How to tow objects on the surface?

[Budgie]

Playing with Mun and Duna base ideas with Chaka Monkey Exploration System pack. His included rover is great, but not much space for KIS containers on the bed of that rover. I wanted to make a towable trailer to land at the base and use with it. I cannot get it to play nice with a KAS connection, docked or undocked plug-in, though. It just bumps the towing vehicle all over the place, or flips over. Its just a mess. The trailer doesn't slow down at the same rate as the towing vehicle. And I can't think of any other way to connect the two and still allow for manoeuvrability.

Any ideas to make a trailer that will actually allow me to drive sanely and safely. I'd preferably like to avoid crawling all over the Mun at a snail's pace. Thanks!

[Vim Razz]

I like the free-spinning washer from Infernal Robotics with a docking port on it (+ port on the trailer hitch). The ports keep the joint flexy enough to handle reasonably uneven terrain on top of allowing trailers to be disconnected/reconnected, and the washer is a nice little pivot.

Some thought/experiences with this approach:

- The brakes on the trailer will work with the rover brakes -- but so will steering, motors, and reaction wheels so remembering to lock/disable them is a thing. SAS will be horribly confused by the setup and is not your friend here.

- Jr ports provide more flex than standard ports. This can be good or bad depending on vehicle size, terrain, etc.

- It's a bit of immersion breaking when you jack-knife your trailer, since everything is technically one docked ship and won't collide with itself.

- A landing leg is needed on the trailer hitch to lift it up enough to get the rover hitch under it. You also need a command seat or probe core or something on the trailer to operate the leg. It's really annoying to try and hook things up without them.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Vim Razz

[mattssheep4]

Maybe try using the Klaw with the pivot unlocked.

[T-Pilot395]

Why not use KAS and retract the winch so that the trailer's front end is almost kissing the rear of the tractor unit? You'll have a pretty good makeshift trailer hitch. Of course, make sure to account for things such as rolling distance and quicksave regularly in case of kraken attacks.

[Bob Jub]

Kerbal Attachment System was made for this

[Budgie]

Why not use KAS and retract the winch so that the trailer's front end is almost kissing the rear of the tractor unit? You'll have a pretty good makeshift trailer hitch. Of course, make sure to account for things such as rolling distance and quicksave regularly in case of kraken attacks.

I'll give it a go!

Kerbal Attachment System was made for this

Yea, for sure. But KSP physics and towing don't play nice. At faster speeds and any kind of turning, the towed object begins to flip or not turn. And when braking, all sorts of crashes and bad things happen

[Overland]

I'll give it a go!

Yea, for sure. But KSP physics and towing don't play nice. At faster speeds and any kind of turning, the towed object begins to flip or not turn. And when braking, all sorts of crashes and bad things happen

Depends on a few things really.. stock or mostly stock speaking .. post 1.0 the docking ports alone no longer function as 1 on 1 couplings.. squad did something to them to make them more ideal for space stations etc in that their much more rigid than they used to be.. I used to use couplings like this for the mid generation trains I was driving.. but since then they became extremely hard to steer almost to the point that your breaking physics and tempting the kracken by trying to turn and or tow something

the solution for me was a 2 fold thing..

NEVER use the small docking port to tow anything.. not in current versions.. around 0.20 it used to be ok.. but even then I put that cone shaped spacer between a locomotive and her wagons..

in the best case scenario using the small docking port with or without a spacer will pull the docking port away from the rolling stock physicly while being bound to the same object still.. giving an extreme rubber banding effect that pulls everything different ways all the time in a very unpredictable way.. .. if you MUST use this small docking port for towing for any reason its only good for shunting or slow speed operations.. im approaching this from a train perspective but it translates the same into a car/trailer also

use the docking port.. not jr or sr.. the plain docking port.. it works quite well but as previously mentioned they made it strong as hell post 1.0.. if you want something to smoothly turn.. put it on the end of that cone shaped truss. it'll still transfer fuel and electricity.. but it'll have the elastic properties and smooth turning you want. I use them from 3 to 5 car fuel wagon trains and it does me well..

im taking a little leave from trains myself while I deal with real world issues.. but I was just floating around the forums when I saw this.. so PM me if you want any more advise or post here and i'll check back maybe

as an example i'll post a modern video of former 40 class #3 on her maiden mainline testing.. poor girl didnt last too long.. but you'll see how the couplings work.. all this is using stock or close to stock.. so I dont know how using mods would go.. they may be too slack and free pivoting for hauling anything with a degree of accuracy..

always disable steering on any towed vehicle too.. also helps to kill off the electric motors of a trailer.. use the lead unit as a locomotive..or if you must only power the back wheels of every 4 wheeled trailer.. no steering ..

Keep the speed below 30m/s as well. things get a little scary above that and the rear most wagon will start dancing.. take corners slow.. accelerate on straights.. standard stuff really for any heavy equiptment

should yield the results your looking for

(although things are better with more than 1 trailer.. aka..a train )

This is the only "modern" video I have.. the rest are post 1.0 so the couplings act differently