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[1.8.x] Kerbal Foundries -- Continued - Tracks, Wheels, and Gear

Shadowmage

By Shadowmage
in KSP1 Mod Releases

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Toonu

Toonu

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Right click on the part.  Press the 'Align to Ground' button.  No alignment guide needed, just a single button.

No, I mean, not align to the ground but to the Z axis. Axis from front to back of plane...

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Shadowmage

Shadowmage

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Just now, Toonu said:

No, I mean, not align to the ground but to the Z axis. Axis from front to back of plane...

The stock rotation-offset widget includes a 'global' setting where it will snap-align parts with the global axis.

Choose rotation mode widget (3?), hit the 'F' key to toggle into 'global' mode (if needed), make sure angle snap is enabled ('C' key by default), and the rotation offset tool will now snap to axis-aligned angles.

 

(No, there are no alignment guides included in KSPWheel or KerbalFoundries; I have never needed them, or heard any good arguments of why they would be needed that the stock tools cannot accomplish)

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Nightside

Nightside

Posted
Posted

The new release is working great! So much better than the stock slip'n'slide.

I'm trying to configure the small landing gear to NOT be retractable (basically making fixed gear). Does anyone know if this is possible in the settings? If so what should I change. 

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Shadowmage

Shadowmage

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13 hours ago, Nightside said:

I'm trying to configure the small landing gear to NOT be retractable (basically making fixed gear). Does anyone know if this is possible in the settings? If so what should I change. 

The 'small' ALG?  Probably not possible with the current plugin code; the animations are so hard-coded into the module that I doubt it would be possible through the existing config.  The closest you might come would be to disable the action groups (if possible); but that would still leave the standard right-click toggle button.

Feel free to open an issue ticket (on either KSPWheel or KerbalFoundries repos) regarding the request, and I'll see what I can do about it for an upcoming release (shouldn't be too hard to add some config fields to hide/disable the animation buttons).

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DarkOwl57

DarkOwl57

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Posted
6 minutes ago, Nightside said:

@DarkOwl57, since you mentioned it, what does friction control represent? Is it like selecting tires with better traction?

In general I've noticed that KF wheels don't slip around as much as stock.

Friction control controls how much grip a wheel has. I've noticed that if you do a high-speed slalom, the wheels will lose traction and spin around. When you do said high-speed slalom with stock wheels, no spin at all

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Shadowmage

Shadowmage

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6 minutes ago, DarkOwl57 said:

Friction control controls how much grip a wheel has. I've noticed that if you do a high-speed slalom, the wheels will lose traction and spin around. When you do said high-speed slalom with stock wheels, no spin at all

No, there are no user-configurable friction controls, and I will not be (re)adding them in the foreseeable future. 

It did exist in the early versions.  Until I dealt with too many complaints of 'bouncing/jittering/unstable craft' caused by people trying to increase friction beyond what was stable (everyone seemed to just ramp it up to max regardless of what they needed), and insisting it was my problem to fix (even after I had stated that excess friction/spring/damper would cause instability).  So, until people can play responsibly with powerful features like that... I don't think it will be returning (or if it does, it will be hidden behind a bunch of 'advance mode' toggles that will discourage casual use of the feature).

Also, variable traction doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  As far as I know the traction/friction of a wheel is mainly determined by the type of material and design of the wheel and the surface being contacted, and about the only way a real vehicle has to dynamically alter traction (without changing tires) is to increase or decrease air pressure, which only has a narrow range of valid adjustment before it causes problems (blown tires or excess sidewall wear leading to...blown tires).

 

As to 'is this a problem that needs to be addressed in another fashion' -- I would have to see comparison videos of the craft in question with stock and KF wheels, and what maneuver you think is not being done correctly with the KSPWheel physics.  Generally though I found the stock wheels to have a bit too much grip, and were effectively like driving on asphalt even when you are skating across grass (or gravel, or other-planets-dusty-surfaces).  Having done quite a bit of high(er) speed driving on gravel, dirt, and grass myself... I can tell you they feel nothing like what the stock wheels do.

As 95% of the 'intended' use of the KF parts is for rovers, which, as KSP only has very limited 'civilized facilities', would be driving on dirt/gravel/regolith, and as such, I felt that setting the 'default' setting to something appropriate for those surface types would be more appropriate than super-sticky tires.

The 'real' solution to this problem would be for someone (not me) to figure out how to dynamically detect the surface being interacted with and dynamically adjust surface friction based on that information.  That way you can get some slips and sliding on gravel, but get nicer tracking on the runways and paved portions of the KSC.

 

(btw, the friction curve and coefficients -are- adjustable through config, so feel free to play around with them.... just don't bug me when things start to jump around or the simulation breaks down)

 

14 hours ago, SpaceEnthusiast23 said:

I have a problem. When I load ksp, it gets stuck on KerbalFoundries/assets/chrome light scratch. Anyone know why?

What version of KF, KSPWheel, ModuleManager, and KSP are you running?

Better yet... do what the OP states for support requests, and post/link to your KSP.log file.  That will include all of that information, as well as likely including an exact message of whatever is causing the problem.

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0111narwhalz

0111narwhalz

Posted
Posted

Most of my roving is done at irresponsible speeds (70m/s over hilly terrain), so I expect and would even prefer some sliding. However, if you want more traction, the sensible thing seems to be downforce. Increase normal force, increase friction. Also helps you follow terrain more closely. Works well even with stock wheels (as evidenced by my old racetank).

Hmm... You know, it might be time for a new racetank. One built with tracks, even.

Speaking of high speed tracks: Have you made any progress on that brake-driven steering concept for tracks?

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Shadowmage

Shadowmage

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2 hours ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Speaking of high speed tracks: Have you made any progress on that brake-driven steering concept for tracks?

Should be fully implemented in the recent versions.  Any 'track' parts that also have brakes, will use those brakes to help with steering at higher speeds (inversely proportionate to the amount of steering input from the motor; should maintain fairly constant steering authority at all speeds).

Edit:  Technically this is not limited just track parts, but any part that uses the KSPMotor module setup to enable 'tank steering', of which the KSPWheelTracks is a subclass.

  

//if rI is commanding the wheel to slow down, also apply brakes, inversely proportional to motor torque                
if (Mathf.Sign(wheel.rpm) !=Mathf.Sign(rI) && rI != 0)
{
	wheel.brakeTorque += (1 - torqueCurve.Evaluate(Mathf.Abs(wheel.rpm * gearRatio) / scaledMaxRPM)) * scaledMaxTorque * Mathf.Abs(rI);
}

 

(Should have already existed in the last 1.2.2 versions as well)

2 hours ago, 0111narwhalz said:

However, if you want more traction, the sensible thing seems to be downforce. Increase normal force, increase friction.

Yes, as it realistically should be.

Now the question is... has anyone tried spoilers (front/rear) on high-speed land vehicles to see if and how much they help? (mostly if KSPs aero simulation can even handle it properly).

Edited by Shadowmage
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damerell

damerell

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52 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Now the question is... has anyone tried spoilers (front/rear) on high-speed land vehicles to see if and how much they help? (mostly if KSP's aero simulation can even handle it properly).

In a FAR world spoilers certainly do provide downforce.

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Shadowmage

Shadowmage

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23 hours ago, DarkOwl57 said:

Since no-one's answered, I'll just re-ask.

Is there a setting similar to friction control?

As an expansion to my previous answer -- I'll look into adding both global and per-part friction controls/settings that can be adjusted while in-game; it might not be entirely realistic, but sometimes the limitations of the game (and code) require compromise and workaround.  The global setting would be adjusted through the existing settings menu (settings->difficulty->advanced->kspwheel), while the per-part UI slider would have to be enabled first through the same settings menu.  Both would come with huge disclaimers that they may cause instability.

One other thing that should be investigated is tuning of the default friction curves (and further, implementing per-part curve differences; e.g. for tracks).  I pretty much used an average of a few different Pacejka friction curves, which may or may not be the most optimal setup for rover simulation or even for the rest of the code and integration methods.  It is one area that I really haven't played around with much... but if you have the willingness to experiment you could likely find something far better than the current curve setup.  I'll look into adding an easier method to specify the curve parameters; currently it can only be done through config which takes ages to reload to test any changes (and makes comparisons difficult).

 

37 minutes ago, damerell said:

In a FAR world spoilers certainly do provide downforce.

From what I know of the stock aero it should work there as well, I've just never tried and I know that the stock aero has its share of quirks.

With KSPWheel it can easily be tested by using the debug menu; it can display the down-force (or rather the spring force to counteract it), and spoiler/non-spoiler comparisons could be made.  Same craft could likely be used, along with the controls surfaces' authority limiters and flaps deploy functions.  Now you've got me curious....  :wink:

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SpaceEnthusiast23

SpaceEnthusiast23

Posted
Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

 

What version of KF, KSPWheel, ModuleManager, and KSP are you running?

Better yet... do what the OP states for support requests, and post/link to your KSP.log file.  That will include all of that information, as well as likely including an exact message of whatever is causing the problem.

 

Never mind. I don't know what I did. I just saw some KF parts for some reason. IDK what happened. 

Edit: I actually have a problem. When I right-click, nothing happens. Anyone know why? Ksp: 1.2.2

KF version 2.0.2.6

KSPwheel version 0.9.5.16

Moar info to come

Edited by SpaceEnthusiast23
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stickman939

stickman939

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 1/17/2017 at 1:41 PM, Beetlecat said:

For me, the idea of a "walker" being supported by this mod would be the Critter Crawler from this pack:

IIRC, it's basically animated legs, but uses wheel physics. I wonder if @Papa_Joe and the gang are looking to re-do them. :)

They've done a number of Bahamuto's mods already. [see below]

On 1/14/2017 at 4:16 PM, DoctorDavinci said:
Spoiler

 

BDAc
Releases link: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BDArmory/releases
Issues link: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BDArmory/issues

BDMk22 Plugin
Releases link: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BDMk22Plugin/releases
Issues link: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BDMk22Plugin/issues

Burn Together
Releases link: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BurnTogether/releases
Issues link: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BurnTogether/issues

Camera Tools
Releases link: https://github.com/jrodrigv/CameraTools/releases
Issues link: https://github.com/jrodrigv/CameraTools/issues

Destruction Effects
Forum link: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/154379-12x-destruction-effects-v130-010217/&page=1
Releases link: https://github.com/jrodrigv/DestructionEffects/releases
Issues link: https://github.com/jrodrigv/DestructionEffects/issues

Vessel Mover Continued
Forum link: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/144421-12-vesselmover-continued-v1513/&
Releases link: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/VesselMover/releases
Issues link: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/VesselMover/issues

Vessel Switcher (integrated into BDAc v0.2.0.0)
Releases link: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BDALoadedVesselSwitcher/releases
Issues link: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BDALoadedVesselSwitcher/issues

In regards to Adjustable Landing Gear, please consult the Kerbal Foundries Continued thread where @Shadowmage has taken it upon himself to maintain an ALG-like addition to KF Continued ... his thread can be found at the following link: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/155056-122-kerbal-foundries-continued-tracks-wheels-and-gear-02-05-17/&page=1

 

 

But most of those are plugins, so I don't see them working on another (relatively) large parts pack soon.

Edited by stickman939
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Shadowmage

Shadowmage

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14 hours ago, SpaceEnthusiast23 said:

Never mind. I don't know what I did. I just saw some KF parts for some reason. IDK what happened. 

Edit: I actually have a problem. When I right-click, nothing happens. Anyone know why? Ksp: 1.2.2

KF version 2.0.2.6

KSPwheel version 0.9.5.16

Moar info to come

Umm... you are using the KSP 1.3+ builds on KSP 1.2.2.  I would fully expect them to not work.

You will want this KF release if you are still on KSP 1.2.2:

https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2/releases/tag/2.0.1.5

(if you use AVC, it should have yelled at you that you had an incompatible KSP version)

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SpaceEnthusiast23

SpaceEnthusiast23

Posted
Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

Umm... you are using the KSP 1.3+ builds on KSP 1.2.2.  I would fully expect them to not work.

You will want this KF release if you are still on KSP 1.2.2:

https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2/releases/tag/2.0.1.5

(if you use AVC, it should have yelled at you that you had an incompatible KSP version)

I should get AVC. Thanks for the mod and your other mods BTW. They're awesome and pretty essential. Also, I found out my loading issue was because ATM was taking so long to make a .cfg for KerbalFoundries.

Edited by SpaceEnthusiast23
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Rainbowd4sh

Rainbowd4sh

Posted
Posted

I think I got an issue

It could also be the payload is too heavy and I am just dumb, but in case it isn't: 

I am building a truck carrying a KIS container, with quite a few heavy objects in it. When I put 6 medium wheels on each side (12 total), I tested it and it just spun in place. I tried with less, with tracks, all the same outcome.

I also have several other mods, most importantly KIS for the container, Kermangeddon mods for the rover parts, and inside the container is extra planetary launchpad parts, with some KAS parts as well. 

I recorded a video showing the issue. 

 

P.S I am running KSPx64, with 1.3 module manager, and 1.3 Kerbal Foundries. All other mods that I listed above are also 1.3 

P.P.S it may be low quality if you watch close to posting time, as YT takes a bit for the HD option to be ready. 

 

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Rainbowd4sh

Rainbowd4sh

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They were not! Left was going forward, right was going back. 

I was able to happily drive forward with my payload wiggling dangerously up and down. 

Idk if this changes the cause, but I did not use symmetry as for the rover bed, I had to manually place both sides. 

 

Anyway thanks for the help, and within the hour as well. I greatly appreciate it. :D

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