rovers and the navball

[fommil]

(I'm using 1.1.3 as I'm finishing off a campaign and I'm waiting for 1.2.1 because my KSP is reasonably stable right now and I don't trust dot releases)

I know this topic keeps coming up time and time again, it's even referenced in http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Rover#Navigation but I have yet to find a satisfactory answer.

When I build a simple 4 wheel rover with the RoveMate (e.g. just some wheels and a battery), the navball points straight up. In fact it even drives the wrong direction, I'm forced to either invert the steering or the drive direction. This is inconvenient when designing the rover, but it makes data collection missions almost impossible, because you can't see the navigation waypoint.

The standard solution is to add another probe, like in the wiki, and this does indeed fix the navball and now I can see the waypoint. However, when I do that (exactly the same as the example in the wiki), the steering no longer does anything (either keyboard or joystick). I can see the joystick/keys moving the yaw to its extreme values, but the wheels don't move (moving forward/back works).

Is RoveMate really as good as it gets? Are there any better best practices other than just living with the RoveMate's terrible navigation?

I've put an unmodded craft in https://gist.github.com/fommil/012d4476512571314698ac2edae2092b (but a few mods I've installed add in some inactive modules)

I'm using the ArchLinux distribution of GNU/Linux.

Edited October 30, 2016 by fommil

[Clipperride]

I tend to build larger rovers and solve the problem with a Cupola pod on the front.  One other method, for little rovers, is to attach a small docking port to the front and then use "control from here".

Remember, when you first select the RoveMate core, you can flip it over if the driving direction is wrong.

[Ty Tan Tu]

I just add a tiny docking port to the front of my rovers and right click and do a control from here. The extra probe might be confusing things. Maybe it is a part that can't control a rover?

[bewing]

No, that means that your wheels are not placed correctly according to symmetry, and are fighting each other -- they are trying to spin in opposite directions when you hit a key. The biggest problem is that the rules for wheel symmetry can change between KSP versions -- so that a rover out in the field somewhere that works under one version suddenly fails when you upgrade. One answer is -- don't mount the rovemate horizontally! Yes, I know it's intended for a rover body, but because of the navball issue, it just doesn't work well for that unless you are comfy mentally remapping all the WASD controls to work backwards in your head and you don't need targeting as you say.

 

[fommil]

5 hours ago, bewing said:

No, that means that your wheels are not placed correctly according to symmetry, and are fighting each other

I posted the craft file, so you can check and see that this is not the case.

5 hours ago, Clipperride said:

I tend to build larger rovers and solve the problem with a Cupola pod on the front.  One other method, for little rovers, is to attach a small docking port to the front and then use "control from here".

Remember, when you first select the RoveMate core, you can flip it over if the driving direction is wrong.

But I'm already doing "control from here" on the probe I attached. I'll try the dock approach but that is a waste of space and mass. Did none of this improve in 1.2?

[Clipperride]

Sadly the Rover Mate is still not that well suited to its role in 1.2 (imo). Unless I'm missing something too?

If you use the offset tool to place the docking port in line with the finished rovers CoM, you can at least use it to attach it to a lander. (My Mission Report shows how I deploy a rover on the Mun)

[Daveroski]

I never use the rovemate.

All the command pods face the logical direction of travel except the rovemate.

When you start building one in the hangar it starts out pointing the wrong way.

The Hangar is the most logical place to design a rover as a rover usually has 2 x mirrored symmetry for the wheels in particular.

It was probably used as a basis for early sky-cranes or maybe the designer thought that rovers should be able to fly and land and so prioritised flight over roving?

Most likely just a mix of too much red-bull and boredom.

 

[bewing]

11 hours ago, fommil said:

I posted the craft file, so you can check and see that this is not the case.

 

The "unmodded" craft you posted actually is modded with a KAS part, so I can't load it.

In general though, building rovers in the VAB is going to cause you problems.