Breaking the 22.7 m/s rover speed barrier

[Jetenginestar]

For some reasons all my cars have a top speed of only 22.7m/s, while Mareczex's cars all travel faster than 22.7 m/s, I know it has something to do with control surfaces but I haven't figure out how, any explanation would be greatly appriciated.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Jetenginestar

[Vectura]

What wheels are you using, and do you have rocket/jet engines to assist you?

[BagelRabbit]

For some reasons all my cars have a top speed of only 22.7m/s, while Mareczex's cars all travel faster than 22.7 m/s, I know it has something to do with control surfaces but I haven't figure out how, any explanation would be greatly appriciated.

http://i.imgur.com/rrxl5Cy.png

Control surfaces in this game are broken. When they are pitched up and down, they generate a force on the craft. Normally, this force would adjust the flight angle of a plane or rocket. However, when your craft is on the ground, the force does two things if applied properly: it pushes your craft into the ground (downforce) and it pushes your craft forwards.

Downforce allows for faster acceleration (as your wheels are gripping the ground better) but it alone isn't capable of making your car go faster.

The forward force, however, propels your car to speeds that it otherwise could not reach. Using this force alone, I've gotten a relatively normal car's speed past 40 m/s.

So, that's basically the reason. Hopefully I won't be ninja'd by the time I post.

-Upsilon

[Vanamonde]

Are you sure that's not just the self-limit on the "ruggedized" TR-2L wheels?

[Laie]

UpsilonAerospace nailed it.

The effect is called infinigliding. You want control surfaces that are angled relative to prograde. Probably it will work best if it looks like an ordinary spoiler.

[worir4]

That car looks awesome, to make it faster try moar boosters.

[LABHOUSE]

Send me the craft file, I can speed it up with modifications.

[Jonathan.cote]

Hummmmm

22.7 meters per seconds... that is 1362 meters per minute... 81720 meters per hours... that be 817.2 km per hours or for your Americans 507.78 miles per hours...

I don't build rover/cars... that looks pretty fast to me.

[BagelRabbit]

Hummmmm

22.7 meters per seconds... that is 1362 meters per minute... 81720 meters per hours... that be 817.2 km per hours or for your Americans 507.78 miles per hours...

I don't build rover/cars... that looks pretty fast to me.

You misplaced a decimal. 81,720 meters per hour is 81.7km per hour or about 50 miles per hour. At 60 m/s, or about 134 mph, the rover wheels break. If you're traveling over land at 227 meters per second, you're either doing something wrong, or maybe you're doing something very, very right.

-Upsilon

[kStrout]

Hummmmm

22.7 meters per seconds... that is 1362 meters per minute... 81720 meters per hours... that be 817.2 km per hours or for your Americans 507.78 miles per hours...

I don't build rover/cars... that looks pretty fast to me.

I think you messed up there, you only moved the decimal 2 places over instead of 3. It's a much more sedate pace of 81.72 km/h

[Jonathan.cote]

Ah dam, you are right.

MY bad

[cantab]

Downforce does increase speeds in KSP. I've done it with rockets but wings should work too. Though I agree that a lot of the effect is probably infinigliding.

[MarvinKitFox]

1) Dont use the propelled "rover" wheels, just run on airplane undercarriage

2) use some other means for propulsion. A favorite is angled control surfaces. They *look* like spoilers, but they provide thrust via physics/fizzics interaction.

Rover wheels have a speed limit over which they cannot provide more acceleration, and a second higher speed limit over which they self-destruct.

Landing gear wheels have no speed limit, only force limits.

[Renegrade]

Re: the m/s to km/h thing - it's *3600/1000 for that conversion, but it's not that hard to remember that that works out to *3.6 dammit~