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

[Gaalidas]

The hovercraft maneuvering system sounds a lot like the Firespitter swamp-boat fan. Okay, so it's an extremely low-tech example, but it's the best image my brain could conjure.

[Madrias]

I have to admit, now that I've had a good long run with the Medium Wheels, I like them. Made it half way to the North Pole with wheels that were comfortable with everything but the occasional terrain seam (which I put the blame squarely on SQUAD's shoulders. Seriously, how am I supposed to drive a rover around a planet if the planet insists on ripping my wheels off with invisible seams).

I put 'em through some significant abuse. Hills, jumps, 40+ m/s downhill dashes, zig-zagging up and down hills, not a hint of trouble. Heck, not even the traditional "KSP Suspension jitter" came up. Smooth as silk at 20 m/s, even over some of the roughest terrain I've driven in a while. These wheels are a lot of fun.

[lo-fi]

I have to admit, now that I've had a good long run with the Medium Wheels, I like them. Made it half way to the North Pole with wheels that were comfortable with everything but the occasional terrain seam (which I put the blame squarely on SQUAD's shoulders. Seriously, how am I supposed to drive a rover around a planet if the planet insists on ripping my wheels off with invisible seams).

I put 'em through some significant abuse. Hills, jumps, 40+ m/s downhill dashes, zig-zagging up and down hills, not a hint of trouble. Heck, not even the traditional "KSP Suspension jitter" came up. Smooth as silk at 20 m/s, even over some of the roughest terrain I've driven in a while. These wheels are a lot of fun.

This is exactly what I'm aiming for

The collider seams are annoying, and I'm not even sure I can do anything to fix it. I've devised a little test to confirm, but it looks like the ground is made up of sections of mesh collider - I guess because having one huge collider for the entire planet would be impossible. They either don't overlap enough, or there are differences in height going between the two, but either way it's frustrating.

[Gaalidas]

So, today I started messing around with the medium tracks (yours, not the RBI stuff) and I noticed something a little odd. I don't have the capability to put up an image at this moment, but here's my best description. The wheel-thingers are alright, the bottom half of the treads works okay, but the top half is clipped downwards so that it clips with the bottom half of the treads and/or the rest of the track body. Otherwise it functions just fine.

EDIT: I just tried out the RBI invertible tracks and they're all whacko as well. Instead of the top portion clipping into the bottom portion, the upper row of wheels and the track rubber-banding over them are super high compared to the rest of the tread. It's all connected as far as I can tell, but man is it really funky looking. You sure did a crazy one on these babies in your last code updates.

Something else I've noticed about all the wheels is that anything below 50% ride height is pretty much ineffective. As it appears, 50% is the lowest that any of them can achieve. I wonder if 50% could be reset to read 0% and give the wheels another 50% ride height above the default height? This would provide more flexibility and give the under-50% range something to do. The one exception seems to be in the mole tracks. While subtle, the lower-than-50% does have a noticeable effect.

Last observation for the moment. The action groups to change torque (specifically the tracks, haven't tried the wheels yet) work pretty well except that, like the repulsor ride-height stuff before we fixed it, you have to right click and tell it to apply the setting to all (even when the action group is activating a track that is symmetrically attached, which should make that group affect all symmetrical parts.) I haven't been code diving is a while, so I can't direct you at the exact bit of code. Maybe later if I feel industrious.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Gaalidas

[lo-fi]

Haha! Ooops, I know exactly what I did... Won't take a moment to fix. I was working on fixing the annoying tendency of wheels to stay at their compressed position at launch before the physics kicks in. I didn't bother to test the tracks after

Giving extra ride height above the max I've set for each wheel will sadly cause huge issues with the suspension visuals. As it is it's a fudge between the purely linear motion of the wheel collider raycast and the arc nature of my setups. As the angles get greater the disparity becomes all too apparent and the wheel meshes with simply float. Nice idea, but not something I can achieve within the limits of Unity/PhysX. I gave full travel to aid the base builders, rather than for dynamic effect, though I do need to review on some of the newer wheels because I was testing with the large ones...

Wheels and tracks are driven with the same module, don't forget. This is how I keep getting into a pickle and breaking something on tracks when it works fine on wheels or vice versa I'll have a look at that, it definitely needs fixing the same as the repulsors did.

EDIT: the ride height is somewhat counter intuitive, but here's what's going on. At reasonable spring settings, you should have about half compression with the vehicle at rest. Take away half the suspension movement, and you've got 0. Not really sure what to do about that, as there is no easy way I can adjust for the set spring rate. Currently it all hinges off vehicle weight verses the set spring on the wheels, and as I can't adjust the springing in flight, I'm a little stuck :/

EDIT2: I can't reproduce the problem with the torque action groups. The AG directly modifies a value used in calculation of the applied torque every physics frame, so there's nothing to apply in the same way.

Edited October 20, 2014 by lo-fi

[Gaalidas]

Woah there, I think I saw something about a raycast and some gibberish about physics and other good suggestions when moving things, and that's where my ability to understand things fudged up. Nice to know you understand it though. Oh well. Still, might be a great idea to revisit the range for the tweakable. The mole tracks responded all the way to 0%, but the rest of the wheels/tracks seem to respond only down to 50%.

[lo-fi]

I'm just about to take a look at that... possible I messed something else up!

Fix for weird suspension issues has just been published, btw. Repulsor water stuff should be back up and running too.

[Gaalidas]

Wow, you're good. I'm finishing an update as I type. Well, not literally as I type because I sorta need my keyboard to do it... but in a moment I will.

[lo-fi]

I AM INVINCIBLE! <Cue tons of liquid nitrogen falling on my head>

Texturing aside, I think we're getting to another release point... Decided to ditch the medium wheel in favour of the repulsor wheel model. It's much nicer, already textured and there seemed little point in having two almost identical parts. Still haven't anywhere near nailed the repulsor conversion, but they can go in in pure wheel form and can be config updated to full conversion goodness later. I really need to get some MODEL{} nodes and texture sharing going, though.

[Madrias]

Oh, so just after I praise the heck out of the medium wheel, you decide it needs to be wiped out... I see how it is. (Just so you know, I'm joking. I don't mind. Just had to play along, after all.)

Also got around to trying the Large Wheels and had a lot of fun driving around KSC. They make good monster trucks if combined with Lack Luster Labs...

The small wheels, I think I need to update my pack because I'm still running an older version, I think. Yes, I'm from the Department of Redundancy Department, deal with it. Still, from what variation I have, they're fun.

I'll go grab the latest and greatest Dev Build and see if I can break something.

[lo-fi]

Well, of course...

I've updated the large wheels with new collider settings, though may have the grip a tad too high. Jeb does like his monster truck, it's great for snack runs!

Interested to see what you make of the small (and tiny) wheels now. Hopefully I haven't broken them; I didn't test after fixing a few other things.. Thank you both, as ever. This would be almost impossible on my own.

Texturing aside, I'm aiming to have the following release ready for 1.8:

Large, medium, small wheels + one variant of the tiny wheels.

Medium, small, RBI Oval, RBI Mole tracks + long tracks I have yet to export to game.

APU, skids, hypnodrive.

Repulsor & surface version.

Opinions please (plus what is currently broken?) Skids need to be revisited (too big), but won't take a lot of work.

[Madrias]

Small wheels are as good as ever, and I'm glad to see an ability to adjust ride height on the fly now. No more bottoming out on hills because I set my suspension too low. No more tipping over because I was set too high.

Haven't tried the tiny wheels yet. Was having too much fun breaking the KSC with Jeb's monster truck.

As for a reference to the small wheels, as far as the version I was using before... No texture and the curvy springs. Much more impressed with the new design.

Though, I must admit, it looks like the textures are moving even when the tire is parked and the brakes are on.

[lo-fi]

Ohhhh! Haha. I used the small wheels to demo my news texture animator plugin. Ooops. Yes, the texture is being moved by random number generating code.

I think they fit with the range much better as they now; glad you agree. Texture is entirely temporary just to stop the white obscuring how they look in game, hope to have that sorted soon I'm just fixing a bug with the ride height where it won't save properly. Other than that I'm kinda happy with the plugin right now.

How big a bill did Jeb rack up? We ought to have a challenge to see who can destroy every destructible thing in the KSC the quickest with a rover under a certain tonnage

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Hi, does the texture mover have some adjustable parameters? could it be used to simulate an animated belt or chain texture? Is it purely random or is it adjustable as to direction timing etc?

Really like the look of the new smaller wheels although I dont as you know build small, still awaiting docs so experiments can continue.

thoughts/requests ; I'd like a medium track unit that mounted via a pivoted arm to the chassis, with something like a 30/40 degree swing of the track, this would enable a better climbing ability as I've found that although they behave as expected on reasonably rough ground and the translation between a level and sloping terrain, they have trouble climbing steps etc and frequently become detached in the process.

The tracks have surprised me in how useful they are, and have rapidly become one of my fave things to use , although I still feel that they are a bit wooden, perhaps more panzer(torsionBar) than T28 (christie) for my taste.

As an aside I'm working on a smaller surface mount landing gear type skid that retracts into a housing a little larger than the stock gear, although the skid still acts as the lid, so it's not perfect but it's getting there.

PS still got originals of all the parts if you need to revert, don't remember making the skid that big!!

[Gaalidas]

Wow, this thread really took off all of the sudden. I didn't get to see the texture animation mishap, but I can sure see some awesome uses for such a plugin if the controls are pretty flexible. I look forward to seeing the next iteration of the track. As for the wheel replacement, I see no problem as long as it functions in the same awesome way. In fact, I can see a use for those even without the repulsor side added to them. If they could sit on the ends on the wheels when turned for repulsor mode, you'd basically have a wheel that transforms into a landing leg. If we end up with the ability to completely disable the repulsors, then this functionality can continue to work even after the repulsor is added. Just need to make sure the wheels quit responding to input once they are changed.

[lo-fi]

I'll be releasing the texture mover shortly separately. Yup, it's all configurable, will be suitable for all of that.

Good good, I'm quite pleased with the smaller wheels myself I think its all settled enough to document, so I'll comment a config file for a wheel and a track unit for you; should get you going.

Hmm, that sounds like an interesting idea. Probably one for IR like your wheels... Step climbing is a pain with one dimensional collider

What suspension settings you running on the tracks? Almost sounds like they're a bit under sprung. Travel is a little limited due to the way the skinned mesh works, or they look a little weird sadly.

I think I run different system unit setup to you, so I messed up the size of the skids! Retractable version sounds excellent; KF plugin now supports retract animation..

[Gaalidas]

KF plugin now supports retract animation..

Yeah, now we just need some wheels that actually do that. Or Skids... or Landing Legs... or whatever.

I'll be releasing the texture mover shortly separately. Yup, it's all configurable, will be suitable for all of that.

Awesome... cause I was thinking that would be amazing for creating sci-fi styled engines with lights running down the edges and stuff.. to name but one application.

Edited October 21, 2014 by Gaalidas

[lo-fi]

Honestly, I'm really surprised nobody has created an animated texture plugin before. It really was ridiculously simple. For something that took me half a (very hungover) hour, there are at least five mod makers asking when I'm going to release it... I would have already had I not broken so many bits in KF!

Yes, wheels with retract... It means landing gear is quite easy with the same module, though I have yet to create any wheels with a retract animation. I do have some ideas, but they're somewhat complicated and will take a bit of time.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

In one of the games I used to mod they had a sliding uv shader which was fantastic for animated signs , lighting effects etc I've always wished for one in ksp, you could do all sorts such as tinting windows during atmospheric flight or re entry , color changing landing lights, ooo and some real moody lighting around KSC, looking fwd to experimenting with that

[lo-fi]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/97751-PLUGIN-0-25-Texture-Animation-Util?p=1494654#post1494654

There you go buddy

[Gaalidas]

Noticed today that the alpha repulsors were missing. did a little research and found this:

[LOG 15:09:27.305] Load(Model): KerbalFoundries/AlphaRepulsor/AlphaRepulsor

[WRN 15:09:27.320] File 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Kerbal Space Program\GameData\KerbalFoundries\AlphaRepulsor\AlphaRepulsor.mu' is an incorrect type.

[WRN 15:09:27.322] Model load error in 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Kerbal Space Program\GameData\KerbalFoundries\AlphaRepulsor\AlphaRepulsor.mu'

[lo-fi]

Hmm, that's odd. Though you seem to have a space in the name of the .mu? I've just got them loaded fine in-game, and I haven't touched those models in ages :/

[achroma]

If anybody knows off the top of their head ('cause i'm at work), how much weight can a single maxed out repulsor unit handle? I have a very large boat (700 or 7,000 tons, can't remember) that i'm trying to get seaborne. I'm using over 20 of the small kind, and tried over 10 of the big, but either way it's a hell of a trick to keep it above the surface. One slip and they all fall in. The idea was to have them inside the body, more than halfway up the side so that i could retract them and lower the bottom into the water for a normal looking boat effect (but they would still be on all the time). I'm doing this because B9 HX parts seem to sink quite readily. If this doesn't work i'll move on to USI mod floaties. Oof. Such work.

[Madrias]

*cringes at the mention of "maxed out repulsor" despite knowing it's the Alpha repulsors, not the Dev repulsors.*

I don't know how much weight a single repulsor can handle. I think the biggest thing I've moved was my mobile base, but even that was only maybe a little over 100 tons, and I fired 24 repulsors to keep it nice and steady. I've moved a 35 ton tank on 8 repulsors, though.

As for my cringe... Lo-fi, if you haven't tried it already, try a dev repulsor set to, say, 30 on any vehicle of any weight, then load it in. It's amusingly destructive.

[achroma]

Nevermind, guise. Figured it out on my lunch break. I'm dumb and should have used TweakScale.