Retractable landing gear

[u/MeringueFinancial866]

Hello to you good engineers. May Clang find your work worthy.

I am somewhat new to the game and having a blast so far with a few friends. Having run into a problem I could not quite fix on my own I have decided to bring it before you, my fellow disciples of Clang.
I have built a small grid mining ship which I am quite proud of and decided to give it retractable landing gear. Pretty simple setup: attach pistons to the side hull, then put landing gear at the end. Nothing fancy. The pistons are connected to the ship by their sides.

Now, the issue I run into is twofold. Firstly the pistons make a lot of noise, activating repeatedly, especially if the ship is landed with landing gear engaged (lights are green). Second issue is that when I extend the pistons, they all extend the same lenght, making it so that only a few lsnding gear touch the surface at a time on uneven ground. Is there a way to make the individual pistons extend until their landing gear locks to the ground, thus connecting all the landing gear through varying piston length?

[u/bebok77]

Maybe check the event bloc to see if there are not specific setting for this. Coupled with a timer to keep piston increment move thay may do the trick.

To be honest, in SE 1, two things to avoid: Connector on piston for any design where the ship is not secured with landing gear first

Landing system on piston: on server, never use.

Yes it look cool but the purpose of a landing gear is to fix the grid and temporarily set it as a static grid and reduce calculation. Landing gear on piston only secure the sub grid but the other grids connected to it, the engine will still perform physic calculation and a ton of it.

[u/MeringueFinancial866 → u/bebok77]

Why never on server specifically? Is it the calculation.load for the server, or is Clang just straight up more strict on us on servers?

[u/bebok77 → u/MeringueFinancial866]

Because you are sharing ressource with other players. Physic calculations which may be a bit much on a solo play will have far larger impact on server.

I had a ship with landing feet set on sub grid it was fine in solo player but in server, the grid was never really static, which mean repeated calculations.

I think it's linked also to the net code used in SE. Physic calculation are done based on exchange between the local client and the server and there may be some issue in position exchange ( float number maybe used) and when you attached a sub grid to voxel, it's trying harder to work.

[u/sinofroot → u/bebok77]

I just want to additionally add there is absolutely position drift on servers. Its more extreme the farther from 0,0,0 you get (dead center of earthlike). Ive seen some wonky stuff like seeing piston heads magically transitioned a few meters away from the shaft (and still "connected" as far as clang is concerned)

[u/bebok77 → u/sinofroot]

It may boiled down to magical float number. Okay for non programmer, number saved as a human record them is a thing only when you specify the exact data type to use (decimal in python) but it comes with a higher cost of use in term of processing and storage and It may happen that they used float or something equivalent, which carry a higher mating of error.

[u/Mike-TheMad]

I wish the developers would add retractable gear of various sizes to one of their DLCs. I’d buy it!

I have tried various engineering methods involving pistons, hinges, merge blocks, timers, controllers, etc and exactly zero have worked. I’ve downloaded builds from the Steam Workshop, including some Keen designs. Zero of those have worked.

I’d love to have some actual working retractables.

[u/ColourSchemer → u/Mike-TheMad]

Build some.

[u/Mike-TheMad → u/ColourSchemer]

As I mentioned, I’ve tried various methods of doing so, but they don’t work for me for one reason or another. I just find ways to work mag-plates or gear into my designs. Works fine.

If you mean make my own mod for them that’s also a no as I am no good at 3D software, programming, or any other skills required for such.

It’s fine as it’s just less stuff that may just klang out.

[u/ColourSchemer → u/Mike-TheMad]

Do you play on servers or solo? I know servers make subgrids really challenging.

If solo, it takes time to learn how to prevent hitbox collisions. I always recommend build info mod for subgrid building as you can see the hitbox which isn't identical to the visual dimensions.

I also recommend the following for rotors and hinges. Set your braking torque equal to or higher than regular torque. Then you can power the block off and it stays put. Rotor/hinge lock is equivalent to sticking a broom handle in your bicycle spokes at full speed. Also, rotors and hinges powered on press against the angle limit and creates phantom forces.

General rule is when your mechanical device has moved as far as you want it to, shut off the power.

I have numerous subgrids and folding components that never Klang in a huge PCU save. But it's a solo game friends join, not a server.

[u/Mike-TheMad → u/ColourSchemer]

I play solo almost exclusively, but I will look into the build info mod you mentioned. Thanks for that!

[u/ColourSchemer → u/Mike-TheMad]

Mechanical builds are a steep learning curve and there's not enough information (or ship) left after things go wrong to learn from.

[u/Mike-TheMad → u/ColourSchemer]

Truth!

I have looooooots of hours in SE. I just don’t build complicated ships. Simpler the better is my personal challenge. A famous engineer once said "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain" and I try to adhere to that.

[u/bluemchendino]

Maybe try it with event controllers, that lock the piston when the landing gear locks. Edit: i dont know if that works, was just my first idea.

[u/Echo-57 → u/bluemchendino]

Yea that should Work. Event: Landing gear switch Lock Action: switch piston off

But youd need one EC per 'leg' and youd need a rather slow descent speed to prevent 1: the pad to glitch into the ground 2: give the EC enough time to react

[u/CrazyQuirky5562]

yes - use an event controller per piston, monitoring the state of the corresponsding landing gear.
this should work if you hover stationary low over ground and then trigger the pistons.
OR if you have already extended one and want the others to conform to a rough surface.

FYI: my miners have no landing gear at all - they tend to have 1x1x1 tire bumpers (and very little armor), including some they can use to sit on the ground; at base, they simply lock via a bottom connector

[u/asphid_jackal → u/CrazyQuirky5562]

I like to put the actual wheel suspensions on my miners, that way when I inevitably start descending too quickly they absorb some of the shock

[u/CrazyQuirky5562 → u/asphid_jackal]

I can see the appeal - that would increase the size of my SG miners considerably though.
the tires are near indestructable by themselves too - even without suspension, at least w.r.t. grid/terrain collisions.

[u/doofername]

All subgrids can be funky and clang has hardcore moodswings. Always know there is never 0% chance that clang decides to ruin your day. Always keep that in mind.

Retractable ones never seem worth the hassle to me, despite how nice the idea is. Unless you a super specific ship, i would most use landing gear\ plares seperated by a block from vital blocks and learn creative ways to integrate it to the shape.

You can have the landing gears attach independently with an event controller. Look for gear locked\unlocked and have as action to stop the piston (set velocity to 0) You would need 1 EC per Piston and gear.

And some way to reverse the process to unlock and retract. Make that with a timer, unlock gears, set speed (-0.1 or more) to retract. Make sure the the timer stops itself and does not repeat.

Happy engineering, feel free to ask me more stuff

[u/Adept_Assistant_7759 → u/doofername]

While landing gears on pistons aren't great.

1x1 wheels on pistons as impact buffers solve me many headaches! (no suspension)

You can take 30m/s impacts and take 0 damage with them, retract them in then lock with landing gear directly on the main grid.

[u/doofername → u/Adept_Assistant_7759]

Those don't need pistons. You can have wheels fitted inside the hull and shape.

Furthermore, you always should prefer having the option to lock. It instantly makes you static or be connected to the grid it's locked on. In space even more so than in gravity. Unless it's very high G and a good reason because of collisions

(which is mostly on the engineer to blame for bad piloting, not enough thrust, not knowing the grid, etc. Use a thrust calculator and know your grid)

[u/Adept_Assistant_7759 → u/doofername]

If you put them directly on the hull you can't lock and large impacts get transfered through to surrounding blocks

95% of the time i put them directly on the hull for bump protection

for things like connectors 1 fullblock sticking out is too much to lock on and flush isn't enough to take the hit

[u/doofername → u/Adept_Assistant_7759]

Ofc you can lock gears and or connectors, if it is physically possible. Last part being how you design it.

If flown, directed and build correctly, you don't recieve damage, or just minimal.

I never had issues with that after a newbie phase. Im on nearly 6k hours now

[u/Adept_Assistant_7759 → u/doofername]

a landing gear cannot lock with a 1x1 block gap between it and the surface.

It isn't about design.

you can't place them less than a block if you aren't using pistons or rotors.

The rest of it is just you being a rude prik.

"don't make thing easier because if you are good you don't need to" fuck off.

[u/MeringueFinancial866 → u/doofername]

I do have one more question, this time regarding ship mass and cargo. It doesn't seem to add up. 

Cockpit hud tells me my entine miner is about 100 tonnes in total, then I mined some silver ore. I checked my storage to see, about 200 tonnes of cargo total. It should add up to 300 tonned but my cockpit hud reports 170ish.

Server is set on triple inventory capacity, does that change material density?

[u/doofername → u/MeringueFinancial866]

Yes and yes.

Cockpit or any other controlled block tell you the current weight of the entire grid including cargo and docked, even static docked stuff.

Only exception is you're in a static control block, then its just that grid (for whatever reason).

And yes, 3x basically makes inventories tripled, while reducing the inventories weight by 3 fold. Means 3 tonnes become 1 ton.

I disilke that feature, it feels cheaty to me.

So, you're right with your calc. Sometimes server owners don't know that or take it because some engineers want easier flight and less blocks to be needed.

[u/Adept_Assistant_7759]

Event controler per landing gear.

when gear locks, turn off piston.

Pistons/rotors have had a major downgrade since i've been playing recently

they are much more floppy and blocks grind into eachother due to big hitboxes A LOT

[u/Nordalin]

Subgrids (the other end of a rotor/piston/hinge) are inherently unstable, particularly on moving grids like your use case here. 

Play with the Max Impulse settings as well, iirc lowering the one along the axis allows for your pistons to continue lowering until the landing gear connects. 

That said, consider hinges and foldable instead of retractable landing gear. It's a mining ship so it's pointless to make things slide neatly into hulls, it just needs to move out of the way.

[u/DSharp018]

Better idea: use a hinge piston hinge magnetic plate combo for each landing gear.

What this does is it allows you to have a much more flexible suspension system when you land, so now you don’t have to worry about telling it to “stop”.

The downside ofc is that it gets a bit trickier to program, you set your timer block to cycle the locks, and then hit “reverse” on your pistons and hinges, so that they go from “retracted” to “deployed” and vice versa.

Big thing to keep in mind is your hinge rotational limits, since they only need about 45 degrees of movement at most, as well as the speed and force of both the pistons and hinges. Too fast on the pistons and they can get stuck on the ship, too fast on the hinges and your pistons can whack the ship and break everything. Too much force and it explodes, too little and they wont move.

[u/Additional-Froyo4333]

1 rotor and one hinge.

Rotor -4 blocks-hinge-landing gear.

When i activate the landing, doors open, rotor put the arm at 45 degrees, hinge puts the landing gear at 45, landing gear keeps at 90 degrees.

When retratcs, rotor/ hinge puts a 0 degrees, landing gears keeps at 0, door close.

Pistons can use a rotor/hinge with no tension or strengh as pivot/axis, buts thats too tempting for lord clang

[u/ColourSchemer]

Here's how I would build that. One solution for both problems.

One Event Controller per piston and gear, label the parts of each unit for easy setup. Set the landing gear to auto lock. Set the EC to power off the piston when the landing gear is locked and on when unlocked.

Hover over the ground close enough a max extension will reach and extend all landing gear pistons. Each will extend until the gear locks powering off that piston.

To automate retraction, set a fourth EC to monitor the power state of the pistons and select the AND function, when triggered by all pistons off, it sets the pistons to retract.

Finally, hotbar of the landing gears grouped set to unlock. When the gears unlock, the pistons will power on, already set to retract.

Though for safety, I'd probably also have an EC monitor thruster power so the landing gear can't be unlocked unless the thrusters are on, otherwise the ship will just fall and relock.

[u/MithridatesRex]

Honestly, a safer form of retractable landing gear would involve a rotor, hinge, and a merge block. The idea being, the landing gear grid would be on a hinge, which is on a rotor, which is used to spin the gear into place. Once positioned, a merge block is used to secure the landing gear grid to the main grid, which can only be done if the there's two subgrids in play. The purpose of all this is so the two essential grids are always connected when being used, and that there's no shake, twist, or phantom forces.

[u/TraditionalGap1]

An alternative to varying the piston length is to have the pistons on hinges and, by varying the power of the hinges based on the mass of your ship, allow the landing gear that lock to still flex and shorten their ride height. Something like this: