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

[Kenobi McCormick]

59 minutes ago, Cornelius McMuffin said:

suggestions

Two problems, bro.

 

1: They're still working on getting what we already have working.

 

2: I posited this sort of idea over a year ago. Replicating real-life stuff is not lo-fi's MO. He did end up producing a track similar to what's found on the T-54/55/62/72 family, but it's not an exact replica. The hulls are....well, easy enough to make yourself really. Get Blender, a free-to-use steel texture, whip it up. A total novice to blender can get a tank hull worked out pretty quick, it's basic geometry.

[lo-fi]

Ahhh, I hadn't thought of the wheels spinning up! It's simply not a behaviour the stock colliders ever exhibited when grounded. 

Kenobi is quite correct, I don't ever do real stuff. Only a sort of representation if it's something I really like. The long tracks, for example, are a sort of futureish  Russian T55, T34 kind of mashup. Tank hulls, as pointed out, are an ideal thing to start with the if you're going to make a part. The closest you'll get from me is the rover body with its kerbalised, kwerky sort of crazy.. 

There are two things in the pipeline: Spanners awesome DSR modular rover we've worked on, and the little open rollcage that V8jester was helping me with. Both are entirely freelance! 

The Christie suspension is kinda interesting, but mostly entirely hidden away! I did an HD, higher poly version of some of the wheels, so maybe an exposed version on the right type of track could look rather good. I got fed up with tweaking code the other night and made a six road wheel track with return rollers, which looks rather nice. It needs some different textures to the existing long track to set it apart, really. Does anyone have any tank models they've got nicely painted up and could take some pictures of? Square on shots of wheels and tracks with nice diffuse light and no shadows are great for making textures from. 

Edited September 6, 2016 by lo-fi

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

10 hours ago, Cornelius McMuffin said:

tank stuff

I know of  3 Tank mod packs, one you can get right now, the other two are simply awaiting this awesome groups tracks in order to be released. 

Spoiler

Off topic spoiler

Spoiler

As for the TOG surely ranks fairly high up on the most useless tanks in WOT list, I had one for an afternoon, it was free (long time tester) after a couple of hours it was dumped to free up the garage slot it came with

 

Edited September 6, 2016 by SpannerMonkey(smce)

[TwinKerbal]

10 hours ago, Cornelius McMuffin said:

my suggestions:

-Christie suspension

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christie_suspension

-Prebuilt tank hulls (for lazy people)

-armored tracks (like Churchill and B1 Bis)

-also, would be nice to have some sort of customizable tracks that fit around other parts, but I don't know if that would be possible.

(and please, add the TOG II)

Prepare yourself

the fish slapping is coming. And lots of it. 

[Mycroft]

For @lo-fi and his dev team: 

Woohoo! 1.2 is getting close to being out! The public experimental version (the one for modders and bug hunters) is due out in a couple days, both on steam, but also on the KSP store! You were looking for early access, here it is!! This thread is maintained by SQUAD Staff members, so they'll tell people when it's out. 

Thought you all would want to know.

Also, the SQUAD Staff is talking like experimental releases are going to be a normal thing!

Edited September 6, 2016 by Mycroft

[Madrias]

7 hours ago, lo-fi said:

DSR modular rover we've worked on, and the little open rollcage

I'm glad to hear these will make a return!  The Rollcage is, from what I remember, excellent for making seat-of-the-pants flyers, and the DSR was awesome, although I did dislike that there wasn't enough stuff to run along with it.  I could build the base vehicle or the science vehicle, but that was it.

If it's not too much to ask regarding the DSR, could we perhaps see a couple different main-unit configurations, and possibly a trailer unit that could be set up with DSR-styled parts for power generation and science bay?  I know the tracks and wheels have to come first, and I know that the DSR is... well, it's very detailed and an awesome design, which means adapting any ideas I've just come up with is likely to be difficult.  I'd just love to finally be able to drive the DSR, with science and power generation unit, as my "Let's drive around Kerbin" vehicle.

Which, I suppose, means that it'll have to float, and that I'll have to find some way to deal with water propulsion, but that shouldn't be too hard once we have tracks.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

14 minutes ago, Madrias said:

I'm glad to hear these will make a return!  The Rollcage is, from what I remember, excellent for making seat-of-the-pants flyers, and the DSR was awesome, although I did dislike that there wasn't enough stuff to run along with it.  I could build the base vehicle or the science vehicle, but that was it.

If it's not too much to ask regarding the DSR, could we perhaps see a couple different main-unit configurations, and possibly a trailer unit that could be set up with DSR-styled parts for power generation and science bay?  I know the tracks and wheels have to come first, and I know that the DSR is... well, it's very detailed and an awesome design, which means adapting any ideas I've just come up with is likely to be difficult.  I'd just love to finally be able to drive the DSR, with science and power generation unit, as my "Let's drive around Kerbin" vehicle.

Which, I suppose, means that it'll have to float, and that I'll have to find some way to deal with water propulsion, but that shouldn't be too hard once we have tracks.

Hi, its all doable, it's still very much alive though needing some serious modernisation (i refuse to spell it with a Z)  Pre 1.1 it did make a few sea crossings to the island using the HypnoDrive but not exactly sporty or overly stable for that matter, but we have plenty of ways to mess around with all the force centers these days so all that is probably tunable to a certain extent  The DSR as it was left is a partly developed concept that happened to have some nice details, I reckon it would be a tad cooler if I were to do it all over .  And the water propulsion is a non issue as i could easily give an Amphibious version   deployable propellers Amphicar style.

[TARDISES]

13 hours ago, Cornelius McMuffin said:

my suggestions:

*Stuff irrelevant to the mod*

[Madrias]

Well, if you're willing to take design ideas from someone who has no idea of whether it's practical or not, I can give a few pointers from what I knew of the DSR we had.

First, the cab end.  I like the pointy shape, I get the practicality of it (the reason I like it, as it's function over form) but at the same time, I always felt it looked a bit odd having all that frontal space and only one Kerbal up front.  If it were to be changed at all, I'd mostly want to have it internally reconfigured for a driver/navigator pairing up front.  The driver should have as much an unobstructed view of the terrain as possible, while still giving the necessary gauges for basic navigation (speed, compass, altitude) and possibly one or two of those RPM screens.  (Although I like having mechanical backups because I hate losing my nav data because I ran out of electricity.  The navigator, however, should have multiple RPM screens, at least enough for the navball, resources, ScanSat navigation map data, and possibly Vessel View (or whatever it's called.  I don't have it installed in my 1.0.5 install, but I've wanted it because it'd allow for a more sci-fi 'What just exploded' moment when driving from the cab.)  At the same time, the Navigator should also be equipped with basic gauges.  Between the Driver / Navigator should be a command panel, essentially with action group toggles, throttle, and anything not deemed immediately essential to driving or navigating.

Honestly, the cab design doesn't really bother me too much externally, because it is function over form.  It offers a large field of view around the front of the vehicle.

Now, I'd like to see the modularity pick up here by only having the one cab unit, capable of holding 4 kerbals, with an expansion platform behind the cab. (It's the one that used to hold 3, but I'm pairing driver / navigator and also requesting enough room for an on-board change-over team.  I think the 3 seater used to be the Cargo hull, I'd want it to be main)  This will be called the A-Unit.  Yes, there's significance to the train terminology here.  The A-Unit should have enough room for one Module.  We'd then need a second part, the B-Unit, which shares the same chassis length as the A-unit.  (Note, the A unit should have enough room for a solitary module.  The B-unit should have enough room for a module and a half, so by chassis length, I'm referring from nose to tail of the A-unit, not just the part everyone mounts tracks to)  This B-Unit has enough room for a module and a half-sized module, offers no onboard driving systems, and just contains fuel and a battery, along with mounting points.

So, what are the Modules?  They're like the current Science Pod and Cargo Bay.  The Science Pod should stay intact as it is, it worked well, although I think it needs more internal clutter, personally.  The Cargo Bay needs a little modification, as currently, it's just a gigantic KAS/KIS storage box.  I'd vote to keep that functionality, but also add some cargo bay doors (I can't believe I just discovered the DSR-3's cargo pod does actually have these!) to allow us to make a science bay where we put things that don't fit in with the main unit's theme.  At the same time, we've removed the old Bus styled DSR, so we now need a Crew Pod.  The old DSR-3 held 9 kerbals, let's fit 8-10 in the crew pod to give a full exploration team.  Now, these are all Full-Size modules, they all take up a standard Module spot.  Half-Size modules would be a Half-Size Cargo Bay, a Crew Pod with 4 Kerbals in it, a Mining Module, an ISRU module, and the Power Generation module.

Power Generation, I think should be done as a multi-part-in-one kind of thing.  I've always felt the DSR series is kinda that rover you get to once you've unlocked the mining and processing stuff, and you've got all the survivability things needed to make it practical.  Power Generation should have some rooftop mounted solar panels (backup emergency power), some sort of main fuel cell (much like the ones we have, but more powerful, some sort of engine-generator (runs with Liquid Fuel and Air), and maybe a backup fuel cell that can run on monopropellant?

Mining should contain the necessary drills and ore capacity, as well as all the necessary sensors for mining.  It should also have its own radiators or active cooling.

ISRU should contain, as expected, all the ore-reprocessing capabilities, allowing the DSR to be completely self-sufficient given a location with ore and the fact that the DSR should be able to keep moving as long as power isn't completely depleted.

Now, I feel that the DSR is one of those rovers that was great when it started, and could get better if it had a few extra features.  Which is why I mentioned what I did, because they were things I've come up with, but have no ability to do, to improve the DSR-series of rovers.

Basically, in a nutshell:

-DSR main unit is the Cargo cab, with 4 pilot capacity instead of 3.  Vehicle may need to become slightly bigger to allow this. Alternatively, 3 pilot capacity maintained, but with increased use of RPM screens.
-DSR components placed as specifically-sized modules allowing for more mission-based customization of the rover.
-Amphibious water drive would be perfect to round out the new A-Unit vehicle end.
-B-Unit trailer using attachment nodes for either Kerbal Foundries hitch, Infernal Robotics free-moving hinges, or direct connection.
-Power Generation unit capable of extending the drive-time of the DSR through conventional means, without resorting to nuclear power.
-Mining and reprocessing as modules to allow near-limitless drive time when combined with power unit.

 

I know, I'm long-winded at the best of times, but I really do like the DSR series of rovers.  I'd just like to see a few things added and tweaked on it to make it up-to-date with KSP's more modern version.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

3 minutes ago, Madrias said:

Well, if you're willing to take design ideas from someone who has no idea of whether it's practical or not, I can give a few pointers from what I knew of the DSR we had.

 

I think all of that is perfectly valid, and an appropriate set of expectations for a modern rover system to fulfill ,  I could likely widen it by as little as 200mm and get a side by side fwd arrangement for the crew. I've just started fully exploring the potential of these new fangled ISRU's it would be very remiss not to include all of their potential. I've a ton more IVA props an doodads these days  to clutter any space nicely including the obligatory steamy mug! If anything I'm more prolific in output than first time around, and I'm certainly better at it. The only snag these days is that I've many many fires with way too many pokers, finally managed to fill that infinite free time to the point there's not enough hours in one day any more

Given a smooth transition for the rest of my flock to 1.2 I'd certainly like to take a crack at the rebuild renovation and enhancement pretty soon, though if this should not come to pass I'd be happy to hand over as much of the raw stuff as I have to any willing to dive in.

[Madrias]

18 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

obligatory steamy mug

Yeah, the driver or navigator almost certainly needs their cup of Koffee to go with the new DSR...  Shall we just call it DSR-4?

Oh, and I think one thing that'd be nice is to put the antenna inside the science module.  I'm a little tired of forgetting my antenna only to find out after I've landed my rover on, well, Duna or Eve.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Madrias

[ss8913]

so are they (Squad) definitely for sure fixing wheels in 1.2 and not "pushing it out" so that they can, pardon the pun, reinvent the wheel on RemoteTech for this release?   We already have a fully functional antenna/comms system (RT), what we don't have, and what the mod community can't fix, are the wheels   Looking forward to proper ground friction modeling, rovers, and not having to put parachutes on all my spaceplanes because there's not enough wheel friction to stop a 200+ ton plane on the runway even with all the sliders maxed   (hence the drag chutes).

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

2 hours ago, Madrias said:

Yeah, the driver or navigator almost certainly needs their cup of Koffee to go with the new DSR...  Shall we just call it DSR-4?

Oh, and I think one thing that'd be nice is to put the antenna inside the science module.  I'm a little tired of forgetting my antenna only to find out after I've landed my rover on, well, Duna or Eve.

You are most definitely not alone, I've taken to including a small data transmitter module in most pods, and i reckon whats worse is when a momentary burst of over exuberance, leaves your only antenna spinning slowly away into the void

DSR-4 is appropriate as there was a DSR-2 and still is but it's mostly used a a ground target these days, having been stripped of all but enough to keep it drivable

[lo-fi]

4 hours ago, Mycroft said:

Woohoo! 1.2 is getting close to being out! The public experimental version (the one for modders and bug hunters) is due out in a couple days, both on steam, but also on the KSP store! You were looking for early access, here it is!! This thread is maintained by SQUAD Staff members, so they'll tell people when it's out. 

Thanks, that'll be handy!

 

@SpannerMonkey(smce) and @Madrias, thanks for some quality input as always. I reckon the DSR will prove rather popular, Spanner. I'll dig out what I did continuing it - I think I remodeled some of the cockpit, but I can't remember why! i'm way behind the times on IVA stuff too, but I like the side by side cockpit idea. It'll free up some room inside at the rear too, but I'd hate to lose the shape entirely - it's so good. As ever, shout if I can help with your other projects, it can get a bit isolated when you're working away. I'm very grateful to this rabble for their constant interactions, and I cant thank Shadowmage enough for the work on the new wheel colliders; I would never have managed that myself.

@Shadowmage I was going to bash it into 1.1/U5.2 guise, but as 1.2 beta is imminent, I'll wait a few days. Having some odd issues with tank steering when the wheels at furthest longitudes run away after losing grip in a turn, and I'm not sure entirely how to deal with that yet. Going to be a learning curve how the new colliders behave, figuring out whether it's a "you're driving them a totally insane way" or "something needs tweaking". The old U4 colliders were just so benign!

2 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

 

so are they (Squad) definitely for sure fixing wheels in 1.2 and not "pushing it out" so that they can, pardon the pun, reinvent the wheel on RemoteTech for this release?

 

The guys at Squad have done some incredible thing with Unity, but I wouldn't count on anything wheel related being truly fixed in 1.2... We're doing our absolute best to make a viable alternative.

[Shadowmage]

@lo-fi

On multi-wheel tracks-type setups -- the RPM limiter helps from extreme runaways.  Also manually averaging the wheel-RPM across all wheels in the track should clean up most of the rest of the oddities (apply equal torque to all wheels, some will slip more than others, but as they are all physically linked, you should be able to safely average out the RPM across all linked wheels every FixedUpdate) (averaging of RPMs is how I had intended tank-type multi-wheel setups to work).

Hopefully things will be slowing down for me at work soon so I'll have more time (and patience) to be able to dig back into the code an testing end of things.  Soon.  Hopefully.

[Madrias]

18 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

You are most definitely not alone, I've taken to including a small data transmitter module in most pods, and i reckon whats worse is when a momentary burst of over exuberance, leaves your only antenna spinning slowly away into the void

DSR-4 is appropriate as there was a DSR-2 and still is but it's mostly used a a ground target these days, having been stripped of all but enough to keep it drivable

Fair enough, from now on I'll refer to this new design-in-planning as DSR-4.  And yes, it is incredibly annoying to roll the vehicle and watch the only thing that explodes being your transmitter.  It's frustrating.  It's a case of "I've got 20 batteries, 12 fixed solar panels, 6 retractable panels, a self-righting mechanism, and plenty of science gear.  Why?  Why does the lone antenna I've buried between the frame rails have to be the thing that explodes?"

18 minutes ago, lo-fi said:

thanks for some quality input as always.

Hey, I'm always ready for giving input.  If I remember correctly, that's part of the reason I was on your testing team back in the good ol' days of KSP.  I'm still willing to do that, as you know my testing methodology involves combining things in unexpected ways, testing cross-compatibility, and a willingness to do whatever is asked when you need bug confirmation.

And I'm chock full of ideas.  There's always something brewing in the back of my mind.  After all, while I managed to get a set of steerable tracks, as satisfying as they are, well, I'm gonna have to request another set.  Either that, or a steerable set of hypno-drives.  Obviously, when that's actually possible.  Would I be pushing my luck if I asked for both a steerable set of hypno-drives (and by steerable, I'm referring to automotive style steering, rather than tank drive), and another steerable set of tracks?  I kinda like the ones we had, but one, they're only a two-roller track, which, I suppose is good, but I'd like a bit more track, like the KF Small Track, and two, they're top mount instead of side mount.  Good for some applications, not so good for other applications.

As said, consider it when we actually have working wheels and tracks.

Out of curiosity, on a lot of the smaller tracks, would it be practical to put in a second steering selection button?  There's a lot of tracks that would lend themselves to being great at steering like a car, while giving the ground-crawling performance of a track.

[lo-fi]

24 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

@lo-fi

On multi-wheel tracks-type setups -- the RPM limiter helps from extreme runaways.  Also manually averaging the wheel-RPM across all wheels in the track should clean up most of the rest of the oddities (apply equal torque to all wheels, some will slip more than others, but as they are all physically linked, you should be able to safely average out the RPM across all linked wheels every FixedUpdate) (averaging of RPMs is how I had intended tank-type multi-wheel setups to work).

Hopefully things will be slowing down for me at work soon so I'll have more time (and patience) to be able to dig back into the code an testing end of things.  Soon.  Hopefully.

Averaging was how I did it with the plugin previously - it worked well! As and when; no hurry  I'm going to keep poking around seeing whether I can break it, and what best I can do with the plugin.

 

34 minutes ago, Madrias said:

And I'm chock full of ideas.

Ideas are always welcome. Well, the kind that aren't "can you make this exact thing for me?"

34 minutes ago, Madrias said:

Out of curiosity, on a lot of the smaller tracks, would it be practical to put in a second steering selection button?  There's a lot of tracks that would lend themselves to being great at steering like a car, while giving the ground-crawling performance of a track.

On a lot of them, it would require some remodelling and a lot of hierarchy re-jigging, so a button probably isn't practical. An IR style thing with return to centre steering to attach them to ought to be possible, though.

[Madrias]

2 minutes ago, lo-fi said:

IR style thing with return to centre steering

If you could make that work, I'd be very grateful.  Sadly, IR doesn't have auto-return-to-center which makes it very difficult to justify using IR as steering equipment.  After all, you've still got those attach nodes that I find eternally useful for tacking tracks on where I feel it's needed without being able to nicely surface attach them.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Madrias

[damerell]

18 hours ago, Cornelius McMuffin said:

my suggestions:

-Christie suspension

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christie_suspension

The older KF track parts did have very large suspension travel. I expect you'll see something similar in the future.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

3 hours ago, ss8913 said:

so are they (Squad) definitely for sure fixing wheels in 1.2 and not "pushing it out" so that they can, pardon the pun, reinvent the wheel on RemoteTech for this release?   We already have a fully functional antenna/comms system (RT), what we don't have, and what the mod community can't fix, are the wheels   Looking forward to proper ground friction modeling, rovers, and not having to put parachutes on all my spaceplanes because there's not enough wheel friction to stop a 200+ ton plane on the runway even with all the sliders maxed   (hence the drag chutes).

Squad stated (somewhere, can't find it now) about a month or more ago that they'd "fixed wheels".  I assume they mean, stopped them doing weird excrements.  They've stated they no longer need the workaround (blocked) to stop the weird excrements. 

However, I wouldn't expect them to have a wonderfully realistic friction model, and I assume the wheels will still only drive from the bottom point of the wheel.  But, in many situations the updated wheel systems should be OK in the sense of not seeming horribly weird.  So, "fixed" is likely to simply mean, playable again.  Unlikely to be the sort of wheel mechanism you'd want in a driving game, but they have to cater to larger variety than a driving game.  It'll be interesting to test it

[ss8913]

1 hour ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Squad stated (somewhere, can't find it now) about a month or more ago that they'd "fixed wheels".  I assume they mean, stopped them doing weird excrements.  They've stated they no longer need the workaround (blocked) to stop the weird excrements. 

However, I wouldn't expect them to have a wonderfully realistic friction model, and I assume the wheels will still only drive from the bottom point of the wheel.  But, in many situations the updated wheel systems should be OK in the sense of not seeming horribly weird.  So, "fixed" is likely to simply mean, playable again.  Unlikely to be the sort of wheel mechanism you'd want in a driving game, but they have to cater to larger variety than a driving game.  It'll be interesting to test it

I will be satisfied if 1. this mod can function properly again with 1.2, and 2. if I can actually use brakes to stop a plane again   not expecting iRacing in KSP, for sure

[Madrias]

I'd just be happy with wheels that don't slide sideways when on nearly-level ground.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

3 hours ago, Madrias said:

I'd just be happy with wheels that don't slide sideways when on nearly-level ground.

I'm not expecting wonders either.  But being able to use wheels for well... rover type use, would be nice.

[wasml]

Thought I saw in a recent dev note that they had found and fixed the "slide uphill" bug.

[snekposter]

2 hours ago, wasml said:

Thought I saw in a recent dev note that they had found and fixed the "slide uphill" bug.

I remember the devnotes when Harvester added in that phantom force to stop things from sliding downhill