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

[JoeNapalm]

 

You can make all kinds of deployment systems for all kinds of rovers.

They can be tiny or huge, but they don't require a particularly enormous lifting platform - heck, most of them, the heavy part is just the batteries...no fuel.

Here's the wee MunDog class...weighs the same as a little RCS tank:

 

The giant BARGHEST class, deployed from orbit over Eve (rode all the way there on that little rocket!):

 

The monstrous BLACK WIDOW class rover:

 

All effective and fun, none particularly hard to get where they needed to be.

As to whether they're "practical" in career mode, that's entirely down to what you're using it for. Consult with your financial/contract wonks.

 

-Jn-

[Amianoob]

I was digging through my old screenshots... I thought you guys might appreciate my stock rover from the bad old days of KSP 0.15, it was pretty darned practical, although the Kerbals were never going to leave Minmus, since they are welded into they're capsule and all.

Edited February 28, 2016 by Amianoob
Completeness

[samstarman5]

Kinda makes me sad how many more people I see on here more concerned about being practical like whatever they achieve in the game is going to bring food home for their family. (Granted that is true for Youtubers, but I am sure you folks get my drift)

Playing career doesn't mean you shouldn't still explore with rocket designs.  Even with non-custom settings there is still plenty of leeway towards rocket costs, and there is always the stimulus package if you really manage to screw things up.

Mini-rovers are fantastic, I love seeing how players manage to fit so much into a stock craft and put them to good use.

Mega-rovers are fantastic as well, especially as they can also serve as a mobile base.  You never know when you might get a contract to check out some highland just right around the corner from your Munar Base.

There needs to be a revival in all things kerbal. We don't have to be here to be realistic. We can be here to throw things at the wall and see what sticks, and what explodes spectacularly.  NASA and other space programs tried some wild stuff and learned a lot from it.  It can be a good thing to make the same approach with your own space program, and see what original designs you can come up with, like the equivalent of a Spring-Loaded Punching Glove to get craft from Kerbin to the Mun.

I was digging through my old screenshots... I thought you guys might appreciate my stock rover from the bad old days of KSP 0.15, it was pretty darned practical, although the Kerbals were never going to leave Minmus, since they are welded into they're capsule and all.

I remember those days so fondly, of using tailfins to land on the Mun as well.  That landing gear was also good for putting all around a long rover so even if it rolled it would still be mobile. Still handy for that today.

[Beowolf]

On 2/21/2016 at 11:16 AM, 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. In my years of playing I've created many rovers. But not a single one in a career-mode game. Started a couple, but immediately got frustrated by the ridiculous position of certain items on the tech tree. For similar reasons, I've only built a single winged aircraft in career. Finished my mission; crashed it intentionally out of disgust, and never looked back.

[Kerbart]

On 2/21/2016 at 11:16 AM, 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.

I'm glad I wasn't aware of that when I built a small transport rover for my engineers to operate my (otherwise unmanned) drilling rig.

[Fearless Son]

7 hours ago, Beowolf said:

Agreed. In my years of playing I've created many rovers. But not a single one in a career-mode game. Started a couple, but immediately got frustrated by the ridiculous position of certain items on the tech tree. For similar reasons, I've only built a single winged aircraft in career. Finished my mission; crashed it intentionally out of disgust, and never looked back.

I have built rovers in career mode for the same reason @Bill Zarr did: I get a contract to take scientific measurements at several different points that are a few kilometers apart.  In my most notable case this was on the Mun, and near the edge of a crater.  Worried about safe landing terrain and fuel consumption, I did not want to jump a lander around much.  The various zones I had to take the measurements in were only approximate from the map view, and trying to navigate them while hopping would have been both dangerous and stressful.  But if I can get a rover down there, I can carefully navigate from one point to the other, free to take my time to carefully adjust course, and take the readings at the various zones.  

Alternatively, I sometimes use rovers to get science from other planets that I am only comfortable making a one-way trip to with my current funding and tech level.  So I will "pull a Curiosity" and send a little mobile robotic lab to a place like, say, Eve, and try to land it somewhere near the boundary of two or more biomes.  I can then nab and transmit a bunch of science with only a single trip and a little time spent rolling over land.  Practical, economical, and an engaging engineering challenge.  

[RizzoTheRat]

I find them useful in career for finding high ore concentrations.  ScanSat and M700 equipped satellite find the rough area, and then I drop a rover to find the highest concentration to land the drilling rig on, plus the rover carries the life support to keep the construction crew alive until the main habitation module lands.  As I'm then using the drilling rig as a core for a refuelling base the rover is also useful to help recover any craft that land too far away from the base.