Kinda Fed up with Rovers...

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Especially on Kerbin.  I've got these string-along 'test x on the surface' missions, which I used to do with purpose-built rovers.  And they were almost always really slow (10m/s) and very squirrely to drive.  (Turn without slowing way down?  Flip.  Boom.)

My new method is to take out a plane... and just not take off.  I can run along at a safe 20 m/s (the landing gear have more impact resistance than the wheels) and use the jet to both provide power for comms, etc., but to also help me scoot along much faster (and more controlled) than using electric powered rover wheels.

Anyone else doing this?  And are the plane landing gear just as useful on the other bodies as they are on Kerbin?

[magnemoe]

Make rovers light with an fairly wide base. 
This is one I sent to Gilly for use on my base. Added it to all my bases, that without the skycrane. 


My Eve science rover design, this is harder to drive safely in rough terain bit Eve gravity helps keeping it on the ground. 

[Klapaucius]

My Kerbin Rovers are jet-powered. 

I built this originally for @Triop's Dakar Rally of 2018(?).  The jets mean it can climb up nearly vertical walls.

 

https://kerbalx.com/Klapaucius/Thesiger-Rover--Transport

[jimmymcgoochie]

Try using the Bon Voyage mod, it's a rover autopilot and can drive your rovers straight to nav points or any point of your choosing. Makes using rovers for gathering science an absolute doddle- point them at a place and leave them to it; the RoveMate probe core gets it built in, otherwise there's a single part that you need to add to your rovers to make them work.

The only thing is, you'll need to turn the terrain detail setting to high (this changes the physical shape of the terrain, not the textures!) or your rovers *might* end up underground when you load them and rapidly become a chain of explosions.

Although for 'Test X on the surface' contracts I usually fly there then taxi around on the plane, assuming the landing left it (mostly) intact!

Edited May 19, 2020 by jimmymcgoochie

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I've done a bunch of rovers that use the 'keep it wide, flat and low' mentality... Only to abandon it once it's highsided somewhere due to inattentive diving.  I've built things that look like a Model T (my Jalopy, built to carry Science Jr into battle), and 6 wheeled things to do the science where I got my first lander stuck... 

None of them work as well on Kerbin as a plane. 

Although now that I've seen @Klapaucius  crazy wall climber - I'm gonna have to try something like that! 

 

It just seems backwards to me.  Car like wheels & suspension should be better than plane landing gear 

Edited May 19, 2020 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Klapaucius]

7 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

It just seems backwards to me.  Car like wheels & suspension should be better than plane landing gear 

Have to agree with you there.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Klapaucius

[Clamp-o-Tron]

Like @jimmymcgoochie, I just don't bother roving over long distances, I use Bon Voyage. On bodies with low gravity like Minmus I tend to add a reaction wheel with its authority turned down to 10 to the rover for short trips. If the rover flips, I quickly turn the authority up to 100, righting it.

On Kerbin, Duna, Eve or similarly large planets I generally don't experience many problems. Maybe its a thing with KSPwheel.

[linuxgurugamer]

21 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I've done a bunch of rovers that use the 'keep it wide, flat and low' mentality... Only to abandon it once it's highsided somewhere due to inattentive diving.  I've built things that look like a Model T (my Jalopy, built to carry Science Jr into battle), and 6 wheeled things to do the science where I got my first lander stuck... 

None of them work as well on Kerbin as a plane. 

Although now that I've seen @Klapaucius  crazy wall climber - I'm gonna have to try something like that! 

 

It just seems backwards to me.  Car like wheels & suspension should be better than plane landing gear 

Take a look at the truck in SXT

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

50 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Try using the Bon Voyage mod, it's a rover autopilot and can drive your rovers straight to nav points or any point of your choosing. Makes using rovers for gathering science an absolute doddle- point them at a place and leave them to it; the RoveMate probe core gets it built in, otherwise there's a single part that you need to add to your rovers to make them work.

 

I'm playing Vanilla (for now, albeit with the breaking ground and history add ons), but the question I have for you is about the nav points - are they part of the mod... or is there a way to set custom waypoints ?  I've fiddled around with Kerbnet, and either (lol or both) I'm not high enough in tech, or don't know what I'm doing - so I can't see how to do any of that in Vanilla.

3 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Take a look at the truck in SXT

SXT???

[linuxgurugamer]

7 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

 

SXT???

Parts mod, mostly airplane parts

[sturmhauke]

Low center of gravity and a wide wheelbase are the easiest thing to do, as others have pointed out. If you have Breaking Ground, you can use pistons as shock absorbers too. Wheel mods are a mixed bag. I used Kerbal Foundry wheels for this year's Dakar, and they worked pretty well, but they have a weird quirk of breaking the instant you hit max speed... even if you're in midair at the moment.

[Gargamel]

5 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

(Turn without slowing way down?  Flip.  Boom.)

This is true for any vehicle in the real world.   Every vehicle basically has a max cornering speed for a given turn radius.   Exceed this speed, and the radial force applied to the CoM takes it outside the footprint of the vehicle.... and you roll.    You can't expect otherwise in the game. 

[Klapaucius]

41 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

This is true for any vehicle in the real world.   Every vehicle basically has a max cornering speed for a given turn radius.   Exceed this speed, and the radial force applied to the CoM takes it outside the footprint of the vehicle.... and you roll.    You can't expect otherwise in the game. 

Since velocity in KSP is always in meters per second, I think we sometimes forget what speeds we are actually going.  

45 meters per second is just over 100 miles per hour, or 162 kph.  Add insanely sticky tires (if you have the friction control up) and flipping is inevitable.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Klapaucius

[TheFlyingKerman]

8 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Although for 'Test X on the surface' contracts I usually fly there then taxi around on the plane, assuming the landing left it (mostly) intact!

And if the place is too hilly to land, air drop a rover.

[BigFatStupidHead]

Another part of the problem is the stock rover wheels are set to "glue" by default. If you play around with their settings, you can get your rovers doing some awesome drifts rather than the flip-splat we all know too well.

[jimmymcgoochie]

If you’re driving fast, don’t use the wheel steering- use reaction wheels to ‘yaw’ instead, which tends to be more stable and less likely to do spontaneous cartwheels. You could also try switching off rear wheel steering, which reduces the chances of rolling at high speed but will also make your low speed turning circle considerably wider,

 

10 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm playing Vanilla (for now, albeit with the breaking ground and history add ons), but the question I have for you is about the nav points - are they part of the mod... or is there a way to set custom waypoints ?  I've fiddled around with Kerbnet, and either (lol or both) I'm not high enough in tech, or don't know what I'm doing - so I can't see how to do any of that in Vanilla.

All those waypoints you get for contracts should be visible on the map- click on it and set navigation to it and Bon Voyage can drive you straight there, although range limits apply and it can’t drive across water. There’s a separate water mode to drive boats, but I haven’t tried that.

You can set your own waypoints using KerbNet, but I find it much easier using the SCANsat map interface (from the SCANsat mod) which can also provide terrain and biome maps and a part to locate nearby anomalies (like monoliths) and BG surface features to scan/collect.

Edited May 20, 2020 by jimmymcgoochie

[KerikBalm]

Wide track + ability to load and unload from a mk3 cargobay... fly for long distance travel, drive for short distance:

Side docks for a wider track, while still fitting in the mk3 bay

This speed is fine on Kerbin, but asking for trouble on Mun:

[AHHans]

22 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Anyone else doing this?  And are the plane landing gear just as useful on the other bodies as they are on Kerbin?

Well, I'm not building dedicated jet-powered rovers, but I do taxi around a bit in my planes when needed. But this is usually to get from a safe (well, safe-ish) landing spot to where I want to go. If I want to go any significant distance on Kerbin, Duna, or Eve then I take to the air (I haven't really explored Laythe yet). And if it is a place that is hard to get to, then I take my VTOL.

Yes, as far as I can tell the landing gear works as well on the other planets as on Kerbin. But I usually don't taxi too fast.

Edited May 20, 2020 by AHHans

[Klapaucius]

10 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

If you’re driving fast, don’t use the wheel steering- use reaction wheels to ‘yaw’ instead, which tends to be more stable and less likely to do spontaneous cartwheels. 

One of the problems is that there is no gradual turning; the wheels are either straight or turned at their maximum amount (at least on a keyboard--I don't know about controllers).

One way around that is to lock the wheels and put a hinge joint in your rover which you then can control with the KAL-1000. I have not built a wheeled rover in this manner (hmm, sounds like a good project for after work), but I built a plane that works the same way by flexing.  That is, you open the KAL and drag the playhead with your mouse. It gives you a lot more control.

https://kerbalx.com/Klapaucius/Viktor-Bendable-Aircraft

Edited May 20, 2020 by Klapaucius

[sturmhauke]

You can bind robotic parts to steering controls too. They don't automatically return to neutral though.

[OHara]

3 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

One of the problems is that there is no gradual turning; the wheels are either straight or turned at their maximum amount (at least on a keyboard--I don't know about controllers).

Steering with alt-J/alt-L trim helps a little. That is, if you go into settings and assign IJKL keys for wheels. 

Using my right hand on IJLK for wheels, and left hand on WASDQE for the reaction wheels, and SAS holding prograde, made rovers fun for me --- s,till difficult to keep upright, but in a fun way more than a frustrating way.

[KerikBalm]

14 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

You can bind robotic parts to steering controls too. They don't automatically return to neutral though.

If you set play position to absolute, it does, but then you have no fine control... But with robotics, thete is a delay as the hinge moves, and you can have different action groups to change the amount that the hinge moves.

 

Or... You can use the really big wheels that don't turn, but work by differential torque.

Those things are tough, and can go over 100 m/s -seems to be a bit of an exploit, if you just hold forward, the top speed is low, but if you hold forward and right/left, it will accelerate, foward and alternating left/right can allow you to accelerate foward past 100 m/s depending on the rover design. The differential torque steering is also pretty stable even at high speed.

I use them on kerbin, but their size and mass make them rather inconvenient to take to space

[AHHans]

2 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

You can use the really big wheels that don't turn, but work by differential torque.

"He stared in shock, screamed 'WHY', and subsequently dropped dead on the spot."
[Edit:] I know the XL3 are great, but whenever I think about them that quote comes to my mind.

Edited May 21, 2020 by AHHans

[KerikBalm]

Why? Because you can go 100 m/s across kerbin like a boss, that's why (yes, I know its a quote from the part description)

[AHHans]

@KerikBalm: Sorry, I wasn't clear. I hope the edit makes it better.