Hello ladies and gentlemen!
I was toying with the SRV camera as I searched for Cracked Industrial Firmware (Did anyone say how amazing the camera system is now?), and I was able, for the first time, to see that the Rover's roll axis was controlled by its wheel thrusters.
That reminded me of a few things that are still missing from the already rather nice SRV controls :
1 ) A rover whose wheels have the ability to propel itself in a way such that it spins along its length... would also have the ability to thrust towards the ground. Why would anyone wish to do that? Well, because this would allow the SRV to attain incredible adherence (through increased wheel friction) and reliability on nearly any surface and almost any angle.
We're speaking of an increased ability to scale steep cliffs, better manoeverability on icy surfaces, and most importantly the ability to offset the dangers of low-grav environments where the rover simply goes sliding away all the time.
I suggest to implement this as a toggle, with perhaps an option to determine what downwards thrust to apply relatively to the current planet's gravity level (For an example, one may wish to use this on a 0.1g world, but not on a 6g world).
2) A rover - once again - like the SRV also has (physically, at least) the ability to propel itself along its yaw axis. Given that the wheels do not lie along the SRV's gravity center, one could not thrust towards the left or right, but the front left and rear right thrusters could be used to rotate the rover along its height.
This feature has been requested many times, if I remember correctly, and I haven't met any control scheme (even with M&K, which I use) that dosen't have a free axis which could be applied to the SRV in-flight yaw.
I mean, I don't know, maybe there are engine limitations or whatever, but given what we can achieve with ships... I'd be very skeptical to hear that.
Anyway, I do believe this would greatly improve the SRV experience, especially in low-grav worlds where we do a lot of jumping, jumping while spinning uncontrollably, and skidding the hell out (Did I mention Mouse and keyboard?).
Peace commanders!
I was toying with the SRV camera as I searched for Cracked Industrial Firmware (Did anyone say how amazing the camera system is now?), and I was able, for the first time, to see that the Rover's roll axis was controlled by its wheel thrusters.
That reminded me of a few things that are still missing from the already rather nice SRV controls :
1 ) A rover whose wheels have the ability to propel itself in a way such that it spins along its length... would also have the ability to thrust towards the ground. Why would anyone wish to do that? Well, because this would allow the SRV to attain incredible adherence (through increased wheel friction) and reliability on nearly any surface and almost any angle.
We're speaking of an increased ability to scale steep cliffs, better manoeverability on icy surfaces, and most importantly the ability to offset the dangers of low-grav environments where the rover simply goes sliding away all the time.
I suggest to implement this as a toggle, with perhaps an option to determine what downwards thrust to apply relatively to the current planet's gravity level (For an example, one may wish to use this on a 0.1g world, but not on a 6g world).
2) A rover - once again - like the SRV also has (physically, at least) the ability to propel itself along its yaw axis. Given that the wheels do not lie along the SRV's gravity center, one could not thrust towards the left or right, but the front left and rear right thrusters could be used to rotate the rover along its height.
This feature has been requested many times, if I remember correctly, and I haven't met any control scheme (even with M&K, which I use) that dosen't have a free axis which could be applied to the SRV in-flight yaw.
I mean, I don't know, maybe there are engine limitations or whatever, but given what we can achieve with ships... I'd be very skeptical to hear that.
Anyway, I do believe this would greatly improve the SRV experience, especially in low-grav worlds where we do a lot of jumping, jumping while spinning uncontrollably, and skidding the hell out (Did I mention Mouse and keyboard?).
Peace commanders!