Rovers! Post your pictures here!

[OJT]

15 hours ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Doesn’t pretty much any rover without self-propulsion drive slow as molasses on Minmus? Low gravity reduces how much power the motors will apply, reducing top speed. 

I know that, but I think it's more to do with the weight of the van. The whole thing weighs about 22.5 tons, it wasn't particularly fast on Kerbin to begin with, but Minmus' almost nonexistent gravity only makes it worse

[king of nowhere]

On 11/19/2021 at 2:05 AM, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Doesn’t pretty much any rover without self-propulsion drive slow as molasses on Minmus? Low gravity reduces how much power the motors will apply, reducing top speed. 

no, not really. acceleration is lower because the wheels will skid on the ground, but there is no gravity limitation to top speed. well, except the speed at which you stop driving on the surface and you start taking suborbital jumps. that speed depends on the topography as much as anything else. on minmus, on the flattest grounds, i reached 58 m/s - the theoretical limit for the ruggedized wheels. even on the other terrain, i could easily reach 30 m/s, thanks mostly to minmus being very even.

It's also more difficult to control the rover in low gravity; it takes practice, and special training. if you're not deactivating reaction wheels, them alone will veer your rover off course.

To drive in low gravity, my preferred method is to have a rover with powerful reaction wheels, which are deactivated during normal driving. have a hotkey to activate them, and do it when you start losing control. use the reaction wheels to keep your rover wheels pointed at the ground. this way, the rover won't be ever broken.

top speeds i reached on small moons with this approach and ruggedized wheels are:

minmus: 58 m/s (flat), 35 m/s (normal terrain)

pol: 12 m/s (normal), 20 m/s (downhill); poll terrain is extremely rugged, it's impossible to move without bouncing around places

bop: 50 m/s; despite its mountainous nature, it is rugged on the large size, but the surface is smooth enough to pick up speed.

Ike: 70 m/s (downhill) at that speed, it's more suborbital jumping than driving. I could have gone even faster, but I broke a wheel

gilly: 4 m/s. doesn't look like much, but 15 m/s is enough to orbit, it's actually a lot. stopping was complicated.

 

there seems to be a hard limit of 1/4th to 1/3rd of the orbital speed, go that fast and you won't be in contact with the ground anymore. unless on perfectly flat ground.

rugged topography lowers that limit.

the wheels themselves have a 58 m/s limit, which can only be surpassed going downhill

jumping downhill faster than 70/80 m/s is too likely to break wheels

gravity itself is not much of a problem unless you surpass the hard limit

Edited December 1, 2021 by king of nowhere

[Zacspace]

5 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

powerful reaction wheels, which are deactivated during normal driving. have a hotkey to activate them,

I have my rover controls bound to the arrow keys so that I can just leave SAS on all the time in low gees. A lot of my smaller rovers probably just front flip if somebody with normal keybindings tries to drive them now that I think of it.

[Staticalliam7]

On 11/15/2021 at 3:54 PM, INPrint said:

Viking-M-2 science rover exploring Mün

Viking-class is currently my main type of uncrewed science rovers for yet another Soviet-themed career. The most noticeable feature of its design is adjustable angle mechanism of two main solar panels, which can be set to any angle between 0 and 60 degrees. This helps not only to provide more sunlight when sun is far from zenith, but also to protect panels from breaking during hard wheel-to-surface collisions. Top speed of this rover class is just above 30 m/s, but recommended cruising speed is 20 m/s. To get rid of excessive maneuverability, which can be dangerous in low-gravity environments, only front pair of wheels are steering. This measure sacrifices a bit of low speed performance and makes any attempt to move backwards very clumsy, to say at least, but travelling within cruising speed margin is mostly safe. Two SAS modules can provide additional steering at low speeds or stabilize rover during jump or freefall. Clearance is enough to travel across most edges but the sharpest ones without scratching the bottom, and chassis is sturdy enough to survive impact with vertical speed less than 25 m/s, though these are not recommended. Full science pack, excluding only materials bay, makes sure that any region exploration with this rover will provide throughout and reliable data. Two joint sockets at the rear may be used for transportation purposes, e.g. by Vikhr' spaceplanes.

Yoink! Your (quite good tbh) design is now mine

[TheWanderer05]

Some rovers ranging from 2017 to 2021...

In order:

1) Craft refueling rover powered by rockets instead of torque

2) Long-distance exploration rover with mining equipment and fuel cells to keep it powered during night operations

3) Hybrid rover/plane/boat for Eve exploration, has folding wings and electric ducted fans

4) Mid-tech, long-distance rover powered by torque and rockets to compensate for its weight

 

[SSTO Crasher]

http://image0.jpe

moderators can I have this post moved to sstos, the problem is that I tried to get a url but it’s so long that it will crash the page whenever the forums restores the content

[Vanamonde]

6 hours ago, SSTO Crasher said:

http://image0.jpe

moderators can I have this post moved to sstos, the problem is that I tried to get a url but it’s so long that it will crash the page whenever the forums restores the content

Sorry, what? Try hosting your image on Imgur. It's easy and no-charge. 

[SSTO Crasher]

Where is the converter on Imgur 

[Vanamonde]

10 hours ago, SSTO Crasher said:

Where is the converter on Imgur 

The what? 

[adsii1970]

11 hours ago, SSTO Crasher said:

Where is the converter on Imgur 

There is no converter. You create an account, then upload your image to the account. Once the image is uploaded to the account, right click and select "copy image link" then paste that in the forum text field area. Presto - you're done.

 

 

[miklkit]

New toy!  discovered how to do screenies.

Fillerup!

[WaveyD]

Active Bendy Rover

An ongoing work in banging head against wall.

The idea was to make a rover which could handle higher speeds on Mun and not flip. So far it works pretty well but only on Kerbin. Not really fast in any sense but whatever speed you can get out of it on Kerbin it wont flip even on slopes. Of course you can flip it on certain terrain but it's an improvement.

The passenger section translates to the inside of the corner and the inside wheels are pulled up and inward bring the COG closer to being directly over the inside wheels. The outside wheels extend and push down. The passenger section also rotates to try to maintain ground clearance. The motor sizes, torque, transverse rates also change while steering. The hinges provide some nice suspension when you get the settings just right. However, 'just right' tends to often mean 'that bump' and other bumps are not so right.

To get it working on the Mun i have to tune the 'suspension' to the gravity there. The biggest current headache is the lateral transfer not just flipping the thing to the inside of the turn

Kerbal X page

https://kerbalx.com/WaveyD/Active-Bendy-Rover

To compare with or without the hinges just disable the controller. I like making it because it's fun but sometimes i think it's no better than a rover without extra suspension which is lighter because less parts and lower.

Oh and if i try to put damping into the KAL i only get a range of 0 to 1 which gives 0 to 1 on the hinge instead of the 0 to 200.

I have several versions with various heights etc....by far the best performing on the moon is the one with a kraken drive for downforce but if you manage to flip that and the drive is pointing up in the sky it's a very very long accident.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by WaveyD

[Starhawk]

Pulled my old Rugged Reliable Rover over from an old save three or four versions ago.

Once I tweaked the friction control slider to prevent it drifting as though the sands of Duna were sheet ice it worked great!

 

Happy landings!

[Akagi]

The Duna Derp!

 

[Azimech]

On 1/8/2022 at 12:50 AM, WaveyD said:

Active Bendy Rover

An ongoing work in banging head against wall.

The idea was to make a rover which could handle higher speeds on Mun and not flip. So far it works pretty well but only on Kerbin. Not really fast in any sense but whatever speed you can get out of it on Kerbin it wont flip even on slopes. Of course you can flip it on certain terrain but it's an improvement.

The passenger section translates to the inside of the corner and the inside wheels are pulled up and inward bring the COG closer to being directly over the inside wheels. The outside wheels extend and push down. The passenger section also rotates to try to maintain ground clearance. The motor sizes, torque, transverse rates also change while steering. The hinges provide some nice suspension when you get the settings just right. However, 'just right' tends to often mean 'that bump' and other bumps are not so right.

To get it working on the Mun i have to tune the 'suspension' to the gravity there. The biggest current headache is the lateral transfer not just flipping the thing to the inside of the turn

Kerbal X page

https://kerbalx.com/WaveyD/Active-Bendy-Rover

To compare with or without the hinges just disable the controller. I like making it because it's fun but sometimes i think it's no better than a rover without extra suspension which is lighter because less parts and lower.

Oh and if i try to put damping into the KAL i only get a range of 0 to 1 which gives 0 to 1 on the hinge instead of the 0 to 200.

I have several versions with various heights etc....by far the best performing on the moon is the one with a kraken drive for downforce but if you manage to flip that and the drive is pointing up in the sky it's a very very long accident.

 

 

So basically you've tried to create a Citroën Xantia Activa. Nice work.

[WaveyD]

3 hours ago, Azimech said:

So basically you've tried to create a Citroën Xantia Activa. Nice work.

Haha, I guess so. It's a nightmare. They aren't springs, they don't give until you reach a certain force and then if that's maintained the give all the way, more force just equals faster to the end of travel. They do shape shifting quite well though. However, on the Mun there's just not enough gravity, the vector exceeds the track width with ease. The momentum of moving parts are very happy to do the same also. I gave up trying to turn on Mun and worked on straight line. You can tie multiple servos together, each with different torque so that only one moves at a time hits its limited travel and transfers the torque to the next stronger servo etc. Quasi stepped load of crap spring. However, you can get a good long throw suspension-ish thing. It's a something to do when listening to podcasts

[Admiral Fluffy]

Here is my massive rover with a walkable interior!

It has doors!

Spoiler

Cockpit

Back section

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

 

[SunlitZelkova]

On 2/4/2022 at 6:11 PM, Admiral Fluffy said:

Here is my massive rover with a walkable interior!

It has doors!

  Reveal hidden contents

Cockpit

Back section

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

 

That is extremely epic!

[Admiral Fluffy]

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

That is extremely epic!

Thanks! Going to put the craft file on KerbalX.

[Kerminator K-100]

On 2/4/2022 at 9:11 PM, Admiral Fluffy said:

Here is my massive rover with a walkable interior!

[Admiral Fluffy]

On 2/6/2022 at 3:59 PM, Admiral Fluffy said:

Thanks! Going to put the craft file on KerbalX.

Put it there!

https://kerbalx.com/Admiral_Fluffy/Absurd-Class-03

[MythicalHeFF]

2 hours ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

Put it there!

https://kerbalx.com/Admiral_Fluffy/Absurd-Class-03

Definitely going to go and take this thing for a spin later.

[Nazalassa]

Totally stock wheeled box

[mister_goo]

Trying to inventing a faster wheel in career mode.

[king of nowhere]

Introducing my newest rover, the Leaping Mantis. Here shown with its sky crane, that doubles as crew return pod

And here with ground protection deployed

Leaping Mantis is designed for an equatorial circumnavigation of Wal; this OPM moon of Urlum has a ring of mountains surrounding all the equator, reaching over 20 km in altitude; it's also fairly large, with 0.37 g on the surface.

To pass this obstacle, I need a rover that's extremely good at climbing and hard terrain. Leaping Mantis has 16 wheels for its 10.8 tons of mass, allowing it to climb easily upward to 40° in this gravity, and up to 50° with some difficulty. Large base and low baricenter help him cling to a cliff wall, but it's still got enough clearance to avoid scraping the bottom on ground obstacles. Strong reaction wheels (that can quickly be activated and deactivated on command) contribute to the stability.

One of Leaping Mantis most striking features are its front plane wheels; they look like a mantis claws, giving the rover its name.

Those wheels are for protection. in my circumnavigation of Slate, I discovered that taking a hard angle at significant speed would destroy the front wheels. The plane wheels are a lot more resistant, and they are placed just slightly above the plane of the other wheels. If the rover is about to hit a hard angle, like in the picture below, those wheels hit first and cushion the blow. They are super effective, and I'm now charging straight at rock walls just because I can.

In those conditions of middling gravity and harsh terrain, it's still easy to flip the rover. In lower gravity, you float long enough for the reaction wheels to recover your attitude, and you can land on your wheels. In higher gravity, you are glued to the ground. Here, after the failure of the first model I realized I need something that can survive some accidents. The wheels on top are very sturdy and let the rover survive a fall. The reaction wheels are not powerful enough to turn it upright on their own, but I included a special robotic mechanism for the task

the piston+hinge only weight slightly more than 100 kg.

Leaping Mantis is well equipped for difficult trails