Front rover wheels in reverse

[Mister Kerman]

Hello. I made a rover and have been driving it slowly around the Mun's surface for seismic surveys. It's slow but works great.

I just loaded up KSP and now all of a sudden my rover's front wheels spin in reverse. I can disable the motors but my rover is very underpowered and it's going to really mess with any hills I need to climb.

Is there a way to get them spinning in the right direction? I've tried sitting in the passenger seat and switching "control from here" to Jeb. Nothing changes it.

[Slam_Jones]

It's possible you may have put them on upside-down. I know it's happened to me... nothin worse than putting a bunch of time into it, launching it up to the Mun, landing it safely, and then realizing you put something on upside-down. Happened to me too many times to admit...

One possible solution is to disable the motors (right click and there should be an option there) on the wheels that are spinning the wrong way. This basically puts them into 'neutral' and allows them to spin freely whichever way you're moving.

Good luck!

[Mister Dilsby]

Is there a way to get them spinning in the right direction? I've tried sitting in the passenger seat and switching "control from here" to Jeb. Nothing changes it.

That is really strange! So is it the case that the front and rear wheels now spin in opposite directions? Generally unless wheels are upside-down they all spin the same way, and "forward" is determined by the POV of the controlling seat or probe. (I can't tell you how many times I've put an OKTO on upside-down and had the darn thing drive the wrong way)

Do you have Hyperedit installed? http://www.kerbaltek.com/hyperedit This is a really useful debug tool. If it were me, I would try the following:

--make a new instance of the rover directly from your SPH or VAB craft, and drive it around the space center to confirm it works there.

--use Hyperedit to put a clean ship on the mun (perhaps in a sandbox save, or a copy of your persistent.sfs) and see what happens

If all else fails and you can't figure out why the wheels are backwards, then maybe hyperedit a 'clean' copy of the rover up to Mun to replace the glitchy one. Working around a glitch is not cheating

[Mister Kerman]

Yeah I donno guys. They worked fine until I closed my game. When I loaded it up to play yesterday they went in reverse. I just disabled them.

I completed the mission with just the rear motors so it's not a big deal anymore. I don't want it happening again is all Since I don't understand how it happened.

I'm running stock KSP in case that helps.

Edit: Here's the rover. Maybe the wheels are too tilty or something. It's just weird that it works when I launched it then the next day it doesn't.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Mister Kerman

[Guest]

Sounds like a corrupted savefile.

What happens when you launch another of your rover from the SPH?

[William Nye]

How can you tell they are going in reverse? Maybe the front wheels just have no power. It's night and I don't see any batteries or anything.

[Slam_Jones]

Yeah I donno guys. They worked fine until I closed my game. When I loaded it up to play yesterday they went in reverse. I just disabled them.

I completed the mission with just the rear motors so it's not a big deal anymore. I don't want it happening again is all Since I don't understand how it happened.

I'm running stock KSP in case that helps.

Edit: Here's the rover. Maybe the wheels are too tilty or something. It's just weird that it works when I launched it then the next day it doesn't.

http://i.imgur.com/vmmvA8j.jpg

I think it may be the tiltyness causing the issue there. Try to make a modified version with all vertical wheels. If that works, tilt them slightly and make sure they still work. Repeat as needed!

[everchanging02]

I'm having similar issues.  Have a simple rover I made.  Launched it the first time, had no problems.  Landed on Mun, scouted about, ended up hitting a crater it couldn't handle.  Launched rover #2 - exact same design as saved in the VAB from the first launch.  Get to Mun, start driving it, and the right side of the rover is going the opposite direction of the left side (net forward/reverse motion of 0 - I end up just spinning in circles, depending on the level of traction I can get).  Could I independently control the directions of the four wheels, I would be set, but since I made the rover in the SPH with mirroring, it thinks I want the same action on the left side as I do on the right.  Going to try to edit the persistent file to make the change to the independent wheels.  Hopefully it will hold.

 

After editing the Left Front and Right Rear wheels to be "Inverted: False" and the Left Rear and Right Front wheels to be "Inverted: True", it works as expected/desired.  Will not even try to click on the wheels, now, for fear the orientation may get messed up, again.

Edited October 1, 2016 by everchanging02
Typo and additional info

[Val]

9 hours ago, everchanging02 said:

Get to Mun, start driving it, and the right side of the rover is going the opposite direction of the left side (net forward/reverse motion of 0 - I end up just spinning in circles, depending on the level of traction I can get).

Make sure that the rovers controlling part is mounted correctly.

The problem you describe and of the OP often happens when the controlling part is accidentally mounted on it's side.

[everchanging02]

11 hours ago, Val said:

Make sure that the rovers controlling part is mounted correctly.

The problem you describe and of the OP often happens when the controlling part is accidentally mounted on it's side.

Not my issue.  The navball was always in the correct direction.
My theory is that I had the probe core for the lander selected as "Control from Here" before deploying my inline-decoupleable rover, and so it changed it to thinking it had been made in VAB instead of SPH.  When I launched the third lander, I made sure not to select "Control from Here" on the lander's probe core (letting control just transfer via staging), and it worked out just fine after I decoupled the rover and switched to it.

Edited October 2, 2016 by everchanging02
Typo

[Magzimum]

Something similar happens to me all the time. I never tilt my wheels, so I doubt that has anything to do with it. Two suggestions:

1. The quick fix that works quite often is to get your Kerbal out of his seat, and then just let him/her board again (take the seat again). That resets quite a few of the wheel problems.
2. If that fails, then toggling some "control from here" between a small probe core and the seat may work. I usually let my Kerbal board a capsule or pod, and then EVA again to the seat... but since you don't have a pod, you may hopefully let the Kerbal leave his seat, control from a probe core, then let the Kerbal take the seat again.

My gut feeling is that solution 1 will work, because the rover worked initially, and started failing only after reloading.

[Palaceviking]

People!  You really all need to get on 1.2 (backup your save!)wheels sorted

[everchanging02]

My rover was a simple RoveMate-based unmanned rover, so I couldn't toggle controls anywhere.  I have yet to ship a manned rover out anywhere, since I deal with a life support mod...  >.>

 

Currently sporting a modified 1.1.3 and adjusting it's parts categories/sorting to Pre-1.2.  I won't move to 1.2 until all the mods I want catch up, as I like the extra challenge they provide.   Was stuck on 1.0.5 until a couple months ago, since one of my mods had not be updated to work with 1.1.3.  Broke some of my ships in the upgrade (some sort of Kraken, likely related to how I hid parts within other parts), but at least it doesn't take hours to dock with space stations anymore (yay, 64-bit)!