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Its hard to believe no one has a made a thread for this, but I guess I start one. Post pictures of your rovers, mobile bases, and inventive designs! I love building rovers, as with rovers you really get to see the planet and explore. They also present a unique challenge as it is difficult to get them to where they need to be. New ways to land rovers are also welcome to be shown. If you have any tips for how to build rovers just share them below to. Helpful links I'll start this thread with a new design of my own. Presenting: The Tiny rover! Its a small 20 part rover that I invented while designing stowable rovers for my career game. It uses a cubic strut as the chassis and is built up of batteries. In the pictures you may notice some small batteries but there are removed in the final version as they are not stock and I wanted to make this accessible to everyone. Because of its low mass and small part count, it can be taken apart and placed in a Seq-24 storage container, then rebuilt on the surface of the planet or moon you are visiting. In terms of performance, it can travel at a comfortable speed of 9.4 m/s but a bit of pushing will put it at 10.6 m/s. It has poor handling and either doesn't turn quickly enough or turns too far, but its great stability makes up for its poor turning. As I said before, it does have very good stability. On very sharp turns it will hold itself up, and is very hard to flip. It also can stop very quickly. I tested by having it go at 10 m/s then activated the brakes. It did flip slightly but I was able to push it upright. One warning, if you push it upright it likes to try to run so I would be careful doing that. (it didn't flip after this, just stayed like this until I pushed it upright) In terms of batteries, it has about 700 units of EC and its small solar panel is capable of slowing the EC loss to a trickle. Very few rechargings will be needed. It also has 2 thermometers and a barometer but you can switch those out. Later versions now have an antenna. If you want more science or are traveling to Jool or beyond, you may want to replace the solar panel with an RTG. Craft specs: Top speed: 10.6 m/s Mass: (not sure yet, I'll look it up in a bit) Parts: 20 Class: Rover Handling: Poor - Medium Stability: Great Download here: https://kerbalx.com/Kerminator/Tiny-Rover

Planetside Exploration Technologies | V1.0.2 | Stockalike MMSEV & Surface Bases Planetside Exploration Technologies adds a suite of parts designed to support planetary surface operations, from small outposts to expansive modular bases in the furthest corners of the solar system. Key features include: PLANETSIDE EXPLORATION VEHICLE The Planetside Exploration Vehicle is a small, multi-purpose spacecraft which can be configured in two ways - as a surface exploration rover, or a free-flying deep space excursion pod. On the surface, Breaking Ground-enabled rotary wheels allow the vehicle to move in any direction, making docking & manoeuvring easy. In space, the craft can be fitted with a custom made monopropellant tank and a modular grabbing unit, making it ideal for exploring asteroids, or as a space station construction tug. PLANETSIDE BASE SYSTEM To accompany the rover, Planetside features a complete set of 1.875m surface base parts, including a science lab, habitation modules, and even a greenhouse. Combined with a set of adapters and ground platforms, the base parts are designed to fit together perfectly and provide a perfectly-aligned set of docking ports for the Planetside rover. Additionally, a set of hydraulic jacks make moving modules around easy - install a small docking port on the underside, raise the jacks, and drive an empty rover platform underneath before carrying it to its destination! All parts are designed with surface bases in mind, but would work equally well used on an orbital station or spaceship! 3.75m BASE PARTS Along with the 1.875m surface base parts, Planetside features colossal 3.75m, vertically oriented base parts, inspired by NASA’s Habitat Demonstration Unit modules. These parts offer huge amounts of living space, as well as an inflatable attic for storing naughty kerbals supplies. WIND POWER Unique to Planetside Exploration Technologies is a new way of generating electricity in Kerbal Space Program: wind power. Using a custom plugin, a complete set of wind turbines allow you to draw power on atmospheric bodies even when the Sun won't shine. Just make sure to pack the right one - turbines are optimised for different environments, so pick the wrong type and you may end up generating no power at all, or worse, destroying your precious turbines in high winds! Wind turbines come in three different types: Tracking - automatically track into the wind direction Static - Require manually pointing into the wind direction Vertical-axis - spin perpendicular to the wind direction The Planetside wind turbine plugin is simple but robust, basing power yields on atmospheric density, wind direction and a random fluctuation. Because of this it will work out-of-the-box with any planet mod. Planetside also offers difficulty settings to configure the wind turbines to your liking, such as disabling breakable turbines or adjusting the frequency of power outages. A UI toggled in the Part Action Window helps to align wind turbines with the wind direction. FULL INTERNALS Every crewable part is just as detailed on the inside as the outside! USER SCREENSHOTS (may feature other mods): DEPENDENCIES Planetside requires B9PartSwitch, ModuleManager, HabTechProps, and Benjee10_sharedAssets to function, all of which are bundled in the download. Rotating wheel mounts & wind turbine servos require the KSP Breaking Ground DLC. Support is provided for TAC Life Support. In theory this mod should be compatible with previous KSP versions going back to 1.8.0, but please backup your saves before you try it! DOWNLOAD (SPACEDOCK) DOWNLOAD & SOURCE (GITHUB) CREDITS Art by @benjee10 Plugin by @ValiZockt Huge thanks to Vali for making this possible & creating an awesome plugin that brings something really new to the game. Big love <3

My previous kerbalism grand tour mission (Lucy in the sky with deadly radiations; incidentally, I will refer to that mission a lot, as this mission is its spiritual successor, and most of my design was directly influenced by that experience) wasn't yet done, and I was already looking for the next step. Ok, I made a grand tour with kerbalism, though I did allow some slightly relaxed rules for isru. What next? What could I do for a greater challenge? First thing to mind was to do a similar grand tour, without relaxed isru. Now, normal kerbalism isru is practically unmanageable. Except for duna, everywhere else it takes a large convert-o-tron and 100 electricity/second to produce 10 kg of fuel in a whole day. And in the meanwhile, your crew is still going to get stress and randomly smash components. The weight constraints of all that equipment make this virtually unmanageable. Still, I would like to try that some day, either by designing a ship that can keep together for a few decades while it refuels, or by designing a mission that's supposed to only refuel at Duna - well, my previous mission was supposed to only refuel at Duna, but it used separate shuttles to reach Moho, Dres and Eeloo. I took a shortcut there. I would like to orbit every planet with my mothership. And using the full kerbalism rules for mining at Duna is still going to be a major bother. But I don't feel ready for that mission. It's going to take a lot more adaptation for long term missions. I must also check if the resources needed are actually available; in particular water and nitrogen are very hard to find. The second idea was spurred by the success of the Dolphin return vehicle. 15 km/s of deltaV on ions, supplies for 3 kerbals for 3 years - those could be stretched easily, food is light - it returned from Eeloo in less than one year and it did drive a small lander on the moons of Kerbin. So I thought, hey, I could make a mission based on that! Instead of a huge gigantic spaceship with greenhouses and mining rigs, a small compact mission for a minimalistic grand tour. No more greenhouses, just a few tons of packed food. No more giant solar array, just a handful of rtg. no more 400-ton radiation shield, just a fuel tank to provide shade. Ion engines and a few small landers. And while I am there, I can run a geological survey and check if there are water and nitrogen in the right places for the next mission. Part 0: How the mission is planned 0.1) Picking up additional challenges Part 1: Projecting Nail To survive radiation storms, I must have the habitats shaded by something else. As I learned in the previous mission, it doesn't have to be all that big, but it has to cover everything. As I want to stick to a simple design, the plan calls for a thin, narrow, long ship, that can be covered by a single S4 fuel tank. No laterally attached crafts or habitats. The name of Nail reflects this simple shape, as well as how this mission is much more unassuming in design than its predecessor I also grew fond of the idea of a fully modular spaceship, where I would be able to rearrange around the various building blocks. I built with that criteria. 1.1) Habitation module 1.2) Engine module 1.3) Eve sucks Eve lander 1.4) Rover/lander platform (name to be determined) 1.5) Disposable planes 1.6) Tylo descent stage And that's all. No mining rig, no Moho stage, no escape capsules. I have a lot of objectives, but still I aim for a simple design.

The KSP forum moderator's team presents the Threads of the Month May 2021 Edition Greetings to all of you who dare to push the boundaries of game physics, to the desk chair Kerbalnauts, and the dreamers of spaceflight and exploration dreams... It's hard to believe it is May, the fifth month of 2021 and the fourth month where I've volunteered to do the Thread of the Month! This month's nominations were similar to going to the refrigerator a day before the weekly trip to the market - not a lot of variety to choose from! This really does not come as too much of a surprise for me as in our area, some of the restrictions put in place for COVID-19 are ending. If you are one of those who are fortunate to live in an area where the virus is fading, I hope you are taking advantage of the regained freedom to do things outdoors! So, before I get into the threads of the month for May, I ask that as you visit the forum this month, you help make it easier for me to do the June Thread of the Month and nominate worthy threads by using the handy instructions at the bottom of this post. Now, without further delay, I present to you the threads of the month for May: General community thread of the month: This category features a thread that adds to the community and doesn't fit in the game support/game mod categories. This month, we have two threads who are recognized for this category: For this month, we had a nomination of a thread that was probably encouraged by the current American mission to explore the surface of Mars and the hardware being used - the Perseverance Rover. Over the years, there have been a lot of good rovers shared on the forum and in threads such as "What did you do in KSP today?" But this thread, by @Kerminator K-100, is dedicated to rovers! So, if you want to build a rover and do not know where to begin, get some inspiration from this thread! And if you have a rover you have developed and would like to share it with others, this would be a great place to highlight your mechanized creation. Game Support/Game Mod of the Month: This category features a mod which adds to the quality of life game play of Kerbal Space Program. For May, we have two mods that tied for the top honor in this category: This mod and it's related thread came as an answer to another thread started by @Klapaucius as a suggestion in the "Suggestions and Development" area of our forum. What happened next was @FruitGoose accepted the challenge and within a short time, posted a mod that is very useful. We have all had the experience of landing on the Mün or Minmus, or even Dres and have our perfect landing messed up because without realizing it, our burn slowed the descent too much - and the trajectory of the lander changed! This mod allows you to set colors that can be used as a visual cue to let you know when you've changed direction as your vertical speed changes. This mod is great for the beginner (and others) who are learning to land on those strange, new worlds... We have another winner for this category for May - and it's the mod featured on this thread by @benjee10. Many of our forum members (and myself included) love the challenge of building usable bases on those far-away destinations we send our brave Kerbalnauts. This mod allows you to build bases and vehicles to support the exploration efforts of your little green guys and gals. Your Kerbals will appreciate this - no longer do they have to be confined to the tight quarters of the Hitchhiker Container or science lab while they are away from Kerbin. Fan-fiction and Kerbal Space Program-inspired creative threads of the month: This category features a thread which while is not directly Kerbal Space Program related, may be a creative work, fan-fiction, or other presentation which is related to the game. This month we have another great mission report shared by @king of nowhere. One of the great things about our forum is as if the game isn't difficult enough, we often will start the game all over - at some point. Whether it's a sandbox, science, or even career mode, we will often put constraints on our game playing that are a lot harder than we probably should! In this thread, @king of nowhere shares his latest grand tour strategy with some self-imposed restrictions a new way to play the game: Honorable mentions: Each month we get so many good nominations to choose from. Sometimes it's a challenge to choose which threads are going to receive the honor of being the Thread of the Month. But because not every thread nominated each month can be selected, there are always those that become honorable mentions. The honorable mention for May 2021 is: Souptimes art gallery by @Souptime Honorable mentions for May may not have made the Thread of The Month this month, but if you think they might be worthy of another opportunity, please renominate it! Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month for April!! We'd like to thank @Single stage to ocean, @Klapaucius, @Poodmund, @Stone Blue, @Spaceman.Spiff, @FruitGoose, @Souptime, @Dientus, and the members of the moderation team who nominated this month's contenders. Thank you so much for helping us identify noteworthy threads for this month! TO NOMINATE A THREAD FOR CONSIDERATION: If you find a thread you feel should be considered for next month's thread of the month, then use the "report comment" feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the comment. Please put in the text field of the report post "Nomination for thread of the month" and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too. In case you missed April's thread of the month, you can click here.