Rovers not good enough?

[Unfawkable]

So I've tried my hand at Rovers, and I've managed to build a half-decent one that gets 20m/s on the Mun and is stable enough, but previously I though the purpose of Rovers would be to more easily explore different biomes of a celestial body like the mun. Turns out it's far, far, FAR to slow to do this efficiently, and it's much better to bring one rocket with extra fuel and to explore the biomes this way.

So should Rovers be significantly buffed to actually have a purpose, or should they just stay these fun things that you can use for that ''I'm driving around on the Mun, yay'' effect?

[Panzerbeard]

Well, bear in mind, 20 m/s, and that's.. well, it's rather fast, comparatively (Curiosity does, what, 40 metres per day?). They're supposed to be local exploration devices, not long-distance vehicles. Your best bet is to land them on the borders of biomes, or near an area of scientific interest, whatever you deem that to be.

I think they should stay as they are, personally, they have as much purpose as anything else in the game at this stage. Why build an intercontinental jet-plane when you could just do a suborbital hop in a much simpler rocket? Why spend hours setting up your big space stations that don't actually 'do' anything? The game is about doing things just for the experience. Plus, I feel that if rovers were made more 'useful', buffing the speed wouldn't be the way to do it. Just my personal opinion, though.

What I WOULD like to see is more interaction within a biome; maybe drilling moon rocks for samples? Obviously the way Terrain Scatter is done at the moment doesn't allow this, but it's something I think would be interesting, and make rovers a bit more useful. Maybe have different samples from different altitudes, too, so you can, say, check the composition of the rock at the bottom of a crater, or on top of a mountain.

Edited November 29, 2013 by Panzerbeard

[spudcosmic]

Rovers are just fine right now, considering 20 m/s is faster than ever rover made in real life; most barley go beyond 1 m/s. Even for gameplay purposes rovers are plenty fast enough, especially considering you're moving around a celestial body practically for free. I suppose this is kind of like the ion engine case, where ksp ions are much better than irl ions, but people still prefer to stick with more powerful engines to save time.

[Felsmak]

20 meters per second is equal to 72 km per hour, which is pretty reasonable for a surface vehicle and also way better than any real life rover. You don't exactly see cars moving at suborbital speeds, and doing that on the rough terrain of another planet would hardly be a good idea either. 20 meters per second is quite risky already.

[Vanamonde]

Moved to gameplay questions. Carry on.

[Geschosskopf]

So should Rovers be significantly buffed to actually have a purpose, or should they just stay these fun things that you can use for that ''I'm driving around on the Mun, yay'' effect?

Rovers have a purpose. It's just not exploration, at least not on the scale of crossing biome boundaries, although there are a few crazy masochists who use them for that. The main reason to have rovers is to assemble and reposition base modules, refuel landed ships, etc. But for carrying Kerbals, they're only good for where you need to travel a few clicks and the gravity's too much for jetpacks.

[zekes]

My rovers can get to 60 m/s... just put an ASAS at the bottom and leave it on. it stays very steady.

[Unfawkable]

I think they should stay as they are, personally, they have as much purpose as anything else in the game at this stage. Why build an intercontinental jet-plane when you could just do a suborbital hop in a much simpler rocket? Why spend hours setting up your big space stations that don't actually 'do' anything? The game is about doing things just for the experience. Plus, I feel that if rovers were made more 'useful', buffing the speed wouldn't be the way to do it. Just my personal opinion, though.

What I WOULD like to see is more interaction within a biome; maybe drilling moon rocks for samples? Obviously the way Terrain Scatter is done at the moment doesn't allow this, but it's something I think would be interesting, and make rovers a bit more useful. Maybe have different samples from different altitudes, too, so you can, say, check the composition of the rock at the bottom of a crater, or on top of a mountain.

Well, this is true, rather than buffing we should just broaden their use, which will take time I guess. If there was more stuff to do within a biome, this would not be a problem.

Rovers are just fine right now, considering 20 m/s is faster than ever rover made in real life; most barley go beyond 1 m/s. Even for gameplay purposes rovers are plenty fast enough, especially considering you're moving around a celestial body practically for free. I suppose this is kind of like the ion engine case, where ksp ions are much better than irl ions, but people still prefer to stick with more powerful engines to save time.

Ion engines are not as bad, since you can warp orbital vessels after performing a burn, while you can't do that with rovers. I know this game is all for realism, but no one would want to drive a rover straight line for over half an hour just to MAYBE change a biome. If warping while driving a rover were possible, this would not be a problem. And if there was more stuff to do in a single biome which would require moving.

My rovers can get to 60 m/s... just put an ASAS at the bottom and leave it on. it stays very steady.

Niceee. This is however my first Rover, and it's hardly stable, but at least it moves, and I managed to get it on the Mun in the first place. I'm pretty new, and I'm playing career mode.

Edited November 29, 2013 by Specialist290
Merging sequential posts.

[zekes]

Niceee. This is however my first Rover, and it's hardly stable, but at least it moves, and I managed to get it on the Mun in the first place. I'm pretty new, and I'm playing career mode.

Well i built mine in Career mode too....

[Prime flux]

What would be a rover buff, would be a wheel which can steer better and allow crab steering like the NASA space exploration vehicle. Basically wheel which can turn 360 degress and allow the vehicle to both translate forward,backwards and left and right, but also do things like pivot turns. A bonus feature would be if they also can extend and retract to lower and raise the vehicle. This would simplify what i mostly do with my rovers -base building and docking.

Like

Edited November 29, 2013 by Prime flux

[Unfawkable]

What would be a rover buff, would be a wheel which can steer better and allow crab steering like the NASA space exploration vehicle. Basically wheel which can turn 360 degress and allow the vehicle to both translate forward,backwards and left and right, but also do things like pivot turns. A bonus feature would be if they also can extend and retract to lower and raise the vehicle. This would simplify what i mostly do with my rovers -base building and docking.

This does help with mobility, but hardly helps the speed (not the rover itself maybe, but the speed of the exploration).

[Taki117]

As far as biome crossing goes, on the north eastern edge of the men's east crater you can get 3 biomes within a few hundred metres of each other. There's the east crater proper, polar lowlands, and poles all within a short drive.

[Unfawkable]

As far as biome crossing goes, on the north eastern edge of the men's east crater you can get 3 biomes within a few hundred metres of each other. There's the east crater proper, polar lowlands, and poles all within a short drive.

This would be useful if there was a way of mapping and knowing where biomes begin and end, but right now the only thing we can do is wiki it.

[Panzerbeard]

This would be useful if there was a way of mapping and knowing where biomes begin and end, but right now the only thing we can do is wiki it.

If you're not against using mods, THIS works really well, and, personally, I think it's better than the ISA MapSat.

[zekes]

My favorite "Rover"

[Unfawkable]

My favorite "Rover"

I don't suppose it can actually shoot? xD

[Liowen]

My favorite "Rover"

I have rover envy right now, my second one is soooooo small in comparison.

[Unfawkable]

How would you even get that thing to another planet?

[Geschosskopf]

This does help with mobility, but hardly helps the speed (not the rover itself maybe, but the speed of the exploration).

You just need to accept that, for the average person, rovers are useless for exploration. Sure, they can do it, but it will always take forever. This isn't just because rovers are and will always be inherently slower than anything that can fly, but also because rovers are tied to the ground. Thus, they have to be driven very slowly and carefully through difficult and dangerous terrain, and have to make large detours around impassable terrain. As such, the only people who explore with rovers are those few who groove on it; nobody else has the patience for it. The bottom line, then, is that if you want to explore vast distances from a single landing site in a reasonable time, you USUALLY have to fly.

Everybody comes to this realization fairly early in their KSP experience. They quickly reach the point where they feel pretty confident in getting a lander to Mun and back, so think to up their game by doing a rover. And then they discover it's not fun and doesn't do them any real good. Mun is littered with thousands of little rovers that their designers were so proud of, and launched with such high hopes, only to abandon as useless after driving only a few hundred meters.

[Algiark]

I think one way to make rovers have a purpose is by making science on land not only biome based, but point-of-interest based as well. These points could be as frequent as terrain scatter, or they can be terrain scatter themselves. Doing science on these points will net you small science, but occassionally you could stumble upon a point which gives you massive science. So you scan a rock, it gives you some science. You move to the rock next to it, and you might get different value of science. Sort of like egg hunt, only with science.

Edited November 30, 2013 by Algiark

[Sirrobert]

Wait, you want to drive a rover halfway acros a planet, and than you think it's weird that takes awhile?.

Biomes are the size of countrys, or continents sometimes. OFCOURSE it would take awhile to drive there

I know this game is all for realism.

No it's not. This is NOT a sim game dude. Going 200km/h in a mun rover would still be crazy though

[magnemoe]

Munar mobile laboratory after returning to Kerbin. good for 20-30 m/s tend to become unstable if driving faster.

It can do all relevant science for Mun. However its just designed to move around and sample at the biome intersect areas as in up to 10 km, the lander will then take it back to orbit, refuel and land in another area or it can do an suborbital jump, jumping require the drop tank. Found that the areas is so distant that I can just as well go into orbit.

This is the first version

Lander and rover in one unit. This was before I researched the all terrain wheels so it had problems with slopes, it was also heavier as its an all in one unit. However it made it back with an motherlode of science.

[Vanamonde]

You can go just about anywhere in a rover, if you have the patience. I've driven one from the north pole of Minmus to the south pole, for example, and about halfway around Mun.

But yeah, it took several days and got pretty boring after a while. And that was in the old days, when Tosh's cart mod could zip you around at ridiculous speeds. Got some nice scenery screenshots, though.

[Geschosskopf]

I think one way to make rovers have a purpose is by making science on land not only biome based, but point-of-interest based as well. These points could be as frequent as terrain scatter, or they can be terrain scatter themselves. Doing science on these points will net you small science, but occassionally you could stumble upon a point which gives you massive science. So you scan a rock, it gives you some science. You move to the rock next to it, and you might get different value of science. Sort of like egg hunt, only with science.

No offense, but if driving rovers at full speed is already boring, wouldn't breaking the trip up with a bunch of repetitive, and largely pointless stops make it even worse?

The only way to make rovers viable for exploration and science is to have autonomous probe vehicles. You'd plunk them down and let them do their thing in the background for days/months/years while you do something fun and interesting. Failing that, forget it. The only thing in the game less fun than a long-distance rover trip is scanning for Kethane, but at least scanning is a necessary evil. There is no point at all in subjecting yourself to a long rover trip because it will always be faster, easier, safer, and more fun to fly instead.

[Algiark]

No offense, but if driving rovers at full speed is already boring, wouldn't breaking the trip up with a bunch of repetitive, and largely pointless stops make it even worse?

Some mechanics could be implemented to make it not so boring, one that I could think on top of my head is by adding many science report variations for terrain scatter so you get a different report every time (this could be fun of itself; finding trivia and backstories by doing science). And it doesn't have to be really that repetitive; another idea I have is that what you're looking for is basically the 'jackpot' point where you get the most science out of a biome. Jackpots are common enough that you wouldn't have to travel kilometers to find it, but rare enough so the chances of finding it the first time is low. After you found the jackpot, that biome is 'complete'.