My rovers seem to flip constantly, even on smooth ground

[Commissioner Tadpole]

I seem to be running into trouble when driving rovers.

I am using a small rover with the RoveMax Model 2 wheels(the tiny ones) for Münar exploration. However, some areas around the Mün are extremely prone to make my rover pratically flip around and make it land on its back, making the mission impossible to complete. The problem is not that the rover is so light it flips when steering. When driving, one of the frontal wheels seem to "grab" the ground, and because the rover is moving, the rest of its body is tossed foward, which leads to the problem; flipped rovers.

It's not even the first time I experienced this. When I was using the Alternis Kerbol mod, the same thing happened on Laythe with another rover, as it seemed to constantly "grab" the ground and flip itself, resulting in destroyed rovers. It also used the Ruggedized wheels, which had even more traction.

If it's of any value, I am running the game in the lowest graphic settings possible.

(I apologize if this is in the wrong section.)

Edited May 26, 2014 by Commissioner Tadpole

[Taki117]

Pics would help, but you could use RCS to flip your rover back over.

[LethalDose]

It's probably a combination of a small wheel base and a high center of mass. Try building rovers lower to the ground with wide placed wheels.

Then test the crap out of them on Kerbin.

And, as always, screenshots help.

[Claw]

Also, make sure the controls you use for forward/backward/turning are different than the keys you use for pitching/yawing/rolling. Some people use docking mode to solve this. I have remapped my drive forward/backward/turn keys to WASD and my rotate keys to the numeric keypad arrows.

Otherwise while you are driving forward, you rover will also be trying to use torque to "pitch down" which will make it flip forward.

Some other things that generally help with control. Disable steering on the back wheels and disable brakes on the front wheels. Some people also disable the back wheel motors to keep from "popping a wheelie" and flipping backward.

[Boomerang]

There are also bits of seemingly smooth terrain on the Mun that cause this behavior as well. One of my favorite rovers that I use for scouting landing spots is very light and there are areas that flip it up into the air like a tossed penny even at 3-4 m/s. Between the reaction wheels in the probe core, the breaks, and a little bit of RCS, it's nothing that can't be corrected for. So it's not necessarily a design flaw. Could just be weird bits of terrain.

P.S. If yours is a tiny rover, disable the reaction wheels if you're driving with the WASD keys. You can always enable them again if you end up flipping or on a steep slope, but I find having them off makes it much easier to control lightweight designs.

Edited May 26, 2014 by Boomerang

[Commissioner Tadpole]

I managed to find the problem: Apparently, setting the Terrain Detail to Low makes the ground very unstable to drive with rovers. Setting it to Medium fixes the problem.

That seems like something Squad should address on the next update. It's unfair that people with very weak computers cannot drive rovers.