Why use rovers?

[Ferdoni]

Hi fellow Kerbonauts!!

So I’m quite far in the career now and getting ready to use rovers but…

Why should I???

I mean, if you want to collect data from other biomes, you can just easily hop there with your rocket. Besides, driving there would cost ages.

So my question is this; what is the advantage of rovers (manned or unmanned) and how do you use them?

Thanks in advance!

[Frederf]

With clever choice of landing spot it's possible to be very near 2 or 3 or more biomes such that a rover trek was practical. Biome scanning and mapping really help. I really really wish someone makes a "Trek" mod to abstract long motions by walking Kerbals, boats, rovers, etc. without the tedium of holding down "W."

There are several surprising uses for rovers besides transportation buggies. Any time you need to dock craft on the ground wheels really help. An orbital craft landing next to a refueling miner really benefits from a "truck" so you don't have to do the infamously difficult hoverdock procedure. An Eve probe might roll to the top of a hill before liftoff as it really changes the required fuel to escape the atmosoup. Cranes are popular as are full mobile gantries.

If you want to layout navigation beacons for landing on the KSC runway a wheeled drone is handy. Similarly spotlights on wheels can help illuminate buildings and landing areas both at home and abroad.

[Dilli]

They can be useful for surface bases and exploration.

For science biome hopping is usually much easier on airless low gravity bodies but for high gravity and/or dense atmosphere bodies rovers become more practicle. I have used them to get science from neighboring biomes on EVE (land, lake and see if I remember correctly), to look for landing sites on moons and to explore the landscape, and to transfer ore from a base to a landed ship.

[percyPrune]

without the tedium of holding down "W."

A small screwdriver hooked under the "S" key and resting on "W" works wonders...

... as long as you don't drive off a cliff while you are away making a cup of tea

[Skorpychan]

Electricity is free.

Otherwise, Mechjeb has 'rover autopilot' if you don't want to hold W the whole time. There's also the 'ghetto autopilot', which is a small but heavy object placed on the W key.

I've used that when Jeb ran out of jetpack fuel a ways out from the rocket, and had to walk back.

[Ferdoni]

Any time you need to dock craft on the ground wheels really help. An orbital craft landing next to a refueling miner really benefits from a "truck" so you don't have to do the infamously difficult hoverdock procedure. An Eve probe might roll to the top of a hill before liftoff as it really changes the required fuel to escape the atmosoup. Cranes are popular as are full mobile gantries.

If you want to layout navigation beacons for landing on the KSC runway a wheeled drone is handy. Similarly spotlights on wheels can help illuminate buildings and landing areas both at home and abroad.

They can be useful for surface bases and exploration.

For science biome hopping is usually much easier on airless low gravity bodies but for high gravity and/or dense atmosphere bodies rovers become more practicle. I have used them to get science from neighboring biomes on EVE (land, lake and see if I remember correctly), to look for landing sites on moons and to explore the landscape, and to transfer ore from a base to a landed ship.

Okey, those are quite useful options, especially the ground docking part.

[magnemoe]

Hi fellow Kerbonauts!!

So I’m quite far in the career now and getting ready to use rovers but…

Why should I???

I mean, if you want to collect data from other biomes, you can just easily hop there with your rocket. Besides, driving there would cost ages.

So my question is this; what is the advantage of rovers (manned or unmanned) and how do you use them?

Thanks in advance!

On bodies with decent gravity, Mun or higher doing lots of jumps is expensive,

On Mun you can sample 7 biomes at one location and 3-4 at another within a few km.

Sames goes for the surface science nodes, and if you mess up the landings you can just drive to target.

[Dilli]

Electricity is free.

Otherwise, Mechjeb has 'rover autopilot' if you don't want to hold W the whole time. There's also the 'ghetto autopilot', which is a small but heavy object placed on the W key.

I've used that when Jeb ran out of jetpack fuel a ways out from the rocket, and had to walk back.

I think that trim settings (ALT + H ?) can also be used to auto-pilot rovers.

[Ferdoni]

On Mun you can sample 7 biomes at one location and 3-4 at another within a few km.

Where is that?

Thanks also for the tips

[Tim_the_Plumber]

I have a fork lift truck thingy at my Mininus base which helps with the pushing around ships that need to dock to the mining station. I'm also considering moving it 2km to a slightly better spot. I might do this with the rover.

[Janos1986]

Well, surface sampling/eva report missions usually give you locations a few kilometers apart, so a rover helps you with that.

You could also go by foot or with RCS, but in places like Duna that would be pretty difficult/time consuming.

[Laie]

On Mun you can sample 7 biomes at one location and 3-4 at another within a few km.

Where is that?

There's two large canyons on the Mun, one going roughly north-south, one going east-west. The juiciest spot I'm aware of is where the east-west canyon meets a large, named crater. Within a circle of perhaps 5km there's canyons, that crater, mid- and highlands as well as mid- and highland craters. Plus one odd biome that shouldn't be there (northwest crater perhaps?) Easy to exploit with wheels, much more difficult with a pure lander.

And one of the large equatorial craters is rimmed with thin rings of poles and polar lowlands. I think you can even glimpse this in the Alt-F12 biome view.

[kerbiloid]

You can stop rover at any moment, get out then come back.

You can precisely move a rover back and forth placing it at the desired location.

If rover gets out of fuel, it just stops, not drops.

[Ferdoni]

There's two large canyons on the Mun, one going roughly north-south, one going east-west. The juiciest spot I'm aware of is where the east-west canyon meets a large, named crater. Within a circle of perhaps 5km there's canyons, that crater, mid- and highlands as well as mid- and highland craters. Plus one odd biome that shouldn't be there (northwest crater perhaps?) Easy to exploit with wheels, much more difficult with a pure lander.

And one of the large equatorial craters is rimmed with thin rings of poles and polar lowlands. I think you can even glimpse this in the Alt-F12 biome view.

Found it!