Righting rovers in EVA

[Anton P. Nym]

As has been made clear by many, many forum comments rovers are very tippy in KSP. This can be frustrating, to say the least.

Now that Kerbals can repair objects during EVA, would it be possible to give them the ability to right an overturned rover the same way? Perhaps make it a right-click option on the control pod, like right-clicking a 'chute to repack it or right-clicking a wheel to repair it.

I'm not sure if it'll work in KSP's physics package, and I guess it could be unrealistic in some cases (ie: multi-ton rovers), but it would spare players a lot of fuss.

-- Steve

PS: Not my idea; I'm cribbing severely from the "Halo" handbook here where "press 'X' to right {vehicle}" was an all-too-necessary feature given its physics engines.

edited to add: A thought on how it could be done; give the Kerbal a certain amount of lift force applied vertically to the CoM of the object, plus some torque about the long axis. That would impose a limit on how heavy a rover a Kerbal could flip while still working on the light-weight ones. I guess the torque'd have to be scaled according to the mass of the object to avoid cartwheeling it.

Edited August 11, 2013 by Anton P. Nym
late thought on implementation

[Kermunist]

A good idea I think, but a better implementation might be to just apply a force in the upward direction to a single part the kerbal is closest to. Say 200N until the part reaches head height. That's a decent model of someone lifting something, and deals with the problem of turning over too-heavy rovers. It might need to be scaled down a bit for light rovers and low g worlds though.

Even better would be a way of telling the kerbal to lift/push/pull an object in a selectable direction with a selectable force. Then they could right rovers, throw debris around, drag probes about etc. Not sure how to make a nice interface for that though.

[Ernest3.14]

Well, on low G worlds, you really would be able to lift more. So there's nothing wrong with that.

[VerdammteSeele]

Agreed, I've flipped a few rovers already and would love to fix them up with Kerbals (Kerbils?). I agree on using a fixed amount of upward force on the closest side. Let the already set gravity of the world be a factor in the math rather than making new variables.

[That guy who builds stuff]

Well, on low G worlds, you really would be able to lift more. So there's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah but we don't want kerbals going to ike and punting stuff into orbit...

Never mind; Do it!

[VerdammteSeele]

Yeah but we don't want kerbals going to ike and punting stuff into orbit...

Never mind; Do it!

I set a Kerbal to his death by jumping from the surface of minimus into orbit with the jetpack. After this gets implemented I should send a team to literally throw a rover into orbit from the surface. lol

[Anton P. Nym]

Yeah but we don't want kerbals going to ike and punting stuff into orbit...

First annual KSP Ike caber toss?

-- Steve

[Tw1]

I would also support this assuming there is some method of determining which way the rover should be turned.

I also like the idea if an Ike or Gilly caber toss...

[Kimberly]

First annual KSP Ike caber toss?

-- Steve

Never mind punting it into orbit, punt it with escape velocity! Because Ike is geostationary, if you take position at the spot on Ike where Duna is at its Zenith, you can draw a bull's eye on Duna and try to score points!

[Tw1]

Never mind punting it into orbit, punt it with escape velocity! Because Ike is geostationary, if you take position at the spot on Ike where Duna is at its Zenith, you can draw a bull's eye on Duna and try to score points!

Now this smells like a challenge!

Except I haven't been to Ike yet..

[Kimberly]

Now this smells like a challenge!

Except I haven't been to Ike yet..

According to the wiki, escape velocity for Ike is 534.48 m/s. If you accelerate an object to this speed in an instant, its apoapsis should lie just outside the sphere of influence of Ike. The object will slow down as it gets closer to Duna, barely moving at all near apoapsis...until it exits Ike's sphere of influence, and accelerates as it falls towards Duna.

After running the numbers, though, I've found two issues. The first problem is that objects in KSP tend to be quite heavy. Say we have something that weights 0.5 tons--pretty light. If we say you can apply a force for one second, that means you'll need to apply 267 kN worth of force to accelerate the object to escape velocity. Even getting a 5 kg battery to Duna requires 2672 N, as it turns out, though that's something human weight lifters can easily achieve.

The second issue is that Ike's orbit is actually a bit eccentric and inclined, so Duna's position in the sky at a given spot changes by a few degrees as it orbits. This doesn't sound like a lot, but can make hundreds of kilometers' difference. So there would be an exact launch window for precision punting!

[chaos_forge]

Obrital punting aside, this sounds like a great idea and I'd love to see it in KSP.

[karolus10]

What about cables attached to kerbals back like In KAS mod ? It would use short rope attached to side of the rover and pull the cable by walking or using jet-pack.

[Dunbaratu]

I have often wanted the rope idea. The big problem with trying to flip rovers in EVA as it is now is twofold:

1 - You can't tell the game that you're trying to hold on to a part. You "slip off" them.

2 - When using the backpack thrusters, any collision terminates your jetpack thrust until your kerbal falls to the ground and rights himself. This means you can't put your head under the rover and thrust up to push it over. As soon as you hit the rover your thrust stops and you fall.

I have had limited success with righting a rover by using my kerbalnaut as a projectile, flying it toward a bit of the rover from the right direction so that the collision will impart just enough rotation onto it to tip it (useful for rovers on their side but not all the way upside down). But it would be a lot better to just hook a cable and pull on it.