Whats up with the crash tolerance of rover wheels?

[Hacki]

So, rover wheels are quite fragile. Because i hate driving over the mun at 3 m/s, because i hate having to constantly quicksave & quickload, i thought i'd just increase the crash tolerance a bit. (read: a lot).

 

The config files of some of the rover wheels contain gems like that: 

    crashTolerance = 7
    maxTemp = 1200 // = 3600
    crashTolerance = 100

Why is the crashTolerance defined twice? Which one is used by the game? Which one are they supposed to have? 

[Kerbart]

I don't think rover wheels are particularly fragile; apparently they don't live you to your expectations but that's a different story. I can call the Mainsail underpowered as it doesn't catapult my craft to lightspeed in 5 seconds. Does that mean it's weak? Or simply that it's not meeting my expectations? Keep in mind that you're not driving on the road, but rather on bumpy, uneven terrain, littered with boulders. Imagine a dry river bed. Now imagine driving a sedan, or even a truck, at 30 mph through it. Do you expect your tires to survive? For comparison, the Apollo moon rover was designed for a maximum velocity of 3.5 m/s, although reportedly it went up to 5 m/s.

[Hacki]

I'm aware that real life rovers arent going particularly fast.

 

This is a game. I'm not quite ready yet to stare at my screen for 12 years to go 40 km on duna. 

Whats the point of having rover wheels if you cant go anywhere in a reasonable amount of time.

 

In any case, the crashTolerance code snipped determines when the entire wheel explodes, what needs to be increased to avoid flat tires when you glitch along the surface is impactTolerance. 

 

 

[maceemiller]

On 10/03/2016 at 8:27 PM, Hacki said:

I'm aware that real life rovers arent going particularly fast.

 

This is a game. I'm not quite ready yet to stare at my screen for 12 years to go 40 km on duna. 

Whats the point of having rover wheels if you cant go anywhere in a reasonable amount of time.

 

In any case, the crashTolerance code snipped determines when the entire wheel explodes, what needs to be increased to avoid flat tires when you glitch along the surface is impactTolerance. 

 

 

IMO it depends on what your doing with your rover. If its to travel vast distances you can make a robust and fast-ish machine however if its just to travel a short distance from your lander, 1, the time taken travelling doesnt really matter or 2, land nearer to where you want to be.

Anyhows, the upcoming 1.1 update should solve any wheel issues.

 

[fireblade274]

I use the second largest size wheels on a mobile transportation lab on Duna; I've been able to travel to all bio's within a reasonable amount of time and at speeds no greater then 33m/s, and averaging about 24m/s. You just need to make sure your rover is stable, has either a low CoM or spread out wheels, and you really should use the black med. size wheels, they have the highest speed rating and can handle most hard bumps and light-to-moderate "dukes of hazard" style air times

I quite enjoy the trecks; its a break from orbital mechanics and nice when you can view the trip from a forward facing Copula Pod  

Edited March 14, 2016 by fireblade274