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

[chickenplucker]

Thanks for the help Capt\'n Skunky and Kreuzung, I think I have figured it out now. The problem was that I was setting the channels to 32bits in Photoshop which ends up being 96bits total (derp ), which then completely screws up the .png. So if anyone is using Photoshop and having trouble with transparant textures heres a quick run down:

Go to Image>Mode>8bits/Channel

Flatten the image (shift+ctrl+E, if it didn\'t already flatten it switching to 8bit), create a new layer, move it below the layer with your texture. On your texture layer delete the spots that you want to be transparant so that the empty layer below shows through. Make sure that emptly layer you created below isn\'t filled with white. It needs to be the checkerboard that indicates its empty.

Then File>Save As Select .PNG from the menu and save. Don\'t use 'Save For Web & Devices...' as it only exports 8 and 24bit .PNGs which will make your models look like they are stained with Hawaiian Punch.

Results:

Some re-texturing later...

Still getting shadows which kind of ruins the effect. Hmmm.

I\'m also slightly worried as much as I am excited about KSP .16. Having real Kerbals is going to be fun but may completely break the motorcycle. At the moment the command pod for the bike is a Kerbalnaut, will 3 Kerbals be able to pop out the side of the one? What if the scale is off from the offical Kerbals? If there is command pod views, how will that effect a motorcycle? Can the offical Kerbals take the place of the command pod and wander over to the bike and hop on so it doesnt need the 'command pod' Kerbal? Which I guess would be the same as having them go ship to ship which would be a version of docking kind of... Anyways enough of my rambling , just going to have to keep an eye on the .16 dev thread to find out.

@ colmo

Give the Damned Robotics pack a go : http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=10662.0

It will be able to make one nice large grabber claw, although you may want to place landing gear legs on the corners of the Bigtrak so you can drop them like outriggers on a backhoe to keep it stable while lifting.

[Baleur]

I have no clue about these things or how physics work in KSP, but i\'m guessing you use those balls at the sides to balance the vehicle, like extra invisible wheel right?

Well, wouldn\'t it be possible to just make the actual front & rear wheels really long and cylindrical to the sides, but just having the transparency erase out the part of the texture that is sticking out to the side?

I suppose you\'d still have the issue of the shadows though.

[Stevenator1]

Absolutely beautiful.

Now to attach large armaments.

EDIT: ....And done!

Come at me bro.

Firing.

Where are those guns at and how can I procure them!!

[madmat]

They are the Devestator railguns, Made by 'Jellycubes advanced weapons'. Found in addon releases

[colmo]

[Mods used - MechJeb, Damned Robotics, Bigtrak, and drewmacrea\'s Katerpillar-Wheels]

I\'m trying to build a Munar Rescue vehicle using the hexagonal Cuttlefish deck. The deck is upside down with two liquid half-tanks attached underneath, that feed to a gimbal booster each. On top is the command module, and some robotic claws are slung below to grasp a stricken capsule.

The cross-feed doesn\'t appear to work - it feeds one half tank first, then the other. This causes major instability and an inevitable crash, though this is from Kerbin, not the Mun.

Is this a bug in the way cross-feeds work, the Cuttlefish part, or something else? Could I kludge it by running a cross-feed from the favoured tank to the unfavoured one?

[chickenplucker]

Currently fuel crossfeeding does not work from above in the way that the craft is setup and its draining one of the tanks on the side first and then the otherside. Which causes the stablilty issues, but makes for nifty firework displays

(Large white wedge thing is the collision mesh)

So heres the new setup that seems to be working the best so far. In the past it has been setup as a SAS controlled bike (very frustrating), two spheres for guide wheels (funky shadows), collision node skid plate (easy to get stuck on things), and now a combanation of skidplate and guide wheels which works rather wheel (har har). The only issue that bugs me is you can catch small glimpse of white from light hitting the tiny invisible wheels on the side. Its just one pixel but it looks funky on the grass but should be harder to see on the Mun.

Testing continues

[madmat]

CP i think you\'re having far too much fun with this idea.The bottom photo looks hilarious.

[chickenplucker]

Its a riot With parts fresh off the drawing board you never know whats going to happen.

Panel storm leads to...

And eventually...

[madmat]

Hehehe, That is gold ,,Keep those pics coming.They\'d make great screensavers.

[Blinkin]

Haha. x\'D

Those pics are genius! ;D

[colmo]

Currently fuel crossfeeding does not work from above in the way that the craft is setup and its draining one of the tanks on the side first and then the otherside. Which causes the stablilty issues, but makes for nifty firework displays

Figured that. I\'ll reverse the flow and drain those half-tanks into the hex platform, then to the engines. Failing that, I\'ll cross-feed between the two half-tanks, and failing that, I\'ll remove them and use fusilage instead!

[Kreuzung]

At the last screenshot on page 19, fuel depot looks like glowing white...

[Taverius]

Honestly, the only thing that\'s not perfect is that you can choose to either have a balanced puddle jumper (rises straight in the air) or a balanced rocket, because the PJ thrust is too far towards the back.

If you could change that a little it would be just about perfect ...

[chickenplucker]

Its offset on purpose so from level ground it will jump into forward flight at 25ms, not intended to be centered

Okay on the Kiwi, how fast should this little motor scooter go? Currently on the Mun I was hitting 75ms and stuff was whizzing by like crazy which felt and seemed way to fast. Maybe 50ms? Although it is a bike... Also it may be ridiculously too stable. You can ramp off a cliff with hardly any worries when going airborne.

[Volt]

50-60 sounds good to me... past that, or even somewhat before it, any little drop in ground level causes you to fly over the gap.

[Taverius]

Its offset on purpose so from level ground it will jump into forward flight at 25ms, not intended to be centered

The problem is when you take of a hill on minmus/mun you nose down

[colmo]

The problem is when you take of a hill on minmus/mun you nose down

I know from racing RC buggies that you can control the attitude of the vehicle in the air using throttle and brakes. To get the nose up, hit the throttle, and the centrifugal force of the wheels will cause the nose to move in the opposite direction, i.e. up. To nose down, hit the brakes and the trajectory will naturally be nose down.

I\'m guessing that as the BigTrak is one piece, this doesn\'t happen? If a vehicle was built of component parts, I suspect the physics in-game would be realistic enough to allow this in-air handling.

[mincespy]

To me, that just screams \'James Bond style entrance\'

[chickenplucker]

I know from racing RC buggies that you can control the attitude of the vehicle in the air using throttle and brakes. To get the nose up, hit the throttle, and the centrifugal force of the wheels will cause the nose to move in the opposite direction, i.e. up. To nose down, hit the brakes and the trajectory will naturally be nose down.

Same with Motocross . I *think* this may be possible in the game, but the wheel mass and torque would have to be greater on the Bigtrak in order to have faster throttle response to yank the wheel mass around quicker to get the nose up. I\'m not sure how a six wheel drive vehicle would react to that though, I\'ve never seen anyone jump an Argo. I may add a counter weight to clip on the back of the Bigtrak to fix this issue, it could be setup as a decoupler so you could drop it if you wanted.

James Bond is awesome, someone needs to do some Moonraker parts

[Taverius]

Well, putting something on the back ain\'t hard. Putting something else on the cuttlefish so the rocket is balanced is proving harder.

[TOAST]

These \'Motorcycles\' will be interesting for you to mod once EVAs come out.

[paladinoa]

Nomad, The toy you\'re thinking of is Rokenbok. The implementation of which would be a glorious way to break PhysX. It\'d be a silly thing to do in KSP, but probably a reasonable project for Unity. I\'m definitely in favor of silly things.

Too silly for Kerbal Space Program? Such a thing is not possible.

[chickenplucker]

I was going to make a small 1m launcher/lander with this but .16 will be out before I get that done at the pace I have been working on stuff lately, kind of distracted by a 54\' Buick. But anyways here\'s the bike:

Still awaiting permission to use the Kerbal models, so instead of delaying the bike further I built a washing machine bot to take the helm.

Links on the first page like always. Make sure to toggle on the SAS if you go to the Mun or else things will get a litte unstable. I never took it to Minimus, hopefully it works

[TheCardinal]

A washing machine bot ..... It would make a perfect 1 person manned pod Kerbal style.

[Monkthespy]

Sending it to the Mun right now, will show a picture when I get there.