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

[Darren9]

I think it's important to have a probe core on the top to see the next gate when it's over a hill, so someone (me) will have to fly onto it and land and decouple one (hyperedit can't seem to get enough accuracy), so a flat area on the top 2m x 4m (or more) would be helpful. I just extruded a cube, only 14 polys, you've done some stunning models Spanner - I'll take anything.

[lo-fi]

Enough history -

When will this be in beta?

Soon^TM Seriously, though, I think the next release will be the last alpha, then there's only one way to go from there

Here's a video by m1sz for the more complicated wider front setup, I don't think he'll mind me putting it here, a lot of my best ideas have in fact been stolen from him The Dark-Side track at the end is brilliant.

http://youtu.be/WDrMyOFY2Uk

Thanks for your tips, and that video is great! Got to admit, it's kinda cool hearing someone casually say 'and we add the Kerbal Foundries parts...'. I'll try out the race track once you and Spanner have finished tinkering. Glad you're getting stuck in, your craft designs and videos are so good I'd love to see what cool parts you'd make

[Gaalidas]

So, I attached those long tracks to something yesterday just to see how they looked and I had to use a mod called PartWizard to delete it because it could not be selected after placement. Might wanna take a look at that.

[lo-fi]

Missing collider!

[mike9606]

Will the next version break saves? I want to use this, but I don't want my saves to break with the next update.

[lo-fi]

Yes and no. As stuff has grown sort of organically, I've ended up having to refactor some module names. You won't end up with broken craft due to missing parts, but settings saved in persistence will be lost unless you're happy doing a find and replace with module names in the persistence file. One or two parts will be updated, so there might be the odd placement issue too.

This should be the last (sort of) save breaking update, as things are decidedly more settled now, though. Thanks for sticking with it, its been a steep learning curve!

[Mekan1k]

Can we have lower-Polygon repulsors?

Maybe ones that look more stock?

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Lower poly replusors would be a cube! they're not high poly in any way. There's not a lot if anything to be saved by reducing poly counts, KSP happily blows most other moddable titles away in this department. The main performance killers are collders and textures, fortunately even in this I don't think KF are munching resources, Lofi's always had a habit of using the bare minimum in the way of colliders and the textures certainly aren't extravagant

stockalike! blerch....

[Gaalidas]

He still has a few over-sized textures and even with some of his recent updates, texture sharing and redundant/unused textures are still all over the place. But hey, this is an alpha. We can clean things up later.

That being said, KF still does not add much to the total damage that mods will deal to your ram usages.

And stock-alike? You show me a stock repulsor and we'll bug lo-fi to make a match for it. No stock repulsors are available? Hmm... then this is as stock-alike as it gets.

[lo-fi]

Yeah, I'm struggling with the stock repulsors thing.... The repulsors are some of the simpler parts, both in terms of poly count and collider setup, so it's hard to reduce to something more that just a primitive. The part module is also

extremely simple compared to wheels or tracks. With the limiting performance factor often being the single threaded physics engine, poly count is the least of our worries as Unity is pretty slick unless you're doing something really stupid with your meshes. Mercifully physx objects (wheel colliders, for example) are optimised and hardware accelerated outside our reach!

Texture sharing and size culling (as Gaalidas rightly points out)

to optimise memory usage where possible will become a priority in upcoming releases.

Now, I've done nothing this weekend apart from drunken debauchery; it's time for some sleep, and I'll get back to it during the week. I hope everyone's weekend has been as good

[Gaalidas]

I've been ill, but at times that is comparable to drunken debauchery, so I've probably had at least a similar weekend. Oh hey, I just checked out the released board and Baha came out with something rather neat. Adjustable landing gear. Using these new parts, you can slide and tweak various parameters to adjust things like ride height, angle, and even has an auto-adjust to make all the wheels align properly with the ground. I wonder how long he's been working on that.

[Naf5000]

And stock-alike? You show me a stock repulsor and we'll bug lo-fi to make a match for it. No stock repulsors are available? Hmm... then this is as stock-alike as it gets.

Time to use what my reasoning and argumentation teacher taught me! First, identify premises and conclusion:

P:You show me a stock repulsor and we'll bug lo-fi to make a match for it.

P:No stock repulsors are available?

C:Hmm... then this is as stock-alike as it gets.

Then, convert to standard form:

P: All times you show me a stock repulsor are times we'll bug lo-fi to make a matching repulsor.

P: No times like now are times you can show me a stock repulsor.

C: No times like now are times we'll bug lo-fi to make a matching repulser.

Convert to shorthand, identify positive/negative statements and determine distribution.

P: All S(d) are B(u) +

P: No N(d) are S(d) +

C: No N(d) are B(d) +

And it looks like the B in the conclusion requires the B in the premises to be distributed, which it is not. Your argument is invalid because the times we can bug lo-fi are unrelated to whether or not he has a stock repulsor to model off of.

Personally, I think the current repulsors are close enough to stock to be fine. Your argument just really bugs me.

[Madrias]

You ask me, there's too much of this "stock-alike" stuff flying around. Where's the originality when we need it? Why does everything need to be painted white and look boring? It's impossible to make interesting vehicles with just stock parts without using hundreds of 'em.

[Gaalidas]

Wow, I bit off a bit more than I could fit in my metaphorical mouth (as if any of this required a working mouth). I have never been so pleased to be put back in my place. Thank you. That was awesome.

[Madrias]

I have an idea. (I know, I know. "Not again!" Trust me, I think this one might fit in as a useful idea.)

We have wheels that mount in a traditional fashion and run the usual way. I was thinking of a wheel turned 90 degrees by default with a stack node on the mounting plate. Could make some nice three-wheeled (and two wheeled) rovers that way, with some of the best wheels I've ever driven on.

Also loving the new DSR hull. So useful having a rolling science lab.

Not used the extra long tracks yet, but that's only because I've been having too much fun trying to assemble a DSR unit into a space-worthy package and get it on the way to another world.

[lo-fi]

I've been ill, but at times that is comparable to drunken debauchery, so I've probably had at least a similar weekend. Oh hey, I just checked out the released board and Baha came out with something rather neat. Adjustable landing gear. Using these new parts, you can slide and tweak various parameters to adjust things like ride height, angle, and even has an auto-adjust to make all the wheels align properly with the ground. I wonder how long he's been working on that.

At least mine was self inflicted. Hope you're feeling better! I need to have a cheeky look at his code, they look really good.

I have an idea. (I know, I know. "Not again!" Trust me, I think this one might fit in as a useful idea.)

We have wheels that mount in a traditional fashion and run the usual way. I was thinking of a wheel turned 90 degrees by default with a stack node on the mounting plate. Could make some nice three-wheeled (and two wheeled) rovers that way, with some of the best wheels I've ever driven on.

Also loving the new DSR hull. So useful having a rolling science lab.

Not used the extra long tracks yet, but that's only because I've been having too much fun trying to assemble a DSR unit into a space-worthy package and get it on the way to another world.

I need to add a collider to the long tracks, as you can't move or configure them at the moment.

Not sure what you mean about the 90 deg wheel. Sketch? The DSRC is really cool, I think it's about ready to go out for initial release!

Also, love the argumentative reasoning, that made me chuckle.

[Naf5000]

You ask me, there's too much of this "stock-alike" stuff flying around. Where's the originality when we need it? Why does everything need to be painted white and look boring? It's impossible to make interesting vehicles with just stock parts without using hundreds of 'em.

It's mostly for consistency's sake. Stock may look a little bland, but any craft made with stock alike parts at least looks decent, whereas a ship cobbled together from b9, LLL, stock, and Firespitter will look like a cluster of clashing styles and colors. It's like the difference between a tuxedo and pretty much anything you see if you google "Weird fashion"; Sure a tux is bland and colorless, but worn right it has a ton of style, and at least you won't look like someone trying to sneak in to a theme park.

[Gaalidas]

Wouldn't 90 degrees have the wheel parallel to the ground? I could see a 45 degree angle maybe working. Depends on how the collider, or whatever lo-fi uses these days, works. This sort of part rotation, at its most basic, is possible using the "rotation" parameter of the "MODEL" node. I'm unsure how the module would react, however.

[lo-fi]

I do try to make stuff that doesn't look glaringly out of place with what's in game to start with, but for things that don't really have a precedent, and with the 'stock' style being a little all over the place itself, it's a little difficult. If the orange tank was in a mod, I have no doubt some people would be screaming to have it dull, flat white. I'm no stock-alike warrior, but I've seen the term glibly thrown around enough times to know that a lot of the time people don't really know what they actually mean by it. I always read it as "this needs more cowbell". And frankly everything needs more cowbell. So I guess what I'm saying is "I have no idea what that actually means", and will give anyone that asks for "more stock" without clarification an actual cowbell part, complete with really annoying sound effects. Either that or an OXO cube IVA prop..

As we've discussed before, I'm always open to suggestions though. It's Darren9's alternative texture that sits on the repulsors by default now instead of the more colourful original version, for example.

Trouble with doing stuff out of normal orientation is it gets all borky about which way is up. Which isn't really helpful in a game that's all about going up and coming down faster. Definitely need a sketch to figure that one out, though I think you're asking for a wheel that mounts like castor wheels underneath, rather than on the side?

[Gaalidas]

Ohh... castors... now that might be useful for a wheel that could add stability without being powered, braked, or hard-set into a certain orientation. I figured, at the very least, you could use an i-beam, attach one end to a free-moving docking washer and the other end to a wheel. That may do the trick, but with a moderate chance of breaking.

[lo-fi]

IR is the only way to make a free turning castor at the moment, same as bike wheels with castor angle. Under mount wheels ought to be possible, though.

[Darren9]

TT's omni-wheel is pretty much a castor when un-powered unless I'm missing something. It's like floating on a repulsor except you have brakes, which are quite useful sometimes. Wouldn't you just need to make the wheels point towards the direction the craft it moving to get the "effect" of a castor?

[lo-fi]

Yeah, that would work actually. I've never looked at how the omni wheels function - maybe I ought to.

[Gaalidas]

I remember back when we had a single page or so in this thread and I related your repulsor to an omni-wheel without a wheel mesh. Back to the present, I'd just about forgotten that old package.

[Madrias]

I guess my power of description failed me there. Think either a repulsor wheel, or the Medium Wheel, except turn the steering until the wheel is inline with the suspension arm, so that when mounted to the front of a craft, it would roll forward.