Point of 5x5 suspension/wheels?

So I've been looking at wheels a little more recently(that patch was really good ) and I cannot see the point of 5x5 wheels. Compared to 3x3 they offer 66% more power while taking up 4.5 times more space, costing three times as much, and with their bad block connections they're difficult to deal with too.

The suspension range is the same but the larger wheels raise the center of gravity on any vehicle using them. They are simply worse in every way that I can see.

So has anyone found a situation where they are better than 3x3?

 

I've always preferred the 5x5 to get the clearance for my vehicles and rarely use anything except them. What's your justification for 1x1 suspensions, because I don't see any purpose for them except being mounted vertically for a shock absorber for rough landings.

 

I've seen people use 1x1 fairly often. I don't myself but they seem to be useful when you want a cheap and light wheel.

I have a question for you as a 5x5 user. Why do you prefer 5x5 over 3x3 with a few armour blocks stacked on top?

 

... The point is that they're a different size I can use depending on my build? That's the only point I need...

Some builds 3x3 looks best, other builds 5x5 looks best. It really isn't complicated Might as well ask "what's the point of the fighter cockpit, it does exactly the same as the utility cockpit"...

 

Even 5x5 wheels have terrible ground clearance. I avoid wheels.

 

a larger wheel means a larger step height. a rule of thumb i hear a lot when off roading is that any step larger than 1/3 of your wheel diameter should be avoided. larger wheel diameters mean you can mantle a larger step. its to do with inertia, gravity and friction. at 1/3 the height of the wheel, the edge of the step first meets the wheel below the axle, so the vehicles forward momentum can more easily be converted into upwards travel. additionally, when the step meets the wheel at or below this point, much of the traction gained on the edge is due to the vehicles mass rather than the torque available, again making mantling easier.
there are vehicles with insane torque levels that can basically drive their front end straight up a wall (the wheels are the forward most point and hit the wall before the bumper) but that's not the case for most vehicles.
larger diameters also mean that small ground features, like road corrugation, have less impact on the suspension as the larger diameter ensures the surface is contacted with a shallower arc and more of the wheel is in contact with the surface (assuming your wheels deform on contact). in SE the main reason i use big wheels is for the step height advantage as wheel deformation isnt a thing.

and agreed, suspension wheels in general dont have great travel or ground clearance. i used to engineer my own suspension out of rotor joints and a bit of script control. huge travel, great clearance, adjustable everything. but that was back before the friction fixes. now suspension wheels have a clear friction advantage, so i have to forgo off roading for soft roading and design the SE equivelant of an all wheel drive family sedan for parking on the grass at soccer practice instead of good and proper overlanders made for crossing nearly any terrain.

 

If you've ever approached a brown colored slope a bit too gung-ho, and realized a bit too late after the LoD update, that it was that "tortured ground" mess of cracks, gaps, and steps... That you were about to plow into at 50m/s... What happens depends greatly upon what size tires you chose:

3x3 city street tires, or tourist version offroading wheels, an yeah.. you blew up

With 5x5 tires you bounce a bit as you roar right on over monster truck style.

So, the point of the big wheels is if you want to do some serious mountain/ridge climbing... Or just wanna be a sunny weather smooth plains only sorta offroader.

 

I built a "buggy" using 5x5 suspensions and immediately high-centered the rig on the first hump that I didn't think was very big. In my opinion, wheels make sense for relatively smooth ground such as ice lakes and a trip to the market.

 

On larger vehicles they look better.

As for the centre of gravity, I always build my vehicles with heavy blocks for the chassis which helps a lot. Since the update I have to actually work at turning a vehicle over, i've had far more accidents from catching too much air which a 5x5 suspension setup seems to handle better so far for me.

 

Interesting thank you. I will play around with the situations mentioned, thanks.

 

I can easily produce a mod to change this. Does 2.7 times as powerful seem reasonable?

5^2 / 3^2 = ~ 2.7

I can also scale the power of 1X1 wheels down slightly.

 

Oh I looked up the values in the file itself so that's fine, thanks though. I do think 5x5 should be more than 66% more powerful since it has 333% more motors.

 

The 5x5 are bigger, and I don't care about anything else.

 

For me 5×5 offers good balance between foot simplicity and detailability.
Currently they seem to be giving the best performance as 1×1 wheels turned strangely glitchy for me after the update

5×5 offer pretty good foot coverage.
Ibwould also use them in mobile bases. Simply for the reason that they give more clearance. Vehicle becomes cumbersome to use very quickly if it has too small clearance

 

It's usually not a question of whether to use 3x3 or 5x5. At least, not for me. If you are building something to ride around in, 3x3 wheels make the most sense. If you are attempting to move a massive machine over terrain you use the biggest wheels you can find. Using the largest wheels usually means speed is not the priority. Just getting from A to B is the point.


The 3x3 wheels everyone uses to make cars and trucks are too big. A 3x3 wheel weighs about as much as a semi and is not suitable for your racer. I don't know why Keen skipped 2x2, nor do I understand why the suspension doesn't give the 1x1 wheel enough clearance. A 1x1 wheel on a suspension that'll let it work would be far more useful as wheels for vehicles people seem to prefer making. Using 3x3 wheels to make a personal transport is insane. If you use 1x1 it looks weird because the suspension itself is out of scale.

As much as I'd like to see some changes in this area I suspect there are more important issues. A savvy Modder could become the Hero of Space Engineers by making appropriate wheel suspensions for smaller vehicles. Those mods would eventually get broken, but at least Keen would get a chance to understand the value.

 

This is just a guess, but I imagine they skipped 2x2 and 4x4 because they don't align with the block system. With 3x3 you have a nice even one center block and one on each side. TBH I cannot see the problem with 2x2 but maybe it has issues that I am not seeing. Maybe the wheel can only spin around a full block or something?

 

It'd be better if they diddn't align with the block system, then we could do a 3 wide wheel hub around a 2x2 wheel.

 

The 1x1 suspensions should be resized, they have no point beyond gimmicks right now.

 

Both good points that ought to be combined, let's upsize the 1x1 to 2x2.

 

I understand the 1x1 wheels to not be vehicle style wheels, but rather as powered roller grips, to either run along rails or run rails across them, in some sort of machinery.

The reason they werent used very much was because Clang seemed to hate that version of machine heresy. maybe not so much anymore though...

 

A mobile refinery begs for 5x5 wheels to look right. Power and clearance matter, big really go big or use small scale blocks.

Small scale 3 x wheels with a med container and ore detector is useful.

 

Well, there has been a 2x2 wheel mod out there for a long time, but it didn't exactly match the vanilla theme. Works fine, though. Recently a 2x2 vanilla style wheel has been added to the workshop. Since the other wheel worked I don't see why the new one wouldn't.

As I said before, wheels were an early addition to the game at a time when they made absolutely no sense. Had there been planets and gravity when they were introduced the uproar surely would have pointed out the oversight. Since most people considered wheels useless even after planets Keen just moved on to other things. Now that they seem to be trying to make wheels a thing I wouldn't be surprised to see a vanilla 2x2 wheel as well as a reworked 1x1 wheel. @Calaban is probably correct in that the 1x1 may have been envisioned as more of a roller wheel than as something we would use to drive around with.

 

I barely use the 5x5 wheel, they are huge. Even the 3x3 are huge. I mean the 3x3 are 1.5 meters in diameter, when a normal tyre is like 70-80 cm? for a vehicle at least. I don't know, I wish they add a 2x2 wheel

 

Hello!

 

hi! ?

 

hello my honey hello my baby hello my ragtime galll.
I pressed x for a second with 5x5 wheels. I got some pretty sick air with this machine.
only the cockpit survived the landing.

 

The jumping is sick indeed.

The vanilla rover you find projected in easy start scenarios can jump over the goddamn base.

What sorcery is that

 

I still find it funny because im still used to the games old physics where the slightest resistance would cause massive explosions.
every time i see something jerk around or take an extra hard hit and not explode im almost shouting heresy at the game. even if it was my major ship or base.
.
like that big old ugly thing in the image once glitched and snap-rotated 90 degrees into the ground...only the wheels exploded...but i could see the thing jerking around trying to free itself and every second i was scared thinking it was going to explode violently.