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

[lo-fi]

Funny you should mention that, nli2work did a cool POC of that, and was asking about syncing the legs. Sort of on the back burner until I have a flash of inspiration for how to do it

I'd love to! I think it just uses one of the stock sounds. What I think would be percect is the lovely soft turbine sound from the drone at the start of Interstellar. Submissions welcomed with open arms for sound clips, though!

[Kab00mBaby]

nice mod. i'd love to see the parts to be plit up among the tech tree to get access a little bit earlier esp. to the small/tiny parts

cheers mate

[LORDPrometheus]

I wonder if procedural tracks and wheels are possible....

[lo-fi]

nice mod. i'd love to see the parts to be plit up among the tech tree to get access a little bit earlier esp. to the small/tiny parts

cheers mate

Cheers it badly needs config balancing, so suggestions would be most welcome if you have any.

I wonder if procedural tracks and wheels are possible....

Without getting too technical: sadly not. I've put some thought into it, but I can't figure out how on earth I'd make it work.

[LORDPrometheus]

Cheers it badly needs config balancing, so suggestions would be most welcome if you have any.

Without getting too technical: sadly not. I've put some thought into it, but I can't figure out how on earth I'd make it work.

What about modular tracks?

[lo-fi]

The way the skinned mesh and the texture rotation works means that's a big fat no I'm afraid.

Being very clever about it, variable width has a slim chance of being feasible, but it's more than I'm up for tackling! They're probably some of the most technically complicated parts in the game, so messing with them at runtime is not so easy :/

[LORDPrometheus]

The way the skinned mesh and the texture rotation works means that's a big fat no I'm afraid.

Being very clever about it, variable width has a slim chance of being feasible, but it's more than I'm up for tackling! They're probably some of the most technically complicated parts in the game, so messing with them at runtime is not so easy :/

guess you just need to make a whole bunch of different ones then

[Bakase]

Funny you should mention that, nli2work did a cool POC of that, and was asking about syncing the legs. Sort of on the back burner until I have a flash of inspiration for how to do it

I'd love to! I think it just uses one of the stock sounds. What I think would be percect is the lovely soft turbine sound from the drone at the start of Interstellar. Submissions welcomed with open arms for sound clips, though!

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1Oen5QDp5CM

[lo-fi]

guess you just need to make a whole bunch of different ones then

Hehe. There are a few more to come, but RL has had me rather busy lately

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1Oen5QDp5CM

ROFL!!! Don't tempt me

[Lewtz]

Any idea when we will see this for 1.0.2 or does the 1.0 version work with 1.0.2? looking to install this mod for the first time, looks good.

[Gaalidas]

As far as I'm aware, we're looking good without any updates required from even the pre-1.0 editions.

As for procedural stuff... we've been through that conversation many times in this soon-to-become mega thread. It's just too brain bending to figure out at this time. Fortunately, with TweakScale support on all the tracks, you can easily set up clusters of tracks where you'd originally want one long one. It won't function exactly as you'd expect a one-piece track to function, but it works in the end.

I would think, however, that some sort of procedural track could be produced in this custom-made stroke of genius brought to you by... well... me...

So, what you'd do is make a basic procedural part that would act as the visual representation of the track itself. Not the inside wheels or anything, just the outer rubber band. This part would have a track texture and would use something like your texture animator to make it look like the track is moving. The collisions and what not would then be provided by a set of inner wheels which would be made as companion parts to the track. The track itself wouldn't have any collisions that the wheels would be able to interact with, and so the wheel parts (with a larger collision range to accommodate the track thickness) would be able to handle everything. The tricky part will then be making the procedural track attach to one of those inner wheels exclusively, so as to make sure that the orientations remain accurate, and controlling the texture animation on the procedural track to match the speed that the track would need to be moving for the current maneuver (turning, moving forward/backward, etc.) In other words, it'd be re-making that whole thing about the stock wheel bug that lets people make what appears to be hovering rovers (using wheel colliders and flat panels) except you're not using a bug technically, and you're providing a visual to make it look right.

But, I have no clue how to implement this... so good luck making it happen. You're gonna need it.

Oh, by the way lo-fi, I must have mentioned by DustFX spin-off from CollisionFX right? So, I finally got it working with a complete and extendable configuration file to define dust colors for biomes and planets (and possibly as detailed as specific locations using "landedAt"). Everything can be controlled, including particle strength and speed (which I also made TweakScale exponents to handle) on a per-wheel basis. Well, I added the module to the repulsors, before this KSP 1.0 release screwed up all the mods (temporarily of course), and did a little testing. As it turns out, the collisions that the repulsion field create also trigger the DustFX collision detection and throw up dust on the ground when you're moving over the surface. It looks awesome, and I really wish I had screenshots or something to show.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Gaalidas

[lo-fi]

Indeed, I just bumped it. Hadn't even realised they'd released two patches!

I see what you're getting at with the procedural, but if you saw what I have to rig up to make the tracks move like they do you'd probably have to lift your jaw back up, sit down and have a stiff drink Trust me, it ain't that easy! Maybe I ought to live stream some of my experimental work?

I just peeked at the thread stats.. 300,000 views! Mental.

DustFX sounds great! Is this something you've released?? If not, we ought to get on it. Also, considering taking the plunge and actually doing a full KF release. Need to have a crack at that repulsor bug and do a proper configuration balance, but apart from that I believe it's ready to go.

[FunnyBunny14]

I converted the textures to the dds format for personal use, but it actually went really well, so I decided to share it here.

I used the dds converter for windows (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/98672-WIN-KSP-to-DDS-texture-converter)

The link to the dropbox file with all the converted textures: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pn7u2o7vzu6zlyi/KerbalFoundries%20dds%20format.zip?dl=0

[lo-fi]

Ah, great! Thanks for sharing

[FunnyBunny14]

Ah, great! Thanks for sharing

You're welcome

[Dreadp1r4te]

Looks like KSP 1.0.2 crashes when loading the Auxiliary Power Unit; I don't have time to troubleshoot because I have to head to work, but just a heads up. The game doesn't freeze and therefore doesn't produce a crashlog, so I can't be of any help there. The loading screen continues to cycle backgrounds and witty texts, but the loading process halts on that part and refuses to continue.

[lo-fi]

Ah, I bet something to do with the new isp/thrust stuff. Though this is the first I've heard of it, so possibly a good old fashioned memory issue or something else entirely. Post an output_log?

[Gaalidas]

Considering the hang is on the loading menu, I highly doubt it's isp/thrust related.

[danet88]

Not sure if it's been mentioned or not, but (not sure about the wheels) but definitely the tracks show up at an absurd size in the VAB. Basically when adding tracks to a vehicle, it is increasing it's size massively. Pics included here http://imgur.com/a/d9xVu#0

Edit: I thought I should probably mention as well that the tracks in the picture have been made larger via tweakscale to 140% so that they fit the vehicle better, however, the issue still occurs when they are at default size, they just show up as a slightly smaller length, (around 80-90m)

Edited May 6, 2015 by danet88

[lo-fi]

Good point, Gaalidas. Will need a log.

That's a well known bug, Danet88. Bounds detection for the skinned mesh that the tracks use does not work correctly in KSP. It's something I'm afraid I can do nothing about, which is a pain because it's causing aero, shielding and hearing problems too.

I'll log it with squad again as it's causing even more problems than before!

[danet88]

Thanks for the response, hadn't even considered the reasons you mention there! My main concern was that it was too big for my airfield to launch it as it only takes vehicles up to 15m!

[riocrokite]

hey lo-fi / Gaalidas

I haven't done rebalancing on tracks/wheels power usage yet, however I think I would share couple of thoughts for resolving current problem with all wheels/tracks:

Wheels/tracks behave indifferent no matter whether they carry extreme weight or no weight at all (only thing being damage which is on/off thing). So to decompose problem:

a) acceleration doesn't change with moved weight

max speed doesn't change with moved weight

c) power usage doesn't change with moved weight

I know that stock wheels configs are FUBAR, however I thought what things we could fix KF mod to account for that (so player would choose larger wheels rather than smaller to carry heavier weights)

What I consider an elegant solution is to introduce 3 things:

1) curve for additional ECconsumption based on mass on track or wheel (so more EC would be needed to move heavier stuff, also nice effect would be that on low-gravity bodies you could save on EC consumption)

2) curve for additional rollingResistance-like variable based on mass on track/wheel (so point a) and are fixed at the same time)

3) maybe change original rollingResistance to curve based on speed (to account for fact that tracks generate a lot more drag forces at high speeds than wheels - and other way round - at low speeds on sandy grounds tracks generate less drag than wheels;))

[ratchet freak]

the APU can now be done with the the fuel cell module no? (taking intake air and LF instead of LFO)

I don't really see a need to create any thust for power gen.

[Dreadp1r4te]

Ah, I bet something to do with the new isp/thrust stuff. Though this is the first I've heard of it, so possibly a good old fashioned memory issue or something else entirely. Post an output_log?

How exactly would I go about finding an output log, since the freeze doesn't actually halt the game?

[lo-fi]

hey lo-fi / Gaalidas

I haven't done rebalancing on tracks/wheels power usage yet, however I think I would share couple of thoughts for resolving current problem with all wheels/tracks:

Wheels/tracks behave indifferent no matter whether they carry extreme weight or no weight at all (only thing being damage which is on/off thing). So to decompose problem:

a) acceleration doesn't change with moved weight

max speed doesn't change with moved weight

c) power usage doesn't change with moved weight

I know that stock wheels configs are FUBAR, however I thought what things we could fix KF mod to account for that (so player would choose larger wheels rather than smaller to carry heavier weights)

What I consider an elegant solution is to introduce 3 things:

1) curve for additional ECconsumption based on mass on track or wheel (so more EC would be needed to move heavier stuff, also nice effect would be that on low-gravity bodies you could save on EC consumption)

2) curve for additional rollingResistance-like variable based on mass on track/wheel (so point a) and are fixed at the same time)

3) maybe change original rollingResistance to curve based on speed (to account for fact that tracks generate a lot more drag forces at high speeds than wheels - and other way round - at low speeds on sandy grounds tracks generate less drag than wheels;))

I think all your points are pretty neatly addressed by a rolling resistance constant. I say constant because for wheels, it doesn't change much with speed. Though as you point out, it needs to be correctly multiplied with laden weight. This would neatly nerf acceleration and top speed for heavily laden wheels and increase power usage.

Tracks probably need a rolling resistance curve, but this is easy to roll into the same config fields as wheels. Tracks need a curve, wheels need a flat line. I'll work on something.

the APU can now be done with the the fuel cell module no? (taking intake air and LF instead of LFO)

I don't really see a need to create any thust for power gen.

The reason I went with LFO is it can then be used in any situation, not just planets with burnable atmosphere. Would be rather limiting otherwise!