Question about wheels and traction?

[Tassyr]

Where is traction defined, and how do I edit it on wheel parts? I'm just fed up with wheels that slide across the mun like they're greased. XD

[bigdad84]

I think it's just a bit ridiculous that they slide across the mun like a car on ice... It's not like that IRL. If you happen to figure it out, I would love to know

[Tassyr]

I THINK it's stored in this stuff- gut feeling. But I've no idea what I'm doing. >.<

torqueCurve

{

key = 0 170 0 0

key = 2.5 100 0 0

key = 12 0 0 0

}

Gonna tinker and see if I can make it more 'dune buggy' than 'icecapades.'

Edited July 25, 2013 by Tassyr

[Greys]

I can't say they're perfect, but the stock wheels actually behave a lot like you would expect them to, the main reason people believe otherwise is that we're never trained to think in meters per second and there's so stuff around to give scale to your speed.

10 meters per second is roughly 22mph, 36kmph

Generally speaking when you turn 90 degrees in a car from one road to another you do so at 10mph because if you went much faster on flat ground your car would lose traction and spin out of control.

The stock rover wheels can generally speaking easily go 20m/s on Kerbin with a 1-3 ton rover, that's almost 45mph, 72kmph. There is a wide banking turn near my house with a radius of I wanna guess 50 meters, even with the bank it's difficult to go around this curve at 40mph safely.

Consider additionally, there are only two paved roads on Kerbin, the rest of the time you are driving on grass and dirt and regolith, meaning you will have substantially less traction in nearly all cases than when driving a car, especially on the mun where you're driving on the loose dust of meteors that have destroyed themselves by crashing at high speed into a small planetoid in low gravity with nothing to compact the wreckage.

Ps. the torque curve relates to acceleration, it is the torque of the wheel, a measure of force, the higher the torque is the faster your wheel will accelerate the vehicle it's attached to.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Greys

[Tassyr]

While those are mostly good points, the icecapades stuff I'm referring to mostly are things like hitting the brake button and sliding a full kilometer after only going 12 m/s, for example- or turning and hitting the accelerator- and somehow turning to the left, say, when the wheels are angled for a right hand turn. That sort of thing.

[TouhouTorpedo]

Stockwheels I don't believe there is any ability to tweak performance on other worlds. the only mods that ever did were CleverBobCat which I'm not sure if this has been updated in a long time, or mine - Modular Multiwheels. You can edit the gravity compensation by fiddling with the multiwheels config XML file in plugindata (but this is on by default with a reasonable value, you shouldn't need to). CleverBobCat just pushes a force down on low gravity worlds, Modular Wheels changes the grip. A big difference in how this behaves is that modular wheels still feel low grav, just not low grip. So its really easy to roll over on the Mun if you aren't careful.

then again if you only want stock wheels to behave this way and not a replacement - can't say I can help you there.

well... I could perhaps make a mod that fiddles stock wheel performance now I think about it. Never something that crossed my mind.

[Greys]

While those are mostly good points, the icecapades stuff I'm referring to mostly are things like hitting the brake button and sliding a full kilometer after only going 12 m/s, for example- or turning and hitting the accelerator- and somehow turning to the left, say, when the wheels are angled for a right hand turn. That sort of thing.

I'm certain this behavior is not intentional, but to a certain degree it is realistic, I'd like to refer you to these videos

Dirt track drifting, watch the wheels

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0wWnrmaLks

Antilock brakes demonstration, note how much further he goes when he just slams the brakes

Weird counterintuitive things happen when you have a wheeled vehicle and you break the traction between it's wheels and the surface, and if you hold down the brake key or turn sharply that's exactly what you're doing. I think you'll find that if you pulse the brakes, you end up stopped much faster and retain a greater degree of control while stopping; As well, if you get an analog control device to drive your rovers, being able to make slight turns instead of 100% turns also gives a huge boon to responsiveness, control, and stability.

TouhouTorpedo, perhaps you could make an antilock brakes mod?

Personally I'd also love to have an analog braking mod so I can bind brake pressure to something on my gamepad.

[KhaosCorp]

Generally speaking when you turn 90 degrees in a car from one road to another you do so at 10mph because if you went much faster on flat ground your car would lose traction and spin out of control.

.

This kinda sounds like you need a better car Greys =P

I can do 90deg turn on a residential road goin 40+mph in my car.

But I agree, the stock wheels are rubbish on several counts. Easy fix: use TT wheels!

Also Id like to point something out....

I do a bit of racing when I can afford it. The dirt track vid is NOT a good example.....for that is NOT a loss of traction. Rather the driver is 'breaking loose' certain wheels in order to increase the weight applyed (and therefore the traction) of other tires. This is not just done with driving, as those cars use radical susppension set ups to help achive those controled slides. Caster and camber of those tires are WAY off what a from factory car has.

Edited July 25, 2013 by KhaosCorp