How to head in specific direction when landed ?

[Shingen]

Hi fellow Kerbonauts,

I just spent a few ours landing a rover on the mun (the second time ever) and I'm still new to the rover thing. Unfortunatelly I'm having difficulties heading into the specific direction I want to as I stare at the vast distances in front of me.

My rover's current GPS readings are: 12‘’09'26"N / 156‘’01'43"W

The wayponts GPS reading are: 8‘’29'8.58"N / 154‘’29'38.17"W  So I have to head in this direction, but I don't know how to do it.

I tried eyeballing it on the zoom map, but no luck. And activating the waypoints navigations unfortunatelly don't show on the navball.

Can you please help ?

https://imgur.com/a/0S5lk

follow the link for images.

[HvP]

Since you have a few mods installed, you might not be opposed to one more.

I would suggest using the mod Waypoint Manager which gives you the ability to see waypoint markers on the surface while driving. It also places them on the navball for orientation as well.

Happy roving!

Edited October 6, 2017 by HvP

[Draalo]

Your HECS is facing radial out so any ground waypoint will be on the horizon and may be not visible due to your ground angle.

Mount a docking junior at the front of the rover, after landing switch "controll from here" to the docking port.

If the rover doesnd land itself and is carried in a cargo bay:

Build it in the SPH, the HECS will be facing the horizon then, no extra dockingport needed then.

Waypoint Manager will make your navigation still more comfortable.

 

Edit: You can load the rover build in the SPH in the VAB too - just select the SPH tab in the load window. Or save the rover as subassembly and add it to your rocket.

Edited October 6, 2017 by Draalo

[Vanamonde]

My clunky solution is to zoom out on map view, align the camera so I'm looking past my craft at the destination, note which stars are in that part of the sky, then go back to main view and look for those stars, then drive toward them. Yeah, it's low-tech.

[Rodhern]

I would line up the rover so that the north line is at the top of the nav-ball. Then drive forward and notice the 'GPS' coordinates change. Unless the rover was put together quite funnily there is only really four plausible travel directions (east, west, south or north). So now you know which way the rover is facing. You want to travel say roughly heading 160 deg. Based on the travel direction figure out which way to turn and how much (e.g. if you figured the rover is currently pointed east, the difference is a 70 degree turn to the right). Lastly move the camera back and watch as you turn the rover towards the proper heading, and measure the heading change by the amount the nav-ball rotates.

 

[Superfluous J]

22 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

My clunky solution is to zoom out on map view, align the camera so I'm looking past my craft at the destination, note which stars are in that part of the sky, then go back to main view and look for those stars, then drive toward them. Yeah, it's low-tech.

You can also look at it in map view to eyeball where the waypoint is, then back in normal view zoom out to maximum, and find the rough location. Then zoom back into your rover, turn and drive.

[Shingen]

Thank you everyone for your answers.

I will just eyeball the direction on the map for this mission. But I will use the tips you gave me for the Minums rover, after this one.

Been a pleasure.

[Ultimate Steve]

44 minutes ago, Shingen said:

Thank you everyone for your answers.

I will just eyeball the direction on the map for this mission. But I will use the tips you gave me for the Minums rover, after this one.

Been a pleasure.

Another thing to note is that rovers tend to not work well on Minmus. I'm not you, but if I was I'd build a little flying hopper that could get to the waypoints.

[Spricigo]

22 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Another thing to note is that rovers tend to not work well on Minmus. I'm not you, but if I was I'd build a little flying hopper that could get to the waypoints.

Maybe not so much that rover don't work well but that hoppers do work much better for little extra cost.

[swjr-swis]

3 hours ago, Shingen said:

I just spent a few ours landing a rover on the mun (the second time ever) and I'm still new to the rover thing. Unfortunatelly I'm having difficulties heading into the specific direction I want to as I stare at the vast distances in front of me.

My rover's current GPS readings are: 12‘’09'26"N / 156‘’01'43"W

The wayponts GPS reading are: 8‘’29'8.58"N / 154‘’29'38.17"W  So I have to head in this direction, but I don't know how to do it.

I tried eyeballing it on the zoom map, but no luck. And activating the waypoints navigations unfortunatelly don't show on the navball.

First the easy part: you are located north and slight east of the waypoints, so you need to start navigating south and slightly west.

Unfortunately I notice a slight design issue with your rover that will complicate matters for you: the images show that you placed the probe core on your rover pointing up instead of forward. The effect of this, besides very confusing reactions to your steering input ('D' probably steers left and 'A' right, reversing unexpectedly depending on the slope), is that the navball will be near to useless for navigation while driving, because it won't show you your 'heading'.

Had it pointed forward, to head south and slightly west you would've turned until your navball heading (the 'HDG' nr at the bottom of the navball, in your screenshot currently showing 273) read about 165-170 (180 being exactly south). You can still try this now, but due to the incorrect orientation of the probe core, that heading is going to swing violently depending on the slope of the terrain you're on and can at times be very misleading.

Now it's been a good while since I last used the Engineer mod, but I remember it's possible to create custom readouts out of an extensive selection of parameters, so you might want to see if it doesn't have some sort of waypoint readout that you could enable. It's possible that those too may be affected by the probe core orientation, but it's worth a try.

If none of the above helps, then you will need to try navigating the very old-fashioned way: by the sky. Go to map mode, and try to get a bearing on the position of the Sun, Kerbin, and/or the star background, then go back to your rover and use that as reference.

 

Edit: I really wish this forum would tell me somehow when a thread has updated between when I started a reply and when I finally post it, especially a thread was previously empty. My apologies for those whose quicker replies I mirrored.

1 hour ago, Rodhern said:

I would line up the rover so that the north line is at the top of the nav-ball. Then drive forward and notice the 'GPS' coordinates change. Unless the rover was put together quite funnily there is only really four plausible travel directions (east, west, south or north). So now you know which way the rover is facing. You want to travel say roughly heading 160 deg. Based on the travel direction figure out which way to turn and how much (e.g. if you figured the rover is currently pointed east, the difference is a 70 degree turn to the right). Lastly move the camera back and watch as you turn the rover towards the proper heading, and measure the heading change by the amount the nav-ball rotates.

Note that with a probe core pointing up, this is only valid on perfectly flat terrain without any slope. On the Mun, the navball heading will start changing quite a bit while driving depending on the slope, sometimes even swinging entirely 'backwards' (when driving up a slope).

Edited October 6, 2017 by swjr-swis
turns out I was not the first to reply...

[Shingen]

Quote

2 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Another thing to note is that rovers tend to not work well on Minmus. I'm not you, but if I was I'd build a little flying hopper that could get to the waypoints.

 

The very first rover I ever landed was attached to the bottom of a lander that I took to Minmus. It was a simple rover simillar to the one in the stock ship files. It performed pretty well. Maybe because it didn't have much power.

But can you enlighthen me on what difficulties I can expect taking a more powerfull rover to Minmus ?

[Ultimate Steve]

2 minutes ago, Shingen said:

The very first rover I ever landed was attached to the bottom of a lander that I took to Minmus. It was a simple rover simillar to the one in the stock ship files. It performed pretty well. Maybe because it didn't have much power.

But can you enlighthen me on what difficulties I can expect taking a more powerfull rover to Minmus ?

Maybe you've had different experiences, but when I tried to take a rover to Minmus I found that there was insufficient gravity to actually get traction. If I managed to get going fast, it took forever to brake due to the low friction.

But then again, that was several versions ago so things may have changed.

[Shingen]

1 hour ago, swjr-swis said:

First the easy part: you are located north and slight east of the waypoints, so you need to start navigating south and slightly west.

Unfortunately I notice a slight design issue with your rover that will complicate matters for you: the images show that you placed the probe core on your rover pointing up instead of forward. The effect of this, besides very confusing reactions to your steering input ('D' probably steers left and 'A' right, reversing unexpectedly depending on the slope), is that the navball will be near to useless for navigation while driving, because it won't show you your 'heading'.

Had it pointed forward, to head south and slightly west you would've turned until your navball heading (the 'HDG' nr at the bottom of the navball, in your screenshot currently showing 273) read about 165-170 (180 being exactly south). You can still try this now, but due to the incorrect orientation of the probe core, that heading is going to swing violently depending on the slope of the terrain you're on and can at times be very misleading.

Now it's been a good while since I last used the Engineer mod, but I remember it's possible to create custom readouts out of an extensive selection of parameters, so you might want to see if it doesn't have some sort of waypoint readout that you could enable. It's possible that those too may be affected by the probe core orientation, but it's worth a try.

If none of the above helps, then you will need to try navigating the very old-fashioned way: by the sky. Go to map mode, and try to get a bearing on the position of the Sun, Kerbin, and/or the star background, then go back to your rover and use that as reference.

 

Edit: I really wish this forum would tell me somehow when a thread has updated between when I started a reply and when I finally post it, especially a thread was previously empty. My apologies for those whose quicker replies I mirrored.

Note that with a probe core pointing up, this is only valid on perfectly flat terrain without any slope. On the Mun, the navball heading will start changing quite a bit while driving depending on the slope, sometimes even swinging entirely 'backwards' (when driving up a slope).

Quote

 

So following your advice I moded the rover and the naveball looks like how it should have been. Thanks

[swjr-swis]

45 minutes ago, Shingen said:

But can you enlighthen me on what difficulties I can expect taking a more powerfull rover to Minmus ?

I wouldn't term it a difficulty, but one thing you may notice when driving a rover on Minmus is that the torque of your reaction wheels (even the weak ones in the probe cores) can be enough to flip the rover, due to the very low gravity. If you notice that, you can disable them during driving - but they can be very helpful to get your rover back onto its wheels too, so don't simply leave them out because of this.

[MrChumley]

During evenings your shadow will point east. As the sun sets in the west. 

[Kryxal]

20 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Maybe you've had different experiences, but when I tried to take a rover to Minmus I found that there was insufficient gravity to actually get traction. If I managed to get going fast, it took forever to brake due to the low friction.

But then again, that was several versions ago so things may have changed.

The other thing is, a fast-moving rover on Minmus can be halfway to orbit while still on the ground...

[Helmetman]

Not that you want to use it.

But there is this mod called "Mechjeb" and it has a rover autopilot that you can use.

It's very accurate. It's stability control re orientates with the slope beneath. It even has a waypoint marker so you don't have to rove yourself.

Best to avoid rugged terrain when doing this to avoid crashes, and lower your speed to avoid accidental damage or crashing while roving around. 

 

 

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, Helmetman said:

Not that you want to use it.

But there is this mod called "Mechjeb" and it has a rover autopilot that you can use.

BonVoyage  

 

 

 

[Shingen]

The mission was a succes,

Although I encountered a few problems. Landing and driving around.

At landing the skycrane I was using would make the rover spin on itself if I pushed the throttle  too far which was a pain because I had to re-try alot before I landed.

Driving around was tedious because of (as mentioned a few posts above) low friction so I had to go at 15m/s max  and be very carfull that breaking was gradual and not sudden otherwise the rover would tople on itselfs and that was end of the mission.

But thanks to your help everyone I managed.  I have two other mission planed for mun and minmus again this time evolving a new craft that I'm calling an orbital-glider. Very interesting.

 

[dvp]

On 10/6/2017 at 5:17 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

Maybe you've had different experiences, but when I tried to take a rover to Minmus I found that there was insufficient gravity to actually get traction. If I managed to get going fast, it took forever to brake due to the low friction.

But then again, that was several versions ago so things may have changed.

The low gravity is the problem, but it's not that rovers don't work well, it's just that to get the same stability you get on Mun or Kerbin, you have to have a much heavier rover, and you have to go slower.

Heck, I almost flipped one just turning it around in place.

I've got a 30 ton mining rover (drive over to ship, fuel it up, drive over to next ship, etc.) in the Minmus flats in career, and it's worked fine, but the practical speed limit is about 8m/s on the flats, 5m/s up and down hills. Any faster and I'm not so much driving as flying low.

Edited October 9, 2017 by dvp

[Spricigo]

2 hours ago, dvp said:

The low gravity is the problem, but it's not that rovers don't work well, it's just that to get the same stability you get on Mun or Kerbin, you have to have a much heavier rover, and you have to go slower.

Just saying: being prone to flip and unable to maintain a good velocity  is the kind of thing I'd describe by not working well (or maybe with less diplomatic words)

 

Two ideas may reduce the problem:

Lots of reaction wheels and SAS. If not prevent you to jump into space, at least prevent  spiralling into space. And if you still manage to flip (but survive) you can use it to get back on top of your wheels.

Engines pointing down. Like gravity that use fuel. Use it when accelerating/braking to get some traction and to avoid taking off a ramp.

[Zhetaan]

Sorry to arrive late to the party, but one thing I do is bind the wheel controls to the keypad.  Forwards is 8, back is 2, left and right are 4 and 6, and I add a secondary binding for the brakes at 5.  That gives the ability to drive the rover without also trying to flip it over with the reaction wheels, and it completely circumvents the need to disable reaction wheels on every craft that has them.  That's useful to avoid incidents when you remember to shut down the reaction wheels in the reaction wheel module but forget the ones on the probe core/crew pod, or when you need to occasionally use the wheels to right yourself in mid-air (mid-vacuum?) or flip right side up after a tumble:  you're not trying to find wheel modules and turn them on in the heat of the moment because they were never shut off.

Furthermore, if you need to do so, you can rationalise this by acknowledging that no self-respecting space agency would bind two different systems to the same controls unless there was absolutely no chance that those systems would ever be used at the same time.  There's a reason that the Apollo modules had nearly every surface covered in switches.  You may only have a 104 keys on your keyboard, but you may as well use some of them.

[FlyingPete]

The most successful rover for general driving about on Minmus I've built was a 2-wheeler segway design, with small landing legs fore and aft  to prevent it tipping over when unmanned. Having all the (mininal) weight on two wheels helped with traction. Lean forwards with reaction wheel torque prior to acceleration and it's stable. Descending slopes can still lead to unplanned takeoffs so practice your ski jumping skills to ensure a safe-ish landing.

On 30/10/2017 at 3:49 PM, Zhetaan said:

Sorry to arrive late to the party, but one thing I do is bind the wheel controls to the keypad.  Forwards is 8, back is 2, left and right are 4 and 6, and I add a secondary binding for the brakes at 5.

I do something similar on my gamepad- RCS translation and wheel controls are on the same axes. If you're using RCS, then the wheels will be off the ground anyway, and if you're driving around you can turn RCS off.