Wheels only work/roll when attached to suspension blocks?

[majorfatboy]

I spent a few hours last night working on this, but so far I can only get wheels to roll if they're attached to a suspension system. Am I missing something here? That seems like a pretty big failing, as there are plenty of reasons to need wheels in a fixed position.

In My case, I'm building a gantry with multiple axis of movement, as a means of making construction easier (the gantry would be used to, say, grab a WIP and lift, shift, and rotate it so I could get to otherwise inaccessible sections of the WIP).

The gantry was to work by building a framework, with rails constructed from 1x1 blocks. The gantry X/Y axis arms are to traverse the rails with wheels. There would then be some pistons for the z axis, a rotor, and finally a landing gear for grabbing. All pretty straightforward stuff. On something like this, you do not want suspension on the wheels:

- The suspension blocks are just over two blocks in length, making proper 1-1 alignment with the rails impossible. Their models also stick out in other places making clipping an issue.

- Suspension systems, by their very nature, allow movement. This is bad on something that needs to be solid. When the gantry is holding something, I don't want the arms to flex, bend, pivot, or do any of the things a suspension would do.

Is there something I'm not getting? Is there a way to just slap a wheel on a block and have it roll, or are suspension blocks the only way? Without suspension blocks, wheels on a grid don't even show up in said grid's control panel or hotbar assignment menu. I even made a few test girds that were just carts with wheels directly on blocks, with thrusters for motive power; The wheels wouldn't even spin.

If so, what possible use could the 1x1 wheels ever have other than on a rail, as they're too small in diameter to make any meaningful clearance for terrain use?

If this is the case, are there any mods that have wheels direct-mounted to a simple block?

A picture of the very incomplete gantry as it currently is, to give a better idea of what I'm up to:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1810432585

[Burstar]

The only other way to get wheels to turn is either roll them freely unbound to anything, or attach them to a rotor.

You can adjust the suspension settings to make them ridged, and you can use vertically oriented suspensions to prevent side wobble as if it was on rails.

[Thalyn]

Wheels lack any form of propulsion on their own. They also lack any form of innate rotation ability. They're just cylindrical objects, exactly as they are in the real world (try welding a wheel directly to something sometime and see how well it spins). You need to provide an axle to them, and propulsion should you require it as well.

Suspension blocks are the quickest way to provide both, in addition to suspension and turning capabilities, but don't necessarily meet all demands. A rotor can also be used, but has a much lower maximum speed (60rpm, regardless of wheel size) for propulsion purposes - however it can also have its braking torque set to 0 to make it a free-wheeling axle.

[majorfatboy]

Originally posted by Burstar♿:

The only other way to get wheels to turn is either roll them freely unbound to anything, or attach them to a rotor.

You can adjust the suspension settings to make them ridged, and you can use vertically oriented suspensions to prevent side wobble as if it was on rails.

Was thinking about this, had fiddled around with the suspension setting a bit last night. I could make that work, but My worry is how... "spontaneously explosive" this game's engine is with suspension systems, was hoping to remove that factor entirely. There's also the clipping of the suspension models and alignment issues.

Might try the rotor idea. Would need to make the drive rotors on either side of each gantry arm on a group and set up some hotbar options for control, but it should work.

[Burstar]

Yeah, you're right in that I should have said 'sufficiently rigid' as if you set it too stiffly it will explode.

[Buzzard]

Wheel suspensions are pretty stable. As mentioned above, cranking up the stiffness and forcing 1-2 wheels to do all the stabilizing... can lead to boom. If you spread out the load over more suspensions, there's less load on any given area, on both grids, which can lead to you being happier all around. (Repairs are a *CENSORED* on some of those moving devices)