How does the game consider the direction of wheel?

[SaturnV]

First you need to know, the direction of the vehicle is determined by the control module

For instance, the OKTO2, the direction with white text OKTO2 is the UP side. The rest is shown on the image above.

If you put a OKTO2 on a rover horizontally, push 'pitch up' button (my key mapping may be different from yours), all four wheel move forward (green arrow)

If you put wheels like the right one, push 'pitch up' will lead him to right, I don't know why.

Another test:

Let's do a simple rover

Put to ground and try to move left, wheels on the front act different from those on the another end, but you can see it's a moving-left shape.

Let's rotate wheels a little, shift+rotate 8 times, it's 40 degrees (lesser than 45)

OK, still good.

What about 2 more rotate, then it's 50 degrees (greater than 45)

Weird thing happened, what's more, your wheels try to move to opposite side.

Edited September 6, 2013 by SaturnV

[Johnno]

What's so hard to understand about changing the frame of reference (ie the facing of the probecore) 90° means your controls are turned 90° so that forward becomes right?

Again, the "weird" thing when you tilt past 45° is that you've changed the frame of reference.

How exactly did you expect the wheels to behave? If you don't "know" why they behave the way they did, yet say it's weird, I'd really like to know what you expected, rather than could figure out from testing.

[shand]

I beleive - i could be wrong - the frame of reference for the wheels is always the wheel itself. in your final screen shot the wheels are still turning "left", but due to the angle they have with the ground they are having the wrong effect.

Is that helpful?

the probe body itself is only FoR for rotation/translation.

[SaturnV]

Can you explain more about the 'frame of reference'?

[Kimberly]

"Left" means left relative to the probe core. That may not coincide with what your silly human brain imagined as the "left" of your rover, and frequently does not match left relative to the camera.

[SaturnV]

READ the post. You even didn't watch the first image? I feel sorry for you eyesight

[TheHengeProphet]

When the pod is layed flat, as displayed, I have not figured out how it determines which way is forward, especially since I have a set of "pancake" rovers which would go in "reverse" when pressing "forward" and visa versa, seemingly on a whim. As for the direction of turning, I gather it is determined by a combination of pod orientation and center of mass.

[Dispatcher]

A better implementation might be obtained by starting in the SPH (or start in the VAB with the expectation of rotating parts as you will). Whatever,the result may be the same. With the RGU at the "front" of the rover, instead of on the "top" of the rover, I think more predictable driving results will be had. Of course, you were experimenting with the "on top" implementation, so my comment may not be useful to you.

Happy KSP-ing!

[Tank Buddy]

I keep my probes in the orientation they first appear in, and I have my rover throttle and steering binded to the arrow keys. This is so I can use torque simultaneously, or rather not use torque when driving.

[xub313]

OP's probe core is in the correct orientation, the problem is that when the wheel is placed at an angle >45 degrees, the wheels are more horizontal than vertical, so they turn as if the craft was vertical rather than horizontal.