What are rovers used for?

[cephalo]

Are rovers just for fun, or are they the best way to do something? For collecting science, it seems like it would be better to just hop around with thrusters. Driving to another part of a world seems like it would take forever.

[WeirdCulture]

Hops needs fuel.

[Tex]

It might take time, yeah, but in my opinion it's both safer and more fun. Sure, I've used both methods, but I think it's always fun to make rover trips. I love those little wheeled things.

[Gaarst]

Rovers are the best way to determine which between the centrifugal force and gravity is the strongest while trying to turn right angle at 20 m/s (FYI, centrifugal often wins)

[Randazzo]

Rovers can serve many purposes! It really depends on how you build them and what you need them for.

This was a seismic survey contract on the Mun. A rover was used to drive around to the various points.

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You can also strap engines to them so they can land themselves or do suborbital hops on the surface.

Same rover design on Dres, where it covered almost two hundred kilometers total (with a suborbital hop):

Or you can go big, and send a space bus for Science!:

[arkie87]

Rovers can serve many purposes! It really depends on how you build them and what you need them for.

This was a seismic survey contract on the Mun. A rover was used to drive around to the various points.

http://imgur.com/a/Ysa9D

You can also strap engines to them so they can land themselves or do suborbital hops on the surface.

http://i.imgur.com/S9BXN1Yh.jpg

Same rover design on Dres, where it covered almost two hundred kilometers total (with a suborbital hop):

http://i.imgur.com/R4bRT6Oh.jpg

Or you can go big, and send a space bus for Science!:

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

http://i.imgur.com/rn1nD86h.jpg

Yeah, overall, rovers aren't necessary since driving across biomes takes forever on big bodies or have no traction on small bodies. What would be better is if those investigation contracts were slightly changed such that instead of four points we had a region to investigate, and there was a small part to actually find. That way we could use rovers to drive around a small distance like less than 10 km.

[Geschosskopf]

Are rovers just for fun, or are they the best way to do something? For collecting science, it seems like it would be better to just hop around with thrusters. Driving to another part of a world seems like it would take forever.

Rovers are pretty much required for running a refueling base using the new Ore system (or any of the other refueling mods). The only way to avoid them there is if you're such a god at landing that you can drop your ship right on an up-turned docking port of the mining base. Otherwise, you need a big fuel tank on wheels to move fuel between the mining base and the thirsty ship that landed some distance away.

For exploration or long-distance hauling, rovers work well at the places where it's physically very difficult or prohibitively expensive to fly around (whether with wings or rockets). IOW, places with reasonably smooth terrain, little or no atmosphere, and reasonably high gravity. So, rovers are good at Moho, Eve, Duna, Ike, Dres, Vall, Tylo, and Eeloo. Also Kerbin and Laythe but you can fly there so why bother (and Laythe's islands are so small you can't rove far anyway)? You can fly on Eve with the right mods, and Ike, Dres, and Vall are sort of borderline between using a rover or a hopper, but rovers still work reasonably well there. You can fly (after a fashion) at Duna even with stock, but it requires great ingenuity and careful execution--rovers are much easier and it's fun playing dunebuggy over an entire planet.

Rovers are not particularly good for exploring on Mun due to all the craters causing frequent, long detours. Minmus and anything that size or smaller doesn't have enough gravity to really hold the wheels on the ground, so rovers are a pain and it's much easier just to hop around in a lander.

[cephalo]

I'm loving the 'Space Bus'. Can those wheels really take the force of a landing?

[capi3101]

They're useful when you want to go from one point to another on a planet's surface but you aren't sure of your ability to land safely in the area - such as when you accept a contract to survey crap on Kerbin and one of the points turns out to be in an area with a 37 degree grade...

[Randazzo]

I'm loving the 'Space Bus'. Can those wheels really take the force of a landing?

Given how (relatively) easy it is to land on minmus, they probably could have, but the Bus has regular landing gear on the side that were deployed for the initial touchdown. It also had engines attached (and a reaction wheel on each end for better control) which were blown off before that picture. They may not be obviously visible but it has some RCS engines pointing upwards used solely to provide some downforce while braking, it's a touch difficult to stop on Minmus otherwise.

Here's the album if you want a better look at the design. Clicking on it should bring up the bigger version on imgur.

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Edited May 12, 2015 by Randazzo

[Daveroski]

I'm loving the 'Space Bus'. Can those wheels really take the force of a landing?

Probably not, but those legs it also has, can.