[1.0+] B.Dynamics - Retracting/vectoring engines etc. v1.2.0 (May 6)

[JeffreyCor]

I love the animated engines and RCS thrusters!

[Neutrinovore]

I love the animated engines and RCS thrusters!

Agreed.

Is there any possibility of getting an alternate texture (black) for the RCS ports? This way the parts I put on the bottom of my spaceplanes would blend in better.

This is a request only, not a demand. Very much in the 'nice to have' category, as opposed to 'need to have'.

Have great day, all!

[Virtualgenius]

Alternative textures for the fold out engines would be awesome as well black and white would be fantastic

[lajoswinkler]

This little guy is insanely good as a rover. I've managed to cover several kilometres without doing anything. It just senses the tilted terrain and it goes straight to the coast.

Unfortunatelly, he encountered some anomaly with Eve's terrain, and exploded, but until then, he was flipping his little feet like mad down the mountain.

[Alextron21]

Great mod! I was wondering if there's any way to add the stickyfeet function to the stock rover wheels in order to have better stock rovers. Thank you!

Edited June 14, 2014 by Alextron21
Fixed a typo

[Kerba Fett]

That crawler base is amazing. The other stuff in the pack might also be pretty good, but to be honest the crawler is so cool I haven't even looked at the other stuff.

One thing though is that it's really crying out for a matching probe core to go on top. There's 2 things that would make a matching probe really cool. One would be a red scanning cylon type eye. (are animated textures even possible?)

The other would be if the upper dome could rise a bit. When it's all buttoned up you have a sphere. When you deploy the top it rises on a pedestal about the height of a small probe core exposing any instruments you mounted under the top.

And of course I'd also like a 2.5m version for larger rovers.

Anyways, great job. I think you've made wheeled rovers obsolete in my game.

[Kerba Fett]

Don't know why people want a bigger one, just use a couple of them under your thing.

I'd also thought of trying that, but you lose one of its biggest advantages. If your walker falls over you can just retract the legs, roll upright onto the lower half and redeploy the legs. It's got enough torque to get up with a mk1 lander pod on it.

[StEligius]

Most fun I've had with a land vehicle in KSP, Jeb likes it too!

[Jivaii]

Great mod! I was wondering if there's any way to add the stickyfeet function to the stock rover wheels in order to have better stock rovers. Thank you!

HL Squid Landing Gear would like a word with you =)

[nli2work]

I scaled it up in the config, hence the feet slipping.

I'm looking at the crittercrawler source code, looks like it's overriding the steeringmode to ManualSteer on all the wheel modules. wouldn't it make sense to set the steeringmode to TankSteer like the huge rover wheels? That should allow it to turn in-place without having to move forward or backward no?

And regarding the screencap of unity setup

FrontLegTransform_Left/Right are special? they show the steering direction? LegTransform are oriented like the body? or to their local space, Y-up, Z-forward, X-out?

LegBase_002 is root of the entire leg?

Armature_002 is the container for Bone 4 and 5?

What are Bone 4 and 5? are those just the IK rig setup in animation software? These are the visible mesh of the two leg joints?

LegBoneTarget_ is at the tip of the leg, where it touches ground?

The wheel colliders remains inside the body at all times? or are they moved to where the LegBoneTargets are while in Deployed state?

[Kitworks]

http://i.imgur.com/XK63Ltf.png

Most fun I've had with a land vehicle in KSP, Jeb likes it too!

Oh man that is so perfect!

[StEligius]

I turn on MechJeb Smart A.S.S. to help keep up-right (Radial +), if you fall over in my lil pod you just retract the legs and pop upright like a Weeble (with Smart A.S.S.).

[Kerba Fett]

So I've been playing with the crawler base a bit and have built a number of rovers. One thing I've been seeing is that when you're in rocket mode probe core based machines invert the pitch and roll while manned capsules don't. It doesn't seem to matter if the legs are deployed and when driving with the legs everything works fine on either manned or probe cores. Anyone else seeing this?

Here's a few of the idea's I've been playing with.

[Lekke]

http://i.imgur.com/XK63Ltf.png

Most fun I've had with a land vehicle in KSP, Jeb likes it too!

From what mod is the command pod? It seems to fit very well.

[ShadowDragon8685]

From what mod is the command pod? It seems to fit very well.

That's the spud lander capsule. I believe it's from Home Grown Rockets, but I'm not sure ATM.

It does fit this crawlie, though, doesn't it?

[BahamutoD]

I scaled it up in the config, hence the feet slipping.

I'm looking at the crittercrawler source code, looks like it's overriding the steeringmode to ManualSteer on all the wheel modules. wouldn't it make sense to set the steeringmode to TankSteer like the huge rover wheels? That should allow it to turn in-place without having to move forward or backward no?

And regarding the screencap of unity setup

FrontLegTransform_Left/Right are special? they show the steering direction? LegTransform are oriented like the body? or to their local space, Y-up, Z-forward, X-out?

LegBase_002 is root of the entire leg?

Armature_002 is the container for Bone 4 and 5?

What are Bone 4 and 5? are those just the IK rig setup in animation software? These are the visible mesh of the two leg joints?

LegBoneTarget_ is at the tip of the leg, where it touches ground?

The wheel colliders remains inside the body at all times? or are they moved to where the LegBoneTargets are while in Deployed state?

I tried TankSteer but it wasn't working (most likely because there's a bunch of wheels on one part, while tanksteer is programmed to handle a bunch of separate parts depending on where they are on the craft), so I ended up having to write my own steering code. I don't even know if overriding them to manual steer is necessary if I'm overriding the steering itself anyway.

The front left and right legs were named differently at first when I was testing the stock steering options and I may have needed to know which one was on the left or right, but there's nothing different about them. I don't remember what the orientation of the leg transforms are; they're just empty un-animated parents of the legs that I was going to use as targets for the modulewheel's suspension traverse transform, so the legs move up and down to conform with terrain. I haven't done that yet. Its kinda tricky!

Legbase_ is just the mesh of the block in the 'hip' of the leg that moves down when it deploys.

Armature and bones are the IK rig; the meshes are the Leg_ and LegCylinder_ etc objects that have no family.

LegBoneTarget is just an empty transform used in the IK rig. I just animated that transform around and the leg automatically points it's toe at it. So, yes its the tip of the leg that touches the ground.

The wheel colliders come out to where the legs go when deployed.

So I've been playing with the crawler base a bit and have built a number of rovers. One thing I've been seeing is that when you're in rocket mode probe core based machines invert the pitch and roll while manned capsules don't. It doesn't seem to matter if the legs are deployed and when driving with the legs everything works fine on either manned or probe cores. Anyone else seeing this?

Here's a few of the idea's I've been playing with.

http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/3278933045080745080/06F5EA7EB0743CB2B979B1F4325A47B67C2CE2D1/

I tested this and didn't run into that problem. Have you made sure that you're putting the probe cores on the right direction? (its hard to tell)

Edited June 18, 2014 by BahamutoD

[BigD145]

I've been trying to make a working ladybird beetle with solar panels but nobody has perfectly hexagonal solar panels. LackLusterLabs comes close but the sides are different lengths. They are side mount so you can make big sheets. I tried using Blender, which I have no experience with, but the best I could do is make a square sheet. So, a request. Perfectly hexagonal solar panels? Maybe some triangular wedges to square things off? Geodesics make the most sense. Squares would be okay but even stock are rectangles with sides of differing lengths. TweakScale would take care of sizing. All this combined with Infernal Robotics would make for some really nice looking beetle probes with movable wing casings. Surface flush and edge mount versions would be nice.

Edited June 19, 2014 by BigD145

[StEligius]

I tried TankSteer but it wasn't working (most likely because there's a bunch of wheels on one part, while tanksteer is programmed to handle a bunch of separate parts depending on where they are on the craft), so I ended up having to write my own steering code. I don't even know if overriding them to manual steer is necessary if I'm overriding the steering itself anyway.

Would it be possible to split it into three components: a chassis with two attach points and one side of the legs (with the second group of legs mirrored)? Would the mirrored set of legs be a problem as they would be counter to the direction of the first set of legs (thus walking in circles)?

[StEligius]

From what mod is the command pod? It seems to fit very well.

That's the spud lander capsule. I believe it's from Home Grown Rockets, but I'm not sure ATM.

It does fit this crawlie, though, doesn't it?

Yepperz, that be the part!

[ABZB]

I noticed that rcs parts in the download have:

rescaleValue = 1

I assume that this should be:

rescaleFactor =1

given that ksp.log states that this is a non-existent property?

[royying]

I suggest a rocket engine with variable size nozzle

engine performance affected by nozzle size and air pressure

variable size nozzle can provide high performance in both sea level and vacuum environment

[Kerba Fett]

Hey BahamutoD,

Thanks for the prompt reply. Upon doing more investigating, it turned out that my control reversal in rocket mode was being caused by a smaller mechjeb case I was using. For some reason it's mounting orientation was overriding the probecore unless I specificly selected the probe core for control. An easy fix now that I know what was causing it, but it's odd it didn't happen with the manned pods.

Now that I've got the flight control worked out I've been conducting drop tests. That thing can take quite a hit. :^) Great job on this thing.

[Kerba Fett]

I turn on MechJeb Smart A.S.S. to help keep up-right (Radial +), if you fall over in my lil pod you just retract the legs and pop upright like a Weeble (with Smart A.S.S.).

That was a great idea about using the radial +

I've been using it for the flight mode and it makes a lander pretty stable to control when coupled with a vertical rate controller. I've been able to do landings of -10m/s vertical with 10m/s of forward velocity and it's a smooth transition from flying to running.

I can't believe I never tried that before for landers.

[Floki]

I suggest a rocket engine with variable size nozzle

engine performance affected by nozzle size and air pressure

variable size nozzle can provide high performance in both sea level and vacuum environment

I know the second stage engine on a Delta III and IV uses an extendable nozzle, but I don't recall any other examples at the moment.

[YANFRET]

This product is brilliant. I'm especially interested in the pop out radial engines.

You know, your Critter Crawler is exactly how I always imagined the "Octospiders" from Rama