How to get a Kerbal in this rover

[JackBush]

Here's my first dashing little rover, which I must admit I borrowed from a very nice YouTube video. I forgot to add headlights, but I will. My question is how to get a Kerbal or two into the two EOS-1 (?) seats? I'd like to zip around the space centre practising to collect science before I ship it off to Mun.

http://imgur.com/TRWS2xN

Comments? Thoughts? Compare and contrast? 

And if you have the time, I;'d love it if you would tell me the best way to attach it to a ship.

Edited December 12, 2015 by JackBush
Forgot to include the picture

[Speeding Mullet]

To get a Kerbal into the set simply walk near it, right click on the command seat and you will see an option to get in the chair.  If you talking about "launching" but it has no Kerbals around to get in, you can attach a 2 man command pod (full) using a decoupler and then transfer the kerbals, decouple the 2 man pod, and away you go.

For attaching this to a ship your best bet is to use either a small decoupler, or the smallest docking port.

SM

[technion]

The game won't let you put a kerbal in a seat and "launch" a rover unfortunately. But what you can do is:

• Start the rover. Drive a few meters forward so the game doesn't see there to be a rover "currently on the runway".
• Create a new rover. That rover is just a command module with two kerbals
• EVA and walk over to your rover. Those seats look close enough to the edge that you can right click and go "use seat" even from the ground.

 

 

[JackBush]

Thanks so much for that. Is that spelled out anywhere like in a game manual ... or how do you guys learn this stuff. 

[Speeding Mullet]

8 minutes ago, JackBush said:

Thanks so much for that. Is that spelled out anywhere like in a game manual ... or how do you guys learn this stuff. 

For me, just lots of forum browsing and searching, looking at and learning from other people's ideas.

SM

[Snark]

1 hour ago, JackBush said:

Thanks so much for that. Is that spelled out anywhere like in a game manual ... or how do you guys learn this stuff. 

 

1 hour ago, Speeding Mullet said:

For me, just lots of forum browsing and searching, looking at and learning from other people's ideas.

And trial and error.  And a whole lot of hours spent playing KSP. 

By the way:  One bit of feedback on your rover.  You have your probe core mounted facing up, which will make your navball pointed at the sky, which makes steering awkward.  You may want to consider moving the probe core so that it's facing forward, this will give your navball a much more natural view.  (Won't be an issue if you have a kerbal in a chair and control from there.  But will save confusion, in my experience.)

[JackBush]

12 hours ago, Snark said:

You may want to consider moving the probe core so that it's facing forward, this will give your navball a much more natural view.

Never thought about that. I just took it down from the shelf as always and never thought about it having a "front". I assume that's the OKTO2 logo? And sitting in VAB it should face the open doors, or out over the solar panels? I do plan on having a Kerbal or two but that's good to know.

And while we're chatting: is there any advantage in having more than one Kerbal when I'm going to be gathering science? (I'm in science mode so all of my Kerbals have 5 starts to begin with.)

[Plusck]

On the flight cores, they all face "up". So you want to turn it so the top is pointing forwards on the rover.

There's no advantage in having anything other than a scientist unless you need to pilot a non-core ship (or if you're doing a suicide burn or even just landing on a ship that only has an OKTO core and can't hold retrograde), or land in an atmosphere (so you need an engineer to repack the chutes), or tend to land heavily (so the engineer can fix your landing legs).

There is an advantage in having more than one pod so that you can bring back duplicate surface samples and perhaps other things that give science points for a second reading - though I can't remember which they are and/or whether sending data back then taking a second reading has the same net effect.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Plusck

[Snark]

32 minutes ago, JackBush said:

Never thought about that. I just took it down from the shelf as always and never thought about it having a "front". I assume that's the OKTO2 logo? And sitting in VAB it should face the open doors, or out over the solar panels? I do plan on having a Kerbal or two but that's good to know.

And while we're chatting: is there any advantage in having more than one Kerbal when I'm going to be gathering science? (I'm in science mode so all of my Kerbals have 5 starts to begin with.)

Yes, if you're building the rover in the SPH, you want the probe core to be facing towards the open doors, the same as if you were putting a command pod on a plane.  You get this naturally, by default, if you start building your rover by placing the probe core first; the editor will naturally put it in the appropriate orientation.

There's no particular advantage to having multiple kerbals on the rover.  There may be an advantage of having multiple professions.  In particular:

• Scientists are the best at getting science, so it's good to have a scientist aboard.  It's especially important if you have any Mystery Goo or Science Jr. units, since those are one-shot experiments that only a scientist can reset.
• Rover wheels are fragile and easily broken as you go careening over the terrain.  Those particular wheels you have on your rover are especially fragile.  If you have a level-3-or-higher engineer available, they can fix broken wheels.  So that would be a very handy crewmember to have along-- otherwise you have to keep quicksaving every few minutes so that you have a reasonable restore point after one of your wheels inevitably pops.  (If all you're doing is doodling around KSC, this isn't an issue; the rover is easily replaced, and anyway you're unlikely to break a wheel.  But if you've lugged that rover all the way to another planet, it's really frustrating when a wheel pops and the nearest mechanic is millions of kilometers away.)

Edited December 12, 2015 by Snark

[JackBush]

Thanks, Snark. I'll be sure to add an engineer. I believe those are the best wheels I have but I'll check.

[Snark]

3 hours ago, JackBush said:

Thanks, Snark. I'll be sure to add an engineer. I believe those are the best wheels I have but I'll check.

Make sure the engineer's at level 3 or above... you need that to be able to fix wheels.

Yes, those are likely the best wheels you have, unless you've maxed out the tech tree.  The wheels you want, which are better than what you have:

TR-2L Ruggedized Vehicular Wheel

Those are much more pop-resistant than the wheels you're using (though they can still break, having an engineer to fix them is still a really good idea), and they're a bit faster, and somewhat lighter.  But to get them you need to unlock a 550-point tech node.