i have an idea i will try for now, another compromise, but perhaps would look good...

indeed. perhaps a new kind of catch could be made someday to work with these...

Yeah, i could do that by arranging a couple of convex hulls. Problem is that when the wheels hitbox is a convex hull, it doesn't perform that good. It *has* to be a cylinder. And cylinders cannot have gaps in them.

eh, i guess with how the colliders work, although possible, that would be extremely difficult, so thats fair.

For that i would need to get rid of the hitbox entirely as it is a cylinder and is a bit less than a block wide.(and it has to be a full cylinder for the wheel to physically work) I cannot just cut a part out of it. That's the same reason i cannot make it a catch with the subpart there. It just wouldn't function as a wheel anymore.

yet another compromise i guess :P i think with some changes to the hitbox itself this could probably work. or, you could even make the wheel itself like a catchblock, with the secondary grid in that position, perhaps?

I know what you mean, but doing that is a bad idea. This is not a consequence of the model, but of the hitbox (the model has nothing to do with it). And the hitbox has to be large for the wheel have enough traction to be useful.
As said, believe me, doing the rods that way is bad, we tried that in every possible way and it ended badly. It's easier to do with ropes and they don't have any impact on performance.

Actually, feel free to come back to our discord, it'll be easier to discuss :)

what i mean is having a small catch block inside the wheel, where the drive rod pivot is. the catch collides with it quite badly (and explosively) and it could perhaps be remedied by making a circular hole where the secondary grid the catch makes would be (instead of just having the pivot point be solid)

@stuChris do you mean catches mounted on the outside connected with planks? That doesn't work sadly as it severely impacts performance.
The wheels have mountpoints only around the axle part, that is for ease of integrating ropebelts into it. If you want something to be mounted more away from center, you may fill the gap with Wolf's rope hooks, iron bars or whatever small block that is not visible.

they seem to have some trouble with small catch blocks for drive rods, is that not meant to be compatible yet?