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

[Gaalidas]

Very well, I'll give the code one more look-over to see if they really are redundant still and then publish the changes. I can't understand all of your changes to the AG stuff, but I like it better than my various attempts over the last 24 hours. I actually managed to break everything but the TweakScale context menu entries for all of your parts in my attempts to modify how the AGs worked. I was just about to have another go at it when I accidentally launched Github and saw your change.

Love the new texture on the long track, too. Now I don't feel so... weird... when testing it. I hate it when parts are given that default white instead of a real texture. even a 2x2 texture with no alpha and pure white is preferable to no texture at all. At least then it could be made Paintable using that plugin. The next thing I'd like to tackle for these wheels and such are the redundant/unused textures that are still being published with them. With ram at a premium in KSP, we need to eliminate anything which might be loaded, whether they're kept loaded or not, to reduce load times and ram usage. Fortunately I've learned how to read the MU file format rather well in notepad++ to look for the referenced textures and clean things up. I think the only real culprits are a few wheels with an extra texture that looks the same as the one referenced, and a few tracks with an extra texture that looks like a tread-mark or something that also isn't used from what I can tell. I've also done some work on a few normals that were lacking and darkened/sharpened a few things that I thought could use it. The really large wheel set in particular has had a little update that reduces the blinding brightness of the suspension and attach bars so that they look metallic instead of glowing fluorescent (dependent on video brightness settings, I suppose.) I'm no texture artist, but I dabble.

[lo-fi]

Good news is that the latest TS stuff has been working faultlessly. I've tried some wheels and tracks at various scales now, and all seems to be well. Wheel/track AG's ought to be good to go, though I didn't run any particularly extensive tests.

Philotical is to thank for the long track texture, in response to my thread begging for help with texturing. The white is awful, I know, I really should create a default 'flat grey' texture to slap on freshly minted parts that have yet to be textured in future...

Probably a lot of stuff that can be changed to model nodes for texture sharing, though don't worry about messing with the .mu files, just download Unity 4.2.2 - if you don't already have it - and set up the repo I've just added you into. All the rigged models are in there, along with materials and textures. Should make life a lot easier!

On a different note, nli2works brilliant tug command pod sits rather well with the rover body (which will also need the TS treatment shortly). I'm just adding some RCS transforms and mesh, plus a little detail, then it's off for texturing:

[Madrias]

Lo-Fi, could you please skip me the link to that cockpit? Looks like it'd be awesome for IVA rover driving.

[BoomShroom]

Lo-Fi, could you please skip me the link to that cockpit? Looks like it'd be awesome for IVA rover driving.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83364-WIP-NohArk-s-Pick-and-Pull-Space-Tug-DEV-0-4

Boop.

[lo-fi]

There might be a temp IVA, but I think its functional. Thanks BoomShroom

If you're up for a little testing Madrias, I've made a plugin to mess about with the engine extension which changes the CoT. Nli2work is away for three weeks, but I'm co-author of kerbalstuff, so I can update when I'm happy it's ready. The little tug really is a work of art/genius, its definitely worth checking out!

[Gaalidas]

Good news is that the latest TS stuff has been working faultlessly. I've tried some wheels and tracks at various scales now, and all seems to be well. Wheel/track AG's ought to be good to go, though I didn't run any particularly extensive tests.

A note about the AGs. I just did some testing and, while I am unsure due to some extreme subtlety on the changed in ride-height with tracks, I am somewhat unconvinced that the ride-height AGs are auto-applying their new settings or not. That was, after all, the goal. The repulsors seem to auto-evaluate their right-height with each physics update (I think, I won't pretend to understand it fully) but the wheels need an extra push to me them update. I'll test again with actual wheels tomorrow to be sure. On the up side, I'm not getting those huge leaps anymore.

As for that old rover body, I'd be interested in seeing how hard it would be to implement something like the node activation/deactivation that exists on the ERS rover system for giving an option to attach wheels in an optimal configuration via stack nodes. I'll do a little research on that.

I'm still a little scared of Unity. I have it installed, but all those part tools have yet to be made easy to install as a single package for the recent updates to them, and I've actually never successfully loaded any real assets into it... ever...

Edited December 15, 2014 by Gaalidas

[lo-fi]

They will auto apply, yes. But only part that have had that setting added to the AG will be affected, the group number will be ignored. There is a good reason for this: You fire the AG, all the parts that have that action assigned to it will do their thing. If they're behaving the same as the GUI menu, they'll all iterate through parts with the same group number and apply settings. Then the next part that's in the AG does the same.... and you see where it gets messy. You could end up in an unholy mess, so the group setting is ignored when apply settings is fired from an AG.

The node thing might be cool, though with scalable wheels and tracks I'm not sure you'd cover all the bases and surface attachment is king. I believe the ASET rover uses it because of the asymmetrical parts that can't be placed with symmetry (which I'm personally not a huge fan of).

Unity is easy The best thing to do is set up a new project called KSP422, then over-write it with what's in that repo. You could get Git desktop to clone it right in, but it gets a little flaky sometimes with Unity, so I'd advise caution with that.

[Gaalidas]

Actually, I cloned directly in Github for windows, then directed unity to that and it worked pretty well. Had to redirect the part tools, which were thankfully already set up in that project, and it seems to be doing well. I don't have any idea what I'm looking at, so I do a lot of "don't same the bleeping changes that I don't remember even doing!" and hoping for the best. Unity will be my worst learning curve situation this holiday season, if I choose to tackle it at all. I almost prefer to load the MU files in a text editor to get the information I need.

Anyway, I realized when I woke up that I had talked about doing things "tomorrow" when, if fact due to my inability to get to sleep last night, it was tomorrow already. So, worry not, I have no intention of waiting another 24 hours to do anything else. Though, it should be mentioned that later today I'm going to a marathon showing of the previous two Hobbit movies followed by a showing of the new movie 2 days before non-marathon viewers get to see it. I'm gonna be sick of Middle-Earth by the end of the night (it's a 9-hour event). So, I'll be out of commission by noon-ish.

[lo-fi]

I'll do a Unity tutorial, it's something that keeps getting requested. When I started messing about I read half the Unity 3D forum and watched about half the video tutorials, so I had a pretty good idea what I was doing. Or join a hangout this eve, I'm doing a Q+A for someone who's new to modding, so we'll probably cover a lot of stuff in that. 20:00 GMT. Depending on how that coincides with your Hobbit marathon, of course. That's one heck of a lot of Hobbit in one sitting!

[Gaalidas]

I over did it with the popcorn and soda. Still, it was an awesome event... and final chapter.

So... woohoo... update 0.90 is upon us. Now the long wait while all the mods catch up.

[BrutalRIP]

There might be a temp IVA, but I think its functional. Thanks BoomShroom

If you're up for a little testing Madrias, I've made a plugin to mess about with the engine extension which changes the CoT. Nli2work is away for three weeks, but I'm co-author of kerbalstuff, so I can update when I'm happy it's ready. The little tug really is a work of art/genius, its definitely worth checking out!

I would like to test this for you

[Gaalidas]

There might be a temp IVA, but I think its functional. Thanks BoomShroom

If you're up for a little testing Madrias, I've made a plugin to mess about with the engine extension which changes the CoT. Nli2work is away for three weeks, but I'm co-author of kerbalstuff, so I can update when I'm happy it's ready. The little tug really is a work of art/genius, its definitely worth checking out!

I was thinking yesterday that what we need now is for that plugin to respond to gimbal controls so that, under plugins like KM_Gimbal, they can be automatically adjusted so that the center of thrust is lined up with the center of mass like we can with gimbals on regular engines.

[lo-fi]

Double post.

Edited December 16, 2014 by lo-fi

[JeffreyCor]

Will the recompile be available soon? KF is an absolute requirement for some ground vehicles

[lo-fi]

Sorry, the forum is getting a little crazy on me this evening. It looked like it had posted my previous post twice, now that's gone and I'm confused. Never mind...

@JeffreyCor, I believe 1.7 will work fine as is, though let me know if you do get trouble and I'll wind back the code and see what I can do.

@BrutalRIP, nli2work actually released with the plugin, and I've since updated it. Deploy the engines, then use the RCS translation controls with RCS disabled. It will will the engines around to change the CoT

@Gaalidas, Hard not to overdo the snacks on a nine hour Hobbit marathon! Thanks for the tip, I'll look at the code for KM gimbal and see if I can come up with something that will do similar. It won't be easy, though.

Does anyone know if there's a mod that successfully makes tyre tracks on the ground where wheels have been? I did a little searching, but couldn't find much. Loads of Unity docs, but I'm not sure what limitations KSP imposes, so they may not be relevant.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

The tracks & repulsors SEEM to work (only tested medium alpha, and surface repulsor) - but everything also seems to fall apart if a gust of wind comes along. KJR, where have you gone... =(

Hmm, hold the phone... dunno if this happened before (don't think so...), but now physics warp at least makes the repulsors essentially turn off - higher the warp, lower to the ground you go, though 4x seems really "special"in that the alignment of the repulsors visually flips out and you hit the ground, whereas you just get real low at 3x.

Edited December 16, 2014 by AccidentalDisassembly

[lo-fi]

Oh no, we're not back to rockets held together with Pritt Stick again, are we?

Interesting, I'll have a look at the timewarp. I'm not sure I've used it very often with a repulsorcraft, so this may not be new behaviour. Which KF build are you using?

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Oh no, we're not back to rockets held together with Pritt Stick again, are we?

Interesting, I'll have a look at the timewarp. I'm not sure I've used it very often with a repulsorcraft, so this may not be new behaviour. Which KF build are you using?

I'm using 1.7something from the main post - is there another one? Wait.. is there one with MORE GOODIES?!

[lo-fi]

Not that's been released yet

[Gaalidas]

So, KJR has been updated so you know, not that I've tested it yet. I run too many mods that all need to function with KSP in its current version in order to be able to load the game and still be able to do anything with it. Physics warp always screws with everything. It's not only multiplying time, but also the physics simulation with it. That's why physics warping a plane in the atmosphere, while throttled up, which is not properly strutted or whatnot will essentially create what we call "unplanned rapid dis-assembly" in which your craft tears itself apart and proceeds to go boom, or otherwise fly off in separate directions. This could also mean that the repulsors cannot keep up with physics (in this case the physical phenomenon known as gravity) running at hyper speed pulling the craft down toward the ground. Similar effects can be seen with wheels that have especially weak suspensions, or aircraft that experience what I mentioned earlier.

Another way of looking at it is that the planet really sucks. It sucks hard on just about anything it can reach. Everyone knows that planets really hate it when you defy their suckage, so they suck especially hard on those that try to escape. Get your mind out of the gutter you sicko, this is real science here... You can view physics warp as basically taking the suckage engines and running them on a little bit of high-speed. It really sucks. Now you can go back to your gutter... you sicko.

[Madrias]

I'm still operating under 0.25. No Firespitter is a no-go for me. I need my propellers.

[Bacon_commando]

Is this updating to 0.90 anytime soon? I need my tracks and anti-grav repulsors

[Gaalidas]

I'm still operating under 0.25. No Firespitter is a no-go for me. I need my propellers.

Firespitter was, supposedly, hotfixed. I was just thinking I should disable steam auto-update the other night when going to bed. Woke up to an updated KSP install.

Otherwise, have any issues been detected with the parts/plugin under 0.90?

[BudgetHedgehog]

Not only has FS been hotfixed, it's been officially updated by Snjo. Grab the updated plugin from his github.

[lo-fi]

KF seems to be fine without an update. Mercifully, Squad saw fit not to mess with the bits of the API I'm using. Same cant be said for the poor guys writing Kerbal Konstructs last I saw.