Increasing wheel/kerbal traction/friction on low-g

[tutike2000]

Hi there,

I'm currently a bit annoyed by a couple of things:

1) Let's say you're on Minmus or the Mun, go on EVA, then bump your kerbal against something and he ragdolls. If you're on a slope, he'll just go sliding down and down for (possibly) several kilometers.

Is there a mod that will make kerbals more 'sticky' ?

Or one that will make them recover faster from being hit?

2) Driving a 4-wheeled rover on Minmus (or other low-g worlds) is like driving on ice. Is there anything that will allow me to move around, break, turn etc at 10-20 m/s ? Apart from downward thrusting engines, that is. A mod with sticky wheels/tracks ?

Edited June 30, 2015 by tutike2000

[Foxster]

Dunno about 1) but don't give up on 2)! It is possible.

I have a rover that you can belt along on at a great rate of knots. Unfortunately it does mean doing what you said you didn't want to - have a down-pointing engine. I found the lightest, smallest and longest lasting solution is to use an ion engine pointing down, located at the centre of mass. You'll need to coat your rover with solar panels but it will be satisfying to get it working.

You can also get something that will corner a bit better than the usual rover by making it very wide and very low. So maybe try that first?

[tutike2000]

You can also get something that will corner a bit better than the usual rover by making it very wide and very low. So maybe try that first?

The problem isn't that my rovers flip, they don't. They just slide at 45-90 degrees relative to the direction of movement. It's like Tokyo Drift all day every day on Minmus.

Either that, or it takes half a kilometer to break from 20 m/s.

Is wheel traction directly proportional to the amount of weight on top of it? Or is it a fixed value, and you can 'cheat' by adding a whole bunch more wheels ?

[RW-1]

My minmus rovers are ion powered, however for flying, not driving. But barring that, yeah, point one up to hold yourself down.

[Nich]

at that point you might as well just fly around rather then use a rover.

[rofltehcat]

Rovers suck. Wheels are more slippery than butter discs. Even with the stock bugfixes installed.

[Sharpy]

Instead of depending on the downward thrust that needs to be maintained most of the time, simply give your rover a good RCS. The wheels are there to keep you from breaking apart from fast movement. The RCS is for turning.

[Snark]

Yes, rovers on low-g worlds like Minmus can be awkward, but I find that the real problem is not so much that they skid, as that they flip.

Fortunately, that's a fairly easy problem to solve: just give the rover a reasonably hefty torque from reaction wheels, turn on SAS, and you're set.

It does mean you have to get used to a slightly different style of rover steering-- it means that when you drive the rover, you need to use the rotation controls in addition to the wheel-steering controls, otherwise SAS keeps you pointing the same way. But I find that in practice this is no big deal (and in fact, I often just skip the steering controls and just muscle it around with pure torque.)

If I expect to be driving somewhere that has some steep slopes, then I'll usually equip the rover with some rocket power (e.g. an Oscar-B with Spark at the back end of the rover). I don't use it for holding the rover down on the ground; rather, it's for a boost (when going up) or emergency braking (when going down) on really steep hills.