Transporting a rover to the mun

[mystifeid]

2 hours ago, TanDeeJay said:

Does it need the 6 wheels? My current rover is using 4 of those wheels without too much problems. Taking out the middle pair of wheels would lower the weight and part count, but how would that affect handling? 100m/s wow thats fast! I usually hit the brakes when I get over about 30. Had way to many flips

It's a pity these wheels have an impact rating of 100m/s, plus what constitutes high speed is relative to the planet/moon and to the surface being driven on. Try strapping a couple of vectors on and going to Kerbin's North or South Pole. I'm not sure if it is still possible but I recently watched a video of a rover hitting 1030m/s. When not driving on perfect surfaces these wheels don't tend to last very long once speed gets past 120m/s and even 100m/s is a big risk.

If you want to try driving fast for very long periods, imho Tylo is the best (stock) place, followed by Vall. Long downhills, no atmosphere and reasonable gravity all let you coast at 90-95m/s, or faster if you don't brake, for a long time without using engines. Even moving very fast, these places take ages to drive around and I can assure you that any rover would sooner or later be performing the acrobatics to which you appear to already have become accustomed.

I've never really tested it but it has always seemed that the more wheels a rover had, as long as it was landing on all of them together, the higher it could land a jump from - and because of that, the faster it could travel on the surface. That's why the rover pictured above has 20 wheels. Just recently I was using that rover and that booster to travel to the start of the Dessert Derby and overshot the mark. Instead of aborting straight away, I refrained from deploying the chutes and let it plow uncontrolled into the ground. A few things exploded and it looked...different but it still moved.
 
The ultimate rover test: drop it on Kerbin from 10km up.

So for anyone who likes rovers why not come to the Dessert Derby?

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by mystifeid

[TanDeeJay]

No wonder I never have problems with those wheels blowing up... I've never got above 35m/s...  Definitely going to have to define the alternate rover controls.  only reason i crash above 35 is that my reaction wheels are set on SAS only, and I don't have the ability to control them when needed to align my rover with the ground it is about to land on...

[chico]

On 9/8/2018 at 6:49 AM, TanDeeJay said:

Does it need the 6 wheels? My current rover is using 4 of those wheels without too much problems. Taking out the middle pair of wheels would lower the weight and part count, but how would that affect handling? 100m/s wow thats fast! I usually hit the brakes when I get over about 30. Had way to many flips

I think the extra wheels is essential if you wanna go fast, specially in Duna, Tylo etc sometimes you hit the ground so fast the extra wheels helps to distribute the load. Not to mention when some wheels fly out but the rover still works.

Example: after hitting the ground at 150 m/s my engineer and 2 wheels went kaput but the rover is still going strong. Tefrod Kerman didn't even notice.

Quote

only reason i crash above 35 is that my reaction wheels are set on SAS only, and I don't have the ability to control them when needed to align my rover with the ground it is about to land on...

Exactly, setting SAS to Prograde is a must because you will only have to use Q and E to align the rover when you flip, and you will be flipping a lot specially if you try to slow down using brakes but that's half the fun, if you don't like too much fun you should burn Retrograde.

[TanDeeJay]

Never thought of setting sas to prograde. Will have to try that. Ive also defined alternate rover control keys now. Still havnt managed to get much above 40m/s. But have managed some interesting recoveries with no rover damage  ... 360° roll landing on the wheels...