parts [1.12.x] USI Exploration Pack - Small parts, big adventure! [v 0.6.0]

[GeckoOBac]

Well, leaving out the cage would mean attaching a decoupler to "nothingness" and I don't really like that =/

[forsaken1111]

Well, leaving out the cage would mean attaching a decoupler to "nothingness" and I don't really like that =/

Use some struts to make it look like its connected to the decoupler!

[goldenpsp]

Use some struts to make it look like its connected to the decoupler!

If using KAS just remove the roll cage and stow it after delivery.

[fathed]

Aha... oh yeah for the love of god don't use the roll cage if you have Kerbals in the back seat.

In my video, I get out the front seat while kerbals are in the rear seats and it freaks out.

[mike9606]

While I haven't suffered disassembly yet, I have had my kerbals consistently ragdoll a bit when getting out.

Also, I've had a few issues on the Mun with traction, mostly great difficultly accelerating. I assume it is due to the low weight of the rover (and therefor not really the mod's fault) but I thought it was worth a mention just in case. Other than that, I'm loving it so far

The the traction issue is because the PackRat wheels are smaller versions of the the stock yellow medium ones, which have very bad traction. The traction issues with the yellow wheels is very noticeable on Minmus, as they have issues stopping yet the TR-2L wheels stop nearly instantly, and are actually dangerous as they can flip the craft if you apply the brakes too hard.

[Dire_Squid]

ok, now that I have a modded KAS (there's a 64 mod somewhere on here)... seeing you "rotate" that front part of the chasis onto the pylon (check the vid)... how do you do that?

[goldenpsp]

ok, now that I have a modded KAS (there's a 64 mod somewhere on here)... seeing you "rotate" that front part of the chasis onto the pylon (check the vid)... how do you do that?

ALT-b or n rotates that way. CTRL also rotates another way.

[papics]

This is indeed extremely fun to take along in KAS containers, and to assemble on the spot, but it would be really nice to have a bit more traction (thus better acceleration), because just a bit of a slope on the Mun, and it is impossible to climb it... But except for this, it's really cool

[RoverDude]

This is indeed extremely fun to take along in KAS containers, and to assemble on the spot, but it would be really nice to have a bit more traction (thus better acceleration), because just a bit of a slope on the Mun, and it is impossible to climb it... But except for this, it's really cool

If anyone wants to play around with the wheel config and make it more grippy, feel free to post it here

[Errol]

If anyone wants to play around with the wheel config and make it more grippy, feel free to post it here

I'm just joining this thread now, so I'm not up to speed yet, but I've done something with your vehicle rover; but it isn't wheels:

No word of a lie it literally took me 8 hours to get that thing balanced. I know I probably should have given up on using the pack rat, and that I could have built something better from stock parts that connect normally to each other, but it was worth it. Flies like a dream, and there are even two different ways of using mechjeb's smart A.S.S. to automate some of the tasks to keep the drives pointing the way you want them (towards the body you are trying to levitate above).

It hovers and rises on mun and minmus using ion drives only, and can rise into the air on duna with RCS help (it steers with RCS too).

EDIT: By the way, this vehicle actually took six ion drives to function correctly, with most of the time spent in design in placing the final thruster (the one in the middle between the front two). Just in case someone wants to try to re-create this themselves, I just noticed you don't see all six at once in any shot. The low angle shot that looks up at the underside is missing the furthest back engine, which is up a little higher mounted to the underside of the pack rat power slug. If anyone is interested I would be willing to share the .craft file, I just don't know where to host it online, so PM me.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Errol

[RoverDude]

I'm just joining this thread now, so I'm not up to speed yet, but I've done something with your vehicle rover; but it isn't wheels:

http://thumbnails109.imagebam.com/34755/3e7276347544711.jpg http://thumbnails110.imagebam.com/34755/0ce631347544757.jpg http://thumbnails112.imagebam.com/34755/8737c3347544650.jpg http://thumbnails111.imagebam.com/34755/3d8d1f347544676.jpg http://thumbnails109.imagebam.com/34755/f3ab4d347544692.jpg http://thumbnails112.imagebam.com/34755/932ece347544841.jpg

No word of a lie it literally took me 8 hours to get that thing balanced. I know I probably should have given up on using the pack rat, and that I could have built something better from stock parts that connect normally to each other, but it was worth it. Flies like a dream, and there are even two different ways of using mechjeb's smart A.S.S. to automate some of the tasks to keep the drives pointing the way you want them (towards the body you are trying to levitate above).

It hovers and rises on mun and minmus using ion drives only, and can rise into the air on duna with RCS help (it steers with RCS too).

I am at a loss....

[Errol]

Man, this thing would be SO much better if I had access to ion RCS. Even if it was a simple MM config that allowed me to create a duplicate stock ion drive that just responds to a single RCS axis with 100% throttle. What I wanted to do was build something that has enough ion drives to be neutrally buoyant that are fixed, another one (centre) or two (symmetric) that are on servos, these are controlled by RCS, they allow you to rise and when pivoted allow for forward and reverse thrust. Then I could remove all of the RCS systems from this vehicle and restore some cargo space, then make it useful!

Sadly, the very few ion RCS attempts I've found are all no longer in development.

But seriously, how bad ass would it be to send your kolony ship to duna, complete with hover car. I'm just picturing the lucky kerbal that gets to ride it down to the surface, I know it's not realistic, but if I'm building and packing a hover car, it's coming out of orbit in a drop ship with procedural fairings, chutes and some braking boosters to kill final velocity, before the fairings pop off and it decouples, right side up, ready to catch itself on it's ion drives.

That's right, I want my mission profile to include a tactical insertion of a solar powered ion hover car onto duna's surface. Because.......

.......reasons.......

[RoverDude]

Man, this thing would be SO much better if I had access to ion RCS. Even if it was a simple MM config that allowed me to create a duplicate stock ion drive that just responds to a single RCS axis with 100% throttle. What I wanted to do was build something that has enough ion drives to be neutrally buoyant that are fixed, another one (centre) or two (symmetric) that are on servos, these are controlled by RCS, they allow you to rise and when pivoted allow for forward and reverse thrust. Then I could remove all of the RCS systems from this vehicle and restore some cargo space, then make it useful!

Sadly, the very few ion RCS attempts I've found are all no longer in development.

But seriously, how bad ass would it be to send your kolony ship to duna, complete with hover car. I'm just picturing the lucky kerbal that gets to ride it down to the surface, I know it's not realistic, but if I'm building and packing a hover car, it's coming out of orbit in a drop ship with procedural fairings, chutes and some braking boosters to kill final velocity, before the fairings pop off and it decouples, right side up, ready to catch itself on it's ion drives.

That's right, I want my mission profile to include a tactical insertion of a solar powered ion hover car onto duna's surface. Because.......

.......reasons.......

Actually, an ion RCS module should be a fairly easy config to whip up, but it's better to hack an RCS block vs an Ion Drive because of how the transforms work.

[Errol]

I did see one person that did that, but I want all the same TWR, Isp and weight as the normal ion engine. Either way, as I have no idea how to do that could I as that of you as a personal favour? I'll return it by refining the design down a little and perhaps making a few different configurations (with the spare cargo space and power systems, those panels are pretty, but fragile) that can be linked in this thread as alternatives to land bound transportation.

[Donziboy2]

Actually, an ion RCS module should be a fairly easy config to whip up, but it's better to hack an RCS block vs an Ion Drive because of how the transforms work.

Nertea said he is working on that stuff today:)

[Errol]

Nertea said he is working on that stuff today:)

Is there a dev thread somewhere for this that I can follow?

[Donziboy2]

Is there a dev thread somewhere for this that I can follow?

Near Future Technologies

[PDelta41]

I have a solution to the "rover can't climb a 5% slope" issue

After trying to splice in Firespitters FSwheel module, and failing; then getting similar results with Touhou's TTwheel module (which is also a year out of date...) I just enlarged the wheel slightly and changed the torqueCurve:

/snip
rescaleFactor = 0.80
/snip
	torqueCurve
	{
	  key = 0 450 0 0
	  key = 2  250 0
	  key = 20  100 0

	  key = 30 14 0 0
	  key = 34 0 0 0
	}

/snip

In my test, this allowed the rover to climb some pretty steep hills at 2m/s. This also required recharging every 500m or so (I didn't put panels on the test unit). If you'd prefer it not be quite so crawly up hills, changing the key = 2 to key = 5 should let it go up a fair bit faster.

[RoverDude]

I have a solution to the "rover can't climb a 5% slope" issue

After trying to splice in Firespitters FSwheel module, and failing; then getting similar results with Touhou's TTwheel module (which is also a year out of date...) I just enlarged the wheel slightly and changed the torqueCurve:

/snip
rescaleFactor = 0.80
/snip
	torqueCurve
	{
	  key = 0 450 0 0
	  key = 2  250 0
	  key = 20  100 0

	  key = 30 14 0 0
	  key = 34 0 0 0
	}

/snip

In my test, this allowed the rover to climb some pretty steep hills at 2m/s. This also required recharging every 500m or so (I didn't put panels on the test unit). If you'd prefer it not be quite so crawly up hills, changing the key = 2 to key = 5 should let it go up a fair bit faster.

Thanks! Will test this out when the packrat gets it's refresh (nli2work made a bunch of new goodies and others are in the works)

[PDelta41]

Awesome! Can't wait to see the new stuff. A similar setup would probably work for wheels for the Honeybadger, if you plan on letting it roll (which would be really cool, IMO). Also, forgot to mention that those test results were from both Kerbin and Minmus (more slidey and slower acceleration on Minmus, but otherwise similar cruising and climbing).

[papics]

I have a solution to the "rover can't climb a 5% slope" issue

After trying to splice in Firespitters FSwheel module, and failing; then getting similar results with Touhou's TTwheel module (which is also a year out of date...) I just enlarged the wheel slightly and changed the torqueCurve:

/snip
rescaleFactor = 0.80
/snip
	torqueCurve
	{
	  key = 0 450 0 0
	  key = 2  250 0
	  key = 20  100 0

	  key = 30 14 0 0
	  key = 34 0 0 0
	}

/snip

In my test, this allowed the rover to climb some pretty steep hills at 2m/s. This also required recharging every 500m or so (I didn't put panels on the test unit). If you'd prefer it not be quite so crawly up hills, changing the key = 2 to key = 5 should let it go up a fair bit faster.

Actually, as far as I understand, since this wheel is a rescaled (0.75) version of the original RoveMax Model 1 wheel, to keep the characteristics of the original wheel in terms of how much force is produced parallel to the surface at the point of contact, the original torqueCurve should be multiplied by 1/0.75 = 1.33. Now since the smaller scale did not result in weight reduction, we can easily assume that the extra weight is in a more complex and more powerful (thus relatively heavier) engine component in the wheels, which is in line with this proposed increase in torqueCurve values. For further balancing, I think that the power consumption should be more or less the same as the non-rescaled (lower weight versus more torque cancels out), and also the break force needs to be rescaled similarly. This is no problem if you put 2 single solar panels at the back

[GeckoOBac]

Actually, as far as I understand, since this wheel is a rescaled (0.75) version of the original RoveMax Model 1 wheel, to keep the characteristics of the original wheel in terms of how much force is produced parallel to the surface at the point of contact, the original torqueCurve should be multiplied by 1/0.75 = 1.33. Now since the smaller scale did not result in weight reduction, we can easily assume that the extra weight is in a more complex and more powerful (thus relatively heavier) engine component in the wheels, which is in line with this proposed increase in torqueCurve values. For further balancing, I think that the power consumption should be more or less the same as the non-rescaled (lower weight versus more torque cancels out), and also the break force needs to be rescaled similarly. This is no problem if you put 2 single solar panels at the back

Frankly, the basic wheel traction is so bloody terrible on anything with a lowish gravity, that a serious boost wouldn't really overpower it, rather it'd make it actually usable. Seriously, atm you're better off using EVA rcs on mun/minmus (not sure about other bodies) rather than bother with rovers (unless you can go big and use the ruggerized wheels)

[papics]

Frankly, the basic wheel traction is so bloody terrible on anything with a lowish gravity, that a serious boost wouldn't really overpower it, rather it'd make it actually usable. Seriously, atm you're better off using EVA rcs on mun/minmus (not sure about other bodies) rather than bother with rovers (unless you can go big and use the ruggerized wheels)

Actually, I totally agree, and in my own cfg I have a 1.6x multiplier... (punished by a resourceConsumptionRate = 1.0 instead of 0.65... I just pack two extra solar panels...)

[Eleven]

I never could get the supplied chair to snap into place, I ended up just using the stock chair and putting in in there...

[RoverDude]

I never could get the supplied chair to snap into place, I ended up just using the stock chair and putting in in there...

Odd it should have just snapped like the rest...