Lunokhod-style ramp

[Astraph]

Hello fellow kerbonauts!

I'm planning to deliver a large (>20 tonnes) rover to Mun, and am looking for the best way to land it on Munar surface. I'm thinking about using a Lunokhod-style delivery system (of course scaled up to fit this monstrosity), but have absolutely no idea how to create a deployable ramp to allow the vehicle to drive down to the surface once landed. Is this even possible to create such stuff with stock parts?

Edited September 2, 2013 by Astraph

[M4ck]

A movable one - I don't think so. But you can either make a static ramp which you will simply drive down, or use a decoupler/separator to shoot out one side of a transport "box". For movable ones you need something like some Robotics mod.

[Astraph]

Well, I guess I'll look into the robotics mod. Just blowing away one side of a box would be... Ugly ^^' Thanks a lot!

[lumpman2]

You could use landing gears that don't touch the ground, and put a panel on top if you want. Wheels can at least survive a small drop, especially on the Mun. And since your rover's probably long/wide enough (you said it was pretty large) it shouldn't flip when exiting the spacecraft, just make sure the wheels can drive on the landing struts.

[Wallace]

one that is folded up and goes down when you land? nope not with stock. you'd have to get infernal robotics.

tho.... there maybe a work around, if you get a decoupler just right, you could have the ramps decouple and fall down as like loose pieces. would probably be very hard to make them fall down right tho.

[Specialist290]

I'd like to note that I tested a Lunokhod-style configuration a while back. I ran into two main problems during the ground tests:

1. If the decoupler between the lander and rover was too low, the wheels would clip through the lander's surface, causing the rover to do some interesting gymnastics once the rover decoupled.

2. If the decoupler was too high (elevated by the octagonal or square truss pieces), the rover would just sit on top of the decoupled structure without a way to drive down.

I think there were also a few problems getting the game to recognize the ramp as a ramp and not as a static object to be collided with or clipped through. Not saying it can't be done or that you shouldn't try, but it's very difficult to get it done right with the parts currently used in the stock game, and other landing configurations might be more convenient in the long run.

[Temstar]

For rovers in the 20+ ton range you might want to consider integrated landing equipment - either small rocket motors (R24-77 and its brother is a good one) and fuel tanks built directly into the rover or small rockets strapped to the side of the rover to be jettisoned once the rover is on the ground. The first solution also gives the rover sub-orbital hop capability in case you need to jump over rough terrain ala that scene from Armageddon.

But if you were going for a Lunokhod style ramp I have a suggestion: instead of attaching the rover to the ramp by bottom mounted decoupler use horizontal mounted decoupler (so attach point at front, back or side of the rover) instead. I find that horizontal attachment suffers a lot less from "wheel clipping through ramp" type issues.