How To Make A Plane That Transforms Into A Car, A Helicopter, A Boat, A Rocket, A Truck, A Rover, A Space Station, A Space Shuttle, A 2011 Volkswagen Bettle, A Police Car And A Submarine Using Breaking Ground Expansion In KSP?

[Bernado]

Dear Kerbonauts

According To My Calculations: I Don’t Know How To Make A Plane That Transforms Into A Car, A Helicopter, A Boat, A Rocket, A Truck, A Rover, A Space Station, A Space Shuttle, A 2011 Volkswagen Bettle, A Police Car And A Submarine Using Breaking Ground Expansion In KSP.

So The Parts Keeps Wobbling When I Build it, I Tried Coding With Visual Studio Code And The Plane Doesn’t Appear.

- Bernardo

Spoiler

I’m New And I Don’t Know How To Build.

 

[Vanamonde]

That is a lot to put into one design. Maybe build those capabilities separate as practice first before trying to combine them? 

[Lisias]

4 hours ago, Bernado said:

So The Parts Keeps Wobbling When I Build it, I Tried Coding With Visual Studio Code And The Plane Doesn’t Appear.

The Robotic parts have a thingy called dumping. Try to reduce it to 0% and to 100% and see what happens.

They also have limits on the weight they can handle before breaking, you may want to activate some cheats, as Unbreakable Joints.

You can also try your luck installing Kerbal Joint Reinforcement /Next - last time I toyed with it, it had recently implemented support for the Robotic Parts.

[Bernado]

12 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

That is a lot to put into one design. Maybe build those capabilities separate as practice first before trying to combine them? 

 

So you mean i can use subassemblies? Okay Vanamonde. Thank You. I Will Tell You If It Doesn’t Work Or It Works Correctly.

[James Kerman]

In KSP spaceplanes make great submarines. Put powered wheels on it and you'd have plane/car/boat/rocket/truck/rover/space station/shuttle and some lights would turn it into a police vehicle as well. You just need to make it into a helicopter and beetle and you win.

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, James Kerman said:

In KSP spaceplanes make great submarines.

Unavoidable, obligatory (and honorable) mention:

 

[Linkageless]

On 1/5/2025 at 12:00 AM, Lisias said:

You can also try your luck installing Kerbal Joint Reinforcement /Next - last time I toyed with it, it had recently implemented support for the Robotic Parts.

I use KJR Continued, but as well as that I am in the habit of using Advanced Tweakables in settings, then enabling AutoStrut to Grandparent and often Rigid Attachment.  Use of these has been the subject of some debate in the past - some will say Rigid Attach is bad, some will say AutoStrut to Heaviest Part is better/dangerous.

In practice I think it's best to consider their use on a part by part basis, and with Breaking Ground robotics AutoStrut across those parts always used to be a hinderance, requiring you to disable and enable it again if you wanted the part to actually move.  I recall that Locking a BG part now allows the AutoStrut to work, and Unlocking temporarily disables the AutoStrut, allowing required movement but also unwanted movements.  Often if there's constant movement, getting the thing to lock again is a problem.

BG robotics and need for strength/stiffness don't really go together.   I'm sure someone will come up with some examples, but for example I've never seen a BG robotics swing or folding wing aircraft that doesn't wobble or deform all over the place when put under any stress, unless you combine it with some tricks like docking ports and other ideas similar to the old 'stock hinge' designs.

There are parts in the game that incorporate movement in a way more robust way, acting as a single moving unit rather than two components loosely coupled together.  I use those by preference when I can.

 

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, Linkageless said:

I use KJR Continued, but as well as that I am in the habit of using Advanced Tweakables in settings, then enabling AutoStrut to Grandparent and often Rigid Attachment. 

I remember this... humm.... divergence of opinions about /Next and Continued, and as someone that had looked closely the code for both, I can tell you that at least at that time, you would be hugely better served by using /Next.

Hugely optimized, and handling special use cases for both Breaking Ground as well Infernal Robotics /Next - talking about Infernal, it can be a better choice for what OP is willing to do, by the way!! I don't remember where are the posts, but I found my videos on the subject. There was also a recent discussion about this subject here on Forum:

 

1 hour ago, Linkageless said:

Use of these has been the subject of some debate in the past - some will say Rigid Attach is bad, some will say AutoStrut to Heaviest Part is better/dangerous.

Rigid will make your craft break more because the extra tension that happens when you start and stop moving things - specially if you activate same vessel interaction.

AutoStrut to Heaviest is dangerous all the time, not only to BG Robotics. Usually the Heaviest Part of the craft at a given moment is a Fuel Tank, and as you consume fuel, something else became the Heaviest Part, and when this happens the physics engine runs to recalculate things and by then, you will have huge wobbling in your craft that as propagate (and resonate with other parts' wobbling), will end up overwhelming some joint and from that point, things get very entertaining.

 

1 hour ago, Linkageless said:

There are parts in the game that incorporate movement in a way more robust way, acting as a single moving unit rather than two components loosely coupled together.  I use those by preference when I can.

And there's also Dock Rotate (this one was (ab)used to create some "robotical" contraptions).

 

[Linkageless]

58 minutes ago, Lisias said:

I can tell you that at least at that time, you would be hugely better served by using /Next.

Thanks, that's good to know.  I did minimal research and think at the time of my choice KJR /Next was relatively new and unproven.  I will try that next time I do something with BG robotics.

58 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Rigid will make your craft break more because the extra tension that happens when you start and stop moving things

Yes, exactly why it gets labelled 'bad'.  It's not bad but certainly seems something to use with caution, only where it is needed.  I mostly use it on spaceplane bodies and wings, to avoid flex affecting performance.  I recall doing some testing and it seemed to help.

58 minutes ago, Lisias said:

AutoStrut to Heaviest is dangerous all the time

Definitely.  We want to avoid structures that rely on autostrut having them flipping about when things change.  I've only ever used Heaviest part in specific circumstances and it's frustrating to have to always click past it.   While I think about it, I recall there's a mod, FullAutoStrut that does more or less what I would want, using Autostrut: Grandparent, but I'd not got round to installing it.  Of course, autostrut might not be needed at all if KJR /Next does such a good job.

 

58 minutes ago, Lisias said:

And there's also Dock Rotate (this one was (ab)used to create some "robotical" contraptions).

I've not tried that, but I can say the stock docking rotation sucks as badly as BG parts for such purposes!

 

Edited Monday at 09:54 PM by Linkageless

[Bernado]

On 1/4/2025 at 9:00 PM, Lisias said:

You can also try your luck installing Kerbal Joint Reinforcement /Next - last time I toyed with it, it had recently implemented support for the Robotic Parts.

Sorry But How To Use Kerbal Joint Reinforcement Continued? I’m Curious To Know.

[Lisias]

6 hours ago, Bernado said:

Sorry But How To Use Kerbal Joint Reinforcement Continued? I’m Curious To Know.

Just install it, and the thing scramble to reinforce the joints it finds.

It's where /Next does a better job, IMHO, as the new algorithm avoids redoing the joints all the time, but only when the craft changes - it really improves performance.