rover help

[endl]

does anyone else feel this area needs more parts from the dev/mod community. im having alot of problems getting my craft mission worthy. i tried using the hangars mod but its still under developed, my rovers have symmetry that dont work well with the mods designs and the ones that do this mod has some strangely heavy set ups for what for me should be very tiny payloads. if i were to design a system without mods it makes for some very problematic rocket design.

download rover

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any advice/help/mod suggestions to help further my rovers to their destination would be appreciated. ideally these things are so tiny i would like to deliver them together using one system.

Edited September 26, 2014 by endl

[Jeggred]

As far as the pure stock game goes, there are really a bunch of difficulties delivering rovers, but taking a look at some mods, the posibillities are nearly limitless.

I would personally recomend Infernal Robotics, as that allows you to go for a folding design, wich helps with size limitaions.

And then: go for skycrane delivery. Gimme a couple of minutes, i'll be uploading some pics.

[endl]

can you elaborate on what a folding design means?

[Jeggred]

<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="//imgur.com/a/nUqYP/embed"></iframe>

this for example

[endl]

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so you can fold in the wheels is what you meant.

btw the html link imgur provides wont work on this BB based board. you have to use [ imgur ]nUqYP[ /imgur ] in this case

[Signo]

Hi, there are several ways you could lift a good stock rover.

This topic should help you for "skycranes" http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/93673-Building-symmetrical-rovers-in-the-VAB?p=1413781#post1413781

I use a SPH built rover that is "subassembly friendly" and I ve got a SSTO to deliver it to Kerbin SOI while I radially attach it to a bigger mothership for interplanetary travel purposes.

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[Sirine]

Press Ctrl+Mouse scroll to zoom in during your VAB design.

[endl]

welp heres what i cam up with, ive created a monster. i think it might work though if can fix up the legs

craft file

[davidpsummers]

Rovers can be done with stock. It can be kind kludgy. I usuall hang them under a craft. Here are two examples....

and...

[Alshain]

The best way I found to lift a small stock rover is to design it with a docking port on top inline with the CoM as best possible and one on the back. Then I mount the rover to the top of my lander vertically, which if your using NEAR/FAR also makes it easy to enclose in a fairing. Right before de-orbit on the mun, I inverted it to a docking port below the lander so I would land on the wheels, undock and take back off and land on landing legs nearby.

This design allows you to have large rockets underneath to get it to the Mun. However it depends on radial engines on the lander and you need to make sure you don't dock with the engines blocked. Also make sure you undock just 5 meters above the surface, don't try to land on the rover, the docking port won't hold the lander.

Here is a picture of one I tested recently. It launches as shown, and once I get to the Mun, I undock it in orbit, and dock that port you see on the bottom of the lander to the port you see on the center of the rover. however this test did fail due to two of the engines being blocked so I have to work on it some more.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Alshain

[juanml82]

Stackable rovers with full scientific loadout

It may be hard to spot in the picture, but each has two rockomax 48-7s engines "radially" mounted by making an L out of cubic struts. They land (and take off again) on their own

[endl]

the problem with those methods is twofold for me.

1. im trying to deliver multiple variant rover types simultaneously because the payloads are small and i dont want to over complicate them with space assembly or multiple launches

2. they are none symmetrical in design so mounting them from certain positions is impossible.

thus i have created this 60t 450 part monster with 6 rovers for balance. ive completed my structural tests and made necessary changes i just need to add a lifter and its ready for its mission. i would have preferred some better tools to deal with the design restrictions but it seems the best i can do right now is either a under developed mod where i have to launch large rockets multiple times for payloads under 10t. or create a complicated monster like the one i posted.

heres the pre-lifter finalized version craft file

i use girders for legs and rails with magnetic winch for deployment, youll have to blow some radial couplers to severe the stability struts after you clamp the magnets but before you extend the rails. dont drop the winch too much after magnet locking, i made control groups feel free to go through them.

Edited September 23, 2014 by endl

[Yakuzi]

You can use the Editor Extensions Mod, which allows you to swith between VAB/SPH symmetry modes and has many other handy features (additional symmetry, angle snapping etc). Also, if you save your rover as a subassembly, it should be a lot easier to add to your delivery craft. Your last lander looks pretty good, but you might want to consider to either make it less top heavy, or increase the surface area of the landing legs so it won't topple over. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress

[endl]

that mod looks useful but thats not the type of symmetry problems im having. its more of a inaccessible side type of deal. i was thinking about the legs as being a balance issue but i think i know what im going to do now so ty.

[DrMonte]

I still don't get it. Why do you need legs on the car?

[endl]

I still don't get it. Why do you need legs on the car?

its a refuel car the legs raise up the height of the dock so that it can merge with my lander/base ships. when the legs are folded it lines up with my other ground vehicles. basically its for compatability with my other designs.

[-Velocity-]

If you're landing on Eve, Laythe, or Duna you can attach the rover to the top of your lander with a decoupler or docking port. Give the rover a bunch of parachutes- MORE parachute per weight than your main lander (this is very important!). When you get low in the atmosphere, WHILE YOU STILL HAVE SOME TRANSVERSE VELOCITY, pop the rover's parachutes open and decouple the rover from the lander. Your rover has more parachutes per unit weight than the lander, so it will appear to accelerate retrograde away from the lander as it is slowing down faster. Since you released the rover while you still had velocity transverse to the surface of the planet, the rover will land afterward, somewhere short of where the lander ends up landing instead of landing right on top of it. Anyway, this is the method I used to deliver rovers and habitation modules to my Eve base.

However, the simplest way to design rovers for pretty much every destination except Eve (and probably Kerbin and possibly Laythe) is to make the rover and the lander the same thing. Wheels weigh very little, so what's the point of making the lander and the rover different vessels?!

Edited September 24, 2014 by |Velocity|

[RW-1]

I like doing the same thing as above, or the rover is a separate mission launched at same time as manned, with a Curiosity "skycrane" powered module, - descend to a hover and decouple rover and watch skycrane depart area (and seeing if it had enough juice to escape SOI or not hehehe).

[Heagar]

You can easyly build tiny rovers with stock KSP. But you have to be aware, that you have to build an big rover with the sience lab, once you are playing the career mode.

For tiny rovers the small weels are the best. Because they use less space and weight. The speed however is limited. But because you can't drive as fast on other celestrial bodys as on kerbin or eve - for safety resons - this drawback isn't as bad as it seems first.

A few examples:

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The last two pictures are for heavier equipment.

Under the first example is an LV 909 mounted for the landing. The tanks acting as landing gear.

The second is a "hangar". The floor had sunken into the ground. But you see the decoupler in the middle witch was the mounting point for the rover. The system you can alter with a landing gear and a small ramp.

Edited September 25, 2014 by Heagar

[endl]

You can easyly build tiny rovers with stock KSP. But you have to be aware, that you have to build an big rover with the sience lab, once you are playing the career mode.

For tiny rovers the small weels are the best. Because they use less space and weight. The speed however is limited. But because you can't drive as fast on other celestrial bodys as on kerbin or eve - for safety resons - this drawback isn't as bad as it seems first.

A few examples:

The last two pictures are for heavier equipment.

Under the first example is an LV 909 mounted for the landing. The tanks acting as landing gear.

The second is a "hangar". The floor had sunken into the ground. But you see the decoupler in the middle witch was the mounting point for the rover. The system you can alter with a landing gear and a small ramp.

could i see how you built the lifter for the 2nd to last design.

i managed to improve my design significantly its now half the payload with 200 less parts

Edited September 26, 2014 by endl

[Heagar]

The lifter always depends on your destination and general layout of the mission. Sometimes it is small (if i want just to test out a design on Mun or Minmus), other times bigger. Ocasionally i use a descend stage if the fuel reserve of a lander is insufficient.

The small rover with the skycrane for example has not enough DV to deorbit and land on Mun. But on a celestrial body like Minmus with it's low gravity or Kerbin with an atmosphere it will work.

There are three examples:

• The rover to Minmus (an actual running competition). First ten pictures. The rocket consists of two and a half stages. First the boosters are gone. The remaining rocket is a little Asparagus** system witch is enough to lift (early gravity turn at 7k altitude) the transfer stage and the "rover compartment" nearly to LKO (there is for an little time an PE, witch vanishes due drag). The rest of the flight - circularisation burn, Minmus transit, Minmus orbit insertion burn - is performed through the transit stage. Because i had some fuel left, it was used as a descend stage too (no debris in space). As the destination was Minmus, i decided that a chemical rocket is enough.
  
• The second is a Kethane map sattelite for Eve. (picture eleven) Because it was an interplanetrary journey and the sattelite have to enter an polar orbit at Eve i used an nuclear drive for the second (transfer) stage.
  
• The third example is an full Asparagus** system for an Mun shuttle, witch is orbiting Mun and capable of landing and go back to orbit twice before it needs refueling. (picture twelve and thirteen) Due to the arrangement of the nuclear engines of the shuttle i should have used them for the transit too (witch i haven't obviosly). That would have been resulted in a smaller transit stage (no engine, smaller tank), maybe even a smaller Asparagus** system.
  

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**Asparagus:

Every engine, witch isn't running during the launch is "dead weight". A normal rocket have plenty of them (in the second and third stage for going near/into LKO). An Asparagus have not, since all engines are ignited at liftoff witch results in in mutch more DV.

A central tank (with engine) is surrounded by tanks in pairs (up to three pairs, if they have the same diameter as the central tank). These pairs too have engines and are connected together with fuellines clock/anticlockwise. You can however - when the payload is not too heavy - go without engines on the Y2 tanks, witch can result in a bit more DV. From the last pair (Y3) there are fuellines to the center tank.

The first pair (Y1) is running very fast out of fuel, since the tanks have not only to deliver fuel for their own engines, but for all other too. After depletion these tanks are jettsioned. The remaining system have full fuel tanks. This scheme is repeated for the Y2 and Y3 tanks, leaving at last a full central tank remaining.

X     = central tank
Y(1)  = outer tank (pair number)
-     = fuellines between the outer tanks
+     = fuellines to the central tank


   Y2  -   Y3  
   -       + 
   Y1      X       Y3
           +        -
           Y3   -  Y2

BTW: Where do you want to go, Duna/Laythe?

If Duna, i would use more and bigger parachutes/droges to slow down. Because this planet have a mutch less dense atmosphere than Kerbin. Otherwise you would use up too mutch fuel witch is intended to use for your "flying robots" i suppose.

And because i see a large docking port on top of your craft: You are about to assemble a mutch larger craft thought orbital construction, it seems. Maybe even manned and eventually for a small base, am i right?