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

[lo-fi]

I wouldn't worry about it, I break stuff all the time. It's much more informative than letting it sit on the shelf all pretty gathering dust

I found a few edge cases where the suspension movement stuff went a bit crazy while I was working on the LookAt, so I modified that. But I can't figure out why it inverted the steering. Unless I un-borked something that was previously double borked back to normality in the process, though that's a whole lot of borking and I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that.

I did rearrange how the startup stuff gets ordered, so I suspect it's to do with that.

[Gaalidas]

Well, guess we better do some re-borking so we can get back to an un-borked state. It makes sense if you stop trying to make sense of it.

[lo-fi]

All un-borked, so the fix will be waiting for your now. It was just a sign change, though I'm still not sure why. I was working with tank steer wheels (please do have a go with the test suffixed tiny wheels that use the new mirror mode), so I didn't notice that the steering wasn't working properly.

[Gaalidas]

well, the great news is that the steering wasn't really borked, just the appearance of steering. Anyway, I put the fixed DLL into my folder about 30 seconds before you posted here. No, I'm not stalking you though your Github... I'm just really good at showing up at the perfect moment.

I'll give it all another try as soon as I get a moment to start KSP launching (I'm in a squirrel-server class right now.)

[lo-fi]

Squirrel server?? How do you get the miniature waiters outfits on them?

[Gaalidas]

We use staples. It reduces their life expectancy but it's rather effective.

[TUKE]

This is a straight up cool mod, however i would like to see compatibility with the wheel sounds mod for the tracks. Driving is far too silent........... Also has anyone fallen in the pool yet at the new building? (.25)

[lo-fi]

Absolutely! I think one of the first things I did in .25 was take a little rover fitted with the screw drives for a swim

The sounds are just placeholders until I find something better, particularly for the tracks, and I didn't want to set the volume too high in case it got a little too in-your-face droning on. The wheels sounds mod is for wheels driven with the stock Squad ModuleWheel (which none of these do any more), so no compatibility I'm afraid.

You can use the sounds from that mod if you wish with some config editing, though:

EFFECTS
{
   WheelEffect
   {
	AUDIO
	{
	  channel = Ship
	  clip = KerbalFoundries/Sounds/wheel
	  volume = 0.0 0.0
	  volume = 0.01 0.0
	  volume = 1.0 1.0
	  pitch = 0.0 0.3
	  pitch = 1.0 1.0
	  loop = true
	}
   }
}

To just change the volume of the existing sounds, modify the second set of numbers in the volume lines. So to double the volume, set the third line to "volume = 1.0 2.0". If you want t use a different sound (from the wheel sounds mod, for example), change the "clip =" line. It's always relative to the GameData directory, and remember to omit the .wav extension from the end of the sound file names. Though you may well have to play with the pitch lines to get it to sound right. I've been looking for a good track sound, but it's harder than you might think finding something that sounds right looped and pitch changed in-game. I have plans for motor sounds on acceleration, random bumps, squeaks, servo noises for the steering, but all that will be a little way off yet.

Glad you're enjoying it otherwise

[Madrias]

Regarding the pool in .25... I landed a jet in it. VTOL ran out of gas (I'm an idiot and didn't refill my tanks after draining some for a CoM/CoL/CoT check) and I had to glide. Had to make a decision: Spend a ton of Funds to repair my Administration Building, or land my gliding jet in the pond. Splash.

On my Sandbox save, I kinda drove a small truck into there. By accident, of course. No, KSC Insurance Inc. isn't investigating the event with a fraud case. Jeb was simply driving "normal" and made a turn that may have been a bit too sharp when trying to make a stop in a parking space so he could eat some snacks.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Re the pool , sadly it's not actually water but just a sliding uv shader or similar on a plane , so when you go underneath it's just normal terrain conditions not water , so no minisub testing in that pond

[Gaalidas]

That is so lame. At the very least they could have made it shallow enough that it appears that you're wading in a pond. Unfortunately, this also means that once we have the dev version of the repulsors running over water again, that pond won't cooperate. Someone should make an addon for Kerbal Konstructs to put a big slab of concrete over it or something just to show our disappointment.

[lo-fi]

Haha @Madrias. So typical of Jeb. "does everything you drive end up on the roof?".

Would be hilarious to spawn some Kerbals with a little diving board, some sun loungers, a beach ball and a cocktail snack bar XD.

[bartekkru99]

When the new update will be out? Oh and what do you think about adding armor pieces?

[lo-fi]

A few weeks I suppose.. depends how testing and texturing goes.

Kinda thought about armour you can toggle on and off like the mud guards and drive shafts on the TT wheels, but got no further than that.

[Gaalidas]

A few toggling mesh-swaps for some little structural bits and pieces would be awesome for a little visual flair that could be customized on the fly. It'd be even better if we could swap them in the flight scene. Which leads me to another thing, the abiltiy to modify the ride height by action group keys would be great, along with the automated apply-to-all that the repulsion-height thingie got.

[lo-fi]

Ah, the action group ride height has been overlooked. Yep, I'll get that sorted.

For armour/structural bits: Always open to creative input, so meshes in any format, rough sketches, doodles in paint, or badly Photoshopped screen shots are more than welcome. What appears the other side will usually be nothing like it though, as my own ideas always end up very differently to what I had in mind, but I never see that as a bad thing. The important thing is it fires the imagination!

Edited October 18, 2014 by lo-fi

[Gaalidas]

Indeed. Most of what you've created I saw as something quite different when I wrote about it here, but I've not yet been disappointed with the result.

[Madrias]

Hmm... I've got another idea to throw at you, if you think you can manage it.

Similar in function to the Repulsors, though a little 'lower tech' if you will. Possibly fixed height value, but the difference being that they use liquid fuel directly instead of Electric Charge. The proverbial equivalent of gasoline-powered box fans used to hold mid/lightweight craft up.

Was something I thought of when zooming around KSC in a VTOL aircraft and hovering mere meters over the ground in a Firespitter propeller vehicle.

Obviously one thing that I'd love to see would be some form of built-in steering in something like that. Just different enough from the repulsors to be interesting, and a useful device.

[lo-fi]

Hmmmm, that's a nice idea. I think I'd want to use a different hover method for that, rather that wheel colliders again. Did you see the hover platform that popped up a while back? That used raycasts and a control loop (maybe PID), which might be more appropriate for that sort of thing. It's worth looking into, could be quite cool.

[lo-fi]

Yeah, that's probably a good call. I'll look into it for the next version.

[Gaalidas]

I tried some of those other hovering solutions and really wasn't that impressed. On the up side, however, I think they had a little less trouble with hovering over non-solid surfaces and whatnot. As long as the raycast hit something, it worked.

As for steering, I'm still experimenting with solutions for that. As we know, the repulsors create a zero-friction connection with the ground so if there's any slight slope to the surface you're on, gravity will take over and you will slip sideways. Turning the craft requires something similar to orbital maneuvers. You gotta not only thrust in the new direction, but also thrust in an opposite directly to the one you were previously moving in order to turn effectively. If we could slow the craft down during these maneuvers then we would reduce the amount of retro-thrust required. I've experimented with using air-brakes (provided by a few of the aircraft expanding mods out there) to create this sort of effect, but in many cases I found that I had to fix air-brakes pointing in all directions so I could still turn the craft while trying to arrest my momentum. I've also begun experimenting with RCS and a few mods that have a "kill horizontal velocity" function to make it happen. The trouble is that all of these maneuvers require a lot of different modules to work in order to simply change your direction of movement.

In the end, I've been spending much more time using wheels than repulsors. Especially considering the dev. versions lost their water repulsion ability.

[Coyote_ar]

I really love this parts, thanks for the work of all the people involved. keep it coming

[Gaalidas]

Hey lo-fi, have you seen this thread on the possible implementation of multi-threading for KSP mods? I don't know how useful it would be, but considering there's a lot of stuff happening that gets more complicated with the more wheels you have on a craft... well, it might be something to at least look at. While not ready to be used widely yet, it'd be something to consider for the future. Thread Here.

[ian9018]

I use the repulsors to land troublesome craft at high speed. To stop the craft I keep a small landing gear or something, lower the gear then lower the reps on it and just brake. If you use a rear drag method like that, and you have a twin engine aircraft, a thrust control mod lets you use the main engines to turn if you control it correctly.

Which is easier said than done but I've gotten some cool use out of it.

I'd love to see those box fans, though I'd be inclined towards an electric version and/or add another mode to it.

So the standard hover-x-distance mode, maybe the fans can tilt to provide forward/backward thrust. But I'd love to see it be able to act like a helicopter tail fan where it can be used to turn a hover craft at a dead stop using normal/reverse thrust to turn either way.

edit: actually it just occurred to me that you might be able to make a sort of radially mounted engine that responds to main engine control AND maneuvering controls, meaning it would attempt to go "forward" but when you press left/right engines on one side throttle back and the other throttle up a bit to create that differential you need to turn.

So you'd have repulsors or fans or whatever holding you up, but a DHMM (Dedicated Hovercraft Maneuvering Module) to control actual movement across the ground.

Edited October 19, 2014 by ian9018
grammar, new idea

[lo-fi]

I really love this parts, thanks for the work of all the people involved. keep it coming

Glad to hear it, and thanks for stopping by. Screen shots always welcome!

Hey lo-fi, have you seen this thread on the possible implementation of multi-threading for KSP mods? I don't know how useful it would be, but considering there's a lot of stuff happening that gets more complicated with the more wheels you have on a craft... well, it might be something to at least look at. While not ready to be used widely yet, it'd be something to consider for the future. Thread Here.

Yeah, been keeping a close on on that. There is a lot of stuff in my update loops, so might be good to implement.

I use the repulsors to land troublesome craft at high speed. To stop the craft I keep a small landing gear or something, lower the gear then lower the reps on it and just brake. If you use a rear drag method like that, and you have a twin engine aircraft, a thrust control mod lets you use the main engines to turn if you control it correctly.

Which is easier said than done but I've gotten some cool use out of it.

I'd love to see those box fans, though I'd be inclined towards an electric version and/or add another mode to it.

So the standard hover-x-distance mode, maybe the fans can tilt to provide forward/backward thrust. But I'd love to see it be able to act like a helicopter tail fan where it can be used to turn a hover craft at a dead stop using normal/reverse thrust to turn either way.

edit: actually it just occurred to me that you might be able to make a sort of radially mounted engine that responds to main engine control AND maneuvering controls, meaning it would attempt to go "forward" but when you press left/right engines on one side throttle back and the other throttle up a bit to create that differential you need to turn.

So you'd have repulsors or fans or whatever holding you up, but a DHMM (Dedicated Hovercraft Maneuvering Module) to control actual movement across the ground.

Some interesting ideas, I'll have a think about what I might be able to do and see what I can come up with.