Caterpillar Tracks- NOW OPEN SOURCE, ALL FILES OPEN TO PUBLIC

[electronicfox]

Yay! You bring life to KSP! Nice mod!

Wow, just look at all that SCIENCE!

[JonoRig]

just a question; is there a way/setting that lets them turn like real treads? love them either way, such an important part for rovers, and the go so nicely with the rollkage and LLL parts too

[Astronomer]

Nihuya cebe! ZAEBIS!

This is just GREAT, thanks!

[electronicfox]

just a question; is there a way/setting that lets them turn like real treads? love them either way, such an important part for rovers, and the go so nicely with the rollkage and LLL parts too

You mean like turning on the spot? By default they should do this just fine.

[Gryphorim]

I know this is a bit off topic, but anarkhon, what is that dish?

[KhaosCorp]

I know this is a bit off topic, but anarkhon, what is that dish?

looks like a Remote Tech relay dish, but I could be wrong

[Tommygun]

I know this is a bit off topic, but anarkhon, what is that dish?

It's from RemoteTech

[Pyromaniacal]

Hokay. This is odd. I cannot get these tracks to work. The staging says to hit G in order to actuate the motors, and I have done so, and nothing. Brakes are not engaged. I have tried with all tracks. None of them move/turn for me. What am I doing wrong/ how can I correct this?

EDIT: The Mk. 5s do work, but the drive wheels inside the tracks rotate against the tracks.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Pyromaniacal

[frizzank]

Awesome work, cant wait for more...

[MR4Y]

I tested those and did a rover, along with the RollKage. Liking them so far.

[EndlessWaves]

Hokay. This is odd. I cannot get these tracks to work. The staging says to hit G in order to actuate the motors, and I have done so, and nothing.

I followed the behaviour of the landing gear and rover wheels and had them start enabled, it sounds like you're expecting them to start disabled like a rocket or jet engine. By pressing the motor toggle key on launch you're disabling the motors which is why they're not responding.

[MR4Y]

I had only one issue till now. I loaded a rover made with the Mark 6 threads and made a bigger vehcile around it that held it by a dock. I tested releasing the rover, with a kerbal driving it. It all worked great, except that the threads wouldn't turn no matter how long I pressed 'A' or 'D'.

[Largg]

Very nice mod, liking it a lot. However I am getting some irrational behavior depending the orientation of the ship. If the tracks are somehow misaligned in the construction they will not work at all no matter changing the control point of the ship.

Here's a screen demonstrating the problem:

The tracks are misaligned to the original cockpit and will obviously not work. However if i change control to the probe core they still remain nonworking. I tried fiddling with mode and cruise control but with no avail. I know this is avoidable with proper construction but it can lead to nasty surprises. I designed and build a tracked rover testing it on Kerbin before sending it to Mun. Attaching it on top the rocket caused the bug to happen and it didn't work on Mun anymore like it did on Kerbin.

[Weatherman159]

Yeah, the treads do seem to stop working after being undocked (in some cases). My heavy Kethane mining rig uses four sets of two Mark Four tracks as drive units. These could potentially be decoupled and driven separately, but they don't respond to any kind of controls when decoupled.

Edit: Added an image to demonstrate.

Edited June 12, 2013 by Weatherman159

[warmadmax]

Don't know if this known.

if you enable cruise control and run out of electrical charge, the tracks accelerate greatly.

i was using 3 sets of MK3 track on two large kspx fuel tanks, a large probe core and 10 RTG's,

launched from the SPH, i reversed off got up to 5m/s and turned on cruise.

with the right click menu open, i could keep an eye on what it was doing,

rpm went up constantly, torque remained at 0 and cruise said "5.0 m/s"

when coasting i recharged, when i hit cruise control via action key, the tracks drained the core's power (as you'd expect) then started accelerating.

hit 40m/s easy and was still going.

managed to get it to disintergrate at 52 m/s

dropbox images

[electronicfox]

Thats a mighty fine bug you got there, Thats one that needs some further investigation.

Im going to try re-creating both the bugs youve mentioned (right after my PC finishes baking some delicious AO maps).

[Weatherman159]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2b3j7okv49k5y12/Trawler%20Prototype%201.craft

Made you a simplified vehicle using only your mod, in case it helps.

[EndlessWaves]

The orientation bug is an old problem that's been through several revisions. Changing reference transforms isn't something I'd accounted for though. You should have steering, if you've got no control at all then that's not what I think it is and a craft file would be handy. Try this and see if it fixes it:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=384BA28C8578E539!167&authkey=!ANyeZiLi8juoU5Y

The current cruise control implementation is pretty rubbish so I wouldn't be surprised if it had major bugs, I did a quick test with those tracks and it didn't accelerate when it ran out of fuel for me though. It's not capped at the moment, and badly tuned so it may be just the overshoot - how long was it accelerating for?

Edited June 12, 2013 by EndlessWaves

[Weatherman159]

Tried the fix, no effect. Absolutely no control on the detached drive unit.

[warmadmax]

it was accelerating constantly while cruise was active.

think i turned the cruise on and off a few times before it did it with action key 2

Also hit action key 3 (reverse gear) but didn't notice anything change?

could be interaction with other mods installed, i'll do my best to help.

[Weatherman159]

Couldn't the 'forward' direction somehow be determined from the track itself? Maybe as an option? What I'm trying to do here is this:

The drive units are set on DR Rotatrons. It's working with limited success now, I can drive it at a slant of about 45° to either side, if I turn them more, the power cuts out. Ultimately, what I'd like to do is turn the forward sets left, the aft sets right, press the key for forward, and the whole thing should rotate on the spot. It was supposed to be a workaround for the tracks fighting each other when turning normally, but, well... didn't work out so well.

[Pyromaniacal]

I found the problem. It was starting in General mode as opposed to rover. I was using WSAD instead of the throttle. These things are sick!!

[EndlessWaves]

it was accelerating constantly while cruise was active.

Yes, but for how long? 5 seconds? 30 seconds? 5 minutes? The response is somewhat slow at the moment and it can stay above the targeted speed for a while (at a decreasing rate of acceleration). That'll be fixed as it gets tuned better but if it kept accelerating for dozens of seconds it sounds like a bigger issue.

Also hit action key 3 (reverse gear) but didn't notice anything change?

It only works in general mode where the motor is throttle controlled (rover mode and manual mode have dedicated reverse keys) and it won't apply the brakes automatically so if you're already going at some pace it'll take a while to slow down.

Couldn't the 'forward' direction somehow be determined from the track itself? Maybe as an option? What I'm trying to do here is this

That is how they function, the command pod is only used as a tie break if the combined forward vector of the tracks adds up to a vector of less than 0.1 length. Unfortunately the game's default symmetry tends to put equal number of tracks facing in opposite directions so that case comes up far more often then it should.

[Pyromaniacal]

Half trak made with the Freelancer "Ute", complements of Devogen! (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/24677-%280-20-x%29-Wayland-Corp-Development-and-released-download-Thread)

I love the grip on these things!

[Weatherman159]

That is how they function, the command pod is only used as a tie break if the combined forward vector of the tracks adds up to a vector of less than 0.1 length. Unfortunately the game's default symmetry tends to put equal number of tracks facing in opposite directions so that case comes up far more often then it should.

So if I place them manually without using symmetry, my idea should work...?