Rover questions

[Mr.Rocket]

Feel free to answer whichever question, just say which one you are answering

1. how do you get the rover to move, my wheels seem to sink in the ground on kerbin, but still be spinning?

2. how do you get in the external chairs?

3. how do you sit the kerbanaughts so they can drive?

4. also, how do you transport them?

[BigFatStupidHead]

1) Sounds like your wheels are upside down.

2) When in EVA with a Kerbal, right-click on the command chair.

3) Automatically occurs after 2)

4) In a pod? You should clarify this question.

[Mr.Rocket]

thanks for the first three. for the last, i meant how to you carry them to other places in a rocket? is there a rig or garage part?

[Mr.Rocket]

for number 1, it doesnt seem like they are upside down, they look fine. they are moving, but do they need certain power sources to actually "move"?

[Skorpychan]

You've got to mount them to a rocket like any other part. My current design for a little rover is basically a rovemate probe body with wheels, seats, solar panels, and a probe core. Force can be transmitted clean through the center of it, so I just pack it under a lander and add decouplers and spacers, and strut around it for spaceflight. It ends up a little wobbly on final approach, but it doesn't deal with much in the way of force by that point.

Land on surface, decouple rover, rover drops to the ground. Just remember to have the brakes on, so it won't roll away. Lost my first Minimus rover to that; it rolled off down the hill and exploded.

[M4ck]

Yes, electricity. Check if they definitely touch the ground, not hover a bit above the ground.

And for "storing" kerbals, anything with "crew capacity"(or something like that) will work. Stock this would be pods and something called "hitchhiker's storage" found in utility tab. Each has room for 4 kerbals. Rovers can be moved docked to a rocket/plane, some mods also allow you to build things directly in orbit or on other planets.

Edited September 2, 2013 by M4ck

[BigFatStupidHead]

Well, if they're moving, then they have power. (Electricity) Some of the wheels are pretty deceptive in how they look; I've mounted more than one set upside-down accidentally. Careful observation of their suspension can give you a clue as to which way is up, but usually it's easier to just flipping them.

[Mr.Rocket]

cool, thanks. ill try this out now and see how it works

[Tank Buddy]

No, You have to mount them below or on the side of your rocket and use a Skycrane configuration, I can show you some pictures if you wish, or you can just look at the stock one and add creativity.

[Mr.Rocket]

whats the best part for a rover body?

[Mr.Rocket]

could you show pictures, i dont know what a skycrane is

[Mr.Rocket]

could you show pictures, i dont know what a skycrane is?

[Mr.Rocket]

pictures please?

[Genius Evil]

A skycrane is basically a craft on top of your payload (rover, base, fuel tank, etc.) that sets it on the ground and than separates from it. If you still need pictures, I have some I can upload.

[Zaeo]

This is a Sky crane. Its actually the system used to deliver Curiosity to mars.

[capi3101]

Basically a skycrane is a craft that is designed to deliver a rover without necessarily landing. Here's one:

This is the Storax Sedan 7 - both pics are on Duna. The rovers in this case were loaded radially onto the sides of the transfer stage/lander, flew that way all the way out to Duna and then separated after landing (lithobraking). The Sedan can land...but it has no legs, so it either will land on the engine bells or they'll snap off when it tips over (as what happened in this case). The method employed here was one-way only; it's trickier to design a craft that will retrieve the rovers once you're finished with them (I haven't designed a craft like this as yet).

As far as the best part for a rover body goes, it depends on what you want the rover to do. I personally find that it doesn't matter so much as long as all the hardware critical for its operation (probe core, battery packs, RTGs if that's what you're using for main power) is either encased in parts that have high impact tolerances (structural panels and modular girders) or has those parts situated around them such that there is no way short of a full-on crash that the critical parts will sustain a direct impact. You see my Hellhound 7s delivered by the Storax Sedan 7? They follow that philosophy; they've got an OKTO2 probe core at their heart and their main structural piece is an Inline Reaction Wheel (leave that on when the rover's in operation and it becomes nearly impossible to flip).

A lot of folks will tell you the best piece is the large Structural Panel, and again that's because of the high impact tolerance (80 m/s) - you'll never be able to drive that fast unless you're doing something stupid like driving with JATO, because your tires will fail first. You can't really go to wrong with one. Only caution I'd advise there is to make sure any critical bits aren't sticking slightly through the panels. The rove on which the Hounds above were deployed I lost nearly every Negative Gravioli detector aboard due to them clipping ever- so-slightly though structural panels.

Rover design - build them low, build them wide, SAS is good, lock the steering on the back wheels, use the docking controls to drive or re-map your keyboard for translation and keep the important stuff protected. Follow those guidelines and you should meet with a good deal of success.

Edited September 3, 2013 by capi3101

[KerbMav]

whats the best part for a rover body?

Depends on what youre going for - fast scout, taxi between landing site and ground base, expedition craft with lots of personnell, mining rig ... let your imagination go wild! And then catch her and fit the physics into it.

[locustgate]

A general rule I learned after day one of rover designing, if you can flip it with medium difficulty on Kerbine DO NOT PUT IT ON ANY OF THE MOONS. Especially Minimus.

[Mr.Rocket]

howabout the taxi one?

[Skorpychan]

A general rule I learned after day one of rover designing, if you can flip it with medium difficulty on Kerbine DO NOT PUT IT ON ANY OF THE MOONS. Especially Minimus.

Minimus is death to rovers. Not enough grip, sharp rises from the ice plains, and barely enough gravity to stop kerbals leaping into orbit.

The Mun is just a bit tricksy.

Duna is ideal rover turf. I have my little rover zipping around without problem, other than having to stop to recharge the batteries every so often because hills.

[capi3101]

Most folks like to use engines to employ some kind of downforce to their rovers on Minmus - it's one of the few places where I've seen folks employ ion thrusters with success.

I've deployed Hounds to Minmus before and had no issues...

[HansBlix]

Well i just started my rover delivery service, so might be able to give you some general insights on my early learnings, bearing in mind this is focused on small rovers and mun (looking at u Duna) rover ops.

1. Use the rovemax model 1n wheels or the really tiny ones. I find the tiny ones too fragile and the others too big or too full'o'torque so mostly, so far, am using the 1N version.

2. Angle the wheels... now this is tricky, have worked out if you angle outwards it seems to kill it ( i may be doing it wrong), but angling along the line of travel 8 notches (when you alt move it) seems to work perfectly, any more and forget it. the angles improves stability immeasurably!

3. Delivery - lots of options as mentioned previously. Attach them to the side of the lander, under the lander (semi sky-crane), full blown sky crane, or my latest invention as seen below which i don't even have a name for (rover package?)note: requires novapunch and procedural fairings mods.

4. RCS - have found RCS to be awesome for scooting you up a hill the wheels don't have the guts for, or for righting that wayward rover... which happens a lot....

5. On mun, 10m/s is good to maintain maneuverability (rover dependent of course), small movements, nothing too drastic and for the love of god don't over-correct or turn when your about to get air.

Now for some pics of the rover package. Supposed to be a self-contained dual rover with refueling station system. You can see the 2 rovers and the yellow tanks are for refilling rcs fuel. The docking ports on the rover and fuel tank are at the same height when on the ground (if i can get them all the stand up right). The second-last pic in the series is the delivery rocket. Got it to the Mun but stuffed the landing, am sure it still needs tweaking for mun enviro, but works perfectly on kerbin. Basically a big rocket to get it there, a large lander with three kerbals on the top, and the rover package underneath. the lander and rover package are landed separately but close together so the kerbals can jump on. Also included a pic of a semi-skycrane one i made using novapunch lander module.

Good Luck!

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[Mr.Rocket]

do those pictures use any

mods?

[HansBlix]

Rocket,

I use the novapunch mod (highly recommend it) and the procedural fairings mods (as per novapunch) the rover base and the little yellow rcs tanks on the rover are nova punch, but easily replaceable with parts out of stock. The housing is procedural fairings, and the rest of the rocket is a combo of novapunch 5m parts and KW rocketry 3.75m parts with some stock. Mods take this game to a whole new level, you trade off ram for cpu with the lower part count, plus they look perty http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/smilies/k_cool.gif

[HansBlix]

Rocket,

I use the novapunch mod (highly recommend it) and the procedural fairings mods (as per novapunch) the rover base and the little yellow rcs tanks on the rover are nova punch, but easily replaceable with parts out of stock. The housing is procedural fairings, and the rest of the rocket is a combo of novapunch 5m parts and KW rocketry 3.75m parts with some stock. Mods take this game to a whole new level, you trade off ram for cpu with the lower part count, plus they look perty http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/smilies/k_cool.gif