My land train/Rover

[Mars Mullo]

I call this my "Mun Rover IV"

It has taken me ages to get it this far and even then it isnt quite right.

Mun Rover IV

Special things about it are.

Eight wheel drive.

Two leading wheels are hill side shock absorbers.

Has enough panels to run the motors and the lights.

Has 8 wheel drive or 2 wheel drive options through the Action button set up.

I use trim settings Alt-W to throttle the Rover.

Has an SAS unit central that can re roll the vehicle on to its wheels from its back

The ladder is there fro kerbals to get in and out.. needs a small set of rungs too.

The wheel alignment has to be spot on. That was the hardest thing to construct properly.

Has couplers front and back.. I have had a train of 9 connected.

The top speed is 111.6 Km/hr on the Mun.

Hill climbs well. But you need to pulse the SAS on and off to allow all the driving wheels to contact the road.. other wise the SAS will hold the wheels aloft and you wont go anywhere.

It has struts to anchor the unit if you get stuck on a slippery hillside going into a crater.

Has an outside control/passenger seat between the bogies.

Further improvements...

I may attach a coloured light to show 8 or 2 wheel drive mode.

I'm going to make some science trailers.

Yes the earlier models have made it to the Mun and the long wheel base makes it drive very well .. of course you drive it in docking mode.

More pictures...

"]9 x land train of Mun Rovers.. earlier models

Early http://s117.photobucket.com/user/Martin_Ellis/media/Northwestcrater.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o75/Martin_Ellis/Northwestcrater.png" border="0" alt=" photo Northwestcrater.png"/></a>'>advanced Mun Rover sporting a raised nose ring with the rider wheels on it. This was later abandoned for truncated pyramid frame.

Note the science modules attached... I still haven't got these back to kerbin yet...???

Earliestversions on Mun .... the rover on the left was a complete failure. The earliest Rover is 6 wheel drive... which is ok but 8 is much better. I also got it there buy itself and landed a Kerbanaut later to pilot it... this was safer and allowed me to not worry about having fuel to get back. A pick up mission will be done later with a three man module with only one or less pilot nad have all three Mun rovers travel to a common point for pick up and return.

Anyways hope this interesting for someone to read.

P.s this is my first post so forgive me if it isn't up to your standards. I'm new to this html stuff:D

[LvL]

Awesome! you might want to ask one of the admins about imgur albums though. Here's sum rep.

[Mars Mullo]

Thanks Mr Gold. :-). I'll do that later.

I have some more screen shots I will post later on my first run on the moon. The Rover is terrific. I managed to get to 32m/s down hill..115km/hr.

And I changed the bogies to a driver version and a front version. The front version has three spot lights and the rear one has the external pilot seat.

Will post later.

[Vagani]

I know how to make your rover more durable wheel wise, suspension, try mine if you want, not a hard concept just improves the durability greatly, eg you can jump from the launch pad to the floor and have no wheel breakages

[Mars Mullo]

Thanks Vagani.. that would be great.

How do I try your improved suspension version?

I have got enough science now that I paid for the last wheel set.

I have made another rover based on the Rover IV with the second largest wheels.

The grip a whole lot more but have less suspension. Gives the chassis a real hard time. Also puts more twist strain on teh chassis and has sheared the bogies off. I have yet to try it on the Mun.

Also last night I got my fastest speed on the Mun amazingly in two wheel drive mode. 120km/hr

[Vagani]

All of my suspension uses a minimum of three main parts, normally they are made from the flat 1m square but the half sized and cubic struts work as well, you attach the upper piece to the body then the second on that at an angle and finally the last making it flat, then attach the wheels to the bottom piece, and your done, if you just want to copy my suspension then feel free

[Mars Mullo]

Ah... I'm playing Career mode with this one and haven't unlocked those with science yet. But however that just makes the goal to unlock that stuff so much more intriguing and rewarding now.

I saw a video on You Tube of a guy who made a set of rocket legs from box girders and struts and he mentioned how resilient and springy they were. So I tried out something similar and came up with this. Test runs showed it to be practically indestructible on Kerbin.

It has a lot of spring outwards.

Now all I need to do is find a configuration to work for 8 Wheels.

Found the Youtube video... its

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o75/Martin_Ellis/Martins%20KSP%20screen%20shots/Newwheelframe.jpg' alt='Newwheelframe.jpg'>

Edited July 14, 2014 by Mars Mullo

[Mars Mullo]

Well the mission on the Mun has gone really very well.

However the big winner is the evolution the Mun Rover series has undertaken so far.

This leaves the other canyon and the yet to be scienced Mun Biomes that I intend to travel in before ticking off on the sciencing list. This is in Career mode by the way.

Also I'm hoping to male a land train o the Mun perhaps collect all the Mun rovers together.

[Mars Mullo]

Discovered something strange.

You can't save a game when your rover is on the ground.

But my rovers go so fast that every few moments they get vacuum-borne (is that the correct alternative to airborne?).

Anyways when you get vacuum-borne you can ALT-F5 and quick save then.

In the earlier rovers I was stopping the rover and hiking it up on the legs then saving. This became tiresome.

Now I can travel fast and save every now and then. I go away and do some house work for a bout ten minutes and if anything has gone awry I restart back at the save.

Also the new MK V Mun Rover has 3 SAS modules. Works really well. But in fast cruise mode I found 1 module is better as it allows the wheels to settle on the terrain better.

But when climbing a slope or when you go sailing way out into the air being able to easily orientate the vehicle with three SAS units is great.

[Mars Mullo]

Wow! This is a wonderful post.

Thanks Suderv21... I'm yet to get back to roverng on the Mun in version 1.4.0.. or whatever we are up to.

looking at trying to use KOS soon too so hopefully can make an autonomouse rover. I use the tech mod too so signal delay is an important factor.