Rovers...what for?

[Fearless Son]

I sometimes use rovers for collecting science from different biomes, sure.  For example in my current career save I sent a probe ahead to Duna to scout for science, and I equipped it with a disposable lander can to get the science-bearing rover onto the surface near the intersection of a couple of biomes, then transmitted the science from there.  

However, I have found rovers useful for certain kinds of contract fulfillment as well.  For example, I recently had a contract to take gravity readings at three distinct points on the Mun.  These points were close together, but distant enough that collecting data from one would not overlap with the other.  That meant either sending a ship that could take off and land at each point (requires quite a lot of onboard fuel and is risky since these sites are near a crater edge and landing can be tricky) or it needs a way to transport the scientific apparatus across the surface.  I choose the later method and landed a rover there, and drove it to all three locations and back to the lander.  

[Just Jim]

There is another use for rovers... building bases.  I haven't tried this yet, but a player on the steam forum built a really impressive base on Minmus by sliding different sections into position and docking them into place using a rover.  He called it "The Sprawl", and I'm thinking of trying the same thing, now that I finally have a contract for a base on Minmus. 

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I have to admit it'd be cool to have some high performance rally car class parts that run on LFO 

Quick question, is there a way to lock the W key down when going forward long distances?

Rover for base assembly https://youtu.be/yxScp2ZymSU?t=47  Great YT channel BTW

Edited December 22, 2015 by Waxing_Kibbous

[Shark4558]

hello, the rovers while not suitable for long distances, are very suitable for short and medium distances (with very patience),and also are suitable for survey contracts in career,its very good because the points to investigate arent very far away from each other and also, (returning to point noted above), jumping using a lander is certainly limited and "imprecise, while a rover is very precise,and very safe compared to running out of fuel in middle of a hop to the survey place. 
in addition, the rover can carry loads without having problems with load COM or lost DV, and as some say, also serves to get science from adjacent biomes, without worrying about the things i mentioned above.  

but on top of everything,patience driving and testing the rover. 

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, as for myself, in spite of loving to rover around ( Kerbin is a very pretty planet even on stock ... ), I decided to abstain of rovers until the new wheels come out with 1.1 . The current ones are way too glitchy for long travels :/

[322997am]

1 hour ago, Shark4558 said:

hello, the rovers while not suitable for long distances, are very suitable for short and medium distances (with very patience),and also are suitable for survey contracts in career,its very good because the points to investigate arent very far away from each other and also, (returning to point noted above), jumping using a lander is certainly limited and "imprecise, while a rover is very precise,and very safe compared to running out of fuel in middle of a hop to the survey place. 
in addition, the rover can carry loads without having problems with load COM or lost DV, and as some say, also serves to get science from adjacent biomes, without worrying about the things i mentioned above.  

but on top of everything,patience driving and testing the rover. 

 

Yes but some rovers have rcs for boost

[Shark4558]

4 minutes ago, 322997am said:

Yes but some rovers have rcs for boost

you are right...i never considered that option,but at least my designs dont tolerate high speeds,so i don use rcs to speed up :I ...

 

[StrandedonEarth]

I mainly used rovers before my precision landing skills improved, for rescue missions. I once drove a rescue rover over 100km across Tylo to rescue a stranded crew. Much patience was required, along with many quicksaves for the inevitable skitter into a roll.

[Pthigrivi]

Yah checking a few biomes is effective, if not a little tedious. I do wish there was more to see on the surface.

 

Oh here's my Dunabago. Twas fun

 

[AbacusWizard]

For science I always use landers, but I do find rovers useful for scouting out hotspots with higher concentrations of ore--especially on the flats of Minmus where driving is much easier.

[Motokid600]

I just cfg hack the wheels so there really fast. It is cheating, but you then have to build your rovers really well in order to drive at high speed. My record so far is crusing at 100m/s across Eeloo. A total nail bitter. One slip and your done. So it brings a new challenge, but you get places much faster.

[Fearless Son]

23 hours ago, Just Jim said:

There is another use for rovers... building bases.  I haven't tried this yet, but a player on the steam forum built a really impressive base on Minmus by sliding different sections into position and docking them into place using a rover.  He called it "The Sprawl", and I'm thinking of trying the same thing, now that I finally have a contract for a base on Minmus. 

While not on an extra-Kerbin surface, I did build a "proof of concept" modular base at the KSC (because sending all the pieces of another planet at great expense only to find they do not fit together the way I thought they would because I never tested them would be a bad idea.)  

But the base modules stood on little landing legs, and I had a short "tug" rover which would slide under the modules, give itself a tiny bit of upward thrust with its RCS, then attach to a docking port on the bottom of the module.  The module would then retract its legs, and the rover would (slowly so as not to tip it) drive the module to its designated location (usually adjacent to the docking port on another module) and once it was secured, extend the landing legs again and detach the rover.  Repeat as necessary.  

Never did get around to building the extra-Kerbin bases though.  Still figuring out the most efficient way to transport the piece, and I revised the design a bit in the meantime.

[Fearless Son]

21 hours ago, Shark4558 said:

you are right...i never considered that option,but at least my designs dont tolerate high speeds,so i don use rcs to speed up :I ...

I never use RCS to directly accelerate my rovers, but I have found it invaluable on them for other reasons.  For example, rovers tend to do poorly on low-gravity environments due to their wheels powering their movement via friction with the ground.  Lower gravity means lower pressure on the tires and less friction, making acceleration (whether speeding up, breaking, or turning) much more difficult and frankly dangerous (nothing like being unable to break fast enough to not go over that crater edge, or fishtailing because you are trying to turn on an incline that your tires desperately want to be off of.)  I will often enable RCS in those scenarios and thrust downward into the ground so the tires have a more firm purchase on the surface they are spinning over (usually Munar regolith.)  Also great for climbing steep slopes that your tires just cannot seem to get enough of a grip on to climb without some added force.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Fearless Son

[tranenturm]

I would love in a future release to be able to set a rover driving towards a destination on autopilot and then come back when it's finished. That would up the usability considerably. It would have to be a safe autopilot of course. Perhaps with a limit on the slope it could safely move on. 

 

Has as anyone tried a SAS ball?  I haven't done it yet, but I see a central module with SAS to propel, and lander legs sticking out every which way to cushion the movement. 

[Triop]

After getting bored with space and flying, I'm into rovers right now.

Next up would be a submarine, but I found out rovers could ride the sea bottom, I love KSP

 

Sorry for the heavy imaged post ....( Nah, I know you guys like pictures )

[Fearless Son]

58 minutes ago, tranenturm said:

I would love in a future release to be able to set a rover driving towards a destination on autopilot and then come back when it's finished. That would up the usability considerably. It would have to be a safe autopilot of course. Perhaps with a limit on the slope it could safely move on. 

Given current precedent, I doubt that would make it into an actual update, but some enterprising mod-maker might make a good MechJeb for rovers at some point.  It would almost need a user-defined waypoint system to be effective, considering how irregular the terrain can be.  

Still, it would be nice to be able to have say "highway" line between an ore drilling station and a spaceport so raw extracted ore can me moved via hauling rovers to a place with better refinement and orbital launches from a place with higher concentrations.

[Triop]

18 hours ago, Motokid600 said:

I just cfg hack the wheels so there really fast. It is cheating, but you then have to build your rovers really well in order to drive at high speed. My record so far is crusing at 100m/s across Eeloo. A total nail bitter. One slip and your done. So it brings a new challenge, but you get places much faster.

I did just that, would you share your wheels with us ?

Here is my speeded up roverWheelM1 if anybody would like it:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pldyzyf2dwiiuk6/roverWheelM1.cfg?dl=0

With these wheels you could even drive to the top of K2 ! ( ! this part works on my buggy, if you are going to build a car with these wheels you will need to tune it's placement all axis ! (a reversed wing is also adviced)  ! )

Buggy (needs apache cockpit) https://www.dropbox.com/s/lgqx987gqv2erim/Buggy%20II.craft?dl=0

I'm still a amateur, I would like to know more about key set up bindings.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Triop

[Finox]

Rovers are useful, but they require you to know a thing or two about automobile design for them to really be worthwhile for science.   If your rocket making skills are better than your rover making skills then you're naturally going to find that to be the easiest solution.   It wasn't until I figured out how to make durable, self-righting rovers that I was able to use them on extended trips without getting bored.   My old Munbuggy could survive any collision as long as it wasn't going much over 20 m/s and then it could flip itself back onto its wheels no matter its orientation, and all without thrusters!   I really need to figure out how to post pictures, I have some great pics of it, and a hilarious one of my prototype getting stuck at an unforeseen angle. 

Edited December 23, 2015 by Finox

[Snarfster]

24 minutes ago, Finox said:

Rovers are useful, but they require you to know a thing or two about automobile design for them to really be worthwhile for science.   If your rocket making skills are better than your rover making skills then you're naturally going to find that to be the easiest solution.   It wasn't until I figured out how to make durable, self-righting rovers that I was able to use them on extended trips without getting bored.   My old Munbuggy could survive any collision as long as it wasn't going much over 20 m/s and then it could flip itself back onto its wheels no matter its orientation, and all without thrusters!   I really need to figure out how to post pictures, I have some great pics of it, and a hilarious one of my prototype getting stuck at an unforeseen angle. 

Landing legs are great for righting flipped rovers.  

[TopHeavy11]

Well that dependes on what you need done. Rovers can serve as multi-biome science machines, scouts for flat sites for (usually top heavy) landers (for me,) or just as unmaned exploration vehicles. Just desigh it for it's job and thats the best you, me, ANYONE could do! Hope this helps you. Happy roving!

Edited December 24, 2015 by TopHeavy11

[Finox]

22 hours ago, Snarfster said:

Landing legs are great for righting flipped rovers.  

Yeah, that's how I did it, although it took me about a dozen Kerbin-bound prototypes and I left 3 rovers flipped over on the Mun before I figured out the correct placement.      I assume you tried something similar?

Edited December 24, 2015 by Finox
Forgot the all important smilies!

[Snarfster]

On 12/24/2015 at 11:05 PM, Finox said:

Yeah, that's how I did it, although it took me about a dozen Kerbin-bound prototypes and I left 3 rovers flipped over on the Mun before I figured out the correct placement.      I assume you tried something similar?

Very much so, I sort of staggered two on the left and two on the right side. Flip over, extend gear and basically land on your wheels again.

[LordKael]

On 12/23/2015 at 6:19 PM, Fearless Son said:

Given current precedent, I doubt that would make it into an actual update, but some enterprising mod-maker might make a good MechJeb for rovers at some point.  It would almost need a user-defined waypoint system to be effective, considering how irregular the terrain can be.  

Still, it would be nice to be able to have say "highway" line between an ore drilling station and a spaceport so raw extracted ore can me moved via hauling rovers to a place with better refinement and orbital launches from a place with higher concentrations.

With KOS, you can do that. Only drawback is you have to be reasonably proficient with writing code. MJ could help considerably, as it has a waypoint system already. The two systems in concert could very easily function as an autopilot on a highway. 

Implementation would look something like this:

~Manually drive the path and drop waypoints using MJ

~Write code that tells MJ when to start/stop based on user defined variables

       ~variables could be something like:

                 the ore tanks being full

                 the fuel tank on an attached base being below a threshold

~ensure it still runs even without the player sitting and watching.

 

That set up would create a closed loop that mined ore at one location, then drove it across the surface to another location where it was processed into LFO, LF, or MonoProp. The KOS program wouldn't need much tweaking to work for a shuttle system, using orbital maneuvers instead of waypoints, but the principle would be the same. 

[DunaRocketeer]

As Damien_The_Unbeliever and Just Jim have said, sometimes it's good to have a change of pace, and driving a rover across a planet can be a very chill thing to do. I also find it useful for survey contracts - the targets are often within 10 minutes of each other, and over terrain that can provide a whole new challenge. One of my favourite missions lately was a survey flight that involved driving into a very steep crater. Route selection was vital in order to complete the contract - very rewarding to do. Some might prefer to build a big lander and fly to the various sites, but I tend towards more moderate sizes, with a small rover to minimize mass penalties.

[Dunbaratu]

One of the things that's nearly impossible to do with manual controls with rovers is to steer mildly with the keyboard.  If you don't use a joystick, it's nearly impossible to do the sort of steering needed to keep a KSP rover from flipping.You can't hold the controls steady at a mild amount.  The longer you hold in the key, the tighter and tighter you turn.  Trying to hold it at, say, 10% deflection and KEEP it there unmoving for several seconds just isn't in the user interface.  You can use capslock to slow it down but that still doesn't change the fact that the longer you hold the key the more you deflect - it just changes how long you have to hold it to move the controls the same distance.  Holding it at a constant deflection that isn't 100% isn't something the controls support.  You can try doing the tappy-tappy-tappy technique but that doesn't really hold it in one place, it still wiggles it back and forth across the point you want to hold it at. 

This tends to cause rover flipover, because what you want to do to avoid flipover is to steer by deflecting gently and carefully and the keyboard controls defeat every attempt you make to do this.  Imagine trying to drive a car along an highway on-ramp where you want a mild but constant turn, if you weren't allowed to hold the wheel in place at a mild deflection from center, and instead had to move it tighter and tighter, then let go and let it recenter, then move it tighter again and then let go an let it recenter, etc. At best you'd be all over the lane, and at worst you'd cause it to skid a lot.  This is what you're doing when you rover drive by keyboard at high speed.

One of the reasons I go with a kOS script for rover driving is the mere fact that a script *can* hold the controls steady at a given deflection and keep it there in a way the stock controls deny to you.  I can make it micro-correct the steering to keep things straight on and thus it allows me to drive faster before it gets dangerous.  I can drive rovers with the balloon tires on Duna at about 20 m/s before it starts getting flippy, and there's no way the keyboard controls let me do that.

It helps alleviate some of the boredom of visting more than one biome, although even with that I still won't want to do more than just two or three biomes per rover landing.  I tend to use this driving script to hit the locations in one of those alpha/beta/gamma contracts where they're within a few kilometers of each other.