Floating Hover Platform - Just a question

[rhx123]

Hello all, hope this is in the right section.
I recently have been trying to make a stable platform that follows the terrain, just hovering 20-40 units up.
So far I have managed this:
Hover Platform With Vector Thrusters
(From Video Description):
It uses lots of vector thrusters and is abit juddery. There are two vector thrusters on each corner. One is linked to speedo on the Z axis only, which stops it rocking, and is constantly on and the other is set to pitch/yaw, and is wired to the gyroscope, but the yaw is wired to a Add 90, which is actually wired to the roll of the gyro. That ensures that the thrust is always pointing down, which stops it rocking but also reduces its ability to climb hills. That set of thrusters multipier are wired to an expression, which uses a ranger on each corner. This means they only fire when the platform is under a certain height.

However if you watch the video closely, especially at the beggining, you will notice that it judders at quite a high rate.
I know this is caused by the vector thursters wired to the speedo, and thats the bit i'm trying to stop.
However, without those vector thrusters the whole platform tilts considerably and eventaully ends up shooting around on its own.
I was wondering if anyone could point me to a tutorial or give me advice on how to make a stable hover platform.
Thanks a million, Richard

[mjmr89]

I'm curious about what exactly your expression does - but I have a suggestion. I have done quite a few things just like this. I'd suggest putting a VT on each corner and placing a ranger directly under it. Then have an expression for each corner that basically takes in the ranger value and spits out a thrust which you wire to the Z of the VT.

Thrust = (TargetZ - RangerDist)*Mul1 + $Ranger*Mul2

Change Mul 1 and 2 to fine tune it, make Mul on VTs 1 unless you want to use that to multiply the overall force.

Also, check out Orb's tutorials

[rhx123]

All the expression does is checks if the rangers is less than 30 and if it is it turns the thruster on, and vice versa.
Sorry for being unclear, and thanks for the code, Ill give it a go

[dpidcoe]

I also suggest making sure the rangers always point straight down. If the pad tilts, that means the ranger thinks the pad is higher than it really is, which can cause issues (especially if the pad starts rocking).

Also use delta in the expression if you're not already.