RollKage

[NoMrBond]

Thanks angusmcbeth, your teams mod is great fun to play with

I'm not sure I'd call that speed 'on the ground' as I shot straight off the end of the SPH runway and didn't touch the ground again until it skimmed into the ocean (I haven't managed more than ~150 on any 'grounded' test since)

This thing is great fun to drive, I wish I could make a video. You can control the traction on the back wheels using the ailerons which allows for some neat driving.

Downside, it weighs slightly over six tons and I get the feeling the suspension doesn't really enjoy it!

Edited June 24, 2013 by NoMrBond

[Robzilla]

I added some weak suspenatrons for sprung axles and the most fun I can have with wheels in KSP, just need some rougher ground to play on. Thanks

For something so seemingly simple looking I am having a hell of a time recreating that little thing myself. :/

That looks really slick.

[Darren9]

For something so seemingly simple looking I am having a hell of a time recreating that little thing myself. :/

I started with the rollcage, stuck the engines then a battery, then the suspesatron to the front, and a small cubic girder, then a battery, then the suspesatron to the back, then clipped in the other battery and probe core over the girder on the back.

Just one more vid I'm gonna past up. I dragged my kicker to the launch pad and landed a back-flip. Jeb was stoked.

[Djhcc26]

Have you thought about using the LFO engine base to make a LFO power generator? I took your part and turned it into a LFO burning power generator by messing with the cfg file and it works really well.

[angusmcbeth]

Have you thought about using the LFO engine base to make a LFO power generator? I took your part and turned it into a LFO burning power generator by messing with the cfg file and it works really well.

there are a few different ways we can go with the engine part, it depends on how some of the future parts we have planned end up.

Thanks for all the feedback, videos and screenshots guys!

[Robzilla]

I started with the rollcage, stuck the engines then a battery, then the suspesatron to the front, and a small cubic girder, then a battery, then the suspesatron to the back, then clipped in the other battery and probe core over the girder on the back.

It was the girder that was throwing me off then. good to know, I'm still trying to zero in on the joint value for the suspensatrons.

[NoMrBond]

The RollKrab

Intended for low gravity, fun at the KSC though

[Tommygun]

If Spiderman had a car that would be it.

[electronicfox]

Thanks angusmcbeth, your teams mod is great fun to play with

I'm not sure I'd call that speed 'on the ground' as I shot straight off the end of the SPH runway and didn't touch the ground again until it skimmed into the ocean (I haven't managed more than ~150 on any 'grounded' test since)

This thing is great fun to drive, I wish I could make a video. You can control the traction on the back wheels using the ailerons which allows for some neat driving.

Downside, it weighs slightly over six tons and I get the feeling the suspension doesn't really enjoy it!

I see your BatMobile and raise you, the KerbMobil.

Much heavier, much more robust, much deadlier (to the pilot).

[Greys]

Looking at that last picture, would it be possible have a wheel that's mounting point and suspension are inside the wheel? I can try to find a picture or make a sketch if this doesn't make sense.

[electronicfox]

Looking at that last picture, would it be possible have a wheel that's mounting point and suspension are inside the wheel? I can try to find a picture or make a sketch if this doesn't make sense.

I dont see why not, but some form of reference image or video would be handy.

[NoMrBond]

I see your BatMobile and raise you, the KerbMobil.

Much heavier, much more robust, much deadlier (to the pilot).

Race on the moon?

Lets go!

Yeah, I spent all evening doing that. New stuff tomorrow I think.

[Greys]

I dont see why not, but some form of reference image or video would be handy.

It would be a mechanism similar to a monowheel or monocycle ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monocycle ) wherein the drive system is contained within the wheel/tire structure

It would also resemble the Hailfire droid from Starwars ( http://www.champaignschools.org/central/business/johnson/3rdsp2010/dyang/hf.jpg )

But as a specific example:

The red circle would represent the wheel/tire assembly, the blue circles would be bearings and drive gears, the green lines structure, and the purple represents where it would attach to something on the vehicle.

The idea being that you could have a cross beam or general stick, and just attach the wheel on it, without it sticking out further.

You would probably want the green bars pointing inward towards that horizontal bar the purple is on to be suspension elements.

By my understanding of how wheels work the functional problem is that wheels have one direction in which they operate properly, in all other directions they do not behave as wheels, but I've seen it suggested that you might have multiple wheelTransforms to allow it to operate in more orientations; with the goal of course that no mater how it's oriented it rests on something valid.

They'd be real nice for lightweight craft, and things that need to be small, say to fit inside an aircraft cargo bay.

[Read have Read]

My new Favourite car. fast, stable and awesome.

And with 12 Engines, and 5000 Electric charge, Infinite Range. (unintentionally mind you, just that those batteries and engines are good weights)

[electronicfox]

It would be a mechanism similar to a monowheel or monocycle ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monocycle ) wherein the drive system is contained within the wheel/tire structure

It would also resemble the Hailfire droid from Starwars ( http://www.champaignschools.org/central/business/johnson/3rdsp2010/dyang/hf.jpg )

But as a specific example:

The red circle would represent the wheel/tire assembly, the blue circles would be bearings and drive gears, the green lines structure, and the purple represents where it would attach to something on the vehicle.

The idea being that you could have a cross beam or general stick, and just attach the wheel on it, without it sticking out further.

You would probably want the green bars pointing inward towards that horizontal bar the purple is on to be suspension elements.

By my understanding of how wheels work the functional problem is that wheels have one direction in which they operate properly, in all other directions they do not behave as wheels, but I've seen it suggested that you might have multiple wheelTransforms to allow it to operate in more orientations; with the goal of course that no mater how it's oriented it rests on something valid.

They'd be real nice for lightweight craft, and things that need to be small, say to fit inside an aircraft cargo bay.

This can be done, although you'll need to design your craft in slightly different ways to allow room for the wheel to steer without clipping (So far all my models have their attach points just outside that range).

For the wheelcollider issue, as I understand it (So far I've had Zitron, AngusMcbeth or EndlessWaves do the Unity parts of the mods for me so I may be wrong..Im more of a UDK man myself) you can only have a single wheel collider per game object, but Im not sure if it is limited to just one in the wheel as a whole (if not I could do some model trickery to get around the issue).

Edited June 25, 2013 by electronicfox

[Greys]

That's simply not true, my standard hexcan model has three colliders, but that's a different issue [Link]. KSP uses empty gameobjects pointing in a direction to determine where the wheel's contact surface, in most wheels that points down and directly down from the wheel hub is where all of the wheelular behavior comes from. If you were to rotate a wheel 90 degrees around it's axel, so the wheel is still logically oriented and visually should work, it just doesn't.

Edit:

Full throttle, 0m/s, they are really nice wheels but they just don't work when you turn them on their side.

Edited June 25, 2013 by Greys

[zitronen]

Right, KSP uses the default unity wheel colliders, which are simply raycasts to the ground, so they only work when the ray vector is pointing to the ground. I'm pretty sure only one wheel collider is allowed per wheel part with the default wheel module. But obviously you can have as many normal colliders as you want.

[electronicfox]

Right, KSP uses the default unity wheel colliders, which are simply raycasts to the ground, so they only work when the ray vector is pointing to the ground. I'm pretty sure only one wheel collider is allowed per wheel part with the default wheel module. But obviously you can have as many normal colliders as you want.

Bah, I meant a single wheel collider per object, not collider...excuse my flatulent brain.

[Greys]

I've had the concept of a mod that would either constantly or at specific points reoriented the wheel colliders to point "the correct direction", which is rather hard to quantify. Do note, I'm not a modder but this sounds very useful and should functionally be simple and limited, if fiddly.

The three behavioral options I can imagine are

1. Constantly/at certain points point the wheel colliders at the planet's core (should be simple but might faff up on not-flat terrain)

2. Constantly point the wheel colliders perpendicular to the nearest terrain polygon (probably a lot slower due to scanning)

3. At launch and certain other points point the wheel colliders to 90 degrees down from the prograde marker (would disallow dynamic wheel structures using DR/IR, and wouldn't help if the vehicle flipped, but should by far be the simplest)

1 and 2 wouldn't operate well in space, which is not normally a concern, but what kind of KSP player has fun being normal.

[electronicfox]

I've had the concept of a mod that would either constantly or at specific points reoriented the wheel colliders to point "the correct direction", which is rather hard to quantify. Do note, I'm not a modder but this sounds very useful and should functionally be simple and limited, if fiddly.

The three behavioral options I can imagine are

1. Constantly/at certain points point the wheel colliders at the planet's core (should be simple but might faff up on not-flat terrain)

2. Constantly point the wheel colliders perpendicular to the nearest terrain polygon (probably a lot slower due to scanning)

3. At launch and certain other points point the wheel colliders to 90 degrees down from the prograde marker (would disallow dynamic wheel structures using DR/IR, and wouldn't help if the vehicle flipped, but should by far be the simplest)

1 and 2 wouldn't operate well in space, which is not normally a concern, but what kind of KSP player has fun being normal.

I do have an idea of something that may work (this is working off very old memories of when I actually did use Unity so bear with me if its very wrong)

Use 8 linear raycasts to detect terrain within a certain distance (say, 0.25m from the wheel surface), if terrain is detected, select the raycast with the closest terrain collision and line up the wheelcollider with that raycast.

In my head this would be a viable solution, but as I said it was a long time since I did anything in Unity like this.

[g_audio]

Race on the moon?

--snip--

Lets go!

--snip--

Yeah, I spent all evening doing that. New stuff tomorrow I think.

I don't know what it is, but your pictures look beautiful. Are you forcing Ambient Occlusion or something?

edit: Im guessing SSAO isn't a possibiltiy in this game yet, though.

Edited June 25, 2013 by g_audio

[zitronen]

I've had the concept of a mod that would either constantly or at specific points reoriented the wheel colliders to point "the correct direction", which is rather hard to quantify. Do note, I'm not a modder but this sounds very useful and should functionally be simple and limited, if fiddly.

The three behavioral options I can imagine are

1. Constantly/at certain points point the wheel colliders at the planet's core (should be simple but might faff up on not-flat terrain)

2. Constantly point the wheel colliders perpendicular to the nearest terrain polygon (probably a lot slower due to scanning)

3. At launch and certain other points point the wheel colliders to 90 degrees down from the prograde marker (would disallow dynamic wheel structures using DR/IR, and wouldn't help if the vehicle flipped, but should by far be the simplest)

1 and 2 wouldn't operate well in space, which is not normally a concern, but what kind of KSP player has fun being normal.

This would be ok if you are only simulating a wheel. However, since in KSP suspension movement is tied to the wheel colliders this would not work for suspensions.

Unity does have the spherical raycasts which can be used to simulate a wheel much better, however, you would need to write your own friction physics and suspensions.

[Greys]

how's about we petition Squad to switch over, make everything better.

And this concludes your regularly scheduled derailment, the party train will now be continuing on to Awesomeville with stops in Badass and ****yea.

[zitronen]

how's about we petition Squad to switch over, make everything better.

I believe that is planned right after they implement multiplayer and aerodynamics.

[electronicfox]

I believe that is planned right after they implement multiplayer and aerodynamics.

Dont forget the life-size planets and N-body physics.