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

[Robotengineer]

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

[QuixoticKoala]

Are the retractable engines in the current mod jet engines or rocket engines?

[OrbitalDebris]

Those little feet are freaking awesome. I hope this inspires a lot of similar mods

[Contagano]

Holy Crap! Awesome sauce!

[Virtualgenius]

This thing is so AWESOME you can climb mun arches with it

[Boamere]

This thing is so AWESOME you can climb mun arches with it

*runs off to find a mun arch*

[CHUBBYSUMO]

so, has anyone else run into the infinite acceleration bug with this bug? Was on Kerbin with it and it just started moving faster and faster. I shut sticky legs off, and it went even faster, blowing itself up at 144m/s. made me laugh, but its still an issue, especially when they want to move on their own.

[Woodstar]

so, has anyone else run into the infinite acceleration bug with this bug? Was on Kerbin with it and it just started moving faster and faster. I shut sticky legs off, and it went even faster, blowing itself up at 144m/s. made me laugh, but its still an issue, especially when they want to move on their own.

Maybe try using the brakes, it's what I do, with the stuff this thing does I personally could care less about the fact that it moves on it's own.

[xxjetterxx]

The issue there is when you try to steer, the legs all turn the same direction, so you hardly turn at all, instead strafing diagonally more than actually turning.

[Zero266]

these look sweet

[Pigbear]

The issue there is when you try to steer, the legs all turn the same direction, so you hardly turn at all, instead strafing diagonally more than actually turning.

I only noticed this when I was using RCS and I had modified the thing to have SAS and Torgue.

[Spearka]

i had modified the thing to have sas and torgue.

Punch that bug so hard it explodes!!!!

[AccidentalDisassembly]

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

http://i.imgur.com/gK3xRuM.png

Can I ask where the bits and pieces above the legs (like what appears to be the somewhat hexagonal vehicle body thing...?) come from? Or is the body of the vehicle made from stuff that I'm just not recognizing?

[NoMrBond]

Can I ask where the bits and pieces above the legs (like what appears to be the somewhat hexagonal vehicle body thing...?) come from? Or is the body of the vehicle made from stuff that I'm just not recognizing?

The body looks like it's from Alskari's Hollow Structural Parts mod?

[Entropius]

VERY nice mod. This one has tons of potential for fun.

That said, I noticed one inconvenient issue: The most obvious way to build with this part is to have a probe core facing upward. And that works great. But if you control via a probe-core that's attached radially, and is facing in the direction of the probe's usual forward, suddenly the forward/backward controls act like they're reversed. Here's an example of the radial probe-core placement: http://i.imgur.com/k7aXqzQ.jpg

If you're wondering why one would want to attach radial probe cores in such a direction, it's nice because the rover's navball faces you toward the horizon on flat ground (rather than pointing the navball toward the sky). And this is VERY useful for making it easier to see your heading while on steeply sloped ground (and this part seems especially suited for slopes). If you still don't get why this is useful, compare the navballs in these two screenshots of a crawler on a slope: http://imgur.com/a/mGhOX

In the first linked image, I'm controlling from the radial probe-core on the front (not the big stacked probe core on top). The navball shows me facing North, but when I hit the forward key (W) it starts moving backwards. When this happens my heading lines up with the retrograde marker, which is pretty counterintuative.

But it's not a huge issue since one can always stop the crawler, switch to the radial probe core to assess the current heading, and then switch back to the stacked probe-core to resume moving. It just involves lots of starting and stopping.

Note: Edited my post to add more screenshots to illustrate the issue better.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Entropius

[AccidentalDisassembly]

The body looks like it's from Alskari's Hollow Structural Parts mod?

Cool, thank you!

[Entropius]

Here's another example of when forwards-and-backwards gets reversed: External command seats

http://i.imgur.com/2rfaPFJ.jpg

[Robotengineer]

Can I ask where the bits and pieces above the legs (like what appears to be the somewhat hexagonal vehicle body thing...?) come from? Or is the body of the vehicle made from stuff that I'm just not recognizing?

The body is a rover mining storage tank form RoverDudes Modular Kolonization mod.

[Boomerang]

Also, the engine parts that accompany the Crawler look and are animated *wonderfully*

[Devo]

The issue there is when you try to steer, the legs all turn the same direction, so you hardly turn at all, instead strafing diagonally more than actually turning.

Can you lock them like wheels?

[Virtualgenius]

I really love these fold away engines any chance you could make a round one with 4 engines in two sizes small and smaller

[VaporTrail]

One thing... is there any way to add a couple of lines of code that says, in effect:

in control scan loop, w/ legs attached and in use,

If (vesselwide electric charge == 0, Brakes == False) {

Brakes = True; }

continue control scan loop.

This would kill the legs' ability to keep right on trucking w/o electric charge... which is possible for a wheeled (or even tracked) vehicle, but quite impossible for an articulated leg setup.

Other than that, love the little bugger.

Edited June 9, 2014 by VaporTrail

[KvickFlygarn87]

Ooooh, crisp! I like that stockalike-ish style!

[MelancholyFlapper]

ADORABLE BABY ROBIT. <3 Ahhh I need to download this! It's too cute. It looks super handy, too!

[Ruedii]

I love the animated radial engines.

Could you add an animated RCS port with 45 Degree thrust for radial and parallel to surface for forward backwards? This would make for a great arrangement for docking.