Rover Problems

[The Space Dino]

I tried to build a little rover to drive around,but I could not even make it budge an inch. I tried pressing the 'S' and 'W' keys but only the wheels rotated and the craft did not move. In the settings the key to make the rover move was 'W' and 'S'. Is it a bug in KSP or what? I was on the runway. I used those fast car-like wheels.

How do you make and drive a working rover?

[Broco]

Can you provide a screenshot and/or the craft file for your rover? There are mainly 4 reasons for this:

- you have no energy source on your Rover

- the wheels are clipping into another part and thus blocked

- there is no control unit on the rover

- you start with brakes on

[Warzouz]

As for controls it's been suggested to separate the "Drive" controls from attitude/SAS controls.

In other word, change your "Drive" keys to the numpad. So you'll be able to control wheels and flight at the same time (very useful on low grav worlds)

[The Space Dino]

3 hours ago, Broco said:

Can you provide a screenshot and/or the craft file for your rover? There are mainly 4 reasons for this:

- you have no energy source on your Rover

- the wheels are clipping into another part and thus blocked

- there is no control unit on the rover

- you start with brakes on

Unfortunately I don't have any screenshots and I did not save the craft, but:

- I did put solar panels

- I clipped the wheels' attachment points by a bit into a Mk1 Crew Cabin

- My 'rover' has a Mk1 Cockpit 

- I turned off my brakes

 

[Warzouz]

I've an idea : maybe your powered wheels are opposite. That means when you accelerate, they push in opposite direction, so you don't move.

Deactivate the engine on 2 wheels to test that theory.

BTW 4WD is not always useful. You may prefer 2WD with an option to toggle 4WD only when needed. Power rate will be cut by 2.

 

[Snark]

Another problem I've seen people run into (not sure if it's still an issue in 1.1 and after, given how much wheels got re-worked):

The wheel has to be right-side up.

It may look like a round rolly thing... but it actually isn't, at least in terms of gameplay physics.  There's a "patch" on the bottom of the wheel that has the magical physics property of being able to move over terrain, and if you've rotated the wheel (e.g. sideways) so that that patch isn't on the ground, then the wheel won't roll even though it looks to your eyeballs as though it ought to be able to.

That was certainly a problem up through 1.0.5.  To reiterate, not sure if it's still an issue post-1.1.

On a side note, here's a protip for driving rovers:  You may want to consider re-mapping your rover control keys to something other than WASD, since the game also uses those same keys for reaction-wheel torque.  If you don't re-map, then when you press "W", you're not only telling your rover wheels to accelerate forward, you're also telling every reaction wheel on the rover to try to pitch downwards.  (This can become a big issue for rovers designed for low-gravity worlds, whose design often incorporates some fairly muscular reaction torque to prevent flipping over.)  My personal solution to this problem is to remap rover control keys to the numpad (which isn't otherwise used for anything in KSP), so there's no possibility of confusion.

[bewing]

One problem that I've seen: When you create a rover in the SPH, sometimes the default SPH symmetry puts the wheels facing north/south, rather than east/west. If they point east/west, the wheels work (which sometimes means you need to change the symmetry mode with the R key). If the wheels point north/south, they don't. To check during testing -- if your rover points along the runway, that's good.

Edited May 9, 2016 by bewing

[The Space Dino]

On 5/9/2016 at 11:57 PM, Snark said:

Another problem I've seen people run into (not sure if it's still an issue in 1.1 and after, given how much wheels got re-worked):

The wheel has to be right-side up.

It may look like a round rolly thing... but it actually isn't, at least in terms of gameplay physics.  There's a "patch" on the bottom of the wheel that has the magical physics property of being able to move over terrain, and if you've rotated the wheel (e.g. sideways) so that that patch isn't on the ground, then the wheel won't roll even though it looks to your eyeballs as though it ought to be able to.

That was certainly a problem up through 1.0.5.  To reiterate, not sure if it's still an issue post-1.1.

On a side note, here's a protip for driving rovers:  You may want to consider re-mapping your rover control keys to something other than WASD, since the game also uses those same keys for reaction-wheel torque.  If you don't re-map, then when you press "W", you're not only telling your rover wheels to accelerate forward, you're also telling every reaction wheel on the rover to try to pitch downwards.  (This can become a big issue for rovers designed for low-gravity worlds, whose design often incorporates some fairly muscular reaction torque to prevent flipping over.)  My personal solution to this problem is to remap rover control keys to the numpad (which isn't otherwise used for anything in KSP), so there's no possibility of confusion.

 

On 5/9/2016 at 2:59 AM, bewing said:

One problem that I've seen: When you create a rover in the SPH, sometimes the default SPH symmetry puts the wheels facing north/south, rather than east/west. If they point east/west, the wheels work (which sometimes means you need to change the symmetry mode with the R key). If the wheels point north/south, they don't. To check during testing -- if your rover points along the runway, that's good.

Snark, can you show me where is that magical patch?

Bewing, which direction is north/south/east/west on the wheels?

Thanks!

[bewing]

1 hour ago, The Space Dino said:

Bewing, which direction is north/south/east/west on the wheels?

When you "launch" the rover onto the runway, having the wheels point the long way down the runway is east (good) -- if they point crossways to the runway, that's north/south (bad).

If they are pointing the bad way, then we may need a screenshot of your rover. You may need to rotate it before you can attach the wheels the right way 'round.