Manned Rovers?

[AlamoVampire]

Okay, I know there is something I am missing here, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to make a manned rover. I can make robo rovers until the Kerbals come home, but a manned one that I can stick to a lander so I can Apollo 17 it so to speak eludes me.

Edited August 16, 2013 by AlamoVampire

[Scorpi15]

You can strap the EAS-1 external command seat (or two) to a structral part, then put rover wheels on the side. Voila, instant rover. To put it on a lander you should go look over at our good friend Scott Manley and his video on

.

[AlamoVampire]

Scott Manley is a wonderful 'tutor' of sorts, funny as all get out too. will check out said video.

[capi3101]

Making a rover is pretty straight-forward. The bigger challenge, of course, is designing a method of delivering one to a target body and designing it so it doesn't explode the first time it flips over (with the codicil of figuring out how to right it once it does flip over).

Here's the one I'm planning to take with me to the Mun (it's on Minmus in these shots):

This is the Hellhound 7 rover. She's based on an OKTO2 core with a Reaction Wheel as the main chassis, powered with four RTGS. The structural panels and modular girders give her a great deal of impact survivability; I've never had one of these explode for any reason other than high-speed lithobraking. Hell...I had one survive a 2,000 meter fall intact; popped the tires, of course, but that was it. She's a good, heavy design that illustrates the important points of rovers - build them with a low center of mass and give it a wide axle track. SAS helps keep it from flipping - in all my time driving the Hound, she has never flipped over on Kerbin and only once on Mun (and in that case, probe-torque rotation helped upright it again).

Here are some other rovers I've designed. These are from 0.19, so no seats on them; those were the days when you were expected to make your Kerbals hang on to dear life with ladders. They didn't work out very well, but you can kinda get the gist of the delivery system used...

Three for the price of one and they lasted about as long as a mouse fart...and that was on the old Mun. These are my practice rovers - I call them "mini rovers" these days, and have never came up with a better name for them. They work, but they're about as minimal as you can get. No protective elements, see...and the crucial elements - the core and the RTGs - are in ridiculously vulnerable positions.

What specific problem are you having with rovers, anyway?

Edited August 15, 2013 by capi3101

[Skorpychan]

Take a Rovemate body, stick a pocket-size girder on each side, and add wheels to it. Then slap a little probe core on the top, an RTG, some solar panels, batteries, and a couple of command seats. Then you've got little rover that can be fitted nicely under Rockomax tankage.

[Brevillance]

Heres a picture of my own rover

It may be a fair bit larger then your looking for, but its able to fit 4 kerbals comfortably too, and has a lot of extra stuff, mostly for looks, some for function.

[Scarecrow88]

Seeing as there isn't much gravity on Minmus, and normal rovers suffer a lack of grip due to no downforce, I went for a hover craft rover on my last visit.

[annallia]

Seeing as there isn't much gravity on Minmus, and normal rovers suffer a lack of grip due to no downforce, I went for a hover craft rover on my last visit.

I used a similar design for a personnel inter vessel transport system. I hate docking so much I made one just to ferry multiple kerbals between my ship and my station.

[AlamoVampire]

<snip for space sake>

General Design issues really. Have not figured out how to scale up from robotic remote rovers. BUT, seeing Scott's video and the various other pictures are giving me wonderful ideas. I cannot thank you all enough!

[AlamoVampire]

Okay, this is what I have managed so far, and this thing is an unholy disaster. The lander, in THEORY works, I have a near duplicate stationed on the Mun, just a few tweaks to stick that 'rover' under it. Namely the Radial Liquid Motors. The Rover, in THEORY works. It has a 50-50% history on Kerbin at the KSC working and NOT killing itself.

Below is closer on the rover itself.

Okay, below the rover and that skinny nuclear engine for its cruise stage is my STANDARD heavy lifter. which, minus those horrid fins works just fine. I placed those fins in the HOPES that it would help stabilize the bloody thing, but no, no good. This thing is a HANDFUL even for mechjeb. I do not know what is going on, I have launched a bunch of heavy crap with the heavy lifter, it stages fine normally, but now? its tearing itself apart during the gravity turn.... what am I missing? I really would love to go drive on other worlds.

edit: I just tested again with Canards, and while it was MORE stable, it made it down to the final 2 boosters with almost no issue. BUT, when it was on the 2 final boosters + the central mainsail <all 3 mainsails, actually, all 7 lift stage motors <boosters and core motor> all mainsails> it developed this wicked oscillation that tore it apart.

edit 2: more struts do nothing to help it only gets HIGHER before it suffers some form of catastrophic failure

Edited August 16, 2013 by AlamoVampire

[AlamoVampire]

Not the prettiest Rover by ANY means, nor was this an IDEAL landing, as you see, the automated systems the Kerbal Engineers back at KSC used doinked it hard blowing out 2 tires.

[Johnno]

but a manned one that I can stick to a lander so I can Apollo 17 it so to speak eludes me.

Oh you want to Apollo it?

Here's a few pics of mine for inspiration.

Edit: By the way, kerbals can repair wheels while on EVA. Walk up to the broken wheel and right click - repair wheel.

[alacrity]

I integrate my rovers into my Olympus base rig. Both are under hung in the THSS truss work. I use the electric or Mono engines of the TT modular wheels. The seat is a handy way to populate any rover with Kerbals. For moon rovers I usually do a dedicated launch of a robo rover I can drive to where the Kerbals are and then have them board.

[Skorpychan]

Okay, this is what I have managed so far, and this thing is an unholy disaster. The lander, in THEORY works, I have a near duplicate stationed on the Mun, just a few tweaks to stick that 'rover' under it. Namely the Radial Liquid Motors. The Rover, in THEORY works. It has a 50-50% history on Kerbin at the KSC working and NOT killing itself.

Below is closer on the rover itself.

Okay, below the rover and that skinny nuclear engine for its cruise stage is my STANDARD heavy lifter. which, minus those horrid fins works just fine. I placed those fins in the HOPES that it would help stabilize the bloody thing, but no, no good. This thing is a HANDFUL even for mechjeb. I do not know what is going on, I have launched a bunch of heavy crap with the heavy lifter, it stages fine normally, but now? its tearing itself apart during the gravity turn.... what am I missing? I really would love to go drive on other worlds.

edit: I just tested again with Canards, and while it was MORE stable, it made it down to the final 2 boosters with almost no issue. BUT, when it was on the 2 final boosters + the central mainsail <all 3 mainsails, actually, all 7 lift stage motors <boosters and core motor> all mainsails> it developed this wicked oscillation that tore it apart.

edit 2: more struts do nothing to help it only gets HIGHER before it suffers some form of catastrophic failure

First off, rotate the fins around so they don't risk bashing the rover wheels.

You need struts going PAST the rover, not just onto it. Use girder segments (I use cubic octagonal struts myself) above and below the rover, and strut between them. Do the same between the lander-can and the RCS tank, as there's a gap there.

Use winglets and not canards or wings. Static on the bottom, moveable further up.

Radial symmetry. For everything. All the way down. Unbalanced loads flip rockets.

The top of a lander-can is only a small node, which means it's a weak link. Struts there too.

Why are you carrying so much RCS fuel?

Also, that lander-can is going to make your rover really top-heavy in 1/6G.

Also, pay attention to where your struts are going! Make sure they all hit something structural, not an engine nozzle or a fin or whatever. THAT unbalances loads, too.

Maybe ditch the nosecones and strut to the tanks directly.

And strut between the big tanks laterally, too.

[AlamoVampire]

Skorpy: I put that much RCS fuel because I was unsure of my burn time on those radial engines having had never used them, and wanted to augment delta-V with RCS for retro burns, turned out that after just giving up on that launcher and robo launching the rover things got easier. I am not sure if I still have that particular launcher on file any more, if I do, I will adjust the struts and so forth per suggestions.

[Skorpychan]

If you get control issues on the way down, check where your radial engines are pointing. If they hit part of the spacecraft, it essentially negates their thrust.

[AlamoVampire]

it isnt control issues, it was more of: having never actually used those exact engines so i was unsure of how fast theyd purge the tanks and wanted to have some sort of backup in the RCS system to handle slowing things down if I accidentally drained the main fuel source and had to go RCS. After having robo landed it, I know it was over kill now.