Space Garage and Kerbal SUV

[XyllyX]

First of all, I'm a bad pilot, and this was designed to get on and off Mun, so I ended up using all my fuel to land the thing.

Either that, or the actual lander is pretty bad, and you should work on it. I'm not the most seasoned KSP player, but this is my most recent creation and I love it, and I want to share it with you.

As for the .craft file, I'm a bit reluctant to share it, it is my baby after all and one of my most prized possessions, but if you all like it enough, I might be coerced into sharing it.

The download link is at the bottom of this post, along with some notes

Anyway, here it is, along with my thoughts.

First off, I decided to build a wicked rover. When I make my rovers, I always start off with a chassis made of girders, like on real cars. Let me just say, this is my FIRST and ONLY rover I have gotten to the moon, so it was a first of a lot of things for me.

At this point, I had never intended getting the thing off Kerbin, because of 2 reasons:

1. I'm not the most sensible builder

2. I'm not a great pilot

So here goes:

(Sorry about the weird picture sizes, if you wanna see the cut-off ones, just drag it into a new tab or something. I use a screencap tool that lets you take selected segments, which is partly to blame for that. )

Prototype 1: sorry you can't see the inner chassis construction, I sworn I had some picture saved, maybe I'll dig em out later.

Basically, I had only RECENTLY found out about the 5 degree angle snapping, and began to go wild on all my latest creations, and this was no exception.

I ended up making an APC/SUV type thing, thought it looked cool, Worked well. Though we know about rovers, and what they're like to test on kerbin, so much as a jolt on landing a jump will render a wheel useless.

Drove it upto my other car, which is much bigger and heavier than the picture would have you believe.

At this point, I found out the control part of the chassis was too low. A few adjustments to the interior and some repositioning...

Bam. Perfect view. I could not have asked for this to go any better.

There's also a ton of other stuff I added, solar panels, a high-beam light setup, some telescopic ladders, RCS (replacing the flipping leg on top, it didn't work on Kerbin and I didn't want to risk anything.) and "rooting" legs. This baby was ready for the mun, however, it was destined to never actually touch the mun.

...But that was until a friend said "you totally have to get that thing on the Mun".

How would I even do that? I started looking at other videos, skycranes and all for their tiny little rovers, and sometimes I'd see huge rovers with no idea how they got there. I don't think it influenced me very much, since I ended

up with a ridiculous idea (still not as ridiculous as some others I've seen), and somehow ended up with the "Space Garage".

And other questions arose. "Where do I begin? How do I build this thing?"

I saved the entire rover as a sub assembly and got to work on a rocket.

After a couple minutes of building (aimlessly), I got this.

Now this is just me being silly, playing around with things that would never work.

To top it off, the point of connection for the sub-assembly for the rover was UNDER the chassis - this caused all sorts of problems. How was I meant to connect the dang thing in the first place? This was never going to work.

Either way, I continued wishfully building my pipe-dream.

Eventually, I just remedied the problem by attaching a stack separator to the base of the garage, and it fit right in. A very snug fit for the car, but I liked it.

several minutes later...

I drove it out. I can actually...drive it out. This was great. It felt good, but I still knew this wasn't going to the mun.

If I was going to land this thing, it was going to need some thrusters.

One of my friends said I shouldn't have used Aerospikes, but I finished the thing and sent it to the moon before I knew anything about it. All I know is that this had enough thrust to lift it off...on Kerbin.

The most startling this was...that it was so light. This is where I really got thinking. Maybe I could send it to the Mun. This is by no measure the largest thing I've sent into space in one go.

see: http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/433775826038487023/B7F3D9519BEE35CAD223F5C3107DD2D40BE47E39/

I'm pretty proud of that, despite the fact that many people have sent much larger things into orbit. Anyway, back to the Garage.

Now I was thinking this wasn't such a titanic task, but still, having the garage as a utility on the moon? That's still an awesome idea.

I started running more and more tests, landing on kerbin for the return trip, etc, and it was trailblazing it all.

secure door mech...

drogues and chutes...

boom

Everything was going swimmingly.

All I needed at this point was a lifter. I got lazy and just had a 10-stage asparagus saved from the huge space station I launched earlier. again, I'm not the best at this game, so please excuse my silly builds.

If you wanna see the full 10-stage lifter, here's a link attached to the other ship: http://i.imgur.com/MrCwZif.png

There's probably a lot of things I didn't need in that, I just wanted to get this thing on the mun ASAP.

I can't really think of words to go with the next couple images, so I'll just post em.

And so finally...

Bear in mind: this is my second EVER time of landing on the moon, so I stopped a lot and warped a lot, possibly burning more than enough fuel than I needed to. This took ages. This was not helped by the fact that I was using aerospikes. Oh well.

I CAN SEE THE SHADOW

IT'S HAPPENING IT'S HAPPENING

I'M GONNA DO IT

I'M GONNA

I'm just going to let these last few images speak for themselves.

and high-res

I feel like I should explain the features a little bit:

dipped headlights and "main beam" toggles

brake lights

rear braking only (less flipping)

locked rear wheel steering by default (for stability, you can toggle it for sharper turns in tight areas)

solar powered

full cockpit view (obstruction at the edges is very little)

(theoretically) reusable (if I could get it back to kerbin...)

awesome front grille

"rooting" legs

A Garage In Space

Anyway, to summarize, I know it's not the most amazing thing you've ever seen and I'm outshadowed by a lot of things, but I just really wanted to share this short project and I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

Download Here (this is both the lander and the lifter, feel free to change parts of the rocket to make it better):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ddv2geekrj2cfcd/M100%20Munar%20Garage.craft

Just the Raptor M100 Rover (point of connection is below the rover on the central girder):

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mxm0m8edr5erun7/ZDGOXd_fQ2

Remember to save the M100 as a subassembly when putting it in a rocket, it was built in SPH so open it in SPH

Notes:

- If you want to land on a planet with atmosphere, you might want to mess around with the parachute staging

- Action groups are:

1 - Toggle Hi-Beam

2 - Disable/enable motors (when rooted to prevent unwanted accidental movement)

3 - Extend/retract telescopic ladders (will also deploy garage ladders at the front if rover is still connected)

4 - toggle rear wheel steering lock - this is disabled by default for stability, but may be activated for extra maneuverability

5 - ground the rover (be careful, telescopic legs sometimes bounce the rover fowards, so avoid it on steep inclines, using the brakes button probably gives the same effect, but it puts the brake lights on, so you might not want that.)

There's probably more, but I don't remember them so you'll have to check the other action groups yourself.

- General tips with the Raptor M100 Space SUV

- Controlled braking rather than holding the brake button down is advised. Front-wheel braking is disable to prevent flipping, but can be activate by editing action groups. You shouldn't flip or have any problems coming to a complete stop on any sort of incline if you brake correctly.

- RCS is available to maneuvre if vehicle is launched into the air in a low-gravity environment. Please try and land on the wheels as they can be repaired by EVA, however other components such as the solar panels, cannot. You will find that this Rover is pretty sturdy, but not invincible. Remember to switch off RCS once you have control of the vehicle, otherwise this can result in unwanted torque.

- Remember to always deploy the ladders on your Rover when you go EVA, in case you're in a high-gravity environment, the telescopic ladders will make it significantly easier to get onto the rover.

- While it looks like a rally fighter, it can't jump like one. KSP wheels are simply too squishy for dune-hopping.

Anyway, Have fun!

Edited April 7, 2014 by XyllyX
Free for everyone!

[Legendary Emu]

Now you need to go Mundune hopping for SCIENCE! and giggles. I'm totally digging this, yo.

[XyllyX]

I did it for a while, and it was fun. Eventually though, those darn rover tyres give in and collapse, forcing me to load quicksave. Still, I'd do it again and reload. Some of the air I got was insane

[MuXu96]

This is just awesome.

Great job!

[CalculusWarrior]

That's amazing! Great job!

[guz667]

These look like a lot of fun. The aesthetics are nice and it was a really funny presentation.

[Mareczex333]

I like them very much

Good job ;D

Can you tell us how many parts got that sport car and that SUV with lights?

Edited March 20, 2014 by Mareczex333

[KissSh0t]

Please Land This On Duna.

[Matticus88]

Amazing vehicle, Amazing.

[XyllyX]

Please Land This On Duna.

My friend suggested this, this is probably going to be my next move with this thing.

I like them very much

Good job ;D

Can you tell us how many parts got that sport car and that SUV with lights?

I think both of them were around 300 parts

[Ravenchant]

Please Land This On Duna.

That need to happen! If nothing else, there's a certain resemblance with the rover on this pic

Awesome!

[Read have Read]

I did it for a while, and it was fun. Eventually though, those darn rover tyres give in and collapse, forcing me to load quicksave. Still, I'd do it again and reload. Some of the air I got was insane

FYI: A kerbal can repair wheels on EVA.

Awesome car thing, very automotive looking, it reminded me of the Rally Fighter. The Garage method is one of the better ways to deliver things and in my opinion the coolest. Aerospike engines are good at everything, but not the best at any one thing, other than having really high efficiency while in both atmosphere and in space.

If you didn't say otherwise, My opinion is that you are pretty good at this game.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Read have Read
typos

[Xaelath]

This. Is. Epic. o.o

[XyllyX]

FYI: Akerbal can repair wheels on EVA.

Awesome car thingy man, very automotive looking, remindes me pf the Rally Fighter. The Garage method is one of the better ways to deliver things and in my opinion the coolest. Aerospike engines are good at everything, but not the best at any one thing, other than having really high effeciency while in both atmosphere and in space.

If you didn't say otherwise, My opinion is that you are pretty good at this game.

Thanks, and the EVA repair thing I did not know about, would've saved me a lot of trouble on a lot of things.

Edited March 21, 2014 by XyllyX

[XyllyX]

I got it on Duna guys!

Note: This is my first time landing on Duna

P.S: Just reminding you guys, if you really want this, I'll post a link to it.

[Overfloater]

This is wonderful!

such a perfect shape!

[ShadowDs]

I got it on Duna guys!

Note: This is my first time landing on Duna

P.S: Just reminding you guys, if you really want this, I'll post a link to it.

I have been following your design for the past few days and i can say it's one of the best stock rover's I've seen (better than any i done myself too). Would love for you to post a download link

[XyllyX]

Thanks, everyone

I'll get on my desktop tomorrow and upload it to dropbox

Do you guys want the lifter as well, or just the rover? the lifter is pretty...unwieldy

Edited April 6, 2014 by XyllyX

[XyllyX]

Download link added, enjoy your brand-new Raptor M100 SSUV