Rover Issues

[whiterafter]

So, although in retrospect I should have used larger wheels, I landed a rover with mini-wheels on Minmus.

That's where the problems start. I had attatched a Small Reaction Wheel to the Stayputnik, and I had experienced so broken parts with the rover so far. Plenty of electric charge.

When I was in rotational mode, I could make the rover move very slowly by making it walk like a rabbit, which isn't what I wanted from this rover. I couldn't make the wheels work at all. They would turn but they wouldnt 'go'. First thing I tried was to move into linear mode, but nothing worked there.

Second thing I tried was to turn off the reaction wheel, no success there. I tried using Q and E and it worked well, and I got the rover spinning at 10000 rpm or so, but I couldn't make WASD work. Any help?

[Reactordrone]

It could just be a traction issue. Minmus has very low gravity and a super light rover just doesn't have enough down force for the wheels to bite.

[Voculus]

Your design is sound, but driving anything on very low gravity bodies is awful, even if the design is extremely massive.

[maltesh]

The direction of your vessel's "Control From" point is at right angles to the "Forward" direction you want on the rover. In the s creenshot, judging by the labeling on your Stayputnik, when you try to tell your rover to move "forward", you're attempting to tell it to move at right angles to the way its wheels are pointing. Depending on orientation, rotation, and rover build, this can result in rover-driving being annoying or impossible.

For a rover controlled by a probe brain, best practice is to have the brain positioned and rotated so that, if you were lying on top of the rover with your head at the front and your feet at the back, you could look down and read the label on the probe brain. That makes the navball horizon level, with the V in the arrow pointed downward.

Edit: Hmm. After running some tests on Kerbin, it looks like as far as getting wheels to turn, probe orientation isn't /as/ important as I remembered it to be. (When actually /navigating/, or using MJ Rover autopilot, that's a different matter entirely) Guess I will have to throw my hat in with the "Minmal Traction" crowd.

Edited December 15, 2014 by maltesh

[zekes]

See, I set my rover controls to seperate buttons (IJKL) so they dont affect SAS.

[Taki117]

It is very possible you are using your reaction wheels when trying to move your rover. What you can do is to turn on docking mode as this will remove the rotational torque of the reaction wheels.

[Reactordrone]

I just landed a replica of that rover on Minmus and it drives ok as long as you're in docking mode.