Rover Building Woes

[goldenpsp]

Hello fellow kerbonauts. I am still pretty new to this game but it has been more addictive than crack (so I've heard). Recently however I have found myself for the first time wanting to rage quit. This is over my attempts to build my first manned rover. I have built some small unmanned rovers fine.

Now this isn't necessarily about designing the rover. I mean literally building it. For example I was considering starting with one of the 2x2 flat panels as a floor. Use I beams underneath as an attachment point for the wheels.

The thing is I cannot for the life of me get this stuff to snap together properly to even get a decent rover base started.

So any hints or tips would be appreciated. First, should I be building Rovers in the Spaceplane hangar (since rovers are built "horizontally" like a plane) or in the rocket hangar?

[Tex_NL]

Definitely SPH! Makes building rovers a LOT easier.

[Master Tao]

Yes – SPH. If you want to launch it on a rocket, make your first part a docking port or decoupler, then save the whole rover as a subassembly.

Build your rovers wide, long, and low to keep them from flipping too easily.

[panzerknoef]

Yeah SPH is right, and rover building can be a pain... But if you are using a simple beam on the underside to attach the wheels on, that might give some problems. For as far as i've discovered you want to keep them low and wide to prevent them from tipping over (you don't want a kar krash do you?). Manned rovers do have the intention of growing pretty large when i build them. Also add an sas unit to it so you can flip it back when it topples.

Hope i said anything usefull.

Panzerknoef

[goldenpsp]

definitely 2 parallel beams at each side for the wheels. But heck I'd be happy getting the beams to connect. I have been mostly using the rocket hangar tho so I will try the SPH (I just thought of that as I had typed the post)

[cantab]

I've found it to be a nightmare however you do it. Tiny mouse movements end up causing massive swings in the angle of a part you're attaching, making for a frustrating time. Editor Extensions helps, you can switch between VAB and SPH style building and enable/disable vertical snapping amongst other things, but it's still a hassle.

[TheGreatSkeeve]

If you want to launch a rover on a rocket, try making a subassembly of everything except the starting part and just taking it over to the VAB.

Also, for building rovers, try using 2 radially attached girder segments to the Rovemax part and putting the rover wheels on the girder segments. It works like a charm for small 1-Kerbal rovers