[PLUGIN, PART, 0.17] Bigtrak KSP Edition v.30 Liltrak

[chickenplucker]

Making good progress on the lander so far, still need to finish the nose cone parts and then add an engine.

[madmat]

That looks ingenious!

[Phoxtane]

Would it be too much to ask for a radial part that will allow you to mount the Bigtrak properly sideways? Cart glitch and standard radial decouplers aren\'t working.

[chickenplucker]

Side fairings could be funky, I\'m not ruling them out but I\'m not sure how you safely unload a cart from the side of a moving rocket. Although maybe thats what half the fun . Plus there would need to be counterweight on the other side to keep everything even, which if your rover had different attachments on it could also throw the center of mass off.

Just to give you an idea of what parts are currently on the to do list in my head, in somewhat order of possible release it changes depending on my mood and what I feel like working on:

Landing craft, Normals update, down facing lights for the lander

Better wheel textures

Specialized command pod and backpack jumpjet setup for the back of the Bigtrak

Project Cricket, really fast set of landing legs that make the Bigtrak 'hop' or break/explode. Early test show a 90% breaking or exploding.

Smalltrak, and tiny lander

Rocket launcher

Off the radar but not ignored:

Side fairings

Maybe a Bigbigtrak like when I was first getting this in game and fighting scaling issues. Mobile space center

[Kreuzung]

Conterweight: another Bigtrak

Landing: Blast them away with a decoupler in munar orbit and land them with theri own small engines....

[tadeass]

chickenplucker: Try to use a smooth on the bigtrak, It looks better, I think.

[blackmustang347]

Has anyone had problems with this mod and the camera moving during accent above 10km? I have tried to delete and reload the mod but same outcome. By the time I get the ship to orbital speed and altitude the camera is so far off I have to zoom out so far that I can see the ship. Then I have an issue with the WASD keys rapidly changing the orbit rather than just the oreintation of the ship.

If I do not use the Bigtrak I do not have this problem even without reloading the program.

BTW, awesome job on the bigtrak... I can\'t wait to get this figured out and drive it on the moon!

[SmiteZero]

Has anyone had problems with this mod and the camera moving during accent above 10km? I have tried to delete and reload the mod but same outcome. By the time I get the ship to orbital speed and altitude the camera is so far off I have to zoom out so far that I can see the ship. Then I have an issue with the WASD keys rapidly changing the orbit rather than just the oreintation of the ship.

If I do not use the Bigtrak I do not have this problem even without reloading the program.

BTW, awesome job on the bigtrak... I can\'t wait to get this figured out and drive it on the moon!

It\'s been brought up a few times not too far back. All you have to do is add extra space under the BigTrak so that it\'s wheels don\'t clip into anything. If they do they become detached and do funky stuff like shift the weight and balance, and of course, because they\'re lagging out behind the rocket, the camera tries to stay focused on the center and lags behind, too.

[blackmustang347]

Thank you,

I didn\'t realize that was what they meant was happening about the wheels.

Again, thank you. I\'ll go make another transport design.

[deadshot462]

Lander looks awesome, will it have a folding ramp for the BT to roll down smoothly?

[chickenplucker]

The goal is to have the nose cone fold down like flower petals which will create a ramp/landing gear for the lander. At this point you will be able to drive the bigtrak down the ramp, hopefully smoothly. It should work but is all untested right now

[Phoxtane]

Side fairings could be funky, I\'m not ruling them out but I\'m not sure how you safely unload a cart from the side of a moving rocket. Although maybe thats what half the fun . Plus there would need to be counterweight on the other side to keep everything even, which if your rover had different attachments on it could also throw the center of mass off.

I don\'t necessarily want to unload the rover; I want to be able to attach it to the side of a lander stage, and then tip over to use the lander stage\'s SAS to keep Bigtrak stable.

[chickenplucker]

I guess I will need to look into side fairings eventually then

Tonights progress,

The lander is just missing the nose cone/ramp parts and lights now. Should be able to tackle those tommarow at some point. Then need to go over all the parts and balance the fuel amount and weight of the parts. While trying to bail and drive off the lander while it was underway I ran into the wheel clipping issue so once its all together I need to test it to make sure I dont need to create a taller decoupler for the pack which may or may not help, I\'ll worry about that tommarow.

So heres the break down on the parts and assembly if your curious,

2M decoupler/adapter: lower stage fairing/decoupler

Engine: Choice of 1M engine, was designed for the two stock liquids but any will work with possible part clipping

Crew pod: Will be a cart module with working lights

Lander deck: Fuel tank, that hexagon looking thing

Lower brace:Clips to the two outer nodes on the top of the tank

Upper brace: Clips to a higher center node on the tank

Legs/Nose faring: Based on the landing gear module, clips around the fuel hexagon fuel tank.

I may release a 1M adapter/decoupler if I have time as well.

[falken]

Any chance you could add a connection point to the very top of it? I like to pull my Bigtrak to the mun with a cradle style rocket for some reason, so it\'d look pretty nifty to have the engines surrounding the fairing.

[Blinkin]

Making good progress on the lander so far, still need to finish the nose cone parts and then add an engine.

That looks awesome!

[RandomGuy5040]

Nice work on the everything. Wow, this is awesome.

[Meatsauce]

This is very cool!

As an idea, perhaps have a manipulator arm, and hardpoints we can attach to vehicles when docking is enabled.

[TOAST]

Note: I\'m noticing that when the pod is inside the vehicle, the camera likes to repeatedly focus the camera as if I were activating/dropping stages.

By the time I reach orbit, I can\'t see my rocket anymore...

Edit: Or maybe it\'s not, i have no clue anymore.

Edit 2: It\'s actually anytime I use the cart.

[chickenplucker]

What your seeing is a funky bug that happens when the wheels on the rover start start dropping frames. Try spacing the cart one more decoupler away from the rocket or lowering the overall thrust of the rocket, or anything that keeps the wheels from touching something solid on the rocket.

@falken

That top cross member/strut has an upper attachment node, but if you were to use the full 8 part nose cone/ramp setup I think the ramps would just rip off or damage the rockets as they unfold. At least they did on the version I\'m still playing with

Starting to come together

Still have a bunch to do yet, the ramps are not wide enough so the Bigtrak ends up sliding on its belly down the ramp and they also really like to snap off or get misaligned after one landing. As a whole it really needs to be less crappy and prone to snapping parts off. Also Tosh\'s two smaller carts fit in there nice and snug as well and I imagine smaller Katerpiller rovers will have no prolbem hitching a ride in there.

[TOAST]

What your seeing is a funky bug that happens when the wheels on the rover start start dropping frames. Try spacing the cart one more decoupler away from the rocket or lowering the overall thrust of the rocket, or anything that keeps the wheels from touching something solid on the rocket.

@falken

That top cross member/strut has an upper attachment node, but if you were to use the full 8 part nose cone/ramp setup I think the ramps would just rip off or damage the rockets as they unfold. At least they did on the version I\'m still playing with

Starting to come together

Still have a bunch to do yet, the ramps are not wide enough so the Bigtrak ends up sliding on its belly down the ramp and they also really like to snap off or get misaligned after one landing. As a whole it really needs to be less crappy and prone to snapping parts off. Also Tosh\'s two smaller carts fit in there nice and snug as well and I imagine smaller Katerpiller rovers will have no prolbem hitching a ride in there.

That both simultaneously answered my question & made me explode with anticipation for that landing module. G\'damn!

Thanks!

EDIT: Ok, I\'m keeping the rocket parts as far from the rocket as I can, only 1m sized so they never touch & there\'s nothing within range below, but it seems to be to no avail; Whenever I reach a certain speed (I use solid boosters a lot) it starts freaking out.

EDIT: Also, I\'m trying to figure out how in the bloody hell you got that thing to the mun in the first place o_o I can\'t seem to design something that doesn\'t spiral uncontrollably.

[chickenplucker]

I was thinking that it sucks looking at screenshots and not being able mess around with new stuff, and its been like two weeks since I released something, so here:

http://www.rustedjunk.com/crap/Landertest.zip

Here\'s the rule though, do not complain about anything in that zip , its still very very fragile and lacking finish at this point, none of the parts are balanced for weight/fuel amounts, descriptions are incorrect, etc. Play with it at your own risk and hold back comments until I release the finished version. The legs snap off like toothpicks because the collision file on the tank is round, gives them as much surface area to hang onto as a shoelace is wide. But anyways, have fun and go smash some Bigtraks.

[SmiteZero]

That\'s too good to be allowed. I\'m going to have to disallow this part based on it being too good.

[chickenplucker]

@Toast

Spiral is your friend, embrace it , just make sure you keep the nose pointed up. Getting MechJeb and set the SAS set to SURF will generally keep the explodey bits away from ground.

@SmiteZero

Wait until the first time something goes horribly wrong, it may look shiny but its still very much Kerbal at heart.

[TOAST]

Hahaha, my wheels started flying down through the rest of the ship slowly.. 8)

And then everything started exploding because it was all wobbling; the ramps specifically, but parts from outside the set didn\'t really hold together. :\'(

Definitely like the look, though! Very nice!

@Toast

Spiral is your friend, embrace it , just make sure you keep the nose pointed up. Getting MechJeb and set the SAS set to SURF will generally keep the explodey bits away from ground.

I\'ve been using mechjeb; I usually use the ascent automation, as translation was always iffy to me. But yeah..

[chickenplucker]

lol, you could try throwing two de-couplers under the rover. It seemed to help some when I was playing around with it yesterday, at the very least it will give you more things to watch explode