and firing the rockets on one set of wheels to get extra grunt.....  it will drive and slowly pick up speed. I got it up to around 30m/s but almost drove it into the lake. I'll post up a video of that but first I want to try getting it to work without any hacks or rockets. And for that to work it must again get smaller. 

I also noticed beyond a certain size the gear teeth are more like a clutch and will never bind but slip instead even with the axles locked together. This may be interesting behavior for those looking to build a lossy clutch drive without direct linkage. Once the gears teeth get larger beyond a point they bind rather than slip and I assume that's due to the 0.03 physics delta being too large to pass through the object. Just a hunch though.

More to come
 

[Azimech]

If you're talking about colliders phasing through each other ... that's a serious design flaw in the game: collider integrity is based on part mass. I'm hoping Squad has listened to me because I really want to make my engines lighter, right now I have 100kg pistons ... great for a medium-sized maritime diesel but not much else.

[Castille7]

Looks like a massive amount of work here, very impressive, I love this stuff! 

[Kerbinchaser]

Wow. Neat stuff.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Lo Var Lachland