Simple Railway mod in development. Kerbtown based.

[Sapphire]

I heard you like wheels so we put wheels on your wheels?

[Smoovious]

Well, my thought for track occupancy is having some automated traffic running... that's where not knowing how versatile the possible scripting was, came in. Also, if the efforts to have some form of multi-player available, has some significant success, you could have several cars running on the track bound for different places. Will have to see about how that project turns out.

The axis-rotating points should work fine, as long as unbalanced weight isn't an issue. It would solve the space-at-a-premium issue where you need several parallel tracks.

As for having a full yard, yes, space on undeveloped land is plentiful, but every single piece you use will have to be transported... so resource efficiency is a concern with which way you go. In this case, how many trips, and how much fuel, will be needed, that is where the cost comes in.

[nothke]

As I mentioned in the edit to my last post, I came up with a better idea for points. This is my current plan:

A lot more compact.

The 'h' shape means it will be easy to swap for a regular straight piece (I'm hoping to make it the same length as one of them), and means setting up yards will be more convenient.

Haha, this rolling concept is really cool. I'd go with it. Now I understood why you are making these slanted cuts, you actually want the whole system to be modular like legos. I think the cross section is good, but I am skeptical about using so many wheels. I'd rather try to let other people make bogies out of stock parts, that way we might see revolutionary/evolving designs we don't even think of right now.

I'll try making a long, curvy and elevating test track with those dimensions when I come home. (I already have the track path, I just need to insert a new cross section)

Do you know how exactly to make the animation run on click like it does in the silo mod?

[Tw1]

Haha, this rolling concept is really cool. I'd go with it. Now I understood why you are making these slanted cuts, you actually want the whole system to be modular like legos. I think the cross section is good, but I am skeptical about using so many wheels.

Yep! Or rather, it could be compared to things like this:

Using all those wheels does make things tricky: My last attempt to get it to work was basically an attempt to replicate the wheel hierarchy 12 times over in unity, for each wheel. Still not quite sure where to put some things. But, I think having a part available simplifies using it. Plus, it doesn't break apart, which tends to be a plus IMHO...

My own tests with the bogie in unity showed that it could cope with turns and rises of at least 3 degrees, but I couldn't to anything to test speed, or how well loads stay on.

(I took a leaf out of Hooligan Labs's book, and made a big logo. I like it, it's old-fashioned-railwayish, and not that intrusive.)

Do you know how exactly to make the animation run on click like it does in the silo mod?

Nope. Everything I've done so far has been new to me. Any advice will be very useful.

As for having a full yard, yes, space on undeveloped land is plentiful, but every single piece you use will have to be transported... so resource efficiency is a concern with which way you go. In this case, how many trips, and how much fuel, will be needed, that is where the cost comes in.

True, if they were to be launched from Kerbin, but kerbtown objects are generated on site. Though, the long term idea does currently include needing something to dig the dirt, and collect some resource before you can place segments. Basically, concrete fabrication from in-situ resources. But it won't be terribly onerous.

Multi player and trains could be interesting. Especially at Kerbin City..

"Damn, someone blocking my path out from this platform.. Hey! I'm already in this one!"

Edited October 7, 2013 by Tw1

[rewdew2]

So hey, i noticed this thread a while ago, and i just remembered that back in like 0.16 i made a train car model.

So... Yeah.

Here's some pics.

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[Nephf]

Will that work on every planet?

[Tw1]

The wheels! They spin! And they move it about!

*insert cheerful mad scientist laugh here!*

At first, things were a little crazy:

But it was just a matter of modifying the rotation axis in the Part file.

It still didn't travel very stable, tending to drift and turn, but that may just be because the front wheels weren't working. They have slightly different unity names, as I'm going to use a separate "WHEEL" module to control them. Only they need to respond to the steering controls, all the others will stay still.

Also, they are only going to be able to turn at low-ish speed, with not the greatest turn circle. This is a train bogie, not a superpowered rover.

But, the last piece of the puzzle, the last bit that could completely derail the making of the mod, is now shown to work. It's just tweaking from here.

Now I know it will work, I've got some uni stuff to spend time on.

Then, once I've re-reviewed Nothke's earlier experiments, I'll put to gether a few track objects, and we'll have a test release.

Soon^TM

Will that work on every planet?

Yep! Some will be harder to to set up routes on, but it will work.

So hey, i noticed this thread a while ago, and i just remembered that back in like 0.16 i made a train car model.

So... Yeah.

-snip-

That's pretty cool. Held together by Damned Robotics, I take it?

My post count is up to this year! Looks like the end of it being interesting dates.

Edited October 9, 2013 by Tw1

[Tw1]

I was playing around with it, and was getting pretty annoyed at how only one of the wheels seemed to work. So I found a way to fix it-

I named each wheel individually, and gave each a separate module if the CFG.

But there is still some way before the railway works...

Unfortunately, using so many wheels in the one part means you can't see the clever little description I wrote.

(stats still placeholder)

So if there's no way around that, I expect everyone to read it in the CFG when this is released.

But careful with the wheelmodules, they break really easily.

Adding connection nodes brakes the game, somehow. Not sure why... which seems to be par for the course here.

[rewdew2]

Here, let me bump this thread up, it's too awesome to be forgotten.

[Tw1]

Kerbal Railway news time!

â†ÂImagine he's wearing one of those conductor hats.

So far, it passes over the track mostly ok, but can't take much of a bump. I may need to change the track a fraction, which will make things harder should someone else want to build a building or something using this system. When reloaded on a track, it jumps around a little in a manor that suggests parts clipping. Hopefully a lot can be done with wheel tweaks and suspension adjustments, rather than track alteration.

That's what I did tonight, as well as adjusting the brakes, and wheel torque. It's now pretty usable, and attached parts are flying off slightly less.

Here is Jeb approaching 300km/h, and loving every second.

That battery above his head is quite important. ATM, it draws 18 units of power per second, but I may still up that a little.

Most trips outside the smooth area around KSC ended up like this:

The ground was very muddy here.

Which is fine, as long as it runs well on the track. The wheels are not placed to deal with bumps, this is a sturdy train frame not a rover. Not that that will stop a kerbal from trying.

I also had a go at mixing "space concrete". AKA, making the rail segment texture.

I plan to use a colour trick, mixing the major colours from the Kerbol system bodies in such a way that when you look at it, it the colours that match the planet you're on seem dominant. However, it's not working yet.

Not quite what I want.

ATM, it looks more like I made concrete and mixed in these:

Something wrong with the way the texture is fitting on the track. I'll fix that eventually.

Edited October 14, 2013 by Tw1

[Smoovious]

Looks like that texture is being stretched over the whole length of the plane, instead of being tiled.

-- Smoov

[Tw1]

Today, I was thinking about how track building is going to work. It's something I'd like to hear you guys's thoughts about.

For some time now, the plan has been to string parts together via kerbtown. I made a suggestion over on that thread, asking if they could add a feature so an object could take position and rotation data from a specially named GameObject in another object.

Basically, snapping them together, like so:

This would allow seamless connections between segments and fast creation of long railways. But what if you want to connect two separate rail lines? What If you want to join on to the rail lines of Kerbin City, or another thing that pops up using rail lines?

Using the above system, you can only grow out from the point you started. You'd have to completely replace a line if you want to connect it to another. You could try and get the lines to match up manually, (I thought a lot about ways to do this) but there is always a good chance they won't meet right.

You'd need super precision to get both lines exact. Kerbtown isn't that precise. And so far, hasen't taken that much of a jolt to disturb the train.

One way to link two segments smoothly, would be with a system based KAS's pipes, to procedurally generate the final link.

However, KAS does some odd trick to generate its pipes. I have no idea if it would be possible to generate track this way, with colliders, and the right cross section.

If it could happen, the procedural track would play a very useful role alongside a few non-procedural pieces. But I'd need some idea how to get it to work first.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Tw1

[Tw1]

Continuing from the above post-

Another way to make joining up separate rail lines practical, which I thought of this morning, would be through further improvements to Kerbtown.

If Kerbtown was given the ability to rotate an object towards one of the specially named gameobjects (I called them "snapping points" here), then aligning two pieces of track would be simple.

You'd have to get the alignment close first. There would be parts designed to swivel in a way so that allows them to be used for tiny course adjustments. Then, the trick would be setting up two parts like this:

The problem is vertical and horizontal alignment cause gaps and bumps in different ways. Because of this, is possible that two types of link/fine adjustment track would be needed.

The elimination of bumps and gaps is where procedural tracks shine.

So these are the issues around track assembly and connection.

Any thoughts about this? With just the snapping ability, basic construction is fine, but when it comes to more complex connections, it could be pretty cumbersome.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Tw1

[Smoovious]

I wouldn't even attempt to join 2 straight segments together like that... would have to use either a prefab curved piece, or a piece you could set start/end angle and radius on.

As for switches, getting them lined up to a pre-fab switch assembly wouldn't be difficult. Each end would have to be configured to orient the attachment point, which is (should be) straightforward.

The curved pieces would look like several small straight segments attached to each other, just for rendering purposes. Drawing a circle with 32 straight lines is faster than computing all the points of the circle, but as far as the code is concerned for collisions, it would still calculate as round, ignoring those slight corners.

-- Smoov

[Tw1]

I talked with Kospy about creating KAS pipe like track, but doing it will meshes is a little different to using a cylinder primitive, which is what KAS does. Possible, but tricky, so I don't think I'll try that. Instead, I'm trying something else.

The problem was bumps in the track:

Hopefully, a tapered end on the track will let wheels roll over the connection smoothly. The taper with is about the same as the bogie suspension, or at least, it will be soon enough.

This should do for connections, until better options are available from the kerbtown plugin.

I also made a curve part, bit by bit in sketchup. There's got to be a better way, to make them, but I have yet to find it.

Something wrong with which parts stay visible at the moment, as can be seen in this photo.

Not sure why that one has the other wheels on, must've been for testing something else.

[KingMatthew]

This is going to be cool! One question though.

How are you going to increase the render distance for people to see your track from far away? (or from space?) I am working with kerbtown too and I need to increase the render distance so you can see my creation from far away. Do you know how?

[Tw1]

This is going to be cool! One question though.

How are you going to increase the render distance for people to see your track from far away? (or from space?) I am working with kerbtown too and I need to increase the render distance so you can see my creation from far away. Do you know how?

Down at the bottom, there should be a little spot where you can type a number to set the render distance.

[KingMatthew]

Down at the bottom, there should be a little spot where you can type a number to set the render distance.

I changed the number but nothing happens. is there a cap to the visibility or am i doing something wrong?

[Tw1]

I changed the number but nothing happens. is there a cap to the visibility or am i doing something wrong?

I'm pretty sure it only changes to the number you set after you save and reload. Or perhaps that part of Kerbtown is still broken.

Been trying it on straights.

My entrance piece works fine, but so far, going over about 230 Km/h (65ms^-1) usually causes problems.

I was talking to a friend about stuff, and this mod came up. Though I can't write one from scratch, he suggested there might be free code out there I could use to achieve things.

Nothing that useful was found, apart from a script that's supposed to reduce these track immersion events, but not sure if it's working.

Some bits seemed smoother.

I can go around a curve.

Only slowly so far. It doesn't help that the suspension on the inner wheels moves up and down ATM, rather than in and out. But I did solve the exploding on reload issue by moving the rigidbody- the bit that gives it physics- so it wouldn't be inside the track.

As Nothke got the multiwheels based thing up to much faster than this, I'm sure it's possible somehow. 'Just' got to solve those suspension and collision issues.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Tw1

[KingMatthew]

I'm pretty sure it only changes to the number you set after you save and reload. Or perhaps that part of Kerbtown is still broken.

Thanks! I will try that out.

Since you are having problems with collision, What if you make your tracks not completly solid? This may be a crazy idea (may not even be possable).What if when your train starts turning, instead of it pushing against the track, it "sinks" into the track. The train would start going into the track, however, the track will be pushing it back out. This would mean the track isnt completly solid, but almost solid. The farther you go into the track, the harder the track pushes your train.

I dont know if this is completely out of the realm of possablilities, but its just an idea.

[Tw1]

Thanks! I will try that out.

I dont know if this is completely out of the realm of possablilities, but its just an idea.

It would make sense, but Unity seems to handle collisions in an all or nothing kind of way. Though I was reading earlier on the Unity forum that you could put an extra collider underneath, to catch them when the first collider misses- and the train getting stuck into the track is a much bigger problem ATM.

I did PM another mod maker who may have a method of adding some sort of magnetic force along the track- that would help soften impacts and prevent sinking in.

He hasn't been here for a few days though.

[brobel]

had a little play with the tracks... they are quite fun cant wait for more progress .

[nothke]

I did PM another mod maker who may have a method of adding some sort of magnetic force along the track- that would help soften impacts and prevent sinking in.

He hasn't been here for a few days though.

I think you are complicating things. Adding new forces and wheels will reduce the collision precision. And adding more colliders, it seems to me more like problems than solutions. You need something more robust and functional. In my opinion, it just really matters that it works.

I don't know why you need 2 pairs of wheels on the bogey. It maybe looks more realistic, but computer physics are not, I think it's a waste. I don't know what plugin you are using for them, tank tracks??

I don't understand how does the train get stuck in the track? Can you make a video?

Edited October 30, 2013 by nothke

[Tw1]

I think you are complicating things. Adding new forces and wheels will reduce the collision precision. And adding more colliders, it seems to me more like problems than solutions. You need something more robust and functional. In my opinion, it just really matters that it works.

I don't know why you need 2 pairs of wheels on the bogey. It maybe looks more realistic, but computer physics are not, I think it's a waste. I don't know what plugin you are using for them, tank tracks??

I don't understand how does the train get stuck in the track? Can you make a video?

The idea was that you'd be able to use just the one bogie to make a train car, rather than needing multiple parts. I was also thinking it'd be better to have one rigid piece, reducing the chance it would be shaken apart, though I'm not so convinced that logic was good now.

I was wondering if having so many wheels on the one part could make collisions worse, with so many points of contact.

I am using the stock rover wheel system to power them.

Only got mobile internet, ATM, though I could post a video later I guess. Anyone know some good, free, screen videoing software?

Taking a break from working in this, as it's summer here, and I tend to spend less time mucking around on computers in summer.

But, I'll probably come back to it as ideas come.

[brobel]

lucky its just getting cold were i live... i miss summer and 100 degree weather