Solar powered rover suddenly doesn't work

[xcorps]

You might get him unstuck by using [ or ] to swap to a piece of debris, but then you have to face the "Jeb is now debris" bug.

Welcome to the wonderful superfluous world of rovers.

[Boomerang]

You'll quickly learn to quicksave often if you're doing much traveling via rover anywhere. Between flipping over on random bits of invisible terrain and the various bugs regarding Kerbals getting stuck in command seats/becoming catatonic/becoming debris, being able to quickload is rather helpful.

Also, if you're new to the Mun, I think you're under estimating how long you're going to spend driving from biome to biome, even if you have an efficient route to do it with. You really would be better off with a highly-efficient, light craft that can take off and land multiple times.

[Master Tao]

I'm personally hoping for cave systems on a few planets, with Eve, Kerbin, Duna, and especially Laythe being the likely recipients. They would massively increase rover utility for me. Just think of the Krakens lurking in the deep, dark caverns. Muahahaha...

[MathmoRichard]

You'll quickly learn to quicksave often if you're doing much traveling via rover anywhere. Between flipping over on random bits of invisible terrain and the various bugs regarding Kerbals getting stuck in command seats/becoming catatonic/becoming debris, being able to quickload is rather helpful.

Also, if you're new to the Mun, I think you're under estimating how long you're going to spend driving from biome to biome, even if you have an efficient route to do it with. You really would be better off with a highly-efficient, light craft that can take off and land multiple times.

The problem is that I quicksaved (whilst moving) and then later flipped over, when i load this quick save it instantly explodes.

You might get him unstuck by using [ or ] to swap to a piece of debris, but then you have to face the "Jeb is now debris" bug.

Welcome to the wonderful superfluous world of rovers.

Thanks, can you explain that?

[Lheim]

Driving rovers is weird.. . It's bound to come up for a pass by the devs eventually.

All I can suggest is three things:

1. Put yourself in docking mode. This changes you to translational motion controls; it gets rid of the torque every time you try to turn.

2. Use SAS. It'll try to keep you upright - better if your rover has a sas unit. You can use F to toggle it briefly off if you want to come out of a wobble.

3. Hit caps lock to engage fine controls. Stifles the effect of somewhat jerky keyboard turning.

Rovers do take a long time to drive anywhere. Wish they were more fun, really. Seriously, though. Put sas units on future rovers, and some of that 1x1 square platting as armor - you can survive rolls and tumbles and roll yourself upright again.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Lheim

[Claw]

There are a lot of mixed feelings about rovers. I'm not really sure why it's a surprise that they are slower than rocketing and hopping around the Mun, but for some reason that's a major complaint. I don't know of many cars that are faster than jets or rocket ships, but I digress.

It IS possible to build a Mun rover capable of traversing craters and the like. Here is one such example (at least according to the OP).

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/85587-My-land-train-Rover

I generally tend to build mine smaller and very stout. They have less problems climbing terrain and can survive spills at high warp.

As for the Kerbal EVA debris bug, there are certain circumstances where a kerbal gets turned into debris. When that happens, he becomes unresponsive. I've posted another thread that explains how to fix this and other EVA problems. Your guy just sounds stuck for now. Which is also fixable with a variety of methods.

[MathmoRichard]

Thanks a lot Claw. I will look into the rover design more later, but for now, can you help further with fixing the quicksave? I have been reading your excellent post. I have found the rover, it is marked as:

VESSEL {

pid = ab63c8c516fc413e95d1f2f7036ce740

name = Rover 2 Lifter

type = Rover

sit = SUB_ORBITAL

landed = False

landedAt =

splashed = False

etc

and later within the brace we have a part:

PART {

name = kerbalEVA

uid = 2168114470

mid = 1165322778

parent = 36

position = -9.63415950536728E-05,1.07268559932709,-0.585694372653961

rotation = -0.7070968,-1.124232E-05,5.237858E-06,0.7071168

mirror = 1,1,1

istg = 0

within that is:

MODULE {

name = KerbalEVA

isEnabled = True

state = Seated (Command)

Then within this is:

vInfo {

vesselName = Jebediah Kerman

vesselType = 9

rootUId = 2168114470

}

[Master Tao]

That's actually described in another of Claw's posts.

[Claw]

To add insult to injury, Jeb is now caught in a bug. The rover randomly exploded and now he is trapped, he can only be stuck just above the seat or in the seat. I don't want to lose Jeb, can I save him? It would probably be sufficient to delete the parts around him or move him, but I can't. I tried turning off damage and stuff and reloading the quick save (which initiates the explosion) but it still explodes and says that there is an error ignoring the damage.

I assume this is the problem that you are currently having?

Before I dive too hard into a fix, what are you trying to save? The whole rover or just Jeb?

The part that concerns me initially is that your rover was saved on a suborbital trajectory. If it's still in contact with the ground, that can make it explode upon loading (again, assuming that is the problem).

If that's the case, you can change the rover's height by a meter or two and that may fix all your issues. The height stuff is a bit below the first section that you posted.

[MathmoRichard]

Thank you!!! I am surprised it was so simple, I just set it to landed and raised it a bit. I'm a little confused why it crashed in the sub-orbital trajectory, I mean, sure it had one but surely the speed wasn't enough for a crash?.

[Claw]

My guess is that it has to do with some of the strangeness that happens when loading. Physics gets turned off for a bit and there is some overhead that happens. So I think when it's suborbital and in contact with the ground, the physics goes wonky when everything gets turned back on.