Ploughs, some observations.

  • Ploughs, some observations.

    1: currently the reversing system is set up as per an on-land plough rather than in-furrow, i.e. 180deg of total rotation relative to the headstock, as a result when the tractor is running with two wheels on one side of the tractor in a furrow the first furrow body of the plough is running deeper in the ground than the last furrow body of the plough, rather than all furrow bodies being uniform in their depth, i.e. the turn-over of the plough should be >180deg, e.g. if a tractor with two wheel on one side in a furrow, then the tractor could be at an angle of ~5deg thus the ploughs headstock will also be tilted at ~5deg with the tractor, thus the relative total turn-over angle would be ~180deg + 5deg + 5deg = ~190deg.
    • I have used 5deg as a simple example number, as the angle is dependent on furrow depth the tractor wheels are running in, and the wheel-track width of the tractor as to its relative angle vs.the ground which is not accounted for currently.
    2: given the above, could it not be an idea within the implement setting UI for ploughs along with the fold-up and turn-over buttons for there to be button with a slider axis where 0 equals 180deg of turn akin to on-land plough, while 1 could equal an additional 20deg total (+10deg to either end of the 180deg turnover animation) thus each 0.1 would equal 1deg of tractor angle with its wheels in a furrow.

    you could even at the farm place a concrete block 0.2m high (or furrow depth) 0.5m wide and 6m long with ramped ends so a tractor can pull onto it with wheels of one side of the tractor with a plough, they can then lower the plough turned so the last furrow is on the same side as the ramp and with the angle setting slider set the exact number for a specific tractor that places all plough bodies uniformly on the ground mimicking what would happen when ploughing (the wheels on the ramp mimicking the wheels on unploughed ground, the opposing wheels on the ground mimicking the wheels in the furrow at the working depth of the plough – thus the flat expanse of ground the plough bodies are uniformly resting on is working depth)


    3: side forces, currently as plough get bigger more and more tractor power is lost to countering side-forces due to the simple off-set drag, would it not be an idea to implement a counter-force mimicking the trust of soil pushing on the mouldboard etc of each body to act as a counterforce to off-set drag, this counterforce could be placed at mid working depth mid-way along the frame of the plough as a single force and could further be perturbed by the field/soil conditions so the point of balance of off-set drag and the applied counterforce happens at a specific speed which changes with field/soil conditions, i.e. a lose relatively dry soil reminiscent of a sandy soil that flows easily would have a higher balance speed than a compact baked dry or a very heavy clay soil which would both have a lower balance speed.

    So countering off-set drag would be a little more involved and there would be a “optimum” speed that changes with field conditions but only so far as you can develop traction to attain that speed, so very wet conditions you shouldn’t be ploughing will still equally apply as you just don’t have traction, while very compact hard dry soils where you have massive amounts of traction going to fast the counter-force would be much greater than the off-set drag witch could be penalised by damage to the plough, or it disconnecting from the tractor to dissuade going to fast for the ground conditions.

    Now granted this is not quite what happens IRL though the soils flowing over the mouldboards do produce more counter force than that of off-set drag, but IRL the counter force is pushing into each furrow wall via the plough body landslides, but having a counterforce from soil moving over the mouldboards with some speed variance in relation to field conditions would be better than what you have now and I would imagine it would be much easier than also adding an equation for furrow walls and landslides pushing on them, rather than just taking any excessive amount of counterforce above a specific threshold/duration to emanate as increased damage rate or the plough disconnecting from the tractor in extremes to dissuade excessive speed in cases your tractor is much bigger than the power/traction requirement of the plough &/or that field condition is conducive to high traction but NOT to high ploughing speed.

    Another alternative, would be to take this counterforce and up to a specific threshold apply it at 90deg to the relative angle of the plough body landslides, so if you are going to slow you have a slight pull on the tractor towards the off-set drag direction and thus the furrow wall you are running in, at the optimal speed for field conditions off-set drag and counterforce are equal so there is little to no counter-steering needed, and going a bit to fast it starts pulling the tractor the other way towards the preceding furrow pass, then once this small threshold is reach and given how some forces multiply instead of apply the force at 90deg to the relative angle of the plough body landslides the angle instead starts to decrease above this threshold, so itself it starts to become drag too and without their either being excessive off-set drag or counterforce trying to push the tractor one way or the other, as changing the angle of the counterforce above a specific threshold as forces ramp-up would absorb excessive power from the tractor, given if it takes X power to plough it 8km/h in specific field conditions, then it will take twice that amount of power to pull the same plough at 12km/h and four times the power at 16km/h, which changing the angle of the counterforce could help deal with up to the ultimate threshold you decide to brake or detach the plough.

  • It is very interesting what you propose although this is a simulation if you can do some things if one or several can be programmed for now in the models that I have programmed from old models of LS and other mine can be downloaded for test in :
    links to mods for test and other features

    - they have added a mass I think is correct for the model
    - it is granted freedom of controlled movement on several axes so that the plow can be tilted to the required side in the right-left direction
    -Due to the lack of scripts or lack of programming knowledge you can not vary in time some movements especially the freedoms that in the LS if you could determine a time to activate-deactivate here for now is a sudden movement
    -the necessary power according to the terrain can already be verified when using the same plow in different tractors

    please comment to be able to improve whenever the knowledge is available, it will be done for more than 10 years modeling and programming

    The post was edited 1 time, last by XYZSPAIN ().

  • @XYZSPAIN

    I realise its possible to cheat your way around off-set drag using some of the old LS/FS methods, so the "drag" element becomes centred on the tractor like a normal symmetrical implement, thus will perform significantly better than the currant iterations of stock ploughs, but if they go that route, then ploughing in many respects will just become another clone of other farming sims.


    for instance being a game, the off-set drag amount must be a known value at all times because its being computed and applied to the plough and thus the tractor.

    as the value for off-set drag is known its easy to include it in sums and thus apply a counter-force at 90deg to the direction of drag, thus if off-set drag and the counter-force are equal you have a plough that wants to run in a straight line even though it is off-set to the thrust of the tractor and you have something then that mimics the counterforce of soil flowing over the mouldboards, which is what IRL stops a plough imparting large asymmetric forces on the tractor even though the plough can be extending significantly away from the tractors centreline and even beyond the on-land wheels of the tractor.

    now they could just stop there with some straight-running ploughs and call it job done, or they could perturb counterforce so at times its less-than or greater-than to provide some tactile visual feedback, a slight pull and counter-steer of the tractor one-way could be indicative of ploughing slower than the optimal speed for currant field conditions, while slight pulling the other way thus slight counter-steer in the opposite direction could be indicative of ploughing slightly to fast for the currant field conditions, while not having to apply any counter-steer would be indicative of ploughing at the correct most efficient speed for currant field conditions, and all that would be needed is some speed ranges defined that influence the amount of counterforce relative to the off-set drag.

    for example, lets say a specific field has an optimal ploughing speed of 8km/h, from >7.5km/h to <8.5km/h the off-set drag and counterforce could be equal meaning no/little counter-steering is needed, from >0km/h to <6km/h the counterforce could be 90% of the off-set drag, thus causing a slight counter-steer, from >6km/h to <7.5km/h counterforce will slowly increase from 90% to 100% of off-set drag meaning the amount of counter-steer starts to reduce as speed climbs towards the optimal speed zone (>7.5km/h to <8.5km/h), from >8.5km/h to <10km/h counterforce slowly increases from 100% of off-set drag to 110% of off-set drag meaning the counter-steer direction is the opposite of the >0km/h to <6km/h zone, then above >10km/h counterforce is maintained at a constant relative 110% but the angle reduces from 90deg causing additional drag as speed climbs above >10km/h.

    and in the above example speed ranges you can apply different things that have influence on the aspects of the in-game economy, if you are using slightly to big a plough for your tractor you wont be able to attain the optimal speed, it will have slightly increased fuel use relative, time taken to do the job and a slightly accelerated wear on the tractor and more hours added to it reducing its value, but this too could be acceptable in one or two fields if a bulk of your other fields the plough and tractor combination can attain optimal speed, while ploughing at optimal speed you minimise wear and attain best relative fuel use vs. work area done etc, while ploughing at above optimal you may cover more work area for a given time, but that will be at the expense of slightly accelerated wear and fuel use, while ploughing above the example 10km/h you will suffer much accelerated wear of the plough and much larger fuel use per acre/hectare of ploughing.

    by having more than one value to influence you can introduce some subtle working-practises, for instance working on a field that has some side-slope you may want to work with your plough constantly turned on the uphill side and work just below optimal speed so the offset drag is helping to negate gravity wanting to make the tractor turn down the slope, if you have a lower power tractor/plough combination, on the other hand if you have a high power tractor/plough combination that is more than able to exceed the optimal speed, then working with the plough turned down-hill and slightly exceeding the optimal speed will also help counter gravity wanting to turn the tractor down hill, which are both occasions your using the second value to your advantage to achieve ploughing in a straight line with very little relative counter-steer just outside of the optimal speed zone.

    IRL when I plough it doesn't quite do the above and mostly goes in a straight line with very little counter-steer, but IRL I have many visual and sensory methods of telling what the tractor is doing, the sound of the engine, the distinctive whine of the straight-cut gears as load fluctuates, the feel from my one hand holding the steering wheel, on older tractors the feel in my other hand on the lift-arm quadrant as the draught load sensing kicks the quadrant lever up slightly as traction is lost if I don't raise it slightly myself to increase load on the rear wheels, and many other things besides "looking" that tell me what the optimum speed is for the currant conditions even as they change going across a field, which are things that it would be very hard to mimic in a game, on the other hand introducing some relative counter-steer outside of what is an optimal speed would serve as a visual/tactile clue as to what IS optimal now for a given field condition, and give ploughing a more in-depth gameplay rather than it just being another FS/LS like clone in many respects.
  • first if a test is made in any field with the latest update kverneland 4 and 6, lemken stok and last update Lemken_Juwel_AgrarForst it is seen that from outside and inside the cockpit the visual sensation of moving through a dynamic terrain is very different when you disconnect the movement of the tractor of the plow (it is normal since when editing the models it is seen that they have been assembled under different conditions)


    second the forces that pose in a simulation in which it is beginning and that in the LS many emails were necessary until in 2012 it was possible to access scripts that from the implement allowed to change the behavior of the tractor, here it was assumed that with the dynamic terrain would be obtained directly from the design of the implement but unfortunately the programmers do not always want to complicate with something that only a small group of people demand so I doubt it when what is more important for now is the visual and financial part like the American tycons we all know and that generate many more sales (rigds of rods the best simulator of all time has been abandoned its development)

    thirdly for now you can not work the field in manual except that once inside the field in which the task has been assigned, the implement is disconnected and reconnected, in that moment an update of the particles is still obtained and with the control of speed can be checked that the plows with freedoms generate different trajectories and that it is necessary to drive with a detour but at the moment that the GPS is activated it disappears.
  • first, I am not at this stage interested in your or anyone else's mod ploughs, my interest is getting the stock CNC ones working in a manner that is not just another clone of every other "farm sim game".

    second, back in the days of FS11 the problem was most moders did not understand the simple concept of volume based mass and its associated density factor, thus most things were either far to light or far to heavy and the CoM/CoG was often in the wrong place too, and even if they did understand it, they often did not have the time else tools to accurately gauge the volume unless they had the likes of 3ds max which would tell them the volume of shapes with the simple press of a button and also where the shapes CoV was, but if it was done right you did not need scripts with most symmetrical implements etc to correctly influence a tractor so working speed was limited by drag vs power or lifting an implement requires a tractor of a suitable mass with a front weight which itself had the correct mass to counter the implements mass.

    likewise if CNC just aims to replicate FS15/17 in order to get it out of the door, then CNC will go the same way as every other challenger to Giants, and die a death in its wake, and it would be rather foolish to think that Giants are not working on dynamic terrain, given they were working on aspects of it with FS17 with only some remnants remaining at release, but they want persistence in a MP environment so ALL clients see the same and they want to do it in a manner that doesn't have massive network load, the only saving grace in this, is Giants are heavily invested in the console markets now more so than with fs15, so when FS19 comes the console limitations could dictate what gets chopped from PC/Mac flavours of FS19, but it would be unwise to think Giants are not keeping an eye on CnC and have probably purchased a copy or two so they can keep an eye on what CNC are doing.

    as for rigds of rods, it died because it was dated and got superseded by BeamNG, given rigds of rods was powered by the Beam engine, and together they are irrelevant, given what I am proposing is far more basic than your trying to imply by drawing erroneous comparisons to rigds of rods or trying to state that rigds of rods died because it was "to simulation".

    thirdly, take it you have not tried the AI with a stock plough with well used fields that have had tractor etc on in all weathers which you then try to plough when the field has a low surface wetness even though the field is near flat like field 12, because the AI suffer from the exact same problem as players do of high asymmetric forces even with the Claas 940 and Lemken Juwel-8 3+1 which will come to a stop at a skewed angle because there is no counterforce and that the resultant thrust vector of the rear wheels and front wheels is at such angles opposed to one another there is a loss of forward speed along the desired vector (I assume this is because there are "unseen" factors under the surface that relate to the first "loosening" factor that starts at 0% with a new field and over time can progress upward to match the second deeper "loosening" factor that starts at a default of 50%)
  • I leave the conversation here since I only have access to the stock models in terms of scripts and design as I do not have access to the internal code of the engine that has bought and modified by MBB for this game but to that of the C4 and if it is possible to program what you say but it should be MBB who decides for now the joints settings are the only thing that allows to skip the internal code to be able to interact with the terrain since stock models are rigid except the 'hammer coorking' and are controlled only by code with controller " RayCast " for height control ,GPS for tractor ,implements width and deep and others by xml value