Rovers not good enough?

[1D-1()T]

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.

There's a mod for that:P

Have you seen kOS? Ever since I found out about it I've been nerding out, thinking of the possibilities, but I hadn't thought about automated rover.

It can be found here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/47399-kOS-Scriptable-Autopilot-System-0-9

Mmm, roving that doesn't require you to hold a button for an hour.

[Geschosskopf]

There's a mod for that:P

I know nothing about KOS. Is it smart enough to keep rovers under control going downhill? Can it recognize impassable terrain and plot a detour around it?

[kahlzun]

I always think of rovers as being little Dukes of Hazzard style movers, launch them off cliffs and etc.

[kahlzun]

I know nothing about KOS. Is it smart enough to keep rovers under control going downhill? Can it recognize impassable terrain and plot a detour around it?

Its an user programmable addon that allows you to write simple programs in a native language.

So, potentially yes: it depends on your own coding ability..

[Geschosskopf]

Its an user programmable addon that allows you to write simple programs in a native language.

So, potentially yes: it depends on your own coding ability..

And the data available and what the KOS language allows you to do with it. If this was a simple task, DARPA wouldn't have had the autonomous vehicle challenges.

[DrMonte]

If you don't wan'a travel far you can think of a rover like a local support vehicle around your base. On Duna I've traveled more than 100km over the mountains. Why? You can easily fly on the mountain peak with some mini lander but try to get there with the car (and down)

[Commander Zoom]

For what it's worth, MechJeb also allows automatic control of speed and heading. You probably don't want to just set it and walk away, as it will quite cheerfully mindlessly drive right over cliffs and crater edges; but as someone else said, it's better than holding a button down.

[Unfawkable]

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.

This is actually quite good, but it would still require you to know biome intersections. Beats my point about them being completely useless though.