...and the crazy part, was that it WORKED!!!

[Perotis]

now i just need to build a ship to take it to Duna

[ZooNamedGames]

That's one reason I dislike rovers. You need such awkward beasts to simply carry them to orbit much less any other body. I wish there was something like a rover mount so you could make the rover inside a payload, it's simpler to work with AND more realistic. And don't get me started on landing them!

[Nich]

 KIS nothing like building a rover on site 

[ZooNamedGames]

14 minutes ago, Nich said:

 KIS nothing like building a rover on site 

KIS/KAS for stock! I admit (sadly) I don't use them, but from what I've seen, it's fantastic material for the game. I would willingly vouch for it anytime, and assembling rovers is one of the biggest reasons (not to mention extra EVA activities).

[marach]

I like Infernal Robotics for similar reasons, fold that duna flyer up and unfurl the wings after ditching the aeroshell. Seriously needs to be a stock hinge added sometime soon.

[Findthepin1]

Why not launch the rover vertically? You only need it horizontal when it's landing. What I do is I just put parachutes on the rover and detach it from the transfer stage during reentry, so that it reaches the ground fine. If it is without an atmosphere, it generally has low gravity and I can just land the transfer stage and detach the rover after. Exceptions to this are Tylo (no atmosphere, high gravity), Jool (no ground), and Kerbol (no chance). Those exceptions are okay because I've never built a Tylo Rover, a Jool Rover, or a Sun Rover before.

On second thought, I wonder if a sun rover is possible.

[Bill Zarr]

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

You need such awkward beasts to simply carry them to orbit much less any other body.

It depends how you go about launching them and on the design of the rover. They may drive about horizontal but that doesn't mean you have to launch them in that orientation.

This rocket is fairly simple.

Puts this in space.

Which gets taken places by a tug. A simple disposable transfer stage would do, you could even launch it with the rover if you dislike docking.

Then it undocks, does a small de-orbit burn, ejects the docking adaptors and lands. (Design variant in landed pic)

Then undock the landing tanks and engines and drive off. I like to turn on the engines a bit before undocking so they fly off and get destroyed.

[Evanitis]

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

You need such awkward beasts to simply carry them to orbit much less any other body.

Um... I'd disagree. A compact enough rover can fit in a service-bay. The one in the op -seems- it could fit in an Mk 3 cargobay - we even got a cargo ramp for that lately. Anything bigger than that can be included in the main fuselage of a staged rocket.

EDIT: dang, ninjas.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Evanitis

[ZooNamedGames]

4 minutes ago, marach said:

I like Infernal Robotics for similar reasons, fold that duna flyer up and unfurl the wings after ditching the aeroshell. Seriously needs to be a stock hinge added sometime soon.

I've heard Unity doesn't do hinges well, but the point stands. The Lunar Rover used during Apollo did that, it folded up inside of the descent stage of the Lunar Module, not to mention Curiosity's gear folded up. It's badly needed.

3 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

Um... I'd disagree. A compact enough rover can fit in a service-bay. The one in the op -seems- it could fit in an Mk 3 cargobay - we even got a cargo ramp for that lately. Anything bigger than that can be included in the main fuselage of a staged rocket.

EDIT: dang, ninjas.

 

4 minutes ago, Bill Zarr said:

It depends how you go about launching them and on the design of the rover. They may drive about horizontal but that doesn't mean you have to launch them in that orientation.

This rocket is fairly simple.

Puts this in space.

Which gets taken places by a tug. A simple disposable transfer stage would do, you could even launch it with the rover if you dislike docking.

Then it undocks, does a small de-orbit burn, ejects the docking adaptors and lands. (Design variant in landed pic)

Then undock the landing tanks and engines and drive off. I like to turn on the engines a bit before undocking so they fly off and get destroyed.

I'm specifically referring to probe rovers and or using the stock rover body provided. It's hard to mount on something, either it's vertical or your probing directly ontop of another engine which requires you to fall a short distance which could leave you with a broken wheel or worse, upside down.

5 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

Um... I'd disagree. A compact enough rover can fit in a service-bay. The one in the op -seems- it could fit in an Mk 3 cargobay - we even got a cargo ramp for that lately. Anything bigger than that can be included in the main fuselage of a staged rocket.

EDIT: dang, ninjas.

It's still a challenge and one not satisfying. It ruins the science aspect of probe rovers, instead of being beastily science gathering machines, they're a serious cash risk to your space program (more so than any REAL rover).

[Evanitis]

@ZooNamedGames I still don't get it. Since we have rotation and offset tools, I just can't picture the stock rover body -not- fitting comfortably where it should. I believe if you shown me a picture with that rover ontop of that engine you mention, I could point to a dozen other places where that engine (or the rover) could be mounted so it could dismantle easily.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Evanitis

[marach]

8 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I've heard Unity doesn't do hinges well, but the point stands. The Lunar Rover used during Apollo did that, it folded up inside of the descent stage of the Lunar Module, not to mention Curiosity's gear folded up. It's badly needed.

Yeah theres a couple of nasty bugs with hinges (like them literally flying around as they bug out then return to normal as you spin them past 180 degrees) but a simple always to 90 or always  to 180 hinge shouldn't be too bad

[MarvinKitFox]

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

That's one reason I dislike rovers.

They are called "rover"s , because they should be dog-sized

Most people try to build "gozilla"s, and obviously these are not so easy to fly.

 

 

[ZooNamedGames]

5 minutes ago, MarvinKitFox said:

They are called "rover"s , because they should be dog-sized

Most people try to build "gozilla"s, and obviously these are not so easy to fly.

 

 

Most of mine are dog sized as you put it, or smaller. I keep it realistic, usually it's core part is a cubic octagonal box strut or something like that to minimize size and maximize surface area.

[marach]

4 minutes ago, MarvinKitFox said:

They are called "rover"s , because they should be dog-sized

Most people try to build "gozilla"s, and obviously these are not so easy to fly.

 

 

uhhh they're called rovers cause they you know rove around... hence the lunar-rover manned vehicle on the apollo missions...

[Bill Zarr]

37 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I'm specifically referring to probe rovers

You never mentioned that anywhere in your initial post, the first post is in regard to large rovers with a manned cab, so there is no reason at all to assume that you are talking specifically about probe rovers. And if you were indeed talking about probe rovers why do you need a "beast" of a rocket?

2 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

You need such awkward beasts to simply carry them to orbit much less any other body.

If you need a "beast" of a rocket to launch something as small as a probe rover, you're probably doing something wrong or have a wildly different definition of what a beast of a rocket is.

 

4 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Most of mine are dog sized as you put it, or smaller. I keep it realistic,

I guess you don't think NASA built the manned lunar rover then? or the Curiosity rover that is currently on Mars? (the one that is the size of a car) Obviously you think their designs for manned rovers with cabs are unrealistic too. You should drop them a line and let them know, I'm sure they'd love to know that things they have actually built and landed on another planet are not realistic.

[ZooNamedGames]

3 minutes ago, Bill Zarr said:

You never mentioned that anywhere in your initial post, the first post is in regard to large rovers with a manned cab, so there is no reason at all to assume that you are talking specifically about probe rovers. And if you were indeed talking about probe rovers why do you need a "beast" of a rocket?

If you need a "beast" of a rocket to launch something as small as a probe rover, you're probably doing something wrong or have a wildly different definition of what a beast of a rocket is.

 

I guess you don't think NASA built the manned lunar rover then? or the Curiosity rover that is currently on Mars? (the one that is the size of a car) Obviously you think their designs for manned rovers with cabs are unrealistic too. You should drop them a line and let them know, I'm sure they'd love to know that things they have actually built and landed on another planet are not realistic.

It was a general statement and specifically scrutinizing the statement to one situation is not applicable fairly.

My definition of a beast is something like the photo from the OP, it does not solely mean huge (however that can happen). They're awkward.

NASA built them differently, for one, the lunar rover didn't have to remain in one piece ontop of, on the side of, or beneath the LM. When they design something car sized, it doesn't need a launcher like the one shown above, but that's also because they can fit it in a saucer shaped object.

Trust me, I'm one to vocalize my compliants about the space program, and NASA has my good on all (except one thing but that's a separate subject all together).

[Majorjim!]

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

That's one reason I dislike rovers. You need such awkward beasts to simply carry them to orbit much less any other body.

This is not so!

 You just have to get creative! There are many ways to deploy a rover realistically in KSP.

[ZooNamedGames]

4 minutes ago, Majorjim said:

This is not so!

 You just have to get creative! There are many ways to deploy a rover realistically in KSP.

Not without excessive practice, but I still say it's not practical for career mode, which is where you'd use them most.

[Majorjim!]

Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

Not without excessive practice, but I still say it's not practical for career mode, which is where you'd use them most.

Agreed. Although I have never played more than 5 minutes of career mode I am of sufficient imagination to see that with part limits it get harder. In career cases you would just have to use the stock payload bays. They are big enough to hide quite a big rover. Or even two that dock to become one.

[Bill Zarr]

5 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I still say it's not practical for career mode,

It depends what point you are in career (& how you play it). I've used small probe rovers in career, I've used large manned ones. Both can be launched and delivered without building a beast of a rocket, (in your sense of beast too.) As for how practical they are, it depends what your definition of practical is. I've used a probe rover to go round and take contract readings, and it's slow and tedious so I've only done it the once for a contract, but it was cheap and light and potentially reusable for similar contracts in the same area. Financially practical, not so much for my game playing patience though. (It got sent after the tiny science probe ran out of fuel to hop to a new location.) I've a couple of contracts I'm going to use my manned science rover for, since it's heavier, faster & more capable I'll find out how tedious it is to travel round and take readings with it.

 

[MarvinKitFox]

Ok, sure it is possible to build a Gozilla-class rover, like this

And yes, it requires a *beast* to launch it.

But that just means you are compensating for something, i think.

.

.

A more sensible rover looks kinda like this dunebuggy-tractor hybrid with self-righting, unbreakable 999m/s impact fenders, and spacestation-towing attachment points.

These only mass a few hundred kg each, and come with their own builtin attachment point, which later doubles as a towing hitch.

 

speaking of Gozilla-class rovers.. What would THIS monster's class be called?  A'Tuin class, maybe?  (picture shows section 1 and 2, of an 8-section worm, used in the jet-electric powered train challenge. the whole thing masses less than 500 tons )

It has wheels, and it does move, so it it a rover, right?

[RizzoTheRat]

The only rovers I'm using at the moment are small enough to launch inline, and I don't even use a faring, at launch they're well enough shielded by other modules mounted ahead of them.

Belly mounted Vernors and RCS thrusters mean my crew rover could have deorbited and landed on the Mun itself, but I dropped it on it's tail from under a lander and then used the thrusters to flip it on to it's wheels.  It launched vertically under a 2.5m tank with no problems.

My other rover is a folding crane (Infernal Robotics) that packs down to take up similar space to the first one, but folds out to lift base modules

I can't really see the need for any rovers bigger than these, except possibly a fuel tanker if I can't get craft within a hundred meters or so of the base to refuel them via KAS.

[FyunchClick]

6 hours ago, RizzoTheRat said:

+++Out Of Cheese Error ???????+++

Sorry for OT, but I totally lol'd at that Pratchett quote.

[Landge]

This was one of my attempts at bringing along a compact reusable rover. My rover deployment crane was built using IR & KAS parts.

As the boom drops, it extends the rover out out away from the lander to clear the science jr. At the same time the rover wheels unfold from their stored position.
Then the wench lowers the rover to the ground. When packing up it's reversed. The down side is it's exposed to reentry.

Stock, this rover design is just the right size that it can ride slung undeneath my various Hab landers and ISRU mining rigs.

 

Edited February 23, 2016 by Landge

[Splitsie]

Oh wow, I really wish I'd seen this thread before I launched this ridiculous machine all the way to minmus...