Car Wheels - High performance wheels for use on Kerbin.

[BlueCanary]

In KSP the limit for rover speed seems to be about 22m/s. I realise that in real life this would be stupidly fast for a rover, and for craft on other planets I think it's about right for KSP, but when driving cars and trucks on Kerbin being limited to about 40mph can get really frustrating, especially on long journeys.

So, my suggestion is, in addition to the current rover wheels, a set of car wheels that can run at much higher speeds, say 70m/s on a light craft. To stop these being overused and to stop them being used so much on rovers (as opposed to cars), they could be heavier and have much higher energy requirements than rover wheels, or maybe use liquid fuel and intake air (as a real internal combustion powered car would), limiting them to use on Kerbin or Laythe.

This would allow for much more practical transit around the surface of kerbin, and would only require the addition of one part to the game. Also, I'd imagine (although I have next to no programming experience) now would be a good time for such an addition to be added, since Unity 5 is meaning Squad have to redo wheels anyway.

[waterlubber]

70 m/s is...*drumroll* 156 mph.Wow. Maybe a more suitable speed would be a maximum of 30 m/s, because that's about 70 mph. You won't get 50 in a car going off-road, so I don't see much of a purpose.

[katateochi]

70 m/s is...*drumroll* 156 mph.Wow. Maybe a more suitable speed would be a maximum of 30 m/s, because that's about 70 mph. You won't get 50 in a car going off-road, so I don't see much of a purpose.

yes 156 mph is fast, on Earth.....It's not so fast on Kerbin. Well obviously its the same speed, but what I mean is that our perception of that speed is very different because the terrain detail in KSP is so much less than on Earth. So I don't think talking about realistic Earth speeds has the same meaning on Kerbin. On Earth there is so much more detail and points of interest are frequent, on Kerbin (or any KSP planet) the terrain is sparse and points of interest are few and far between. In the interests of fun I think land based vehicles need to be able to go fast.

I'd also don't think 50mph for RL off-road is that outrageous, maybe for a car, but I've hit 76kmph (47mph) driving a quad across open grass-lands before. And 30m/s (67mph) for a game vehicle!? In RL a car can go much faster than that and it's not like there are any cops around on Kerbin

I think that the current max speed of 60m/s for wheels is ok, the problem is that at those speeds (or a bit below) even the slightest bump breaks the wheel. So I don't think wheels need a faster top speed, I think they need to be a bit more durable so you can sustain driving at those speeds without constantly having to stop to repair the wheels.

OP, the way I get fast rovers on Kerbin is to use RCS boosters, that lets you get up to ~50m/s quite happily. I've also been tweaking the impactTolerance of the ruggedized wheel (increasing it from 300 to 400-450) so it's less prone to breaking when going over terrain glitches, bumps and small jumps.

Obviously rover wheels are not like regular tyres, and so OP's suggestion of having a higher speed capable regular tyre is an idea I'd support for derping around on Kerbin (and the idea of having a combustion engine is nice too, but maybe better suited for a mod than core game). But would you need the combustion engine requirement to prevent the wheel from being used in off-world rovers? Wouldn't a conventional car tyre just explode if you took it into space?

[John FX]

My opinion is that it would be nice to either have wheels that can withstand faster speeds or (my preferred option) procedurally generated 'stuff' which can be examined for SCIENCE! Which would mean either way less time travelling until you got to something interesting.

[BlueCanary]

70 m/s is...*drumroll* 156 mph.Wow. Maybe a more suitable speed would be a maximum of 30 m/s, because that's about 70 mph. You won't get 50 in a car going off-road, so I don't see much of a purpose.

Yeah, but you would get 156mph in a racecar or high performance sports car. So to get to 70m/s you'd need a really light, low drag car, and use tonnes of fuel/electricity, but, say, a heavy pick-up truck thing would get 30m/s.

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What about a rover wheel, running on liquid fuel and intake air to approximate an internal combustion engine, which could have a tweakable (in editors only) that lets it be boosted for higher speed and power at the expense of higher fuel usage and maybe weight. The fuel efficiency would go down too, so a wheel producing twice the power would need more than twice the fuel, so it would be more balanced.

This would only need one part added but would open up pretty much every type of non-space-related ground based vehicle I can think of, from high performance racing cars and big trucks to light, efficient kerbal carriers.

I know you can put RCS and rockets on to get speeds higher, but these, especially since 1.0, will run out quickly and it just feels a bit silly to put rockets on a car to get over 40 miles an hour.

[Xannari Ferrows]

...or maybe use liquid fuel and intake air (as a real internal combustion powered car would), limiting them to use on Kerbin or Laythe.

That's not directly true. The Ethanol mixture is for the alternator, which charges the battery, which powers the wheels. The air intake at the front is to cool the combustion chamber and keep everything running smoothly.

[Merandix]

22 m/s is 79,2 km/h or, if you insist, 49,2 mph (use 2,2 for quick and imprecise conversion). How did you end up with 40?

I'd like it much better if we could give probe cores (and thus rovers) instructions, so they'd drive wherever the heck we want them autonomously.

[clivman]

KSP is not about exploring Kerbin anyways, and even the best rovers in RL only drive about 25 miles in the years they are active

[KrazyKrl]

I'd say make it an even 39.3395 m/sec. Because anything above that is kind of absurd for a ground vehicle on another planet. If you want to do short hops quickly, go suborbital in my opinion.

[11of10]

You forgot the Flux capacitor

Anyway, I'd really be a lot happier if at least some pitiful kind of "rover" wheels were available at lower tech levels. It's really killing me to have to go higher than NERVA to get wheels for my mining rig! (I'm cheap, sue me, I don't want to pay premium rates for Xenon!)

[BlueCanary]

I'd say make it an even 39.3395 m/sec. Because anything above that is kind of absurd for a ground vehicle on another planet. If you want to do short hops quickly, go suborbital in my opinion.

I'm not talking about other planets though. This would be effectively kerbin only by requiring intake air, and would make the ground support vehicles very important to space programs more practical.

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KSP is not about exploring Kerbin anyways, and even the best rovers in RL only drive about 25 miles in the years they are active

Rovers are a completely different thing though. For cars and trucks, which are very important to aerospace programs- recovery trucks, pilot transport, fire/rescue, rocket transporters - none of which are neccessary in ksp, but are fun

[clivman]

I'm not talking about other planets though. This would be effectively kerbin only by requiring intake air, and would make the ground support vehicles very important to space programs more practical.

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Rovers are a completely different thing though. For cars and trucks, which are very important to aerospace programs- recovery trucks, pilot transport, fire/rescue, rocket transporters - none of which are neccessary in ksp, but are fun

If so they should add trains and aircraft carriers and recovery helicopters. KSP is about the space program not messing around with Nascar replicas- that is what mods are for.

[BlueCanary]

If so they should add trains and aircraft carriers and recovery helicopters. KSP is about the space program not messing around with Nascar replicas- that is what mods are for.

In what way are recovery and support operations not part of a space program? I find KSP is much more fun if I try and play the non-spaceflight sections too, and some more powerful, kerbin only wheels would make this much more practical.

[Kuu Lightwing]

Who needs cars when you can FLY?! Flying is infinite times cooler than driving, duh! Or if you reeeally want NOT to fly, build a jetcar!

More seriously, really, what are the uses for that? I mean... why on Kerbin would you need a car?

[clivman]

In what way are recovery and support operations not part of a space program? I find KSP is much more fun if I try and play the non-spaceflight sections too, and some more powerful, kerbin only wheels would make this much more practical.

I guess that it would be cool to do recovery, but then single-part ships and helicopter engines need to be added first along with winches before wheels are added. And they need to add more rocket parts before they focus on this.

[BlueCanary]

Who needs cars when you can FLY?! Flying is infinite times cooler than driving, duh! Or if you reeeally want NOT to fly, build a jetcar!

More seriously, really, what are the uses for that? I mean... why on Kerbin would you need a car?

Not so much need, as want, for non-essential but (for me at least, and by the amount of these kind of crafts in the spacecraft exchange a lot of others) fun craft/crew recovery missions, and ground support of flying vehicles.

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I guess that it would be cool to do recovery, but then single-part ships and helicopter engines need to be added first along with winches before wheels are added. And they need to add more rocket parts before they focus on this.

I'm only suggesting this before helicopter parts/winches etc. because I think in comparison this would be a really simple addition that would add a lot of options to the game - just one part, barely more than a tweaked version of the already present wheels, whereas helicopters and things would require (I think) vast amounts of work.