Rover design

[Jace_malcom]

I recently got the game, and one of my first missions that I accepted in career mode required that I take temperature and pressure readings a solid ~400 km away from the space center. I have tried to make a rover, by using the first rover wheel you can get and pretty much taping 6 of them to an inline mk. 1 cockpit, with solar panels all over. This was a poor idea, as it seems almost every time i hit a slope about as steep as the grass around the runway, going any faster than 10 m/s, usually a wheel will explode, soon leaving me with no other choice but to start again. any suggestions are appreciated.

[Snark]

Moving to Gameplay Questions.

[AeroGav]

for 400km an airplane would be better,  but i won't accept these contracts at all if they require me to fly beyond my own continent - not time efficient.

An engineer kerbal can mend broken wheels, but the basic one is very fragile.      Hardest thing is not having them tip over, getting CG low enough usually means abandoning cockpits for structural panels and command chairs.    I had some success with one built like a Tesla,  with batteries and RTGs under the floor but protected by a metal plate (keeps cg low). Still had to turn wheel friction down to guarantee not tipping over.

Also, reaction wheels should be fitted but set to SAS only - that way they try to keep the craft upright, but wont try to torque it onto its nose when you accelerate forwards.   They can be put back in normal mode when you do tip over and need torque to roll it upright.

Lastly, giving it a "sloping roof" like a house,  stops it settling on its roof (makes it easier to  right again) and protects the kerbals in the event certainty of a rollover accident.

Edited January 21, 2017 by AeroGav

[bewing]

Welcome to the forums.

As AeroGav said, almost all of the "take a measurement on Kerbin" contracts are designed for airplanes. The contracts exist for the purpose of encouraging you to build airplanes. Usually the contract will specify that the measurement has to be taken in flight (above or below some very high altitude). If your contract says "in flight", then even if you got your rover there, you still couldn't complete the contract unless you jump the rover off a cliff.

There are certainly a few contracts that come up that say "take a measurement on the surface at location X" -- but at the beginning of the game, location X is always within a few kilometers of KSC. It's only later in the game when the game gives contracts for other continents. Even when the measurement is close to KSC and on the surface, it's still almost always best to use an airplane. You taxi the airplane over and take the measurement before you take off to go do something else.

 

[Sharpy]

On 21.01.2017 at 7:42 AM, bewing said:

There are certainly a few contracts that come up that say "take a measurement on the surface at location X" -- but at the beginning of the game, location X is always within a few kilometers of KSC. It's only later in the game when the game gives contracts for other continents. Even when the measurement is close to KSC and on the surface, it's still almost always best to use an airplane. You taxi the airplane over and take the measurement before you take off to go do something else.

 

Or drop a rover from the airplane on a parachute The points are usually pretty close from each other, well within rover driving distance. Just make sure to drop the rover from a low altitude, at low speed, onto flat terrain or a bottom of a valley, and make a few circles around the site until it stops. The game loves to destroy vessels in motion that move out of physics range of the currently controlled vessels, so try to get the rover to stop before you fly away. Or just land nearby.

[dangerhamster]

Depending on what tech you have unlocked just deliver straight to the site.

Parachutes are so passé. Although an airship is quite capable of completing measurement contracts by itself sometimes you just have to drive around.