Boulders on the Mün?

[kerbomatic]

I have a newbie question to anyone who runs KSP at high-ish graphics quality and drives rovers.

Since I have an old laptop, I run KSP at the lowest settings. This means, for example, that I see very blurry textures on the Mün and no rocks or obstacles of any kind. Yet from the youtube videos I know they are there, although I always thought they could be safely ignored.

Recently, I landed a tiny rover on the Mün. After driving around for a bit, I seem to have gotten to an area riddled with invisible rocks that, when I run into them, almost launch and generally topple my little rover. This is at speeds of a mere ~2-4 m/s.

Could someone confirm that this is indeed caused by rocks that I could see if my computer were capable of displaying them? Alternatively, could they be random terrain features like fractures or ridges?

[Vanamonde]

Even if you do turn the rocks option on, they are only a visual effect and you pass through them instead of hitting them. Whatever your problem may be, it isn't from hitting rocks, invisible or otherwise. Unfortunately, I do not know what it might be.

[Custard Donut (In Space)]

As Vanamonde says the rocks aren't solid so they shouldn't be the cause of your problem, despite having driven a rover on the Mun i never came across something like that, i hope someone else might know what it could be.

[sal_vager]

Do you have the rover there still? If so can you post the persistent.sfs for us?

[kerbomatic]

Thanks guys. I may just have to land a heavier rover and/or more of the same to see what happens For science!

[kerbomatic]

Do you have the rover there still? If so can you post the persistent.sfs for us?

Sorry I'm still on probation so response is laggy. I will look for this file tonight!

[kerbomatic]

Alright here's the file:

http://rapidshare.com/files/2709626295/persistent.sfs

I'm assuming this will allow you to try to drive the rover yourself? If you head down hill (straight north) I can almost guarantee that you will hit an 'invisible rock' eventually...

[lobsterbark]

Thats a known issue, and makes rovers unusable for me on lower-than-kerin gravity.

[Payload]

Alright here's the file:

http://rapidshare.com/files/2709626295/persistent.sfs

I'm assuming this will allow you to try to drive the rover yourself? If you head down hill (straight north) I can almost guarantee that you will hit an 'invisible rock' eventually...

This is happening because of your terrain settings. They need to be set to default. You are hitting invisible seams in the ground.

All other settings are fine at the lowest. Terrain needs to be left at default.

[kerbomatic]

Great. Invisible seams in the ground makes sense. I tried the default terrain settings very briefly which seems to resolve the issue. I will test more but for now I consider my question answered.

Incidentally, the rover sat next to a stranded spacecraft which, after changing the setting, found itself suddenly about a kilometer or so above ground The rover had a front row seat to its subsequent crash. Apply settings with caution!