Fastest *Stable* Rover

[W. Kerman]

I want to do a mun Elcano soon. However, the mun is big. [citation needed]

 

So what is your fastest stable rover, and what did you use to make it go fast?

 

- W. Kerman

[Sharpy]

Ruggedized wheels, and body small enough that it's entirely hidden within the frame of the wheels; a front-facing Okto2, small reaction wheel, batteries and science goodies - these things could run 50m/s with impunity over semi-flat terrain, even at 4x phys-warp, but break at >60m/s so slow down before any down slopes, and don't do extreeeeme jumps (e.g. off the ridge of a crater).

Make sure to keep SAS to prograde and hold your fingers on Q/E to right it mid-flight (it spends 80% of the time flying - jumping). I didn't do Elcano, but I drove two of these from the common landing point, good 200km apart with very few problems.

 

Airplane wheels are very durable against even higher speeds, and jet engines placed low, pointing skywards shift CoM below the surface; such a rover is very hard to flip over. Will need a rocket for propulsion though. Still needs a reaction wheel for staying level in flight.

If you wanted something more heavyweight, you might want to find the ModuleManager patch that disables wheel autostrut, then make swiveled suspension. This remained quite stable at 50m/s even in rough terrain.

 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Sharpy

[Foxster]

13 hours ago, W. Kerman said:

I want to do a mun Elcano soon. However, the mun is big. [citation needed]

 

So what is your fastest stable rover, and what did you use to make it go fast?

 

- W. Kerman

Ion powered with the engine angled so as to provide some downward thrust towards to CoM. With small aircraft wheels. 

You can get a pretty good lick on this way. 

[eddiew]

The two rovers I used for my recent Tylo mission were pretty solid and generally form the mainstay of my disposable wheeled vehicles.

Spoiler

Short of it: they're built to roll. Whatever angle you come at them (you being the ground), the thing you hit first is structural steel or the wheels, with the result that the impact tolerance is huge. There's also enough torque available to self-right on most planets.

Result; you can basically drive flat out at 50m/s and not worry too much. On Tylo, it was doing up to 80 on the downhills without issue, but on Mun you get more limited by the ability to keep your wheels on the ground. Cresting any small hill, even at 50, launches you into the air - which is why you want to have something that doesn't easily detonate on landing   I've never popped a tyre with this design, but it wouldn't hurt to have an engineer on board, just in case.

General advice for speedy rovering; get your wheel controls off the WASD keys so that you can have lots of torque and keep SAS engaged without it trying to roll the vehicle when you want to turn. This will also allow you to orient the rover during the times it takes to the air and have a good chance of landing on your wheels, facing the right direction to simply continue. I don't know why the default keybinds for wheels are the same as to turn a rocket, but it's a horrible, horrible thing.

Edited October 5, 2016 by eddiew

[magnemoe]

16 hours ago, eddiew said:

The two rovers I used for my recent Tylo mission were pretty solid and generally form the mainstay of my disposable wheeled vehicles.

Short of it: they're built to roll. Whatever angle you come at them (you being the ground), the thing you hit first is structural steel or the wheels, with the result that the impact tolerance is huge. There's also enough torque available to self-right on most planets.

Result; you can basically drive flat out at 50m/s and not worry too much. On Tylo, it was doing up to 80 on the downhills without issue, but on Mun you get more limited by the ability to keep your wheels on the ground. Cresting any small hill, even at 50, launches you into the air - which is why you want to have something that doesn't easily detonate on landing   I've never popped a tyre with this design, but it wouldn't hurt to have an engineer on board, just in case.

General advice for speedy rovering; get your wheel controls off the WASD keys so that you can have lots of torque and keep SAS engaged without it trying to roll the vehicle when you want to turn. This will also allow you to orient the rover during the times it takes to the air and have a good chance of landing on your wheels, facing the right direction to simply continue. I don't know why the default keybinds for wheels are the same as to turn a rocket, but it's a horrible, horrible thing.

Good design, and keep the weight down, heavier rovers will break up far easier at high speed. 

[Sharpy]

One more tip: if you take a kerbal - keep a three-star engineer on board, to fix the wheels.

Edited October 6, 2016 by Sharpy