RoveMax wheels-why do I have so little power?

[Klapaucius]

I have built few rovers, so I was giving it a go today. What I don't understand is why my rover is so slow.   Notice in the picture that my motor is only showing 6.5% power. What am I missing here?  It starts at 100 and rapidly goes down to almost nothing.

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by Klapaucius

[bewing]

Because you have Traction Control turned on. Set it to zero. Traction Control applies the brakes to your wheels automatically, which loses you all kinds of power.

 

[Klapaucius]

10 minutes ago, bewing said:

Because you have Traction Control turned on. Set it to zero. Traction Control applies the brakes to your wheels automatically, which loses you all kinds of power.

 

I've turned that off, but still only getting 12 power.  I've made a simpler version just to get my head around it, but still incredibly slow:

Edited May 25, 2020 by Klapaucius

[bewing]

Well, THAT one probably doesn't work because your probe core is oriented wrong. It must face "forward". Not UP.

 

[OHara]

KSPs wheels produce a force (specified as 'torque' as it would be from the drive shaft) that falls off with speed.  For the XL-3 wheels in particular the torque falls very quickly; at 6m/s it is just 12% (3 ÷ 25) of the rated torque.

        torqueCurve
        {
            key = 0 25.0 0 0
            key = 1.5 15.0 0 0
            key = 3 5.0 0 0
            key = 6 3 0 0
            key = 15 0.5 0 0
            key = 15.5 0 0 0
        

I change the game to my own liking with a module-manager patch, just for these wheels as the others seem fine to me :

Spoiler

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleWheelMotorSteering]]{
    @MODULE[ModuleWheelMotorSteering] {
        @wheelSpeedMax = 14
        @torqueCurve {
            !key = delete
            key = 0 50.0 0 0
            key = 10 20.0 -1 -1
            key = 20 10.0 -1 -1
            key = 30 0.0 -1 0
        }
    }
}

[Klapaucius]

2 hours ago, bewing said:

Well, THAT one probably doesn't work because your probe core is oriented wrong. It must face "forward". Not UP.

 

I don''t understand what you mean. There is no probe core.  That is a Nerv rocket engine on top. The final idea is a variation of something I have done before: using downforce on low gravity environments so you can (ironically) driver faster. It is destined for Gilly or Bop.

Edited May 25, 2020 by Klapaucius

[mystifeid]

Go back to having a control point facing forward then hold the forward key down while alternately tapping the left and right keys. You should be able to get it moving faster than 100m/s but it's pretty painful keeping it up for very long.

[RealKerbal3x]

1 hour ago, Klapaucius said:

I don''t understand what you mean. There is no probe core.  That is a Nerv rocket engine on top. The final idea is a variation of something I have done before: using downforce on low gravity environments so you can (ironically) driver faster. It is destined for Gilly or Bop.

Your navball orientation is straight up. It's best to have it facing forward on rovers, with the bottom half of the navball being brown and the top half being blue.

[Klapaucius]

 

22 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Your navball orientation is straight up. It's best to have it facing forward on rovers, with the bottom half of the navball being brown and the top half being blue.

Why in the name of heaven does this make a difference? I believe you, of course, just seems very odd.

[RealKerbal3x]

8 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

Why in the name of heaven does this make a difference? I believe you, of course, just seems very odd.

It just helps with making the rover easier to control, because the control point is pointing in the same direction as the rover is moving, so you know that W is forward and S is back, rather than A and D.

[bewing]

52 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

 

Why in the name of heaven does this make a difference? I believe you, of course, just seems very odd.

WASD have different meanings for each wheel, depending on your navball orientation -- if you think it through very very carefully. With some navball orientations, your wheels can actually fight each other to a complete standstill, so your rover can't move at all.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

7 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

 

Why in the name of heaven does this make a difference? I believe you, of course, just seems very odd.

It also helps with navigation - seeing a completely blue navball often means that the 'activated' navigation target is not visible because it is in the brown portion of the ball. 

Of course, trying to land with a ball oriented for driving is exciting in its own right!