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

[lo-fi]

Excellent, I'll get to work. 

[Z3R0_0NL1N3]

Good luck with 1.2 compatibility! I can be patient. However, once tracks work again, could you take a look at picking up this abandoned mod? Because look at it!

That is all, no mackerel pls

[TARDISES]

2 minutes ago, Z3R0_0NL1N3 said:

Good luck with 1.2 compatibility! I can be patient. However, once tracks work again, could you take a look at picking up this abandoned mod? Because look at it!

That is all, no mackerel pls

 

What? You did say no mackerel!

 

...But, more seriously, they're going to decide what they work on.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Just now, Z3R0_0NL1N3 said:

Good luck with 1.2 compatibility! I can be patient. However, once tracks work again, could you take a look at picking up this abandoned mod? Because look at it!

That is all, no mackerel pls

That there abandoned mod is i believe the great grandfather of this one ( or the original KF version drew inspiration from it, I recall a connection somewhere)  there's nothing there to save that hasn't been saved, already by KF.  . And I'd be tempted to hand you a mackerel, but this once I'll defer to more reasonable personalities.

[lo-fi]

13 minutes ago, Z3R0_0NL1N3 said:

Good luck with 1.2 compatibility! I can be patient. However, once tracks work again, could you take a look at picking up this abandoned mod?

Thanks. I do have all the source for that, but there are a few things that stopped me re-releasing the nasa crawler thing. Firstly, KF doesn't support more than one track per part like RBI did, which is why the mole tracks are not a single part chassis. Secondly, the model is unfinished, slightly squiffy in places and generally has some weird stuff going on. The tracks, with such a difference in wheel size are a chuffing nightmare to skin, and it wasn't something that really interested me, so I left it be. The rest of the RBI bits have been bundled into KF with the blessing of the RBI guys.

The source files are all available, plus a tutorial on how to set up parts with KF, so no reason somebody else can't pick it up. Not something I'll revisit I'm afraid.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

7 hours ago, Madrias said:

How many wheels does it take before the KSP wheel and suspension physics gives up and 'jitterbugs' the craft?  Basically, just starts bouncing around on the suspension, while being virtually undrivable due to lack of control.

Can say I fitted 48 wheels to the tank in the vid above, even apparently clipping wheels to wheels (just like the ooooold days) and it wont break, it just drinks all the EC and laughs at me..... It's presently rolling down the runway with all 48 wheels intact and driving, well if they're the right way up that is , as i say some are clipped to the faces of others, it's unnervingly well behaved, it seems though, that you can provoke some oddness from the suspension, with it hanging strangely occasionally, especially when unloaded,  but with wheels stuck to  wheels i expect something to break..  There's also some element of proportional steering, as if the wheels know where they are, the center groups are moving a lot less than those at the ends when turning.

Spoiler

 

Edited September 14, 2016 by SpannerMonkey(smce)

[0111narwhalz]

19 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Can say I fitted 48 wheels to the tank in the vid above, even apparently clipping wheels to wheels (just like the ooooold days) and it wont break, it just drinks all the EC and laughs at me..... It's presently rolling down the runway with all 48 wheels intact and driving, well if they're the right way up that is , as i say some are clipped to the faces of others, it's unnervingly well behaved, it seems though, that you can provoke some oddness from the suspension, with it hanging strangely occasionally, especially when unloaded,  but with wheels stuck to  wheels i expect something to break..  There's also some element of proportional steering, as if the wheels know where they are, the center groups are moving a lot less than those at the ends when turning.

Those aren't stock wheels, are they?

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

7 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Those aren't stock wheels, are they?

Nope,nothing more than a glorified TR2L  though (pretty much the same cfg, but spent a lot of time here and so the collider settings etc are not exactly stock) as they're nice and narrow , I've dozens of them, just awaiting the nice people here for their new shiny modules.

[Z3R0_0NL1N3]

5 hours ago, lo-fi said:

Thanks. I do have all the source for that, but there are a few things that stopped me re-releasing the nasa crawler thing. Firstly, KF doesn't support more than one track per part like RBI did, which is why the mole tracks are not a single part chassis. Secondly, the model is unfinished, slightly squiffy in places and generally has some weird stuff going on. The tracks, with such a difference in wheel size are a chuffing nightmare to skin, and it wasn't something that really interested me, so I left it be. The rest of the RBI bits have been bundled into KF with the blessing of the RBI guys.

The source files are all available, plus a tutorial on how to set up parts with KF, so no reason somebody else can't pick it up. Not something I'll revisit I'm afraid.

A bit unfortunate, as it did look really good, but no worries. Thanks for the informative reply.

[Madrias]

2 hours ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Can say I fitted 48 wheels to the tank in the vid above

Well, at least I know that bug's been squished.  That was one of the things that bothered me about 1.1, that if you put enough wheels on a craft, it'd jitterbug and become unusable.

[damerell]

It does raise the question of whether the stock wheel module is going to go back to being good enough to use it. (Particularly on track parts where angling the fore and aft wheels outwards will mask the main issue that stock wheels only work in one direction).

[0111narwhalz]

1 hour ago, damerell said:

It does raise the question of whether the stock wheel module is going to go back to being good enough to use it. (Particularly on track parts where angling the fore and aft wheels outwards will mask the main issue that stock wheels only work in one direction).

I don't believe you can have multiple wheels on one part in stock. I recall someone moaning about that in 1.1.

[lo-fi]

Depends if you're talking stock part module, or stock wheel collider. Theres a hard limit with U5 colliders which means you can only have a certain number attached to a given rigid body (part), but I've no idea about the squad stuff on top. You used to be able to. I'll have a play around tonight, it will be interesting to see what it all looks like in game.  

[Shadowmage]

41 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

I don't believe you can have multiple wheels on one part in stock. I recall someone moaning about that in 1.1.

Still true.  The stock wheel module will not work for KF setups due to this. 

The Unity 5.4 WheelCollider also still has the 'must be rigidbody-aligned' issue which prevents many other setups.

Sadly a custom solution is still the only way to go, at least at the PartModule level.  I intend to do some investigation on the 5.4 wheel collider to see if it is more stable than a stack of ping-pong balls, but I'm not holding out any hope for it.  Though; they fixed the joints, so perhaps the wheel collider got fixed up as well.

-If- it did, we might be able to use it (the U5 WheelCollider) for suspension forces, negating the need for the joint-based setup.  This would be done by creating a custom GameObject and Rigidbody for each wheel, and aligning that GO/RB to the proper orientation for the wheel (thus working around the 'must be rigidbody oriented' by supplying our own properly oriented rigidbody).  Would still be left with the 'max wheels per rigidoby' problem though if we used the stock colliders.  I've no idea what this limit actually is, but I think it is somewhere in the ~20 colliders range.

 

@lo-fi  Please let me know if you run into anything strange with our current implementation.  I'm a bit busy working on porting/updating my main mod, but can and will take some time out to fix up wheel problems if needed.

Hopefully I'll have some time in the next week or two to go back through and tune the friction model and clean up the integration.  I'm pretty sure all of the necessary functions are in place and reasonably correct from a math/physics perspective, but many of the default values were 'guessed' at and some of the integration may be a bit off on the ordering/priorities.

[lo-fi]

Thanks, might be handy. Fingers crossed it just goes smoothly!

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

For those interested two functional wheels on one part eg, rigid axle is still not possible, I could make them all day long in 1.0.5, but the 1,2 like the 1.1 wheels modules don't want to play, even though they apparently allow for multiple modules, as why else bother have a module position reference in the part module?  But yeah as yet they will not play , there's a few arrangements I've yet to try but with the log not even showing an error and everything appearing on the gui,  as it should for two wheels, tracking down they why it will not work is proving more difficult than normal

[lo-fi]

OK, hang fire - I'm on it. I *will* restore decent functional wheels to KSP. 

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

1 minute ago, lo-fi said:

OK, hang fire - I'm on it. I *will* restore decent functional wheels to KSP. 

No rush we've waited this long doesn't stop me flogging that horse though.  My expectation meter is now fitted with a difficulty ballast  too

 

[Madrias]

I'm keeping as patient as I can.  I know this goes dual-mode with me, because as much as I'm excited to have repulsors and tracks back, I also know that it starts the long process of bug hunting, which means I'll actually be having to try to break the game instead of just casually breaking the game.

[linuxgurugamer]

2 hours ago, lo-fi said:

OK, hang fire - I'm on it. I *will* restore decent functional wheels to KSP. 

Wheels, schmeels.  I want the caterpillar track

Seriously, take your time.  I'd rather wait for a good release rather than a rushed one.  Thank you for all the work on this

[ss8913]

3 hours ago, lo-fi said:

OK, hang fire - I'm on it. I *will* restore decent functional wheels to KSP. 

awesome   I really miss this mod.  Idea, though; perhaps you and the maintainer of Adjustable Landing Gear should compare notes?  I'm sure you're both running into a lot of the same problems, and both this mod and that one are sorely missed by many

[lo-fi]

Yeah, this has come up before. I'll get in touch with BD when we've got something working.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

6 minutes ago, lo-fi said:

Yeah, this has come up before. I'll get in touch with BD when we've got something working.

I took one apart, is there a baffled smiley, this needs one, the wheel is actually based on firespitters module, a fork of it anyway, , but the transforms and targets etc etc, once mashed by blender make no sense, as yet..

(goes to show what a bright bunny BD was)

Edited September 15, 2016 by SpannerMonkey(smce)

[TARDISES]

So, basically, the mod's some kind of coding chimera?

 

...And people expect it to have updated?

 

The Holy Mackerel is no longer enough and I can't find its crit icon.

[lo-fi]

He's a clever dude, for sure. I think he wisely left it while the wheel colliders weren't working, so given a viable alternative can probably be persuaded. If not, I ought to be able to unpick it.