[Add-On] A Mod Devoted to Rover Systems

[I.T Marcus]

Infinity Tech. Rover Parts

A mod devoted to building functional rovers

This mod will act as a catalyst for those of you who really enjoy rovers and cars, basically anything that goes on the ground

NOTE: This add-on is in a very early state and only has a few parts to it, please don't expect too much All of the parts are untextured as of right now

Features

So far this mod contains a few parts for constructing rovers

4 Sized Chassis

A large "canopy" solar panel

[WIP] Surface Sample Containers

[WIP] EVA report hard drives

[WIP] Rover cores that can take surface samples with mounted arms and "Robo-Reports" if a camera is mounted onto it

Developers

Texture Artists

Sauron

Modelers

Helix935

GoldForest

Testers

blackheart612

DOWNLOAD THE MOD HERE

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DOWNLOAD/PLAY WITH THIS MOD, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES DONE TO YOUR SAVES! MOD UPDATES CAN CHANGE PARTS COMPLETELY TO THE POINT WHERE CRAFTS WITH THESE PARTS ARE NOT LOADED/ OR WORKING

If you wish to be part of the bulk development (modeling, texturing, coding, etc) please just say so in the reply area Unless you really want to PM me lol

Edited February 1, 2014 by I.T Marcus
Thread Update 5 NOW WITH PICTURES & DOWNLOAD LINK

[NoMrBond]

Hit [Go Advanced] at the bottom right when you edit your post, the subject line should be available again

Maybe try building some rover chassis in the VAB/SPH using current parts until you've got what you like in terms of usable/mountable space and/or wheel attachment points and then model it as one piece, check out things like dune-buggy or HM vehicle frames for layout inspiration

Best of luck!

[I.T Marcus]

Thank you very much for the help! And good idea! Thanks!

[GoldForest]

I would like to see many rover based Items.

List/ideas:

A four wheel chassis: instead of placing for separate wheels you just place a two wheel holder(front and back) on either side of the rover.

A six wheel chassis

An eight wheel chassis

A more compact RTG system so that unmanned small rovers don't have to use that big bulky one.

Solar Panels for unmanned rovers.

A two, four, and six man rover cabin.

Edited January 28, 2014 by GoldForest

[BLUAV8R]

I think this is a good idea

Here are some of my ideas:

- All the things GoldForest listed above

- Sky cranes of multiple sizes

- heat shields for rover housing

- inflatable impact modules (like the Opportunity rover)

- Nice, stock alike design (i'll be willing to help with design choices)

- preferable be able to fit within standard size parts (3m, 2.5m, and so on) so people can use their own launch vehicles

I'm also willing to help assist with testing and design choices any way i can i'm no texture artist or 3d modeler but i can help with design and QA

Good luck!

[I.T Marcus]

List/ideas:

A four wheel chassis: instead of placing for separate wheels you just place a two wheel holder(front and back) on either side of the rover.

A six wheel chassis

An eight wheel chassis

I may be wrong but as of now I'm testing it, I believe symmetry should allow you to place wheels perfectly opposite of each other on each wheel mount I model on to it, if not I will attempt to look into ways to make custom wheels with this feature But thank you for the feedback

[GoldForest]

Your welcome. Also, if you need a modeler, I am one, so I can help you there. I can't texture really well though.

[I.T Marcus]

- heat shields for rover housing

- inflatable impact modules (like the Opportunity rover)

I didn't really think about the rover delivery aspect... but that is quite hard to do with stock KSP as of now (well at least for me) hmm I think maybe if I can get the physics to work around it I would be able to make an ODF (Orbital Drop Fairing) that absorbs all shock from hitting the ground at high velocities... but that might just make landers obsolete then because the rover would be able to just survive orbital drops without the fun of crashing

[I.T Marcus]

Your welcome. Also, if you need a modeler, I am one, so I can help you there. I can't texture really well though.

Awesome, if you have time could you model some basic chassis? (I have one as of now I just finished but I can't really model so its just as octogonal steel frame as of now

[I.T Marcus]

The chassis I am working on as of now will have some generous mass so that rovers can keep their center of mass as low as possible

[SciMan]

How about some small "peg-leg" style landing legs that you would attach to a (more-or-less) flat surface on the bottom of a rover?

When extended, they would lift the rover's wheels off the ground by a little bit, and when retracted they would fit nearly flush to the surface.

I'm thinking of something like the metallic grey part between the wheels of this race car:

from the website I grabbed this image from:

One of the more interesting features built into a Champ Car is a set of three pneumatic jacks that are integrated into the chassis.

There are two jacks up front and one in the rear.

By connecting a pressurized nitrogen hose to a port located behind the driver, the pit crew can jack the car up in less than a second when the car stops in the pit.

This would make landing unmanned rovers without breaking the wheels a far less difficult task. If used on a rover that has crew, it would also allow you to fix its tires without having to worry about if the suspension is going to flip over the rover when you fix the tires, as well as preventing rovers from rolling downhill after the crew exits to repair the wheels.

Because they would be flush to the mounting surface when retracted, they would be able to be fitted where the current stock landing gear simply will not fit. They wouldn't need to extend very far to do the job I intend them to do, but having versions with different extended lengths would lend them to being applied to other uses as well, like preventing a Hitchhiker can from rolling if it lands sideways on a slope.

I have also noticed that rovers that have the brakes applied will sometimes be bounced around slightly as soon as they come to a complete stop, which has caused the solar panels to break off of more than one of my mobile Kethane drill+refinery rovers. When that happens, I have to send up a whole new Kethane rover, because the solar panels I'm using (Gigantor XL's) can't be field-replaced, even with KAS.

[I.T Marcus]

How about some small "peg-leg" style landing legs that you would attach to a (more-or-less) flat surface on the bottom of a rover?

When extended, they would lift the rover's wheels off the ground by a little bit, and when retracted they would fit nearly flush to the surface.

I'm thinking of something like the metallic grey part between the wheels of this race car:

http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/champ-rear-jack.jpg

Hmm thanks for idea! I'm not sure I would be able to do this right away as I'm not sure on how to make parts with animations work in KSP

But a rover-mounted jack would be useful for repairs and maintenance... as for the bounce of the brakes, I'm not sure how to approach that problem but will try my best when implementing the custom wheels

But for the present you may consider using Gear bays to act as jacks... as they are smaller than landing legs and will lift your rover and allow you to make wheel repairs But this jack idea is very very good!

[Helix935]

how about robotic insect like legs for moving over difficult terrain and ascending cliffs

or have like an on board rocket or even a cannon for robotic sample return

just suggestions although the first one would be a bit difficult to do

[I.T Marcus]

how about robotic insect like legs for moving over difficult terrain and ascending cliffs

I was thinking about adding treads as a new alternative to wheels but I may be able to do something with this idea once I find out how to use animated parts correctly

Thank you

[Sauron]

I really hope this works out!

If you need it, I'm happy to provide some help with stock-alike textures.

[I.T Marcus]

I really hope this works out!

If you need it, I'm happy to provide some help with stock-alike textures.

Noted, greatly appreciated Sauron!

[Sauron]

Just a note: I would need UV maps. While I can model, my copy of 3ds doesn't work on Windows 7 (and Blender is so hard after using a better program )and I'm a bit rusty in any case. I'd need someone else to do the UV work, unfortunately.

[I.T Marcus]

I updated the thread

[GoldForest]

Awesome, if you have time could you model some basic chassis? (I have one as of now I just finished but I can't really model so its just as octogonal steel frame as of now

I haven't made chassis before, but I'm willing to give it a try.

[Helix935]

hmm ahh i might as well

i can help with making simple chassis and concepts using sketchup although i don't know how to animate but i will still offer help

[I.T Marcus]

hmm ahh i might as well

i can help with making simple chassis and concepts using sketchup although i don't know how to animate but i will still offer help

Hmm about the UV maps, I'm not all that familiar UV texturing, I tend to just edit some generated alphas on diffuses But I can UV unwrap the parts that will need textures and PM them to you would that work? I'm not sure if my models as of now are UV texture friendly but if you wanna have a whack it let me know

[I.T Marcus]

I'll try to get some science utilities up soon, but I'm kinda tired right now I might just stay on the forums a bit and work on it more tomorrow I have plans for a rover module specially designed to hold Surface Samples and a Hard Drive Module to Store Crew Reports instead of just storing one each in a cockpit and with the release of the Mobile Processing Lab rovers with these modules will be able to haul each experiment from different areas of the body your on without going back and forth between base and site, base and site, base and site.

Let me know what you think of this

[GoldForest]

http://i.imgur.com/VYPazSO.png

A quick chassis I put together. It's a race car chassis lol.

[Sauron]

I'm personally a fan of keeping stuff like UVs open in the event someone more talented than me comes along Putting them up on Dropbox or something similar would be ideal.

A few things:

-I haven't figured out how to output .mbm files. It'd be awesome if someone could tell me how to do that (or--not to ask to much--make the models take .pngs until a more polished release)

-I'd have to see the UVs to tell you whether they're workable or not

[NoMrBond]

if you've installed KSP part tools into your Unity install, and added the Part Tools component to your project, .mbm should be available as a texture option under the write options for the component (under the write address)