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

[GFX5000i]

5 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

Updated dev version is available:

• Fixes shader references to use the 'LegacyShaders/XXX' shader names.  Will update to use the equivalent newer shaders as time permits.
• Tested to work under KSP 1.8.1; loads properly without any new/unexpected errors, and dust-effects work while in-flight.

Updated DLL is available from the dev branch, direct download link:  https://github.com/shadowmage45/KSPWheel/blob/dev/GameData/KSPWheel/Plugin/KSPWheel.dll?raw=true

I'll be doing some further testing this evening/this week, and package and publish an actual release if it all appears to be working.

I was testing the suspension lock (to use in the default legs to save a lander in the Mun full of Kraken power) and noticed the action group was not working, changed to the code below and seems good now.

from
[KSPAction("Lock Suspension")]
public void suspensionLockAction(KSPActionParam param)
{
    suspensionLockChanged(null, null);
}

to
[KSPAction("Toggle Suspension Lock")]
public void suspensionLockAction(KSPActionParam param)
{
    lockSuspension = !lockSuspension;
    suspensionLockChanged(null, null);
}

 

[Mrbre4kr]

Is it possible to remove the smoke coming of the landing gear?

[MD5Ray01]

So, I ran into an issue with Kerbal Foundries on my 1.8.1 build when I'm running aircraft.  They take off just fine, but as soon as I'm airborne and pull the gear up, the framerate lags significantly and the debug menu throws up Null Reference Point errors related to the KSPWheel Dust Effect.  Granted, I was using the last stable version and not one of the dev branches, so I might give the dev branch a shot and see if that helps.

Edited January 4, 2020 by MD5Ray01

[Mr.DingALing]

4 hours ago, MD5Ray01 said:

So, I ran into an issue with Kerbal Foundries on my 1.8.1 build when I'm running aircraft.  They take off just fine, but as soon as I'm airborne and pull the gear up, the framerate lags significantly and the debug menu throws up Null Reference Point errors related to the KSPWheel Dust Effect.  Granted, I was using the last stable version and not one of the dev branches, so I might give the dev branch a shot and see if that helps.

Let us know how dev branches behave 

[MD5Ray01]

8 hours ago, Mr.DingALing said:

Let us know how dev branches behave 

Well, the updated DLL posted earlier fixed the Null Reference Point errors, and everything seems to be running smoothly with my build of 1.8.1 now.

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

Wait, there's an 1.8.1 version of kerbal foundries? I can't seem to find it if so

Spoiler

I'm doing the 2020 Kerbal Dakar race and I seriously need some new wheels XD

 

[Barar]

4 hours ago, έķ νίĻĻάίή said:

Wait, there's an 1.8.1 version of kerbal foundries? I can't seem to find it if so

Go back to page 50, its the second post from the bottom. Its just the DLL so you will need to grab everything else and do a manual install.

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

On 1/5/2020 at 6:11 PM, Barar said:

Go back to page 50, its the second post from the bottom. Its just the DLL so you will need to grab everything else and do a manual install.

Thanks!

Edited January 6, 2020 by έķ νίĻĻάίή

[callsignblaze]

On 1/5/2020 at 12:56 AM, έķ νίĻĻάίή said:

Wait, there's an 1.8.1 version of kerbal foundries? I can't seem to find it if so

  Hide contents

I'm doing the 2020 Kerbal Dakar race and I seriously need some new wheels XD

 

kerbal dakar? where can i enter?

 

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

8 hours ago, callsignblaze said:

kerbal dakar? where can i enter?

 

Challenges and mission ideas -> kerbal Dakar 2020

[TOMMY (JEB 2.0)]

dose anyone here know why mech jeb and kf dont work together 

[vardicd]

Is anyone seeing darker than normal, and odd artifacting in the R+D screens and part selector menus in the editors while using this? I picked the mod up today and I start noticing the oddities. Everything looks normal in flight, it's just in the editor and VAB/SPH It's minor and I can live with it, It just worried me that maybe I've got something wrong, and maybe someone had seen this/could explain what i've done wrong if anything.

[Shadowmage]

6 hours ago, vardicd said:

Is anyone seeing darker than normal, and odd artifacting in the R+D screens and part selector menus in the editors while using this? I picked the mod up today and I start noticing the oddities. Everything looks normal in flight, it's just in the editor and VAB/SPH It's minor and I can live with it, It just worried me that maybe I've got something wrong, and maybe someone had seen this/could explain what i've done wrong if anything.

Not on your end; it has to do with the 'icon shader' system in KSP, and lack of source to the stock versions of those shaders.  So when I had to create my own versions for the PBR shaders, I cannot fully replicate some of the internals on the stock version.

Notably, there is a parameter '_Multiplier' to the shader that is not documented anywhere.  Pretty sure it is used to boost light/brightness, but not sure how/where it is used.  Does it multiply the light input in the lighting functions? Does it multiply the sampled texture colors?  Does it multiply the final computed pixel color at the end of all pipelines?  Who knows (well, SQUAD knows, but they aren't talking).

However I _may_ have a solution in the works that should be closer to the stock shaders.  While I was fixing up some issues with screen-space clipping coordinates, I went ahead and added some albedo color multiplication to the icon shaders; should be _closer_ to whatever the stock shaders are doing.  Hopefully should know more a bit later today.

[Shadowmage]

Made some headway on the icons

Will likely have an official KF release for KSP 1.8 a bit later today (warning: it will be the version that uses the PBR textures; the old versions will continue to work if you manually update the KSPWheel plugin).

[vardicd]

5 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

Not on your end; it has to do with the 'icon shader' system in KSP, and lack of source to the stock versions of those shaders.

That's fine, as long as it doesn't mean that I've got something wrong, I can live with a minor color issue. I was just afraid I had something wrong in my install, and it might come back to bite me later. Didn't want to end up with a corrupted save, or end up losing a bunch of craft in flight if the mod broke and I had to remove it or something along those lines. 

Thanks for the reply.

[Shadowmage]

Unfortunately 'life' got in the way of my plans yesterday re: the KF update.  The good news is that I didn't encounter any new or unexpected issues during testing, and further good news is that I should have a few moments tonight to package up and publish the update.

This is mostly just a repackage and recompile; there are not any fixes included for this current update.  I do intend on investigating the reported 'GC stalls while wheels are in the air' issues, but as those are likely to take some time to work through (weeks), I would rather release the existing (fairly functional) codebase as-is.

[kcs123]

2 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

I do intend on investigating the reported 'GC stalls while wheels are in the air' issues, but as those are likely to take some time to work through (weeks), I would rather release the existing (fairly functional) codebase as-is.

Take your time, this kind of bug is not always easy to narrow down.  I think that recently reported issue:  https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2/issues/12 is same as this one:  https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2/issues/42

I don't think that it is related with FAR voxelization, FAR can do that pretty fast and does not cause much of hickups in more complex crafts where KSPWheel is not on craft. I was able to narrow down issue to having KF wheels on craft and time when GC doing garbage disposal. For some reason GC have difficulties to do it's job with KF on craft. MemGraph helps a bit with this, but does not solve problem. Don't know if issue is more or less obviuos with or without FAR installed. If FAR still cause slowdowns, it may be related to animation being triggered. Each time some animation happens, FAR also do voxelization process, to recalculate forces based on new craft shape after/trough animation.
It's wild guess, but could be possible that KF keep triggering animation or something while in flight, regardless of animation not being visible on scene ?

Anyhow, I hope that my thoughts would help you to narrow down issue, rather than distract you from true point of that issue.

[vardicd]

I have a question, really sort of new to the mod, and built a rover for the Mun, and It's kind of Squirrel-y to drive, better than the stock wheels I think, but it still over-steers and curves, especially if I've got SAS on. Is that something I'll have to live with, or are there some settings i can tweak to adjust that>? Thanks for any help. Craft and settings menu in flight:

[Shadowmage]

59 minutes ago, vardicd said:

I have a question, really sort of new to the mod, and built a rover for the Mun, and It's kind of Squirrel-y to drive, better than the stock wheels I think, but it still over-steers and curves, especially if I've got SAS on. Is that something I'll have to live with, or are there some settings i can tweak to adjust that>? Thanks for any help. Craft and settings menu in flight:

Two issues here that I can think of from the description and image:

1. SAS.  Turn it off.  Pushing 'W' with SAS (err.. reaction wheels at least) enabled will attempt to push the nose into the dirt, forcing more friction on the front tires, and thus you'll get oversteer.  This is not really a problem if you use separate rover and rocket controls (e.g. remap the rover controls to use the numpad or arrow keys, etc), but with the default control scheme it can certainly cause issues.

2. Those wheels were not designed to be used in that configuration; they were designed and rigged to be used with one set of wheels per-side of the craft (total of two pairs; one left, one right).  Essentially those wheels include some 'tank steering' mechanics and other special configuration that will cause problems if attempted to use as 'normal' wheels (you could actually think of them as a tiny set of tracks, as the rigging and mechanics are similar).  Basically, due to the intended use compared to the use in the images, the steering on the wheels will be fighting each other in the default configuration.

A few other things you can try would be to set the 'tank steering' to 'locked' (i.e. disabled), or play with the 'half-track' setting (half-track relies on tank steering, but changes the steering mechanics you press 'reverse').  There are also -two- motor controls visible in the right-click menu (one for the front wheel, one for the rear); you could try configuring it such that only the frontmost- and rear-most wheels in the craft are motorized, essentially fixing up the existing 'tank-steering' rigging.  Or, invert the tank steering on some of the motors.  Yes, the specific part that you picked for wheels is probably one of the most complex wheels in the mod to learn how to configure and use, and also one of the most specialized parts available.

 

I would also try replicating the craft using more standard'ish wheels (not the prebuilt 'pairs'); if they are too large, use the built-in scaling functions to shrink them down.  I would wager that the issues you are encountering are likely due to the specialized nature of the wheels, and how they are not being used in the fashion to which they were specialized.  If you really wanted the multiple-wheels-per-side look, perhaps try out one of the track units (again, use the scaling feature if it is too large/small).

For example, this little beast doesn't really exhibit any unexpected steering quirks (same as above, very roughly, but with only a single set of wheels per side, slightly scaled up).

 

[Shadowmage]

1 hour ago, vardicd said:

I have a question, really sort of new to the mod, and built a rover for the Mun, and It's kind of Squirrel-y to drive, better than the stock wheels I think, but it still over-steers and curves, especially if I've got SAS on. Is that something I'll have to live with, or are there some settings i can tweak to adjust that>? Thanks for any help. Craft and settings menu in flight:

After replicating the craft more closely, with two sets of the wheel pairs on each side... it strangely seems to work fairly well with only a single tweak -- decrease the motor output to ~10% on each motor.  For some reason the motor is extremely overpowered on those wheels, and is prone to simply spinning out/sliding.  I probably need to re-balance them at some point...

If that doesn't work out for you -- do you have a .craft file I could check out?  Preferably a stock + KF only craft, if possible.

 

I say 'strangely' above, because I'm pretty sure that some of the motors are fighting each other during steering operations, but it still steers acceptably.  Going to have to do some 'suspended in air' testing to see exactly what is going on and which motors need to be reversed (if any), as when it is on the ground the tires might spin with craft movement even when the motor is pushing in the opposite direction.

Hmm....

Edit:  Everything spins in the right direction, visibly at least.  No problems with motor fighting that I can see.  Anyhow, I've got a release to work on

Edited February 11, 2020 by Shadowmage

[vardicd]

13 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

After replicating the craft more closely, with two sets of the wheel pairs on each side... it strangely seems to work fairly well with only a single tweak -- decrease the motor output to ~10% on each motor.  For some reason the motor is extremely overpowered on those wheels, and is prone to simply spinning out/sliding.  I probably need to re-balance them at some point...

If that doesn't work out for you -- do you have a .craft file I could check out?  Preferably a stock + KF only craft, if possible.

I say 'strangely' above, because I'm pretty sure that some of the motors are fighting each other during steering operations, but it still steers acceptably.  Going to have to do some 'suspended in air' testing to see exactly what is going on and which motors need to be reversed (if any), as when it is on the ground the tires might spin with craft movement even when the motor is pushing in the opposite direction.

Hmm....

I just loaded up my save to send you a copy of the craft file, and to check decrease the motor output to ~10% {I assume you mean Motor Limit? I don't see motor output?} But while I was looking at that, I noticed that one side of the rover's wheels were showing as inverted? when i tried to toggle it, it also toggled on the other side, so one side was always inverted while the other was normal, is that supposed to happen? 

I lowered the motor limit on all the wheels to around 10, and launched one to test, and as soon as i tried to give it speed, it starts to pull to the right, if you have a Kerbal in the seats and are looking at his/her 'forward' direction. it actively fights turning left. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jpifmgk9o97ct3i/Mun Rover Tester.craft?dl=0

[Shadowmage]

Updated release is available:

https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2/releases/tag/2.4.8.18

See the link for change-log and downloads.

Note to users of the KSP 1.6.x versions of the mod (with legacy textures):  Do not update to this version if you want to keep your existing game intact.  Part names have changed, and will break nearly everything.  If you still wish to proceed, delete the entire existing KerbalFoundries folder before installing the new update; many file-names were changed as well, and merging the installations will result in numerous problems.

The legacy part-configs and textures will continue to work into the future.  You can continue to use them if you don't like the new textures, or any other reason.  The old releases will still be hosted and available for download.  Keep the KSPWheel plugin up to date (for whatever KSP version you are using), and they should continue to work for the foreseeable future.  The other side of this is that I will not be doing any balance changes or model fixes to the legacy parts/models/textures; they will be frozen in time, and more-or-less unsupported.

[Shadowmage]

15 hours ago, vardicd said:

I just loaded up my save to send you a copy of the craft file, and to check decrease the motor output to ~10% {I assume you mean Motor Limit? I don't see motor output?} But while I was looking at that, I noticed that one side of the rover's wheels were showing as inverted? when i tried to toggle it, it also toggled on the other side, so one side was always inverted while the other was normal, is that supposed to happen? 

I lowered the motor limit on all the wheels to around 10, and launched one to test, and as soon as i tried to give it speed, it starts to pull to the right, if you have a Kerbal in the seats and are looking at his/her 'forward' direction. it actively fights turning left. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jpifmgk9o97ct3i/Mun Rover Tester.craft?dl=0

Thanks for the link; I didn't have any further time last night for testing, but will attempt to give it a go this evening.  More than likely it is a craft setup/configuration issue where one of the wheels is not set up to be inverted properly when it was built.  Will let you know what I find out.

[Shadowmage]

23 hours ago, vardicd said:

I just loaded up my save to send you a copy of the craft file, and to check decrease the motor output to ~10% {I assume you mean Motor Limit? I don't see motor output?} But while I was looking at that, I noticed that one side of the rover's wheels were showing as inverted? when i tried to toggle it, it also toggled on the other side, so one side was always inverted while the other was normal, is that supposed to happen? 

I lowered the motor limit on all the wheels to around 10, and launched one to test, and as soon as i tried to give it speed, it starts to pull to the right, if you have a Kerbal in the seats and are looking at his/her 'forward' direction. it actively fights turning left. 

Got a chance to investigate for a bit, and can confirm the odd steering that you reported.

The cause is that some of the motors on the right side have been inverted, and others disabled, thus there is more thrust from the left side, and it pulls to the right.

Change this:

To this (which should have been the default configuration):

 

(fixed .craft file:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/vj3d670nyiq8qz0/Mun Rover Tester-fixed.craft?dl=0  )

And it will drive as straight as KSP physics will allow

Note: the position of the Kerbal will also effect traction to some small degree; if there is only a Kerbal in the left-hand seat, you'll get more traction on the left wheels, though not nearly to the degree noted above.

2nd Note: I did notice a bug with these wheels regarding the symmetry-part updating on the motor invert toggles, likely due to having multiple motor modules in the same part; regardless of which motor was inverted, only the upper motor on the symmetry part would be updated.

[Stone Blue]

@Shadowmage Hi. I'm trying to setup an MM patch, to target all deployable gear and legs. Basically anything with a stock [ModuleWheelDeployment], and any mod modules which replace it. I want to add the ALG gear, but all I see that seemingly possibly addresses deployability, is the [KSPWheelAdjustableGear]... vOv

I see in the KSPWheel doc, [KSPWheelDeployment], along with [KSPWheelAdjustableGear].

Can I assume [KSPWheelAdjustableGear], covers the function of [KSPWheelDeployment], and thats why the ALG dont have that additional module?

And are there *any* gear that would use [KSPWheelAdjustableGear], which *are not* deployable? vOv

Edited February 12, 2020 by Stone Blue