RedParadize

I manage to do it on my side, I would share it with you but I used SSTU cargo module instead... Its a great little shuttle, beside the cargo issue the only thing it miss is a science lab that fit in it. I used a re-scaled one in the mean time. I hope you continue to develop it, it deserve it. Having said that I can't wait to see that lander too. Btw, its always good to have at least a small cargo bay. Science parts are really expensive, recovering them save allot of money. I would therefore suggest to have a small shielded cargo bay on your lander, maybe one on each side for balance. Its just a suggestion of course.

Nice! Do you need to open the shuttle in unity to add a cargo bay? I am trying to add it by myself right now and I do not quite remember how it work.

That's the kind of lander I always have been looking for. My only comment would be about the solar panels, look a bit skinny to serve as landing gear. Maybe if they opened to 100 degree it would look a bit more solid? That would also make it more convenient to disembark Kerbals. Regardless, it looks great! About the mini Shuttle: I noticed that the cargo bay do not shield interior, in fact there is no cargobay module in the config. Is it something that you plan on adding later on? Having the two door opening separately might make it more complicated, but UniversalStorage2 does it so it must be doable. Another thing, the part menu of the Shuttle Orbiter is... pretty packed! I do not know if its possible to reduce it. Maybe some of these option could be hidden in flight? RCS adjustment are not identified (as far as I know they cant be), I bet only few would take the time to tweak them. If it is possible to hide the RCS related slider and button it would make the list allot shorter. Again, very nice stuff!

I have a bug when using this with NearFutureElectrical Fission reactor. There is a huge spike in heat when I close down the reactor, even when adding extra radiator. The reactor scram trigger this as well. I am using allot of mods and I am not sure if one of them cause that problem. Anyone else have this issue? To reproduce: 1: Pick a Reactor, add radiator until heat is under control. 2: Launch the craft. 3: Activate the reactor/radiator and wait until the reactor reach nominal temperature. 4: Close the reactor.

Capsule is very nice. Only think I would wish for is if the nose cone would shield internals, docking port create a substantial amount of drag, It would also be nice place to add antennas and science experiment,

@lemon cup I would be curious to know your graphic setting and mods

Found it

Thank you very much! Can you pm me the link of that discord? Nevermind, I found it. KOTTABOS Games? Whats your name over there?

Thanks. Modeling, texturing and rigging are things I know I can do. As for the unity/ksp integration I am clueless. If its something that interest you I will definitively need help to finalize it. In fact, before going further I have a bunch of question that really need to be answered. Such as can wheels be folded using the same joints as the suspension? If not I may have to alter my design.

After messing around a bit, I think I finally have pretty solid design. Atm it has space for 3 kerbals but I may reduce that to 2. Here is a overview of how it may look: Left: Deployed with shutter open. Middle: Internal/pressure hull view. Right: Folded wheels and closed shutter. Keep in mind that I am only working on the general layout, mesh are temporary and will be completely redone once I figure out all the details. Cylinder at the bottom is 2.5m and with 1.875/1.25/0.625 circle. @JadeOfMaar At this point I should probably create a topic of my own. Its seems that your two design are pretty much set and what I am posting is totally different. I do not want to derail your development tread.

Another day another design. The two Axis wheel folding turned out to be much more space efficient. With the space freed I could fit 3 kerbal in that. I am very found of Alexustas's ASET pod, so I tried to inspire myself from it. Yet I am still not satisfied with the shape of the pressured hull. On the bright side the roll cage on the top gave me a idea on what to try next.

On my side I think I will switch wheels folding to a two axis arm. Single axis eat up all the space between the front and rear wheels. This will also allow me to be more flexible in the suspension choice. I have allot of pending questions regarding animated part. I have exported animated rig to Unity and Unreal, I however never did it to KSP... First, I need to know if I can use rotation of the suspension for the folding itself. PRC kind of do that to some extent, but it also has some bug if the wheels are spawned unfolded... If I cant use the suspension, then it will have to be a separated part that do that. That or a animated node on the rover main body, If I do it that way Wheels will have to use those node and not be surface attached.

Rod popping out is the piston placeholder you can see on the front when deployed. I am still playing with the shape, with few tweaks I can get it down to x=1.4m y=1.1m z=1.45m. I do not think I can make it smaller than that using the current layout. Arguably, there isn't much benefit form having it that much under the 1.875 bar, as far as I know only BDB have stuff between 1.25 and 1.875. At best, it will allow it to fit more nicely in a entry vehicle... at the cost of not being as pretty as it could be. I have few suggestion regarding your rover: One thing that have been bugging me is the end of the window at the rear, because of the transparency of the pod it leave the impression there is a vertical wall and it break the shape. If you were to cut that window in half by adding a bar like on the second image it will balance it and feel more natural. Lastly (sorry for having butchered your render!) Reducing the slope of the front window would allow you to move the seat more forward, that in turn would make the first section shorter and allow you to fully move the rear wheels to the next section. It would also make it look more spherical when the rover is at its shortest.

@JadeOfMaarInteresting, I has a old racer vibe. It might be a tad too tall to be wall mounted trough. I made that quick mookup, no render yet, too early for that. I was trying to capture the Apollo lander angular look... and its clearly not good enough for now. I will probably delete the upper window, or maybe make them triangular. I am happy with the way the wheels fold trough, its a single axis rotation, a simplicity that add some realism and hopefully easier work down the road. The circle on the bottom is 1.8m and it fit within that. There is space for a 0.6 docking port on top and on the rear. Given that the wheels fold onto the rear one I will probably replace it with some storage, rtg or else. Whats for sure is that it will have a rollcage, light and stuff all over the pressurized hull. I will probably start over a few time before making up my mind.

I was thinking about chopping the front hull to the shape of the sides window. But that work too!

Sorry, I will always have something to say lol. Only you can decide what to do. Btw, where did you got that kerbal model? I know they are roughly 1m 0.75m tall but scaling reference would be nice.

I got several concept ideas that may (or may not) interest you. I use to be a professional modeler, I even teached it, but that is a while ago. I am currently installing maya and if you wish I could post here what I came up with. One of these concept was inspired by your current one. If you shave the front of the pod in line with the side window, you will be able to recess the front wheels in that area. As for the rear, it could be interesting to not have the same body profile for extensions.

@JadeOfMaar Quite allot smaller than the other one. Are you fixed on the body shape?

@JadeOfMaarI forgot that stock scale still exist lol. I have been playing 6.4scale for so long! Given the limited use of the micro mass might be ok. One way or the other its easy to change. Ease of use, deployment, size of the full package (rover + deployment) are more challenging. As for Mini design, without the helmet they would have plenty of room. Size wise its similar to the other rover mods out there. That size is popular for a reason, its quite easy to add labs, drills and all. Question is, if its not gonna be compactness, how will it distinguish itself from the others? Sad face, I no more have Maya installed at home. Thad design gave me a idea.

I tested the wall mounted rover using part from various mod, just to see how it could work. The only folding part are the Portable Rover Components wheels and seats. without further folding its about as small as it can be. The total weight of the micro rover+ mount is 420kg. Which is still quite allot for something that ridiculously small. I mounted it on one of my late game omni lander. Deployment and recovery was easily done. I could not fully counterbalance the rover weight, the biggest issue was the drag anyways, at high speed its too much for the lander. I imagine that if the rover was a tad lighter and with cheesed drag it could work, a cargo bay adapted for it could be something to consider too. The fact that I was allowed to stack it at the base of my lander meant that the rail was relatively simple to make. I imagine that deployment could use something that allow further distance and height. A winch+crane would be the go to in real life, it may be possible to fake the winch cable, sounds quite complicated. A rail that can be stretched at will would probably be easier to do.

Correction: Wheels do not deploy correctly if they are spawned folded, it has nothing to do with Eva construction mode.

I agree. I trough the simplest way would be to have it stored at the base of the lander, then you just have to deploy the wheels and drop it. It doesn't have to be that way, but then part allowing easy deployment will be needed. It could be stored "vertically", on top or at the base of the lander. It would actually take less space that way. If the idea is to have it wall mounted or standing vertically, there might be better and/or simpler rover design for that. I tend to prefer traditional vertical lander. It might be possible to have something that allow horizontal lander too. One thing that I think would be important is the possibility of reloading the rover on the lander. A interesting idea might be that the lander capsule is actually the rover itself, but twisted upward. Storing it vertically would allow that, the challenge would be to make that into something that look good. Wall mounting would be the preferred solution for the tiny rover for sure, ideally it would include a shielded bay or fit into a existing one. As for the bigger rover, deployment method ideally would allow the possibility of recuperating it. A tiny arm with a connector could lower to ground level, dock and bring it back to its bay. I think that the tiny rover wont be very customizable by design, but since there is nothing like that atm it isn't much of a problem.

Very well, doing this trough PM would not have been fun. I am sure others would have great inputs too. For the ones that may wonder what we are talking about, the discussion started in Angels-124 WIP: Buffalo 2. We were talking about a foldable compact rover, similar in concept to the Apollo program lunar rover. We also discussed the possibility of making a larger enclosed one. As a discussion starter, I PM JadeOfMaar this quickly put together mookup of the larger design: I made a quick mookup of what could be the bigger rover version, it fold using Infernal robotic part. That one would be attached/detached from the lander trough top or bottom connection. Bottom cylinder is 2.5m but I think that it could be squeezed into a 1.875, maybe even less depending on the cockpit design. I imagine the cockpit very angular, somewhere between Apollo lander and Dark Knight's Tumbler. The external seat model could reuse the same wheels, just scaled down version. Not quite sure how it could fold enough to be stored on the side of a lander trough. Here are the image

It seems that wheels do not deploy correctly when installed in EVA construction mode. Also, they cant be installed to the frame when it lay on the ground as the wheel clip into the ground. Not sure how that could be fixed trough.

@JadeOfMaarYeah, there is several ways to do this. We should probably move this discussion elsewhere.