Animated Landing Gear

Landing Gear have long hindered any attempt to design a ship with smooth lines, and this is quite frustrating when it would seem simple to have the landing gear retract in some manner, so can anybody explain to me why such a simple thing hasn't been implemented?

Take for instance the Turret, which has a physics collision which remains fixed regardless of the Turrets movement, so clearly a block can have an visual animation which doesn't change the physical boundaries it has, could this not also be applied to landing gear to at least give them the appearance of being retracted even if the collision box is unchanged?
If the foot of the landing gear were to visually raise by one cube block height, then it would be possible to have landing gear which would fit smoothly into a hull and be a great improvement to the visuals of the ship.

Here is an example, If the landing gear could animate and retract by one block space, these landing gear would sit flush with the hull.


If its not possible for a technical reason would anybody care to explain why?

( I know its technically possible to mount landing gear on pistons, but as i found out yesterday locking onto a grid via a piston attached landing gear is extremely likely to destroy the vessel )

 

Unsure of what the Devs have in mind for the default landing gears remodeling, but it would be nice to have a landing gear that retracts. I'd personally suggest keeping the default "static" landing gear (make it prettier though) and add one that changes stances like the airtight hangar doors do (where the hitbox can be toggled. When lowered, the hitbox would be created and the landing gear can be locked or unlocked. However, when retracted, the hitbox is removed and the landing gear automatically unlocks. <This way you keep from having minor/major accidents. OR you could simply have a "safety" toggle on it to allow you to toggle the gears lock feature. (BUT I can't stress enough that you don't want to have the landing gear attempt to move things like a piston! that would be bad for everyone and a pain to setup for the devs. Keep it sweet and simple).

And to note: this type of thing is entirely possible. They just have to get around to doing it... which is why I'd not hold my breath. Eventually... maybe/hopefully.

 

Have you people heard of the wonderful contraptions known as "pistons"?

 

Yes, they have. Which is why they're asking for alternatives.

Plus, pistons are way too bulky, especially when considering just how obvious this request is. If we could have just a maglock piece, so we didn't need so much space, then it would be acceptable.

Collapsible landing gear is a very old request that isn't likely to go away any time soon.

 

If you don't mind it being a mod, here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=343014073

 

Ah, but I do. I do indeed...

Mods shouldn't be required for basic features. As long as planets weren't a thing, a mod would be just fine - because for the most part landing gear was optional, you could either leave the ship floating just fine, or if you needed to lock something a connector would be enough. Now, however, with planets and gravity, landing gear has gotten a promotion in terms of importance.

 

While I agree, I don't see it changing any time soon.

 

I made this thread because my piston landing gear exploded taking a good third of the ship with them as the separate physics grid tore through the hull. This isn't a request born form laziness to engineer my own gear, in fact I would love it if the physics were stable enough for me to be able to use piston based gear, but as it stands and as I expect it to continue standing, using such a set up is highly likely to destroy any ship is attached too such that it would be preferable to land the ship on its belly rather than use pistons.

 

Fair enough, then; I do have fond memories of my rotors/pistons exploding inside of my ships as I took off from the planet's surface too quickly.

 

Yeah, I agree with the OP. I've made lots of retractable landing gears using pistons but they all have ended exploding at some point... usually when the gear lock is engaged. :/ If you look at real aircraft landing gears, they can be very complex... Perhaps if the Devs would allow us to use small blocks on large ships (vice versa) than we could make some nice retracts. I bet they'd still blow up though (cause landing gears and pistons are made out of explosives, obviously...)

 

I would LOVE to be able to attach a small grid to a large one without using the rotor trick, I have been using this little bit of Digi wizardry https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=516770964 But being able to do it without a mod would be fantastic.

 

Currently the animated sub-parts of blocks like doors, sliding doors and the airtight hangar doors only interact with and stop characters, small ships and large ships passing. You'll find that the extendable part of airtight hangar doors will just phase through stations and voxels with no interaction or damage.

If they could be changed to stop voxels and station grids, they could serve as retractable landing gear albeit without the ability to 'lock' to a surface.
Also, I believe that with the advanced door code introduced by Eikester, the advanced door Dummies can be made to move with the animated sub-parts.
If these two ideas were combined, we should be able to create retractable landing gear that use animated sub-parts rather than clang inducing sub-grids (piston/rotor type blocks) with a moving landing gear locking point.
I raised this several months ago in one of Xocliw's streams but they said it wasn't possible as the sub-parts didn't have physics. However, while discussing my idea, they seemed to have misunderstood what I meant and I'd like a more definitive answer as to its feasibility from someone with a programming background. Anyone here know if it's too much of a stretch for the game?

 

Sooo they added planets to the game but cant make retractable landing gears that work? :|

 

Well, they definetly can... they just don't want to...

The piston being a suspension without the option to rotate the/a wheel forward/backwards, just turn sideways. This alone would fix most of the ships if the Strength and Damping would be both at at least 1%.

 

Now, @Sapioit, just because they haven't done it yet doesn't mean they don't want to. They haven't added any new blocks in quite a few months, as they're busy fixing multiplayer and other things that hold the game back.

You should really stop being so assumptive.
--- Automerge ---
I like your idea about how to handle a retractable landing gear, @Levits. This is something we really need.

 

All that, while not making tiny fixes that matter, such as make the wolves have less HP, less damage, and have the meteorites spawn once every 30-120 minutes ...
They've got at least some of their priorities wrong...

 

Yeah, mine spins the ship, and makes it explode, for no adequate reason.

 

It's because the landing gear is hit by the ground from a certain angle, which is translated through the whole ship, and it breaks at the points where the structural integrity is minimal (pistons and rotors).
Maybe try to install the mod which allows you to place stuff on wheels, place a suspension with wheel, attack a block to the wheen and a landing gear to the block, lock the speed to 1-5km/h (so no crashing happens; also, it aligns to the gravity), and the piston is optional, before adding the landing gear. As long as you have the Strength and Damping at about the same values (with the Damping greater or equal to the Strength), you'll have almost no problems with the ship breaking. Either way, the number of problems and their gravity would be greatly reduced.

 

Really really no.

I'm building an air-base, in space.
It's going to be used in atmo, but i'm building in the empty space, for faster load times and things not dropping and breaking when i cut/paste.

It's not only not touching the ground, there is no ground anywhere.

 

But you could still use a conbination of suspensions+wheel (even the tiny 1x1 wheel) and landing gear to make sure that things don't break upon impact. You could even use two extra sets of suspension+wheel, one for forces paralel to the landing direction (coming from the landing gear towards the ship) set to about 20% away from the maximum position (to allow for a little wobbleing) and two for forces perpendicular to the landing direction (those two must be perpendicular to eachother, as well) set to 50% (to allow for moving in any of the four directions).

This way, if you want to land something, not only do you have no explosions, but the possible damage is minimised by allowing the whole landing platform/thing to move a bit in at least one direction (therefor allowing things to move instead of straight up breaking by exploding).

 

You're really not listening.

The ship spins and explodes, *even when it touches NOTHING!*

Tyres and wheels will not help, because they are exploding just by moving. Not touching anything.

 

Oh, I am listening, you aren't. ...Have you tried it? Because by moving, you apply pressure upon the piston (since it connects two different grids), and the moving grid colides with the grids connected through pistons and rotors.

This way, by allowing it to wobble a bit, you avoid crashes... because this is what's missing from the Pistons and Rotors: Strength, Damping, both Vertical (like the wheels) and Horizontal (so they can rotate a bit, before getting back to the default position).

I'm combating the problem by going to it's roots, to find out exactly what causes the problem. And it only takes one mod to solve it...

 

using a wheel system as a buffer in the middle of the linkage is pointless. Even if it worked, it wouldn't fit.
and using wheels instead of landing pads would be equally pointless for the reasons previously mentioned.

 

No, not that, placing a block on the wheel locked at speed 0 (or 5km/h, so it can adapt to the terrain/orientation), and attaching the landing gear to that block which is attached to the landing gear. That way, you would have your ship wobble a bit before finishing the landing sequance, but it won't crash.

 

I have no idea what you're on about.

Post a pic.

 

Spazzing , but no explosion... see?

Sounds like a whole different language than what I'm actually speaking...

 

I'm impressed. It's an almost total communications failure.

Almost exactly backwards from what i am needing, or trying to do.

Not set up for recording, so screenies will have to do:
WIP construction:

LAnding gear extending:

Ship spins madly, landing gear tears off:



Notice: 1: not attached/locked to anything.
2: Landing gear extending from ship, not the reverse.
3: Tight fit. wobbly wheels would cause collision.
4: yes, i used blast door blocks.

so, to use your example, turn it on its head..
sit on the ship.
Extend gear out.
Spin madly until leg breaks off.

Rather than shaking the platform to which the landing gear is attached.

Now do you get it?

 

That's exactly what it is...

Well, that tight fit might be the problem. It would cause collisions, but due to the wheels' handbrakes being on, after the initial collision, it would be less likely to move a lot.

...wait... you mean you don't move the ship at all, right? But the piston itself being attached to mass, by pushing or pulling things, creates pressure upon itself, causing the weakness in structural integrity to break, and the parts would hit stuff, effectively simulating/emulating a real-life explosion. With the use of suspensions, things would get back to normal after a tiny bit of wobbling. Sure, you ship would probably spin a few times (in space, since there's not a lot of gravity), but things shouldn't explode (at least not so easily).

But just to debunk my method, could you, please, try to see if using a suspension on which to attach the pistons and leave some room to wobble around? You can use slopes to minimise the probability of it hitting stuff when moving and extending. You know, just to be sure it does or does not works...

 

@Sapioit I think you are right. From my observations, i got the nearly the same thoughts, about these problems with pistons. But I did not come up with the idea to use the "Wheel connection Mod" to solve this problem. Very good idea. I will try it out. Real life pistons can also take/absorb some Vertical and Horizontal force and "twist"(deform dynamic) a bit before they break.

Have you write this (with the pictures) in the Bug-Forum ? Could be intersting for keen.

 

@Azirahael, I've made landing gear like that before and have found that the problem is usually when there are pistons right next to each other. I believe it is because when the pistons extend, the heads laterally push away from each other a bit but can't as they are both attached to the same landing gear foot. This causes the grid to exert a force on itself resulting in clang. The simplest solution is to stagger the arrangement of the pistons.