How to Get a 52-Ton Mining Rover to The Mun

[SaltyTheFry]

I planned on building a mining rover and it got a bit out of hand I currently cant give you a picture due to the forums limitation but its got six wheels and its center of mass is just a little bit lower than normal and can be balanced easily

[moogoob]

Rockets would be a good start.

Ahem. Sorry. I meant BIG rockets. And a skycrane setup to get it from Munar orbit to the surface. Search youtube for "KSP landing big lander on the mun" and it should find some inspiration.

[regex]

52 tons is nothing, shouldn't be an issue at all, even with drag. If you're worried, make the transfer vehicle a second launch and dock them.

[Specialist290]

Looks like this belongs in our Gameplay Questions subforum. Moving

For a better idea of what we're dealing with, do you think you could share a screenshot of the rover in the VAB, with the center-of-mass indicator displayed? That might help us with visualizing and reproducing it for better-quality advice.

[Nothalogh]

How to Get a 52-Ton Mining Rover to The Mun

With a big honkin booster

[magnemoe]

might be best to launch it horizontal, wheels down, yes drag is higher but drag and center of mass will be more symmetric.

I would put engines on the rover so I could land it without skycrane, the MK-55 large radial engines are perfect for this.

Engines on rover has many benefits, first most of the rover is an fuel tank so use going to Mun and land. Second it makes it easy to move it long distances and even getting back to orbit.

This require that the center of mass keeps pretty even as the amount of fuel in the tank change so even out stuff put more drills on the other side to offset the ISRU unit.

[Mikki]

I use to land Mobile Miners like this: (Special here with Chutes for Laythe landing. Normaly 4 Thuds are sufficient to land on minor bodys.)

[Belphegor]

there are several ways to do this, usually i suspend the payload underneath a lander and connect the two with a docking port so the lander itself can be re-used to bring fuel to orbit or kerbals back to kerbin.. downside is that you need to send up a rather large lander as well

in this picture the payload (a big mining rig) and the lander are launched on the same vessel. between the pink and blue is the payload, the top part and fuel stacks with LVN's is the lander and the decoupler is somewhere around the blue area

[SaltyTheFry]

Im not exactly sue how to attch an image to this but ive built a second rover only weighing 30 tons and im still having trouble

[SaltyTheFry]

Ahh perfect design Belphegor ill use that. but how heavy is the payload?

[FyunchClick]

Use the RCS Build Aid mod and the offset tool to balance it nicely on top of a big rocket (minimize engine torque). Make sure to put it in a fairing for a smooth launch, and strut it to the rocket if it swings around too much during take-off. When landing on the Mun, putting belly mounted Vernor engines on (again, balance using RCS build aid) for an easy landing. I've landed some pretty big ISRU equipped rovers on both the Mun and Minmus that way.

[Warzouz]

KER also gives the "offset thrust" and "thrust angle" Both should be as near 0 as possible.

From experience, landing wheeled vehicle is quite a mess. I had some many bugs (even disappearing vehicles) I gave up. I had a wheeled vehicle on minmus which vibrated and had many glitch. Finally it vanished. I modified it in the VAB replacing wheels by struts and hyper edited it. Bugs were gone.

Now I only use struted landers. I don't care much where I land, since the area is above 60%

Here is what I use now : 40T tons before deorbiting, 60 tons at takeoff, fit for every planet except Eve, Duna, Laythe and Tylo.

[FyunchClick]

KER also gives the "offset thrust" and "thrust angle"

True, I'm actually using both, KER reports it for COM, I switch RCS build aid to dCoM, then I fiddle until both are about equal and as low as I can get them.

Those vibrations, were they for rover wheels or landing gear?

[Warzouz]

Those vibrations, were they for rover wheels or landing gear?

Initially, it was a 6 wheeled orange tank with drills and ISRU... I landed it on minmus and is sides for ... 20min without any way to stop, slow or change direction. Warp even x2 wasn't allowed.

When it stopped, it was sometime moving again. On reload, it could move or bounce slightly. Then it finally vanished. I hyperedit the same lander with struts instead of wheels and I never had any problem.

Hopefully, wheels will be redone in KSP 1.1 (Unity 5)

[Temporal Wolf]

For the sliding rover: I find it really useful to have gear to deploy when not moving. My rover is 6 wheels with 6 landing gear. If I'm sliding I just drop my landing gear... they have a lot better friction it seems.

Also, braking is less effective than spinning the wheels in reverse. My rover will not stop via braking; it will stop by reversing. (and stop MUCH faster via landing gear)