Ion car plausible?

[kenbobo]

I had a idea.

In KSP, we have ion engines.

And car wheels.

Combine the two to make a plausible car with incredible fuel efficiency?

For those science peoples out there, is the TWR enough to push about 2 tons?

[sal_vager]

If you're on the flat, you can push anything as there's no real friction, just air resistance.

Uphill though? Forget it.

[Jordanpumah]

well, you wouldn't be able to directly use the ion engine as a motor, but you can arrange enough on the ass of the car to make sufficient thrust, but the car is gonna have to resemble this:http://ecofriend.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/siemens-sunchaser_iMnw8_69.jpg

edit: ninja'd,

ps, you're on.

[T-Pilot395]

but you can arrange enough on the ass of the car to make sufficient thrust, but the car is gonna have to resemble this: http://ecofriend.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/siemens-sunchaser_iMnw8_69.jpg

I made a huge ass solar plane to haul 1 pilot using 9 ion engines and it looked like that. Panels EVERYWHERE. Most inefficient thing ever. The cruise speed was 100m/s, it took forever to reach the island runway, and when I arrived I realised I had not enough xenon gas to get back home, despite bringing at least 18 of the stackable tanks. I sent a rescue and destroy mission to destroy the plane and save Jeb.

I suppose a ion car is possible, but the electric motors in ksp's wheels are pretty efficient on their own. And one engine already requires like 40-50 of the fixed solar panels to be able to run at full thrust.

[Giggleplex777]

Before we had rover wheels, everyone used rocket engines and RCS. This became one of the main uses for the ion engine after it was released.

[RogueMason]

Ion rovers are only viable on a few worlds, but seeing as before 0.19 we didn't have stock rovers, they were the only option for me. I sent an ion rover to Minmus:

It was perfectly capable of climbing up all the hills on the tiny moonlet, but unfortunately it ran out of RCS, hindering its turning and stability. Eventually, it succumbed to a bump in the terrain, went flying for a bit, and then promptly crashed back into the surface. A shame really, it was a beautiful bit of kit I'd sent up

Naturally, had it continued to operate, it would eventually have run dry of xenon, too. At least now we have rover wheels that consume just rechargeable electricity. Nothing I've sent up since has looked quite so good as this Minmus rover though...

[RocketPilot573]

They work fairly well, until you need them to climb the slightest hill...

I was so happy when rover wheels were added...

[Jordanpumah]

http://www./?r4x5bjj3a8b0yun

make sure to turn your graphics settings all the way down.

it uses the rover wheels, but just to turn, unless you like having a big stack of ion engines turned off.

your move vager.

[JacobGreyson]

I had a fairly substantial Ion rover back in .18. Weighed several tonnes, due mostly to the one-man capsule it carried, had a lot of solar panels on it, and could reach as much as 16 m/s on the flat. It used a pair of Ion engines to get it going. Turned like a cow.

[Lando]

I had a idea.

In KSP, we have ion engines.

And car wheels.

Combine the two to make a plausible car with incredible fuel efficiency?

For those science peoples out there, is the TWR enough to push about 2 tons?

In you want to use Ion Engines you need electricity.

If you have electricity it is Way more efficient to power an electro motor.

So unles you are in space you will not use ionengines.

You Need them in Space, becourse the only Way to move there is throwing something in the other direction (fuel, ions, tools, books...)

so that makes Ion Engines in Cars unplausible and unefficient.

Edited October 27, 2013 by Lando

[spikeyhat09]

whats the point of ion cars now anyway

since 0.19, ion engines are pointless because the rover wheels are faster plus infinite fuel (with enough RTGs)

[sal_vager]

whats the point of ion cars now anyway

The fun of making and driving them, sourpuss

[spikeyhat09]

what i would like to see is a gilly ion hovercraft

with its super low gravity, i bet it'd be possible

[Depth]

Jet engine car turned out to be a bad idea

http://i.imgur.com/FMiPMcT.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/fSTONKh.jpg

Who could have known...

[Jordanpumah]

what i would like to see is a gilly ion hovercraft

with its super low gravity, i bet it'd be possible

great idea, thanks.

edit: too lazy to get it on gilly since hyperedit exploderizes me everytime.

Edited October 27, 2013 by Jordanpumah

[Nobody]

In you want to use Ion Engines you need electricity.

If you have electricity it is Way more efficient to power an electro motor.

So unles you are in space you will not use ionengines.

You Need them in Space, becourse the only Way to move there is throwing something in the other direction (fuel, ions, tools, books...)

so that makes Ion Engines in Cars unplausible and unefficient.

If it can be done it is plausible. It is just inefficient and the existence of rover wheels make it unpractical.

[Rage097]

whats the point of ion cars now anyway

since 0.19, ion engines are pointless because the rover wheels are faster plus infinite fuel (with enough RTGs)

Minmus. The Rover wheels do not accellerate quickly and can burst at high speeds. Ion Engines accellerate fairly quckly on Minmus and using landing gear for wheels makes it possible to acheive very high speeds across the salt flats, without having to worry about your wheels bursting.

[spikeyhat09]

Minmus. The Rover wheels do not accellerate quickly and can burst at high speeds. Ion Engines accellerate fairly quckly on Minmus and using landing gear for wheels makes it possible to acheive very high speeds across the salt flats, without having to worry about your wheels bursting.

fair enough

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

what i would like to see is a gilly ion hovercraft

with its super low gravity, i bet it'd be possible

I believe some one made one for dres that could hover for 7 seconds.

[Pulstar]

Somebody made a Mun hovercraft, it was insane but it worked. Not sure if it survived April though.

Also it is possible to build solar powered ion engine planes for Duna (which did *not* use the infiniglide bug). I remember I posted a few images of mine but I think they got eaten by the forum time traveling incident in April.

I also managed to do a one kerbal solar plane but I'm not sure if the infiniglide bug made it fly or not, it only worked on Kerbin though and possibly Eve. 500 Newtons of thrust is not as little as you think, the issue is just getting enough solar panels and the tile ones are the best due to power/mass ratio and g-force tolerance but they need structural parts to put them onto.

The advantage of Ion Engine rovers is that they can go much faster than regular rovers (40 m/s on Duna easily), however they can not climb hills. You could use RCS as an afterburner to help them with those but it was a limited resource.

Also if you think driving rovers on the Mun now is hard try driving one which uses landing gear which has no suspension. I think that now that is pretty much a death wish considering the addition of procedural craters.

[TechnicalK3rbal]

Possible, yes. More useful than just rover in any way whatsoever, no.

This would be almost entirely useless. Unless of course you wanted to orbit Gilly with it...........

[Merinsan]

whats the point of ion cars now anyway

since 0.19, ion engines are pointless because the rover wheels are faster plus infinite fuel (with enough RTGs)

Maybe not ion cars, but ion amphibious vehicles?

[FITorion]

before we had rover wheels or rover parts really at all...

we had plane landing gear, structural parts, probes, and Ion engines.

Actually this thing handled better than current rovers... It was slow to turn... as the only way was with RCS thrusters... but it could get up to really high speeds without suddenly tumbling end over end. Have to put sas on rovers now to avoid that. And when it was turning it didn't go fishtailing all over the place... I still say rover wheels don't have enough traction...

Oh... and the embarrassing delivery system...

Edited October 28, 2013 by FITorion

[Dispatcher]

Before loosing the large arrays:

After:

[Brapness]

I built an ion powered rover once as a test of concept, but decided to scrap it and use a regular rover instead. One idea that I've heard that struck me as having potential was to use ion engines to provide additional downforce, to help on low-g bodies like Gilly.