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

[Lazurkri]

It\'s just a curiosity; it\'s not like I have, like, 4 BigTraks sitting on the moon upside-down or anything... :-X

Talk to me when you hit the double digits. I\'ve lost track of the number of BigTraks I\'ve lost from things like screwing the landings, accidentally going over a cliff at high speed and flipping, random back flips, accidents with Railguns, accidents with Wasp Missiles, a few memorable accidents with trying to use the bed of the BigTrak for Short Ranged ICBM tests, etc etc etc....

Hell, I actually once, whilst testing, managed to send a landed BigTrak into Munar orbit... for about 15 minutes. Having JumpJets might have saved that crew.... likely not, as they were going 150 M/S after Apogee.

[chickenplucker]

You should see my space center, its like a Bigtrak graveyard with all the broken and failed test subjects scattered around it.

v.20 is up now with the K1 Puddle Jumper

It works! I\'m not happy with the engine gimbal setup yet and may come back to tweak it some more. I had a heck of a time trying to get the center of gravity just right so that it would track forward with the SAS on, but it works nice now and will putt along at 24m/s on its own. Have fun and go blow some stuff up in the name of science

[Svga777 -RUS-]

PerViy NAH!!!

I LIKE IT! 8)

[madmat]

You sir, shuold be awarded a medal for services rendered for the benefit of all kerbinkind. Great work once again,,,What\'s next?

[Svga777 -RUS-]

Hm, nice device for bigtrak!

What next???

[SmiteZero]

Playing about a bit, I only have one suggestion/request. Make it balance level instead of want to automatically move forward.

But this is fun. I added some RCS to a post on top for extra authority if I needed it.

Hovering around and coming in for a nice landing:

[falken]

Excellent! I think next up you should make a module that goes on top of the engine module, which is a shaped RCS tank with spaces for thrusters to go on.

[TOAST]

Talk to me when you hit the double digits. I\'ve lost track of the number of BigTraks I\'ve lost from things like screwing the landings, accidentally going over a cliff at high speed and flipping, random back flips, accidents with Railguns, accidents with Wasp Missiles, a few memorable accidents with trying to use the bed of the BigTrak for Short Ranged ICBM tests, etc etc etc....

Hell, I actually once, whilst testing, managed to send a landed BigTrak into Munar orbit... for about 15 minutes. Having JumpJets might have saved that crew.... likely not, as they were going 150 M/S after Apogee.

You, sir, are a credit to Kerbals everywhere. Never have I seen such dedication to the mainstays of the Kerbal lifestyle in all of Jeb\'s life.

...Which ended, as expected, T+210 seconds after launch. 8)

But seriously, ICBMs, missiles, and rail guns? I had enough trouble just getting the damn thing stable AND to the mun, let alone launching anything or actually performing tests with it.

..And where do you get the side-mounted forward-facing railguns? The Particle cannons I have only face upwards..

[maxsil]

I love the new Jumper thingy.

May i make a suggestion btw?

I Would love some sort of Parking break to permanently 'Lock' the bigtrak into place, seeing how it starts to roll after a while if it\'s on a plane that\'s even slightly inclined

[Kreuzung]

The Particle cannons I have only face upwards..

Place them on a damned tilt mechanism, then rotate the mechanism in the VAB. This also allows some sort of aiming at a target.

[CaptainHair]

Oh man, thats a sweet update. The wheel glitch took me hours to figure out, I thought it was a problem with my bigtrak having an SAS unit attached.

Gonna go try out the new jets now, I\'ve been doing it the manual way for a while: http://i.imgur.com/mgIyP.jpg

[Spoot Knight]

It\'s like piloting a helicopter that isn\'t a helicopter. I love flying this thing around.

I\'m getting curious as to how it would look in a desert brown finish. Too bad there isn\'t enough desert on Kerbin for it to match.

[XilentDude]

Yeah.. v.20 is freaking awesome !

I landed on mun Mako-like style (from mass effect ) at 200 m\s I think and I survived with the bigtrak intact ( the jumper disappeared )

Good Job chickenplucker , I love this mod !

[Blinkin]

I Would love some sort of Parking break to permanently 'Lock' the bigtrak into place, seeing how it starts to roll after a while if it\'s on a plane that\'s even slightly inclined

Have you tried pressing B?

It\'s a new feature released a few days ago.

[chickenplucker]

Thanks everyone, I\'m glad your enjoying it

Yup, Tosh released an update to his awesome Cart plugin that added the parking brake feature. It\'s great for when your trying to land on a building, set the brake, take off, line up and land and when you touch down it won\'t roll off.

The drifting forward was intentional so that you (mainly my younger cousins) could pilot it without having to worry about mashing 10 buttons. We will see how it goes before changing it.

As for what\'s next, I\'m not sure. Was thinking of letting the dust settle on this next KSP update and reading up on the new animation features before working on something. Still have the dart launcher, side fairings, grass hopper thing, and with the new plane hanger maybe some cargo plane parts for air drops

[madmat]

I would love to see cargoplanes, How about some cargo containers for the Mun,,They\'d look great laying around our Munbases? Just a thought.

[Katalliaan]

On an attempt to see what I could do with the jump jet, I started with the cuttlefish/jump jet config and took the braces out, and set up a rocket to get it out to the Mun.

The rocket I built was purely to get me to a TMI, after which I used the cuttlefish to circularize the orbit. I then opened up the shell and ejected the Bigtrak. I was somewhat surprised when I was able to use the jump jets to deorbit and land.

[Sir Cannonball]

Lovin\' the models Chickenplucker, Keep on churnin\' them models out! ;D

Now that you\'ve conquered the land and the air, Howzabout some amphibious vehicle action?

[StaticArcher]

+1 to amphibious, even if it\'s not bigtrak related! I could really use a landing platform, you know.

[chickenplucker]

*cough* http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=4873.0

More examples of Tosh\'s awesomeness. I do think that something that allowed water crossing would be great fun, I\'ll look into what I can do. I\'m trying not to integrate to many of plugins but amphibious parts would be neat.

[TOAST]

Now that you\'ve conquered the land and the air, Howzabout some amphibious vehicle action?

Woah there, cowboy; you start thinkin\' like that and you\'re liable to end up headin\' the KSP, you crazy friggin\' diamond!

I\'m totally +1\'ing an amphibious idea, but I would like to see some other related features added first.

Namely, a smaller deployable remote-control mini bigtrak that would roll out of the back, or some shit like that. Because why the fuck not.

EDIT:

*cough* http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=4873.0

I totally did NOT steal the idea from him, whatareyoutalkingabout? > ;D

@Chickenplucker;

Another issue I\'m noticing with the cuttlefish shell is that the fork/plow clip through it and, when activating the cuttlefish lander legs to open(subsiquently making the fork/plow lower), it causes the entire thing to go into a massive spiral and dislodge itself.

Fortunately I had the jump jets to land with... 8)

EDIT: And by land, I mean careen like a flipped coin on a 600m/s downward spiral. With style. ;P

Jump Jets weren\'t stable enough to act as a landing engine, but I have no idea why that is. Everything on the thing was centered, and the gimbal didn\'t seem too bad. Did the thrust simply over-power it?

[Rerouch]

Maybe I\'m just plain dumb, but I don\'t get one thing: were should I put my Command Module? Even if the lightest and smallest one (Probodobodyne 2) is used, the whole BigTrak just flips over in the very moment of takeoff.

Anyway, the mod is damn great. Already got 3 different modifications of BigTrack (\'Beacon\' with lots of lanterns, \'Main\' with a push blade and \'Devastator\' with 2 Devastator railguns, laser pointer from Rofmarer\'s LazorSystem mod alpha and crew of Jebediah 8) ) and some Cuttlefish (mostly broken) on my little munar base.

[maltesh]

Maybe I\'m just plain dumb, but I don\'t get one thing: were should I put my Command Module? Even if the lightest and smallest one (Probodobodyne 2) is used, the whole BigTrak just flips over in the very moment of takeoff.

The download contains a .craft file that has a Mk.1 Pod concealed inside the BigTrak, a version with the jump jet and a concealed Mk.1. Pod, and Cuttlefish Lander versions of both, which you can use as starting points for your own ship designs.

I suspect the jump jets are balanced to provide the designed flight profile with the concealed Mk. 1 Pod.

[chickenplucker]

Maltesh is correct, they were built around the Mk1 Pod since everyone already has it. The assembled crafts are there since the inside pod attachment node and the new Puddle Jumper rockets can be kind of finicky to attach at times. For some reason if you don\'t click or assemble things in the correct order they just will not attach.

@Toast

That would be really cool to have a little drop door that another Bigtrak roll out of, but require crazy amounts of parts per Bigtrak in order for it to work properly since there can\'t be convex collision meshes. Maybe though, the awesome factor would be so worth it and about as much work as making cargo plane or cargo containers.

[Rerouch]

Thank you a lot! Will conduct expirements on counterbalancing and installation of weaponry now