Are Wheels/Gear Even More Borked in 1.8, Or Is It My Design?

[Srpadget]

I have a "standardized" ISRU base which I've been using since KSP 1.0.5 or thereabouts, and recreated from scratch every few KSP releases to keep it current with part updates or make little incremental improvements (I generally start a new save with each release that has new features I'd like to play the early game with).  It's always had an inexplicable tendency to slooooowly rotate in place and drift position along an east-west axis (20-30 degrees and a few meters across game weeks/months and many unload/reload cycles), which I've always assumed was a KSP bug possibly related to accumulation of tiny state-vector errors during the aforesaid unload/reload cycles.  I 'fixed' the problem by recording its state vector immediately after landing, and every now and again I'd edit the persistent file to put it back where it started.

With the Unity update that borked wheels/gear (KSP 1.3, IIRC?), this sped up.  Still slow, still fixable by periodic persistent file editing, but now if I focused in on the landing gear and just watched it for a while, I could SEE it drifting--to the east, usually; sometime to the west.  Never north/south.  Sometimes UPhill, oddly enough.  But it was still slow enough that it didn't materially affect a single session.

Now, my 1.8 career game has progressed to the point where I've got "collect ore and deliver to Kerbin" contracts.  And while checking the newest rebuild for part clearances on the Launch Pad, I could WATCH the dang thing rotate in place over a span of a couple minutes.  This thing is powered by Gigantor solar arrays oriented north-south to catch maximum sunlight, so I really don't want it rotating 90 degrees or more during a single gaming session.

I know there was a Unity update for 1.8, and the last time KSP went to a new Unity version wheels and landing gear got borked.  Did that happen again this time?  Have other folks noticed anything similar?  Or is it just me?  Also, how do I share .craft files, in case anyone else wants to troubleshoot it themselves?

Edited November 30, 2019 by Srpadget
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[bewing]

The problem is generally microbouncing. The gear sink a little way into the ground and then are forced back upwards with excessive force. This means that the entire craft tends to "float" a fraction of a centimeter above the ground for a few percent of each second -- while all the gear is in the air. Obviously this means that there is no friction during that period, which allows rotation and movement. Unbalanced forces can even cause uphill microbouncing. It was supposed to have been improved in 1.8, but I haven't tested it out again -- I haven't bothered used landing legs/wheels for spacecraft since 1.0.5.

[Fierce Wolf]

The worst offenders are spring and damper force of wheels and legs, too much of it and they will start dancing on the surface. If you are lucky, you can physics time warp x4 to summon The Kraken!

[pmborg]

On 11/30/2019 at 9:08 PM, Srpadget said:

I have a "standardized" ISRU base which I've been using since KSP 1.0.5 or thereabouts, and recreated from scratch every few KSP releases to keep it current with part updates or make little incremental improvements (I generally start a new save with each release that has new features I'd like to play the early game with).  It's always had an inexplicable tendency to slooooowly rotate in place and drift position along an east-west axis (20-30 degrees and a few meters across game weeks/months and many unload/reload cycles), which I've always assumed was a KSP bug possibly related to accumulation of tiny state-vector errors during the aforesaid unload/reload cycles.  I 'fixed' the problem by recording its state vector immediately after landing, and every now and again I'd edit the persistent file to put it back where it started.

With the Unity update that borked wheels/gear (KSP 1.3, IIRC?), this sped up.  Still slow, still fixable by periodic persistent file editing, but now if I focused in on the landing gear and just watched it for a while, I could SEE it drifting--to the east, usually; sometime to the west.  Never north/south.  Sometimes UPhill, oddly enough.  But it was still slow enough that it didn't materially affect a single session.

Now, my 1.8 career game has progressed to the point where I've got "collect ore and deliver to Kerbin" contracts.  And while checking the newest rebuild for part clearances on the Launch Pad, I could WATCH the dang thing rotate in place over a span of a couple minutes.  This thing is powered by Gigantor solar arrays oriented north-south to catch maximum sunlight, so I really don't want it rotating 90 degrees or more during a single gaming session.

I know there was a Unity update for 1.8, and the last time KSP went to a new Unity version wheels and landing gear got borked.  Did that happen again this time?  Have other folks noticed anything similar?  Or is it just me?  Also, how do I share .craft files, in case anyone else wants to troubleshoot it themselves?

Actually I agree with you this is nightmare!

Airplane slips in runway even, with engines off, parking break, and if over wheeled (just to test), the best I can do is 1 or 2 mm/s in horizontal speed, they never really get zero! this is really annoying me also!

@Just Jim

can you please also comment on this?

Edited December 21, 2019 by pmborg

[pmborg]

@Shadowmage you also had problems like this in 2017 do have this fixed in your current setup?

 

[VoidSquid]

This mod here

has helped me a lot with said bouncing when changing a scene or loading.

[pmborg]

Hello @VoidSquid thanks for your reply.

Actually I found finally a way to solve this, inspired on "ScoutLanderMk2" got the problem solved to my spaceship:

 

Using these legs: MiningExpansion\Parts\HeavyLandingLeg\part.cfg

Updated them adding this:

    MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleWeightDistributor
    }

    MODULE
    {
        name = USI_InertialDampener
    }

And the result is perfect! The parking/sliding problem of the spaceship is finally solved!

With this settings then is just a question of attache them to ground, one click

 

Edited December 22, 2019 by pmborg

[VoidSquid]

Very cool solution, I like it!