Guide to wheel settings?

[EmberStar]

I was just working with building a wheeled rover, and noticed that it's behaving very strangely. When I park (using a toolbar action on the cockpit to "Switch Handbrake on/off" so I don't use the dreaded 'P' key) the vehicle begins to jitter and bounce slightly. If I stand next to it, I can hear what sounds like rapid, faint collision noises. As if it's not sitting on the ground, but bouncing very slightly up and down rapidly and constantly.

Does anyone know if there's a good guide to how to set up wheels? I remember seeing a video (or stream) once where the person playing built a vehicle and then immediately adjusted all the suspension settings. But I can't remember who made it, or why they were making the changes. Or what they changed them *to.* Just that they did so, "because it avoids some problems."

[cptsavarus]

Wheel settings are a lot simpler & more stable than they used to be. Could be the video you saw was discussing the way they used to work - with 2 settings for shock & dampening. That system never did work very well & caused all kinds of headaches setting up.

Setting up wheels now is pretty clear cut.

>Height offset for adjusting ride height.

>Power determines how much effort the wheels produce & how much energy they use.

>Strength is shock & dampening in one setting - used to determine how resiliant the spring is against load (heavier load needs higher values)

There aren't any settings that inherrently need adjustment to prevent problems, though I recommend increasing ride height to max, just because it'll make the vehicle that little bit more capable on terrain.

If I had to guess what's going on with your rover, I'd say you have a piston or rotor on it somewhere & that there's something interfering with it; or there's a block(s) that are too close to the wheel(s).
If it's any of those then changing the settings probably wont help - you just need to revise the design.

If you post some screenshots we can look it over & see if it's anything obvious.

[EmberStar]

It's one of the Keen designed NPC store buggies. It's basically one of the designs you can play with in the "Lost Colony" scenario, the one with a survival kit and a passenger seat on each side of the hull facing out. There are no pistons (none of the store ships include any kind of subgrid so far, Keen either doesn't like using them or the ship spawning mechanism doesn't support them.)

The vehicle isn't actually moving a huge amount, it's just that standing right next to it it is behaving oddly. I've bought the Lunar Rover Mk 4, the survival buggy with a solar panel on top, and the white one with a survival kit. They're all doing it, and all three are stock Keen designs with no additions or modifications made by me (yet.)

*Edit* The advantage is that you can check the designs yourself without me needing to post them or share them on the workshop.

I don't have any speed mods installed, and I don't *believe* I have any mods installed that would change any other default physics settings. I do have Modular Encounters installed (and some add-ons for that to make the world feel a little more lively, so Reddit Encounters, Atmospheric Ships, and Surface Occupation.) None of those touch any of the default blocks as far as I know. I also have a Defense Shields mod and Nanobots Build and Repair, but I haven't actually placed any blocks from either mod yet.

After losing several weeks progress to some kind of data corruption (that didn't start crashing the game until it had apparently been happening for longer than any of the automatic backups) I try to keep my list of installed mods *very* short. Modular Encounters replaces the functionality of NPC cargo ships, but those are included as part of the spawn list.

Short version: None of my vehicles currently includes rotors or pistons (that I'm aware of) and nothing I have installed should have touched any of the default blocks.

[EmberStar]

Posting screenshots will take a while, if those are still needed. I don't use the Steam Overlay. Which means to post screenshots I'd have to figure out where Space Engineers hides them when using the F4 key, then upload to my Imgur account. (Which means finding the password for that.)

[Dan2D3D]

Strange Engineer problem, maybe publish your world on the Workshop will be better, well I am faster to fix when I have the ship in front of me.


____

More info (Setup wheels)

It is one of the hard SE challenge and this one needed A LOT of Engineer testing to find the solution (took me a long time)

Important :

Make sure the "Wheel Offset", "Strength" and "Friction" are propely setup = find the right values so your car will not be damaged on landing after a jump.

Do this in a copy for not messing your original save, use "Save as" and change the save name to create a "Testing world" to find the right values :

1 - Aim at your car and hit Ctrl+C to add it to clipboard so you can paste it again for testing.

2 - Enter the cockpit of your car.

3 - Hold the "X" key for a few seconds.

4 - Let go that "X" key to jump and see if it will be damaged on landing.

Paste the car and try new values till solution found.

I use my Jump world to test my cars and find the proper values, it is not the same for all cars and why testing is a Must.

I use this world to setup my wheels :

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1399740988

[cptsavarus]

No need for screenshots then. I know that truck well.

In my games it works perfectly. Never had any problem with it.
Sounds like whatever's causing it is on your end.

Try creating a brand new world with no mods & paste the truck in to that. You can then test each mod separately just in case.
There's never any ruling mods out in SE - even mods that have nothing to do with anything can still cause odd problems in ways you might not expect.
Number one rule for any problem is to test in pure vanilla & assume nothing.

Beyond that you might just be looking at a bug. Wheels have always been a bit prone to weirdness & I have seen this twitching thing myself a few times recently (though very minor & I put it down to my trucks having complicated rotor hitches)

What happens if you drive the rover around a bit, then park it up again?

Is there a difference if you park it on terrain vs on a block platform?

Are other vehicles behaving same way if pasted in using creative tools?

[EmberStar]

I don't play in Creative, so I have no idea how the creative tools even work. Ctrl-C just generates an error that it's not available in survival mode. I save copies of ships using Ctrl-B, so that I can use projectors to duplicate or repair them later.

If I drive the rovers around an park, they still do this. They aren't moving massively, it's just a slight jitter and a faint sound that's only possible to notice when standing right next to them. It's actually why I noticed it, I was driving a new rover home and a space pirate base had spawned directly in front of me (blocking the valley I needed to drive through.)

I jumped out to use the jetpack to fly up and see what I was dealing with, and noticed the slight metallic sound coming from the rover. Then I flew back to look at the "survival" rover with the solar panel, since I'd bought both of them at the same time. When I confirmed they were both doing it I used the jetpack to fly back to base and look at the Lunar Mk 4. That one had been parked, and reloaded from save when I started playing again. It seems to be fine as long as I don't move it. But if I drive it a little and park again, it does the same thing.

I'm not sure what the jump test is supposed to accomplish? Why would I want to make a car jump in the air? It's a car. If I wanted to do Dukes of Hazard jumps, I'd add thrusters and a gyro to it. (At which point I might as well have bought a flying vehicle.)

I can't post the saved world. A) I can't *find* the save directory, it appears to be hidden in a way were "show hidden folders" has no effect. B) I have nowhere to upload the file *to* so that I could share it.

[Dan2D3D]

sharing saves on the Workshop is one of the easiest thing in that game.

1 - Go to your Saves menu > in-game <

2 - Select your save > highlighted <

3 - Click the "Publish" button on the left.

4 - Skip the "Exploration" Tag cause that got rules to follow and click OK to publish on the Workshop.

5 - Tell me when ready.

[Dan2D3D]

Oh! and the jump test was just a "info plus" for you to know that we have to setup the wheels properly to avoid damages on the car.

Edit

it is a HARD challenge and you may not be able to create a working car.
(took a lot of time testing for me to find a working solution)

[Dan2D3D]

Splitsie is the best at explaining so I recommend his SE Tutos, watch this one first and there may be more on his YouTube :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SatcTlQjzkE

[EmberStar]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

sharing saves on the Workshop is one of the easiest thing in that game.

1 - Go to your Saves menu > in-game <

2 - Select your save > highlighted <

3 - Click the "Publish" button on the left.

4 - Skip the "Exploration" Tag cause that got rules to follow and click OK to publish on the Workshop.

5 - Tell me when ready.

I have uploaded the world save. The title is the one I currently have on my save. I've been using "Save as" and changing the title whenever I make (or prepare to make) a significant change, such as building a new base or designing or upgrading a ship. (Which is part of why I made the other thread about finding and moving the save file location, I have a string of about 30 saves to fall back to in case of breakages.)

The title is:

New Horizons 01-08-20 Heavy fighter (Attempt one.)

I will be deleting it again once you have a copy. There's no reason to leave it up or public otherwise. And the Space Engineers workshop has a quarter of a million items, most of which even the creator probably can't find anymore. :(

[EmberStar]

For reference, this is my *in progress* game save. One of the wheeled vehicles is still at an NPC trade station just outside the safe zone. One is currently sitting on the valley floor in a line between my base and the trade station, because a Pirate Refueling Station appeared right where I need to drive. The third is the Lunar Rover Mk 4, back at my base. I assumed you'd use the Admin menu and the Entities list and just teleport to them. And also that you'd want to see them in place, in case it's related to what I think I see them doing.

None of them are doing anything dramatic like jumping into the air or skittering around. For all I *know* what I'm seeing is default behavior and I'm just overreacting. I don't make extensive use of wheeled vehicles, so I don't have much to compare them to.

If it matters: I am also in the progress of building a simple Large Grid fighter so I can use the heavy turret to disable the pirate station (and then probably claim it.) I've been mostly ignoring the mod's pirate spawns, but this one is in a place I can't really go around.

[EmberStar]

Additionally: My base is a mess and barely better than a "Large Brick." The space station is even worse, and isn't much more than conveyor tubes and solar panels to keep docked ships powered and prevent them from drifting away. I plan to fix that, but I've been focused on trying to earn credits so I could play around with the Keen ships once I discovered the friendly NPC stations.

[Dan2D3D]

Just paste the Workshop item link in here, just me will be able to use if it set hidden.

Or set your Workshop to be visible on your Steam profile.

[cptsavarus]

Originally posted by EmberStar:

I don't play in Creative, so I have no idea how the creative tools even work...

Perfect time to find out then!

Just start a new world & set it to Creative mode in world options, then use...

CTRL+B while aimed at a grid to take a blueprint of it

CTRL+C while aimed at a grid to copy it to clipboard & wield for pasting

CTRL+V while aimed away from a grid to wield whatever's currently in the clipboard for pasting

CTRL+X while aimed at a grid to cut that grid from the world & place in clipboard (careful with this one - easy to loose unsaved work)

These commands also work in Survival mode if you enable Creative Tools in the ALT+F12 menu.

N.B: Clipboard works the same as the Windows clipboard for cut / copy / paste - it can only contain 1 object at a time.
If you put a second object in it, the first will be over-written & gone forever, hence be careful with CTRL+X.

[EmberStar]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

Just paste the Workshop item link in here, just me will be able to use if it set hidden.

Or set your Workshop to be visible on your Steam profile.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1963479712

Hopefully that works.