What do you think would make rovers better?

[COL.R.Neville]

tracks. and make the wheels do like they used to where you could make big gantry cranes and stuff with them instead of just rovers. more kinds of wheels like tracks hehe. or the wheels from the landmaster from damnation alley. 

Spoiler

 

[Diche Bach]

On 9/9/2016 at 11:37 AM, Xavven said:

I already find rovers useful as fuel trucks for ISRU operations. For exploration, they're not as useful as hoppers, planes, or even just orbiting at very low altitudes. To make them better, they need to be able to function on time-warp, because for most of us (there are notable exceptions of course) sitting there for 15 minutes holding down the W key and barely getting anywhere is about as exciting as a commute to work.

So while I agree with a lot of the suggestions in this thread, none of them are as important as waypoints + autopilot on timewarp.

Had not seen this post before, and wanted to say: 100% agree! Same for airplanes!

RemoteTech seems to have an autopilot feature for robotic rovers though not sure how many of us have tried to puzzle through using it.

[RocketSquid]

Cruise control, automatic driving, physics warp that doesn't carry a high chance of smashing the thing to bits, and some decent non-skycrane ways to land rovers. Also scientific instruments/scanners that need to be moved across the surface.

[Wjolcz]

A set of objectives appearing around the landed rover.

Basically: you land a rover and a few of these points of interest appear around it (~500m from it). You drive to one of them, get paid, they all dissapear and a few new show up. And so on and so forth.

Just like in real life. A rover-driving team looks at the map and decides "This, this and this are interesting points. Let's go to one of them and see what's there. After that's done we will decide what to do next".

2 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

Cruise control

I'm pretty sure we had that when the wheels were first introduced. Not sure what happened to it though.

[Caelib]

Rovers move very slow so their usefulness is practically non-existent for career mode other than driving around doing nothing in particular.  KSP needs micro-biomes and science equipment for it.  For example, drills, lasers, ovens, etc.

Edited September 11, 2016 by Caelib

[NSEP]

7 hours ago, Caelib said:

Rovers move very slow so their usefulness is practically non-existent for career mode other than driving around doing nothing in particular.  KSP needs micro-biomes and science equipment for it.  For example, drills, lasers, ovens, etc.

Rovers move very slow? Boi, everytime i build a rover it goes at lightning speed! Might be slow compared to the size of the planet you are roving on, but 9m/s is still very fast compared to the 3,75 *cm* per second Curiosity drives, and yes micro biomes need to be added for rovers to be usefull, that is a good idea.

[Capt Snuggler]

I'm super late to this party but I think programmable automated driving would help. With the assistance of that scansat thingy we're getting in v1.2, you could place waypoints on the map and and have the vehicle drive point to point automatically.

Mouse over a way point and set desired speed or schedule a science experiment.

 

[Caelib]

3 hours ago, NSEP said:

Rovers move very slow? Boi, everytime i build a rover it goes at lightning speed! Might be slow compared to the size of the planet you are roving on, but 9m/s is still very fast compared to the 3,75 *cm* per second Curiosity drives, and yes micro biomes need to be added for rovers to be usefull, that is a good idea.

Yeah, I meant slow relative to the size of each planetary biome ... it's just not practical or fun to spend an hour driving a rover to the next biome to collect science when you just build a probe that can fly between them faster.

[Sharpy]

Bill rode his dragster around Minmus,

Or was that his dragster?

Actually, he spent all day carefully detaching gigantor masts from the delivery craft, using the two small cranes, then he used the surviving gigantors from the most damaged mast for spare parts on other masts, then he drove the husk stripped off anything of value to the junkyard.

Unfortunately there's another delay. Both the mining module and the ISRU module carried structural instabilities that resulted in RUD. A new combo module of ISRU and drills is on its way.

 

[edit: uh, accidentally - wrong topic, but not entirely wrong. Anyway, utility rovers are invaluable for building a big base.]

Edited September 11, 2016 by Sharpy

[Diche Bach]

If I had to program my rovers to only go 10cm per hour, but I could PROGRAM them to drive on their own and be confident they'd survive, and/or get back to me if they encountered difficulties, that would be a huge improvement over driving them around 10m/s but in constant fear they will hit a bump and explode.

I guess KOS already allows this to some extent? Also, like I said it seems to be in Remote Tech too . . .

[SpacedCowboy]

6 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Bill rode his dragster around Minmus,

Or was that his dragster?

Actually, he spent all day carefully detaching gigantor masts from the delivery craft, using the two small cranes, then he used the surviving gigantors from the most damaged mast for spare parts on other masts, then he drove the husk stripped off anything of value to the junkyard.

Unfortunately there's another delay. Both the mining module and the ISRU module carried structural instabilities that resulted in RUD. A new combo module of ISRU and drills is on its way.

 

[edit: uh, accidentally - wrong topic, but not entirely wrong. Anyway, utility rovers are invaluable for building a big base.]

Sunday,,, Sunday,,, SUNDAY!  At Minmus Dragway!

Yeah, this may be slightly off topic but couldn't help myself. (Does that thing do wheelies?)

[Sharpy]

5 minutes ago, SpacedCowboy said:

Sunday,,, Sunday,,, SUNDAY!  At Minmus Dragway!

Yeah, this may be slightly off topic but couldn't help myself. (Does that thing do wheelies?)

Nah, runs as if glued to the surface, smooth and fast. Plus I'm not doing Elcano, just rounds between the base and the junkyard, 3km away (outside base's physics bubble).

[panzer1b]

Honestly id say the number 1 issue with land vehicles (and permanent bases to a degree) is that there is no reason to even do them (outside of roleplay or if you are like me and think pitting 2 lines of stock tanks into battle againt each other is fun).  In terms of career there is absolutely no reason to make them since a lightweight biome hopper will do you much better, and it can go distances that are unpractical in any land vehicle (unless you have the patience of those guys that ran that cross Duna event in a rover, myself not really).

All in all, while i myself dont really care as i never liked career/science modes and have always played sandbox, i say the game needs to have a specific role that rovers can fullfill and not make them purely roleplay/for fun things that you make because you just want to make one.  There is a large subset of the community that finds sandbox pointless, and if there are contracts (or some overhaul to science collection that say benefits roving around) i think itll entice more players to create them.

That said, ill stick to my roleplay style sandbox creations, afterall, who doesnt love making rovers (especially air-droppable ones)...

[SpacedCowboy]

Sharpy, would love to see that thing in action.

(back to topic)

3 new parts, Rover Chassis, small, medium and large, with oodles of attachment nodes.

[Sharpy]

Excuse me.

Career. Building a mining base, to have finally a full supply of fuel in LKO without depending on asteroids.

The two mini-cranes from the post above.

Two flatbed trucks.

A small truck with spare parts containers.

And a gantry.

 

They are absolutely indispensable in constructing that base.

They all qualify as rovers.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Sharpy

[Dunbaratu]

4 hours ago, panzer1b said:

i say the game needs to have a specific role that rovers can fullfill and not make them purely roleplay/for fun things that you make because you just want to make one.  There is a large subset of the community that finds sandbox pointless, and if there are contracts (or some overhaul to science collection that say benefits roving around) i think itll entice more players to create them

But there are contracts that are specifically easier with rovers - the ones that have you take readings while on the surface at about 3 or 4 waypoints that are within a few Km of each other.  They're close enough to each other that rover driving to visit all of them isn't tedious, but just far enough away from each other that doing it by using a hopping lander is really wasteful and requires a much beefier launch with a lot more fuel weight in the upper lander stage than doing it by rover would.

[n.b.z.]

On 8.9.2016 at 8:53 PM, Alshain said:

Unfortunately if you have only a keyboard, there is no incremental throttle control for wheels, like with rockets and planes.

This is usually not my style, but I'm afraid that the time has come for my first...

Public Service Announcement:

While Alshain is correct that we have no direct throttle axis control for wheels, we do have wheel throttle trim.

Hold down your modifier key, while pressing the key for "drive forward" (default: W) a couple of times. Your rover will add a tiny notch of wheel torque each time this key combination is pressed - and it will keep going with this torque by itself, without further keyboard inputs.

This way, you can set your own "cruise" setting for wheel throttle, while still being able to use the forward/reverse keys.

This also works for reversing (driving "backwards") and it also works in case you have reassigned the wheel related key bindings away from the WASD group, as some people do to avoid unsolicited entertainment related to SAS and/or reaction wheels.

Modifier + X resets the trim to neutral for every axis that has a trim setting, including the wheel throttle.

This is, of course, not an automatic "cruise control" or "speed hold" function. But depending on terrain and rover design, it may change your driving style from "fumble with the keyboard constantly" to "enjoy the view while occasionally hitting the brakes".

Credit: I learned this from our resident land train expert Overland.

[Alshain]

@n.b.z.  That is an interesting idea,  I had not considered trim on wheels.

[Diche Bach]

Yeah the trim keys are also defined in the KSPedia.

But in my experience with aero craft, it doesn't work worth a damn. Perhaps I was using it wrong though . . . you seem to be saying that the key stroke is: Press Alt + (specific WASD) -> release, and repeat for each "increment" of trim you want to add.

I foolishly assumed this was configured to work by pressing and holding, you know, the way that would make sense given you are trying to trim an aircraft going 200m/s and maybe cannot really afford to be letting go of your "nose up" key repeatedly . . .

[Sharpy]

@Diche Bach: One thing more. SAS with any reasonable amount of control authority totally thwarts any trim results.

[n.b.z.]

1 hour ago, Diche Bach said:

Yeah the trim keys are also defined in the KSPedia.

Oh I hadn't looked there, just in the online wiki. And there it says:

"Mod + W/S/A/D/Q/E   -----   Trim pitch/yaw/roll"

... so at least the online wiki doesn't really make clear that there is an explicit WHEELTHROTTLETRIM. This is why, when you assign the wheel controls to, say, the IJKL keys, but leave "flying" controls on the default WASD, you can control wheel trim separately from pitch trim!

You can build a silly thing that has rover wheels and an airplane elevator, make it drive itself using wheel trim, and then pitch trim the elevator up and down with no effect on the wheels at all.

I know this for sure because I just built exactly that silly thing for confirming this.

While I was at it, I tested the key-repeat. As long as you hold down the MOD key first (which is the only thing i tested), you can then change both pitch and wheel trim by just holding down the corresponding key.

For pitch, you can see the trim setting in the flight UI when the axis input is neutral. Look at how sloooooww the indicator moves while holding the key! This might have thrown you off when trying it with planes.

EDIT: I agree with Sharpy.

(In the unlikely case that this matters: this is on Win64.)

Edited September 12, 2016 by n.b.z.

[Diche Bach]

2 minutes ago, n.b.z. said:

Oh I hadn't looked there, just in the online wiki. And there it says:

"Mod + W/S/A/D/Q/E   -----   Trim pitch/yaw/roll"

... so at least the online wiki doesn't really make clear that there is an explicit WHEELTHROTTLETRIM. This is why, when you assign the wheel controls to, say, the IJKL keys, but leave "flying" controls on the default WASD, you can control wheel trim separately from pitch trim!

You can build a silly thing that has rover wheels and an airplane elevator, make it drive itself using wheel trim, and then pitch trim the elevator up and down with no effect on the wheels at all.

I know this for sure because I just built exactly that silly thing for confirming this.

While I was at it, I tested the key-repeat. As long as you hold down the MOD key first (which is the only thing i tested), you can then change both pitch and wheel trim by just holding down the corresponding key.

For pitch, you can see the trim setting in the flight UI when the axis input is neutral. Look at how sloooooww the indicator moves while holding the key! This might have thrown you off when trying it with planes.

(In the unlikely case that this matters: this is on Win64.)

Let me clarify your message:

1. I have an aircraft (just a normal one nothing special, isolation of the three axes to traditional aileron, elevator, rudder surfaces and using all defeault keybindings, i.e., "Mod" = L-Alt on my Win7_x64 rig . . .)

2. I just got it up to 5000 m after a takeoff at KSC. I've got like 0.9 TWR. I've got my control authorities on my surfaces adjusted so they behave relatively normally (ailerons ~1; rudder ~1; elevators ~45 or so). Now I would like to trim the damn thing so I don't have to sit there holding the S key to keep it from nosing over into a dive while I time warp to the waypoint . . .

3. While still in 1x speed, I take my finger off "S" momentarily (plane starts to pitch anti-radial).

4. I immediately (500ms?) press "L-Alt" and moments later "S."

5. I see the little pitch slider bar on the left crank all the way up to top likewise the nose on my aircraft pitches up.

6. I hold down this key combo until the plane is pitching up too much.

Now, what I had assumed was: for each time increment during which this key combo is held down, the app will add a bit more trim (0.5-degrees or whatever) in the specified direction. So, I sit there and hold this key combo for a few seconds as my nose climbs progressively toward rull radial orientation, finally before my plane tips over on its back, I let go. My plane gradually pitches back down to the "below horizon" orientation it had before, but perhaps a bit more up-angled than it was previously.

So, in order to use this method to "trim" a vehicle, in my experience one has to do the equivalent of break-dancing through the air for a few minutes to get the plane to "stick" to a sufficiently > 0 but not too large pitch that you can maintain level flight = not just stupid looking while you do it, but annoying too.

What you seem to be telling me is: when I get to step 6, what I should be doing is "repeatedly tapping" S, not holding it down?

[n.b.z.]

4 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

when I get to step 6, what I should be doing is "repeatedly tapping" S, not holding it down?

I have not actually tried this with planes. I was pointing out what trim can do for rovers.

I would guess that if your plane requires a strong "elevator up" input to stay level, switching over to a trim-only way of control is indeed going to be a wild ride, since you would really need to gradually decrease the stick input while trimming. Which won't work with both these things sharing the same key.

I'm going to guess that one probably uses "hold down" to generate a faster change (it's slow enough!) while single key inputs are probably good for finetuning.

It may be worthwhile to win the wild ride once, to then memorize roughly at what trim setting your plane stays level. With this knowledge, it may be easier to trim it in the future.
.....hmmm... can't you just read the correct trim setting off the indicator while SAS holds the plane level, and then imitate that setting manually after turning SAS off?

[Andem]

3 hours ago, n.b.z. said:

This is usually not my style, but I'm afraid that the time has come for my first...

Public Service Announcement:

While Alshain is correct that we have no direct throttle axis control for wheels, we do have wheel throttle trim.

Hold down your modifier key, while pressing the key for "drive forward" (default: W) a couple of times. Your rover will add a tiny notch of wheel torque each time this key combination is pressed - and it will keep going with this torque by itself, without further keyboard inputs.

This way, you can set your own "cruise" setting for wheel throttle, while still being able to use the forward/reverse keys.

This also works for reversing (driving "backwards") and it also works in case you have reassigned the wheel related key bindings away from the WASD group, as some people do to avoid unsolicited entertainment related to SAS and/or reaction wheels.

Modifier + X resets the trim to neutral for every axis that has a trim setting, including the wheel throttle.

This is, of course, not an automatic "cruise control" or "speed hold" function. But depending on terrain and rover design, it may change your driving style from "fumble with the keyboard constantly" to "enjoy the view while occasionally hitting the brakes".

Credit: I learned this from our resident land train expert Overland.

Wait, I thought that was only for SAS! I'm such an idiot. Thank you soo much!

[Diche Bach]

41 minutes ago, n.b.z. said:

 . . . SNIP . . .
.....hmmm... can't you just read the correct trim setting off the indicator while SAS holds the plane level, and then imitate that setting manually after turning SAS off?

I'm having these issues WITH SAS running.

Maybe my error is to NOT turn off SAS while I'm trying to trim??