Rover Problems

[locustgate]

SO I'm trying to make a faster rover, with a (3x) S1 wheels I was able to get to 7m/s safely, but when I upgraded to the larger wheel, m2 wheels I flip the send I hit accelerate, and 2l wheels when I hit 3m/s I flip, the last two were tested on flat ground on the mun. The s1 wheels were tested on the edge of a midland crater.

Edited November 12, 2014 by locustgate

[Wjolcz]

Not sure if I understand you correctly, but yeah, the medium wheels are pretty rubbish. You need to either put a lot of ballast, or drive slowly on low-G worlds. Would be great if guys at SQUAD put a slider for suspension softness. Many of my rovers could be fixed that way.

[Raptor9]

When building rovers you want the rover to have a wide stable base in length as well. Your's looks pretty short from nose to tail. I've experienced similar issues when driving rovers in low gravity. Be careful which wheels you have driving, braking and even steering when building a rover, especially one on a low-grav place like the Mun. It does help to have a small reaction wheel or minimum RCS systems. If you roll over, or if you drive like me and catch air time, you'll need those to right yourself. The one downside to a reaction wheel is the attitude control forces of it will conflict with the rover controls. But you can toggle it with an action key so while you're airborne you can switch it on and stick the landing

Sometimes driving slow isn't and option...

[locustgate]

When building rovers you want the rover to have a wide stable base in length as well. Your's looks pretty short from nose to tail. I've experienced similar issues when driving rovers in low gravity. Be careful which wheels you have driving, braking and even steering when building a rover, especially one on a low-grav place like the Mun. It does help to have a small reaction wheel or minimum RCS systems. If you roll over, or if you drive like me and catch air time, you'll need those to right yourself. The one downside to a reaction wheel is the attitude control forces of it will conflict with the rover controls. But you can toggle it with an action key so while you're airborne you can switch it on and stick the landing

Sometimes driving slow isn't and option...

Got the rover controls routed to the numpad.

[tomf]

If using reaction wheels on rovers it is a good idea to map the rover driving controls to different keys. I have mine mapped to the IJKL keys that are used for docking so I can control the steering and spped of the rover while simultaneously using wasd to control its orientation.

[capi3101]

I would suggest switching to docking mode when you drive a rover on principle. With a rover as light as yours and wheels as powerful as the ones you've chosen (for a rover of the mass you've got, both the bouncy wheels and the ruggedized ones are actually too powerful), if you keep it in staging mode the W and S keys will try to flip your rover as well as accelerate the things - and it'll probably be successful, whether that's what you intended or not.

Rovers: keep 'em low, keep 'em wide, SAS on, drive in docking mode. Add a reaction wheel and keep the critical bits (core, batts/RTGs, etc.) surrounded by parts with high impact tolerance (like girders and panels)

[locustgate]

Sticking the reaction wheel on works well, atleast with the s2 wheels, 25m/s and only broken wheels.

[MockKnizzle]

I re-map my rover controls to IJKL so I'm not flipping myself with SAS when I try to drive. Additionally, I try to have a wide, long wheelbase and a low center of gravity.

[Wanderfound]

As mentioned: stability is related to size. If you want stable, then make your wheelbase as wide and as long as possible. If you're flipping under braking, disable the front brakes; if you're flipping under acceleration, disable the rear motors.

[DrMonte]

ROVER FAN

1. Stable rover. Low center of mass. Wide and long wheel base.

2. SAS. Is not your friend while driving. Switch it off / use different keys / switch to docking mode. SAS is helpful when you tip over (I don't fly with rovers, so I wouldn't say in flight).

3. Wheel tweaks. It might be helpful to switch of steering and/or torgue of rear wheels.

4. "CapsLock". Use careful controls in fast driving.

5. SpeedTime. Most interesting thing! Rovers are more stable when time is accelerated. Use x2, x3 often.

[locustgate]

1:Have that, not so much 2nd.

2:How many times do I have to say "rover controls routed to number pad"

3:Thought it was the rear ones, might explain why it never worked

4:Will try

5:lol

Links are broken.

[Wanderfound]

1:Have that, not so much 2nd.

2:How many times do I have to say "rover controls routed to number pad"

3:Thought it was the rear ones, might explain why it never worked

4:Will try

5:lol

Links are broken.

Kill steering on the rear wheels, kill brakes on the front. As with spaceplanes, use reality for inspiration: there is a reason why cars don't steer from the rear.

[cicatrix]

I wonder if putting an ion drive pointing upwards to force the rover to the ground on low-g worlds is worth the trouble?

[Wanderfound]

I wonder if putting an ion drive pointing upwards to force the rover to the ground on low-g worlds is worth the trouble?

Vernors are usually easier. It's worth it if you're doing crazy speeds (e.g. 200m/s on Minmus), but probably not otherwise.

[capi3101]

Actually, I have heard of folks using ions for extra stability (this was a while back, before the ion engines were buffed - they now provide four times as much thrust as they used to!). Does add a fair amount of weight, but on the other hand the endurance of the ions is usually substantially greater than an RCS based system. Plus you don't have to hold down any keys to make it work - you just set the throttle and go.