what can rovers do other than drive around?

[fommil]

I am considering getting into the rover building side of the game but other than having fun driving them around, do they have any practical use? Do they give extra science points if experiments are carried out, or can they take surface samples or anything like that? What do they do that a simple autonomous lander can't do?

[juanml82]

The Fine Print mod adds rover contracts: drive around certain areas (which might happen to be mountainous ones) and get funds and science.

Other than that, no, they are to drive around. For the Mun and Minmus, you could design a rover/lander with two material labs and goo containers. Land near a border between biomes, harvest science in one biome, drive to the other biome, repeat and take off - thus allowing you to pull two biomes at the same delta-v cost of one biome. In some locations, it might work with three biomes.

Wheels can be more forgiving than landing legs when landing on slopes as well.

[Tortoise]

You can setup a colony on a planet with bases spread out in different locations, then use rovers to drive over to them. Then maybe have a "kethane" refuel station for rockets if you wanna return to kerbin.

[Franklin]

What can rockets do other than fly around.

Like, every single thing you do in the game boils down to getting from point A to point B and back. Anything outside of this over-arcing objective (science, contracts) exists only to facilitate the over-arcing objective of going from point A to point B and back.

Literally nothing you do in this game [so far] is more than walking/driving/flying/floating around.

Edited September 25, 2014 by Specialist290
Merging sequential posts by same user.

[Wallace]

They are good for getting to anomalies, if you land in the approximate area you know the anomaly is then use a rover to search for it.

[GoSlash27]

In addition to general "roving around", my rover is the key to my entire surface exploration system. It's an SSTO in a rover package with docking ports, so you can imagine how useful it is.

-Deliver a package to the surface. Anything from a manned lander can to a hitchhiker module.

-Traverse rough terrain while hauling a package.

-Assemble modules in- place.

-Shuttle fuel.

-Return to orbit and dock, either alone or with a lander can.

Establishing colonies on the surface is a huge logistical job. The rover is the key to making it easy.

Best,

-Slashy

[cantab]

On Eve, Kerbin, and Laythe you can drive to the nearest water and get more science results from that. You could alternatively fly though. On Eve it can also be useful to drive a return lander up to higher ground for takeoff to reduce delta-V requirements.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

What matters isn't how many things an object can do - what actually matters is how useful they are.

In addition to general "roving around", my rover is the key to my entire surface exploration system. It's an SSTO in a rover package with docking ports, so you can imagine how useful it is.

-Deliver a package to the surface. Anything from a manned lander can to a hitchhiker module.

-Traverse rough terrain while hauling a package.

-Assemble modules in- place.

-Shuttle fuel.

-Return to orbit and dock, either alone or with a lander can.

Establishing colonies on the surface is a huge logistical job. The rover is the key to making it easy.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/GoSlash27/KSP/tr5ss5_zps9d2777d6.jpg

Best,

-Slashy

I love your rover's layout. Could you upload it?

Edited September 24, 2014 by Commissioner Tadpole

[xtoro]

You can also use mods like KAS and InfernalRobotics to create cranes and other building machines to either carry loads or stack things using moving parts and winches. I had a nice crane truck built back in 0.20 that could lift fuel tanks and tanker rockets that were landed on Duna, and bring them back to the main base to refuel things.

[Frank_G]

I use them mainly for kerbal transportation and for construction works. I can also think of mobile launch platforms, mobile colonies, refueling trucks and so on... there are lots of awesome ways to use wheels on Kerbin and other planets.

[dryer_lint]

Driving around the R&D complex and looking awesome

[GoSlash27]

What matters isn't how many things an object can do - what actually matters is how useful they are.

I love your rover's layout. Could you upload it?

Yeah, I imagine my original upload is long-dead by now.

Bachelorarbeit.zip

I stack them in 5 rover packages for launch, transfer them to an interplanetary mass mover as payload, refuel them in orbit, then send them on their way to wherever.

They are good to land with payload on every habitable body in the system, including Tylo.

SSTO with payload from every habitable body except Eve, though Tylo and Kerbin require refueling on the surface first.

Use it in good health!

-Slashy

[StrandedonEarth]

Useful for when you want to pick up a crash-landed or propellantless kerbal from somewhere. Saves you from having to make a pinpoint landing or a long walk. I once drove over 100km on Tylo for a rescue mission.

[Spatzimaus]

Repeating what a few others have said, but here goes:

> Rovers are better than stationary bases, in that you can actually go places. In both cases, they're good for "plant flag" missions even in stock, as long as they're manned.

> Add the Kethane mod and some sort of docking (I like KAS's winches) and you have a mobile refueling depot that doesn't require orbital docking. The rover spends most of its time on a Kethane field, then drives to a nearby landed vessel, refuels it, and returns to its base location.

> Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus have multiple biomes, and eventually the other planets and moons will follow suit. Instead of landing in each one with a rocket, you can just land a single rover and drive to each biome. (The downside is that you have the transmission loss factor, although a large enough rover can carry a science lab as well to help with that.)

> If a rocket crashes, a rover can rescue the crew much more easily than a dedicated rocket mission. Of course you still have to figure out how to get that crewman back home, but details like that aren't that important.

Beyond that, it's just fun to build a rover. It's like spaceplanes; they may not be the easiest way to do some things, but it's an interesting challenge to make something that can do all the things you want while still retaining a semblance of mobility. For instance, here's my big rover (mobile base), weighing in at about 520 tons (shown here in the SPH just because the lighting is better than out in the wild):

You wouldn't believe how much time it took to make that thing capable of turning or going over hills without ripping itself apart from the sheer forces involved. But now I've got it to where it can cruise along at ~10m/s pretty much indefinitely (although it takes a LONG distance to brake), and it carries enough fuel to refuel a fleet of ships. It's also designed to dock with smaller rovers that can transfer fuel for it, so I don't need it to go all the way to a landed vessel itself.

Anyway, the bottom line is that rovers can do anything a stationary base can do, plus a few other things as well. So as long as you play with a few mods, there's plenty to do with them.

[juanml82]

> Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus have multiple biomes, and eventually the other planets and moons will follow suit. Instead of landing in each one with a rocket, you can just land a single rover and drive to each biome. (The downside is that you have the transmission loss factor, although a large enough rover can carry a science lab as well to help with that.)

You can work around the transmition loss. The smallish science things can be reused - just run the experiments, EVA your kerbal, take the data and store it in the command pod. The goo and material labs can't. But you can pack as many of them as biomes you want to check. If you're using your rover to return to Kerbin, you don't need to take off with the material and goo things - you can decouple them, along with the wheels, and take off with a lighter spacecraft for full science returns.

[Aragosnat]

Yeah. Just need the science lab to clean out the Science Jr and Goo Containers. Also the The Science lab can store unlimited and multiples of the same reports and science stuff. Plus as others have mention transporting fuel, rescuing Kerbals, servaying spots for bases as well as looking for them enomolies, as well as to see what type of stunts you can pull off on each moon or planet before destroying the rover. =^.^=

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

Uhm... Crater-Jumping?

[jonrd463]

Right now, I have a rover on Duna scouting around for a decent, level patch of land to establish a MKS base.

[Roflcopterkklol]

Pretty sure the goal is to turn your base into a rover,

So the better question is what cant they do?

This one carries 7 kerbals, a science lab, all the science equipment needed and is capable of 15m/s up hills on the mun.

what i am using atm for exploration missions, have one going around the Mun to get all the science i missed there, after that sending one to minmus.

Only downside is you can not recover this craft.

Edited September 25, 2014 by Roflcopterkklol

[KerbMav]

looking for them enomolies

Yes, in hindsight it might have paid of to bring a rover along for my mission(s) to visit all anomalies in 23.5. (yes, still not finished ), would have saved me lots of fuel and nerves at pinpoint landing - which on the other hand I got much better at in the process.

[Random Tank]

Rolling over and exploding, they're really good at that!

More to the point though, they don't have loads of uses, but can be good for fuel and science transfers on other planets/moons, and completing biome runs.