Angvar

I uploaded the craft files and placed a link at the bottom of the OP. Enjoy. Update: So far this set up worked well for the moons, Duna and Eve. Although the low slung RCS tanks and struts are getting hammered on Eve. So I modified my versions moving the undercarriage struts up higher and removed RCS tanks from science lab all together. Just use the mono propellant on the rover. Moho will require a different rocket design as the transfer stage needs a good deal more DV. I will report back after I finish my Eve missions and send these off to Dres which looks pretty achievable.

I am thinking this looks like a sound concept which I am sure the OP has already tested. The rover rat in me can only say ... "Mmmmm dat wheel base."

Good job, it takes a lot of patience to spend that much time behind the wheel and I like the anti roll precautions. Very kerbalesque. Just like anything it's a learning process. The fact that you got as far as you have only means you will get better with practice. Of the 600 hours I have into this game I'd say at least 250 were put into refining this setup. The main rover is also a fuel tanker and weighs in at 12.3 tons fully loaded. I can do 23 m/s up steep grades and I've had it up to 39 m/s after a down hill. That is with out the rocket thrusters. With the lab attached the weight goes up to 21 tons and the average top speed still stays 21 m/s (about 19 up hill). Yes the wheels make a huge difference. Once you get the new rubber tired wheels you will notice a great increase in acceleration/braking and handling. The balloon wheels get very little traction. You inherit another problem though ... inertia tipping your rover forward on braking and popping wheelies on acceleration. Disabling the brakes on the front wheels will take care of much of the problem. The main problem with going fast with large rovers is the terrain. The kraken has invisible tentacles every where on Mun and they tend to pop out and try and pitch the rear of the rover sideways which usually ends up with it flying over the terrain. I have had to learn to be a good pilot in staging mode to get it leveled out for the landing. Minimus is much better terrain to drive on for the most part but the lower gravity does make any off camber turns or weird shaped ruts in the ground a bit touchy. So I limited speed to 15 m/s average. Duna is awesome, good gravity with rolling hills. Almost like Kerbin. I have a feeling that I will be driving at higher speeds there. Update: Ok had some time for some testing on Minimus, Duna and Eve. Minimus: Very light gravity with a very high mass rover makes it pretty tricky. 15 m/s seems good for the combined system. Have to be real careful with brakes here. The lab likes to buck around if you put them on full ... a tapping was sufficient to calm this and using reverse worked very well. Duna: Is like rover was born to run here. 20 m/s plus average speed. Just had to watch making off camber turns at to high a speed and be mellow on the distance I let it fly off hill tops. Over all a total blast. Eve: I was surprised at how well the system handled getting there landing and driving. The more gravity the more stable it is. Dropping them from sky cranes popped tires from full height. This was cured by simply lowering the gear first. Driving is amazing. Tons of acceleration and plenty of gravity to keep it stable at 30 m/s. High speed turning and not really much worries about catching air off hills. The biggest problem is the frame twisting from stomping on brakes. Using reverse and the gravity to slow down really eliminates this problem. Oh and I popped a strut from hitting terrain on the under carriage of the lab. No big deal since these rovers are over half strut any way. Think it is time to wrap these up for download.

Apparently I made this system too efficient ... Managed to rack up 5382 science in just 4 missions. Oh well time to prep for flight to Eve.

*We find ][van sitting in a smoke filled office cleaning his KAK-47 and drinking from a bottle of kvodka* These three so called "Heroes of the People" are nothing but bad news I am telling you ... Jebediah ... Bah! ... Lead pilot of our Kerbin research studies ... first Kerbmonaut to orbit planet ... first one to orbit Mun and return. With such success of course we pick him to be first to actually land on Mun. What happens? He gets lander within 20 meters of lunar surface then pitches sideways smashing lander into thousands of pieces. Eh ... It was sad but these things are bound to happen and he died a great hero of the people. Two days later I go to Kerbmonaut complex and who do I find? Je-bah-diah !!! There he was drinking kvodka and harassing the waitresses. I have to ask,"Jebediah how is it that your are being here?". He babbles something about cobbling together parts from crashed lander and EVA pack and some other nonsense about a mythical space kraken. Then he passes out and the next day he claims amnesia. I wanted to fire him but apparently it would have been bad for the people's morale, so I simply ground him for further investigation. So we decide to give Bill a chance. He makes it to Mun lands and takes off no problem. What does he do then? Ejects the stage of lander with the solar panels and batteries *slams kvodka bottle onto desk* I can not be believing it, but it happened. So there he is stuck in space with no power. Oh well another hero of the people making the ultimate sacrifice. Ok so third time is charm yes? No, Bob gets to Mun ... lands,takes off .... runs out of fuel *sighs*. Another Kerbmonaut satellite orbiting the sun I decide to give Je-bah-diah one more chance, even though I know there is something fishy about this guy. We make rescue ship and on first test flight what does Jeb do? He goes EVA and loses ship. He becomes Kerbins newest satellite and a constant reminder of mistakes made on my watch of this program. At this point I am thinking it is best to learn from mistakes and move on. There are plenty of other foo ... errr ... brave Kerbals who can do this job. By this time Bill and Bob were orbiting so far out around the sun that I deemed it unnecessary to mount rescue mission. I did the merciful thing and self destructed their rockets. To be honest it was a relief to have them out of my hair ... after all, between the three of them they were responsible for the loss of nearly 600 million krubals worth of space craft. With them gone we actually started to see some success. Multiple probe missions to both moons and finally landings and safe returns from both. So one day while celebrating our glorious achievements at the Kerbmonaut complex, guess who walks up to congratulate me? Bill and Bob. I am utterly dumb founded. 'What are you doing here?, you are both dead, lost in space." The dumb one just says "We got out and pushed." Bah!! Immediately I go the tracking center and see if Jeb is still in orbit and you know what? He is still there but to my amazement he is still alive. In orbit for over a year, no food or water and still alive? That is when I knew there was something terribly wrong with these guys. But of course the people demanded that I save their great hero and again I have Je-bah-diah on my hands. I am having two theories. One,*slams fist on desk* They are spies!!! They are flying my rockets across the sea and giving them to the Kamericans who using their Kollywood movie magic to fake these so called "accidents". The other possibility is they are zombies and utterly indestructible. Which if that is the case I am thinking we might have a bigger problem than I had realized. I have tried firing them, next day they are back at work their commissions reinstated. Fine, so I ground them, only to find them always sneaking onto my rockets. I tell Kudrum to pilot rocket and once it is on the launch pad who do I find in cockpit? Jeb or Bill or even worse Bob!!! I do not know what to do, I am guessing I just needed to vent *drinks more kvodka and finishes polishing his gun* I am just feeling that I have to warn people. Watch out for these guys there is something very wrong with them.

Only if they have reasonable exchange rate for gold Krubles.

TLDR: Big Rovers, Much Science, Craft files linked at bottom. *][van Kermanovich glorious leader of The Great Soviet Kerbal Space Program takes the stage* My friends, are you tired of going to all the work of building rocket with a tiny lander and send it all the way to the Mun only to recover a half dozen pieces of science? Well comrades, I have something to show you! The Great Soviet Kerbal Space Program's Rover Division, Pol Craft Industries, has answer for you! Comerades, I give you the Scientificator 2000 ... This my friends is the solution to your troubles. With the Scientificator 2000 you can freely roam the lunar surface gathering endless amounts of data. Once your need for science is sated, simply rendezvous with a lander and send it back home Now wait I can tell you are thinking, "That is one ugly rover and it does not look suitable for any prolonged scientific endeavour." That is why we have this .... The "Hercules" class heavy duty rover ... The Hercules when coupled with the Scientificator 2000 is capable of covering vast amounts of territory with grace and speed ... Now I am sure some of you are saying, "Your crazy! That configuration must weigh 20 tons, it will never be able to handle steep terrain and it will break apart into many tiny pieces if it takes a jump." Well my friend, you are wrong ... Steep terrain? Just like the ancient hero, the Hercules rover laughs in the face of steep terrain... ... break into tiny pieces? I am thinking not, the Hercules stings like butterfly and floats like bee.... So now that you see the wonder of our glorious development, I bet you are concidering how in the world would you ever get all that equipment to a moon? The Great Soviet Kerbal Space Program knows how ... With the Star Lifter class rocket and sky crane system ... A mighty feat of engineering capable of lifting massive payloads and delivering them incredible distances with plenty of fuel to spare ... and once you get there ... Our magnificent sky crane will set your payload down easy as cake. So my comrades, I would encourage you to act now and put in your orders as soon as possible before demand for production is backing up for years to come. For the very reasonable sum of 975,000,000.99 Krubles you will receive the Scientificator 2000, the Hercules class rover and two complete Star Lifter class rockets with sky crane attachments (Now available in atmospheric models for minimal extra charge). You will shortly be able to advance your scientific programs by decades in a matter of a few days. But wait! ... there is more! Place your order within next ten minutes and you will receive extra bonus of free expedited delivery and a set of special edition Scientificator 2000 official fuzzy dice. I am thanking you for your time. Update: Now approved for use on Minimus ... and Duna ... And now Eve ... Craft Files: http://www./download/pq581l56a74rrwl/GSKSP_Scientificator_2000.zip Be warned these rockets have 970 - 1100 parts. There is a read me included for info I think important for using them.

Lil bit of necro here but I just obtained some hard results that are pertinent to this question. I was able to stuff a Lander Can with 30 pieces of data. When I strapped a control chair to the outside of a capsule the Kerbonaut was able to transport nearly 70 pieces of data while in the chair and survive the re-entry. Pretty sure thats not what they intended but none the less.

I have only recently picked up Mech Jeb only after many launches and landings on Kerbin, the Mun and Minimus. It's actually an amazing program. I am glad that I had the chance to learn how to fly/land my machines and manipulate my orbits before getting it. But the process was getting tiresome since I had new goals to accomplish that could only occur after the mundane stuff of launch and landing was done. It is nice to set up the launch hit go and then make some food or take shower. Once I start heading out into the outer solar system I will again take the helm so I can understand what it is I am doing. In the mean time I just want to know "Are we there yet?" Edit: I forgot the other thing that is great about MJ and KER in VAB is it saves me from being buried in piles of scratch paper and burning through notes books doing all the math to make efficient rockets. I already spent hundreds of hours doing Calculus in college and really don't want to do more for a video game.

Thank you for the good sentiments ... He is actually very nimble for weighing in at 12.9 tons. That's in the treacherous areas around the canyon on the east side of East Far Side Crater. Had to take it slow at the crests of the craters with 9 tons of squirley proto-type trailers, but rest of it was easy as cake.

That's neat ... very innovative.

I am coming to you in order to share this joyous event and present a picture of happy family. Papa is hard working lunar tractor and mother is sleek high performance model. Both responsible for gathering much science in the name of the noble and patriotic peoples of Kerbin. They now leave this sacred duty in the more than capable hands of their fine son. May his treads always run swift and true.

I have only been playing for a month. I have been working a career mode and have scientificated up to the 550 point level and do not have the new engines to compare to play with yet. I was a wee bit disappointed that I got my Mainfails and the BFO tanks for free but it is nice that I have new stuff to look forward to. Gaming is a very personal experience and play styles invariably vary. I like learning how to use the parts I have in order to gain the science for the next level. I don't use many mods (yet), KER, AGM and select root. Once I have maxed out I will start adding new fancy stuff. Others may not want to wait and have all the new toys now. And you know what? That is just fine for me. If you do not like what they have done with the parts then there are many solutions posted on the forums. Since the game is still in development they may change exactly what you are not liking today. The only real solution is patience. For me I will let them keep working in their way and on their time schedule. Be sure to voice my opinion so they know how people feel and wait and see. My solution for the new parts I wanted to earn. I finished the project I was working on in order to earn them and then started incorporating them into my builds. Oh well, wanted to throw in my two rubles and I am glad to see a poll here so the general opinion can be heard.

Well d'oh, it's all to do with AMD Phenom CPUs, apparently. I found this in another thread. Wonder why it would be messing with a mod ... Oh well game is still going strong. KER is very happy, my invasi .... um err ... exploration of the Mun is moving along.

Update: Pretty sure I found it. AMD compatibility mode got switched on. Might have hit it sometime earlier in week. Turned it off and everything is good. Also took care of some funky textures on shadows I was getting. Well thanks for the attention and thanks for your work, KER appears to be working wonderfully. The is something still there but it only pulses for like 1/10th of a second every 25 - 30 seconds and that was after I splattered my uber rocket across KSP like 5 times in a row and all settings maxed. I actually removed all the mods from the game except KER. I only ran AGM and tool bar besides KER. I updated tool bar and don't have AGM back on yet. I'm still pretty new so haven't cluttered up my game much.