Rover Developement

[band_boyscout]

I designed an unmanned rover to rescue 2 kerbals that I accidentally stranded on Duna. the problem I'm having is that it loves spinning out when I turn. does anyone have any ideas on what I can do to it to make it better? I appreciate any advice you can give me. thanks

Edited May 11, 2018 by band_boyscout

[bewing]

You can try increasing the friction on the back wheels. Alternately, you can try turning the motors off on the front wheels.

 

[Gargamel]

Also, turn off steering on the rear wheels, so it drives more like a car, rather than a break dancing robot.  

[ARS]

Add some upward facing monopropellant engines too on the roof and activate it whenever you drive the rover. It'll push your rover down on the ground for better traction, since Duna has a gravity that's low enough to send your rover flying using RCS alone, forcibly pressing it to grip the ground helps a lot

[Dark Lion]

If you could post a pic of the troubled rover, we could help more directly...

However, early on in building my own rovers, I noticed having the center of mass too far back makes the rover want to drive better backward. Try that and see if it flips out as you dislike. If not, that's probably your issue. The ideal CoM position for the contemporary steering axis would be just in front of the middle of all wheels' points of contact. Further forward means understeer and further back makes you oversteer (spin out.)

 

Edited May 13, 2018 by Dark Lion

[Mark Kerbin]

Set SAS to stability only and or get mechjeb and use its rover stability assist

[Daveroski]

If you use the AWSD key for controlling your rover, you will find that it will react in the same way a lightweight lander. Iw will want to lean in the direction that you press.

In Setup you can set the keys for driving a rover to your numpad. I use 8 for forward 4 and 6 for left and right and 5 for reverse.

By using these keys, SAS will not affect your rover other unless you specifically set it to do so.

Using the Numpad keys and SAS for stability assist you should have a more comfortable ride.

[Fraston]

Don’t put too many reaction wheels, those make it tilt and smash into the ground.