Rover Designs

[something]

Over the years, I realized, that rovers tend to differ from user to user - some are small and easy to deliver and some rovers are quite big and take some more effort to land on alien worlds. Also, they tend to differ, depending on the mods in use and the stage of your career save (if you do play career). So, what do your rovers look like and how did you get them where they are now?

Here's a selection of mine:

My very first rover landed on the Mun. Has been delivered on top of a rocket that was used as sort of a skycrane. The final "descent" of that rover actually was more or less a free fall. The skycrane has been used as an impactor shortly thereafter...

 

That thing was delivered by a skycrane and comes with 5 winches mounted with various docking utilities. Planetary base building requires moving modules for several meters to the perfect spot. This thing is capable of carrying two K&K modules next to each other. Well, or at least it was before some version change came around and messed with the direction the wheels are pushing the rover to...

 

 

And this mobile laboratory was driven at around 45m/s on the surface of Duna - faster than you drive on the express way, right? In the background there's my mobile ore miner which is able to express-deliver ore to the next refinery. 7 powered axes - top speed? Never really tested...

 

This rover was sent to Moho just before the ComNet was introduced. The delivery mechanism: two LF boosters mounted fore and aft landed that thing on Moho with stack separators freeing the rover from the boosters. Tested it on Kerbin but wasn't really successful on Moho - had to have a lot of patience with F9 to get that thing down in one piece...

[Geonovast]

I usually keep'm small (as you've seen).  I also don't play career, so they rarely have any science equipment on them.

I'd link some pictures, but CubeUpload just broke.

[Jarin]

I've always had issues delivering rovers, so the units I do have tend to be built on-site with EPL.

[invision]

[AngrybobH]

Here's a couple of the designs I use. They all have SpaceY monoprop engines and are capable of landing on their designed planets from a low orbit without additional equipment.

The bigger ones are mobile labs and the one in the back is self-sustaining. The medium one is a fuel support and sci rover. The little one is a SEP delivery truck in support of a large science base.

[bigcalm]

A few here: https://imgur.com/a/q284G

 

[Kerbal pancake]

i build giant behemoths that are usually impractical but look nice

i took this one to tylo

Edited January 18, 2018 by Kerbal pancake
MOAR PICTURES

[Vanamonde]

Craft sharing thread moved to the craft sharing subforum. 

[RizzoTheRat]

We don't let Bill drive after he managed to roll it on flat ground during testing at the KSC!

This has a full suite of science experiments and a range of about 25-30 km before having to deploy the solar panels for a recharge.  It's built around the materials bay and batteries so it can be used as a structural component at launch.  The first iteration sat on the roof of the lander and crew could get it down with KAS/KIS.  The version 2 lander has a docking port underneath that it attaches to, to redock they drive it in to position and then retract the landers undercarriage.  Version 3 will have some form of torque generator as I had a few issues on Ike where it had to slow down quite a bit to avoid rolling after large jumps, I'm hoping a bit of torque should mean it can stay level and land on all 4 wheels.  Crew is a scientist to reset the experiments, and an engineer to right it with KAS/KIS if they roll it, seems to be fairly robust in a crash, it needs to be a pretty major one to lose more than the solar panels on the back.  Worked well on the Mun, Ike and Duna so far, but might need some RCS capability for lower gravity moons.  I find MechJeb essential for driving any distance as I get bored to quickly.

Edited January 18, 2018 by RizzoTheRat

[Shadow dream]

Currently I'm playing in a Science Save where I have Alt-F12ed me up to the 1K science tree. Yes it's cheating, but I'm ok with it because I generaly start a new save every patch and I got liquided. That way I can still go collect science without re-doing everything all over again and keep sandbox building for ease of experiments.

I have found a small rover design I am pretty happy with and basicly re-create it every patch with minor changes. It allowes me to be quite mobile, take (almost) everything I need and still am able to stow it into a MK2 bay!

https://imgur.com/F1Pj4ol

Here I'm sitting next to a Monolith. I'm not sure anymore if it was on Mt. Keverest. I went there too but maybe I found the Monolith somewhere else. Oh, and there is a KAS docking port on the back. On a later iteration I swapped it for a Docking Port Jr. so I could automate loading and unloading of the rover verticaly using KAS hinge. (automate = hotkeys)

 

Usualy I stay away from bigger rovers because I can't get a nice design. If I want to go bigger I just take a Malemut.

[Mudkip909]

49 minutes ago, Shadow dream said:

Usualy I stay away from bigger hot dog and burger stands because I can't get a nice design. If I want to go bigger I just take a Malemut.

oh, why do you stay away from bigger hot dog and burger stands?

[FleshJeb]

I like rovers that can survive high-speed rollovers and multi-kilometer tumbles. They're designed with a lot of redundancy for long-range roving, and they peel like onions when they crash. You'd have to lose a lot of parts before the crew could get hurt, or you're unable to drive:

Testing after airdropping:

Edited January 18, 2018 by FleshJeb

[Azimech]

Citroën 2CV: Space.

1969 Dodge Charger: Space.

 

 

Both have xenon thrusters as main propulsion but also fuel cells and reaction wheels. Stock parts.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Azimech

[Shadow dream]

23 hours ago, Mudkip909 said:

oh, why do you stay away from bigger hot dog and burger stands?

Actualy ... I never wrote that. Looks like an auto-filter. I also never wrote "I got liquided", but I got "the liquid you pour into a toilet after drinking lots of water"

[Hotel26]

I'm not gonna show any pics, but I build my rovers with sleds/boosters dragging a chute or two...  anything BUT "wheels".  (Doctor's orders...)

[Hotel26]

OK, this is pretty ugly.  Jeep Boxster. 

(Two of them ganged to test linkage for transport stowage.)

 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Hotel26

[Hotel26]

OK, I got serious and tried again.  For a stable, high-speed easily-transportable rover.

Link: Kerballenwagen

Why not use a large reaction wheel as the chassis, I thought?

And if it is difficult to get rovers into service bays, then why not put the service bay onto the rover?

And an in-line fairing is lighter than a service bay, so I will experiment with a design for a "convertible". 

2.5m is my standard gauge for rocket payload.  The top dock can be omitted if using a Klaw for deployment to the surface.

3 KWs packed onto an Aquila, on the way to the Mun for some sand buggying.

 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Hotel26