[1.0.x] [V1.9f] Kerbal Foundries wheels, anti-grav repulsors and tracks

[lo-fi]

Just worked something out that's been bugging me for ages: Asymmetric wheels/tracks are now possible with the KF plugin. This means Halo Warthog style trailing arm suspension is now possible without having handed parts and not being able to use symmetry mode to place them (something I've always been dead set against). This. Changes. Everything. Expect something demoed in the next few days

Interesting info on the OGL/texture thing - thanks guys.

[Gaalidas]

You better demo that, cause I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Warthog eh? You mean the Puma? And from what I remember its wheels were pretty symmetrical. I never noticed a third wheel on one side or anything.

[shooty]

Howdy.

Firstly thanks. Great work, been having much joy with the treads and repulsors.

I was just setting up my 25 install, and grabbed the latest version of the mod, and since I'm well, a little odd, I look at every cfg before I install anything, and noticed that in most parts, instances of crashTolerance lines were missing a space or = .

Anyways, my apreciation for getting the treads going and making such a nice mod. Good stuff.

[lo-fi]

Cheers, glad you're having fun. Feel free to post some screen grabs, always good to see what people are up to

Thanks for the heads up, I expect it's an error carried forward from where I've copied configs.

[Gaalidas]

Missing an equal sign is really bad... but the spaces are quite optional. I feel for you though, I'm a config diver too, and I never install anything without at least taking a peek. I've had to force myself not to fix every badly formatted config I install to save my sanity... or what's left of it. What was that Harvey? No, I don't think that would be a good idea... they still need their heads and my wall isn't big enough to mount them all. Don't give me that look, you're the one who suggested it. Well I don't care if you're angry at me, you're just a figment of my overactive imagination and the only thing you really bring to the talbe is evidence that my grey matter is goop!

Did I just say all that out loud? oops...

[shooty]

Hello Gaalidas, I didnt know that about the spaces, thanks.

Maybe you could answer a question I have about having duplucate crashTolerance = lines with differing values.

like:

mass = 0.005

dragModelType = default

maximum_drag = 0.3

minimum_drag = 0.2

angularDrag = 1

crashTolerance = 7

maxTemp = 3600

crashTolerance = 50

breakingForce = 50

breakingTorque = 50

(which is from one of the squad wheels btw)

I guessed that it would just use the first one = 7 and not the one that looks as it was intended by the person who pasted in the last 3 lines with = 50 -but I dont realy know.

I see this in alot of squad parts and mods that used squad parts as a template of sorts.

It's also in the claw too... I've been deleting out the first instance and leaving the one that looks like it was pasted in later. It seemed to help with the wheels breaking for seemingly no reason at slow speed on a small bumps, but it could just be a my imagination. I didnt notitice anything bad in the logs... but I have been playing awhile and it always haunts me.

I havent looked into KSP modding beyond fixing things the logs complained about so Im not realy up to speed so to speak... so;

Am I just a crazy dope breaking stuff because i didnt read any docs or is it a typo? is my question.

As it seems like typo -based on my previous experiences with modding other stuff, but I dont know the in and outs of KSP, and being wrong is something I'm pretty familiar and comfortable with .

On a side note I spend more time playing with my text editor and converting mbms from mods, (which I see no point in as they are the spawn of something that skitters in dark corners, at least I'm pretty sure they are, mbms also take pictures of me sleeping too, so there is also that...) then I do ksp.

And as a bonus because I like to read your posts. I present you with the this mod idea as a thank you.

"Korpses and Grave markers©" for where brave kerbals pushed the limits and the limits pushed back. Now with a larger selection of urns for DRE users!

I think it would be quite interesting using the flag placing system for leaving monuments to my lost kerbals who I loved and cared for and strapped to a solid booster to gather high velocity statistical data from the VAB wall, for science...

Others kerbals could come and mourn a lost comrade and see the details of the fallen heros demise.

Or even as statics for static object placing mod, not as cool but they would be nice decorations/memorials on the mun... Festoon the mun with Korpses and Grave markers© will be the headline in all the papers! I would imagine.

Unless of course it already exists, in which case I place any blame for stealing that persons awsome idea, on you.

Um, I may have gotten off track somewhere after the Hello Gaalidas, part, sorry.

Also probabily I should have asked in the general questions or support and not here, but you guys were friendly, so sorry about rambling in this thread...

Edited October 12, 2014 by shooty
im bad at stuff

[lo-fi]

Rambling is actively encouraged here! The repulsors exist because of a stupid conversation, so off-topic randomness is absolutely fine with me

I love the gravestone idea, I may actually have to look into that. I was saying a few posts ago I thought it would be hilarious for baby Kerbals to spawn where their predecessors gave their lives in the name of science and flight testing

Homeworld... Now there's one of the best pc games ever IMO. I can't wait for the redux to appear, though it probably means I'll drop the KSP stuff for a little while whilst I immerse myself in that awesome universe

[lo-fi]

Little hold-up with what I was working on, but in the process I came up with these:

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Great news on the asymmetry can't wait to exploit that feature.

[lo-fi]

Great news on the asymmetry can't wait to exploit that feature.

Got some issues to work out with the stock FX modules, but other than that it's working well. Screws are already using the mirror plugin, as you know (that's how the have different handed threads on each side), but I've updated so they rotate in the correct direction no matter which way they end up. Unlike wheels, the screws don't need any LookAt or ConstrainPosition modules, which get rather upset when you rip the objects they've found right out from underneath them. I'll figure it out eventually.

[lo-fi]

Hello Gaalidas, I didnt know that about the spaces, thanks.

Maybe you could answer a question I have about having duplucate crashTolerance = lines with differing values.

like:

mass = 0.005

dragModelType = default

maximum_drag = 0.3

minimum_drag = 0.2

angularDrag = 1

crashTolerance = 7

maxTemp = 3600

crashTolerance = 50

breakingForce = 50

breakingTorque = 50

(which is from one of the squad wheels btw)

I guessed that it would just use the first one = 7 and not the one that looks as it was intended by the person who pasted in the last 3 lines with = 50 -but I dont realy know.

I see this in alot of squad parts and mods that used squad parts as a template of sorts.

It's also in the claw too... I've been deleting out the first instance and leaving the one that looks like it was pasted in later. It seemed to help with the wheels breaking for seemingly no reason at slow speed on a small bumps, but it could just be a my imagination. I didnt notitice anything bad in the logs... but I have been playing awhile and it always haunts me.

I havent looked into KSP modding beyond fixing things the logs complained about so Im not realy up to speed so to speak... so;

Am I just a crazy dope breaking stuff because i didnt read any docs or is it a typo? is my question.

As it seems like typo -based on my previous experiences with modding other stuff, but I dont know the in and outs of KSP, and being wrong is something I'm pretty familiar and comfortable with .

I think it's an oversight. I can do a quick test, but I suspect it will use the second value as the parser will merrily over-write as it reads data in. Definitely a typo!

[Madrias]

Those little wheels look cool, though, and I hate to be a stickler about it, I'd love to see a split version where the front and rear wheel aren't connected to each other. Makes controlling rovers easier for me, because I can toggle steering on the rear wheels, have selectable multi-wheel-drive, and do odd things with my designs. Though I dare say, those might almost be small enough to make Go-Karts out of and go screaming around the KSC.

[lo-fi]

I'm working on that - it requires some mirroring trickery which I'm still perfecting for complicated parts that need stock FX modules. It is something I desperately want to get working, but quite a technical challenge. I went with the tank steer for these because it seems to be inherently more stable and it makes the parts much less complex. As the vehicle rolls, the steering naturally gets less effective, so there is a nice little feedback loop.

They might actually be a little small for a go cart, but will land in the dev repo, along with the other new wheels and tracks very shortly. I've even put some rough textures on them!

[shooty]

Hi lo-fi, thanks very much for taking the time to answer my questions. It's been bugging me for a long time.

A double ++ thanks for actualy looking at the stuff and checking it out. Super Nice.

A note of interest; If you look at the fuel lines or connecting strut you'll see they are still pointing to .DAE files that dont exist, having been replaced with .MUs awhile ago. Sure it works but trying to logic it out as a learn by example modder could be confusing...Why am I typing that here, I dont know...

So anyways, the Korpses and grave markers is something I thunkded it up for you guys, so by all means.

I tried to think up something cute and catchy and technicly feasable... as a way of giving back without having to actualy do anything .

On a totaly unrelated note anyone who needs texturing may be interested in checking out filter forge it has a 30 day free trial and if you make a couple nice filters you can earn a free license.

I has alot of premade filters for making stuff like warning tape, sci-fi panels and the like. It makes normal maps.

You can design your own filters as well, using drag and drop objects.

It requires no technical knowledge but if you have some you can do alot.

I suspect that you would get alot out of it.

Output from filter forge is owned by the person who hit the render button and not the filter designer.

So there are no issues using the textures in free or comercial projects. Unless that has changed in the last few months, I havent been to the FF forums in awhile...

https://www.filterforge.com/

It has some quirks but I think it's one of the best/easiest texture making tools out there. It can be used as a PS compatible plugin or run stand alone. The difference being the plugin lets you manipulate layers.

The devs there also consider input from the more tech savy users as well. They have been running a sale for like 80% off the next few days,...for about 18 months...

The only draw back is that if you like it, we may not see you for awhile...

Please dont do that.

So anyways, at this point, I will stop myself from babbling on, but I thank you for the hospitality, information, and all your efforts.

I realy appreciate it all.

-shooty

Edited October 13, 2014 by shooty
spelling and stuff... missed some, close enough...

[Gaalidas]

Yeah, so.. as far as duplicate entries go, I am really not too sure. My best guess is that it would load the second of the two after the first one, and thus override the variable with that new value. However, I do not know how KSP loads that data into its internal database. The best practice is to not have duplicate parameters but, from my experience, nothing bad has ever happened from it.

I also just noticed, while trying to figure out a few stock errors, that those configs are pointing to non-existent models. It's rather odd that a config would still load a model without a reference to it, but it's not the first time I've seen this happen. When I was installing Karbonite, back in the very early days of that mod, I noticed that several of the configs which had only one model in the directory (named "model.mu") were also missing a mesh or model reference, and yet still managed to load the part with no issue. I'm wondering if there might be a default behavior in the engine that will load that single model found in the same directory which is named identically to the name of the part and make the connection with that config if the currently defined model is not correct, or not even defined. Similarly, you'll notice that when using "mesh" you have to supply a file extension, but under the "MODEL" node, you have to omit the extension. I'm not too sure what it all means, but I have a feeling that just as a "MODULE" node has default values that, if not defined otherwise in the config, is used to define a certain behavior, configs for parts may also have some default values that are applied when the circumstances and/or environment are set up in a specifically perfect position.

The stock error I was tracking down when I discovered the connections was an error that stated, in not-exact words, that the model (defined under the "mesh" parameter) could not be found in the directory (which is not defined, and defies the logic that I just explained above) which was specified as "Squad/Parts/some-other-folders/nameofpart/nameofpartconfig/nameofpart/" which is a directory that does not exist, but that internally would be a good way to define the connection between a part and a model which you can have multiple models and/or parts in a single configuration and/or directory. The problem with the error, however, is that the config and the directory structure for the part was constructed exactly the same way as every other perfectly working part is constructed. My only way to fix this was to remove the stock "mesh" parameter and replace it with a "MODEL" node. I don't think even Squad is fully aware of what's going on here because they just shipped version .25 to us with these errors being thrown about causing stock parts to not load correctly. Even crazier is the lack of any hot-fix patches to fix the problem, which suggests that they have not figured out the problem themselves and thus do not want to start hot-fixing until they do understand it.

These little buggers are not unexpected with such a complicated addon-system however. Every game that is moddable from the get-go runs into these weird issues. It makes quantum physics look like a walk in the park.

For my standard disclaimer, see my signature area below.

EDIT: Holy Mother of Jebediah! I just noticed this is the 107th page of posts, if you're using the default settings. That's just nuts man.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Gaalidas

[Madrias]

Jeb! We've got a lot of nuts here, how about a shipment of bolts?

Sorry, couldn't resist. Just, um, look out for when those arrive. Jeb likes his boosters.

I'm having fun with the small tracks. They make for very useful rovers. I've also had a bit of fun with the repulsors, and I'm just itching to try something later on.

[lo-fi]

@Shooty: No problem, always got time for sensible questions. The struts are weird; best person to talk to would be Marce as he did a whole load of work reverse engineering how they work for his ActiveStruts mod (which is absolutely awesome). Models seem to get loaded even if the name in the config is wrong, though you'll find that in-game database reloads don't work. Thanks for the tip on filter forge, it's something I've come across before, but I didn't know they had a sale on. Very cool bit of software, especially the way it makes repeating textures. If I ever get some free time I'll look at the gravestone idea

@Gaalidas: over a 1000 posts. Crazy, isn't it. See notes in the config above about model loading when the config name is set wrong.. Very strange behaviour.

@Madrias: Thanks, I'll look out for those I haven't pushed anything to Git for a while because loads of stuff is still broken while I refactor and refine various bits. I did some unwraps on the new models last night and slapped some temp textures on, so those will be available to play with once I get stuff sorted out once again.

I've been working on a deployment feature for the repulsor wheels, but realised it would be better to have it as a standard optional function for wheels, so that's holding things up a bit. I also want to get damaged wheel functionality going for 1.8 but I haven't even started on that.

[Gaalidas]

Broken wheels? -Bleep- that! I made a custom MM patch to disable that functionality on wheels. I had issues in the early days where I would build a really large rover with wheels that were obviously made for that kind of load and they would break the moment physics kicked in on launch. It really ruins the fun factor. Of course, if you implemented broken wheels that really catastrophically broke instead of the stock "my tire fell off the rim!" behavior, well, it could have a bit of entertainment value. We need something along the lines of "Holy Jebediah's Ghost, the suspension frame just exploded, the wheel is flying over the landscape and we just dug a new irrigation ditch with our rover's nose. ... Lets do it again!"

[lo-fi]

Yeah, that's kinda what I'm thinking. The stock levels are set waaaay too low, I always just used to config edit to bring up to sensible levels. Kinda gives a little bit of play value, and a nice little touch giving Kerbals something to actually do.

[Gaalidas]

They have plenty to do. They must sit in their little command stations and die when ordered. I never saw any need for a more fulfilling role.

Edit: New cool thingie here... we have a DDS texture loader plugin now. Apparently this will save no room in memory, but it will likely load a ton faster because DDS is the exact same format that textures are saved in when loaded into RAM. Initial tests have shown that a standard TGA or PNG loading over more than 3000ms loads in less than 200ms when coming from a DDS format.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Gaalidas

[thorfinn]

....one of these days someone will explain me how a conversion between mildly compressed raster formats can take 3 SECONDS in Unity. Or maybe I don't want to know.

[lo-fi]

They have plenty to do. They must sit in their little command stations and die when ordered. I never saw any need for a more fulfilling role.

Edit: New cool thingie here... we have a DDS texture loader plugin now. Apparently this will save no room in memory, but it will likely load a ton faster because DDS is the exact same format that textures are saved in when loaded into RAM. Initial tests have shown that a standard TGA or PNG loading over more than 3000ms loads in less than 200ms when coming from a DDS format.

They do do it so well don't they...

OK... That sounds promising. Where does this marvellous invention hail from, and how much work is it going to cause me?

....one of these days someone will explain me how a conversion between mildly compressed raster formats can take 3 SECONDS in Unity. Or maybe I don't want to know.

I stopped asking that kind of question a loooong time ago!

EDIT: I've just finished extending the wheel/track module to give a nice smooth retract/disable function. There are two modes: set the suspension distance to zero and disable all control functions. Or that, plus play an animation. So Landing gear is now possible with the same module, with all the usual functions available. There is now a tweakable for suspension travel in-flight too. That was really, really difficult!!! And now I have to go and edit all my configs :/

Edited October 13, 2014 by lo-fi

[Gaalidas]

The DDS loader won't affect you at all unless you want to package DDS textures instead of the standard ones. The only thing you need to do is flip the texture vertically when using DDS, otherwise your textures will load upside down. I would suggest shipping the way you have been, however, since you'd have to place a dependency on the DDS loader mod. The end user can always download the nVidia DDS tools and use a batch file like I have to convert all texture formats to DDS, vertically flipping them in the process, and deleting the old textures IF the conversion was successful. The reason for that "IF" in there is because textures that do not follow the "dimensions must be a multiple of two" rule, the conversion fails.

I have also noticed a few weird errors, so far only with the B9 package's flat panels. They appear really strange despite the vertical flipping of the texture and all that. I'm going to revert those textures and see if it changes anything tomorrow. At least this new loader doesn't exclusively take over the texture system. It simply gives KSP the ability to use DDS if they are present in the same way it is able to use MBM, TGA, or PNG (and even JPG in some cases) regardless of what file extension the model references.

On another note, supposedly the creator of "LoadOnDemand" mod has solves the .25 incompatibilities, which may make any improvement caused by the use of DDS to be unnecessary. I'm going to see if it will work with the DDS loader tomorrow. If they work together alright, then my initial loading times may go through the roof. I'll let y'all know what happens if I live to tell the tale.

EDIT: Good news about the new wheel stuff. Sounds like just the thing I was hoping to see. Now we need to make some really awesome landing legs with your sweet suspensions and all that... only other thing I could ask for in that case is an auto-levelling system that would adjust the suspension of the landing legs to attempt to make a craft level while maintaining a certain clearance from the ground... within reason of course. But hey, we're getting closer to totally redefining landing gear and wheels entirely. Of course, when I saw "we" I definitely mean you, cause really I'm doing hardly anything at all here. I can just imagine that day when you can post this baby to the release forum. it's gonna be huge, especially if we can show off all the awesome videos chronicling the progress.

Edited October 14, 2014 by Gaalidas

[lo-fi]

Ah ha, just found the release thread. Rather cunning..

I can't wait for release day, and it's drawing nearer Almost have a full range of wheels and need to do a few more tracks. Landing gear would be cool to have too, and I'm tempted to use IR for the 'clamp to the ground' goodness they were showing off in the rework thread. Auto levelling... That's a tough one. Trouble is, you be got to establish what level actually is! Though with the new features, setting up the legs manually would be quite easy.

New stuff pushed to GitHub last night. Repulsor water code is broken as I haven't finished messing about with it, and repulsor wheels are probably completely broken for the same reason. Large and medium wheels have new retract feature and all have height adjustment (though none have animated retract yet). Repulsors will follow suit shortly with similar improvements.

[Gaalidas]

Auto levelling... That's a tough one. Trouble is, you be got to establish what level actually is!

well, there are a number of plugins which attempt to determine what a level position is relative to the body you are orbiting or landed on. Mechjeb itself will do that. Then add a bit of buffer space, similar to the height thingie in your repulsors, set that height value to the highest sample between the set of detectors, then you just gotta figure out how far it is to the ground at each landing leg's foot-position and attempt to lower the legs so that they keep the craft flat... within reason of course. Something like this can be done by hand with IR parts, but tweaking every little leg to the correct position is a serious pain.

It would probably be a major undertaking to do anything like what I've described, but then you did manage to make a vehicle steer with every wheel attached to it with individual steering angles depending on their position on the craft while still allowing them all to have individual suspension and anti-rolling adjustments. That's pretty nuts as it is.