Railway builder and rail vehicles

[szputnyik]

There could be a tank-like rover, which would automatically lay down rails on a planetary surface, and railway-wheels available to be put on spacecraft.

These rails could then be used to safely drive vehicles on bumpy planets and low-gravity moons, or even to accelerate them to escape velocity like a mass-driver.

[boomerdog2000]

How do you keep the rails on the ground? This would require some form of anchoring system which (besides the Klaw) isn't in the stock game yet. Plus typical train rails don't hold the vehicle down. That's why trains can overturn but the rail will be fairly intact.

[Capt Snuggler]

here they come... ("its not Kerbal RAIL program! blah blah blah!!!")

but honestly I cant see there being much use for it. at least not enough use to justify the effort implementing this.

in terms of other vehicle types. submarines and buoyancy parts or simply liquid traversing parts would be higher up the wanted list.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Capt Snuggler

[szputnyik]

There could be typical train rails for a regular railway on Duna or the Mun, or for a mass driver on Minmus, and there could be a tethered rail more similar to cable cars but on the underside of the vehicle for better adhesion to Gilly for example.

Edited March 31, 2014 by szputnyik

[Minarkhaios]

Always the boring stuff that comes to mind first.

You are all wrong, it's needed to create roller-coasters on asteroids.

And maybe, used as a slingshot apparatus on asteroids (acceleration on three loops and goooooooooooooo)

[vger]

here they come... ("its not Kerbal RAIL program! blah blah blah!!!")

Gosh, that would make for an utterly hilarious spinoff game though.

And maybe, used as a slingshot apparatus on asteroids (acceleration on three loops and goooooooooooooo)

Heck with that. I want a Jules Verne cannon.

[Tw1]

A while back I had a go at making a railways mod. It was based on high speed monorail, and experiments showed the train little trouble staying on in low gravity environments as long as nothing else went wrong. It was kind of abandoned when the mod I was using to set down the tracks stopped updating- track placement wasn't accurate enough, and collision detection errors tended to derail the train.

I probably don't have time to resume trying, unless I get some others on hand to do some of the modeling.

Alternately, a teammate who can code would get things moving, and open up extra possibilities.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Tw1

[Capt Snuggler]

Gosh, that would make for an utterly hilarious spinoff game though.

actually you're right. that would make a great game.

[Nuke]

kerbal railroad program

[Red Iron Crown]

Kerbal Rollercoaster Tycoon. Where crashing rollercoaters make the park more appealing.

[Minarkhaios]

Kerbal Rollercoaster Tycoon. ...

nah ! Kerbal Space Rollercoaster tycoon !

Because mundane rollercoaster are too boring. (and too safe)

[vger]

Roller coasters without gravity? You can't really call it a roller COASTER anymore.

[Red Iron Crown]

A rollercoaster on Gilly would be the dullest ride ever.

[coolitic]

I would like rails, but placement is concern.

[Legendary Emu]

And den you can use this toooooooooooooooooooooooooooo build space trains that can go stinking fast and then eventually shoot your Kerbals at spidermode velocity into the Mun.

[randomness5555]

Like that decoupler thing that gets to the moon in 13 seconds, but WITH MOAR TRAINZ.